Infected with a Virus?

Don't you just hate it? Let's say, you just turn one your computer, you wait long enough to load up all apps and before you know it there's something wrong in your life. Computer seems so slow, can't access your beloved files, your computer gently asks you to restart itself… and your cursing shows in no better timing. You don't say it, you can't read it but you know exactly what's wrong… in a word? A virus.

Not that is happening to me right now, but for whatever reason I just remembered how it feels when you have something tremendously important to do/read/write in the computer, something that can take just 2 min of your life on a good day, but it may take all morning when your computer is infected. We have fought these guys before, and luckily I feel today is sort of less frequent to encounter them in out daily life.

Since we know how to stop them (more or less) now the thing is, for some people to find different applications of computer virus in other grounds. And, needed to say, these viruses not only show up in computers, but as you may be aware, it's also visible in phones, chips, videogames consoles and practically all sort of software electronics, now that can be huge!

But a new application for computer viruses may be a bit 'out there', someplace you may overlooked and never thought it was possible… what if I tell you your body can house a computer virus? I know you would hardly believe me, so if you fancy know what's going on you're in for a treat. The place? University of Reading in the UK… the man responsible? Dr. Mark Gasson… the crime? He contaminated a chip with malware and he inserted it in his hand.

The results? Well, we didn't get sick, let's say he just shared the sickness all around. He was able to pass the virus along different devices just by standing close to them, computers, devices and the likes. What's so ingenious about it? Well, if you ask me I'd say the fact that your computer can be infected wirelessly (not using wifi) is sort of frightening, and not only computers… have a smart phone? Just by standing next to the wrong guy you'll be needing a new one. And I don't want to be mean, but what about people with pacemakers or earring implants? Now this is dangerous ground.

Not all is bad, since instead of seeding viruses we can also seed good stuff as well to improve the very same devices we could potentially harm. They actually came up with a name for all this new trend, if you wanna sound fancy the name is digital implants. Sounds cool, just hope it's actually a good thing.

What can we say of such things? Imagine how this things can be sort of normal a 50 years down the road? If you could improve one of your senses which one would it be? Have fun thinking about it, if you like leave a comment and hopefully we'll read each other later one this week! Take care!

Google Street View

What's new guys? Right now I'm just chilling a bit after spending over 8 hours in a bus, kinda tiring, the movies were alright, but there's always a certain point where you get all tired up of looking at the screen and for whatever reason, you spend way more time looking at the road outside… trees, rocks, clouds, whatever you can find and you immerse in your own thoughts, to the extreme where you may not remember a thing you saw, since all looked so familiar. Maybe an iPod might be our best friend in such experiences.

Anyway, I had a meeting in this building, which I never saw before, and in certain city I never visited, but believe it or not I knew exactly where to go, what to do, where to eat and finally visited one or two tourist spots around… but how did I do it? I knew exactly how the building looks like, needed no further directions to get a meal or to snap a couple of good shots. A new best friend helped me out… Google Street View.

Probably you've heard about this free service provided by Google, if not, let me break it down for you: Street View is a service seamlessly embedded to Google Maps, and what this service does is to provide you with fully detailed pictures of the surrounding as if you were driving on the street. Whatever public place you can see from you car in real life, you can see it from your computer… pretty cool huh?

Just go to google maps, grab that yellow fella from the zoom scale in the upper left and drag him to the exact spot you want. I showed this to my dad and he, for the lack of a better word, sort of freaked out. He understood right there the full potential (both good and bad) of the Street View. No need to say all the kindness this service brings to our lives… need to go to a friend's house you hardly remember the address to? No problem, just follow the streets and as soon you recognize certain details, you'll see the porch and the door in no time. What about the other way (sort of my case)? I just had an address, just type it down and you're there… is that easy? Yes, it is.

And, like you've heard before, is like taking a tour without standing from your seat. Wanna visit other countries? No problem, you can ride the streets of Spain, England, France, Canada and many others just dragging and clicking on your mouse. Downsides? Well, from my point of view what this does is simply making public knowledge, well, more public. I mean, if you have directions or an address (which are public) you can view now with no effort the real place (again, which is public). People who mean harm to us might take advantage of this tool, but is just like -for example- a hammer, which it's also a public tool (you can go and get one from the store) and you can either build a house or hurt someone… decision is up to you. Same with Street View.

Regardless is a fantastic tool you can access from you computer and you should definitely give it a try (if you haven't already). What's your favorite place on Earth? You can watch it as if you were right there! Leave all your comments right below and you can also attach the links to the places you like the most there… keep enjoying your week and see you next Monday!

