China arrests 44 in $140-M online scam

China’s police have arrested 44 people over a scam which saw many as 93,000 people contribute start-up capital to “unfreeze” assets smuggled overseas when the Nationalist government was overthrown in 1949, police authorities said late on Thursday.

The criminal network used Wechat and other communication tools to encourage people to pay 10 yuan ($1.46) for membership in a scheme which promised returns of as much as 50,000 yuan ($7,280) once the assets were unfrozen, the Ministry of Public Security said in a notice on its website.

The ministry said that it had busted a total of 15 criminal groups involved in the scam since investigations began in October 2016. The fraud involved more than 950 million yuan ($138.34 million).

The public security ministry said earlier this month that it had already set up 32 provincial and 206 city centers dedicated to cracking down on online and telecom fraud. It said it uncovered 83,000 cases last year, up 49.6 percent compared to 2016.

source: interaksyon.com

UST signs up PLDT to enhance school's IT facilities

MANILA - The University of Santo Tomas (UST) has tapped Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT) to boost the school's Internet connectivity and for its other information and communication technology requirements.

Under the agreement, PLDT ALPHA Enterprise will provide an initial 100 megabytes per second of its premium i-Gate connectivity to facilitate bandwidth-heavy projects and strengthen connections within and between UST and its partners.

“The main purpose of the current subscription is for the educational use of the Thomasian community, alumni, guests, and other partner institutions,” said Engr. Sebastian Raymond A. Mendoza, STEPs Director.
The Santo Tomas e-Service Providers (STePs) is the school's internal network connectivity facility.

"Communications through the Internet using our online resources, like the institution and department websites, will serve as an effective and faster way of information dissemination," he said in a statement.

Other external projects that will benefit from the connectivity enhancements of the university include the online encoding of grades, full implementation of online registration and enrolment, extended webhosting, server co-location services, and many more.  Future campus expansion requirements are also considered in the technical ICT development project.

Asia’s oldest university is also the first to implement a 10G campus backbone cabling and a Cisco model infrastructure from core to access. Its facilities have received ISO 9001:2008 TUV-SUD certification which have been constantly upgraded to cater to the connectivity needs of the campus, making it the biggest bandwidth requirement among local universities.

“We consider many factors in choosing the right Internet service providers that should meet the standards required by the university. Reliable support is the primary reason in considering an industry partner, as support should always be felt and delivered on a timely basis,” said Mendoza.

UST’s IT facilities will benefit from PLDT’s fiber optic network, which spans more than 71,000-kilometers nationwide.

“PLDT has constantly invested in our network to assure our customers of the service and reliability that their organizations need. Our facilities always undergo the necessary upgrades to meet global standards and handle the growing demand for dependable and consistent connectivity,” said PLDT first vice president and head of ALPHA Enterprise Jovy Hernandez.

“We are ready to serve UST with whatever ICT needs that they’d need to benefit the students, faculty members, the administration, and the whole Thomasian community in keeping their global-standards of education,” Hernandez said.

InterAksyon.com is the online news portal of TV5, a member of the PLDT group.

source: interaksyon.com

Mobile phones, social media easing disaster impact — Red Cross

SINGAPORE — Mobile phones and social media are saving thousands of lives in disaster-prone countries but many vulnerable communities still need to be equipped with modern communications, the Red Cross said Thursday.

In its latest World Disasters Report, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said the number of people affected by disasters dropped worldwide in 2012, although poorer rural areas were hit harder.

Far-flung countries like the Philippines and Indonesia are successfully tapping modern communication to gather and spread information when disasters strike, it said in the report released in Singapore and other cities.

But first responders in the world’s most impoverished nations remain encumbered by their lack of access to basic technological tools such as early-warning systems and network infrastructure, it said.

“Although the overall number of people affected by disasters decreased in 2012, the number of people affected in the poorest countries increased, with over 31.7 million affected,” the report’s editor Patrick Vinck said in a statement.

“They are also often the ones with the least access to technology.”

A total of 15,706 people were killed and nearly 139 million affected in 552 natural and industrial disasters in 2012, according to the report.

It lauded the widespread use of Twitter and text messaging in disaster-relief efforts in the Philippines when Typhoon Bopha slammed into the south of the country in December last year, leaving more than 1,800 dead and missing.

“Thousands of lives were saved because 99 percent of the population have access to a mobile phone and could receive early warnings and information on staying safe,” Bekele Geleta, secretary-general of the IFRC, said in a statement.

The report said studies showed many around the world were deprived of access to technology because of “inequalities across gender, income and urban/rural divides”.

It cited the example of the Central African Republic, where 47 percent of women living in the capital Bangui depend on others for all types of information, compared to 30 percent of men.

