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GLOBAL: How
E-commerce Is Taking Over the World The internet has been responsible for changing the way we go
about many of the tasks in our day-to-day lives. Not least it has changed the
way we shop. Customer experience specialist Baynote has released a new
infographic map showing the growth of e-commerce across the world.
Interesting highlights include the fact that in the The graphic also highlights the hotspot cities that play host to
major players in the e-commerce world. From
http://betanews.com/
The
Australian Government has weighed in with full support for key technology
platforms driving the business of government. These include a broader
adoption of cloud computing, big data, and digital platforms through to 2017.
The administration’s just-released Report of the National Commission of Audit
May 2014 canvasses a digital cloud first approach to whole-of-government IT
procurement. Among the recommendations, this report, delivered by an
influential National Commission of Audit, requires agencies to be proactive
about digital and cloud-first operations. With a focus on cost-savings, and
large-scale cut-backs in Cloud-first
policy Despite the
rhetoric of cloud adoption, the commission notes the Commonwealth remains
slow to adopt cloud computing. “A reliance on bespoke, legacy systems, concerns
about security and privacy of placing public data in the cloud, and general
risk-aversion all impede progress.” Drawing on the banking sector, the
commission notes a “cloud-first” policy can initially target low-risk,
generic ICT services. Over three to five years, this may progressively reduce
ICT costs, as cloud computing becomes a “default option.” The commission
proposes the Department of Finance establish a whole-of-government cloud
computing provider panel. This panel is designed to confirm the viability,
capability, and costs of using large-scale cloud computing providers. The
focus is ensuring that access to cloud service providers remains competitive,
viable, and offers appropriate levels of security. Big data The
Commonwealth holds large amounts of data. But this information is not being
used to its best effect. “Some agencies collect data in the natural course of
their operations and tend to focus more on collection, rather than analysis
and wider use. The government’s massive data repository is often rarely
connected, has duplicates, varies in quality, and is not supported by
consistent standards. “The value of data holding to the whole-of-government
is rarely articulated.” Moreover, there is little, or no effort to fully
examine data holdings, or assess the value of existing data. Agencies can
prepare plans that make better use of data, and source innovation from
outside government. The government’s Data.Gov portal holds just 3,164
datasets. This compares with 10,000 datasets in the The
Australian Public Service needs to improve its capacity for data analytics.
This involves analysing large datasets, in real-time, and being able to share
insights, identify anomalies, and allocate resources, as and where needed.
With a renewed focus on big data, planners need to identify and prioritise
projects, spanning key service delivery bodies. These include the Department
of Human Services, Australian Taxation Office, and the Department of
Immigration and Border Protection. Digital
by-default Like the From http://www.futuregov.asia Here’s a roundup counting down 10 concerns he has with the
public cloud. 10. Shared technology vulnerabilities For Russinovich, one of the difficulties of the public cloud is
that everyone using it has shared technology vulnerabilities. If a breach of
the cloud were to happen, that would look bad for every cloud vendor. “We’d
be notifying people, cleaning up, and bringing things back online,” he said.
“But to customers, it’d be a big public cloud fail.” For one thing, there’s
no firewall attached to the public cloud, and there’s a huge variety of data
in the public cloud up for grabs, if hackers were to gain access to it.
