Globe confirms in-flight roaming service offering
MAKATI CITY, Philippines–Globe Telecom has confirmed industry rumors that it is offering an in-flight roaming service for its postpaid subscribers.
“In line with the company’s thrust to provide subscribers with relevant and easy-to-use services, Globe has entered into an agreement with a new roaming partner, AeroMobile, that will allow Globe postpaid subscribers to enjoy airline roaming,” Globe said in reply to queries by INQUIRER.net.
Jones Campos, Globe assistant vice president for public relations, said in a telephone interview that Globe will start offering the in-flight roaming service through Air France and Emirates airlines.
Negotiations with other airlines were underway, Jones added.
Rival Smart Communications also announced a similar in-flight service last December 2007 with Air France, according to Ramon Isberto, head of public affairs of Smart.
Globe said the agreement with AeroMobile will make possible mobile phone services for customers while they are on board selected airlines. “Subscribers can make and receive calls and SMS as long as the subscriber’s mobile phone is GSM capable,” the local mobile telecommunications firm said.
Globe said that the in-flight service would not affect the aircraft’s systems.
The AeroMobile system will not affect any other aircraft systems or sub-systems since it operates at a minimum power level, AeroMobile said on its website.
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Comelec rejects lone remaining bid for ARMM poll automation
MANILA, Philippines–The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has rejected anew a bid made by a joint venture to automate the August 11 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), a resolution issued by the poll body showed.
The rejection of the bid follows the disqualification of a previous bid for non-eligibility, leaving no qualified bidders remaining for the automation project, which the Comelec considers as pilot testing for the automation of local and national elections in 2010.
According to Comelec resolution 8436 dated April 11, 2008, a copy of which was obtained by INQUIRER.net, the Comelec en banc has adopted the recommendation of its Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) to reject the bid tendered by the Smartmatic Sahi joint venture after the latter failed to comply with several mandatory technical requirements set out in the request for proposal, which was drafted by the poll body in collaboration with an advisory council.
Comelec officials were unavailable for comment as of this writing.
Manila cops get GPS
MANILA, Philippines–Expect Manila policemen to respond to an emergency within seven minutes or less.
This was the commitment given by officials and members of the Manila Police District now that their patrol cars are equipped with global positioning system devices or GPS that enable the quick dispatch of a patrol team that is nearest to the scene of a crime.
The GPS device uses satellite navigation to pinpoint the location of a vehicle. The location is then sent via text messaging to the MPD’s District Tactical Operations Center, and the car’s location is then viewed on a digitalized map in the DTOC’s war room.
The GPS project, which will be formally launched Monday at the MPD headquarters, is just the start of the police force’s modernization project, according to MPD Director Roberto Rosales.
Some 100 police mobile cars have already been installed with GPS devices, he said, adding that all roving police personnel were also equipped with new hand-held radios for quick and easy communication.
The system could also be used to ensure that Manila policemen are always within their respective areas of assignment.
“We could easily locate erring policemen, especially those who usually go somewhere else and abandon their posts. This will somehow help us ensure that they’re doing their jobs while deployed on the streets,” Rosales said.
The GPS also allows private individuals, business establishments, trucking services and private vehicles to use motion sensors, panic buttons and wireless monitoring linked to the MPD’s Operations Center.
Gov’t draws up guidelines to protect consumers online
ANILA, Philippines – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), along with the Department of Agriculture and Department of Health, is drafting guidelines to protect consumers performing transactions online.
This was announced during an e-commerce forum organized by the DTI with the Commission on Information and Communications Technology, and the Philippine Internet Commerce Society last week.
The guidelines are being drafted in consultation with various stakeholders, according to Ma. Lourdes Yaptinchay, director of the Office of Policy Research and Alternative chairperson of the E-commerce Team of the Department of Trade and Industry, as she read the prepared speech of DTI undersecretary Thomas Aquino.
She did not give additional details about the guidelines, but she indicated that other agencies, including the DTI, have previously published similar guidelines to protect Filipino consumers.
In 2006, DTI issued Department Administrative Order No. 8 that prescribed “guidelines for the protection of personal data in information and communications system in the private sector,” according to Yaptinchay.
Also that same year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (the Philippine central bank), also issued BSP Circular No. 542, which provided guidelines for consumer protection for electronic banking in 2006, she said.
In 2007, the National Telecommunications Commission released its own consumer protection guidelines, which were later complemented by another directive requiring telecommunications companies to store data logs of traffic, Yaptinchay added.
Meanwhile, she said that DTI has become a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s (APEC) Electronic Commerce Steering Group (ECSG).
The group has been discussing e-commerce issues and concerns in the region, in particular data privacy with focus on cross-border rules, and paperless trading.
In February 2008, the Philippines has indicated its interest to join the APEC Data Privacy Pathfinder, a voluntary exercise involving the implementation of the nine APEC privacy principles.