Nationwide, most of the poorest 20 percent of the population depend on others for information, while only six percent of the richest 20 percent were deprived of direct access to information.

“These differences may not be surprising, but they have important implications for an increasingly technological humanitarian world, namely the potential for digital exclusion of those most vulnerable to disasters,” it said.

It also warned that even the most cutting-edge technologies cannot replace the human touch needed to reach the most vulnerable during disasters.

“Even traditional means likes radio fail to bridge the ‘last mile’ and reach the ‘information poor’,” it said.

In 2012, the Americas were hit the hardest in terms of damage caused by natural disasters, with Hurricane Sandy a key factor in the $103.6 billion in destruction incurred by the region.

Globally, disasters caused an estimated $157.6 billion worth of damage.

source: interaksyon.com

Be prepared in an emergency with the SpareOne Plus phone

MANILA, Philippines - The recent flooding in many areas due to heavy rainfall in Luzon has, more than ever, made disaster preparedness a must.

Aside from being aware of flood-prone locations, it is important to have life-saving skills in any environment. Emergencies can happen anytime, anywhere, and there is a real need to be well prepared. When disaster strikes, much depends on survival skills and communication is a tool of extreme importance.

How many times has one been caught in a typhoon or similar disaster where there is no power and no way to recharge cellphones? A hurried text saying “low batt” seems not to bring relief or calm the fear of the person receiving the message. On the contrary, it tends to add anxiety. The SpareOne phone is the simple solution to this dilemma. It is the only phone in the world with a battery that will last for up to 15 years if unused. Take note that ordinary cellphone batteries lose their charge over time even if they are powered off. Not so with the SpareOne phone. It is powered by one battery, the Energizer Ultimate Lithium L91 (included in the package).

For 15 years, one can keep the phone in your car’s glove compartment, in a kitchen drawer, or any other accessible place in an emergency, and it will be ready for use. Once the phone is used, it provides 10 hours of talk time, which can last a long trip on one battery.

The SpareOne Plus emergency phone is simple yet packed with all the features needed for a backup phone. It is contained in a waterproof bag that is floatable and submersible, with talk-through containment and extreme temperature operation, providing you a communication lifeline when all else is potentially destroyed.

It has a LED torchlight (flashlight) which provides up to 24 hours of continuous light, as well as an SOS torchlight that will flash in Morse code to show a call for help in times of distress.




The SpareOne phone has a panic siren that will aid in attracting attention. It is location and alert services-capable. Through a Web interface, the user can locate the SpareOne Plus and emit an alert by e-mail and/or text message to designated recipients.

Its one-touch, large emergency services button is ideal for daily emergency and medical situations, and no SIM is required for emergency numbers. With a SIM, one can also pre-program up to nine numbers of family and friends.

Emergency preparedness has to be simple yet functional. This is where technology plays a critical role through life-saving devices. The SpareOne phone is simple, easy to use, and has many features that make it several tools in one. When all else fails, you can depend on the SpareOne phone to be your communication lifeline to the world.

For more information, visit www.filnippon.com, e-mail at sales@filnippon.com or call +63(2) 893-2142.

source: philstar.com

Skype marks 10 years of shrinking the world

STOCKHOLM — If David Huang had left his native Taiwan for Sweden a generation ago, he would have taken a giant leap into the unknown.

Now, with the help of Skype, the 35-year-old businessman is able to reach relatives from his Stockholm home as easily as if they lived around the corner, and not half a world away.

“Skype has made work easier, but more important than that, it has enabled me to talk to my family whenever I feel like it,” he said.

Internet messaging service Skype, which celebrates its 10th anniversary on Thursday, has shrunk the world in profound ways that few could have foreseen in 2003.

A total of 300 million users make two billion minutes of online video calls a day. And in the surest sign of success, the brand name has been turned into a verb – a rare distinction shared by the likes of Xerox and Google.

In another sign of success, Skype has spawned competitors with a host of similar technologies, most importantly Apple’s FaceTime.

But revolutionary as Skype’s technology may seem, it didn’t start completely from scratch but built on existing communication technologies.

“We already had cheap international calling using the Internet,” said Martin Geddes, a leading Britain-based telecommunications consultant.

“The significance of Skype was and is the ‘Wow!’ experience of high definition voice, and the sense of ‘being there’ with your distant friends and family in a way not possible before.”

Skype was launched in late August 2003 by two Scandinavian technology entrepreneurs, Niklas Zennstroem of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark, who expanded on existing peer-to-peer networking technologies.

Skype, which allows its online users to make high-quality calls to each other anywhere in the world for free, quickly took off, bringing the world closer together in an age when globalisation and intercontinental travel pulled more families apart than at perhaps any other time in history.

