My First Side View Mirror Photo

After watching with much excitement other people's side view mirror photos, here's my rather mediocre one taken while stuck in a jam.

Of which sugars

I was surprised on the sugar content of natural food versus the processed ones shown in the video below. Bet you would be, too.

via One Green Planet.

The Lighted Match is Hot Hot Hot

This is so Mission: Impossible! Nice!

via Flickr Blog's #Flickr10 Samplr Day 4: Macro post.

Apple Upcoming Wearables Analysis

This analysis by Craig Hockenberry is interesting enough to share and get myself involved in the rumour mill about upcoming wearable(s) that Apple may introduce:

...there are a lot of cheap and crappy watches on the market, but they’re not remotely interesting to the demographic that buys Apple products. And to many people, a fine timepiece is more about status than technology.

So maybe, just maybe when the competitors are busy with their smart watches, Apple will upset them with something else... a breakthrough? Now we are talking.

via Daring Fireball.

Something Sir Jony Ive spoke in his interview sounds reassuring!

Sir Jony Ive's answer if he would stop working for Apple if the company stops innovating:

"Yes. I'd stop. I'd make things for myself, for my friends at home instead. The bar needs to be high." But, he adds: "I don't think that will happen. We are at the beginning of a remarkable time, when a remarkable number of products will be developed. When you think about technology and what it has enabled us to do so far, and what it will enable us to do in the future, we're not even close to any kind of limit. It's still so, so new."

Wow, very positive! IMHO, designers and engineers tend to be truthful. <3

via MacRumors.

The Vertical Web

I used to think that I would be surfing the web or doing stuff with the phone in the horizontal (or if you will have it, landscape) orientation. However, once I got my very first smartphone, I had been using it vertically almost 99% of the time.

I seldom use my iPad horizontally either (for web surfing) so I was amused that I've never given much thought to this behaviour until I came across the Mashable article just now. I'm not surprised that the web is getting better in the vertical format because tablets and smartphones are taking over from desktops and laptops. Besides, monitors are getting larger and higher resolution at pretty affordable prices these days.

I don't think I'll be changing the orientation of my desktop monitor (not that I have much of a desktop considering the USB ports no longer work and its CPU is a very slow single core Pentium 4) to portrait anytime soon but who knows? How do you read your stuff on your smartphone or tablet? Will you be turning your LCD monitors by 90 degrees?

via Mashable.

Do you eat dropped food?

Frankly, if I dropped my food, I would discard it with a heavy heart but during a meeting a few years back, a boss did just that and told me there's this 2 second-rule. The food is safe to eat if you pick it up within 2 seconds of dropping it. GASP!

Today, Forbes told me there was a 5 second-rule. GASPS x 5! Anyways, there's this research by Aston University, UK that sort of tested this theory...

For the study, Anthony Hilton, a professor of Microbiology, and his students considered a variety of foods – toast, pasta, cookie, and a sticky candy – to see how much bacteria (E. coli andStaphylococcus) they attracted when allowed contact with the floor. They allowed the food to lie on various types of flooring – carpet, laminate, and tiles – for 3 seconds to 30 seconds. 

Not surprisingly, the longer the food was allowed commune with the floor, the more bacteria it accumulated. And the surfaces differed in how likely they were to transfer the bacteria, with carpeting being the least likely, and tiled surfaces and laminate the most likely. “We have found evidence that transfer from indoor flooring surfaces is incredibly poor with carpet actually posing the lowest risk of bacterial transfer onto dropped food,” said Hilton in a news release. 

The moister the food, the more likely it was to pick up bacteria. Again, an interesting but not surprising result.

Still, I wouldn't want to consume anything that fell on the floor or any other dirty surfaces. Would you?

via Forbes.

What's new on iOS 7.1?

iTwe4kz has most of the features highlighted in his video below:



Besides that, there's a bit of a speed improvement for iPhone 4 users as well. I've also noticed that iOS 7.1 made my iPhone 5 visibly faster because deep inside I've been complaining to myself that my phone was starting to lag... or could it be that it was a restart after the upgrade? Hmmm...

