Wife of Lashed Saudi Blogger Calls for His Release

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Jan 14, 2015

Ensaf Haidar, center, the wife of the Saudi Blogger Raef Badawi, holds a vigil in
 Montreal, Quebec on Jan. 13, 2015 urging Saudi Arabia to free her husband who
was flogged in public on Jan. 9, 2015 near a mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah,
receiving 50 lashes for ‘insulting Islam’. (AFP Photo/Clement Sabourin)

Montreal. The wife of a Saudi blogger who was publicly flogged for “insulting Islam” called for his release on Tuesday.

“My husband, Raef Badawi, is imprisoned for simply expressing liberal ideas,” Ensaf Haidar, who sought asylum in Canada with her three children after Badawi was arrested, told a news conference in Montreal.

In September, a Saudi court upheld a sentence of 10 years in prison as well as the 1,000 lashes for Badawi, who has been behind bars since June 2012.

The 31-year-old received the first installment of 50 lashes last Friday and is expected to have 20 weekly whipping sessions until his punishment is complete.

“We’re here so that he won’t have to endure another 50 lashes next Friday,” said Beatrice Vaugrante of Amnesty International.

“We talk a lot about freedom of speech nowadays: I am Charlie, I am Raef Badawi,” she said. “This concerns Canada, it concerns all Western nations that advocate freedom of expression.”

The Canadian government has called the public lashing “inhumane” but said it was limited in what it could do for Badawi beyond expressions of outrage as the blogger is not Canadian.

Agence France-Presse

Protesters demand the immediate release of Saudi blogger,

 Raif Badawi, in front of the Saudi Embassy in The Hague.

Photograph: Martijn Beekman/EPA

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Xiaomi Releases New Flagship Mi Note To Take On iPhone 6 Plus, Samsung Note

IBTimes, Harichandan Arakali, January 15 2015

Xiaomi launched its new flagship phablet, the Mi Note, on Jan. 15, 2015, at an
 event in Beijing, China. The phone has a larger screen than the iPhone 6 Plus and
is lighter as well. Xiaomi Inc.

Xiaomi Inc., which has earned the moniker, "China’s Apple," launched its new flagship phablet, the Mi Note, with a screen larger than that of Apple's iPhone 6 Plus, and priced at 2,299 yuan ($371) for the 16GB version.

The Mi Note, with its 5.7-inch screen, is also thinner than iPhone 6 Plus, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said at the launch event of the new Note. The event was webcast live from Beijing and Lei had put up slides on a large screen behind him on the stage, similar to Apple product launches.

Mi Note comes equipped with a six-element, 13-megapixel primary camera sourced from Sony Corp., with optical image stabilization, and a two-tone flash from Philips. The selfie camera offers a 4-megapixel shot.

The phone is 6.95 mm thick, wrapped on both sides with Corning Gorilla glass, and has a 3,000 mAh battery from Sony or LG Electronics. At 161 grams, the Mi Note is also lighter than iPhone 6 Plus.

While the standard Mi Note delivers 1,920 x 1,080 pixels display with 386 pixels per inch (PPI) resolution, along with 3GB of RAM and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, a Pro version bumps up the specs to 2,560 x 1,440 pixels display with 515 PPI, 4GB RAM and a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor along with an Adreno 430 graphics processing unit.

Both the stock Note and the Note Pro handsets support 4G LTE technology, but the fancier version costing 3,299 yuan ($532) also supports a standard called category 9 that allows for considerably higher rates of data transfer that can be as high as 450 Mbps.

In the four years since its birth, Xiaomi has risen to become the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, shipping more than 60 million handsets in 2014, almost all of which were sold in China. India is the company’s next biggest market where it sold over a million phones in the last six months since its entry into the market.

The privately held company recently raised $1.1 billion in fresh funding, at a valuation of $45 billion, making it one of the most valuable technology companies today.

Facebook testing workplace version of social network

Yahoo – AFP, 15 Jan 2015

Facebook said it is testing a version of its leading social network tailored for

 getting jobs done in workplaces instead of tuning into the lives of friends (AFP

 Photo/Robyn Beck)

San Francisco (AFP) - Facebook said it is testing a version of its leading social network tailored for getting jobs done in workplaces instead of tuning into the lives of friends.

