[TV] SkyCable Losing Solar Channels

In case you haven't been paying attention to all the notices, starting January 1, 2008 local cable TV outfit SkyCable will no longer feature any of the Solar Entertainment channels. This means the loss of JackTV, ETC Entertainment Channel, ETC 2nd Avenue, Crime/Suspense, Basketball TV, and Solar Sports for all SkyCable subscribers, regardless of subscription level. Bummer.

At least it's not a total loss - SkyCable are fully aware of the popularity of these channels and have done a little something to try and ease our pain, although it's hard to say for sure if that's enough.

In place of the exiting channels, they've announced the debut of six new channels, namely Balls, AXN Beyond, Kids Co, Fox Crime, Maxxx and Velvet. While they're not perfect replacements for the lost channels, they do present related entertainment value. To sweeten the pot, as it were, they also threw in the Disney Channel, which was previously available only to SkyCable Gold subscribers to be available to all other subscribers as well.

There's no official reason given for the shift in channel line-up from either company - SkyCable just has that measly notice seen above while Solar Entertainment has chosen to use this time to renovate their website. Wonderful. The Wikipedia article about Solar has a note about all this being possibly related to the rights for the Manny Pacquiao fights and such, something that has passed from ABS-CBN (who own SkyCable) over to GMA (their local rival). However, the Wikipedia article about SkyCable adds in the official statement of VP for Programming Juno Chuidian claiming this was just another move to improve programming and reduce redundant channels.

Yeah right.

[Google] Docs & Spreadsheets Grows

Google Docs & Spreadsheets remains to be one of my favorite Google services released in recent months. Yes, yes, I know it's really just Writely and Google Spreadsheets combined into a single shared UI, but you get my point.

It's been announced on both the Official Google Blog and the Official Google Docs & Spreadsheets Blog that the service now supports 12 additional languages. In addition to that, it's now fully compatible with the Google Toolbar 3 for Firefox.

This means you can now enjoy the benefits that have been available for the IE version for some time now like the ability to open compatible formats directly in Google Docs & Spreadsheets. This is especially great for documents and spreadsheets that one accesses from email links or websites when you're at a PC that isn't yours. No longer are you dependent on making sure every computer you use has MS Office or whatever compatible office suite installed in order to view and edit the files in question.

This plays towards the true strength of Google's portfolio of products - interconnectivity. Sure, people will always argue that services like Yahoo! Mail are nicer for folder-dependent users or that Windows Live Messenger has more robust features. But that's not how Google is developing their products - they're working on making a complete suite of services that assist and benefit one another, thus adding to the overall value of being a Google user. Other competitors might have individual products that work really well on their own, but Google has a host of services that work even better together.

That's why I continue to support Google services and keep a close eye on their developments. There's a bigger plan behind everything they do and you can just feel their steady progress is building more and more momentum over time.

Related Links

• Google Operating System: Google Docs Is More Accessible
  
• Googlified: Google Docs Goes International
  
• Wikipedia: Google Docs & Spreadsheets

[US] Those Damned Mooninites!

Those damned, dirty Mooninites!

Sorry, I couldn't resist saying that. Call me a fan of the classics.

The citizens of Boston experienced a false terrorist scare because of an on-going marketing campaign being conducted to support the Cartoon Network Adult Swim show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

The promotion involved several several circuit boards wrapped in black tape or duct tape and when turned on the LEDs would form the shape of one of the Mooninites Ignignokt or Err, characters from the popular show. Why people found these lights suspicious, or even outright dangerous is beyond me. Given this sort of underground marketing campaign was being conducted in ten cities across America, I don't understand why only the residents of Boston thought they were potentially bombs.

I guess they don't watch the show.

Of course some resourceful entrepreneurs managed to snag a few of the boards before they were taken down and they're now being offered up for sale on eBay. Go figure.

Related Links:

• E! Online: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Promotion Bombs
  
• Wikipedia: Aqua Teen Hunger Force
  
• eBay: Mooninites (Ignignokt) LED Advertising Bomb, Item number: 130075321405
  
• eBay: aqua teen hunger force 'mooninites' neon ,not a bomb, Item number: 190078492881

[Health] Another Push For Stem Cell Research

Today, the House of Representatives passed legislation that promises to lift the ban on using human embryos for stem cell research, an avenue of medical science that promises to cure many diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.

A previous measure attempted to get past the Oval Office a year ago but was vetoed by President George W. Bush - the first veto of his presidency. He has maintained that he would not allow such a bill go through as long as he retains the presidency. The current measure again failed to achieve the number of votes needed to survive another veto by the president, but still supporters are hopeful that this bill will go through.

Personally, I'm all in favor of this research. The benefits clearly outweigh the ethical considerations, especially if we limit the resaerch options such asrequiring the embryos utilized are from abortions within the country, those embryos already being thrown out indiscriminately by abortion clinics across the country.

Although recent advances have determined that somewhat viable stem cell materials can be obtained from the surrounding amniotic fluid within the womb, human stem cells remain the best way of advancing this field of research.

Based on the President's actions so far, I doubt the bill will survive, though. He seems pretty set on going his own way and keeping his conservative view above all others.

