Welcome MRT Bidders!

Welcome MRT Bidders! But apparently no bidders showed up for the bidding of the maintenance contract of the Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT3) which is amounting to P2.2 billion. So, what had happened to this supposedly multi-billion bidding event?

“We moved the deadline in our desire for bidders to submit. But unfortunately, they did not. We will have to republish by December,” Transportation Undersecretary Jose Perpetuo M. Lotilla told reporters at the sidelines of a hearing at the House of Representatives.

The DoTC originally scheduled Oct. 17 for the submission and opening of bids for the MRT-3 maintenance contract, yet decided to reschedule the deadline on Tuesday, Oct. 28. However, no one from the five companies that bought bid documents filed their bids.

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri J. Colmenares said a reason could be that the contract price was not competitive for the bidders, and asked the DoTC of their plans to address the “urgent” problem. 

Responding to a suggestion to hike the contract price, Mr. Lotilla said: “That is a possibility. Maybe the approved budget for the contract might have to be increased, or we might have to reconfigure the risk profile to make it more attractive to bidders.”

With that case the contract of Autre Potre Technique Global Inc. (APT), which is MRT’s current maintenance provider, will be more likely extended until a new maintenance contract is awarded and having the current issues MRT3 had these past few weeks in terms of non-working couches and those instances that connotes commuter’s safety, I don’t think this work around will not be a good resolution.

Meanwhile, DOTC under Mar Roxas and then Jun Abaya were keeping excuses to get hold of the bidding way back 2012. And now, since there’s no bidders showed up, APT Global will be extending its contract. Is this a tactics of getting ahold of MRT 3? Due to delaying techniques of Jun Abaya he appointed PH Trans and APT Global as maintenance providers because of “lack of time” that’s why imposed their emergency power. So, Instead of this early aggressively promoting the presidential bid of Roxas, Secretary Abaya should focus more on addressing the problems besetting the MRT-LRT, such as the endless lines, computer glitches, non-working elevators and escalators, sardine-like coaches, accidents and many more.

Grrrr… I am a taxpayer and commuter and having a convenient MRT3 ride is what I only ask for the government. Besides, taxpayers and commuters are the one who really suffers and yet they don’t know where they hard-earned money go.

Taylor Swift vs. Spotify

If you like Taylor Swift and art of listening again and again their songs on Spotify, I have bad news for you: the singer has now withdrawn his entire discography of this popular streaming platform. If you search for his name, you will get zero results. And if you had your music in a playlist, it will be gone suddenly.

While Swift has not yet ruled on the matter (neither has his record) from the official Spotify blog heaped original including a nifty bounce playlist and a plea to return. Not for less: say more than 16 million users have played their songs in the last month. But leaving numbers and jokes aside, Spotify are certainly very concerned. Or should be. The reasons for the withdrawal of Taylor Swift can be many.

Some say it has to do with the fact that his new album, 1989, was released just a few days ago (not on Spotify, eye) and wants to seize on to sell more records or that people resort to other platforms streaming. Interestingly, and in time, his discography is still online on Rdio. From Billboard point to another possible reason: selling the record in which is Swift, though other artists of the same are still available in the popular platform. However, there may be another reason that adds to all these: Taylor Swift has always been critical to these platforms.

That was made clear in an article published in the Wall Street Journal last summer. It claimed that due to piracy and streaming, fewer records sold. So Swift did not publish their new albums on Spotify until well after a while.

Amazon's New Prime Photo

The leading on-line retailer in America, Amazon.com has released a new benefit, Prime Photo, for Amazon Prime members. For a $99.00 annual fee, members not only get free 2 day shipping, access to thousands of free movies and television shows, and music, as well a huge lending library, but now Amazon's cloud drive offers secure online unlimited photo storage, automatic photo backup, and lets you access your photos anywhere: on your phone, computer, tablet, or any Fire device.

Those photos can then be viewed on those devices, as well as, on the big screen via Amazon Fire TV, the new Fire TV Stick, game consoles like the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, and some models of LG and Samsung smart TVs. Luckily, I have a Samsumg Smart TV, so I am in the process of downloading all the digital copies I had downloaded from discs and stored in window media. This will allow me to finally be able to watch them on the big screen.

Granted the downloading process is painfully slow, but it will be worth it once I get the movies all downloaded. At one point in time, I considered discontinuing my Amazon Prime membership after the announced was made that the subscription price was going up from $79.00 to $99.00 in 2015. With all of these great new benefits, I have changed my mind. In my opinion the $99.00 subscription is reasonable, considering the multitude of benefits Amazon is now offering, and I believe this is really just the tip of iceberg, with all of capabilities available thorough the Amazon cloud drive.

Toshiba announces 5TB HDDs

Currently, companies like Hitachi, Seagate and Toshiba, have hard drives with storage capacities greater than 4 terabytes "TB" (up to 6TB), which are only available to the business segments and servers. Toshiba plans to change the situation described above, announcing new hard drives with storage capacities of 5 and 4 terabytes, targeted consumer segment.

The model and exact specifications of both units are still unknown, but we can assume that will be available in the standard form factor of 3.5 ", will have a rotation speed of 7200 revolutions per minute and will be based on the technology of recording perpendicular data .

