News reports are unkind to the faint-hearted. And with the instantaneous manner with which the Internet and those cable news networks bring these updates to the living room and bedroom, nobody is safe or can escape from news about bombings, earthquakes, killings, and other mayhems happening anywhere in the world.

This "immediatization" of current events reporting, however, has created a synthetic sense of urgency and foreboding among consumers of news reports. These days, it would seem like there are more wars being waged, more battles being ferociously fought, and more deadly man-made and natural catastrophes than there were before the age of the Internet.

But this is all synthetic, even a mirage. There were more wars in the dawn of history, and just as plenty and deadly disasters as there were when man was yet to learn how to write his history. If CNN and the other news networks were around to record the two great wars (World Wars I and II), today's little wars in little places on Earth would be a much smaller concern for the rest of the TV-watching world.

Samsung's Home Galaxy

Samsung introduced last week its Galaxy S smart phone in its home turf, South Korea. The Korean electronics giant, the second largest handset vendor in the world, asserted that Korean consumers would benefit more from using the phone's localized applications.

Running on Google's open source Android operating system, Galaxy S was earlier released in Europe, where over a million consumers pre-ordered the smart phone. Samsung also claimed it had supply deals with more than 100 mobile operators worldwide.

Also, Samsung said that more than 50% of its smart phones will be based on the Android mobile OS.
Will the smart-phone OS wars then be between the iPhone and Android? Will Windows Mobile be a mere footnote in the mobile OS history?

Sharp's i3 Wall Display

Last week, Japanese electronics company Sharp introduced its i3 Wall LCD screen system. Sharp has developed a technology that enables it to mount LCDs next to each other to create massively wide screens.

The company was able to reduce the space in between each LCD from the usual 40mm (1.6 inches) to mere 6.5mm, or 0.26 inches. This is the thinnest in the world so far for multi-LCD display mounts.

Sharp envisions its i3 Wall system to be mounted on walls, ceilings, and floors of businesses with showrooms, as well as shopping malls and airports.

That's all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.