Its time for the internet to help small businesses: Jack Ma

Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-11-22

Jack Ma speaks at the opening of the First World Internet Conference,
Nov. 19. (Photo/Xinhua)

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba group, described on Thursday how the company is exploring ways to help small businesses not only in China, but all around the world.

The three-day First World Internet Conference opened on Wednesday in the scenic river town of Wuzhen with roughly 1,000 internet professionals in attendance, representing more than 100 countries and regions. It was in this beautiful setting that Ma said, "traditionally, all we think about is how to sell products to others and how to get money out of the pockets of consumers."

"The internationalization of Alibaba's business requires us to ponder the issue of how to help others sell their products to us. China's rapidly rising middle class is posting a huge demand for foreign products." In February Alibaba launched Tmall International, dealing mainly in commodities produced or sold in overseas markets.

Ma believes that in the global village, old trade modes will be transformed, and, within the WTO framework, the rules of game are set by governments. The market is frequently at the mercy of international relations. The internet has made it possible for a business world built by the entrepreneurs to evolve on the basis of the market economy and unencumbered by political squabbling.

In September, Alibaba was the source of the world's biggest initial public offering.

Dutchman has bitcoin 'wallets' inserted in hands

Phys.org, Nov 12, 2014

The Bitcoin is a virtual currency that is usually used to pay for goods from
a computer or mobile device

A Dutch bitcoin entrepreneur has had two microchips containing the virtual currency injected into his hands to help him make contactless payments.

The chips, enclosed in a 2mm by 12mm capsule of "biocompatible" glass, were injected by a professional using a special syringe.

They emit a tiny radio signal using Near Field Communication (NFC) and can store up to 888 bits of information each.

"We wanted to do this experiment to push further the concept of the virtual wallet," Martijn Wismeijer, co-founder of MrBitcoin which installs bitcoin cash distributors, told AFP.

Using NFC, the chips can communicate with devices such as Android smartphones or tablets.

"What's stored on the microchips should be seen as a savings account," rather than a current account, Wismeijer said.

"The payment device remains the smartphone, but you transfer funds from the chips," said Wismeijer, who was injected with the chips along with a handful of other people on November 3.

His experiment has garnered so much publicity that he has temporarily withdrawn the money from his hands for security reasons.

"The aim wasn't for everyone to know about it," he said, laughing.

The chips are available on the Internet, sold with a syringe for $99 (around 80 euros) by the Dangerous Things company.

"It's really not recommended to do this yourself, you should find a specialist if you want to avoid infections," Wismeijer said.

Besides storing bitcoins, the chips can be programmed with a smartphone to do such things as open doors electronically or turn an alarm clock off if placed in a certain position.

Around 1,500 people around the world have already had such chips injected, Wismeijer said, but he did not know how many carried bitcoins.

Such experiments are important to make the technology acceptable to society, he said.

"Imagine having a tattoo that is normally invisible but turns red if you have a heart attack: you scan the tattoo with your smartphone and your doctor is immediately alerted." 

Jack Ma's problem: what to do with all his money

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-11-16

Jack Ma. (File photo/CNS)

Jack Ma, the founder and executive chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, recently said that he is looking for ways to use his wealth to give back to society and wants to compete with Microsoft founder Bill Gates to spend money more efficiently on charity.

"It's even more difficult to spend money than to make it," Ma stated while elaborating on his business operating philosophy at this year's Singles Day shopping festival event on Nov. 11.

He added that he was unhappy of late and found being the country's richest man "a great pain." He believes that the record-setting US$25 billion that his company's IPO was valued at may have contributed to this stress.

Ma saw his fortune swell to US$19.5 billion after Alibaba stood at a record-breaking US$25 billion IPO on the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 19. The company's share price closed at US$114.54 on Nov. 12, almost twice its offer price of US$68.

He further noted that Alibaba's listing was not meant to make money. Instead, it was meant to make the company's governance more transparent by putting it under the supervision of its shareholders and users around the world.

"The primary reason for going public was that it calls for more transparent corporate governance and puts stock investors and users around the world in a position to supervise the company and take part in its development," the executive chairman explained.

Ma also pointed out that he intended to get Alibaba listed in the stock market in Shanghai. "For various reasons, Alibaba cannot be listed on the A-share market, but we hope Alipay can list on it in the future," he added.