Luckily, however, the public cloud is better at responding to threats, since
most businesses recognize how risky it would be to fail to defend it. Businesses
need to be aware they can’t wait for patches if they know about a
vulnerability – instead, they need to automate software deployment, ensure
they have strong detection tools for breaches, and be determined to preserve
their customers’ trust. 9. Insufficient due diligence There’s a lot of talk nowadays about shadow IT, where employees
come up with their own IT solutions and bring them to work. One of the most
popular of these is the cloud. Russinovich said he’d even like to coin a
phrase for it – like the bring-your-own-device trend, or BYOD, he’d name it
BYOIT – bring-your-own-IT. What IT departments need to do is to help their
organizations’ employees with implementing the cloud and ensure they’re
complying with security best practices, he added. 8. Abuse of cloud services While having a public cloud can be helpful, businesses run the
risk of attackers taking it over and using it as a malware platform, or
becoming botmasters taking advantage of trusted IP addresses. The public
cloud can also be used as storage for illegal content, like copyrighted
content being stored through 7. Malicious insiders When hiring employees who will be able to access data within the
organization, there’s always the danger they may walk away with sensitive
data, Russinovich said. He put up a picture of former National Security
Agency contractor Edward Snowden on his presentation slide. “It’s a real
risk, better understood by third-party audits,” he said. Ways to mitigate
this risk include doing employee background checks, as well as security
controls on what data each employee can access. 6. Denial of service (DOS) Whether this happens through an attack – like a distributed
denial of service (DDoS), or through an outage, customers don’t really care,
Russinovich said. What they do care about is whether cloud providers are
responsible. For example, in August 2011, a lightning storm brought down the
clouds for Amazon and Microsoft in 5. Insecure interfaces and application programming interfaces
(APIs) As the public cloud is still so new, a lot of APIs will crop up
– and not all of them are particularly secure. Organizations need to ensure
their APIs use strong cryptography, for example, Russinovich said. 4. Account hijacking and service traffic hijacking It’s been said time and time again, but organizations need to
ensure their employees’ accounts are using strong passwords. While it’s not a
problem unique to the public cloud, there’s a lot of data at stake,
Russinovich said. He added IT administrators need to turn off any unused
endpoints, and that they need to ensure their employees are trained to avoid
opening strange attachments or clicking on suspicious links. 3. Data loss Whether this happens because someone accidentally deletes or
modifies data so it can’t be accessed, or if an attacker steals it or uses
ransomware to encrypt it until he or she is sent a sum of money, this is
definitely a problem for the public cloud, Russinovich said. And of course,
there’s always the chance an organization could lose data through a natural
disaster – for example, a flood or hurricane destroying its servers.
Russinovich says companies should mitigate this danger by setting up backups,
as well as geo-redundant storage. There’s also the practice of deleted
resource tombstoning – by ensuring it’s possible to recover deleted data by
removing a tombstone, organizations can return data to their customers. “This
is something we’ve learned through painful lessons,” Russinovich said. 2. Data breaches While this appears to be a very general heading, Russinovich
said it’s an important one. “Data is at the heart of the matter. The data is
the company. If there’s no data, there’s no company,” he said. “It’s the most
important asset, so there’s the highest risk of loss.” For example, if an
attacker gains access to data’s physical media – for example, a disc holding
the data – that’s a problem. A fix might be to encrypt that data and to set
up extensive physical controls, like a strict rule not to allow any employees
to take data out of a data centre. Or, an organization might make a rule
saying any discs that are no longer used should be crushed by a
disc-destroying machine. At Microsoft Azure, no data is allowed to leave the
building, and the company also uses third-party certifications like FedRamp
to ensure its employees are handling the data properly. 4. Self-awareness In giving his presentation at the RSA conference, Russinovich
asked the audience whether they could hazard a guess to his final concern on
the public cloud. No one could, but he said as the public cloud grows more
and more sophisticated, the data in that cloud may take over and we may stop
focusing on what we need to do to secure it. “This is new technology. We’re
learning as we go,” he said. From
http://www.itbusiness.ca/
In an exclusive interview with FutureGov, Danny Pomanto, Mayor
of Makassar, Indonesia’s sixth most populous city with 1.5 million residents,
described his plans for a highly mobile and connected smart city. Mobility
and open data form the foundation of Pomanto’s plan for this city. “Mobile
applications will provide real-time data that helps residents plan their day
and improve ease of communicating and transacting with businesses and
government agencies.” He described how he envisions the future To prepare city residents for mobile and online services,
Pomanto is working on setting up free wifi in public spaces. During his campaign
for mayorship, he was known as ‘Son of Makassar Alley’, because one of his
priorities is to ensure the inclusion of commoners living in the alleys. And
part of this goal includes providing digital accessibility to these people.
“I want everyone to have access to internet, even people who live in the
alleys,” he added. More surveillance cameras will be put up around the city
to improve safety and traffic management. “We now have CCTV cameras set up at
five corridors. This will increase to 100 corridors in the near future.”