“I’m touched by the ways people use Skype, from an active duty soldier meeting his baby girl for the first time… to just the simple, extraordinarily ordinary instances,” said Elisa Steele, Skype chief marketing officer.

These simple instances, she said, include “a mum and daughter being able to see and talk to one another in a way that feels like they’re just sitting across the kitchen table from each other. Our greatest achievement lies in these moments.”

While Skype helps people to stay in touch with those they already know, it also enables new connections to be formed.

One example was early this year, when students aged between 11 and 15 from Woodham Academy in Britain and Merton Intermediate School in Wisconsin carried out a cross-Atlantic dance contest.

“For a lot of them, I think they’d been in a small-town mentality where they hadn’t really gone out as far as they might have wanted to into travelling,” said Woodham assistant head teacher Jon Tait.

“They had seen films from abroad, but to actually physically speak to these kids in America was absolutely brilliant. It was amazing.”

Skype isn’t for humans only. At Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas, orangutans Mei and Mukah are rewarded for completing tasks by being allowed to communicate via Skype with orangutans in other zoos.

The question many ask however is: Is it possible to make money on a business offering free calls? US software maker Microsoft thought so, paying $8.5 billion for Skype in 2011.

In the 12 months ended on June 30, Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, which includes Skype, reported operating income of $848 million, up from $380 million the year before.

Within just a decade, Skype moved from being nowhere to being everywhere. Could the reverse also be true? In an era of rapid transformation, could it be gone again in another decade? It’s hard to imagine, according to observers.

“It’s not going to go away. It’s going to be utilised and put into more and more devices, videophones, devices for your kitchen, tablets as we mount them on cabinets,” said Michael Gough, author of the book “Skype Me!”

“I can see for example a home automation scenario, where you have a tablet in your kitchen, an Xbox connect in your living room, and you can literally be on a video call and it will follow you around the house. I can actually see that occurring.”

source: interaksyon.com

Can the Internet help us communicate with animals?

LONG BEACH, California — Peter Gabriel joined big thinkers and one of the Internet’s founding fathers Friday in launching an “Interspecies Internet” for animals to communicate with us and each other.

“Perhaps the most amazing tool man has created is the Internet,” the famous British singer said.

“What would happen if we could somehow find new interfaces — visual, audio — to allow us to communicate with the remarkable beings we share the planet with?”



His allies in the effort include Vint Cerf, a revered father of the Internet, along with a cognitive psychologist and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.

Gabriel showed a video of a jamming session he had with a bonobo playing the keyboard. The bonobo used one finger to improvise a tune that the singer overlaid with his distinctive voice.

“She did good,” Gabriel said with a smile.

He told of growing up on a farm and often looking into the eyes of animals and wondering what they were thinking.

“What was amazing to me was that they seemed a lot more adept at getting a handle on our language than we were at getting a handle on theirs,” Gabriel said.

“I work with a lot of musicians from around the world… Often we don’t have any common language at all. We sit behind our instruments and it’s a way to connect.”

His curiosity led him to Diana Reiss, a psychologist known for dolphin intelligence research.

“Animals are conscious. They have emotions. They are aware,” Reiss said. “One of my biggest dreams is that we give them the respect and attention they deserve.”

MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld signed onto the effort after seeing a video of Gabriel’s jam session and concluding that leaving the rest of the planet out of the Internet was an omission in need of correction.

“What is important about what these people are doing is they are beginning to learn how to communicate with species who are not us but share a sensory environment,” said Cerf.

“These other sentient species should be part of the network too.”

Cerf, now chief Internet evangelist at Google, spoke of an inter-species Internet as a test run for communicating with life encountered while exploring space.

“These interactions with other animals will teach us, ultimately, how we might interact with an alien from another world,” he added. “I can hardly wait.”

Seed money for the project will be used to develop a touchscreen device that dolphins can use to connect to the Internet.

source: interaksyon.com

Plantronics unveils latest Bluetooth headsets

MANILA, Philippines — In 1969, American audio communications brand Plantronics provided the headset Neil Armstrong spoke through while taking man’s first steps on the moon.

More than 40 years down the road and the company continues to innovate on ways to make communicating simpler, yet smarter for mobile executives, road warriors, and smartphone users.

The Voyager Legend headset and the Marque 2 M165 headset, for example, are upgrades of previous versions: the Voyager Pro HD and Marque 1, respectively, and both models were unveiled on Tuesday at Ascott Makati.

The Voyager Legend is a sleek black device with a slim, silver multi-microphone that reduces wind, movement, and background noise by up to 70 percent, which enhances the user’s voice as well. Talk time with this unit is pegged up to seven hours.