Related Links:

• NIH Stem Cell Information
  
• Wikipedia: Stem cell
  
• TIME Magazine: House OKs Stem Cell Research
  
• TIME Magazine: The Stem Cell Debate

[The Web] The Battle of the Search Engines

This week Microsoft announced that Windows Live Search is now out of beta, which more or less means that the search engine is now truly "live" and is a more-or-less finished product. In light of a recent CNET article asking people to reconsider using Google considering the other players in the market, I thought it might be interesting to run a few tests too.

One of the biggest benefits of Google, for me, is how truly relevant the content is, especially since I am a non-US resident. Before Google, searching for content relevant to me and my country especially during my student days was significantly difficult since I had to constantly filter the results until I managed to find what I needed. Google doesn't seem to have that same difficulty and tends to surprise me with maintaining relevancy despite my using obscure local search terms. So for the purposes of this short experiment, let's try a few searches that mean something in my country but can be interpreted in many other ways as well.

First, let's meet our contestants:

1. Google - the current reigning champ with majority market share in the search market
   
2. Yahoo! - a crowd favorite because of its customized content and extra bells and whistles
   
3. Windows Live Search - a newer player in the field from the guys at Microsoft
   
4. Ask.com - the site that used to be known as Ask Jeeves, now a more streamlined search engine known for pretty comprehensive results

Round 1 - Acronyms

On a whim, I thought it might be interesting to see what some local acronyms might result in. I started with [MMDA], a local government agency that manages most of the traffic control in our capital city along with other city beautification projects.

Google brought me the official MMDA website at the top of their results on the first try while Yahoo! only had it as one of the top five results and Live Search didn't even have it on the first page. I was surprised that Ask.com also had the official website at the top of their list. Not bad.

Next up is [PUP], a local university. Google managed to get it right the first time once again by locating the webpage of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines right off the bat. Yahoo! and Ask found the page within its first five results although got a little lost in articles about dogs. Windows Live didn't find it just yet. I can't blame them, they're new at this yet.

Looks like Google has 2 points, Ask has 1 and both Yahoo! and Live Search are at 0 in terms of accuracy although Yahoo! is still pretty close, for the most part.

Round 2 - Names

Continuing the game, I decided to be just plain silly and attempt searching for local personalities with as little information as possible. I started this round with just the search keyword [Piolo], in reference to the local actor Piolo Pascual.

Surprisingly, all four engines got this pretty spot on, leading me to links specifically about the Filipino actor may they be Wikipedia articles or independent fansites. I guess his name is more specific than I thought it would be. Points for everyone!

To continue the annoying thread, I next tried to search for [Jolina], since Jolina Magdangal annoys me beyond belief. This time around, no one got it right on the first try leading me to furniture stores and Tex Mex places. I looked at the next highet results and Google had a link to her official GMA profile, where this is the station that is currently supporting her for now. Everyone else caught up by the third search result, leading us to a variety of fansites for the supposed pop icon.

Everyone has 1 point for this round. I was weighing assigning partial points for the second search term but then that might skew things.

Round 3 - Local Institutions

This round might be similar to the first one, but it's worth a shot. I now wanted to see if they'd lead me to the website of certain local groups or businesses based on my search terms.

I started with something safe and popular - [Ayala] and all search engines except Yahoo! brought me to a relevant page. Google and Live Search brought me to the company's corporate page while Ask brought me to their malls' webpage. Yahoo! goofed since they brought me to a Wikipedia article about some Argentinian soccer player.

The next test was for a more generic name so I opted to add a little to the search by looking for [Sy family]. Points for everyone for bringing us to a Time Magazine article about them and other major asian families except for Live Search which led us to German family or other.

This round has Google and Ask with 2 points, and Live and Yahoo! with 1 point each.

The Verdict:

I know this is not very comprehensive, but I think it's a fair show of where the search engines stand given some samples of more localized content searches. This was just something I wanted to try off the top of my head and should we ever want to revisit this concept in the future, I'm more than open to suggestions on how this experiment should go.

Let's look at the final scores:

1. Google - 5 points
2. Ask.com - 4 points
3. Yahoo! - 2 points
4. Windows Live Search - 2 points

And the winner is Google, with Ask.com coming in a close second. Yahoo! still performed decently although the engine was constantly asking for addtional search terms to narrow the search down. Live Search is clearly showing it's raw nature at this point and the engine definitely needs more time before it starts filtering the results better.

This just goes to support my initial statement about how Google is great for non-US residents looking for relevant data. Even with minimal search terms, it still brought me pretty close to localized content most relevant to my queries even while general. Yahoo! is trying to keep up but relies on localized search terms like philippines for it to identify the need to look for local content. My kudos to Ask.com - they've come a long way from the old Jeeves days when they were only good for looking for academic resources, really. It's fair to say that it's not too bad to use Ask, although I wish they had more supporting services like Google and Yahoo! do today. Perhaps they will in time, eh?

In the future we can try other contests to compare image search results or something of that nature, who knows? I'm pretty sure this is far from over.

What do you think?