Pomanto will also be leveraging ICT to transform how the city government of
18,000 employees will be managed. He was inspired after seeing ‘Flightradar From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
One of the things that really separate us as humans from the
high primates is that we’re great tool builders and we learn and execute
fast, hence are acknowledged as the crown of creation. We have seen this
happening for long that we don’t settle but keep improving and innovating for
convenience. There has always been a strong wave of revolution in existing
models to try and make them better for our convenience. Take for example
e-commerce, when it started in By June 2014, There is a common saying about the Indian retail consumers’
mentality, “can’t touch, won’t buy”. In L-commerce the experience is totally
magical, for instance you saw a t-shirt, which you wanted in your vicinity,
you could immediately visit there and check for great discount and get a
guarantee of return and refund. Nothing can replace this experience. In an
environment that is getting better every year we would witness the big
location-based commerce (l-commerce) revolution soon and local merchants will
start competing with the big brands in e-commerce. L-commerce refers to the
localisation of products and services through mobile commerce and context
aware computing technologies. L-commerce revolves around five key service
areas: Location: determining the basic position of a person or a thing;
Navigation: plotting a route from one location to another; Tracking:
monitoring the movement of a person or a thing; Mapping: creating maps of
specific geographical locations; Timing: Determining the precise time at a
specific location. E-commerce is publishing best products with great offers and is
a one way communication, but l-commerce is a personal two way communication
and the merchant would treat you with velvet gloves to ensure he gets a
long-term customer. L-commerce has, in a way, revolutionised the industry,
benefitting both — the consumers and merchants. With the entry of e-tailing,
malls, supermarkets and grocery stores have seen a decline in the number of
annual footfalls. This has drastically affected the revenues of these stores
as they mostly have only physical presence. The larger players are a huge
threat to these smaller players. With the five key service areas of
l-commerce, it is proving to be a great platform that will help in the
revival of this number. The location aware technology is proving a be an
innovatory technology by providing real-time offers and deals that consumers
can avail of in a vicinity closest to them. By using location aware
technology, user’s location can be identified to provide the most relevant
offers and deals in a category the user is looking for. The categories can
range from apparel, entertainment, mobile devises to food, health and beauty. Another added advantage of this revolution is that it has caught
the attention of the unorganised markets as well. Local stores have seen the
potential business it can bring if they publish their offers and deals
online. This technology is undoubtedly helping merchants to promote their
offers and discounts to drive consumers in their stores, which otherwise went
undiscovered. In the early days, it was only the organised market that was
getting accounted for. But with l-commerce and location aware technology, the
unorganised market is also being recognised and will soon have a revenue
number being put on this market. From
http://www.mydigitalfc.com/
With Its concept, he noted, also embraces the eight key components of
good governance laid out by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia
and the Pacific: accountable, transparent, responsive, equitable and
inclusive, effective and efficient, follows the rule of law, participatory
and consensus-oriented. Lim pinned high hopes on President Park Geun-hye’s
vision for “Government 3.0,” which calls for broader public access to state
data and participation in the decision-making process, increased transparency
and greater interagency cooperation. The initiative followed the “e-Korea Vision
2006,” a third edition of the four-year national “informatization” plan
unveiled in 2002. The package included building ICT capacity and industry,
promoting e-commerce, upgrading the legal system and stepping up
international cooperation. “I think The awards mark the most prestigious international recognition
of excellence in public service, officials say. This year’s ceremony will
take place on June From
http://theinsidekorea.com
In an exclusive interview with FutureGov, Louis Casambre, Under
Secretary & Executive Director, ICT Office, Department of Science and
Technology (DOST), The Philippines reveals the key priorities and challenges
for this year. Health Services “Our focus has always been on ICT projects that impact and
benefit multiple agencies,” said Casambre, whose team is working with the
Department of Health (DOH) on getting the systems interoperable. “The
challenge we are facing now now is that many systems are operating
independently. Data is stored in separate silos. The Health Information
Exchange Layer project will provide the shared services layer by creating a
common API across systems,” he said. Local Government Electronic Local Government Units (eLGU) is another key
initiative this year. “While many local government units see the value of
e-government, they may not have the financial and human resources needed to
implement certain systems,” explained Casambre. The national government is
investing in cloud services so that local government units can benefit from
the latest technology resources without having to invest in expensive
infrastructure. TV White space According to Casambre, the technology that presents the greatest
opportunity for DOST is TV White Space. In a recent survey, the Department of
Education (DepEd) found that 83 per cent of schools are situated in areas
without an internet service provider. “This figure gives a good picture of
the actual connectivity rate across the country. How will citizens benefit
from all the great ICT-enabled public services if they don’t even have access
to the internet? We are working with the DepEd, DOH, Department of Social Welfare
on leveraging TV White Space to deliver public services,” he added. The
Philippine government is creating a regulatory environment so that the
infrastructure can be deployed by the private sector. TV White Space has
proven to be effective for enabling communications during disaster recovery.
