Making technology work for the Pope

It was only a matter of time before the Pope would make his presence felt on Facebook. But you definitely, won’t “poke” at him. Can you imagine how many “fans” the Pope would have? Count me in that list! Last I checked, nearly 50,000 fans!


There is one photo album, labeled as “Holy See Press Office.” It has 7 images of official vestments and insignias. Maybe, they should have photos from the foreign trips of the Pope, like his recent visit to the Middle East and Israel.

In discussions, “fans” talk about many issues like papal infallibility, Immaculate Concepcion and Purgatory. This thread alone has 36 posts, from 23 persons.

Events? None where listed. How can that be, when he was recently in the Middle East? There was however an update posted Friday, May 15, 2009 at 3:28am about the Pope’s visit to the Basilica of the Nativity and children’s hospital

Am sure there are many more things the Pope’s communication team can do with this Facebook portal.

Recently, a new Vatican website, was launched. This was part of the Vatican's World Communications Day celebration last Sunday which was devoted to communicating the gospel with new technologies.

"We recognize that a church that does not communicate ceases to be a church," said Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican's Social Communications department.

Monsignor Tighe further says that many young people today are not turning to traditional media like newspapers and magazines any more for information and entertainment. "They are looking to a different media culture, and this is our effort to ensure that the Church is present in that communications culture."

According to a Reuters story by Philip Pullella, the new site contains “virtual postcards” which has images and words from the Pope. These postcards carry messages aimed for the youth (that excludes me). Just like Blue Mountain virtual postcards, users can send these postcards to their friends. I should try it. You should try it too!

Guess, these postcards can inspire the youth to consider being “fishers of men?” The Catholic Church has recognized a decline in the entry of men and women for religious vocations. It has been said that Europe has some of the most beautiful and biggest churches, but many of them are half-empty. Here, that is the opposite. Churches are full that some people have accepted the practice of staying outside the Church.

The 82-year-old Pope has encouraged young Catholics to use the internet responsibly but also has warned against the potential use of new media to spread violent messages and pornography.

The Vatican’s foray into technology also includes YouTube. You can visit this link, www.youtube.com/vaticanit

Latest DVD Technology

The moment I read this news, I quickly shared it with Chief and now, scribbling it online.

Yes, according to an AFP story filed from Paris last May 21, scientists have discovered technology that will allow consumers to have only one…. yup, only one DVD for 2,000 movies.

Yup, one DVD = 2,000 movies.

The story further says that this new DVD technology stores data in five dimensions. The researchers from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, used nanotechnology to increase the storage potential of DVDs.

DVDs were first introduced in 1997 as a replacement for several formats including CDs, VHS and laserdisc. Do you remember those laserdiscs? Yup, I remember, going to those shops in Greenhills which sold and rented laserdiscs!

The story further quotes Min Gu, who led the team. "We were able to show how nanostructured material can be incorporated onto a disc in order to increase data capacity, without increasing the physical size of the disc."

What does the five dimension means? Currently, disks have
three spatial dimensions. The researchers were add two dimensions, one based on the color spectrum, and the other on polarization, by using gold nanorods.

Maybe, an anology I can use is these new DVDs have 5 alternate reality (to borrow a term from the latest Star Trek film). Simple, means five realities of storage space. But all this space is in the same physical location, unlike the alternate reality in Star Trek, which happens in different locations.

But this technology is still work in progress and researchers says that commercial production is at least five years away, with possible partnership with Samsung.

Two thousand movies? If each movie run for 120 minutes, that means 240,000 minutes of viewing time. Or roughly, 166 days of viewing time?

Now, am asking myself if I have seen two thousand movies since I first saw Gene Wilder’s “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” in 1971 at Diamond Theatre. And up last Saturday night at the Cinema 2 of Greenbelt Cinema, when Chief and I last saw J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek.”

By the way, I have seen Star Trek four times. Maybe, for the fifth time, I will look at it from the techy point of view!

Just a click away

Am sure many of us, specially, those in marketing and digital media would find banner ads interesting.

