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

Public prosecutor, consumer authority both investigate IT fraud

DutchNews.nl, Wednesday 22 October 2014

(NOS/ANP)

The Dutch consumers authority ACM has written to 50 of the country’s biggest IT companies asking them for information about price agreements and other illegal activities, the NRC said on Wednesday.

The cartel body is particularly interested in information about government contracts in the wake of revelations made by television programme Zembla earlier this month, the paper said.

The programme claimed that IT company Ordina had committed fraud several times in order to win government contracts.

The NRC also says the public prosecution department has begun its own investigation into the claims to determine if there is enough evidence to merit a criminal prosecution.

Related Articles:

Damning report says goverment wastes up to €5bn on IT failures

IT services group Ordina at centre of corruption scandal: Zembla

Google will not make further investment in Google glass supplier

Want China Times, CNA 2014-10-23

A man tries on Google Glass, Apr. 25. (File photo/CNS)

Taiwanese chip maker Himax Technologies announced Wednesday that Google has decided not to exercise its previously issued purchase option to make an additional investment into a Himax unit, Himax Display, which supplies liquid-crystal-on-silicon microdisplay technology for Google Glass.

The second round investment decision by Google will not affect the two companies' strategic partnership, Himax said. They added they the company has been authorized by Google to make the following statement: "Google continues to work closely with Himax as a strategic partner on future technologies and products and will remain a board observer."

The companies did not explain why Google has decided not to make additional investment.

Himax Display has been Google's partner for several years. The US search giant made its first-round investment in October 2013 to acquire a 6.3% stake in Himax Display and had the option to increase its stake to 14.8%.

Over the last few years, Himax Display has devoted its research and development of its liquid-crystal-on-silicon technology for new applications of head-mounted displays and other wearable computing applications.

Australian convicted in child sex sting using virtual girl

Yahoo – AFP, 22 Oct 2014

A computer-generated 10-year-old Filipina called "Sweetie" was used to identify

 over 1,000 chuild sex predators around the world. An Australian man has become the

first person convicted from the operation, the rights group behind it said (AFP Photo)

Sydney (AFP) - An Australian man caught in a global sting which used a virtual girl to trap child sex predators has become the first person convicted from the operation, the child rights group behind it said Wednesday.

Dutch charitable organisation Terre des Hommes said in November last year it had used a computer-generated Filipina girl -- dubbed "Sweetie" -- in Internet chat rooms to ensnare paedophiles.

Over a 10-week period more than 20,000 predators from 71 countries approached the virtual 10-year-old asking for webcam sex performances and more than 1,000 paedophiles had been identified as a result, it said at the time.

The group has said that several offenders have since been arrested after the information was passed onto police, including in Australia, Poland and the United States.

The Australian is the first person to be convicted in the online sting, Terre des Hommes' Jakarta-based Leny Kling told AFP.

"And we hope that more will follow," she said.

Court officials said 38-year-old Scott Robert Hansen had been sentenced on three charges, including using a carriage service to transmit indecent communications to a person aged under 16, and possessing child exploitation material on Tuesday.

He was also charged with failing to comply with a sex offenders order.

"He was given a two-year sentence," a court spokeswoman told AFP, adding it was suspended given the 260 days he had already been held in custody.

Australian Federal Police are understood to have searched Hansen's home following a web chat with "Sweetie" in which he was naked and masturbated, news.com.au reported.

Dutch rights groups Terre des Hommes said in November last year it had used

 a computer-generated Filipina girl -- dubbed "Sweetie" -- in Internet chat rooms to

ensnare paedophiles (AFP Photo)

Terre des Hommes has said they did not approach anyone on the Internet but instead waited for people to approach Sweetie and ask for sex acts.

The rights group also stopped the conversation as soon as someone offered Sweetie money for sex acts.

"Sweetie attracted a lot of paedophiles," said Kling, adding that comments the virtual girl attracted included 'Can you undress yourself?' and 'Can you show your boobs to me?'.

Kling said the group wanted to raise the alarm about webcam child sex tourism, a form of child exploitation that has tens of thousands of victims in the Philippines alone.

The problem is also present in Cambodia and Thailand, she said.

"We are just trying to prove with Sweetie that this is an iceberg problem," she said, adding that the large number of people caught in the sting in a short time indicated the scale of the exploitation of children.

