First off, something local: Former NEDA Secretary Romulo Neri faces arrest over his refusal to appear before the Senate investigation into the National Broadband Network scandal. To protect the omerta, Malacanang has vowed to do everything to “protect” Neri. Groups such as Agham and CPU should now start checking the contents of the failed NBN contract with ZTE of China, after the Senate made the contract’s annexes public.

Now, guess what country was quietly elected by ASEAN to chair the region’s science and technology ministers’ group for a one-year term. Clue: Its is ruled by a junta, has jailed thousands, and continues to defy international outcry over its dismal human rights record. Find the answer here. Nakakagulat ito!

In other parts of the world, Paypal introduces a secure way of shopping in non-Paypal sites.

Next is something personal. I’d really like to have a Nintendo DS Lite. Now, there are two special DS Lite bundles but they’re only available in the US. The specials are have a gold color (bundled with “The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass”) and metallic pink (bundled with Nintendogs). I pray someone will give one to me this Christmas!!!

Yahoo has signed up 17 new newspaper partners, and Malaya is not one of them.

Wanna know what Palm and Blackberry are missing in the smartphone market? Bob Pegoraro of the Washington Post explains it in detail.

Still on smartphones, I got amused reading this list of the world’s ugliest smartphones as enumerated by Eric Zeman of Information Week. I just disagree with the inclusion of the Treo 600 and the Centro. During its time, the former helped introduce changes in the smartphone market. Meanwhile, the Centro is a good smartphone for first time user, which unfortunately still has no version for GSM markets.

Here’s how Peter Svensson describes the Centro as second in his top smartphone choices for the holidays:

The Centro does everything Palm’s larger, more expensive Treo does, but in a cuter package. It has a small but sharp touch screen and a teeny hardware alphabetic keyboard. You need fingernails to type on it. It’s not great as a music or video player, but it’s good for e-mail, contacts and calendar management. Palm’s software is the closest thing to the iPhone’s in terms of ease of use and versatility, and there are tons of third-party applications. Comes with a neat Sudoku game.

Amazon also introduced the Kindle, a new bookreader. Get more info about it here.

Also in the US, Nokia has rolled out to stores the new Nokia N810 internet tablet that’s powered by Linux.

Finally, some tips on how to assert your rights as a consumer.