Top Costa Rica News

• Kolbi prepago customers just went through their first week of “Semana Kolbi.” Semana Kolbi now has double days every week. Your double day is based on the last digit of your phone number. Monday is double day for numbers ending in 1 or 2, Tuesday 3 or 4, Wednesday 5 or 6, Thursday 7 or 8, and Friday 9 or 0. You still must make a minimum charge of 1,000 colones to get the double amount. Semana Kolbi runs through June 7. Kolbi is getting good a social media advertising. There is the Semana Kolbi song on SoundCloud, and video on YouTube.
• For Kolbi prepago, you can utilize the emergency Kolbi Save Me service, if your account balance is 5 colones, or less. You just send a text message to 6060 with the word “salvame”. Kolbi loans 250 colones to your account for making calls, sending text messages, or connecting to the Internet. The next time you charge your phone, Kolbi deducts 280 colones (30 colones for a service fee) from your account balance. You can call 800PREPAGO, if you have any problems with this service.
• SUTEL is investigating over 200 complaints of blocked cell phone service. Some retailers are jamming calls that impact on customers of ICE/Kolbi, Claro, and MoviStar. In Costa Rica, it is illegal to operate a cellphone jamming device.
• The American Embassy in Costa Rica issued a scam alert for a male caller who identifies himself as a employee of the Embassy. The man asks for personal information, including social security numbers, so as to register you with the American Embassy. These calls are all fake, as the Embassy does not register you over the phone. If you wish to register with the Embassy, you just need to visit www.travel.state.gov, and register with the STEP program.

Top Mobile Device News

• On Wednesday, Facebook announced a new App Center, for Facebook centric applications. The new App Center will include both iOS and Android apps. For an app to be included in the new App Center, it will have to comply to the Facebook guidelines. The essence of which is that an app must connect to Facebook, and promote a personalized experience with Facebook.
• This week, Google expanded Hangouts to include “Hangouts on the Air.” With Hangouts on the Air, your hangout becomes a public stream to your Google+ account, YouTube Channel, and even on your Web site. When you end your Hangout on the Air session, the stream is automatically saved to your YouTube Channel. You can now share it just like any YouTube video, and the comments to the video provide a means for an ongoing dialogue. Live streaming means that you can publicly broadcast any event, and have it recorded at the same time.
• Instagram adds the popular tilt shift effect to their Android app. From the raindrop icon, you select either (o) circular, or (-) linear tilt shift. The tilt shift blurs any area outside the circle or bar. You can move and adjust the translucent area to create the desired effect.
• Have we become technology junkies? Smartphones are on track to set a record for the fastest adoption rate of any technology in history. As a comparison, it took land-line phones 45 years to go from 5% to 50% penetration in US households, smartphones achieved the same growth in just 4 years.

Other Top Technology News

• On May 11, 1997 IBM’s Deep Blue computer triumphed over world chess champion Garry Kasparov, with a score of 3.5-2.5. Deep Blue was the first of IBM’s Grand Challenges. In 2004, Blue Gene solved the problem of protein folding and gene development. In the latest challenge, Watson tackled the problem of natural language processing and analysis. The challenge was a contest with the top champions of Jeopardy!. Do you know who won Final Jeopardy!? The opening of the new IBM support center in Costa Rica, opens the door for Costa Ricans to participate in IBM’s new technologies.
• Everyone can relax, it seems there has been a misunderstanding about the Mayan calendar. An archaeological find in Guatemala indicates that that 2012 is the end of one calendar cycle, and the beginning of the bakun cycle. In reality, we have a few octillion years left to contemplate our fate. The full details will appear in the June issue of National Geographic, who helped sponsor the mission.