Ali Kuru

This is the most beautiful and clever design (with projected desktop and keyboard, integrated bluetooth/IR dongle which doubles as an haptic controller – awesome!) for a mobile phone I’ve seen so far.

Unfortunately it’s just a concept and, since it’s designed by Billy May of Mozilla, we will never have a chance to see it in its physical form, probably not even a prototype. Being created by Mozilla Labs is not the only reason we will not see a phone like this anytime soon, there is also another big problem: nobody currently has a reliable battery technology to feed this greedy piece of machinery – well, not at least for a day :)

Here is what Mozilla Labs post says;

How does this relate to Mozilla / Mozilla Labs?

• Billy is a community member in the Mozilla Labs community and created Seabird in his spare time. Seabird is not a Mozilla or Mozilla Labs project but part of the Mozilla Labs Concept Series. The Concept Series provides a place for the wider community to create and collaborate on projects which push the boundaries of the Web and the browser.

Does Mozilla have plans to produce a mobile phone?

• No. Mozilla produces Firefox for Mobile, the popular Firefox browser for mobile phone systems such as Nokia Maemo and Android.

You must see the impressive video presentation of the concept phone after the break. (more…)

Looks like Google has won their data liberation slapfight with Facebook at last. When I was checking my Facebook settings to see if there is something related to new messaging system, I found something more interesting: there is now an option to download your user data from Facebook, which includes all your data (updates, photos, posts etc.) as well as your friend list!

Facebook still says that “Your download is currently being generated. You will receive an email when it’s ready”, I will inform you once i got their zip.

Update: Downloaded the zip file generated by Facebook. Unzipping it produced a directory tree containing HTML files and hotlinked stuff in separate directories. When you browse your friend list using the sidebar navigation at “index.html”, you only see your friends names, without any other information about them, no emails! Also, no email’s in the “friends.html” page code either.

Looks like nothing is over :)

According to official DLNA web site, Arçelik is going to be the first Turkish manufacturer to offer a DLNA certified product: an LCD TV in an unknown size with a LAN connection, which will act as a “digital media player”.

According to DLNA, the model of the certified product is 32SXCR6 and certificate date shows 8/30/2010, yet couldn’t find any news about the new LCD TV neither on Arçelik’s official web site, nor on Google.

No wireless network interface according to certificate, wonder if it is going to have an internal drive.

Here is the given certificate (PDF).

Update: Seems like Arçelik won’t be the only Turkish electronics manufacturer with DLNA certified goods in their product line. Vestel says (Turkish, sorry) that they’ve already demonstrated their “DLNA TV” at IFA 2010. It’s really interesting to hear that they’ve demonstrated their DLNA capable product before they got the certification though :)

Radikal, a Turkish newspaper with a name coming from the adopted English word “radical”, overhauled its physical form and welcomed readers with its new tabloid-ish size today.

I say tabloid-ish because the papers’ new size is little bigger than the tabloid standard. According to their new editor in chief Mr. Can, they choose this format – the “Radikal Size” – because it suits better for Turkish readers needs (comparing it with the tabloid size) and, combined with contextual changes, this represents “a radical revolution in media”.

I have to admit that I liked the new size. It’s now much easier to read the paper, i.e. you don’t need think if you’re going to disturb the by-sitter on the bus while turning the page. However, contrary to the Mr. Can’s idea, I think they choose this size not because of the limitations of the tabloid, but because of the newspaper stands here in Turkey.

Since all newspapers in Turkey use the traditional “broadsheet format”, stands have pockets for holding broadsheet newspapers folded in two. If they would have gone for tabloid instead of their current format, Radikal would fell short in size when presented with traditional newspapers in conventional stands and, to the untrained eye, image of Radikal would seem more like a magazine than a newspaper, which obviously would affect their sales in return.

Radikal’s new size is equal to a traditional broadsheet newspapers’ size when folded in two and, as you can easily see in the picture I took on the top left, the first thing a reader probably recognize would be its layout, rather than its size. I think what Radikal doing here is trying to soften the switch by mimicking the traditional.

I hope their clever marketing trick will ease the consequences of their revolution bold move :)

Although I had an account at Facebook for quite some time, using it never really interested me before.

Now, I’m about to permanently leave the town which I’m living for 14 years and the university which I’m working for nearly 9 years, thought that I would probably need something more efficient than email and IM for keeping connections with my friends and colleagues. Since all of them are using Facebook (just like the rest of the world must I say, if we consider the network is dwarfing any other alternative with its 400 million users!), using it seems inevitable. So, I decided to came out of the rock I’m hiding under for years, and created myself a profile.

Since every once in a while I read about privacy concerns of Facebook users on the net, I was skeptical about how it handles the privacy, and this was on top of my list of reasons for not using Facebook. However, I found their way of handling privacy more robust than I imagened. It looks like Facebook listens their users voice (“scream” could be more appropriate here), and evolves with their needs, which is good know.

I still have few annoyances about the service though; (more…)

After six years of tiring course work and boring lab studies, I’ve successfully defended my dissertation at the 23^rd of last month, and welcomed 2010 with a new title; “Doctor of Philosophy”.

Now, I’ve dedicated myself enjoying the unusual emptiness in my life, which feels eternal for the time being but will last with the beginning of April :/ Military service is mandatory for every healthy men in Turkey and I have postponed it to date because of my studies. The first week of April will probably mark the beginning of that duty.

There are several alternative ways for serving in Turkish Military depending on your education and in my case it will either take ~6 months if I’m lucky or a whole year if I’m not!

So, please wish me luck :)