Lionell Go Macahilig's Blog
Lionell Go Macahilig male Associate Editor (Online)
Building on the learnings that he earned from the academe and his almost three-year professional experience in the outsourcing industry, Lionell joined HardwareZone Philippines in 2007. In his free time, he runs his PC shop and reads various articles online. He also likes cats and jogging.
During the latter part of July, Cupertino company Apple proudly announced that its latest OS X version, Mountain Lion, hit an overwhelming amount of download through App Store. Since its launch on July 25, Mountain Lion reached three million downloads at the time of Apple’s announcement. Research in Motion (RIM), the company behind the popular BlackBerry brand, also announced last month that its App World reached three billion downloads. This is considerably a good news for the BlackBerry maker, which has been receiving negative publicity in past months.
Still related with Apple, telco giant Smart Communications announced the entry of iTunes in the country. Seeing it as a relevant development, observers say that iTunes can help local recording companies and artists get extra revenue, and lessen the effects of widespread piracy in the country.
The month of July is relevant for sports enthusiasts as it saw the commencement of Olympics 2012 which is currently happening in London. Although many of us have a busy lifestyle and always on-the-go, Google released apps through Google Play that will help fans stay up to date on the latest happenings in London Olympics. Last month, Google also announced a new feature on its Google Maps’ Street View. Now, Google Maps can show users actual images of some important places in Antarctica. Speaking of Maps, Nokia Philippines staged an event, its first ever Maps Challenge. In this contest, participating member of the media got a chance to explore the capabilities of Nokia Maps, which is featured even on low-cost mobile phones such as the Asha 311.
A couple of months from now, people are expecting the release of Windows 8, Microsoft’s next-generation operating system. Announcing their preparedness to it, ASUS revealed that their AMD 9 series motherboards are compatible with the upcoming OS. Other motherboard vendors such as ASRock also announced that their motherboards are ready for Windows 8.
On the news related with the Korean giant Samsung, the company revealed last month the availability of the latest version of its Series 9 notebook in the Philippines. Although it is not categorized as an Ultrabook, the Series 9 notebook is admired because of its aesthetics and incredible thinness. The new Series 9 notebook is powered by Intel’s third generation of Core processors that are based on the Ivy Bridge microarchitecture. We got a chance to write about the previous-generation Series 9 model last year. Samsung also announced last month the MV900F, the successor to the previously-reviewed MV800. Similar to other smart cameras from Samsung, the upcoming MV900F has Wi-Fi capabilities.
Still in the imaging department, another development that made noise is Canon’s entry to the mirrorless camera competition when it announced the EOS M. Previously, Canon was reluctant about commenting on its competitors’ mirrorless systems and preferred to focus more on its existing digital camera segments, particularly DSLRs. But with Canon’s decision to join the party, it simply testifies the popularity that mirrorless camera systems enjoy. Will Canon’s mirrorless camera segment be as successful as its DSLR category? Only time can tell.