Alipay is the country's most popular online payment tool launched by Alibaba.

Since Alibaba went public, Ma said that he has been under tremendous pressure due to high expectations from investors. "The stock value may rise; people may have high expectations of you; I may just think too much about the future and have too many things to worry about," he said.

The founder of the e-commerce giant admitted that while being a rich man was good, being the richest man in China was not. "It's a great pain because when you're (the) richest person in the world, everybody (is) surrounding you for your money," he stated during an interview with CNBC at his company's headquarters in Hangzhou the same day.

In order to get rid of this "pain," Ma noted that he was looking at ways to use his money to give back to society.

He affirmed that he is considering establishing a foundation that can "spend money following a business-like framework." He may even compete with the other global billionaires in this regard.

"The competition is probably between me and Bill Gates-who can spend money more effectively and who can be a better philanthropist," he said.

Related Articles:

Alibaba founders set up charity fund

Bill Gates urges China's wealthiest to give to charity
Bill Gates to Visit Jakarta for New Health Fund

Google joins fight against illegal fishing

Yahoo – AFP, 14 Nov 2014

One of the challenges in tackling illegal fishing has been the lack of jurisdiction

on the high seas (AFP Photo/Joel Nito)

Technology giant Google has taken the battle against illegal fishing online, with the company unveiling a tool in Australia on Friday that harnesses satellite data to track thousands of boats in real time.

A prototype interactive tool, which was developed in conjunction with environmental activists SkyTruth and marine advocacy group Oceana, was unveiled at the once-a-decade World Parks Congress in Sydney.

The tool is the latest salvo from environmentalists against illegal fishing, which is currently estimated by the Global Ocean Commission to cost the world economy up to US$23.5 billion a year.

An office worker checks out a map on 

Google's satellite image service, in Hong

 Kong, on October 18, 2005 (AFP Photo/

Laurent Fievet)

"While many of the environmental trends in the ocean can be sobering, the combination of cloud computing and massive data is enabling new tools to visualise, understand and potentially reverse these trends," Brian Sullivan of Google's Earth Outreach and Oceans section said.

The tool uses data points from the Automatic Identification System network, which picks up GPS broadcasts of a vessel's location to map movements.

The prototype has tracked just over 3,000 fishing vessels, with a public tool set to be released down the track.

SkyTruth said the system, which will only monitor fishing vessels, would make activities usually invisible to the wider public easily viewable.

"So much of what happens out on the high seas is invisible, and that has been a huge barrier to understanding and showing the world what's at stake for the ocean," SkyTruth's president and founder John Amos said.

"Satellite data is allowing us to make human interaction with the ocean more transparent than ever before."

The Global Ocean Commission, an independent panel launched in February 2013, said evidence showed seas have been fished to dangerously low levels, with 90 percent of the world's large fish stocks -- such as tuna and swordfish -- already gone.

The commission said one of the challenges in tackling illegal fishing was the lack of jurisdiction on the high seas.

While the high seas make up 64 percent of the ocean's total surface area, they fall beyond national jurisdictions and suffer from a lack of oversight, the organisation said.

The World Parks Congress, which is being held in Sydney until November 19, has drawn thousands of delegates and is set to lay out a global agenda for protected areas for the next decade.

Related Article:

Indonesia Declares War on Illegal Foreign Fishing Boats

Taiwan-developed technology can bootup phones in just 6 seconds

Want China Times, CNA 2014-11-11

Lo Shi-wu shows off his invention, Nov. 10. (Photo/CNA)

A researcher in southern Taiwan has developed a potentially energy-saving technology that he says allows smartphones to boot up in as little as six seconds.

"When I looked at the code in the operating system relating to power-saving, I realized there was a more efficient way to code it and started looking into it," said Lo Shi-wu, an assistant professor of computer science and information engineering at National Chung Cheng University.

On average, it takes 40 seconds for most devices to turn on, according to the researcher.

Lo explained Monday that this technology could save energy by encouraging people to switch off their phones when not in use, something many people currently avoid because they feel turning the phone back on when they want to use it can take too long.

Calling his invention an improvement on other energy-saving designs for phones, Lo said it works based on the random access ability of flash memory.