[Casambre speaks on the benefits on white space in another recent interview
here.] Shared services iGovPhil, a whole-of-government initiative, is one of DOST’s
flagship projects to provide citizens with a secured digital signature so
that they can communicate and transact with multiple agencies without having
to register for each online service. “There will be four basic registries:
citizens, companies, land and transportation. The common registry will allow
systems across different government departments to interconnect,” he
commented. The Philippine leadership is actively pushing for the civil
service to adopt technology and deliver more ICT-enabled citizen services.
“Over the next three years, the Government will be investing in 250,000
laptops for civil servants, including teachers. There are plans to roll out
cloud-based thin client devices to replace PCs in government offices and
training programmes to build up the skills of government employees,” Casambre
concluded. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
An impossibly cute creature from a 1966 Soviet book and cartoon
has recently found himself on the periphery of discussions about the
Kremlin's growing ambitions to exercise greater control over domestic Internet
use. In late April, a member of Russia's upper house of parliament proposed
creating a purely domestic Internet—inaccessible from abroad with the
exception, perhaps, of members of a Russian-led Customs Union—that would be
named after a furry character called Cheburashka. And while the senator,
Maksim Kavdzharadze, later clarified that his proposal would only apply to
scientific information, the use of Cheburashka as a symbol for the Kremlin's
efforts to create a more "sovereign" Internet is apt. The beast in
Eduard Uspensky's story, who is theretofore unaware of humans, winds up in a
crate of oranges and must adjust to a new reality after tumbling out in a
Moscow shop. In It is still unclear whether major companies like Google and
Facebook will agree to the expensive task of placing servers and data-storage
centers inside Russia—or if Moscow will follow through with blocking access
to the sites if they do not. Whatever he decides to do, Putin is
representative of an accelerated push by autocratic leaders worldwide to
reign in the unwieldy Internet space. But doing so once populations have
already experienced the value and convenience of open access can be
difficult. Here's a look below at some case studies of web censorship—ranging
from the most extreme version of a truly "sovereign" web to one of
evolving ad-hoc efforts to chip away at Internet freedom. All of these
censorship regimes exist with varying degrees of coerced self-censorship
brought about by threats of punishment for posting content deemed immoral or
harmful to the state. Users and companies are aware that their online
activity may be monitored at any time and themselves become players in
creating a censorship environment. Operating as a nationwide intranet, a truly sovereign system can
only be accessed from within the state. The one standout "success"
in this complete censorship regime is The Evolving Turkish Model Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in an
ongoing battle against the "dark forces" of the Internet since
anti-government protests swept the country last June. He went on the attack
in early 2014 when secret audio recordings were posted online that appeared
to incriminate his family in corruption. His government ordered Twitter and
YouTube blocked in March. Despite a court order to reverse Erdogan's edict,
YouTube is reportedly still inaccessible. Erdogan has viewed the recent
success of his party in municipal elections as a mandate to continue the
Internet crackdown. Turkey's spy agency was given increased power to access
users' data and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have begun to use
technology similar to that being used in China to scan and log online
activity. At first glance, From
http://www.nextgov.com/
The Ministry of Education in 1. Stay Focused The Ministry will be focused on its commitment to a
student-centric and values-driven education, and ICT can help them do this
better. “By staying focused on our goal to bring out the best in every child,
we will use technology to transform learning in every school and every
student, enabling them to develop strong fundamentals for life-long
learning,” he said. To ensure that all schools and students benefit from
ICT-enabled learning, the Ministry is currently developing an online Student
Learning Space to provide all students access to quality digital teaching and
learning resources. The Ministry is also focused on cyber wellness among
students. “We cannot assume that just because our children can handle
technology, they know how to use technology responsibly. There is no roadmap
for the digital world. We need to give every student a compass and to help
them develop navigation skills.” 2. Stay Curious Heng urged educators to innovate and experiment new ways of
teaching and learning using technology. He believes that ICT can enable
personalise learning, he said: “This is an important aspect of our
student-centric education. The ultimate goal is customised learning and
differentiated teaching for every child.” New technologies may also improve
the way assessment is done, such as diagnosing a student’s mastery of
concepts, or recommending the most useful digital resources. 3. Stay Grounded While ICT promises a world of possibilities, Heng emphasised the
