Another POV of Google's Motorola buyout

Maybe Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility is not a backpedal move at all. Some speculations on what Google have up their sleeve are Motorola's 'Ready for Business', which is the commercial brand for enterprise features within the Motorola Android Platform which include core mobile device management, mobile security and productivity tools. Google might use that to breach the corporate segment, and make Android a viable platform of choice for enterprise, depleting RIM's domination.

As we all know, Motorola is one of the major brands for Android devices. While said brand isn't particularly popular outside of US, it has a firm ground in the western market, but somehow it's not gaining much traction towards 'THE Android brand to get' as rapid as the Korean company: Samsung. Sure, MMI were the first with 2.0 Droids, and the first with 3.0 tablets, but even those weren't impactful enough to change the brand preference of general users, say, Galaxy S II, anyone?. Google's acquisition might be the answer to that.

While running Motorola as a separate business, Google can help Motorola to improve their hardware and software integration, and maybe help them with some AdSense advertising to give more exposure. Is it favorable among Open Handset Alliance members? Of course not. But will it help Android in the long run by not letting Motorola's Android division ran out of gas before the real war is even started.
Pricey bet? Indeed it is. $12.5 Billion, and within that amount, the patents alone valued for $8+ Billion. For some of us it might seem like pulling rabbit out of the hat since Google's revenue for the last two years sums up to roughly $12.2 Billion, but they must've had some spare cash to splurge on some pretty important buyout such as this, right?

And last but not least, the main concern for GOOG nowadays is that in this war for patent infringements and mobile companies high on a suing spree, they have less than 1500 patents, and most of which don't have anything to do with the mobile platform. By purchasing Motorola Mobility, they have secured patent assets that will (hopefully) help them defend the Android from patent lawsuits. Sure, Nortel's sinking ship brought an estimated 6000 patents treasure cove on the table, which was won by a rather unique consortium comprised of Apple, RIM and Microsoft, but Moto's 17000 patents add another 7500 patent applications are not something to scoff at.

Top 10 killer features that Microsoft should consider for Windows 8

Windows 7? It feels like yesterday. And now, Windows 8 is just around the corner. if you want to know what Microsoft’s been cooking, head straight to the kitchen http://msftkitchen.com. Recently, one of MSFT’s blog-happy employee leaked a top-secret slideshow, highlighting the main discussion topics about the development of Windows 8. In the slides, you can also see that Microsoft has an all-in-one PC up their sleeve that looks like an iMac if it had been invented by a 5 years old. What? Touch screen computing that can automatically detect your moustache and automatically log you on? Holy cow! What year is this? 1990?

So Microsoft is scared, .. real scared.. of Apple’s methodology of brainwashing people into becoming their cult followers. They stated it as ‘Product UX is designed to help consumer realize value…’. Big load of bull crap. Apple is NOT in any way identical to VALUE. Not in a lightyear, smartpants. Apple products are tailored to HUMAN needs. They have natural interaction for the UI, and they can guess what the customers want without needing the rocket science of opening the whole kernel or executing terminal commands. Well, I can do that, but my grandma can’t, yet she can operate the iPad fine to read books and browse cookbooks. Pricey? Yes. Difficult to use? No.

Hey, Microsoft! You want your Windows 8 to be a Mac OS killer? Here’s some things that need to be added to your homework checklist. If you can pull all of these off nicely, then I can guarantee you: people will at least buy your OS and they’ll consider torrenting it from Piratebay much less than you expect.

1. One-button reset for the whole OS
I’m a happy technician. Everytime there’s a problem with somebody else’s computer, I get paid to fix it, re-format the OS, and so on. So it’s good for ME, but I’m going to say this nevertheless: Make Windows idiot-proof by providing a one-button complete data wipe or hara-kiri button when something goes wrong and leave the core OS intact. Forget “System Recovery” because it’s too complicated and idiotic: A Conficker Virus can easily hide in Windows’ recovery files, not my idea of a suicidal mission.

2. Windows Store: App Store, Microsoft style
Now this is the idea I’m most excited about. Want to avoid software piracy and lower the price for software retails? Get rid of the physical form and start gathering developers to build app for Windows via an Internet distribution system. For games, leave it to the people at Valve. I don’t want your filthy hand to touch my sacred gaming delivery system.