"It's up to the FBI, up to Interpol, up to the Australian police force to take action."

When the sting was revealed in 2013, Terres de Hommes said its researchers found the experience shocking.

"To put yourself in the shoes of a 10-year-old Filipina girl and seeing what some men want from you has been a shocking experience for them," said its head of campaigns Hans Guyt.

"Some demands and acts were really obscene."

Twitter 'source of all evil': top Saudi cleric

Yahoo – AFP, 20 Oct 2014

Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh says Twitter could be of real benefit if it was used
correctly but has been exploited for trivial matters (AFP Photo/Damien Meyer)

Riyadh (AFP) - Twitter is nothing more than "a source of lies" and evil, Saudi Arabia's top Muslim cleric said, in comments that sparked lively debate Tuesday on the microblogging site.

"If it were used correctly, it could be of real benefit, but unfortunately it's exploited for trivial matters," Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said on his "Fatwa" television show broadcast late Monday.

Twitter is "the source of all evil and devastation", the mufti said.

"People are rushing to it thinking it's a source of credible information but it's a source of lies and falsehood."

The social media platform is popular among both men and women in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, where some supported the mufti's views but many others objected.

"This is why I will repent, and close my account to distance myself from this great evil," one Twitter user wrote with apparent sarcasm.

"Respected sheikh, how can you judge something without using it?" another post asked.

But a supporter of the sheikh wrote: "I swear the mufti has spoken the truth; the evils of Twitter are many."

Saudi Arabia adopts a strict version of Sunni Islam, including a segregation of the sexes, that influences all aspects of life in the Gulf kingdom.

Related Article:

Facebook Became the New Town Hall and Twitter the Fastest Media

After the hype, bitcoin returns to a niche investment

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-10-19

A bitcoin ATM in Seoul, March 8. (File photo/Xinhua)

Bitcoin, the virtual currency that once made headlines with its high price fluctuations, has returned to its former status of being a niche alternative investment, the Chinese-language Securities Times reports.

"Bitcoin has truly become marginalized," said a manager surnamed Xie at a trust company in Shenzhen who once owned 20 units of the online currency.

The surge in the value of bitcoin to over US$1,000 per unit in the latter half of 2013 garnered public attention. Each rise and fall in its value made headlines, the newspaper noted.

Although the currency saw an intra-session fall of 23% on Oct. 5 and hit a low of US$275, Xie stated that only few people still paid attention to it now because of its marginalization.

All Xie now hopes for is to get back the 20 bitcoins he had stored in the defunct trading platform Mt Gox, which filed for bankruptcy in February.

Created in 2009, bitcoin was once believed to have the potential to replace traditional currencies issued by governments. However, the involvement of regulators and the emergence of other online currencies such as litecoin revealed the uncertainties surrounding the virtual currency and dampened expectations.

The lack of security and guarantee for bitcoin holders, the newspaper further remarked, showed that investing in virtual currency remains a betting game.

Egg freezing: controversial new benefit in the US workplace

Yahoo – AFP, Fabienne Faur, 19 Oct 2014

Free meals, four months of maternity leave and now egg-freezing: Facebook's

 latest gift to its employees has rekindled debate on the role of women in the

company (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

Washington (AFP) - Free meals, four months of maternity leave and now egg-freezing: Facebook's latest gift to its employees has rekindled debate on the role of women in the company.

The move aims to at the very least show that "we have a lot of work to do to help companies really understand what they need to do," said Carolyn Leighton, who founded WITI, a network of women working in the tech sector.

As for paying to have eggs frozen -- which allows women to put off having children -- she dismissed the idea as "ridiculous."

"My phone has been ringing off the hook with women who found it insulting," Leighton said.

"They felt they were just trying to deflect the conversation about equal pay for women," she said, recalling that in the United States, a woman doing the same job as a man earns 77 percent what he does.

That is apparently not the goal of Facebook, known among companies in Silicon Valley for its groundbreaking ideas on personnel management, in offering this coverage up to $20,000.

"We take care of all our employees and the people who matter most to them," said a Facebook spokesman, outlining the company's health care benefits.

There is no universal, government-funded health care program in the United States, and most Americans get their health care from their employer.