The technology has been patented in Taiwan and South Korea and has already been transferred to several major chip and software companies, Lo said, without specifying the companies.

While it has obvious applications in mobile devices running Google's Android operating system and internet-capable devices, Lo suggested that in the future, car computers and Web-based TV services, such as Chunghwa Telecom's Multimedia on Demand (MOD), could integrate it as well.

Obama demands 'strongest possible rules' to protect net neutrality

President says ‘open internet is essential to way of life’ and comes out against so-called ‘fast lanes’ for higher-paying web users

• Net neutrality advocates protest against hybrid proposal

theguardian.com, Dominic Rushe in New York, Monday 10 November 2014

Obama: ‘We cannot allow ISPs to restrict the best access.’ Photograph: Reuters

Barack Obama called for “the strongest possible rules to protect” the open internet on Monday and came out against proposals championed by cable and telecoms companies to create fast lanes for the web.

The president’s statement comes as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prepares to publish new rules to regulate the internet after a series of legal defeats at the hands of telecoms and cable companies.

“An open internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life. By lowering the cost of launching a new idea, igniting new political movements, and bringing communities closer together, it has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known,” Obama said.

The president came out firmly against a proposal that would allow cable companies to create “fast lanes” for higher paying customers. Cable and telecoms companies have lobbied for fast lanes, arguing that companies like Netflix should pay more for the large amount of bandwidth they use.

Opponents argue such a move would create a tiered internet with faster service for those who can pay, and end “net neutrality” – the principle that all traffic is equal on the web.

“Net neutrality has been built into the fabric of the internet since its creation — but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted. We cannot allow internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas,“ wrote Obama. He said the FCC should impose “the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.”

The president’s move will place extraordinary pressure on the bipartisan FCC. Chairman Tom Wheeler is a Democrat, but the FCC’s board is split between Democrat and Republican members and the Republicans have shown clear opposition to imposing more regulation on internet service providers.

After receiving more than 4m comments from the general public, the FCC had reportedly been discussing a “hybrid” solution that would have allowed tiered services but imposed stricter rules to protect customers. The proposal met with stiff opposition from net neutrality supporters, who now have the backing of Obama.

Related Articles:

Net neutrality is still a chimera in the EU

German government warns Telekom on net neutrality

Netherlands guarantees net neutrality

UN Declares Internet Access a Human Right

Putin gives Xi world's first dual-screen smartphone

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-11-10

Vladimir Putin gives Xi Jinping a new Yotaphone 2. (Internet photo)

Chinese president Xi Jinping has become the owner of the world's first dual-screen smartphone courtesy of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Xi was personally presented with a YotaPhone 2, developed by Russia's state-owned tech company Rostec, by Putin, who had arrived in Beijing on Sunday ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leadership summit on Nov. 10-11.

Apart from a traditional LCD screen on one side, the back of the YotaPhone 2 features a 4.7-inch electronic paper display (EPD) for reading e-books and playing simple games like Sudoku or chess. If the main screen runs out of battery, the EPD side can act as a backup.

The special edition of the smartphone Xi received has reportedly been installed with special Russian, Chinese and APEC paraphernalia. It also includes a special data protection system developed by Russian engineers, which is said to make the phone "unique" in regard of safety levels.

Xi was reportedly all smiles when he received the gift, and later even asked Putin, "Do we have partnership in this project as well?" to which Putin responded, "Will do!"

The official launch of the YotaPhone 2, which runs on Google's Android operating system, is scheduled for December. The phone will then hit European markets before arriving in China and South-East Asia in the first quarter of 2015.

Apart from playing with his new phone, Xi also managed to squeeze in the execution of 17 bilateral cooperation agreements with Putin that traverse areas such as natural gas, oil, nuclear power, transportation, aerospace and finance.

e-ID card offers more protection to China's internet users

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-11-09

A woman uses her laptop to chat online. (File photo/CNS)

The Third Research Institute of China's Ministry of Public Security has developed an electronic identity card that claims to provide better and more efficient protection to internet users' personal information and security, reports the Chinese-language Beijing Morning Post.

The new technology, named e-ID, was on show at the 16th China International Industry Fair between Nov. 4-8. It stores personal information on a chip of a bank card. At the fair, the institute's staff used a card reader or a smartphone to read the e-ID, which allows the owners to shop online and check their purchases without submitting their name, address, phone number or personal information.

