XiJEN College

Tech Talk
Joel T. Fagsao

Why did they not think of that?  I was lining up at the ATM booth and observed as the security guard assisted an elderly woman verify if the money booth has something for her.  Grandma cannot read and write and so she puts her full trust in letting the guard enter the PIN number and do the verification.  I do not have any doubts on the trustworthiness of the guard as I have seen our senior citizens being assisted by the guards so many times already.  The thing is, the guard could concentrate more on his primary duty-that of securing the bank if only all bank clients are able to transact alone without assistance.  Alas technology makes it more difficult for the non techie to navigate complicated (to them) transactions that requires at least basic literacy skills.  In India however, it is technology that adjusts to the limitations of their citizens.  In some places in India, ATMs have been designed to accept bio metric scans as a replacement of the PIN.  Instead of entering an ATM card and the PIN number-a press of the thumb on the ATM’s screen (touch screen) is all that is needed to authenticate the transaction.  Then the whole week’s wages is spewed by the machine.  Now why didn’t GSIS, Mega Link’s bright boys do that in the first place? That would have been service placed several notches higher.  

LED Lights

First we had the ordinary light bulb, followed by CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs.  The main purpose of the heavy promotion of CFLs was energy efficiency versus the ordinary bulb.  Then the “green” advocates cried oops…something’s not right.  Yes, something is not right with CFLs.  CFLs contain mercury and are a problem when spent CFLs are disposed.  Not all provinces, cities and municipalities have the capacity to dispose CFLs properly.  Enter into the picture; Light Emitting Diodes otherwise known as LED are coming in to replace CFLs.  LED bulbs are more energy efficient than the CFLs but are not yet in mass production.  You only see them in flashlights (rechargeable) proliferating in our sidewalks and vendor’s stands.  In other countries though, LED lamps are becoming the standard. A few ads are being placed in newspapers flaunting that the LED bulbs can replace even our halogen lamps that light up our tennis and basketball courts.  Cost is still an issue but the promise of a 50,000 hour lifespan for each bulb is a worthy investment.  LED lamps are also great energy savers.  For example a 5 watt LED bulb is the equivalent of a 50 watts incandescent bulb.  Besides cutting your energy bills, the white light of the LED lamps are cooler on the eyes.  Still going further, I hope to see the day when solar powered lamps become the norm.  For now, I will put to the test a solar powered garden lamp that set me back five hundred bucks.  It automatically lights up when darkness sets in.  The brightness is just fine, but I’m taking note of how long it will last.  The downside of using solar powered lighting fixture and other solar powered gadgets is the price.  Solar panels are still expensive and without government subsidy- solar panels will not be as common as the TV set in most homes for now.

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Another innovation in the tech world is achieving transparency in government transactions.  The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has started the ball rolling.  The DILG website at www.dilg.gov.ph publishes the status of funds of each attached agency.  DILG and the rest of the government agencies could be more transparent when fund utilization of the local units (provinces, municipalities and cities) are also published.  LGUs could also follow suit by publishing where fund allotments have been spent.  Meanwhile, if you want to find out where your congressman’s pork has been spent, you can log on to www.congress.gov.ph and boom!  You have very limited information, not all of the Philippine’s members of congress projects funded from their pork barrel are not listed.  Now that’s what we call transparency.  Only in the Philippines!