At Facebook, the benefits include fertility treatment, surrogate mothers for homosexual couples and sperm bank access. This is all on top of three free meals a day at the office, a medical care in situ and a car wash.

'Generous' maternity leave'

"We don't have women-specific benefits. We have benefits for people at Facebook," the spokesman said, insisting that the four-month maternity leave is quite generous in a country where much shorter periods are often granted.

Apple, which will start paying for egg freezing in January, said it wanted to give its workers the power to make their lives productive as they take care of their loved ones and raise their children.

Apple, which will start paying for egg freezing in January, said it wanted to give

 its workers the power to make their lives productive as they take care of their

loved ones and raise their children (AFP Photo/Timothy A. Clary)

"Surely what they meant to say was, 'We want women at Apple to spend more of their lives working for us without a family to distract them,'" Jessica Cussins of the Center for Genetics and Society wrote in a Huffington Post editorial.

But Chavi Eve Karkowsky, an obstetrician in New York, wrote in the online magazine Slate that when it comes to delayed child bearing, "the two factors that come up again and again are financial stability and the availability of an appropriate partner."

Of the second factor, she added "this is the one that I think creates the egg-freezing push."

The procedure that was once mostly used by people with cancer is not harmless and its results not guaranteed.

The debate has rekindled the controversy over women in the workplace, a key issue for the women's liberation movement.

A week ago, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was forced to apologize after advising women to trust their "karma" rather than be assertive and ask for a raise.

Last year, Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg published "Lean In," a memoir presented as a modern feminist manifest in which she urged women to work to succeed in juggling their careers and family life.

Women make up 50.8 percent of the US population and 47 percent of the workforce. But they account for only 16.6 percent of senior positions in the workplace and 8.1 percent of the highest paying jobs, according to the Center for American Progress.

Damning report says goverment wastes up to €5bn on IT failures

DutchNews.nl, Wednesday 15 October 2014

(NOS/ANP)

The Dutch government is wasting between €1bn and €5bn a year on failing IT projects, says a parliamentary commission set up to look at a number of headline cases.

This ‘cautious estimate’ is an ‘unacceptably high amount’, the commission said in its report which was published on Wednesday.

‘The government often fails to keep control of its IT projects in terms of cost, timing and the end result,’ the commission said.

Unknown spending

Coming up with an exact figure of how much the government wastes on IT is impossible because ‘no one knows how much it spends’. But based on expert opinion the figure can be put at between €1bn and €5bn a year.

Parliament is also failing to properly monitor IT projects because of a lack of interest and expertise and projects are being undertaken with unrealistic expectations.

Among the 34 recommendations for improvement, the commission says a special committee should be set up to supervise projects with a budget of over €5m. The green light for such projects should only be given once the technical, management and organisation risks have been assessed.

What is ICT?

Parliament chairwoman Anouchka van Miltenburg made a major gaffe while accepting the report by saying she had had to ‘google ICT’ to find out what it meant.

The Netherlands uses ICT to cover information and communications technology, rather than IT like most of the world.

‘This is a real low point,’ IT entrepreneur Rene Veldwijk who was watching the proceedings told the Telegraf. ‘People are being cute about their ignorance.’

Projects

The commission was set up to look at six government IT projects which ran into serious trouble, and held its first interviews at the end of April. The NRC sums them up as follows:

• mGBA: modernising the local government registration system (births, marriages, deaths and address).

• Ov-chipkaart: smart card for public transport which was expensive and did not have enough loading stations.

• C2000: a new communication system for the emergency services which cost twice the budget and still has operating problems.

• EPD: a centralised system for storing patients’ medical records which floundered in the upper house of parliament because of concerns about privacy.

• Werk.nl: jobs website run by the UWV benefit centres which has been beset by computer failure

• A73 tunnels: a security system for tunnels on the A73 highway which did not work, leading to months of tunnel closures.

During the hearings information science professor Hans Mulder told the committee just 7% of the projects with a budget starting at €7.5m can be said to be successful. In total, 70% of projects fail.

Of those which flop, 36% fail so seriously the new system is never used and around half are of doubtful value because they turn out to be too expensive, take too long or produce unexpected results, Mulder said.