3. Azure seamless integration
Right-click, choose: ‘send to D:\’ or ‘send to Internet’. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? Make people familiar with the cloud service. Make something similar to Drop Box. Get rid of all complexity and bureaucracy. Make Internet file-sharing and remote syncing as easy as drag-and-drop. You can charge people to use Azure’s service like Apple’s MobileMe, but in a cheaper price, of course.

4. Bing! Search integration to desktop
User may want to search images, but most of the time not from their own computer. That’s why Google’s and Bing’s Image search gets gazzilion of hits every day. Integrate the search so that it provides easy result-aggregation. So far a similar system for Windows 7 that I can find is a search connector plugin by chakkaradeep. Why not make it official?

5. Make iWork, oops.. sorry. I mean, Office, an opt-out package
Learn from Apple. Make Windows a whole package with Office, and reduce prices. That’s an effin easy job for you, Microsoft. See Microsoft Internet Explorer? It’s the most widely used browser in the world. Obviously not because it’s good. But because it’s shipped with Windows.

6. Make a unified Windows version
Starter, Basic, Home, WTF? Just make one smart OS that can detect 32-bit or 64-bit intelligently, then make a unified OS. Make it similar to Linux, where people can pick their packages to install at first, or make it similar to Windows Server, where people can pick a machine role, then the OS will take care of the rest.

7. Integrate uPnP services to Windows Media Player
Got an Xbox360? PS3? Make it easier to share media files through uPnP/DLNA. It’s not that hard. Make an app for managing media share devices. It’s the friggin future of home entertainment.

8. Multi-desktop environment
Again, learn from Linux. Multi-desktop is much efficient for productivity compared to that idiotic Aero peek. I like Aero peek, but not as much as I like Expose and Spaces in Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux. Combine it with multi-monitor and you have a plethora of view options to abuse. That’s how I want my desktop to be, not one, monolithic space.

9. Simpler networking
Windows 7 and Vista’s networking is a joke. It’s too complicated for users. Of course, WiFi implementation is nice and all, but when it comes to configuring advanced networking options, all the steps are obscured. If I want to disable password-sharing I have to make a detour to the Start -> Control Panel -> Network and Sharing -> open side panel -> then click on ‘Advanced sharing settings’ the scroll all the way to the bottom. Steps to configure static IP address? I don’t want to even think about it. In Mac OS, I only have to go to System Preferences -> Networks, and it’s all there.

10. Change Windows’ name to something else
It’s the crappy name associated with a crappy OS so far. If Microsoft want to change the image of their OS, then they need to do something with the name first.


You might think that if Microsoft applied all these points to Windows 8, then it would be extremely similar to Mac OS. Yes it is. But it isn't a bad thing, isn't it? The majority of people still use Windows, and there's no way that people will change mindset in a snap of a finger. The most important thing is that Windows can be more easier to use, unlike Windows Vista, a bloated piece of crap wrapped in a fancy glass box.

Kaskus makes Indonesian language too damn funny, and Naburo makes Naruto look like a masterpiece

If you’re Indonesian and you don’t have any idea about Kaskus, then, either you’re wasting too much time on Failbook or downloading too much not-so-legal stuff through bitTorrent. The online community which is sort of a second home for some Indonesian Internet users, has been known to be the source of all terms unbeknown to Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia: terms such as ‘agan’, ‘cendol’, ‘pertamax’ and God knows how much more there are are now gracing other bulletin boards and forums in Indonesia.

I stumbled upon a discussion in the Internet about an Indonesian comic called ‘Naburo’, which is a blatant rip-off of a Japanese manga ‘Naruto’. Copyright infringement? In Indonesia, such thing is a dime a dozen, although not as numerous as in China. What so special about Naburo is that, this book’s quality is abysmal. From artworks that are closer to a doodling than a finished drawing, cheesy and pointless conversation, facepalm-inducing storyline, and there are crapload of names originated from Naruto, unmodified. But I’ll just leave it at that. If you want to read some of the stuff, try here. Flooone has been very kind by scanlating the abomination into English.

All this talk about Naburo brought me to a well-known Naruto community forum called ‘Narutofan Forums’, and in one of the discussion thread, I found a link to Google translate that redirected me into Kaskus. All this time, I usually read Kaskus in native language, which is Indonesian. But a funny thing happened. Google translate changes the sentences from Indonesia to English, and guess what? I LOLed so hard my stomach struggled in pain.