RP school creates own version of Creative Commons license
MANILA, Philippines –A Philippine law school has developed its own version of the Creative Commons license to make the license more applicable in the Philippines.
Creative Commons is a licensing agreement that helps people retain copyright of their works while permitting its use by others under certain conditions–a “some rights reserved” agreement as opposed to an “all rights reserved” arrangement. It is used as an alternative licensing agreement in blogs and some websites.
“This is an alternative way of licensing works,” said lawyer Michael Vernon Guerrero, deputy project lead of Creative Commons Philippines and deputy executive director for the e-Law Center and the IT Center at the Arellano University School of Law.
The Arellano law school started working on the Philippines’ version of Creative Commons to help encourage the “cascade of knowledge” from copyrighted works, according to Guerrero.
The Arellano law school now represents the country as the public institution required for all international affiliates of Creative Commons.
Copyright principles indicate that people can either have full control of their own content, such as in the case of “all rights reserved,” or can opt to place it in the public domain (without a copyright agreement), in which case they risk exploitation by other users.
“When you create content, you own the copyright. So you want it protected. But if you want to share some of your content without them asking you permission every time they use it, then that’s Creative Commons,” the lawyer explained.
How to shop online
By Ruby de Vera
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Last updated 19:01:00 04/08/20081. Window-shop first. Check out several sites, because more than one seller usually has the item you want.
2. Compare prices. This is useful for imported items and electronic items; you can get an idea of how much they originally cost versus the selling price.
3. Check comments or feedback on the seller. Sites that are flooded with “Thank you” and “Great service” should give you a clue on how the seller does his or her business transactions.
4. Check if the payment methods are convenient for you. Not all banks have a branch at every corner, and not everybody uses G-Cash.
5. In buying personalized items, give the seller clear pictures of what you want. You don’t want to be paying for a substandard item.
6. Cash on delivery is a good idea for expensive gadgets and electronic items. That way you can check whether the items are legitimate before forking over the dough.
7. Ask around if the shipping company the seller uses is reliable. Horror stories of squished items and undelivered stuff are everywhere.
8. Ask the seller anything you’d like to know about the item you’re buying. Information is power.
9. Keep your word. Don’t ask the seller to reserve you the items if you’re not sure you can pay for them. Be considerate.
Cyber risk ‘equals 9/11 impact’
By Maggie Shiels
BBC News, San Francisco
The US homeland security chief has made a heartfelt plea to Silicon Valley workers to stand up and be counted in the fight to secure the cyber highway.
Michael Chertoff invoked the attacks of 9/11 as he sought to galvanise IT professionals and security experts.
He told the world’s biggest IT security conference that serious threats to cyberspace are on “a par this country tragically experienced on 9/11″.
Such attacks can hit financial bodies and a government’s powers, he said.
“We take threats to the cyber world as seriously as we take threats to the material world,” Mr Chertoff added.
‘Desire to serve’
Speaking to a packed auditorium at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Mr Chertoff pointed out that securing the nation’s internet highways and byways was a job the federal government could not do alone.
Appealing to the private sector, the homeland security boss reached out and simply said: “Please send some of your brightest and best to do service in the government.”
It was, he said, “the best thing you can do for your country”.
And, if the crowd was somewhat sceptical about getting into bed with the government on this issue, Mr Chertoff talked of the first big-name Silicon Valley recruit to the cause.
Rod Beckstrom is best known for starting Twiki.net, a company that provides collaboration software for browser.
Having rallied to the cause, he will now head a new inter-agency group tasked with co-ordinating the federal government’s efforts to protect its computer networks from organised cyber attacks.
Speaking at a news conference afterwards, Mr Chertoff admitted to BBC News that he needed the private sector to get involved and that he was unashamed in trying to tug at the heart strings rather than the wallets of Silicon Valley workers.
“We don’t compete with the private sector with money. I can tell you what can motivate people is the desire to serve,” he said.
“But, yeah, it is ultimately an appeal for doing something [more] for the common good than for your own enrichment.”
EU to allow cell service on planes (AP)
BRUSSELS, Belgium - You can use your cell phone in the skies over Europe later this year under new rules that will allow air travelers to stay in touch — and raise the cringe-inducing prospect of sitting next to a chatterbox at 30,000 feet.
But don’t expect to use your phone on a U.S. flight anytime soon.
The decision Monday by the European Union makes the 27-nation bloc the first region in the world to scrap bans on the use of cell phones in the sky. The EU insists the change will not compromise safety.
Cell phone calls will be connected through an onboard base station — think of a miniature cell phone tower — linked to a satellite and then to ground networks. A flight’s captain will have the power to turn off service anytime.