importance of sound pedagogical content knowledge. “A good technological tool
placed in the hands of a skilful teacher can breathe life into lessons, and
lessons into life. Our teachers must be grounded in strong pedagogy and have
the knowledge to use ICT meaningfully and appropriately,” he added. During
the last Master Plan, the Ministry has trained about 1,400 ICT mentors, who
were instrumental in driving ground-up initiatives. Lessons were shared on an
online platform called The ICT Connection, so best practices can be accessed
by the wider community. 4. Stay Together “From parents to industry partners, we need to involve the wider
community. Together, we can play an active role to bring out the best in each
child in every school, at every stage, whatever their starting point,” said
Heng. The Ministry will be working more closely with the industry players,
tertiary education and other key stakeholders to develop a conducive
environment to groom young talents. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Seven ingredients to tip the balance toward innovation in your
organization. At the risk of stating the obvious, the average government CIO
isn’t able to spend much time dreaming up new projects. “Keeping the lights
on” or “putting out fires,” whatever business-speak you prefer, tends to
dominate the CIO’s work schedule. This point was driven home yet again in a
recent NASCIO survey: A third of respondents said they spend up to 90 percent
of their time simply keeping the lights on. More than 40 percent said they spend
as much as 75 percent of their time on such tasks. On the other hand, half of
respondents said they spend one-quarter of their time or less on innovation,
and almost 30 percent said they spend just 5 percent or less of their time on
innovation-related tasks. Carving out time to pursue innovation is not a new
workplace challenge, nor is it unique to government. Phil McKinney, a former
CTO of HP’s Personal Systems Group and author of Beyond the Obvious: Killer
Questions that Spark Game-Changing Innovation, suspects that most
private-sector companies also are struggling to find a balance between daily
operational tasks and innovation. “Innovation needles to zero in most
organizations,” 1. Be Specific About Innovation Innovation has become so common in business lexicon that one
could argue that the word has lost meaning and become too much of a
catch-all. Everybody wants to be an innovator, but most don’t spell out what
it means. A definition can help ensure expectations are kept in check and
help avoid a “shoot for the stars” mentality that all innovation is possible
— even though resources are always limited. A definition also can help
measure time spent on innovation. “Innovation in government isn’t necessarily
you sitting there producing brand-new products that are new to the market.
Innovation could be the conversations you have, the type of initiatives you
push, your approach to solve the same old problems. That, in and of itself,
can be strategic and innovative,” said Adel Ebeid, 2. Prepare for Failure and Embrace It Nine out of 10 innovation efforts will end in failure, 3. Carve Out a Little Personal Time A short burst of brainstorming can sometimes be as productive as
a formal, department-level meeting. Each week Russell tries to set aside two
hours on her work calendar so she can get out of the office to research
something she doesn’t know about — and the topic isn’t necessarily related to
technology. She uses the time to think about strategy and innovation. “Every
time I do this it’s amazing. I walk away with 20 different ideas we could go
and do. It’s hard to carve out that time and pull myself from the desk, but
every time I do, I gain something and I bring it back to the organization,”
Russell said. Reneker makes time to visit the numerous websites that report
on government and technology news. Web browsing can be a time waste, but
Reneker’s focus is simple: He looks for creative ideas from other cities and
counties that might align with an existing project request from an 4. Consider a Name Change and an Innovation Office Perhaps the job title of chief information officer is becoming
counterproductive to the innovation agenda. The CIO’s responsibilities are
much broader and diverse than 20 years ago, when the main charge truly was
only to keep the computer systems running. The position was in the back
office. That isn’t the case anymore, of course. “I believe the title of CIO
should be abolished,” Sivak said. Sivak thinks it’s time to call the CIO the
“commodity infrastructure officer” and then put that person on the organizational
chart beneath a “chief digital officer,” who would tackle the innovation
activities that many CIOs are responsible for today. The beginnings of this
shakeup could already be under way in cities like Philadelphia that have
named a dedicated innovation officer and an innovation management unit tasked
with ensuring there are always fresh ideas in the pipeline. Splitting off
innovation workers from the IT department may or may not be worth
considering. 5. You Can’t Innovate Alone Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum, nor does it happen when
going it alone. You can say innovation is important, but if you don’t embed
it in your workplace culture among your staff, innovation will never get
traction. Culture can be built up over time, but it must be a core attribute.