Try it yourself and compare the two:
Original version
Translated version

some of my favorites:
“maksa banget gan” translated to “forcing banget gan”
“naburo, ngasi nama baru yang beda dikit kek” translated to “naburo, the new name ngasi little different kek”
“gambarnya parah banget ......heran bisa dijual di gra*edia , ni komik sempet jadi bahan omongan di AMH trit naruto” translated to “really bad...... wonder can be sold in the gra * edia , Ni comic sempet be the talk of AMH trit naruto”
“wah ane jadi makin bangga ni” translated to “wah ane became increasingly proud ni”

And many more. Did you see how readable they are, and how some sentences are actually how some Indonesian people mix-and-match English with Indonesian language? Of course, not every post is readable, but comparing the two and reading through all the pages is somewhat entertaining.
:D

StarCraft II LAN fiasco: What Blizzard should do

Among all most wanted titles of 2009-2010, one of the game that’s ranked pretty high on my list is StarCraft II. But the recent ruckus about the missing LAN feature kinda dropped the hype for me, the rage of the SCII fans and community member is utterly disheartening, and the stance of the developers on this matter is simply adding salt to the wound.

Blizzard is well known for its PC roots, and it’s great that until today, they still deliver quality games exclusively to their PC fans. The reason of the omission of LAN or local network gaming to combat piracy is fully understandable. But there are surely better ways to implement the workaround and not making an impression of ‘punishing’ the gamers.

From what we can see in the recent showing at BlizzCon ’09, it seems that Battle.Net login is becoming the main in-game gateway before gamer can access the game, and ‘Play as Guest’ is the only offline play mode available. This system awfully resembles Battlefield 2142, and it’s one of the worst case in comparison, I must say. In my first experience with BF2142, you can play offline using an ‘injected’ default player profile, but all of the achievements and statuses will be nullified. This means that you can’t progress in rank, can’t unlock new items and weapons, and what’s worse: making the game completely uninteresting to play because you can’t play the damn drool-inducing Titan Mode. Guess what? That time, I was left with no options to access the internet. My dial-up modem crapped out, and I had just moved in to the new rented house with my family so no broadband either. Curse you EA.

Does Guest Account do what I think? Better not be. If this is the case, then what Blizzard do is far from embracing its loyal userbase on the PC, it’s downright hurting them. What about gamers who doesn't have access to the Internet at all? There are third-world countries to consider as well.

Are there ways that Blizzard can do to avoid this? Sure! Look at Valve.
With Steam, my online game experience (and single-player, too) can’t be any better. Downloading bought, legal games is easy. But that’s not the point here. If Blizzard is going the DRM route, then in-game Battle.Net login should be scrapped. They should implement an external authentication software to do so. Why? Because firewalls and non-transparent proxies in home and office networks don’t favor ports other than HTTP ones.

I had severe headache when I tried to run Ragnarok Online and similar online games through FreeProxy back in 2003. But now games on Steam alleviates such login problems because, in order to run the games, all they need is a centralised login account. Even though you’re using a port redirection, Steam can still login and run the game with full LAN and campaign features (although you can’t browse for online servers, because that needs a different connection port). Heck, it can even run in offline mode, using the stored login credentials.

So, I suggest either Blizzard jump into the Valve bandwagon, which is, very unlikely, or implement an external, proxy-and-firewall-aware authentication system. Both are good for the gamers. And they should really announce that kind of update and network compatibility issues, just … stop being vague by saying ‘No LAN? No big deal’. No big deal my *ss!!

Not all people will buy the game. Some will still crack and torrent it away. Look at Stardock. Blockbuster hit Sins of Solar Empire and Demigod makes good sales figures, (also, ‘good’ pirated copy figures) and they didn’t even think of using a DRM or some bloated authentication system. Why? Because: good games will sell.

Unless if SCII turns out to be a mediocre game and Blizzard is trying hard to sell it otherwise they’ll go bankrupt. But I’ll bite myself for saying that. =P

On Carmack and the state of GPU physics

For the computer graphics geek, there’s no hotter thing to talk about this decade other than GPU Physics. Recently, John Carmack spouted his take on dedicated physics hardware a.k.a Physics Processing Unit/PPU at QuakeCon 2009 Q&A section (watch here), and suddenly, all the Internet is on rage (pun intended).

