It's Sunday : Photo of the Week 07, Paris : La Seine by Night

This photo has been taken by my Xiaomi Mi2S.

It's Sunday : Photo of the Week 06, Athens' Parthenon

This is a public photo from Wikipedia.

The Parthenon is the temple dedicated to the Goddess Athena and is built on the Athenian Acropolis. It took Athenians 9 years to build it from 447 BC to 438 BC when Athens was at its peak. Democracy, philosophy, knowledge and already such a civilization.

I can't help be feel like the Middle Age has been a real set back in our evolution and only during the Renaissance, the Occidental World has been able to resume its former glory. Imagine if it were at this time, during Renaissance that smaartphones would have been invented, what would we be using now ?

The Rise of Asian Internet Users from 2008 to Today

Internet penetration is as good as an indicator as any other to measure the economic rise of a geographic area.
So I gather a few maps the Oxfort Internet Institute tracing the evolution of the Internet Population since 2008.

It is interesting to see that China was already the largest country users wise back then. Or course the Internet Penetration wasn't as good as Europe or North America.
The populations in India and China are so big that it was already quite something.

A few years later, in 2011, it has become bigger. Much bigger.

Mark Graham and Stefano De Sabbata, authors of the maps stated :

"First, the rise of Asia as the main contributor to the world’s Internet population; 42 percent of the world’s Internet users live in Asia, and China, India, and Japan alone host more Internet users than Europe and North America combined."

Last week, the two researchers published on the same 2011 map the top website for each country. The usual suspects are there : Google, Facebook and Baidu for China and South Korea. But there is one surprise : Yahoo topped Google in Japan.

It's Thursday : App Review of the Week 02, Tower of Saviors

Welcome to our second In Depth Review of the week : Tower of Saviors (Free)

It's Sunday : Photo of the Week 05, LeBron James

As the NBA pre-season just started, LeBron James is "en route" to his possible first 3 peat.

This photo was taken when LeBron got the Bill Russel trophy awarding the the Finals MVP. LBJ is showing like he is untouchable at this very moment while he was under an enormous pressure during the Finals.

If he had not won his 2nd consecutive title, it would have been a disaster media wise for LBJ while he did manage to go the Finals 3 times in a row.

It's Sunday : Photo of the Week 04, the Grand Canyon

This is a public photo of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA. 

I still haven't got the chance to to so, but I intend, someday, to do a road trip across the USA from the East to the West, from New York to Los Angeles. 

In most of the greatest road trips movies like Thelma and Louise, the Grand Canyon is the place for the final scene. The recent (not so good) comedy Guilt Trip starring Seth Rogen, the Grand Canyon is part of it at some point. 

There is definitively something special about road trips and maybe the USA is the best place for it. It is one of the rarest place where such trips are can be easily done : one big country but quite practical in a vehicle due to fair landscape and weather overall. 

Try to make road trips in Russia or in South America... Yes, thought so. 

Road trips represent one of the ultimate way of evasion while staying in contact with the rest of the civilization. Best of both worlds I guess. There is somewhat a certain romance, adventure and very intimate about it. You share it with your best friend or a close relative most of the times. 

And when you happen to travel with a stranger in movies (Forces of Nature, Due Date, Midnight Run) , you become way much closer because there is a sense of accomplishment and you can see multiple facets of the personality of the other person. Being very intimate on the road and how one interacts with others when you're making stops in towns or cities. 

Somewhat, the Grand Canyon represents a big part of that. I haven't even told the best part of it : what happens on the road stays on the road. 

Anyway, it's Sunday and I'm not really physically traveling, so I might as well doing it in my head. 

Samsung has gone mad : Galaxy Note 3 is Region Locked

This is like ancient times and we only saw that kind of region locked in the consoles gaming and cinema industries.

Android Authority has this first while the Note 3 went on sale two days ago in 58 countries.

European and American versions are region locked for sure, those Note 3 will only accept Sim cards from Europe or America.
Samsung even put specific stickers confirming such locks on 100% unlocked devices (without contract).

In these days and modern age, this region locked restriction sounds really stupid. When you are going to travel outside of your given region, you must keep the same Sim card and you might want to deactivate roaming data since your monthly fee can significantly increase.

In all likeliness, Asian versions should get the same treatment as well.

Meanwhile, Samsung Germany issued a statement that if you bought a Note 3 not from your region, if it has never been activated, you can unlock the device at your local Samsung Store in your region. Which is, somewhat, still quite tricky.

It's Sunday : Photo 03 of the Week

This is a public photo of the city Damascus by night in Syria. The photo has been taken before the current's civil war.

Damascus is arguably the oldest city of our world. It became a city around 9000 BC and nowadays it the second biggest city of Syria.
I have been there once a few years back and it really is a beautiful city so rich in history. And it remind be that while the world as we know it seems relatively stable, things tend to change and when they do, it is very fast.

Syria is trying to resolve its civil war in which at least 3 factions are fighting and it is rather an ugly one. At some point, the international community might have to intervene especially if abusive means are being used such as chemical gas attacks.

In the past, way back then, Damascus must have been the place to be, it offered jobs and dreams like New York or Hong Kong nowadays. The first time I heard about Damascus was part of Alexander The Great's history. The historic city was part of his vast territory.

Anyway, I'll see you next Sunday for another photo of the week.

It's Sunday : Photo 02 of the Week

This photo has been taken by a XiaoMi Mi 2A.

It is a photo of small city in the province of ZheJiang. 20 years ago, the whole area didn't look like anything and this part of the city has small houses around the river. People used to go to the river to wash their dishes ans clothes.

Those last years, many cities enforced some environmental friendly rules and got rivers cleaned from most of the pollution. 10 years ago, it would have been unimaginable to get into the water, nowadays, you can swim in this very river and cross it if you want.
New houses have been built and they are extremely expensive, the average square meter of the house in this photo cost at least RMB 60 000 (US$ 9800).

This photo has been taken from my aunt's home which is in building.

Phoneblocks : revolutionary concept phone that will probably never be reality

The story has been out for a few days now but I kept going back to the official Phoneblocks website (which is down for the moment due to the amount of visits), so why not share my own interests.

Basically, you will get a Smartphone for life. Due to planned obsolescence, people are changing their devices every 12 to 24 months while they just want the new HD display, more storage or the new powerful chip.

With phoneblocks, your smarpthone is made of different blocks, one for each feature. If you want to upgrade your display, just change the screen block, etc...

But this project will most likely never be funded as it will change so much the phone industry that it will scare off the investors. While PhonAsia is part of this industry, we are supporting 100% this project and phoneblocks is aiming at a huge buzz on October, 29th on all social media. We, of course, liked the project on Facebook and Twitter and we expect you do the same because everyone deserves the best. Links are given on their Youtube video (you actually need to go on Youtube) :

              

It's Sunday, welcome to our Photo of the Week 01 Selection

The photo has been taken by my XiaoMi Mi 2S using HDR.

I am at the beach in Saint-Tropez, France. This is one of the secret area that I could enjoy, you need to take some private routes to get there and usually, people turn back because of those private routes.

Around this beach, there are so many people because it is summer time and it is the famous Cote d'Azur in France.

This beach used to be so empty because of its secret location, this year has been one of the most populated one even though it remains enjoyable and way emptier than others beaches.

Ask me if you want to know the secret location !

Russian Woman defends herself against a thief who stole her phone !

Don't mess with wrong girl, she will put your down on your knees and keep you there permanently.

While the numbers of smartphones thefts are increasing, it is good to see that the thief is getting punished.