Last week, I scoured the Internet, looking for the English translation of the Tagalog word “pikon.” While there were lots of Web sites offering their own take on the English equivalent or approximations of pikon, I could not find any that I felt fully captures the word’s real essence.

Some of the translations proposed by those Web sites, some of them including posts by users claiming themselves as half-Pinoys, include “easy to anger,” “sore loser,” and “sorely lacking in sense of humor.” Anyway, the reason why I was looking for the word’s equivalent in good old English was I wanted to comment on the news story from the Associated Press, detailing how Apple “updated” its iTunes software.

Unlike some ordinary software updates, however, Apple’s move disabled the Palm Pre’s feature that used to allow the smartphone to perform seamless synchronization with the software. According to the AP story, Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said, the update “disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre.”

This corner’s take on the dis-synchronization move by Apple? The Palm Pre must have been doing a good job as the first real, credible challenger to the iPhone and the iPod. How else can anybody explain this tantrum by the supposedly coolest electronics company on Earth?

Or maybe, just maybe, Apple is still sore over former Apple executive Jon Rubinstein’s decision to jump ship and become Palm’s executive chairman almost a couple of years ago in October 2007.
Either way, Apple’s move to disable the Pre’s ability to synchronize with iTunes shows Jobs and company are “pikon.”

Solar Hybrid Phone

Japan’s biggest mobile operator, NTT DOCOMO, last week unveiled the SH-08A Solar Hybrid mobile phone. The handset can be recharged with sunlight or by a conventional phone charger. Should the phone’s battery be totally drained, 10 minutes of solar recharging using a solar panel on the phone’s body would provide up to a minute of talk time at least.

This is good news for those who wish to go to the Sun. Our piece of advice, though: never go there at night.

Anyway, the phone, aside from being solar friendly, is also waterproof. Submersible to a maximum depth of a meter, the phone can survive heavy rains, or seriously stupid mobile subscribers who use their phones while in a bath.

When Right Is Might

For our children’s sake, let us choose the right people to become our government leaders in 2010. For quite sometime now, our country has been saddled with politicians and their shenanigans. How about we elect some true statesmen (or stateswomen) this time?

Let us heed the call of our bishops (or pastors or imams, as the case may be), let us choose good people from among those aspiring for national and local government positions. If there are good people among them, that is.

Better yet, those people intent on running this coming election should listen to the bishops’ latest exhortations: Only good men and women should run. So, to all politicians and their relatives: if you’re no good or up to no good, for God’s sake, don’t run for any elective positions.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again as we keep on watching IT and some other things.