Govt to launch book on macro indicators of Indonesia`s ICT

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government will soon launch a book on macro indicators of the county`s information and communication technology (ICT), an official said.

"Communication and Information Minister Muhammad Nuh will launch the book on the ICT macro indicators on the occasion of a seminar on Indonesia Outlook 2008 on Thursday (Jan 31)," Achmad Jazidie of the Center for Technology and Industry Policies said on Thursday.

He said the ICT macro indicators would hopefully encourage stakeholders, along with the government, to make positive contributions to the development of the ICT sector in the country.

Meanwhile, Abdullah Alkaff, assistant to the communication and information minister, said the idea of writing the book came from Muhammad Nuh to give complete and accurate information on the conditions of the country`s information and communication technology.

The government hoped the launching of the book would attract investors to the country, improve productivity and bolster the nation`s optimism, he said.

"Investors will be willing to invest if the ICT of a country is good. ICT is related to many factors and one of them is productivity. If the ICT of a country is good, its productivity will be high and investment will increase," he said.

Google eyes setting up data center in Taiwan

Taipei (ANTARA News/Asia Pulse) - Minister of Economic Affairs Steve R. L. Chen has confirmed that Google, one of the world's largest search engine operators, is considering setting up a data processing center in Taiwan.

The ministry was making efforts to secure the investment, Chen said, including offers of a stable electricity supply and land for the investment project.

According to the ministry, Google is planning to depose backups of the data in its servers in the planned data processing center, to be constructed in a country outside the United States, where it is headquartered.

Google eyeing operations in Malaysia: report

Sun Jan 27, 2008 12:06am EST

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Web search engine giant Google Inc is interested to set up operations in Malaysia, citing the country's technology infrastructure and strategic location, newspapers reported on Sunday.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Google has started discussions with Malaysia's Multimedia Development Corp on establishing a base in the country.

"They want to make their presence felt in Malaysia. It will be a big boost for our ICT industry," he told reporters after meeting Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Abdullah said Malaysia ranked as the top users of Google in Southeast Asia, which was another reason why it would make sense to use the country as a base for its operations.

In Asia, Google has offices in China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

Bill Gates new project: Farming

By Barry Neild

DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) -- Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates announced a new direction Friday as he pledged $306 million in grants to develop farming in poor countries, leading the charge for corporate responsibility at a major meeting of business chiefs.

The announcement by Gates, who is to step down from the computer giant later this year, drew attention from the financial woes that have dominated the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Gates received a standing ovation for his announcement at the suggestion of U2 frontman Bono.

The move, the first foray into agriculture by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will help boost efforts by the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland to shake off its image as a billionaire's talking shop that does little to solve the problems it discusses.

"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," Gates said.

"The challenge here is to design a system including profit and recognition to do more for the poor," he said, calling for a new form of "creative capitalism."

Bono, returning to add showbiz sparkle to the Forum for a second year, and UN chief Ban Ki-moon pushed the debate towards issues such as malaria eradication, poverty alleviation and climate change.

In his first appearance at Davos 2008, which gathers more than 2,500 world business figures and government leaders, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the World Bank to take on an environmental role to fight climate change.

Despite the fresh financial shockwaves generated by the $7.2 billion fraud at French bank Societe Generale, there were easing concerns that the global economy was heading towards recession.

A CNN straw poll of business leaders attending the Davos meeting voted in favor of an economic slowdown.

John Thaine, CEO of Merrill Lynch told CNN that he believed the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to 0.75 rate cut would help avoid long-term turmoil.

"I think that the steps that the Fed is taking, the steps that the administration is taking, are the right steps, they will help, but the economy is still going to slow," he told CNN.

Asia reports 'spectacular' PC sales

By Lynn Tan, ZDNet Asia

Tuesday, January 22 2008 06:40 PM

The Asia-Pacific PC market enjoyed robust sales in 2007 and continues to be spurred by portable personal computers, according to an IDC study.

In its report released Monday, the research house said preliminary results indicated that the regional PC market, excluding Japan, shipped 66.6 million units last year, registering an annual growth rate of 20.9 percent.

"It was a spectacular year for the PC market in Asia," said Bryan Ma, Asia-Pacific director of personal systems research at IDC. "Even though wildcards such as the U.S. economy are looming overhead, the fundamentals are so solid that the market could very well beat our conservative expectations for 16.8 percent growth in 2008."

According to IDC, portable PCs continue to be a key driver, with nearly every country in the region posting double-digit growth for such computers over the previous year.

"China's economic momentum should accelerate both before and after the Summer Olympics, and portable PCs will continue to be a hot segment of the market across all countries, especially as the competition for sexy-looking consumer products intensifies," Ma predicted.