Yan Zeming, deputy director of the institute's information and internet security laboratory, said the technology uses an algorithm called Guomi SM2 and has a strong security mechanism that ensures the card's information cannot be read, copied, changed or used illegally.

The institute has launched a trial program for the e-ID since 2012 when it provided nearly 30,000 e-IDs to Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest commercial bank, has also issued 6 million bank IC cards installed with the technology across the country.

Tim Cook: 'I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me'

Apple CEO Tim Cook has written about his sexuality for the first time, in the hope that he can ‘help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is’

theguardian.com, Rupert Neate and Alex Hern, Thursday 30 October 2014

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach,
California. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, has officially come out as gay and described his sexuality as “among the greatest gifts God has given me.”

Cook, who had previously never denied being gay but neither had he publicly acknowledged his sexuality, wrote about being gay in an opinion article for Bloomberg.

“I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” the boss of the world’s largest company said on Thursday. “For years, I’ve been open with many people about my sexual orientation. Plenty of colleagues at Apple know I’m gay, and it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the way they treat me,” he said. Of course, I’ve had the good fortune to work at a company that loves creativity and innovation and knows it can only flourish when you embrace people’s differences. Not everyone is so lucky.”

Cook, 53, who became the boss of Apple in August 2011 shortly before founder Steve Jobs died after a long battle against pancreatic cancer, said: “While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.”

Out magazine listed him on its 2013 “power list”, while tech blog Valleywag castigated the New York Times for erasing Cook when it wrote in May that “there is not a single openly gay chief executive at the nation’s 1,000 biggest companies.” Until today, Cook had also never confirmed that he is a gay man, to the extent that a CNBC anchor caused a minor fracas in June when he described Cook as “fairly open

about the fact that he’s gay”.

Cook, who has worked at Apple since 1998, said he had not previously opened up about his sexuality in an effort to try and maintain a level of privacy while running one of the world’s most scrutinised companies.

“Throughout my professional life, I’ve tried to maintain a basic level of privacy. I come from humble roots, and I don’t seek to draw attention to myself,” he said. “Apple is already one of the most closely watched companies in the world, and I like keeping the focus on our products and the incredible things our customers achieve with them.

“At the same time, I believe deeply in the words of Dr Martin Luther King, who said: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ” I often challenge myself with that question, and I’ve come to realise that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important. That’s what has led me to today.”

Cook said being gay had been “tough and uncomfortable at times” but also made him “more empathetic, which has led to a richer life” and given him “the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry”.

“It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you’re the CEO of Apple.”

While the essay is the first place Cook has publicly confirmed his sexuality, it’s not the first time he’s taken a stance against discrimination against LGBT people. In June, he tweeted his support for the White House’s decision to ban LGBT discrimination at federal contractors, calling it “a matter of basic human dignity”. And in February, he congratulated the football coach of the university he went to for saying he would be fine with a gay player on the team.

In the Bloomberg article, Cook said the world had changed considerably for gay people since he was a child, but more needs to be done to create a fair and more equal society. “There are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay, or where we can be barred from visiting sick partners and sharing in their legacies. Countless people, particularly kids, face fear and abuse every day because of their sexual orientation.”

Cook said he does not consider himself a gay rights activist, but he realised how much he has benefited from the sacrifices of equal rights activists in the past.

“I’ll admit that this wasn’t an easy choice. Privacy remains important to me, and I’d like to hold on to a small amount of it,” he said. “So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.”

Other high-profile business figures who have discussed their homosexuality more openly in recent years include the former BP boss Lord Browne, who has now written a book about homosexuality within the business world.

Suki Sandhu, chief executive of OUTstanding, a not-for-profit professional network for LGBT executives, said: “This is amazing news. There is no stronger diversity message to send than the CEO of the world’s most valuable company saying it makes sense to be open and authentic about who you are in the workplace. Coming hot on the heels of the appointment of Christopher Bailey as the first openly gay CEO of a FTSE 100 company, it shows that attitudes are changing.

“But the fact remains that Cook and Bailey are in a tiny minority. When conservative estimates put the percentage of UK adults who are lesbian,g ay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) at 6%, it seems crazy that so few business leaders are open about their sexuality.”