When 6. Put Innovation on Paper (or in an Email) Assembling a list of innovation projects that are planned or in
progress and sending it to staff and other stakeholders seems like a
no-brainer, but the CIOs who do this say it makes them more effective. In 7. Think Big & Small Some governments expect their CIO to be a visionary who
generates grand ideas. That’s a commendable and necessary function for any
organization, but sometimes small steps can accumulate into big results.
“Everybody thinks innovation means a huge breakthrough, but you can get just
as much value derived from a little innovation — doing what you do today and
doing it better,” said From
http://www.govtech.com/
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EU
Parliament Backs Data Protection Rules Legislation will prevent transfer of user data outside Companies will also require explicit consent, rather than
assumed consent, to process an individual's personal data. In addition, if a
firm wishes to transfer a customer's data outside the EU, it must first
obtain authorisation from a national data protection authority and inform the
person concerned. "Strong data protection rules must be From
http://www.totaltele.com/
Dutch Govt
Opens Consultation on Proposed Regulation The Dutch ministry of economic affairs has taken a number of
ongoing projects and bundled them into one bill. The bill provides end users
with more power in cases of network failures and lowers switching thresholds
for SMEs and small entrepreneurships. Temporary broadcasting licenses would
become available and the overall safety of broadcasting masts better secured.
The 'Bundled" Telecommunications Act will be open to consultation until
7 May and then move on to Parliament. From
http://www.telecompaper.com/
An impossibly cute creature from a 1966 Soviet book and cartoon
has recently found himself on the periphery of discussions about the
Kremlin's growing ambitions to exercise greater control over domestic
Internet use. In late April, a member of Russia's upper house of parliament
proposed creating a purely domestic Internet—inaccessible from abroad with
the exception, perhaps, of members of a Russian-led Customs Union—that would
be named after a furry character called Cheburashka. And while the senator,
Maksim Kavdzharadze, later clarified that his proposal would only apply to
scientific information, the use of Cheburashka as a symbol for the Kremlin's
efforts to create a more "sovereign" Internet is apt. The beast in
Eduard Uspensky's story, who is theretofore unaware of humans, winds up in a
crate of oranges and must adjust to a new reality after tumbling out in a
Moscow shop. In It is still unclear whether major companies like Google and
Facebook will agree to the expensive task of placing servers and data-storage
centers inside Russia—or if Moscow will follow through with blocking access
to the sites if they do not. Whatever he decides to do, Putin is
representative of an accelerated push by autocratic leaders worldwide to
reign in the unwieldy Internet space. But doing so once populations have
already experienced the value and convenience of open access can be
difficult. Here's a look below at some case studies of web censorship—ranging
from the most extreme version of a truly "sovereign" web to one of
evolving ad-hoc efforts to chip away at Internet freedom. All of these
censorship regimes exist with varying degrees of coerced self-censorship
brought about by threats of punishment for posting content deemed immoral or
harmful to the state. Users and companies are aware that their online
activity may be monitored at any time and themselves become players in
creating a censorship environment. Operating as a nationwide intranet, a truly sovereign system can
only be accessed from within the state. The one standout "success"
in this complete censorship regime is The Evolving Turkish Model Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in an
ongoing battle against the "dark forces" of the Internet since
anti-government protests swept the country last June. He went on the attack
in early 2014 when secret audio recordings were posted online that appeared
to incriminate his family in corruption. His government ordered Twitter and
YouTube blocked in March. Despite a court order to reverse Erdogan's edict,
YouTube is reportedly still inaccessible. Erdogan has viewed the recent
success of his party in municipal elections as a mandate to continue the
Internet crackdown. Turkey's spy agency was given increased power to access
users' data and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have begun to use
technology similar to that being used in China to scan and log online
activity. At first glance, From
http://www.nextgov.com/
European Union Justice and Home Affairs ministers will meet in It is clear that although the December blow caused by Hubert
Legal, head of legal services for the European Council, has scuppered
Reding's hopes for formal adoption before the European elections in May, she
does not consider it a fatal blow. Her aim is still get the GDPR adopted
before the end of this year. But the She makes it clear that the From
http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/
The Ukrainian government plans to prepare a strategy on
information security in the next month, reports Cnews.ru. This includes steps
towards the launch of a national secure OS and anti-virus software. The
actions were initiated by a decree from Alexander Turchinov, the acting
Ukrainian President. The government is also preparing a draft policy on
responses to eventual information security aggression from other countries. From
http://www.telecompaper.com/
LATIN
AMERICA: OECD Sees Deficiencies in Latest Telecom Bill in The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) issued an analysis of the secondary telecommunications legislation in From
http://www.telecompaper.com/
NORTH
AMERICA: How The Canadian government committed $3 million this month to
funding a new Open Data Institute charged with finding, compiling and
