I stumbled upon a great collection of mp3 podcasts to listen to in my trip tonight. It’s a collection of TED talks from some of the “most fascinating people”.

Each year, TED hosts some of the world’s most fascinating people: Trusted voices and convention-breaking mavericks, icons and geniuses. The talks they deliver have had had such a great impact, we thought they deserved a wider audience. So now, for the first time, we’re sharing them with the world at large… Each week, we’ll release a new talk to inspire, intrigue and awaken the imagination. For best effect, plan to listen to at least three, start to finish. (They have a cumulative effect.) If you have a curious soul and an open mind, we think you’ll be hooked…

Excited to listed to Anthony Robbins, Richard Branson and other interesting folks.

Visit  Learn Out Loud: TED Talks Podcasts …

Visit The TED Talks website for even more exciting talks >>

ka edong
am listening

Blog at work
Trying to embed media files. proceed with caution ….

 Chrysler

Brother got a Chrysler

Blue tooth – connect to phone

Voice activated

Dial, phone book, emergency numbers

Handsfree conversation via the SUV’s soundsystem

Entering numbers on the phonebook was clanky

But dialing names in phonebooks was kewl

Language! The coolest feature

[display_podcast] 

Hi there this is Edong and I’m going to talk about radio browsing in this episode of Ka-Edong’s podcast.

Radio browsing; let me first have an intro about perception of the internet for people who have not used the internet. So let me describe this through a story.

I was assigned in Cuyo Palawan for one year. In Cuyo Palawan in the island where I was, we did not have electricity. We had a generator which provided a few households with electricity for around two hours in the evening. And back then, in 1998 our contact with the outside world was the transistor radio- of course we were looking in to AM programs. And in some of the news items there were news about the internet. So this is how rural folks-some rural folks hear about the internet and the wonder of the internet.

The thing is when you hear about the internet on the news, it’s usually bad news. For example, internet fraud-that makes the news, when there was news about the Franc Swiss scam-that made the news. And people who are not familiar with the internet they would say: “oh ok that’s what the internet is about, it’s about fraud, it’s about people stealing money from other people.” Other news items would include pornography, how a starlet has sued an internet service for publishing nude pictures of her which were edited and things like these.

And when people, who are not familiar with the internet-hear some things like these- They have a negative perception of the internet. So that is how my foster parents in Cuyo Palawan learned about the internet and I told them that this is just one aspect of the internet and there are many other interesting things about the internet things that are useful. So that’s just me talking to my foster parents about the internet. But there’s a better of improving the image of the internet and the World Wide Web to a greater population. To the population which does not have access to the internet-the people who are in the mountains, many of our fisher folks, the poor, people who listen to programs like the program of the late Ernie Baron, people who listen to the AM radio…who listen to DZMM. These are people who may have very limited access to the internet and have a limited perception of the internet.

This is where radio browsing comes in.

What is radio browsing? Radio browsing is a program where the DJ goes on the internet and goes on air on FM or AM radio. And then for 30 minutes or one hour on the radio program he surfs the internet and then via the radio he describes to his audience what he sees on the internet, what website he is visiting, what services are available       etc.

A radio browsing program could start off with explaining the concept of the internet and then having a few examples like search engines, travel, how to find friends, how to find information, how to find interesting facts, or how to find information on the weather. Anything that is appropriate for the audience for, the locale, for the current events, things that are happening. This program-radio browsing program is there to help its audience, the listeners to have a better understanding of the internet. Although the audience does not see the PC, does not see the browser, they are able to listen to the kind of information that is available, the kind of services that are available in the internet.

When I heard about this program being done in Bangladesh or in India, the DJ the, technology guy-the DJ who is doing the program described how he would talk on air about the web service that he is surfing at the moment. But the thing is, with them, he did not have a feedback mechanism, he did not know what his audience was thinking, what kind of questions they had.

Radio Browsing for the Philippines 

I got to thinking, in the Philippines there is a feedback mechanism-that is SMS. So in the Philippines, if there is a radio browsing program it could be a question and answer, something similar to Ernie Baron’s ‘Knowledge Power’. So there is a better interaction between the DJ doing the radio browsing and his audience. So for example, the DJ can go to a government service like sss.com.ph and then he could describe what kind of information they have in sss.com.ph he can describe the kinds of forms that can be downloaded form website, he can describe how to contact SSS, where the branches are, he could describe the kinds of online services available on the sss.com.ph website. These increase the awareness of the audience and make them realize that yes indeed that the internet does have some services available-good services available that people can use.