• Apple’s Tim Cook isn’t the only gay person in the IT village

Related Articles:

China web users laud Apple boss for coming out


"The Akashic Circle" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, The Humanization of God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.)  - (Text version)

“… Gender Switching

Old souls, let me tell you something. If you are old enough, and many of you are, you have been everything. Do you hear me? All of you. You have been both genders. All of you have been what I will call between genders, and that means that all of you have had gender switches. Do you know what happens when it's time for you to switch a gender? We have discussed it before. You'll have dozens of lifetimes as the same gender. You're used to it. It's comfortable. You cannot conceive of being anything else, yet now it's time to change. It takes approximately three lifetimes for you to get used to it, and in those three lifetimes, you will have what I call "gender confusion."

It isn't confusion at all. It's absolutely normal, yet society often will see it as abnormal. I'm sitting here telling you you've all been through it. All of you. That's what old souls do. It's part of the system. …”

Hungary's protests are about more than Internet tax, says student protester

Deutsche Welle, 28 Oct 2014

Hungarians have taken to the streets again to protest a new Internet tax. It's the last straw amidst government shortfalls and a diplomatic crisis, one protester tells DW.

On Tuesday (28.10.2014), Hungarians will stage the second protest against their government's plans to introduce a tax for Internet use. If it is implemented, Hungarians will have to pay 150 forints ($0.60) per gigabyte - the government has promised to cap the tax at 700 forints ($2.92). Companies could pay a maximum of $20.31. Daniel Mayer, a 26 year old student Budapest, was among the 10,000 protesters who called for the government to withdraw the draft law on Sunday (26.10.2014).

DW: How would paying the Internet tax affect you?

Daniel Mayer: We are speaking of a maximum of 2.30 euros ($2.92) a month - that is nothing. This tax won't change the Internet habits of Hungarians or companies. No one will be reading fewer articles that are critical of the government. No company will shut down because of the new Internet tax. But everyone can feel and finally understand why this is a problem. This is why so many people took to the streets, who weren't protesting before.

Why is it so important to Hungarians?

It is symbolic, because the Internet is something which was free and not controlled or influenced by the government. Our print and traditional media is awful, and you have to pay for it. The average Hungarian under the age of 50 uses the Internet for a lot of things, maybe even more than in western Europe, because everything is free and easily accessible on the Internet. So Hungarians are now afraid that they can lose that or that something will change. My problem is not the money, it's the principle of it which makes me angry. There are countries like Finland, which say, Internet access is a fundamental right. There are countries where the Internet is subsidized by the government. So this tax would put Hungary back 10 or 15 years.

Do you think the government is trying to target a specific group with the tax?

No. The government just wants money and they have run out of ideas. They have a tax on banks, on grocery stores, on telecommunication companies, and now they have decided to tax the Internet. We already have 27 percent of value added tax (VAT) on everything, including Internet services. This is the highest in the EU. And now we will get an extra tax specifically on the Internet. 

Daniel Mayer studies sociology in Budapest.

Where is the money supposed to go?

We don't know. That is also the problem that I and a lot of protesters have. If the government would say, "we desperately need this to do x, y, z," then it could be a little more understandable. But the government doesn't take us seriously. They are not saying what they want to do with it, or why they need it, they just say, "we need it."

So is the tax about Hungary's economic difficulties or about a growing authoritarian approach by the government as the media report?

The government is becoming more authoritarian, but in this case it's more of a financial question. I also think it has something to do with distracting Hungarians from the scandal in which six high-ranking Hungarian officials were banned from entering the US.

If the Internet tax is largely symbolic, does it mean that there is a general sense of dissatisfaction amongst the people?

At the demonstration, there were a lot of posters and people shouting, "we don't want to pay money to the corrupt tax agency," "Russia go home," or "Europe we want you." So the demonstration showed that the people are well aware of the diplomatic crisis with the US and the shortfalls of the government. This was the last straw, and now they are demonstrating against everything. Although I don't think our protests will turn into a revolution, it is a little bit like in Gezi Park in Turkey: their main problem was not the trees, that was just the last thing which brought the people to the streets. It has become symbolic for Hungarians.

Related Article:

Hungarian Prime Minister Orban scraps planned Internet tax