So, basically, what Carmack said was about how the multi-CPU cores would be a more suitable path for physics processing in the near future, and PPU is not a viable option. He also said that some physics-intensive stuff can be done normally on a typical GPU ‘when GPUs finally get "reasonably fine-grained context switching and scheduling”’.

Most of the response to this statement is around ‘Carmack is yapping about stuff he has no clue about’, or ‘my PhysX-enabled 8800GT works just fine, so that's not true’, and so on.
Okay, so your Physx-card can render fluffy waving cloth and makes the breaking glass look more bling-a-ling pretty, but then what? Does it do groundbreaking physics calculations that actually affect the game play?

Let’s take two games for comparison then. Half-life 2 and Mirror’s Edge. Now turn off the physics specific codepath for both games (Havok for HL2 and PhysX for ME). Half-life 2 would be downright unplayable, but not Mirror’s Edge, since the latter can run perfectly fine, sans the framerate hit. The reason that Half-life 2 is unplayable is not because of the framerate or the speed of the processing, but it’s because the physics is actually integrated into the gameplay so much that you can’t lift yourself by using the wooden plank and piles of concrete bricks to proceed to the next level. Mirror’s Edge? Oh, don’t worry, you can finish the game without all the physics just fine. Hint: ‘First-order-physics’


Not to put aside the majority of PC users still use IGP or weak GPUs with fast CPUs. Havok can be executed by the CPU, while PhysX relies on dedicated graphics chip.

To sum it all, what Carmack, from a developers’ perspective, said was: hey we’re better off using the hardware that >75% of people out there already have, because in the future, the CPU will only get crazier in terms of core count and speed, and not to mention the dawn of a better GPU(s) programmability and branching (GPGPU). It’s a good thing to have a ‘current’ solution like PhysX, but it’s only becoming a niche stuff in the long run.

Is it cheaper to pay a proprietary fee to Nv than to develop a multi-threaded physics game system based on Havok? Yes. But is it the right direction for the next DirectX 11/OpenGL 3.0 generation of hardware? I don’t think so.

Despera - The next Yoshitoshi ABe's hit anime

If you ask me about anime that has the biggest impact on my life, I couldn’t pick anything better than Yoshitoshi ABe’s ‘Serial Experiments Lain’. The show was everything that a cyberpunk and tech geek can hope for. This particular anime was also the reason that I decided to take a major in Computer Science back in the days. I have to mention that it’s also one of the most psychologically challenging anime of all times. Lain is by no means suitable for everyone, it’s jam packed with computer terms, even things that go beyond common knowledge at that 1998 era, things like ‘wired’ which is a term for an all-connected computer system, similar to a cloud system on the Internet, but ABe brought it even deeper with Augmented Reality systems that’s similar to the technology found in ‘The Matrix’. While Masamune Shirow’s ‘Ghost In The Shell’ puts us in a high-tech police and military technology whiz, Lain was more of a gritty self-realization of a wired-obsessed young girl, trying to poke the boundary between real and virtual worlds.

ABe is also known for his other brilliant work that is ‘Haibane Renmei’ or otherwise known as ‘The Charcoal Feathers Federation’. A beautiful and touching story about a world, where the inhabitants have charcoal-toned wings. Despite their wings, they are NOT angels. The show elevates the values of life and death, compassion, friendship and what truly caring for each other means. The anime won lots of awards, including one of the best art direction in anime for all times by Newtype magazine Japan. I personally loved everything about it: the music (the Hanenone album gives me the chills everytime I listen to it), the art, and the story.

This 2009, something really big is coming. The three musketeers that brought Lain to realization have gathered again for the second time and it seems that they have been busy producing the next candidate-to-be-legendary title: ‘Despera’. They are Yoshitoshi ABe (art), Ryutaro Nakamura (direction), and Chiaki J. Konaka (story). The anime will tell a story about a 14 year old girl named ‘Ain’ who is able to create high-tech devices unknown to the era that she lives in. The sci-fi alternative period story is set in Tokyo during the Taishō era in 1922, one year before the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. There will be pre-WWII military references, old Japanese societies, and someone that has the premise similar to Half-Life 2’s G-Man. Quoting from Animage: “Unknown Man - A man in his 30s who is an associate of Ain's. In the prologue chapter of the novel, he claims to be able to see the future through the displays on Ain's computer monitors. His face and identity has yet to be revealed.” And judging from all those info, we can safely conclude that the anime will have thick cyberpunk theme, with the usual unpredictable deep plot written by Chiaki-sensei.