standardizing government and private sector data that companies,
entrepreneurs and academics can use as the raw material for new products and
services. The investment, which was matched by an additional $3 million from
the private and nonprofit sectors, comes amid a global push to release as
much raw data as possible in machine-readable formats. The consulting firm
McKinsey & Company estimates that opening up data in just seven sectors
could add more than $3 trillion annually to the global economy. You’re obviously in the very early stages now, but what are your
plans for the Open Data Institute? Like many other countries, Where is most of that data now? There’s lots of data out there but there are no standards around
it. Some governments have websites that make this data available, but some of
it is in PDF format and what do you do with that? You can read it and that’s
about it. We’ve found since the announcement that we got funding for this
that there are a lot of initiatives going on out there but they’re all very
siloed. Even where we’re sitting here in the What are some of the siloed initiatives you’ve looked at? The What kind of roadblocks are you facing? As with any national effort, the big challenge is taking that
leadership position and bringing champions on board so people can see this
common vision and buy into it. That will be the single most difficult thing.
I have no doubt that once the data is available in machine-readable format
that companies and entrepreneurs and academics and student will do great
things with it. But it’s going to take some time and effort to get there.
We’ll discover the specific barriers once we start building the consortium
from those living in the trenches of open data. What are the go-to examples of economic benefit coming from open
Canadian data at this point? There’s weather data of course. That’s potentially lifesaving
and valuable to What sectors do you expect Canadian open data to most benefit in
the future? We’ve looked at things like intelligent transportation systems,
being able to map traffic flow and things of that sort. Anything that creates
those sorts of efficiencies would obviously be interesting. The weather
network seems to have done pretty well with Environment Canada data. But
there are hundreds if not thousands of data sets out there that others will
find new and interesting and value-added ways to use. From our perspective,
this is uncharted territory. Our job is to make sure the landscape is as
amenable to exploration as possible. The What’s the reasoning behind the Canadian approach? This is hypothetical, so take it for what it’s worth. But the
CDMN is a private-public funded organization. We’re funded by the government
and also heavily funded through the private sector and I think the government
sees our relationship with businesses and industry as being very enviable. I
think they believe we can connect with that demographic easier and more
effectively than they can alone. So having us lead this initiative from a
market-driven perspective outside of government is very appealing to them.
We’ve already established a national network for commercialization and
innovation to tap into resources from around the country. So we already have
some experience and some knowledge about building national consensus. But
it’s taken us five years to get to where we are today and we’re just starting
to hit our stride. So it’s going to take some time, but we can leverage the
knowledge we’ve already amassed and apply it to the Open Data Institute. Do you see the potential for national governments to cooperate
on an international open data repository or on open data standards? There is an opportunity for that, I think. But there would have
to be a clear value proposition for doing it. Within national borders you can
reason that you’re opening this data up for the good of the country and to
create economic benefit for the country. When you extend that
internationally, to be honest, that value proposition isn’t as immediately
obvious. There’s a part of me that says there is a role for creating
international standards. We’ve seen that happen in a lot of industries. The
most obvious example is telecom. You can travel around the world and use your
cellphone and there’s obviously a good value proposition for that. I’m sure
there’s a value proposition out there for doing that for open data for
international engagement but that’s yet to be seen. I think we need to be
careful about understanding what that value proposition is but ready to act
on it if it makes sense. Do you see the Open Data Institute continuing after its current
round of funding, which will last for three years? Will that mean more government and private sector funding or a
different funding model? For organizations like CDMN and the Open Data
Institute, our greatest success is that we disappear. That would mean that
we’ve enabled and catalyzed the industry sufficiently that these things
happen on their own and we’re not needed as an intermediary anymore. I don't
see that happening in three years for open data and I can’t speculate on how
long it would take. But the idea is that we’re going to accelerate that pace
and if we’re finding the kind of outcomes the government invested in us to do
I can’t see them not continuing to fund us. There’s also a lot of value for
the private sector in this, so we’ll be looking for a lot of private sector
engagement as well. From
http://www.nextgov.com/
In the slew of announcements from the Digital Canada 150
strategy today, measures to protect privacy weren’t forgotten – while details
about updates to privacy legislation were scant, it was made clear the
government will pursue a new requirement that firms report data breaches to
the Privacy Commissioner of What remains to be seen is the exact wording of the legislation
for both data breach reporting and the privacy commissioner’s role, said John
Lawford, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC).