Both units will have a warranty period of 3 years and is estimated to have prices between USD $ 299.99 and USD $ 399.99.

Marvel Comics officially announces a crossover with 'Attack on Titan'

Marvel Comics has recently dropped a major bomb. You may assume that this is a prank, but Marvel Comics assures that it is not the case. On Twitter, Marvel Comics' senior Vice President of Creative & Creator Development C.B. Cebulski said that there is going to be an official crossover between the Marvel Comics franchise and the popular anime series “Attack on Titan” aka “Shingeki No Kyojin.” Keep in mind that this is going to be one of those “What-If” stories that takes place in an alternate universe. Ultimately, it is going to be many notable Marvel Comics figures fighting it out with the the Titans of Attack on Titan. Cebulski reminded everybody in one of this tweets that this is the first time that a manga series crossed over into other comic universes.

 Before you get all excited about the possibility, the issue of how it will actually work. When you look at Attack on Titan, it is normal humans fighting off against the countless legions of cannibalistic Titans. In Marvel Comics, like any other comic universe, you have super-powered beings. It is probably a given that Spider-Man is going to be a character in the crossover from what the teaser art shows.

There is no knowing on who from the Marvel side will be in the crossover. Will there be any notable characters from the Attack on Titan side in the crossover, too? Not much has been revealed. That leaves a lot of speculating and imagining. It will rest on having a good story that neither belittles the Marvel characters or the Titans. When you carefully think about it, many of the Marvel characters can easily dispatch the Titans if they fought each other.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, create and manage your Android phone from your clan

Shortly we can talk about the Call of Duty franchise that no longer know. Played by thousands of players all over the world, the Call of Duty franchise has become a phenomenon in the world of online gaming. His last title, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is one of the most anticipated by all his followers, and although there is still to play a COD-always in our Android devices can be conformed with Modern Combat 5: Blackout Gameloft- we already have Google Play, the official application of Call of Duty with which to create and manage our own clan in a simple and fast way.

As we read on Android Central, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the best tool to be connected to the COD world at those times when we are away from our consoles. A powerful tool available for Android, iOS and Windows Phone with which we can manage: Guild Wars: compete with our peers against other clans besides controlling positions in the map, get exclusive prizes. War Room: a place where we can see both the wars of active and upcoming clans, our record of clan wars and clan members who have contributed.

Editor emblems: the application has a complete emblems editor that can be used to create a custom clan emblem or player that syncs with the emblems of the game editor. Additional Features: clan chat, clan profile, player profiles and more. The application is free on Google Play, has a size of 41 MB and you must have an Android 2.3.3 device for use. We are therefore faced with an essential application for all Call of Duty player and help us reach our clan to the number one spot.

LG Display's New LCD Smartphone Panel Has Slimmest Bezel Yet

LG Display unveiled a new full high-definition LCD panel featuring the narrowest bezel for smartphones yet. The 5.3-inch HD display knocks the smartphone bezel down to 0.7 mm thick, according to the LCD display manufacturer.

That’s smaller than the thickness of a credit card in comparison which measure in at 0.8 mm. The display is bigger and more powerful than the recently released Sharp Aquos Crystal featuring a 5-inch, 720p screen though not quite as large as the 5.5-inch LG G3 released earlier in the year. LG Display was able to develop the screen through the use of its “Neo Edge” technology which is a process that integrates the panel’s circuit board and backlight into a single unit.

The technology prevents light leakage and ensures the unit is waterproof and dustproof. Mass production on the displays will begin in November and will ship to customers in China first “where demand for large screen smartphones is strong.” IGN gave the slim-bezeled Sharp Aquos Crystal a 7.4, calling it an “attractive but flawed entry-level phone.”

Google is renewing Calendar for Android and will prepare a version for iOS

The main novelty is the material design interface, similar to what already happens in other apps. Now it is easier to search and find events scheduled in the Calendar. Moreover, the new system will automatically import markings as flight reservations, purchases of tickets for shows or other events that are in the Inbox, and add them to the calendar user.

The markings are now presented in a more visible and highlights as background colors and images form, so they are more easily discernible, explained to The Verge. Initially, the app is available for Android 5.0 and follows the version for Android 4.1 or higher. Another novelty is the preparation for the first time, a fully prepared for iOS version, although still not know the release date.

Galaxy Note Edge: What A Curve

Set to release on November 14th Samsung has announced that they are going to release the Galaxy Note Edge. And not only is this phone going to be big, but it's also going to have a curve on the edge of the screen. It's kind of strange that Samsung would have a curve on the very right of a phone, but it seems to work well from the demos we have seen so they rolled with it.

Personally I don't see the usefulness in having the design this way, but it looks pretty cool for some things it can do like quick shortcuts to apps and being able to change it to whatever you want it to do. The problem I see what will happen is that the side of the screen will get in the way when you want to watch movies or you play games.

It looks like it would be awkward to hold for just that reason, let alone the phone being a whopping 5.6 inches big. I gotta give it to Samsung though because they marketed this well to make it not as strange and they also made it look very functional. I doubt I will get a phone like this, but it's nice to have options.