It seems that London will be getting quite some benefit for hosting the 2012 Summer Olympics next year. Thanks to this grand event, London’s subways are getting WiFi hotspots, and now Samsung has teamed up with Visa to give London NFC mobile payment solutions.
60,000 locations in London have already geared up with contactless payment systems, and right now Visa is negotiating with banks to get its contactless cards and mobile phones approved. For the latter, one such device will be Samsung’s Olympic and Paralympic Games mobile handset that comes with a Visa-enabled SIM card and it’ll be made available to sponsored athletes as well as various retailers.
Furthermore, this alliance will continue after the Olympics, and Visa is rolling out its mobile payment system in many other countries as we speak, so it shouldn’t be long before we hear more Visa handset announcements.
Zdenek Kalal, a researcher at the University of Surrey, has just developed what may be the most advance vision system known to the current world. In essence, it takes the ordinary task of tracking objects to an entirely new platform, enabling users to select an object on the fly and have the algorithm immediately start tracking something new.
The system is able to maintain a lock within seconds, even if your object twists, turns, or leaves / returns. Moreover, these “objects” could be used as air mice if you force it to track your digits, and if you teach it what your staff looks like, you’ll have a fully automated security scanner that can recognize faces and grant / deny access based on its database of white-listed individuals.
If you can’t fight ‘em, join ‘em. Smartphones with QWERTY keypads and tiny screens and tiny optical touchpad doesn’t seem to get much attention from the market these days. It seemed that BlackBerry will be heading the iPhone-way in terms of their future smartphones, at least for some of them. BlackBerry Touch, previously known as Monaco, has been sighted by BGR yet again, which can only say that the phone is really coming.
BGR has managed to procure an unreleased prototype, and according to the pub, it should get official at BlackBerry World in May, and it’ll run OS 6.1 underneath that 800 x 480-pixel screen. The new BB6 is said to use a BlackBerry ID in place of a PIN for certain key functions — a necessary move for non-BB platforms rumored to be getting BBM (a historically PIN-based service).
BGR also claims it won’t be getting the Storm terminology, instead will join the ‘Touch’ term, coz you know, it’s fully touchscreen yo. What’s more, it seemed that Android apps are also present here.
HTC Incredible S has yet to arrive officially in Malaysia from HTC themselves, but DiGi has already thrown in the dice and start it rolling by offering the brand new HTC Incredible S for as low as RM599 (USD 198) for a tied-contract of 24-months DG Smart Plan for the first 300 customers that walked in to any of its authorized resellers nationwide on the 2nd of April (tomorrow, Saturday). Though the exposure of Android phones in this country cannot be compared to the brand recognition of Apple’s iPhone, but I sure hope there won’t be a long queue tomorrow in front of DiGi Centre.
It’s been quite some time since we heard about Google’s super-fast gigabit fiber optic network that the company promised to set up in one lucky city in US. All these while the hype have been Apple’s and Android’s. Now we finally get some news about US’s new Internet infrastructure, and the winner is… Kansas City, Kansas! Yes, it’s time to LOL at Topeka who renamed their city to Google.
An agreement has now been signed to roll out the fiber goodness in Kansas City, which should result in gigabit service becoming available to locals in 2012. Google’s reps said “this is the beginning and not the end.” Kansas City, Kansas, will be just the first market where this 1Gbps goodness will be installed. Guess there’s hope for the rest of us yet. So maybe that Google city might still have a chance.
When it comes to riding a bicycle, I still see some not armed with any sort of protection despite them riding along the streets where cars come and go. Riding a bicycle is dangerous if you’re riding along streets that have many cars, but sometimes wearing that glowing protective vest is just plain ugly. Helmets and knee protections might still look acceptable, but wearing something that makes you look like part of a ‘RELA’ squad is quite stupid. That’s why this new accessory is genius.
These new socks are for cyclist to wear, and they feature a reflective patch on the back, which, once you’ve tucked your trousers into them (to prevent the chain jamming) adds to making you as visible as possible on the road, and the gloves have a reflective arrow patch on each side, so you can signal before you turn with added visibility. Pack of two socks, or two gloves – one size and unisex, with sewn on reflective patches.
Here’s a cool looking present wrap paper. Fabio Milito and Francesca Guidotti have designed a universal wrapping paper. You’ve got 20 different occasions to choose from. Just wrap carefully so that the words that you choose will be at the top. Won’t want your words to get covered up do you? Who needs cutesy bear-theme birthday present wrapping paper? That’s so 1999. It’s time to bulk this thing for life.
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