The 18-gram gadget operates on voice commands, with the user able to answer a call by saying, “Answer,” or reject a call by saying, “Ignore.” More commands can be found by asking, “What can I say?” The Voyager Legend will also tell you who is on the line.

It is a “highly intelligent device,” said Plantronics senior country manager Josh Doctolero.

“If you are paired with a smartphone and you put the device on your ear, the device acknowledges that it is on your ear. When you remove it, and you have an incoming call, you have the option to wear it. You don’t have to press anything, just say “Answer” or “Ignore,” or answer it through your device,” he explained.

The Marque 2 is another tool to keep calling, listening, and viewing hands-free.

Users answer and ignore calls in a similar way. It also blocks background noise and minimizes wind interference through dual microphones.

The seven-gram Marque 2 can be powered up for up to six months, depending on use, as it enters DeepSleep mode when away from the paired phone.

“As the way we live and work continues to evolve, along with the increasingly remote workforces, Plantronics remains dedicated in helping people work smarter by providing products to help them work effectively across all work spaces,” said Doctolero.

The first headset company to develop software for headsets also offers it for free at the App Store and Google Play store.

“Our products allow you to simply communicate.”

Now available in PC stores nationwide, the Voyager Legend and the Marque 2 are priced at Php4,900 and Php3,600 respectively.

source: interaksyon.com

Mobile phones revolutionizing health care

Manila, Philippines - The growing sophistication of mobile networks offering affordable and higher speeds of data transmission alongside cheaper and more powerful devices is transforming the way health care services and information are accessed, delivered, and managed.
In the Philippines, Smart Communications, Inc. is currently the only telco that has invested in mobile health, or mHealth, harnessing the Internet and mobile technologies to carry out programs under its Kabalikat sa Kalusugan corporate initiative.
mHealth refers to the practice of medicine and public health, supported by wireless communication devices such as mobile phones and tablet computers. It links patients to services, which include health information on demand, record management, and the remote, real-time monitoring of conditions and even life-threatening ailments.
The flagship of Smart’s mHealth efforts is Project SHINE (Secured Health Information Network and Exchange). Designed to promote efficiency, it enables health facilities and professionals to create electronic medical records, send electronic referrals to other health facilities, generate report, and send reminders to patients. The cloud-based service can be accessed via web or mobile.
SHINE was recently recognized at the Asia Communication Awards in Singapore as the Best Emerging Market Initiative.
In partnership with the Physicians for Peace-Philippines (PfP), Smart has also deployed a mobile and web application that allows doctors to provide real-time evaluation and advice on prosthesis use for amputees in far-flung communities. It is called Amputee Screening via CEllphone NeTworking (ASCENT).
A similar application, OpSmile Mobile, was launched late last year for Operation Smile. It will be used for patient profiling of potential beneficiaries of Operation Smile medical missions.
Another initiative is the Mobile Surgery Services Project of the Mindanao Consortium of Surgeons and the Misamis Oriental provincial government. Following an initial one-year free Internet access provided by Smart to provincial hospitals in various towns, resident doctors now consult specialists online, via a webcam and free Windows-based video chat and video conferencing application called ooVoo.
Patients from these towns no longer have to travel to consult specialists based in Cagayan de Oro City or even Metro Manila, while doctors get a more accurate patient profile preparatory to medical missions to these areas.


In Tarlac, records keeping has gone paperless, with patients’ personal and medical data directly keyed in to the clinic database using computers, mobile phones, and Smart’s Internet service, thanks to Wireless Access for Health (WAH). This project is led by Qualcomm, the Department of Health, Tarlac provincial government, Tarlac State University, USAID, and Research Triangle Institute (RTI) with Smart as the telco partner.
Rural health clinics are equipped with netbooks and wireless broadband connectivity to support the computerization of patients’ medical records using a system for barangay health centers and the transmission of vital information to health authorities. Internet mobile phones will also be deployed for testing in barangay health centers for data gathering.
In a report, former Socio Economic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga Jr. said that one of the biggest challenges to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in health is the limited access to health information and services, especially among the poor.

Many governments are already looking at mHealth as a complementary strategy for strengthening health systems and achieving the health care delivery, particularly in poor and developing countries.
Mobile devices have bypassed conventional telephony systems, allowing people to communicate across vast geographical distances. This is all the more crucial for far-flung, underserved communities where these devices are sometimes the only means of sharing information.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates there are now over five billion wireless subscribers and over 70 percent of them reside in low- and middle-income countries. The GSM Association says commercial wireless signals now cover over 85 percent of the world’s population, in most cases extending beyond the reach of roads and electrical grids.

In the Philippines, mobile phone penetration rate is seen approaching 100 percent in the second half of the year, pushed by increasing mobile data consumption and the availability of more smartphone handsets in the market.

source: philstar.com