In particular, the fourth quarter of 2007 met expectations and saw 18.1 million PCs shipped, posting 1 percent sequential growth as well as 21 percent increase over the same period last year, the IDC survey revealed.

The research house noted that some markets such as India, Malaysia and Vietnam, came in short of forecasts due to tender delays, while portables recovered significantly in Indonesia as products were able to clear customs procedures more easily than before.

The region's top five PC vendors continue to maintain their rankings for the full-year 2007.

Lenovo held on to its "commanding" lead in the total number of PCs shipped in the region, clocking 18.4 percent market share and 27.4 percent annual growth, according to IDC numbers.

Hewlett-Packard's moves in the consumer space paid off, helping to narrow the gap between the U.S.-based company and Lenovo by some two percentage points. HP enjoyed the largest annual growth rate of 52.3 percent, and its regional market share expanded to 13.9 percent.

Dell retained third position with 7.8 percent market share and registered 22 percent annual growth. Trailing in fourth position is Acer with 6.1 percent market share and 37.5 percent year-on-year growth, IDC said. Fifth-placed Founder holds 5.1 percent market share and 14 percent annual growth.

Government project drives Singapore market

The Singapore PC market continued to meet expectations in the fourth quarter of 2007 with 22 percent year-on-year growth, said Reuben Tan, IDC's Asia-Pacific research manager of personal systems research.

"As we move into 2008, consumers will likely drive the Singapore PC market, which will help make up for any potential delays in the government's Standard ICT Operating Environment project."

Kathy Sin, IDC's Asia-Pacific research manager of personal systems research, also gave a positive outlook on Hong Kong's PC market for this year.

"Hong Kong's PC market continued to do well, beating forecasts by 7 percent despite the seasonal [fourth quarter] lull as channel inventory was filled," Sin said. "Healthy economic growth should continue to fuel the market into 2008 with little or no problem."

Lynn Tan is a freelance IT writer based in Singapore.

HBO to Offer Movie Download Service

Gameshout.com, Posted Jan 21, 2008, 1:31 PM ET

HBO to launch movie and television show download service this Tuesday.

HBO, a subsidiary of Time Warner will be launching a new movie and T.V. show download services for its subscribers starting on Tuesday January 22nd. The service called HBO on Broadband will feature a huge cable-based on0demand service focusing on the mobile PC user.

The offering will start out in Green Bay and Milwaukee Wisconsin as a free add-on to their HBO and HBO on-demand services. There is currently no time-line for rolling the service out to the rest of the U.S.

The goal of HBO is to target more of its subscribers who watch more content online allowing for more viewing flexibility. HBO found that the flexibility of their on-demand service reduced their cancellation rate among younger subscribers, and believe that this new service should further protect their subscriber list for those who are more travelers and prefer to watch more on their laptops.

Initially, HBO on Broadband intends on having about 600 titles available each month with about 400 of those available at any time as well as i live stream of the main HBO channel.

IBM and SAP Ink Agreement to Develop Their First Joint Software Product

Yahoo Finance, Monday January 21, 10:01 am ET

ORLANDO, FL--(MARKET WIRE)--Jan 21, 2008 -- LOTUSPHERE -- Today, before 7,000 customers and partners at the annual Lotusphere conference, IBM (NYSE:IBM - News) and SAP AG (NYSE:SAP - News) announced plans to deliver their first joint software product codenamed "Atlantic" that will integrate IBM Lotus Notes software with SAP Business Suite. The combined efforts to create "Atlantic" will result in a new style of applications that present information and data in the context of users familiar with the Lotus Notes desktop. This will make it easier for users to do their jobs and greatly enhance the return on investment that companies have made in their SAP applications.

Providing workers with access to critical business information in this intuitive, easy-to-use interface will enable timely, more informed business decisions. All types of employees can benefit from increased business analysis, information capabilities and the power to run their business operations directly from their Lotus Notes desktop.

"We're creating a richer collaboration environment," said Michael Rhodin, general manager, IBM Lotus Software. "Businesses are looking to find better ways to collaborate and manage their business processes. This IBM-SAP solution addresses both challenges in one seamless package for millions of users."

IBM Lotus and SAP have thousands of mutual customers who have been asking for the functionality that "Atlantic" software will provide. The majority of IBM's top 100 customers also use SAP solutions.

"SAP and IBM Lotus are strategic partners to The Coca-Cola Company," said Jean Michel-Ares, CIO, Coca-Cola Company. "Our IT goal is to help our people to be more responsive, productive and effective, and SAP and IBM Lotus have helped us get closer to that goal. The partnership between IBM Lotus, SAP and The Coca-Cola Company promises to deliver additional value to our associates and improve the tools they use every day."

