2008 Beijing Olympics and Other Links

I would have wanted to go to the 2008 Beijing Olympics next year but it looks like those much coveted tickets are very, very hard to get by so I’m scrapping that plan on my wish list for 2008 (that’s where all my Mabuhay Miles credits would have gone to).

On the other hand, I’d like to point you to Marcos Antonio Torres and his quest to be one of the 8 to participate in the Expat for Olympic Torchbearers. He’ll need all of your votes here.

If you’re an Olympics fan and want to get some souvenirs for the event, check out this commemorative cellphone of the Olympics mascot Fuwa Huanhuan. Looks like a customized Series 40 Nokia phone to me.

And speaking of phones, the LG Viewty (LG KU990) looks like a nice iPhone alternative. I’ve been getting a lot of emails from people looking to buy the iPhone. Maybe I should put up an unlocked iPhone business on the side? Btw, Nokia also launched the first UMA phone in the world with the N6301. The Unlicensed Mobile Access phone is dual mode which can do calls over GSM and wireless LAN.

Jobert of World Famous in the Philippines has recently launched Coffee Spark, a Digg-style community powered by open-source software Pligg. Out of the box solutions like Pligg are cool as they allow people to think of new stuff and run it with very easily. It’s like WordPress as an all-around CMS.

A new blog, The SPICe Campaign (Stop Philippine Internet Censorship Campaign), helps promote awareness and provide information about Internet censorship in the Philippines.

On the CPU front, AMD just announced it will release three-core chips for the desktop next year. This is after they’re planned introduction of Phenom (quad-core) into the consumer market. Will these 3 core chips be a Phenom chip with one core disabled? Sounds odd they’d go back and do triple cores now. Maybe the quad-core market isn’t that ready yet. Or they want to recycle those quad-cores with one core busted.

On the other side of the river, Intel will re-introduce the Santa Rosa Refresh which is an update to its current Centrino laptop platform. It’s a Penryn chip at 45nm technology. Intel’s Montevina mobile platform on the other had will also incorporate WiMAX support for laptops.

Also, check out Intel’s version of the future of the iPhone featured at the recent Intel Development Forum.

This week-end’s topic to ponder: Is Apple the new Microsoft? (Mike Elgan, Computerworld)