Most looked forward to anime this season? Definitely yes. Best anime of the upcoming season? Might not be, but the three big names that delivered Lain should be a great benchmark on how this anime will certainly rock most otakus in all over the world and blow a fresh wind of remarkably high quality presentation rarely found in the mainstream anime shows nowadays, like: Naruto, Pokemon, and Katekyoushi Hitman Reborn! to name a few.

note: Credit goes to Weiss for the scanned pictures.

Augmented Reality: Introduction and Concepts

This is a copy of my Augmented Reality Presentation at Research Information and Technology Expo (Ritech) 2009, Plasa Barat Senayan Jakarta, Indonesia, 9/8/2009. The event was held by CAMS Solutions and endorsed by the Indonesian Ministry of Research and Technology. Unfortunately it's in Indonesian language only, but you are welcomed to make a translation or re-distribute it as necessary under this license aggreement:


Augmented Reality: Introduction and Concepts by Niko Radityo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Please note that this material covers very basic concepts about Augmented Reality and such might not be suitable as technical reference. It's provided as is and I do not hold ownership of any products portrayed in the material.

You can download the .ppt PowerPoint/Keynote material from the Internet Archives here
(enter the HTTP link on the far left)

Garudayana: best Indonesian comic?

"If someday a PVC figure of Kinara appears on the store shelves, I'd buy that with no second thought :D"

It has been … a while since I read comic books, or manga for that matter. Well, truthfully, I mostly read manga back then, mainly Japanese, with moé and cutesy stuff, because I’m not comfortable with looking at bulky muscular men portrayed in US comic books or hardcore local ‘indie’ comics in Indonesia which mostly have this ‘Candy Candy’ or Panji Koming look and feel to them (though Panji Koming and Sawung Kampret is awesome, hands down, but I tend to put it in low priority initially, as would any other general comic/manga readers).

Just recently I attended the launching of ‘Koloni’, a local brand initiative for new generation of Indonesian comic, held by m&c!, one of the biggest, if not the most popular, comic and manga publishing company in this country. God, how I surprised by the major improvement of the Indonesian comic makers nowadays! They are so young and very talented, but the most important thing is that, out of 8 books (and authors, respectively) launched that day, I found out that more than half of that is much suitable for my tastes. The most interesting and of course, most anticipated title is ‘Garudayana’ written and illustrated by Is Yuniarto. The question is: HOW good is that comic? Made in less than 3 months? Really?

Among all the Indonesian comic book diversity, I have a soft spot for everything Wind Rider. It’s one of the local comic which dare to strip all the indie flavouring (or self-proclaimed ‘Indonesian comic’ identities) and step into a pure, fictional direction. When it seems that everyone is going the ‘romance’ stuff, they invent a brave, new world of science-fiction, and even post-apocalyptic imagery and storytelling, most prominently found in Knights of the Apocalypse which spanned into 3 volumes/trilogy. Behind these titles are Is Yuniarto, John C. Reinhart and Aswin.

When I heard that Garudayana is launched, this piqued my interest to full throttle. A bit of it died, though, knowing that Is Yuniarto did all the illustration and storywriting without John and Aswin. But then the good news is that this comic has a huge chance of being recognized outside of Indonesia, because the primary mission of ‘Koloni’ comic initiative by m&c! is to sell the select titles overseas. Great job, I must say. Now on to the contents.

The art and style is not that much different to the usual ‘teamwork’ of Wind Rider Studio. There, I said it. I was thinking to ask about this in the press conference but I never got the chance. It seems that solo work can be as good as a teamwork in some occassions. Great, consistent artwork, and nice setting of the plot and characters swayed me into reading more. The main girl character, Kinara is a moé treasure hunter and a bit of a klutz. If that doesn’t sound typically Japan to you, I don’t know what else to refer. (replace term 'moé' with 'ca'em', if you like) She accidentally found a Garuda in a form of an unhatched egg in an old, abandoned temple. Problem is, that Garuda is on the feast menu of the legendary beast Ashura, which only Gatotkaca can deal with. Well, things got a bit more hectic when eventually the egg hatched into a tiny ‘Garu’, which can transform into many forms, including a small boy (but he still pecks the ground when eating, which is hilarious). Along the journey of Kinara to many places, we will meet the three brothers of Punakawan: Gareng, Petruk and Bagong. They are the source of many comic relief in this comic. Especially when they created a ‘Kereta Kencana’ vehicle that looks and works like a three-wheeled Harley-Davidson. Also expect to see many characters from ‘pewayangan’ such as Nakula, Sadewa, Semar, Yudhistira, Arjuna, and many more. I’m not –THAT- surprised when I saw Arjuna portrayed as a pretty boy elven archer, I swear.