Generally, I like the new updates to the phone app but didn't feel quite right with the keyboard with the thicker text. There is something else that no one seem to have mentioned (but then again this could be something that I didn't notice throughout the previous iOS 7 iterations?) - when you first turn on the phone from standby, the lockscreen wallpaper seems to pop out at me. Anyone notice the difference?

video discovered via MacRumors.

Cartoon Network and the new Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny, and Scooby Doo

Kids will be in for a treat while adults that grew up on Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny and Scooby Doo will have the chance to relate their childhood favourites as Cartoon Network breathe new lives to these cartoon classics. Apparently, besides traditional means, these will also arrive in the form of today's popular media - mobile phones and tablets.

The Tom & Jerry Show will follow its classic roots while Wabbit - A Looney Tunes Production will pit Bugs against his arch rivals Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote and new foes. Meanwhile, Be Cool, Scooby Doo follows the group on their last summer together after graduation.

via Variety.

INSANE: Solving 6 Rubik's Cubes in just under 6 and a half minutes

Like Gizmodo Sploid's blogger, I've never solved a Rubik's Cube before but someone appeared to have completed 6 of them (2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, 6x6 and 7x7) in 6 minutes 23 seconds on YouTube:

Is it possible to move so fast? =.="

via Gizmodo Sploid.

Marvel Comics Now With Sound

Talk about Zite and evolution... just after launching the app, I was introduced to this news: Marvel adds sound to its comics thru the Marvel Unlimited app.

The Verge takes a look at Marvel's first venture into adding music and sound effects into the Captain America: The Winter Soldier comic.

Oh yes, I'm equally as skeptical as the writer but that's technology, I guess. And it looks like quite a bit of investment for Marvel if they were to do this for all of their comics! How else but to increase the price of such comics?

via The Verge.

Flipboard Buys Zite

Google Reader was the king of RSS readers (hence, a great source of news) when my bud introduced it to me many years back. Ever since Google canceled the service, Feedly did a great job acting as the alternative. Best of all, it is free with the option to go premium. For me, Feedly is the equivalent. Then, I read about Zite, which improves over time to bring you the news that you like. Great artificial intelligence. IMHO, I'd call that evolutionary.

Now I'm worried because Flipboard announced of its purchase of this evolutionary product. Flipboard will stop Zite's service after it's done integrating Zite's intelligent recommendation engine into its own. Flipboard looks and feels nice on the iPad. However, the iPhone and Android smartphone app left much to be desired, so I hope Flipboard won't screw up Zite's brilliance this way. And I hope Flipboard will offer existing Zite users an easy way to migrate over.

May you reincarnate into a better form, Zite. Hugz.

via Android Community.

A Ring that recognises gestures opens up possibilities

In the near future, don't be alarmed when you see people start to move their fingers around with no apparent reasons. They might not be troubled after all because a company called Logbar has come out with a Bluetooth ring (aptly named... Ring) via Kickstarter that will be able to recognise gestures. When combined with other devices such as smartphones, smart watches, smart home devices, the bearer could perform texting, launch apps, control stuff, make mobile payments, you name it.  Check out the video below (excuse the small size, I don't know why this happens):

Unfortunately, this gadget is not waterproof nor rechargeable (expected to last a thousand gestures and that's it) in its current version but I don't expect these limitations to last long as the company (or other competitors) comes out with newer iterations. After all we have waterproof and dust-proof phones and wireless charging tech out there... Wearables have gone one up.

via Mashable.

Getty Images Available For Free Embedding!

Such great news from Getty Images (via Engadget) that their images are available for free for bloggers like me to embed into our blogs (as long as you use their embed codes not unlike those used by Flickr)! What better way to celebrate than to embed a very happy panda image such as the one above!