Superpowers… in the Real World

What's up? So… another Monday, is alright, we've discussed it before and now we gotta start our week. All I gotta say regarding last week is… what's going on with the weather? I know you know what I'm talking about, these heat waves are growing bigger, let's hope nature isn't trying to make up for the cold winter we just had.

Now… topic of the day: Superpowers. What's up with those? Well, I don't need to throw at you the whole 4-1-1 of them since you pretty much have the knowledge… flying, x-ray vision, super strength, you know them all, of course, in the science fiction. Maybe you've picked up a comic book or watched a cool movie and you wondered at least once what would be like to have one of these superpowers, but what if I told you that some of these abilities are being performed by real people in the real world? And I'm not talking about using special lenses, an airplane or a suit, I'm talking no devices here.

It turns out science has made possible some dudes and gals to have certain abilities we consider -for the lack of a better word- amazing! Not sure exactly how we can explain some of this, but it's real and they live among us. The first example I can think of is this german baby I heard some time ago with a strength beyond ordinary, he was born in 99 and his nickname is 'Das Uberboy', and what scientists say is that there's a real genetic mutation (sort of X-Men) and his muscles are all ripped.

There are less 'obscure' cases (since that german kid has never been seen), such as Ben Underwood, his superpower is called 'echolocation' (for me the best new name for a superpower). It turns out he can't see, but it looks like we could, since we plays ball, skates, writes and all using and incredible techniques involving the echoes on things bouncing back at him, pretty much as a bat… that's a superpower Batman would be dying to have! An incredible note, Ben also can play videogames… but how? Don't ask.

As a final example are some Buddhist monks, who apparently are some sort of Pyro from the X-Men (second time I quote the comic), since the generate heat energy from their bodies to the point when they can put on fire certain objects. They do so with a meditation technique called Tum-mo, that way they lower their metabolism and control their body temperatures. Researchers still can't say how this works, but it's known the practical implications and even astronauts can benefit from all this.

What do you think? Sure there are many more examples, but how do these occur? Is not like science cannot explain it, more like scientists can't, because all has an explanation. Do you know anyone with any cool abilities? Any sort of explanation you may have about any superpower? If you could have one of them… which one would you like? (Please don't say something like: the superpower to have all superpowers) So many questions! Leave all your comments downtown and if you want to know more about it check out the vid! See you next Thursday!

iAds

Hey! What's up guys? Enjoying life so far? Recently I've been very active checking out readings, programs, music and the likes, so I guess is fair to say my week has been great… sort of waiting for a phone call and a response from one or two applications, so that keeps me intrigued. I can't wait the time to relax a bit, maybe doing nothing on the internet or maybe just watching the TV and have a laugh. And that is exactly what I did yesterday!

You know how it is, after a long day of work, you just get home and the first thing you want to do is to take those shoes off, lay down in that nice couch you have there, grab the remote and simply submerge on that big box called TV, you don't want to know nothing about life for a while, so you  find your favorite program and… what? Oh yes… advertisements. And I don't mean one or two, I'm talking about a marathon of those… +10 ads between shows, don't you just love them?

To be honest with you, I don't. The thing is, I don't mind one or two to pop up between the show I'm watching, but sometimes things get out of hand… a lot. And not just by quantity… oh no… I'm talking quality too. Little by little the ads guys think the audience is getting dumber every day and some ads are practically an insult, all just to buy their products or services. Thankfully not all ads fall into this category, there are some ads that I really like and they sell their product quite well, but these are rare and sadly not enough.

And keep in mind I've just talked about TV ads, but they're the tip of the iceberg. Ads are now everywhere. Let's talk about what could be our average day. Wake up, turn TV/radio (ads), take a shower, breakfast, drive to work (ads on the radio, street, bus stops), get to the office, check the post mail (paper ads), get a magazine (more ads)… and that could be just our morning. But we've adapted to all this bomb, to the point of reaching the fact that, we don't care what we hear/see anymore, nothing connect to us and we get things we've consumed since always. Now another form of propaganda is hitting our way… web ads. They seem to be less intrusive, less interactive, but they're there and sometimes they don't look very pretty, others are great and you expect to see them more often, sadly they're minority.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying ads are all hideous and should be banned for life, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, mostly all ads are not made in a way the audience connects to the product, advertisers just want to sell, sell and sell at any expense. Sorry, I don't bite that anymore. Gladly there are few ads out there that dare the audience, make them think and, as I said earlier, they click with the public and, even if it sounds corny, people fall for their product or service. Hopefully as technology gets more powerful we also get a bit smarter and take advantage of it… just saying!