"Facebook at Work" smartphone applications appear in Apple's online app store and the Google Play shop for Android-powered mobile devices, but can only be accessed by a few companies collaborating with the social network.

The pilot program is intended to gain feedback to refine the offering, according to Facebook spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana.

"We have internally used Facebook at Work for many years now, it works pretty effectively and efficiently for collaboration," Diana told AFP.

"We think we can bring this insight to other companies."

Facebook at Work has news feeds, chats, groups and other features that can be found on the widely-used social network, but sharing can only be done with people inside a particular company.

Page backgrounds are a different color from the well-known Facebook blue, ostensibly so bosses will know at a glance when social networking is work-oriented.

The customized work social networks are hosted on Facebook servers in the Internet cloud, but each respective firm controls any data shared by its employees.

Diana would not disclose what companies are involved in the pilot program, but did say some had offices in various countries.

California-based Facebook did not discuss how it will make money from workplace versions of the social network, but it could follow an established model of charging subscriptions to it as a cloud-based service.

Google Turns Smartphones Into Real-Time Translators

Jakarta Globe, Glen Chapman, Jan 14, 2015

An updated Google Translate application, seen Jan. 12, 2015 in San Francisco,
 enables smartphones to translate signs, menus and more into English. (AFP Photo/
Glenn Chapman)

San Francisco. Google on Wednesday began turning smartphones into real-time language translators — of both written and spoken content.

The California-based Internet titan is hoping that, along with making it easier for people to understand one another on their travels, Google Translate will serve as a useful tool for teachers, medical personnel, police and others with important roles in increasingly multilingual communities.

The company began rolling out a new version of a free Google Translate application that, in part, lets people point Android or Apple smartphones at signs, menus, recipes or other material written in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish and see it in English.

“We’re letting you instantly translate text using your camera, so it’s way easier to navigate street signs in the Italian countryside or decide what to order off a Barcelona menu,” the Google Translate team said in a blog post.

The feature builds on Word Lens technology that Google acquired last year when it bought Quest Visual, a startup founded by former video game developer Otavio Good.

Word Lens uses video mode in smartphone cameras to scan scenes, identify writing and then display it as if it were written in English, a demonstration by Good revealed.

“If you are looking at a restaurant menu, it’s nice to see which thing on the menu you are looking at so you can point at it when you order,” Good said as he used his iPhone to scan and translate an Italian pasta recipe.

Word Lens in Google Translate operates independent of the Internet, avoiding data charges from telecommunication service providers, he explained.

The new Google Translate also features a conversation mode that uses voice recognition and the power of the Internet cloud to translate both sides of a chat between people speaking different languages, the demonstration showed.

People pair any two of 38 language options, then smartphones listen in and convert them during chats. An automated voice speaks translations, which are displayed in writing on smartphone screens, while transcripts of chats can be saved.

Computing power for translating conversations comes from Google servers, so connections to the Internet through WiFi or telecom carriers are needed.

The team at Google is working to expand available languages and capabilities, according to Good.

Agence France-Presse

Obama makes fresh push for cybersecurity legislation

US President Barack Obama has made a fresh push for cybersecurity legislation. It comes in the wake of highly publicized cyber attacks including on the US Central Command's Twitter page, which was targeted this week.

Deutsche Welle, 13 Jan 2015

US President Barack Obama renewed calls on Tuesday for cybersecurity legislation and asked the new Congress to revive an initiative which had been stalled in recent years.

The new proposal would allow increased sharing of information on cyber threats from the private sector with protection from liability.

It would also be a criminal offence to sell stolen financial data and companies would have to notify consumers about data breaches under the measures.

Speaking at a White House meeting with congressional leaders, Obama said that recent events had increased the need for tougher cybersecurity legislation.

"With the Sony attack that took place, with the Twitter account that was hacked by Islamist jihadist sympathizers yesterday, it just goes to show we need to do much more work in the public and private sector to strengthen our cyber security," the president said.

A White House statement said the updated proposal "promotes better cybersecurity information sharing between the private sector and government, and it enhances collaboration and information sharing amongst the private sector."

