Petron blazes into history, slams grand slam

MANILA, Philippines - Petron Blaze slammed Talk n Text’s grand Triple Crown aspiration, completing a dream ride of its own with a resounding 85-73 victory that netted the proud SMC franchise PBA championship banner No. 19 to the roaring approval of its throngs at the Smart Araneta Coliseum last night.

The Boosters effectively prevented the Tropang Texters’ entry to the elite ranks of grand slam winners in the league, stealing the thunder in grabbing the season-ending Governors Cup championship.

Six months after losing the Philippine Cup crown to the Texters, the Boosters exacted their revenge – so sweet scored for a team down to 10 in the end.

The Boosters, nonetheless, didn’t run out of heroes and, at the final buzzer, held aloft a first crown in two years.

Arwind Santos churned out a 14th double-double (16 points and 16 rebounds) and Alex Cabagnot came through with a near triple double (12 points, nine rebounds and eight assists), and both experienced a first ever championship in the pro league.

Old vanguard Danny Ildefonso was a star in his prime, contributing 13 points, seven rebounds, two steals and one assist as he won an eighth PBA crown.

Anthony Grundy was right there at the forefront, redeeming himself from a five-point showing in Game Six with 26 points and seven rebounds in this no-tomorrow game.

Santos, who averaged huge double-double numbers in the series, won the Phoenix Finals MVP award.

The former FEU stalwart saved his best for last, highlighting his sterling act with a breakaway two-handed jam to eventually break the back of Talk n Text, 81-73, inside the final minute.

“Kami ngayon ang pinakamasayang tao sa mundo (We’re now the happiest people on earth),” said Santos during the awards rites.

Santos and company, undermanned minus Jay Washington, Rabeh Al-Hussaini, Joseph Yeo and Lordy Tugade, hacked out an improbable title run handing coach Ato Agustin a championship right in his first season as tactician in the pros.

“Nagkamali sila at kami ang pinili nila (They committed a mistake in choosing us to play in the finals),” said Agustin, believing Talk n Text deliberately dropped its last game in the semifinals to have Petron, instead of Barangay Ginebra, as finals opponent.

Agustin became the eighth personality to have won as player and coach in the PBA after Fort Acuna, Robert Jaworski, Rino Salazar, Ely Capacio, Joel Banal, Siot Tanquincen and Norman Black.

And after Jaworski, he’s the second MVP winner to become a champion coach.

“We worked hard to avenge our first conference loss and we worked hard to defend the ranks of grand slam champion teams,” said Agustin, a member of the 1989 San Miguel Triple Crown winner.

Striking hard on their own kick-and-drive plays, the Boosters opened an early huge lead at 27-13 nine minutes into the game.

Denok Miranda scored their first seven points then Grundy, Santos, Ildefonso and Cabagnot put their act together as the Petron starters combined for all the team’s 28 points in the first period and all 12 in the second.

Ranidel de Ocampo and Maurice Baker took the cudgels for the Texters in the second period, making nine and eight, respectively, as TnT came to within six, 34-40, at the half.

The Boosters were still enjoying a double-digit spread at 34-24 before losing momentum on a flagrant infraction by Jojo Duncil on Baker.

Baker drew a hard foul from Sunday Salvacion in the next play and the Talk n Text import nailed four straight charities to make it a close game through the half.

Talk n Text had a chance to make it a four-point game at the turn but Santos blocked a dunk attempt by De Ocampo in the closing seconds.

The Boosters set the pace in the first half with a 41.7-percent shooting as against the Texters’ 31-percent clip.

source : PhilStar

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With HP tablet dead, who can challenge Apple?

NEW YORK (Reuters)- The sudden demise of Hewlett-Packard Co's WebOS TouchPad after just seven weeks on shelves was a reminder of how tech giants have failed so far to take a bite out of Apple Inc's iPad.

The TouchPad joins Dell Streak 5 in the tablet graveyard and weak sales for many offerings suggest others are bound to follow.

"The non-iPad tablets just won't sell at retail. That's the clear message from events over the past few days," said Mark Gerber, an analyst at Boston research and investment firm Detwiler Fenton.

Other tablets that have failed to click with consumers include Asustek Computer Eee Pad Transformer and the Xoom from Motorola Mobility, which Google Inc plans to buy.

Research in Motion's PlayBook received scathing reviews and sales have been slack, but it will probably survive since it is key to RIM's strategy.