Well, guess that sounded like a harsh letter, but I bet you fell the same like me in some ways. What's your favorite ad? Is it in TV, radio, internet… maybe a magazine? Do you think hi tech can do something about it to make it better? Leave all your comments below and hope to see y'all next week… in the meantime… have a great one! 

Happy Internet Day!

Happy Monday everyone! (yeah, right). I think we all know how mostly all mankind feels about the beginning of a brand new week. Since the dawn of men the first day of the week has had a sort of bad reputation since it's seen as the 'same beginning of a different journey', I sense we can do something different about it, you know, try to embrace it as any other day (hard to do so when thinking in Friday), but always keep in mind this: 'What would be of Fridays without their Mondays?'

Just imagine, what's the first thing you do a Monday morning? Turn off the alarm clock? Or maybe turn on the TV to check out the news or maybe your computer to check out your mails? Bet you have some sort of connection with technology and internet at some point, sometimes it even feels like it's been there forever: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google… the list goes on and on. We keep in touch with family and friends and all seems right in the world.

Well, if you feel thankful in any way with this let me say: 'Happy Internet Day!' to you. That's right, today -May 17th- has been entitled as the 'Internet Day'  around the world. I mean, if there's a Taco Day, why in the world can't it be an Internet Day? Now, a real question… who decided to have an Internet's day, and why in such a date?

Well, it turns out both questions have answer. In 2005 in Tunisia there was this Information Society gathering, and there it was proposed and approved the creation of an Information Society day (less fancier words: Internet's day) by the UNO. What about May 17th? You got me there… maybe all other days were taken, I don't know. As a side topic, May 17th's also YouTube Anniversary… coincidence? And what's done today? Well, apparently it's a chance to boost and enhance the Internet to all places (most important to the people who don't have access to it).

And, just think about it, you have access to internet probably most of the day, your life depends greatly of this service, watching news, sending e-mails, checking the forecast, talking to friends and much, so much more. How do you and Internet get along? Are you best friends or do you have struggles from time to time like most marriages do? Today may be a good day to start a healthy relationship with it!

Probably you'll hear about this in YouTube channels, blogs (such as this one), news sites and related, maybe for us it won't be much of a difference, but for many others this day may be their first one getting to know what could potentially be their new best friend… the Web. What's your story? Do you remember what was your first experience searching the web? Do that website you were watching still exist? Do you remember how slow it was just to download a single photo or a song? Don't be shy and leave all your responses in the comment section and have fun reading the rest! Here's a small taste about how things were in the past… hoping the future will bring better! See y'all in 3 days!

Mind Reader

How's it been? Not that you care, but my week has been a pretty good one so far, I've done my stuff on schedule, I've had some fun with fam and friends and in small steps I've start to work out a bit, don't you love it when things happen at your own pace? I honestly like the feeling when you sense you're in control, but then again, I love small surprises from time to time. The other day I was watching TV and there was this show where a dude in a mask unveils the 'magic secrets' for us… don't know if I like it or not, but sure is entertaining.

So, one of the tricks was the mind reader, there're many variations to it, but in the name lies the essence of it, after watching how it was done I was a bit disappointed (not that I believed it was true from the start, but I didn't want to know the person in the audience was actually part of the trick). Guess I didn't want to be told how it was done, though somehow I knew it wasn't 'real'. But being the person I am an obvious question to me was raised… is mind reading possible?

Many people can relate this to telepathy -since by definition you gotta 'read' other's people mind in other to communicate- and dismiss it just as quick. Why do we discard immediately everything that 'seems' impossible to us? Who do we think we are? Do we even have the knowledge to categorize something as can't-do? Well, before you say anything else (bet you haven't said a word, I mean, you're reading) let's have some fun thinking how the our life would be if mind reading was something ordinary.