Sense of urgency over cybersecurity

Obama had pressed for the legislation to be revised in order to allow the private sector to share data on threats without fear of any adverse consequences from the disclosures.

Earlier efforts were stalled due to opposition from civil libertarians who feared the measures could allow too much government interference. In turn, conservatives argued they would create a new bureaucracy.

However, concerns were further heightened by the hacking of Sony Pictures in December, which the administration blamed on North Korea, and major data breaches affecting retailers including Target and Home Depot.

We're back! CENTCOM temporarily suspended its Twitter account after an act of cybervandalism. Read more: http://t.co/hiwvSp3uWt
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) January 13, 2015

On Monday, the US Central Command suspended its Twitter and Youtube pages after a group declaring its support for "Islamic State" (IS) jihadists hacked its social media accounts and posted internal documents.

However, it seems to have been a temporary hitch as the department's Twitter account was up and running once again on Tuesday:

Obama is scheduled to comment on the legislative proposals later on Tuesday in a speech at the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center in Virginia.

The proposals are also expected to be part of his State of the Union address on January 20.

lw/msh (AFP, AP)

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Taiwan's 3D printer 'da Vinci' wins Nikkei excellent product award

Want China Times, CNA 2015-01-09

The da Vinci 1.0 3D printer. (Photo courtesy of XYZprinting)

A Taiwanese brand won a Nikkei Asian Review Award for Excellence for the first time at the 2014 Nikkei Superior Products and Services Awards on Tuesday when XYZprinting Inc. took the honor for its 3D printer.

The da Vinci 1.0 3D printer, which went on sale at stores in Japan in March 2014, won the award because of its affordable price, ease of handling and attractive exterior design, XYZprinting said in a statement on Tuesday.

XYZprinting CEO Simon Shen said his company was encouraged by winning the Nikkei award and will continue to develop products that make it easier for consumers to enjoy using 3D printers.

Nikkei has been recognizing superior new products and services every year since 1982, when it launched the "Nikkei Outstanding Product of the Year Awards." The awards name was changed to the current name in 1987.

Nominations are not based on public application or participation. Instead, Nikkei selects candidate products and services on its own every September to November and then has a panel of judges select some 40 winning products and services at the end of the year.

Prior to earning a Nikkei award, the da Vinci 1.0 was selected for an Editor's Choice Award at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2013. It also received Computex Taipei's Best Choice Award in June last year.

XYZprinting, a unit of Taiwanese electronics conglomerate Kinpo Group, told the press in November last year that it plans to ship 120,000 3D printers globally in 2015, triple an estimated 40,000 units in 2014, due to a wider offering of products.

3D printing is the automated process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape based on a digital model. The technology is already changing the design, prototyping and manufacturing processes in a wide range of industries, according to market research firm Gartner.

Singapore Firm Launches Mobile App for Halal Foodies

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Jan 07, 2015

A photo illustration shows a man displaying the ‘HalalTrip’ app outside a
restaurant in Singapore on Jan. 7, 2015. (AFP Photo/Mohd Fyrol)

Singapore. A Singapore-based company on Wednesday launched a mobile application that enables Muslim foodies and travellers to share halal restaurant discoveries around the world.

The free “HalalTrip” app, available for Apple iOS and Android devices, enables users to take and upload photos of halal dishes, write comments and share them through social media.

Clicking on a photo gives details about the dish as well as the location of the restaurant. The app, which has English and Arabic interfaces, also uses a traveler’s location to display photos of halal dishes served in nearby restaurants.

The term halal is used for food, products and services that comply with Islamic requirements.

“Halal food is one of the biggest drivers of tourism for the Muslim market,” said Fazal Bahardeen, chief executive of HalalTrip, part of a Muslim-oriented business group called CrescentRating.

“When traveling, one of the main concerns of Muslims is halal food. What we did is to bring in a social media element into discovering halal food and making it more fun and more intuitive,” he told AFP.

Fazal predicted the Muslim travel market would be worth $192 billion a year globally by 2020, up from $140 billion in 2013.

Agence France-Presse

Apple may change China distribution after fraud case

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-01-06

An Apple store in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, Oct. 17, 2014. (File photo/Xinhua)

An Apple distributor in Beijing recently ran off with 60 million yuan (US$11.74 million) of down payments and term payments from many downstream distributors, reports the IT Times.