And then here comes the interaction between the audience and the radio browsing DJ. The audience can send asking questions about the service-about the website being featured for that day. And then and there can answer-“yes that service is available all you need to do is click this and that, visit this and that…etc”

That is radio browsing. Radio browsing in the Philippines can be done to improve the awareness of the people about the internet. This can be used to promote government services or non-government services, this can be use to promote local government services available to the citizens. And then this can be used to increase participation in online services.

That’s radio browsing. That’s a tool that Filipinos can use to further increase the awareness of our countrymen about the internet-not the negative side of the internet but maybe both the positive and negative side of the internet.

That’s radio browsing for you.

podcast permalink: Radio browsing 

EdXcribe

04 September 2007
Technobiography

This podcast is about PC Pal. PC pal stands for personal computer pal.

So what is PC pal? Pc pal is similar to having a phone pal or a pen pal but this is a cyber version of those. PC pals are two people exchanging e-mails to get to know each other. So why is it PC Pal? Pc pal is actually an education program. It can be used as an education program and I participated in it this year.

But a little history about PC pal.

When I was working for the Foundation for IT Education and Development, we were teaching teachers and school administrators how to use the internet in instructing-in teaching. In school how do you use the internet to teach physics, math, science. What are the methods-what are the ways of teaching trigonometry using the internet or teaching literature using the internet. One of the ways of teaching English for us was PC pal-personal computer pals. So how does the program go?

PC pals- you hook up students [for example you have a class of 30 high school students let say they are first year high school class there are 30 of them. You hook them up either 30 other students in another country or in another province. Like hooking up 30 students in Ormoc and hook them up one on one with 30 other students in Manila or you could do it 30 other students in Canada or in the US]. So you’d hooked them up one on one so each student would have his/her own pc pal and then they’d exchange letters-topics will vary depending on the objective of the program.

So this was a program we used to teach while I was in FITEd-to our teachers. But just recently in my own work I was participant in PC pal. So this second story is about me being a participant in PC pal.

So there’s a school in the US and they are looking for employees from our company to be pc pals with students to this school. I happened to be assigned to a pc pal male and his name is James (I’ll call him James). So James and I had an exchange of e-mails, we start out with the introductions telling him what I do, what I do at work a few hobbies and then he did the same and later on we exchanged stories about things that he likes(hobbies) things that he wants, career that he like, a book etc.

The objective of the PC pals program in their school was to develop their English because this school has a lot of non-English speakers like Mexicans, a few Asians and Italians (I think). So one objective was for them to practice their English another objective was for them (the students) to practice their computer skills-their keyboard skills, their mouse skills, and their e-mail skills. So it was a casual exchange, nothing heavy very light. We weren’t talking about rocket science or physics or anything like that. We exchanged thoughts and greetings-things like those.

In one exchange James told me about one of his favorite book and it was called “The boy named It” then he continued to say that in “The boy named It” the character was a battered child, he was abused but despite all of this abuse the boy named It rose up and survived and excelled-something like that. I was disturbed because it seemed as if James is reading a book that was more mature for his age. And I was thinking very well because he might be a battered child. Well these are just thoughts but that was another story-I thought of reporting this to his teachers-it’s up to them to handle it. I won’t be able to handle it via e-mails from across the seas right?

Anyway that was PC pals and it’s a program that schools can use to teach their students how to write correspondents via e-mail, how to practice their English, how to practice their computer skills. Its interesting-interesting program, its nothing highfalutin, it’s not a complicated program but it’s a good start. Teachers can use this in their schools.

They can try it out-you can ask me how to do it.

Podcast pemalilnk: PC pals

EdXcribe

04 September 2007
Technobiography

Here is a little update with G-Cash. I have a couple of stories about G-Cash.

First story is about a Sunshine Grocery in Baguio.

There is a popular grocery here in Baguio been there since my childhood-it’s called “sunshine”. and in that grocery there is a streamer that says that you can pay via G-Cash at their cashier. This is all good I’ve been writing about having G-cash in every other store-pervasiveness of G-Cash.