It'd be like a massive world Instant Messenger! Imagine you're at home alone, no human on sight, but in your mind you have thousands of contacts whose status may be online, offline, away and so on… and that's only the beginning. Then you can access their 'hard drive' (so to speak) and dig in whatever you need (or simply want?), that'd be like facebook with no device… oh no… it'd be so much more than that! We'd be always in touch with our family and friends no matter where they'd be…

Now that we know how different our life would be, I can tell you now how your life will be… sort of the same! It turns out scientist are aware of the possibilities of reading minds and are developing tools to help us achieve this task. Just heard of a fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) brain waves reader of some sort (done by peeps in the MIT) that helps to know, out of a thousand pictures, exactly which one a person is looking. The thing is, the device is HUGE, almost the size of a small room. And also guys from Carnegie Mellon use this technology to achieve simile results. Finally a name that might be familiar to you… Intel (most lightly one of its processors is housed in your computer), they have a Mind Reading Software -don't ask me if is Windows 7, Ubuntu or Snow Leopard compatible- that apparently works.

I know all is very 'beta', but the possibilities are amazing! Maybe our grandsons' grandsons will have a bigger peek of this technology and will have the advantages of mind reading communication… who knows? What I do know is that you're curious about it and can't wait to start reading the minds of your friends (or maybe not just your friends?) You know where to write if you wanna leave a comment, finally here's a last attempt, check out this magic trick on video, hope you like it and hope you keep up with the good week and see you next Monday!

Doctor Toilet

What a weird title for a post! Anyway, I thought by bringing a funny title things could be a bit more interesting… let's see. What's been happening in your life? For me I'm about to celebrate Mom's day with my Grandma and my Mom (whose nickname is actually… Mom). Hope it'd be a nice/calm day, but since public places are crowded I bet it won't be as calm as I expect… what about your plans for Mom's day? Got any?

I actually was thinking what present to give my Mom, I know there're lot's of obvious reasons: shoes, bags, flowers… but I like to move away from the traditional gifts, you know, trying to be original (and, once I'm at it, a good son) and surprise her with a good laugh. Reading different out-of-the-market options I found very funny gadgets, and guess what? I'm gonna share one of those with you all… It might not be the perfect present, but it sure is fun to see in action, I'm talking about a toilet… yes! A mere toilet!

What in Earth could be so special about a single toilet? And remember, we attached the word Doctor before it. I actually can summarize things up a bit if you watched the movie 'The Island' with Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor, I think is the only movie where I've seen something similar. At the very beginning, Ewan wakes up and does what probably 95% of people do when wake up… bathroom time! Nothing to be ashamed, it's how we roll.

Just seconds after doing what people do in the toilet, Ewan is reported his sugar levels, what he ate (whether it was healthy or not) and most important, food recommendations for the day giving his status, all with a nice female voice and all displayed on a screen. One thing I forget to tell you, this movie was supposed to be in the near future (probably they mention the year, but can remember it at the moment). Sweet, right? Well, don't need to wait for the near future, since this happens to be a reality… today!

Well, sort of, like I told you, we haven't seen these toilets go viral, but we might. And again, it might not be the perfect gift for Mom's day… but sure they will find it useful! Just with this device we might know if we have certain deceases, sugar levels, improve our nutrition habits, long story short: to have a healthier and greener life! I don't think it might be the next big thing, but it can provide a great service for a relatively low cost.

There're two fun facts about this toilets, one… the toilet's scientific name: Versatile Interactive Pan (yes! VIP!) VIP is being developed by the bathroom manufacturers Twyford in Cheshire… maybe in 5 years you won't be calling VIP's because they're important… who knows? Two, in the meantime Japan's developing their own version called simply the "Intelligence Toilet" system, its developer company Toto says it can even measure body fat! For 3,500 USD it should greet you every morning and being an iPod altogether if you ask me!

What do you think about this inventions? Think they'd make a good Mom's day present? I sure need to save some money to get a present, maybe not as much as 3,500 (Mom's gifts are priceless) but I'll be hitting the stores with Mom to see what she fancies. In the meantime check out this vid, the first minute is about this fun device… enjoy! So, what's your story? Are you up for the toilet or gonna send her the good ol' fashioned bouquet of fresh flowers? See you all next post and keep on enjoying this day!

Cupidtino… love is in the web

Yeah… as weird as it sounds, love can be found in the least expected place. Yesterday while I was doing my thing on the web -like most of us mortals do- I read a twit about a dates service… not that I don't know of their existence, I mean, is difficult nowadays to go from webpage to webpage and not to find any ads about pretty much anything you can think of, and yes, dates service are on the map big time.

