UP Students Reach World Finals of Kaspersky Lab Tilt

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Bagging one of the top prizes in the recent regional round, three students of the University of the Philippines-Diliman (UPD) are advancing to the final phase of an international conference hosted by secure content and threat management solutions developer, Kaspersky Lab.

The research paper of Computer Science students Adelen Victoria Festin, Camille Salazar and Flor Marie Carmeli Sison finished third place in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa Cup of the annual conference dubbed as CyberSecurity for the Next Generation (CSNG).

The Filipino students took home a prize of US$750 for their study "Communect: Secure Community Connection Using OpenBTS as an Alternative Base Station," which was presented at the regional event held at the Korea University in Seoul, South Korea last March 11 to 13.

One Fighting Championship Returns to Manila with Rise of Heroes

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Many have been said about One Fighting Championship, but not too many tell the stories behind the men whom people only see courageously fighting against each other as if they are nothing more than just entertainment. Mixed Martial Arts may be a show of force to determine who is more powerful and determined to come out on the top as the champion, but is also made up of real people with feelings, sense and sensibilities that deserve our respect.

Many of them joining the One FC: Rise of Heroes have endearing personal lives that will make you admire, sympathize and fall in love with them. From the story of a young man who had his parents invest all their meager wealth so they could sponsor his career in fighting, to the very generous acts of giving freely some hard-earned money just to help out a colleague that suffered a terrible disaster.

These are men with interesting stories that will touch you once you get to know them more. Just like all of us, the competing spirit does not only exists while they are on the battle arena happening on May 2, 2014 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City, it remains as they go on with their own living their own separate lives.

Pinoy Music Summit 2014: Collaborating with Key Music Industry Stakeholders to Revive OPM Greatness

Wazzup Pilipinas!

OPM is dead.

So many of us would think that is the harsh and very unfortunate reality. FILSCAP President and Conference Director Noel Cabangon, during his introductory talk at the Pinoy Music Summit 2014 held at the Landbank Plaza in Manila last March 19, 2014, may be treading on realistic and undeniable facts that we have earlier predicted to eventually happen when the Internet boomed into a massive source of information that is easily accessible to everyone. There was information overload coming from all over the world, including access to information and content that should have been private or not intended for public consumption.

We could have won in the battle against bootleg copies because there is nothing better than the original album especially when signed by the artist himself, but when downloadable MP3s began proliferating among music lovers, it became a nightmare too hard to wake up from.

Aside from libraries going extinct and is now more like a museum for the new generation belonging to the digital tribe, video shops and record bars have tremendously suffered as well. The pirates boasts "Why buy original when you can easily download for free your favorite songs and videos on your computers, music players and smartphones?"

We did try to embrace technology by offering digital distributions, but the pirates are just too smart, creative, and able to outwit us again. Digital distribution could not fairly compete with the ingenuity of determined pirates.

But would you agree that OPM is dead?