The case, apparently one of simple financial fraud, stands to have quite a big effect on Apple. The company may subsequently dump all of its intermediate agents in three years after adjusting its distribution network.

Citing a business insider surnamed Xiong, the IT Times said it is

not surprising that the distributor ran off. Thanks to his special links with Apple's general agents in China, the distributor had no problem acquiring iPhone 6 stocks when other distributors were short of the handset, Xiong said, adding that this is why many distributors made down payments to obtain the iPhone 6.

The situation reflects why Apple has already made changes to its distribution network in China. Two years ago, the original Apple agents in China–Founder Century, ECS Technology, Highly and Changhong Jiahua–began dropping out of the distribution network, voluntarily or involuntarily. Apple began instead to foster its own authorized distributors and directly operated retail stores. With the rapid growth in Apple's own sales channels, major intermediate agents that enjoyed abundant supplies and brisk sales in the past have been feeling the pinch.

It is obvious that Apple is seeking to get rid of its intermediate agents in China, the IT Times said. It said retail stores now have a bigger say in Apple product distribution. For instance, hot items like the iPhone 6 (64G, 128G) are now delivered first to Apple's own stores, app stores or below-the-line retail stores rather to agents, IT said.

Agents and intermediate distributors are something of the past, one unnamed source said, adding that Apple very likely will not need such distribution channels in China in three years time.

Related Article:

Apple reseller in China allegedly flees abroad with US$16m

Mobile apps transforming China's medical services

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-01-05

A patient scans the QR code of the Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical
Center with Alipay Wallet, a mobile app operated by Alibaba, May 30. (Photo/CNS)

China's medical services sector, which has often been criticized for its lack of efficiency in the past, is undergoing a transformation ushered in online third-party-payment services, according to Guangzhou's 21st Century Business Herald.

Scenes of patients waiting in long queues to make appointments, which were often seen outside Shanghai's First Maternity and Infant Hospital before it opened at 7am in the past, no longer exist today, said Zhuang Siliang, head of PR at the hospital.

This all happened after the hospital joined Alipay's "future hospital" program in August and introduced the WeChat payment service in October, according to Zhuang.

Alipay and WeChat users can use these two services to make appointments with doctors, receive messages reminding them of their appointment, pay medical bills, and check their prescriptions online, completing most steps in the process at a faster pace, the newspaper stated.

Alipay and WeChat launched their respective programs in May and August, as both plan to tap into the medical services sector by improving user experience and optimizing resource allocation in hospitals.

Alipay, the third-party-payment subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba, told the newspaper that it has signed up 21 hospitals, while Tencent's social messaging app WeChat has the same number of hospitals in its program.

Zhuang said the use of the two services is most frequent at the outpatient department and patients no longer have to be present physically at the hospital just to make an appointment.

The newspaper added that Alipay is planning to further incorporate online prescriptions, delivery of medicine and claims for medical insurance in its program, which is expected to be built into an online health management platform.

This reflects how internet companies can monetize online data and traffic through cloud computing the analysis of big data, the newspaper said.

Zhuang said the use of mobile applications may help optimize the use of resources, but it is still unable to resolve the problems of expensive medical bills and the lack of access to medical services in the country.

App of China's anti-graft watchdog welcomed by public

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-01-04

The download page from the China's Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection website for the anti-graft app. (Internet photo)

The mobile application of China's disciplinary watchdog, which publishes the latest news on the country's anti-corruption campaign, has been well received by the public after its launch on Jan. 1.

In addition to news, it details how the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) handles reports and publishes pictures of letters submitted from across the country, offering interactive features.

"The app is like a fly swatter given to us to fight corruption," a user under the name "beibidewolpd" wrote on microblog Sina Weibo.

Another user, nicknamed "Gengshu023", wrote "it is a big step as the CCDI tries to involve more people to help supervise."

The CCDI website has also been updated with more detailed sections for the public to report corruption and track the progress.

Many netizens say that the CCDI website has become a timely and authoritative source of anti-corruption news during the ongoing campaign.

The application is available for Apple's iOS-based devices and Android phones.