I've never tried one of these myself, is just not the way I roll, but we've all heard all kind of stories related to it, maybe two people started on a chartroom, then they exchanged e-mails and a while later they meet up (cannot stop thinking about that film 'You've got e-mail' with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan). And that's really the inflection point, the moment where they realize if they want to move on to the next level or simply remain as 'someone I met online…'

And there's no magical potion to guarantee success in this endeavor, as most things in life it requires a mixture of things which are both the simplest and most complex of all. Sure it's a good step to start with things in common, but what comes next can't by any means be foreseen but experienced. And that first step is what this new dates web provides… it's name: Cupidtino.

Cupidtino (www.cupidtino.com) is still a private beta -meaning is still not available for general audience- but let me break it down for you, what this website does is to provide an exclusive dates service to Apple product owners… what? Yes… this service is exclusive to people who own any Apple related product, which can be way more than you think. Take the iPod for instance, its market share is a bit over 75%, that means if you find 100 people who own an mp3 player, 75 of them will likely have any iteration of the iPod, so many will qualify for this website.

But fair to say, any Apple product goes, so if you own a Mac, an Apple TV or a brand new iPad you're in the club. And why would you want to be a member of it? Well, apparently Apple fanboys and fangirls have often things in common -according to the creators of Cupidtino-. If you ask me, that might be a bit true, but let's ask this question instead… if you like an iPod (and I honestly dare anyone if you can find a soul who has a really strong argument why he/she wouldn't like one) that doesn't necessarily means you're soul mates… just saying!

I gotta give it to the website name… Cupidtino comes from Cupid (bet you guessed that part) and Cupertino, which happens to be the place where Apple California is located, what name would you pick for this service? I sort of think this name was overthought a lot… what about iLove or iDate? Have you ever had any experience with love online? Maybe a chartroom, facebook, even twitter or good ol' fashion post mail? It'd be awesome to read all your comments you know where! Here I leave you with a really cool interpretation made by FAttY SPiNS  titled Apple Store Love Song... hope you like it!

Cupidtino opens in June, and you can follow it on twitter (@CupidtinoCA). Being an Apple fanboy myself I'm really intrigued how this project will develop. I know I said I don't do dates service websites, and being an Apple service can't be an excuse to blindly jump in… or can it?

Demakes

So… here in Mexico we're great people, always finding the bright side of things (or trying, at least). If not then we build up the bright side from the ground up… living proof of it are the days off we made out of thin air, such as today! That means if you're like the rest of peeps (i.e. not special) then you don't work or study this Monday! If you don, don't worry, you are a special minority. But let's say you have a day off today (if not simply don't go to work today)… what to do? How to spend this 16-18 hours the best possible way?

Well, it turns out I'll be hanging out with some friends from high school playing video games… you can plan whatever your heart desires, read a book, watch a movie, have breakfast in bed, imagination is the limit. Here I come with a great suggestion (if you are ol' school and fancy technology). Bet you have heard of remakes… you know, new versions of old stuff… movies, books, video games, songs, that trend is all around us! Better quality, enhanced graphics, sometimes worse acting… for all tastes. Well, that is not what I want you to know.

Recently I came across an opposite trend… demakes. As you may infer with the remake description and the opposite part, a demake is simply a new version of an old thing, well… made older. Let me put a fair example… let's say you just saw The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and you want to show off how good your blu ray discs look, well, someone can come up and say… Hey! Check this out! My 2010 version of The Lord of the Rings (different footage) recorded on a Betamax film! That is old school!

Demakes may be about anything, but I've looked up a bit and is getting really strong in the video games field, and the best of all, mostly all demaked games are free for download and play in your computer. Ever thought how a Mario game for the Wii would look like if it was played with the power of the almighty NES of the 80's? Or what about your favorite horror games being brought to life in the 8-bit era? If you ask me, I have mixed feelings.

For one, I think it adds something new to the whole scheme, and is like irony, since it may feels like a breath of fresh air playing something a kid born in the 70's would feel so real, but at the same time it looks dated. I gotta be honest, there's something cool about the whole retro stuff: music, clothing, movies, not catch phrases (thank God for that), trends come and go, and then come again, as long as people like it that seems to be the way to go.

What game can I talk to you specifically? I've playing this one called Soundless Mountain, just another way of saying Silent Hill (get it?). Sadly the game isn't finished (maybe has barely 30% of the original levels) but is a great little gem. In order to really find the fun in these is always better to play the original one so you can compare them, is not a requirement but it helps. 

What's your favorite retro trend? Music? Movies? It'd awesome to read your answers, feel free to leave them in the section below… so, what did you do this day off? Give demakes a try and have some 80's fun in this 10's era! See you all in the next post!