It’s two days after Christmas. Most of my half-a-dozen faithful readers would not be reading this piece. I know most of them would be nursing one of their worst ever hangovers, or stomach discomforts, from all those heavy-duty, extreme sports of eating and drinking.

Anyway, for those of you who perhaps by accident or sheer lack of anything else worthwhile to do ended up reading this piece: a belated but nevertheless most sincere greeting of a Merry Christmas. And an advanced Happy New Year, too.

Also, a strong piece of reminder regarding that annual itch of yours to light up those firecrackers: bang your drums or pails or pieces of milk cans instead. That would be as noisy as and definitely a lot safer than risking losing your fingers by playing with those deadly explosives masquerading as New Year-welcoming devices.

Our imploring for our fellowmen this coming year would be this and only this: can we all live less dangerously in 2011 and for all the coming years? Can we finally learn to follow what our elders have been telling us for the longest time?

Can we finally learn to follow the rules, not only because there might be somebody watching us? Can we finally find it deep within our hearts the reason to think of the welfare of people other than ourselves and our immediate families?

In short, can we be human and humane? After all, that is how we were supposed to be in the first place.

3D, Not Dorky

Last week, Toshiba launched in Japan the Regza GL1 Series of 3D televisions that do not require consumers to wear special (read, nerdy and dorky) glasses.

I first saw this technology when I attended the 2004 CEATEC electronics trade show in Tokyo; and more than half a decade later, this technology is incorporated by electronics vendors into their consumer products.

I hope this technology is adopted by the general consumer market. Although we are fully aware that the basic 3D technology is not yet that widely accepted, this corner wishes that 3D TVs would be able to satisfy consumers’ demand for innovative display systems and entertainment platforms that do no harm to their eyes and, of course, their wallets.

Dual-Core Mobile Phones

Last week also saw LG Electronics’ launch of the LG Optimus 2X, the world’s first smartphone that comes with a dual-core processor. Aside from its promise of clock speeds of up to 1GHz, NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor also boasts of low power consumption. The latter feature means today’s puny (in terms of stored energy) batteries for mobile electronics would last as long (if not longer than) they do today with the present crop of mobile phones.

The Tegra 2 also, in theory, would enable the Optimus 2X smartphone to offer “faster, smoother” Web browsing. Aside from executing applications well, the phone should be able to handle multitasking without the usual hiccups that afflict its older rivals in the market.

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