August is a deadliest, bloodiest month on these islands.

The month has seen some of the most exciting, scariest, and most hair-raising events that have gone on to become part of the national consciousness, if ever this country and its people had one. The Philippine revolution, started by Andres Bonifacio near the dying days of the Spanish colonization, began with the katipuneros’ act of defiance against the colonizers by tearing up their cedulas.

The first mass littering event ever recorded in this country happened in an August day, more than a hundred years ago.

Almost three decades ago, Ninoy was shot minutes after he landed in Manila’s international airport, felled by an assassin’s bullet. It happened on the 21st day of August.

Between these two events, a good number of events and incidents took place, as our history books tell us.

August, indeed, is one tragic, drama-filled, and comedy-inspiring month.

Eastern Telecoms’ Ad Platform

A week or so ago, Eastern Telecoms offered a bunch of IT journalists and bloggers a glimpse of the company’s intelligent advertising and display platform and tools. Built with off-the-shelf parts and components — LCD screen, media player, DSL connection, and a Webcam — and with enough simplicity to allow fast turnkey deployments, the system can help advertisers keep track off viewership data such as number of those looking at the display, gender, and age group.

Built in partnership with Singapore-based 1-2-1 View, the IntelliAds and STATview IP-based digital signage solution and feedback system tools are being marketed to real estate companies, mall owners, hospitals, and government agencies.

No iPad Killers

Last week’s IFA technology show in Germany saw the coming out parties for tablet PCs from Samsung and Toshiba. Dubbed by media reports (and I guess, by some of their respective handlers) as iPad killers, these new slate computers have some tough task ahead of them.

The Galaxy Tab from Samsung comes with a 7-inch touchscreen, and looks like a bigger version of the Korean company’s Galaxy smartphone. It runs a 2.2 version of the Android operating system.

Toshiba, for its part, also launched the Folio 100, another tablet PC running on the Android platform. Equipped with a screen bigger than the iPad’s, the Folio will sell for 399 euros.

Expect more tablet PCs coming in the next few months. But this corner really hopes their makers and marketers would stop calling them iPad killers. Nobody needs being killed for anybody else to succeed. It is a big market, the slate computer segment, that is, after all.

And it is quite early in the game to say that anybody has a secure stranglehold on the market.

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