Others, simply ignore these ads. Some, find them annoying or distracting. Some companies have questioned their effectiveness.

But these ads still does illicit response from many web users. According to a study from iProspect, there is indeed some benefits from of online ads. The study says that when Internet users were asked to find out what actions they took when viewing a display ad on an ad-supported Website, results showed that nearly one-third said “they clicked on the ad.”

Other results showed that 38% visited the advertiser’s site through search results, 11% searched but did not click on any of the results, and 14% searched, visited the site and purchased the product advertised.

“In essence, search is an alternative mechanism for Internet users to respond to online display,” said Robert Murray of iProspect.

He adds,” If marketers are going to invest in display then they should leverage search marketing to help them capture the demand that display advertising creates.”

Online advertising is still a growing medium, specially here in the Philippines. You can see many pages around the web with advertising, whether it be a local flower shop or a multinational brand from P & G or Unilever. I see more growth for online advertising, specially, during these times of recession where marketers are looking for more measurable and cost-efficient results.

Plus there will definitely be a lot of buzz about online advertising during the next advertising congress to be held in Baguio City in November.

Chart from www.emarketer.com

Twitter works for a Queen

Twitter? Have received a few invitations to join Twitter. But still have resisted. Maybe, I refuse to be over connected. With Facebook, Yahoo! Mail and Messenger and Friendster, do I still another way to get connected with family and friends?

Photo shows Jordan's Queen Rania, wife of King Abdullah II, greets Pope Benedict XVI (R) upon his arrival at the Queen Alia International airport in Amman.

More recently, a queen used Twitter. Yup, according to WiredPR News, Queen Rania of Jordan sent out tweets to her followers about Pope Benedict XVI's first ever visit to an Arab country last Friday.

Here is a sample of her tweets:

"Just listened to Pope's speech. Our region so needs a message of Peace."

"Special day here in Amman; not everyday pope drop s by 4 a visit."

Photo of Pope Benedict XVI from by Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images.

The Queen’s office had announced earlier that the queen decided to register on the Internet social network Twitter on the site http://twitter.com/QueenRania The office said that this done to mark Pope Benedict VI’s first-ever visit to the Middle East.

Who started Twitter? Jack Dorsey. He is an American software architect who started Twitter back in 2006.

Today, according a Nielsen.com blog (Michelle McGiboney: "Twitter's Tweet Smell of Success" March 2009), Twitter is ranked as the fastest-growing site in the Member Communities category for February 2009, followed by Zimbio and Facebook. But it’s retention rate is very high. An article “Many Twitters are quick quitters: study" published April 29, 2009 says many users drop the service after a month. And Twitter has experienced a few outages. Well, Twitter ain’t perfect technology yet.

What are tweets? Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. This can be displayed on the user's profile page and sent to other users who have subscribed to them.

Will I go on Twitter? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe, before Pope Benedict visit the Philippines?

Star Trek's Reboot at US$31 million

According to www.variety.com, Star Trek made an estimated US$31 million at the box office when it entered into warp drive last Friday.More than the millions it made across 3,849 theatres, the story and its young characters made a strong presence among old and new Trekkie fans.



Photo shows the young Kirk on the newest bridge of the Enterprise.

While the 11th film on the Star Trek franchise is called a “reboot,” the movie is estimated to surpass previous opening day presence from J. J. Abrams’ “Mission Impossible” which gained US$16.6 on its first day. This was Abrams’ directorial debut! It has also out-grossed the $12.9 million generated by 1996's "Star Trek: First Contact" on its opening day.

But what is a reboot? If you have a computer that is hangs, somebody would say, "you just need to reboot."

Isn’t this 11th film a prequel as it describes how the Roddenberry’s characters first met, enter the Starfleet Academy and established their friendships.

Yup, “Star Trek” tells of the birth of James T. Kirk aboard a shuttle-craft as his father crashes the USS Kelvin into a Romulan starship.

Reboots actually seek to rebrand franchises that seem to have lost its appeal and formula among its audience. Remember “Batman Begins” which revitalized the franchise. Or even the recent 007 “Casino Royale.”