Related Article:

IT services group Ordina at centre of corruption scandal: Zembla

Jokowi Meets with Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg

Jakarta Globe, Deti Mega Purnamasari, Oct 13, 2014

Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, right, accompanied by President-Elect
Joko Widodo talks to journalists after their meeting in Jakarta, on Monday. (EPA
Photo/Adi Weda)

Jakarta. President-Elect Joko Widodo on Monday received Facbeook founder Mark Zuckerberg at the Jakarta City Hall, where he is currently serving his final days as governor of the capital.

“We talked about how we can utilize Facebook for the benefit of the people and how it can be useful in supporting micro businesses,” Joko said during a press conference. “He [Zuckerberg] will be working with us in addressing the two issues.”

Joko added that he also discussed issues related to internet taxes and access, and talked about the utilization of the social network in the recent general elections.

“We also talked a lot about the use of Facebook during the [presidential election] campaign. Indonesia has a population of 240 million, while Facebook has approximately 70 million users. This is a potential market for him,” Joko said.

Zuckerberg, traveling to Indonesia for an Internet.org meeting, said he was glad to have had the opportunity to visit the country and meet with Joko.

“I’m glad I am able to talk to Joko. I’m also glad to see growing internet access among millions of Indonesians, as well as the growth of businesses,” he said, speaking in the same press conference.

Internet.org is a partnership between Facebook and five other technology companies aimed to improve internet access in parts of the world that remain largely unconnected.

“The program is aimed at eliminating barriers that hamper internet access, so that more Indonesians can be connected to the internet,” said Maria Tiurma, a commissioner of Owen Strategik Media, which organized Zuckerberg’s visit.

Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, right, and Indonesian President-elect

Joko Widodo, left, visiting Tanah Abang market after their meeting in Jakarta,

Indonesia, Oct. 13, 2014. (SP Photo/Joanito De Saojoao)

Related Articles:

Sunrise at Borobudur for Facebook CEO Zuckerberg

President-Elect Jokowi Calls on Public to Pick Cabinet

Facebook Became the New Town Hall and Twitter the Fastest Media

HTC introduces groundbreaking new digital camera

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-10-11

The HTC RE digital camera, right, linked up to a smartphone. (Photo/China Times)

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC is venturing into uncharted waters with its new RE high-resolution camera, reports the Commercial Times, our Chinese-language sister paper.

The RE, set for release in the US later this month, was launched in New York on Oct. 8 local time, along with the company's new midrange smartphone, the Desire Eye.

Designed to look like a periscope, the RE can be used as an independent still and video camera or as a connected device controlled via a smartphone. The device has no power switch but has touch sensors that activate when it is picked up. It has just one button, which shoots a still with a short press and a video when pressed for longer.

As a still camera, the RE has a resolution of 16 million pixels and an angle of view of 146 degrees. Video resolution is full HD at 1080p at a rate of 30fps, and a 4x slow motion mode will be accessible at a resolution of 720p. Shallow underwater shots are possible as the RE is water resistant to a depth of one meter for up to 30 minutes.

Notably, the RE is the first piece of HTC hardware that is compatible with both Android and Apple's iOS.

HTC CEO Peter Chou said at the launch that the RE is the start of the next leg of HTC's journey, adding that the cross-platform characteristic will allow more people to get to experience HTC's products and improve its brand awareness. Company founder and chairwoman Cher Wang also expressed confidence in the RE as well as the company's financial performance for next year.

The RE will be available for US$200 in the US at Best Buy, Amazon and telecommunication operators such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. The camera is expected to reach the Taiwanese market by the end of the year.

Online voting not ready for worldwide roll-out: study

Yahoo – AFP, Rob Lever, 8 Oct 2014

Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip inserts a card to validate his electronic ballot 

through the web on February 26, 2007 from his office in Tallinn (AFP Photo/Raigo Pajula)

Washington (AFP) - Online voting has the potential to boost election participation around the world, but is not yet ready to be widely rolled out due to security risks, a study released Wednesday said.

The research, produced by the Atlantic Council think tank and the online protection firm McAfee, concluded that "security will need to be vastly improved" before it becomes feasible to adopt Internet voting on a large scale.

According to the study, online voting faces more complex obstacles than electronic commerce, where a customer can be reimbursed in the case of fraud or theft.

"Online voting poses a much tougher problem" than e-commerce, the report said.