The thing with G-Cash in Sunshine is the streamer has been up for many months now [maybe 2, 3 or more months]. But last time I was in Sunshine I asked the cashier “pwede ba akong magbayad using G-Cash?”. The cashier looked around looking for her supervisor and asked the nearby cashier.”Mabalin? Pwede ba ang G-Cash dito?” They were not familiar with the service, they don’t know how to transact G-Cash. Apparently the G-Cash payment at Sunshine hasn’t picked up.

That’s a grocery store here in Baguio.

My second story is about SM Dasmariñas in Cavite.

I live in the area in SM Dasmariñas and one time I was buying a shirt at SM and asked the cashier “pwede bang magbayad using G-Cash?”. And then after a little hesitation she said “opo, pwede po”

By the way G-Cash payments are available in all SM malls around the Philippines.

So I asked her “Marami bang nagbabayad using G-Cash?” the cashier said “Sir wala pa po, kung magbabayad kayo ngayon kayo po ang pinakauna.” I asked her “sigurado ka? matagal na yun ah?” she said “Opo, nirereport naman un tuwing nagmimeeting kami at wala pang gumagamit ng G-Cash dito.”

So that’s interesting. G-cash in SM has been available for more than a year. I’ve written about it so I’ll be able to verify how long G-cash has been in SM. But it’s been more than a year-maybe one and half year already.

And in SM Dasmariñas nobody has used it-nobody has paid G-cash in SM Dasmariñas. reason because it’s easier to pay with cash.

Third Story: Load, Autoload via G-Cash

There is a streamer in Globe Telecom office here-business center. The streamer calls it a rebate, a 10% rebate. The rebate is if you load for example if you load 500 pesos worth of cellphone load and if you load it using G-cash. You will receive 500 pesos worth of load but it will cost only 450 pesos of G-cash. Therefore you are able to save 50 pesos or 10% of G-cash if you use G-cash loading.

Interesting business. That’s something people could use, something that Globe people could use.

Those are my 3 G-Cash stories.

Some updates every so often.

Podcast Permalink: G-Cash stories

EdXcribe
25 august 2007
Technobiography

In the background you’ll hear rain, that’s rain in Baguio care of typhoon “Egay”.

In this podcast I’ll talk about Gabrielle the GPS, Gabrielle the Global Positioning System. Back in April, me and my teammate Tina went to the US-in San Francisco. And while we were there we rented a car, it was a Ford SUV [I think it was an Escape]. And then in the SUV there was a built-in gadget which they called I think it’s branded something like “Never Lost”.

“Never Lost” is a service by the car-rental Hertz. It’s a global positioning system to help motorist navigate through the streets of the US. So the global positioning system, the GPS had an LCD display it was a colored display that shows us distance, time, direction, street names, map in different views, etc. It had a keypad, it was a numerical keypad but you can enter letters and then it had arrows for navigation [up down left right etc.] to navigate the menu.

And then to start off you’d enter the GPS and then you would give the destination. For example you can give destination in terms of the exact address or you could name some street corner, you could also search for establishments such as convenient stores, gas stations, restaurants, and hotels. You could also search through the previous destinations that were entered in your GPS before you used it.

And then once you’ve chosen the destination, you are asked to choose the type of route you want. The type of route can be determined by the shortest distance, most use of freeway, least use of freeway. That means you have you have a choice between driving through the highway or driving through the side street. So that depends on the driver what her/his preference is.

After defining the route, the GPS will give you the estimated distance and travel time. But of course the travel time doesn’t have factored in the traffic conditions of the street. So travel time on rush hour would still be the same as the travel time at midnight because the GPS does not have the traffic situation information built-in [not yet at least] or the one we use doesn’t have that. I think that’s going to be a future upgrade later on.

The GPS has some audio to guide the driver so that he does not need to look at the GPS every so often right? So there are audio prompts while the driver drives to guide the driver which lane to choose, where to turn, how far to the next turn, etc. So a sample:

So the GPS will say something like:

Keep to your left.

Turn left in .5 miles

Next left.

After your next left keep right

And then when the driver reaches the destination the GPS would say:

You have arrived. (Something like that)

So that’s a sample.

There are a variety of GPS available commercial in the US. The one we used is like an additional appliance installed in the car. It was installed on a flexible arm [what do we call it something like a “goose neck” similar to what they use to hold a cd player-mobile cd player].

There are also GPS that are in-dash, installed in the car on the dash board underneath the stereo or something like that.