Phone service will be blocked during takeoff and landing, EU spokesman Martin Selmayr said. That means using your cell phone will fall under roughly the same restrictions as using your laptop or iPod.
EU officials also say the system has been thoroughly tested. They say the calls will not interfere with flight navigation and will have additional safeguard to protect against terrorism.
Meanwhile, travelers are already expressing concern about another kind of disruption — noisy passengers. The friendly skies are one of the last refuges against shrill ringtones and yapping callers.
“If they use a mobile phone on long distance flights, it would be an inconvenience, especially at night,” said Stein Smulders of Halle, Belgium, who commutes by train.
In the United States, cell phone use on flights is banned by two regulatory agencies. Both said Monday they had no plans to change their rules.
Alison Duquette, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the agency had a concern that the phones could interfere with planes’ electronic equipment.
“The bottom line for us is that the FAA has no plans to allow passengers to use cell phones on commercial flights,” Duquette said.
The Federal Communications Commission also bans cell phone use on flights, out of concern for interfering with cell phone networks on the ground. That agency opened a review of the issue in 2004 but ended it last year without taking action.
On European flights, installing a base station on the plane will allow calls to go directly to a satellite system, preventing phones from wreaking havoc with flight instruments by sending out signals indiscriminately, EU officials said.
The system will rely on European GSM technology. Although the technical standards for American and European GSM phones are different, American GSM phones would work on European flights.
Installing small base stations on planes helps ensure phones won’t give off strong signals trying to connect with a tower on the ground. But Dave Carson, co-chairman of an RTCA Inc. committee studying wireless safety on planes for the FAA, said there was still a risk that a phone might try to connect with a ground tower.
DoCoMo losing stranglehold on Japan mobile market
OKYO (Reuters) - After a decade as the dominant provider, NTT DoCoMo Inc (9437.T) can no longer say it provides most Japanese with their mobile phones, March figures show, with smaller rivals grabbing share in a fierce fight ahead of the start of the academic and business year. DoCoMo, the mobile wing of former telephone monopoly Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (9432.T), held a 49.7 percent share of Japan’s total mobile phone and personal handyphone market at the end of March, down from 50.2 percent in February, the Telecommunications Carriers Association said on Monday.
DoCoMo said it was the first time in about a decade that its market share had fallen below half.
“As user needs become varied, it’s hard for any one carrier to hold on to a majority of market share,” said Shinji Moriyuki, a senior analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.
“Softbank is winning in this changing market because it has a retailer’s eye for pricing, design and services, while the others are still thinking like telecom firms.”
March is a big month for mobile phones, with carriers fighting to sign up students and new corporate recruits ahead of April — the start of the academic and financial year in Japan.
The race for new signings was won this year by No.3 carrier Softbank Corp (9984.T), just ahead of second-largest carrier KDDI Corp (9433.T).
Despite a marketing blitz to try to keep pace with its price-cutting rivals, DoCoMo signed on 173,700 net new users in March — only around a third of Softbank’s 543,900 new subscribers or KDDI’s 500,500 users.
The figures measure new users signed up minus those that leave each company, and that is where DoCoMo is feeling the pain, after a rule change in 2006 allowed customers to switch companies while keeping the same phone number.
DoCoCom shed 137,000 users who kept their numbers while switching to KDDI or Softbank, bringing total defections to 916,400 users in the year to March.
KDDI, which in March launched a new discount scheme allowing KDDI-using family members to call each other free, snagged a net 75,700 users from rivals in March to Softbank’s 60,800 on a net basis.
Shares of Softbank closed up 6.3 percent at 1,980 yen, KDDI gained 4.1 percent to 691,000 yen and NTT DoCoMo rose 1.3 percent to 159,000 yen. (Editing by Michael Watson)
UK bank details ‘for sale for £5′
British bank account details are on sale online for as little as £5 in so-called cyber-crime supermarkets, a report says.
Criminals are also targeting social networking sites, according to a web security firm report into online crime.
Symantec says EU identities sell for more than American ones because they can be used across the EU.
Investigators say criminals are turning from online banking to social networks because their users are less careful.
Sophisticated and personalised
According Symantec’s latest twice-yearly Internet Security Threat Report, UK bank account details were the most advertised items on black-market forums used to trade stolen information.
The most frequently targeted accounts belonged to high-value businesses, as the details could be sold for more than those of accounts with lower balances belonging to consumers.
But the report also found there has been an increase in sophisticated and personalised attacks on consumers.
The data is most often sold via instant-message groups or Web forums that are live for only a few days or even hours, according to Symantec.
Cyber-crime bulk buys
It says the hacking community exacts harsh consequences when members try to pass along incorrect information - if an account does not contain the funds it is advertised as holding, the ability of that vendor to sell data again plummets.
Symantec also saw bulk-buying of personal details which had been packaged up in bargain bundles.