"Lost votes are unacceptable... and unlike paper ballots, electronic votes cannot be 'rolled back' or easily recounted."

The report said hackers could paralyze an online voting system or, even worse, change the results without being detected.

A major problem of online voting is that any system must verify the identity of the voter, and at the same time guarantee anonymity in the process.

Some experts believe it could be decades before online voting becomes mainstream.

Joseph Hall of the Center for Democracy and Technology said that many security experts believe "the timeline will be 30 to 40 years" before the technological hurdles to online voting are overcome.

One of the problems is the "uncontrolled platform," in which voting software or computers can be infected, Hall said at a discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.

Jordi Puiggali of the online voting technology firm Scytl said that while Internet balloting has not been perfect, "we have to consider the risks of voting channels that already exist," citing practices such as stuffed ballot boxes.

The researchers cited a study released earlier this year by University of Michigan scientists on online voting in Estonia, the first country to hold national elections on the Internet.

That study, which is to be published in a scientific journal next month, revealed vulnerabilities in Estonia's online voting system.

"Attackers could target the election servers or voters' clients to alter election results or undermine the legitimacy of the system," the study said.

Estonian officials have maintained that the system is secure.

Wednesday's report said that online voting has enormous potential if security can be improved.

"For the digital generation, unsupervised polling via mobile devices may be the 'killer app' of e-voting," the report said, adding that biometric and other security features may need to be perfected.

"Broad adoption of most new technologies generally takes longer than technology optimists hope, but it will happen," the report added.

"Online voting's potential benefits in terms of reach, access and participation have the potential to revolutionize the democratic process around the world."

Related Article:

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  Government

Let us speak of government. We're not speaking of your government, but of any government - the way it works, how it survives, how it has survived, the way it campaigns, and how it elects leaders. It's going to change.

Years ago, I told you, "When everybody can talk to everybody, there can be no secrets." Up to this point on this planet, government has counted on one thing - that the people can't easily talk to each other on a global scale. They have to get their information through government or official channels. Even mass media isn't always free enough, for it reports that which the government reports. Even a free society tends to bias itself according to the bias of the times. However, when you can have Human Beings talking to each other all at once, all over the planet without government control, it all changes, for there is open revelation of truth.

Democracy itself will change and you're going to see it soon. The hold-outs, the few countries I have mentioned in the past, are doomed unless they recalibrate. They're doomed to be the same as they have been and won't be able to exist as they are now with everyone changing around them.

I mentioned North Korea in the past. Give it time. Right now, the young man is under the control of his father's advisors. But when they're gone, you will see something different, should he survive. Don't judge him yet, for he is being controlled.

In government, if you're entire voting base has the ability to talk to itself without restriction and comes up with opinions by itself without restriction, it behooves a politician to be aware and listen to them. This will change what politicians will do. It will change the way things work in government. Don't be surprised when some day a whole nation can vote all at once in a very unusual way. Gone will be the old systems where you used to count on horseback riders to report in from faraway places. Some of you know what I am talking about. Government will change. The systems around you, both dark and light, will change. You're going to start seeing something else, too, so let's change the subject and turn the page. …

Hewlett-Packard reportedly set to split into two companies

Silicon Valley personal computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. is set to split into two companies, according to a newspaper report. The business will look to focus more on corporate services.

Deutsche Welle, 6 Oct 2014

The Wall Street Journal reported on its website Sunday that HP was poised for the split, citing people familiar with the matter.

The move, which could be announced as early as Monday, would see HP create one company that sells computers and printers, and second that focuses on technology services, including data storage, servers and software.

HP was founded by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in Palo Alto, California in 1939. It went on to have a pivotal role in the rise of the Silicon Valley tech industry and the personal computer revolution.

The company has struggled of late, laying off tens of thousands of employees over the past few years as it struggles with dwindling sales and a rise in mobile computing.

HP still retains 300,000 employees, however, and is on track to earn $112 billion (90 billion euros) in revenue this fiscal year.

A number of major companies have spun off operations into separate companies in recent years, in the face of pressure from shareholders. Investors often reward technology companies for doing so, in the belief that more focused companies perform better.

Last week online auction company eBay announced it would spin off its mobile payment service PayPal. The move prompted a more than 7 percent rise in share prices on the day when news of the move broke.

dr/av (AP, Reuters, AFP)

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