But one of my cousins had a GPS which was purchase of the rack-its mobile; it can be detached from the dash boar and it can be taken with you. It’s as big as a mp4 player or as big as a cellphone and then it’s powered by the car’s lighter outlet. And then he’s able to download information from the internet and install it in his GPS. Information like road update, news [I don’t know].

But the interesting thing is he is able to download voices. So the voice that we had on the rented car was a female voice. It was an American female voice so we [my teammate and I] called our GPS Gabrielle-a female Gabrielle. We called it that because she was doing to be our GPS angel guiding us through the streets of San Francisco.

My cousin on the other hand had different voices on his GPS- there was a British voice, a male voice, a female voice, they had different names for them-Macy and all these voice. But the interesting voice was a “Mike Myers’ voice. It was an Austin power voice. In contrast to the other voices who would say upon reaching the destination they would say “You have arrived”. In the Austin power voice, the Austin power voice upon reaching the destination he would say: “Yeah babe Yeah!”

Wasn’t that funny huh?

So there that’s my story about Global Positioning System in the US and Gabrielle the GPS.

Pahabol.

Why hasn’t GPS been used in the Philippines?

GPS in the Philippines will take a few more years to come. We do not have a good documentation of streets in the Philippines. They’re not yet on digital format so unlike the US and Canada their streets are well documented and digital format. We don’t have that yet on the Philippines. Once we have that then it could be an easier leap.

There is a GPS service by Nokia-the cellphone, the latest cellphone I don’t know what it is. But I haven’t seen it work and I don’t think it’s as extensive as the GPS service that they have in the vehicles in the US. So let’s see maybe it could work after development projects by some of the commercial ventures in the Philippines. But that’s yet to be seen.

Let’s see how it goes.

Update: There are companies, after all, who are creating digital maps for the Philippines. The maps on the Nokia commercials — those are digitized image maps — like photos of a paper map. There are companies (like the group behind ANTS and another group called Philippine Navigation and Tracking Solution) that are creating digital maps. I wonder when they can overlay that on Google maps …

Podcast permalink: My GPS Story

EdXcribe
25 August 2007
Technobiography

Hi there Edong here. In a previous podcast I talked about murmur in Toronto Canada.

But in this podcast I’d like to talk about stomp in Singapore. Stomp is a community, stomp is a website, stomp is a movement. I don’t know what it is exactly but I first heard..read about it on a Singaporean paper while I was at Changi Airport on the way to Malaysia last month.

Stomp is something like community reportage. Singaporeans will take photos of issues that they think are relevant and then they would submit it to stomp. And then  in the Stomp community, the website, in the website they post, feature photos and the authorities will take note of it and take action. And I think in stomp they also follow-up with the story. Examples of the stories, while I was in Singapore, some of the newspapers published some of the stomp stories. And one of them was a photo of a dog least chained to a gate and he was right under the sun, so it was an issue because it’s animal cruelty.

Another was a story about a some guy taking photos of school girls, two school girls. One was supposedly a good girl and a bad girl. One girl was eating ice cream and threw her trash on the trash can the bad girl threw her trash on the street, there is another story behind that.

Stomp is similar to you’d say, we can say it’s similar to  “Hoy Gising!”, the popular TV segment, news segment, we have under Ted Failon before. It’s something like calling the attention of to the authorities or whoever is concerned except that it’s not the TV Network that puts together the story. It’s the community, it’s the citizens who put together the story and stomp the website is just a repository a medium where people can report their story.

On another note, in the Philippines there is a similar thing by Inquirer, I think they call it “citizen watch”. And I’ve been wanting to write about it ever since. Citizen watch is sending photos via mms or text reports via sms to Inquirer about streets that are not clean or maraming lubak or basura na hindi nako-collect, things like this. I see print ads on Inquirer  encouraging people to send but I don’t know it doesn’t seem to pick up probably because mms do not pick up in the Philippines.

Another story I have is about something similar during the election. I remember this poster of well in essence the story is there was a movement of encouraging the youth to report election-related incident and send it to a certain number. I don’t remember where it is now what number it was. An example of citizen reportage and it’s something that can help our country if only we participate more. Maybe less of the reklamo and more of the action. maybe we could put this to our advantage, citizen reportage.

Singapore for one had taken this media, this medium or this model to heart. It’s very hip, Stomp is very hip, it’s very popular and it’s effective. let’s see how we can do that for the Philippines. What do you think?