"Lotus has been an innovator in collaboration for 20 years. This agreement is great example of how SAP enables our customers to empower their users by providing easy access to SAP business processes and data through productivity tools and user interfaces of their choice," said Vishal Sikka, CTO, SAP. "Furthermore, it reaffirms the strong commitment we have to our partnership with IBM."

For more than 35 years, IBM and SAP have collaborated to bring joint customers cutting-edge solutions to improve business efficiency at more than 13,000 client sites for their millions of users. Currently planned for inclusion in the first release of project "Atlantic" is support for SAP workflows, reporting and analytics, and the use of roles from within the Lotus Notes client. In addition, tools are planned to be included to provide the ability to extend and adapt these roles and capabilities, as well as leverage additional collaborative and offline capabilities inherent in Lotus Notes and Domino products. The initial release is planned to ship in the fourth quarter of 2008 and will be sold by both companies.

If customization of the product is required, IBM Global Business Services will be available to provide consulting and perform services. SAP practitioners, other global and regional systems integrators will also be enabled to customize "Atlantic" software to meet demand.

SAP Business Suite is a comprehensive family of adaptive business applications, providing best-in-class functionality built for complete integration, industry-specific capability, unlimited scalability, and easy collaboration over the Internet. Individually, SAP Business Suite applications customers manage their most critical business processes. Collectively, they form a tightly integrated suite that adds value to every facet of large and small organizations, including banks, hospitals, retail establishments, government agencies and a variety of other businesses, and their external value chains.

IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 enterprise collaboration software was developed with input from more than 25,000 customers. Lotus Notes 8 software transforms the inbox into an integrated workspace. It brings together email, calendar, instant messaging, productivity tools like Lotus Symphony, collaborative applications, and the ability to build and deploy customer business or third-party applications, including help desk, customer relationship management, sales force, discussion forms and blogs.

Lotus Notes and Domino products have had approximately 135 million licensed users worldwide. Companies of all sizes, industries and technology lineages are embracing the latest version as the most comprehensive and versatile open collaboration platform they've used.

For more information on "Atlantic," visit www.ibm.com/software/lotus/notes/atlantic. For more information on Lotus Notes and Domino products, visit www.ibm.com/lotus/nd8.

For more information on SAP Business Suite, please visit: http://www.sap.com/usa/solutions/business-suite/index.epx

IBM Unveils Plans for Collaboration Software and Services for Small-and-Medium Sized Businesses

Yahoo Finance, Monday January 21, 9:00 am ET

ORLANDO, FL--(MARKET WIRE)--Jan 21, 2008 -- LOTUSPHERE -- At Lotusphere, IBM (NYSE:IBM - News) announced plans for a software portfolio expansion geared to the needs of millions of companies from 5 to 500 employees that want to focus on growing their businesses instead of running their office systems.

IBM Lotus Foundations is a future line of small business software servers, installed on-premise, and is expected to be offered primarily through IBM Business Partners. In addition, IBM announced a managed beta of a Web-delivered service codenamed "Bluehouse." "Bluehouse" provides extranet services that make it easy for small-and-medium sized companies to securely collaborate beyond their organizational boundaries.

The combination of Lotus Foundations and "Bluehouse" will provide essential software solutions in simple to acquire and manage packages. Small-and-medium sized businesses (SMBs) need superior collaboration and business solutions as much as large companies. With Lotus Foundations and Bluehouse, used separately or in combination, organizations will be able to take advantage of proven enterprise-strength software delivered as a turn-key package for start-up businesses without IT staff.

"Small-and-medium sized business represents a significant growth opportunity for IBM," said Mike Rhodin, general manager, IBM Lotus Software. "Our SMB approach -- which combines easy-to-deploy, self-managed on premise servers with Web-delivered, extranet collaboration services -- uniquely empowers SMBs to succeed in any market."

Based on Linux, IBM Lotus Foundations is expected to provide server software that requires minimal technical expertise and is autonomic -- able to manage and heal itself. This will allow small-and-medium sized companies to focus on their business, rather than spending time and resources managing information technology. Lotus Foundations will be built on the principles of IBM's Express Advantage program for small and medium business such as ease-of-installation and ease-of-use.

The first component of the Lotus Foundations family is currently expected to include a pre-loaded, one-stop-shop solution for small companies: Lotus Domino mail and collaboration platform, file management, directory services, firewall, back-up and recovery, and office productivity tools. Designed to accommodate growth, customers will be able to easily add more users or servers as needed. In addition, as planned, Lotus Foundations will give system integrators and independent software vendors the opportunity to integrate their new or existing applications into the Foundations platform with minimal effort.