Photo shows Kirk and Sulu fight Romulans as they try to break the drill. I remember Kirk asked Sulu, "What kind of fighting did you train for?" Sulu replies, "Fencing."

The young crew of "Star Trek’" Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Karl Urban (Bones), Simon Pegg (Scotty), John Cho (Sulu), Zoe Saldana (Uhura) and Anton Zelchin (Chekov). Plus Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson, Spock's mother and Bruce Greenwood as Christopher Pike, who was the first captain of the Enterprise.



Eric Bana plays a villiain, Nero, Romulan who witnessed his planet destroyed by a supernova.

The original Mr. Spock, Leonard Nimoy, comes back from 129 years and again, says, “Live Long and Prosper.”

Since 1979, there have been 10 feature films based on Gene Roddenberry's '60s TV series. The highest grossing "Star Trek" film to date remains 1986's "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" with $109.7 million at the U.S. domestic box office.

Photos from Paramount Pictures at http://www.craveonline.com/entertainment

Star Trek Works

Just watched the new Star Trek film by J. J. Abrahms at the Cinema 1. And Al Roker was right to say that no a single frame was wasted in this film. He made this comment as he was exchanging words with Matt Lauer on the “Today Show” this morning. They had the original Mr. Spock as guest in that program… of course, I stayed on long enough to watch the interview.

Al Roker briefly talked to Leonard Nimoy about the new film. Nimoy said that he accepted to do the appearance after he had read the script. He probably found logic in the “return” after 129 years.

Yup, according to the film, Spock returned 129 years to the film’s presence. In the film, he is “trapped” in a icy, cold planet where the young Kirk (played by Chris Pine) is also “dispatched” by Spock (played by Zachary Quinto) after being accused of insubordination. At these times, both Spock and Kirk have not yet established the friendship that journeyed to strange new worlds and discovered new life forms.


Did you know that Matt Damon was also rumored to play the role of the young Kirk? But J. J. Abrams found Damon “too old” to play the young Kirk.

In the film, the paths of Kirk and Dr. McCoy aka “Bones” (played by Karl Urban) is established. We learned that Dr. McCoy is divorced by his wife and only left with his “bones.”


Isn't there a resemblance between them?

I was surprised to learn of a romantic relationship between Uhura and Spock? Which will probably be the ultimate test for Spock’s emotion in the next movie.

Another surprise was to see Winona Ryder play the role of, Amanda Grayson, Spock's mother. Did she really fall and die when the planet exploded?

And you will definitely get to see a more hi-tech bridge of the Enterprise! The transporter room, sickbay and engine rooms have a more techy look.

The phaser are designed as spring-triggered barrels that revolve and glow as the setting switches from "stun" to "kill."

Definitely, the film is worth the long wait since “Enterprise” shut down it’s engines!

Top Gun in Facebook

Do you remember the movie “Top Gun?” Yup, the movie where the song “Danger Zone” became popular. This was a 1986 American film with Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis (who recently announced that she is gay). It also starred Val Kilmer and Tom Skerritt.

Back then, the US military didn’t have Facebook or Twitter to recruit “top guns.” Now, the Pentagon uses Facebook. According to Sagar Meghani, an AP writer, Army officials are using Facebook to recruit young Americans between 18 to 24 years old. He quotes Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, "They live in the virtual world."

Gen. Raymond Odierno, who is the top U.S. commander in Iraq, alos has Facebook account. This provides him the opportunity in cyberspace to respond to questions about the mission in Iraq. Aside from the US Army, the Air Force and the Coast Guard also has a presence in Facebook.

I remember reading a story in the Inquirer about Jose Maria Sison also using Facebook to spread his message.

When Facebook first started in Feb 4, 2004, it was limited to a community of students in Harvard University. It later expanded to other colleges like Stanford, Columbia and Yale.

Am sure that when Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook he didn’t see Facebook growing into a 200 million-plus community worldwide that includes the US military and many Filipinos like me.