You can visit stomp at: http://www.stomp.com.sg

Visit it!

podcast permalink: Stomp – Singapore’s citizen reportage community

EdXcribe

6 August 2007
Technobiography

Hello this is Edwin at technobiography.edongskey.com. In this podcast I’d like to talk about a few stories about my podcast tones in the past few days that I have been experimenting with podcast.

First story first tone.
First time I tried my hand at podcasting I was recording through my mp4 player or my cellphone. This is what I sounded like:

I sounded like a robot talking to a dumb person, talking like that character in matrix who says “Mr. Anderson“.

My first podcast tone was very, how do you say it? very cold, very deliberate, very calculated. I’d like to change that. I still probably sound like my first tone, my robot tone. And that tone is mainly recorded for my transcriber and not for an audience. So I’d like to shift to my second tone.

My second tone I’d like to make it more conversational, more relaxed. I’d like my second tone to be like to talking to a friend, talking to a person right in front of me. Like telling a story, just like I do when I’m out with friends or when I’m on the phone.

And then my third podcast tone would be actually talking to somebody. It will not just sound like I’m talking to somebody. It’s actually me talking to another person and then this other’s person’s voice will be there too. It will be an interview.

Fourth, probably not the last kind of tone will be scripted tone. The fourth tone is something that is not impromptu, something that is..it’s going to be read, it’s going to be written beforehand, typewritten beforehand and then I’m going to read it. I want to edit it on word before I read it on podcast so that…para maganda ung reflection, well thought out before I record it to a podcast.

So those are my four podcast tones.

• The first is just like a robot,
• the second is conversational,
• the third is actually talking to somebody-an interview and
• the fourth is scripted tone-something that is read.  

There would probably a fifth and sixth tone but I haven’t figured it out. So one step at a time.

My four podcast tones.

Podcast Permalink: My Four Podcast Tones

EdXcribe

6 August 2007
Technobiography

Welcome! Mabuhay!

This is Edwin Soriano on Technobiography (http://technobiography.edongskey.com) and this is my first official podcast. I’ve prepared a few podcast bullets things I’d like to talk about here so I’ll be interviewing myself here.

So what is this podcast all about?
I am not podcasting for podcasting sake, I’m podcasting because I want to speed up my blogging. I’m looking at podcasting as a way to capture my thoughts more quickly and transfer them to the web more quickly as well.

Who’s my audience?
My audience is mostly people who drop by my blog, technobiography. And later on I’d would like to start podcasting for my bigger blog the blog I’d like to grow eOFW.net. So audience are technology people, OFW for eOFW.net and people searching for information about finance, technology, 3G, mobile commerce and the many topics that I write about.

What’s the format of this blog?
I will keep it short and sweet, some of my podcast will be less than one minute that means less than a hundred words in text. It will be Edong thinking out loud some of these I will be speaking in English or Filipino some of them I will stumble, sometimes I will mispronounce words. This is just Edong thinking out loud, trying to capture the thought at the moment.

There will be Edongs dreams, thoughts I’d say these thoughts that I’d like to capture in words.

Another format would be Edong interviewing Edong just like what’s happening now, I’m asking myself questions and answering them at the same time. And I’m looking forward to interview, I’d like to be able to interview people, friends, and hopefully popular people. And post these podcast on the net.

Cool ba? Ayos! That’s the end of the format.

What will I NOT podcast?

I will not podcast photos, I’ve got so many photos that I’d like to podcast about but it doesn’t make sense to podcast them of course.

And last but not the least.

What are my upcoming podcast?

• First I’ll tell you a story about my podcast tone,
• second I want like to podcast the call center song once I catch it on anyone of __4:05__,
• and also like to podcast about finance books I’ve read.

So, let’s see how that goes.

This is the end of my first podcast and watch out for more.

Podcast permalink

EdXcribe

6 August 2007
Technobiography

“Ang pinaka-unang podcaster sa balat ng lupa”

I was a podcaster back in 1998. When I was in Cuyo Palawan, I would record sounds from the island. Sounds like waves, insects, folk songs, children playing, laughter. I would record them using a casette tape and the walkman of my brother.

Yun nga lang, hindi ko na na-convert into digital format. But I had the intent of uploading them to my website. The website address is : http://www.geocities.com/ka_edong/gurosacuyo .

Visit it!

Podcast permalink: http://ka_edong.podomatic.com/entry/2007-07-27T19_41_59-07_00

EdXcribe

28 July 2007
Technobiography