"I do not expect RIM to be shutting down PlayBook sales any time soon or abandoning that platform, because RIM views it as its future," said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Financial in New York.

Apple's rivals have not fared any better in designing software for tablets.

Apple's iOS tablet software accounted for 61.3 percent of the tablet market in the second quarter, more than double the 30.1 percent share held by Google's Android, its nearest competitor. Microsoft held a paltry 4.6 percent share and RIM 3.3 percent, according to Strategy Analytics.

COMPETITION COMING

But the landscape could soon change. Google's move this week to buy Motorola Mobility, a hardware manufacturer, has also potentially raised the stakes against Apple as it will give the Internet leader devices to showcase its software -- just as Apple does.

All eyes are now on Google's "Ice Cream Sandwich" system, which will unite the Android software used in tablets and smartphones. That is expected to encourage developers to flock to the platform and create better apps.

Microsoft could also pose a threat when it releases its tablet software, code-named Windows 8, but this probably won't be until the fall of 2012.

"The ecosystem built around Microsoft is the largest computing ecosystem out there, so this makes it the company most likely to get significant traction in the tablet marketplace," said BGC's Gillis.

Microsoft has said the software will run on a range of devices from traditional PCs to laptops and tablets, and incorporate mouse and keyboard commands.

Amazon.com, the maker of the popular Kindle e-reader, is also expected to announce plans to release a tablet this fall, providing a challenge to Apple.

The Amazon offering could be a "game-changer," Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Robert Baird & Co, said in a recent note. The tablet will likely feature Android's Honeycomb OS system, a 7-inch screen and be priced under $300, he said.

Sebastian forecast sales of up to 3 million units in the first year and said they would eventually outsell other Android-enabled tablets from Motorola and Acer, and could potentially surpass Samsung's Galaxy Tab.

Amazon's as-yet unnamed tablet poses a significant threat to Apple because of the Kindle's popularity and the movie and music services the company sells. Analysts also expect Amazon to subsidize the tablet's price, which could also boost sales.

"Amazon is widely viewed as a wild card. It has the potential to be disruptive," said NPD analyst Ross Rubin.

The crowded market has not discouraged Sony Corp either. The consumer electronics giant is going full steam ahead with plans to release its first two tablets in the fall.

"We're going to see many competitors come and go," a Sony spokeswoman said.

"We're going to bring the best of all of the assets at our disposal to bear: hardware, content and network services."

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Hackers can attack Android

(Reuters) - A mobile security expert says he has found new ways for hackers to attack phones running Google Inc's Android operating system.

Riley Hassell, who caused a stir when he called off an appearance at a hacker's conference last week, told Reuters he and colleague Shane Macaulay decided not to lay out their research at the gathering for fear criminals would use it attack Android phones.

He said in an interview he identified more than a dozen widely used Android applications that make the phones vulnerable to attack.

According to him App developers frequently fail to follow security guidelines and write applications properly.

Some apps expose themselves to outside contact. If these apps are vulnerable, then an attacker can remotely compromise that app and potentially the phone using something as simple as a text message.

However, he declined to identify those apps, saying he fears hackers might exploit the vulnerabilities.

Hassell said he and Macaulay alerted Google to the software shortcomings they unearthed.

Google spokesman Jay Nancarrow said Android security experts discussed the research with Hassell and did not believe he had uncovered problems with Android.

"The identified bugs are not present in Android," he said, declining to elaborate.

It was the first public explanation for the failure of Hassell and Macaulay to make a scheduled presentation at the annual Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas, the hacking community's largest annual gathering.

They had been scheduled to talk about "Hacking Androids for Profit." Hundreds of people waited for them to show up at a crowded conference room.

Hassell said in an interview late on Thursday the pair also learned -- at the last minute -- that some of their work may have replicated previously published research and they wanted to make sure they properly acknowledged that work.

"This was a choice we made, to prevent an unacceptable window of risk to consumers worldwide and to guarantee credit where it was due," he said.

A mobile security researcher familiar with the work of Hassell and Macaulay said he understood why the pair decided not to disclose their findings.

"When something can be used for exploitation and there is no way to fix it, it is very dangerous to go out publicly with that information," the researcher said. "When there is not a lot that people can do to protect themselves, disclosure is sometimes not the best policy."

Hassell said he plans to give his talk at the Hack in The Box security conference in Kuala Lumpur in October.

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