Sunday, January 31, 2010

Pay like the Japanese.

All this while, I have always thought the Japanese were awesome. Although this is technology some 3 years back, it has actually hit the shores of this sunny island - Singapore. View the clips and understand.


Heard of FeliCa technology? It is actually a RFID smart card system. You have seen it in your ez-link card and in the SIM student card too. Well, as in the clip, the Japanese pay through their mobile phones! In Japan, they have this mobile phone service provider called NTT DoMoCo. Which allows their customers to make payments just by flashing their mobile phones!
Of course there is bound to be setbacks in such convenient technology, however such convenience in my opinion has reduced the idea of notes and coins. In fact eliminated the idea of a credit card too! Being a clubber myself, I have lost money when I open my bag to pick up a call, or my credit card will slip out of my pocket. However if you were to just pay with your phone, I guess the purse will be very much lighter! Well, now I'm just waiting for Blackberry to follow the Japs!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I am addicted to Facebook.

Well, I have no qualms about admitting this addiction. Most of us have it. A few of us don't. And the newest member to Facebook is my old man! Seriously. A 52 year old dude. In case you have got no idea how my dad looks like here's a picture.


Just recently my boyfriend and I had this debate about Facebook. He thinks Facebook will end up like Friendster - dead. I think Facebook will prosper for many years to come. Often I like to make comparisons about social sites with search engines. Of course there is no like to these 2, expect for both being on the web. Remember something called Excite.com? During the Dot com era, I had an account with them but soon lost track 2 years after. Or how about Yahoo? Some of us may still be using Yahoo, but I have also forgotten my Yahoo account. Is dot-com still the IN thing?

Well, recently I discovered the joy of android phones.
Google Nexus One.
Motorola's Motoblur. So I think, in time to come, Facebook and Twitter and blogs will just be something like virtual addresses to us. So much so that even the government will be able to keep track of where we are online. Maybe I do secretly hope that human race will evolve into a way it resembles scenes from the movie trilogy - The Matrix. Insane but cool.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Internet.

We use it on a daily basis. We use it for emails, facebook-ing, porn, getting to know people, for downloading music and movies, research etc. Now as students of UB, we got to learn more about it. Hmmm. I wonder, is there actually such a need? I'm not saying that Mr Choy is a horrid lecturer. Hell no.

Perhaps we have gotten so used to it being part of our lives, we forget certain key points why we have it, why we use it, how we got it.

To me the internet came in when I was 12. Before that there was no such thing as MSN chats or ICQ. To me the computer was a huge white box that had a black screen with green text in it. Oh and I played Pac-man on those machines. That was about it. So when I was 12, my father brought home another similar machine. And I remembered everytime we used the internet, we couldn't use the telephone.

Today, 2010. We are able to make phone calls via our computer, purchase the latest Victoria's Secret lingerie or even make money by being a blogger online.

It has only been week 1 of my learning journey about the internet. And I reckon, this course is going to be somewhat like the study of Charles Darwin's human evolution but the internet style.

There is more to write as the semester progresses. I guess its about time to learn how to appreciate the internet for what it is.