If you prefer some romance and drama, you won’t find it here. There are seriously intense fighting scenes with bruises and fancy effects in this comic. Also, the amount of humor is abundant, which makes the whole book comfortable to read and not even a teeny weeny bit boring. The storyline is clearly written, and there is a nice ending to book one that makes you want to read the story even more (is that a Pancasila reference?). Don’t worry though, Is confirmed that the next volume will be even a bigger blast. Overall, this is undoubtedly one of the best Indonesian-made comic I’ve read. Not as deep as Knight of Apocalypse, in my opinion, but still has that touch of ‘Wind Rider’ style we all know and love.

Some notes: When I was working in Advance Magazine, I used to dwelve a lot into comic scene. It crossed my mind that the topic of ‘Indonesian comic style’ is always debatable. I feel that I have to reiterate what Is said about this: “A comic that was made by Indonesian is naturally an Indonesian Comic”. We might have not found our comic style yet, but as long as it’s good to read, it’s always a GOOD thing. Stop the retarded arguments about being ‘indie style’ and support these comic authors. Buy the comics!

Back then I also hoped that somebody can make a killer formula to mix Indonesian lores and legends (which I’m honestly not that interested in) into an interesting and kickass comic that I, and everyone else can enjoy. I think Garudayana is -that- dream come true. Oh, and Gunblades can go away in hell fire, Crossbow Keris FTW!!

Free TF2 guest pass here!

Haven't checked my Steam account for ages, besides great discounts, it also looks like Steam is getting a nice new addition: a free games sampler for Steam friends. 3 days of free TF2 gaming without the obligation to purchase. I just hope that the client download wouldn't take 2 days by its own.. LoL

So, here's the deal, I'm thinking of giving away these TF2 'guest passes' to YOU guys. But I'll give it to those who have commented at least once in this blog. Simple, isn't it? :) And all you have to do next is to comment on this post to request the guest pass. Oh, and make sure you already have a Steam client installed.

Binary Magic

This might be the most interesting (not the best, mind you) anime of the season. From the first few episodes we have a winning formula. Moé:check, tsundere:check, mahou tsukai ( 魔法使い = magic user ):check, consistent animation: check, great voice acting:check, and I could go on. Not only the production values, but the story itself is also interesting, with a touch of unusual timeline of storytelling. The show begins at episode 00, not 01, and the prologue tells us many things about the world of magic that is Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou. I hear ya, it’s a long title, so I’ll just call it Yoku Mahou from now on.

The anime is an adaptation of a supposedly popular Shonen (Male) Light Novel in Japan written by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. The seiyuu casts are decent. Haruka Tomatsu as Yumiko Christina Ichinose, expect lots of ‘desu wa’ accent and tsundere-ness. Ai Nonaka as Koyomi Morishita, pretty much the return of Fuuko from Clannad! Then we have Minako Kotobuki that’s very talented in voicing a Yuki Nagato-ish character named Kaho Sakazaki, and some other seiyuus. Animation by Nomad is beautiful. The ‘feel’ of the original character designs by Miki Miyashita can be captured adorably by Makoto Koga, which is well known as the anime chara designer of Sola, ARIA, and Galaxy Angels.

Curious about the meaning of the title? Me, too. After some googling around, apparently, gendai mahou (trans. –modern magic) is one among several kinds of magic that exists in the world of Yoku Mahou. It’s originated from something called houten mahou (trans. –ancient magic). Not so clear about the differences between the two, yet, but this makes the magic world even more interesting to find out. So, ‘Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou’ can be roughly translated along the lines of: ‘I understand modern magic’. Oh the joy of weeaboo-ness.

Magic is defined as an act of combining magical ‘codes’. By ‘codes’, I’m referring to programming codes, not some unreadable runes or divine mumblings. Everything in Yoku Mahou’s world has this 01011101-ish code that can be re-arranged (transforming), erased (deleting), and of course, written (evoking). Not the exact way as portrayed by the creator of the novel, but you get the idea. Need more reason to watch? In the first episode your brain will be exploded by Yumiko's no-pan show, along every episode Koyomi will summon many pans (tarai=flat round metal bowl), and of course, pantsu (loosely described as: fanservice). A twist of humour here and there, some magic fights with fancy effects, and great OP & ED music to boot. I think I found my ‘Zero no Tsukaima’ fix for this season.