A key component of the Lotus Foundations family will be technology acquired through IBM's purchase of Net Integration Technologies, which is expected to close later in the first quarter of 2008, as announced last week. Industry observers have favorably rated the Net Integration Technologies small-business server against Microsoft's Small Business Server. Net Integration Technologies features have consistently received high marks for ease-of-use, installation and disaster recovery. IBM plans to integrate the innovative Net Integration's technology into its Lotus Foundations family of software servers. Lotus Domino is already integrated into the Net Integration platform. IBM's strategies for SMB, collaboration and acquisitions are among the keys to its growth.

"Bluehouse," will offer a suite of collaboration services that allows businesses to work together by sharing contacts, files, project activities and interacting with chat and Web meetings. This new set of services will enable small companies to easily collaborate beyond their organizational boundaries without the need for any in-house technical expertise. "Bluehouse" is now available as a limited beta offering and will be progressively unveiled throughout the year.

SMBs have the same types of business challenges as large corporations but must solve them with limited or no IT resources. They need to compete globally and they require industry-specific solutions that help them automate, simplify and speed product-to-market cycles.

Consequently, small-medium companies need powerful collaboration and business solutions to allow them to work more easily with their customers and suppliers. These new offerings from IBM Lotus software draw upon 20 years of innovation in collaboration with world-class business expertise and research delivered in a way that is easy to access and use.

Today's announcement illustrates the future of work and how IBM operates as a globally integrated enterprise in the 21st century workplace. Global integration has become embedded in IBM's workforce, strategy, leadership and operations -- affecting how the company collaborates across time zones and cultures and locates its operations, functions and leadership anywhere in the world based on the right skills and business environment. Small and medium businesses are increasingly going global and becoming more competitive through technology. Accessing world-class collaboration is the next step.

For more information, please visit http://www.ibm.com/press/lotusphere

GPS Adds Dimension to Online Photos

GPS Location Adds Dimension to Online Photos, With Geotagging Practice to Grow With Devices

Yahoo Finance

By Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer, Saturday January 19, 9:19 am ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- To plan an upcoming hike in the Alps, John Higham scoured scores of photos plotted along his route on a digital map for clues to the steepness of trails and the availability of accommodations or camp sites.

These images were just like all the other vacation photos shared by travelers and amateur photographers, except they'd been tagged with location information in an emerging practice known as "geotagging."

Armed with such data, Higham didn't have to search endless combinations of keywords and guess how photographers would describe images in captions. By zooming in on the map, he could easily find geotagged photos along the Via Alpina and gain a fresh perspective.

"I do like to see a place before I go and study more about it," said Higham, 47, of Mountain View, Calif. "This affords me a way of seeing not just a map or satellite image but the landscape of where I want to go."

That's just one of the growing number of uses for geotagging, which is largely practiced by tech-savvy and professional photographers but is likely to expand. Global positioning is becoming omnipresent as more cell phones and digital cameras have built-in GPS support.

"It's something that will become integral to the way digital imaging works," said Aimee Baldridge, a New York-based writer and photographer who tracks trends with digital imaging. "I think it's definitely headed for the mainstream."

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture with geotagging can add a few hundred more.

Read More ....

CIA Says Hackers Have Cut Power Grid

Several cities outside the U.S. have sustained attacks on utility systems and extortion demands.

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

PCWorld, Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:00 AM PST

Criminals have been able to hack into computer systems via the Internet and cut power to several cities, a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency analyst said this week.

Speaking at a conference of security professionals on Wednesday, CIA analyst Tom Donahue disclosed the recently declassified attacks while offering few specifics on what actually went wrong.

Criminals have launched online attacks that disrupted power equipment in several regions outside of the U.S., he said, without identifying the countries affected. The goal of the attacks was extortion, he said.

"We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands," he said in a statement posted to the Web on Friday by the conference's organizers, the SANS Institute. "In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."

"According to Mr. Donahue, the CIA actively and thoroughly considered the benefits and risks of making this information public, and came down on the side of disclosure," SANS said in the statement.

One conference attendee said the disclosure came as news to many of the government and industry security professionals in attendance. "It appeared that there were a lot of people who didn't know this already," said the attendee, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak with the press.

He confirmed SANS' report of the talk. "There were apparently a couple of incidents where extortionists cut off power to several cities using some sort of attack on the power grid, and it does not appear to be a physical attack," he said.

Hacking the power grid made front-page headlines in September when CNN aired a video showing an Idaho National Laboratory demonstration of a software attack on the computer system used to control a power generator. In the demonstration, the smoking generator was rendered inoperable.

The U.S. is taking steps to lock down the computers that manage its power systems, however.

On Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved new mandatory standards designed to improve cybersecurity.

CIA representatives could not be reached immediately for comment.

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