In the final half of 2007, the security firm saw 50 credit card numbers for sale at £20 (£0.40 each), and 500 credit card numbers for £100 (£0.20 each).
After credit cards, full identities were the third most common item advertised for sale - making up 9% of all advertised goods, an increase from 6% in the first half of 2007.
Symantec concluded that identity trading was on the increase and that even stolen eBay accounts were now being put up for sale.
Gates hints at Vista ’successor’
Microsoft boss Bill Gates has dropped a hint about the next version of Windows.
He said Windows 7 could be released “sometime in the next year or so” during a Q&A session at a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank.
After the event a Microsoft spokeswoman said the new version was scheduled for 2010 - three years after the January 2007 release of Vista for consumers.
But industry experts warned that Microsoft’s estimates about delivery dates have often proved optimistic.
Long wait
Mr Gates made his comments in response to a question from the audience gathered to hear him talk about corporate philanthropy during IADB’s annual meeting.
Said Mr Gates: “That’ll be sometime in the next year or so that we’ll have a new version.”
He added: “I’m super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways.” However, Mr Gates did not detail what changes or novel features are being lined up to appear in Windows 7.
Microsoft has started the developer program for Windows 7 and there are reports that a test version, of it, called Milestone 1, have been given to some of the software giant’s biggest customers.
Afterwards a spokesperson for the company said Mr Gates was talking about pre-release versions of Windows and not the finished product.
In an analysis of the development history of Windows XP and Vista, news site Ars Technica said that both took at least a year to get from final test version to the one that went on sale.
“We’re likely closer to two years away from a release, not one,” wrote Ken Fisher from Ars Technica.
Intel ‘will survive US recession’
Intel will ride out any US recession and make a success of Wimax wireless broadband, the firm’s chief executive Paul Otellini has told BBC News.
He said: “People turn to computers to improve productivity during downturn, because at the end of the day the computer is a tool for productivity.”
Intel is the world’s largest chip maker for desktops and laptops.
Answering BBC News users’ questions, he said Intel’s developing world laptop was better than the OLPC scheme
Mr Otellini was confident that Intel would not be too badly affected by any recession in the American economy: “Much of our sales growth has have been in emerging markets - India, China and Eastern Europe - and I don’t see them going into recession.”
But he conceded that the credit crunch was having an impact: “We had a business we spun out into a new company and the launch was held up for five months because of the credit crunch.
“And we only needed a few hundred million dollars.”
Mr Otellini also strongly defended Intel’s promotion of its low-cost Classmate laptop in developing countries, which was criticised after the firm pulled out of the rival One Laptop Per Child Project.
Close to 800 community e-centers set up–CICT
MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) said there are now close to 800 community e-centers in the country since the program was conceived in 1999.
The community e-center (CeC) is a government initiative to connect all communities or “barangay” in the Philippines to the Internet.
CICT is the lead agency now implementing the CeC program.
The CeCs started out as “multi-purpose community centers” that was set up by the Department of Science and Technology with public and private funding. It was a one-stop center that provided communities with Internet access; a public calling station; and a reading, learning and resource center.
Other government initiatives followed with the same goals of bridging the “digital divide” in the country.
During the 4th Knowledge Exchange Conference on Community e-Centers held last week, CICT commissioner Tim Diaz de Rivera said the CICT has Sought a “one CeC for every municipality” target in the country.
This will be the agency’s goal in 2010.
Diaz de Rivera said the goal is a variation of the World Summit on Information Society Millennium Development Goals, which hopes to connect every household in developing countries to the Internet.
“There is still a need to get local chief executives [mayors and governors] to believe in the project,” said Diaz de Rivera.
To date, CICT has been seeding CeCs in the country by providing them funds.
The CICT has recently launched a roadmap for the program, an academy to train people to manage these centers, a community network, and a web portal, Diaz de Rivera said.
The CeC program is also part of the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan for 2004-2010.
Yahoo rejects latest Microsoft takeover bid
WASHINGTON–US Internet company Yahoo on Monday rejected software giant Microsoft’s three-week ultimatum to accept its takeover offer.
“We continue to believe that your proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo and our stockholders,” Roy Bostock, chairman of Yahoo’s board and Jerry Yang, its chief executive officer, said in a letter to Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation.
“Contrary to statements in your letter, stockholders representing a significant portion of our outstanding shares have indicated to us that your proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo,” the letter went on to say.
The letter came in response to an ultimatum issued by Microsoft on Saturday for Yahoo to accept its $44.6-billion takeover offer in three weeks or face a hostile battle for the support of the Internet giant’s shareholders.
In an open letter to the Yahoo board of directors, Ballmer accused the company of avoiding serious negotiations over its unsolicited February 1 bid and warned that any further delays could result in a less attractive offer for Yahoo.