STOP, and GO! -A brief introduction to Binary Choice

HELLO THERE, welcome to my personal blog. In this site you’ll find everything geek. Computer, technology, anime, music, Interwebs, even NSFW stuff and many other et-ce-te-ras. Why the name ‘Binary Choice’? Well, I have always been an 0 and 1 believer. Something exists, or something doesn’t exist. The world is comprised of many binary matter. From something as simple (and to some, geeky) as True or False, the debate of Right or Wrong, the mother of all question: Good and Bad, you name it.

Believe it or not, there’s a gazzilion stuff out there that can be somehow linked to this ‘binary’ theory. That’s why I made this blog in the first place, to present the universe to you uniquely, from a binary point of view. Not a geek? Don’t worry. Not an otaku? Rest assured. There’s something for everyone.

So, I hope you enjoy your stay. And please follow me @korganos on Twitter.

This Is Why Apple's New Tablet Will Surprise You

What’s In A Name
Most possible ones? Either MacBook Touch (differentiates their main product lines, which are Macbooks and iPods, save iMacs and Mac Pros), iBook (recycling of the old name, similar to ‘Superdrive’ name recycle) or Canvas (John Gruber loves this one). Why not iPad? It sounds like a sanitary product. And not iSlate? It does arrive a bit late, but not late enough to be called ‘iS late’.

The Tablet Can See You
A half-hearted Avatar reference it is not. By using a patented technology called ‘Integrated Sensing Display’, the tablet can sense and capture an image within 1 centimeters in front of the panel. Put a namecard on it facing down, it will be scanned directly and digitally converted for filing. Put a photo on it, you can edit or add effects to the photo afterwards using built-in app. The panel can also communicate wirelessly with other devices nearby using the same infrared technology it uses to see. So, you can put two tablets side-by-side, toss a file icon from one tablet to another, and the other tablet will receive it. Similar to Mover app on iPhone.

And hey, Microsoft has this technology, too!

No Camera?
Taking family picture with a slate this big would be ridiculous. It won’t have any dedicated camera capabilities. Apple wants you to buy their pocket camera product, it’s called: iPhone 3Gs. Autofocus, 3 Megapixels, it’s all there. Why bother buying another camera that clearly won’t fit in your pocket?
Instead, can we transfer picture files into the device? Yes you can. Apple hates cables, so Wi-Fi is your best friend. Sync it with iTunes/iPhoto wirelessly, and also with iPhone/iPod touch. I don’t think Bluetooth OBEX file transfer will be available soon, though.

Painting App For OS X
As indicated by the splash of paints in the Apple event Invitation, maybe we will witness the ressurection of a long-forgotten Mac digital imaging software named ‘Mac Paint’. Or maybe it’s a whole different thing. But one thing for sure: Wacom beware. Using new capabilities beyond capacitive touchscreen, the new tablet will be able to recognize wider array of input methods: fingertips, your whole hands, stylus, and any other passive (non-electrically conductive) objects that can benefit creative digital artists in creating their masterpiece.

It’s A Wireless Companion For Your Mac, Or iPhone
Can be used as a wireless input device for Macbooks, iMacs and Mac Pros. Think of it as a gigantic Magic Mouse that has a screen and a virtual keyboard. Can be used as a companion for your iPhone. Take pictures using iPhone, record videos, and edit it in the tablet. Sync files, backup them if necessary. Play games while using the iPhone/iPod touch as a controller device, and the tablet as the display.

It’s Faster
Walter Moss[puppet]berg has a good point in his [too] early review of the Apple tablet. Quoted: “It’s got internet connectivity, somehow, but I never gave it my wifi password and I didn’t have to sign up for any 3G account. I’m just online, and it’s the fastest browsing experience I’ve ever had in my life.” This is by no means a legit testimonial, but a hint that the device might be equipped with a WiMAX/4G connectivity.

Pricing, Pricing
As with the recent leak from Media Markt (Germany), and re-published by Macrumors, the tablet will be priced at around $500-$600 US with contract and $999 without. Sounds proportional to me.