“It’s not very clear. Aside from vaguely defined enforcement powers, we don’t
know how it will translate,” he said. “During the question and answer part
after, From
http://www.itbusiness.ca/
Industry
Minister Unveils Industry Minister James Moore unveiled a long-awaited national
digital economy strategy at Waterloo-based OpenText Corp this morning in an
announcement that was live-streamed online. The plan, dubbed Digital Canada
150, will include 39 new initiatives towards a more connected Telecommunications and rural broadband Funding to the tune of $305 million will expand the 5 mbps
Internet connections to 280,000 rural households. Those households will be
gaining access to high-speed Internet for the first time, New privacy legislation coming Related CASL - Digital economy investments and policy The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) will earmark $200
million to support technology adoptions for SMBs under the digital strategy.
It will also have an additional $300 million available for venture capital to
invest in companies in the information and communications technology sector.
In addition, the Canada Accelerator and Incubator Program will increase to
$100 million to help digital entrepreneurs. Modernizing the federal government To build upon the government’s open data strategy, it will
create an Open Data Institute. The government will begin by testing
prototypes developed by private sector players to provide new data products
and services to the marketplace. Many of those first projects may be based
upon the Canadian Open Data Experience appathon that say 900 developers
creating apps based on open data from the government. “Wer’e going to be
modernizing the government of Canadian content in a digital world A partnership with Historica From
http://www.itbusiness.ca/
The version of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition
Reform Act that passed the House on Tuesday contains a handful of revisions
from the version passed out of committee in 2013. Most importantly, the law’s
mandate that all agencies employ a single official with the title chief
information officer and the authority to manage that agency’s IT budget has
been expanded to include the Defense Department, which was previously
exempted. The revised bill also pares back a proposal for a governmentwide
collaboration center that would assist agencies with especially complicated
technology contracts. Under the House-passed legislation the center would
only be funded as a three-year pilot. The law also clarifies that agencies
aren’t required to consult with the collaboration center or with separate
agency-based centers with expertise in a particular type of technology
contract if they don’t want to. Changes to the bill were made on a bipartisan
basis by the IT Reform Act’s Republican and Democratic cosponsors and aimed
at raising the likelihood the bill would pass both the House and the Senate,
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said while introducing the bill on Tuesday. Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, co-sponsored the bill with Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who is
ranking member on the committee’s government operations panel. The Senate
version of the reform act, known as the Federal Information Technology
Savings, Accountability, and Transparency Act, is awaiting action in the
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. That bill would
also mandate a single CIO for each federal agency but it would only give
those CIOs budget authority for commercial, off-the-shelf items and require
that they play a major role in budget decisions about other IT purchases.
Those differences will have to be ironed out in a House-Senate conference if
the Senate bill is passed. Auditors’ reports have routinely shown a large
portion of the government’s $80 billion annual IT bill is lost to
bureaucratic inefficiency. Congressional interest in addressing the problem
spiked significantly, though, after the high profile failures of
HealthCare.gov, the Obama administration’s federal health insurance
marketplace, during its first two months online. The Senate legislation is
sponsored by Sens. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Mike Johanns,
R-Neb. It was introduced in December, about two months after the HealthCare.gov
launch. From
http://www.nextgov.com/
A bipartisan energy conservation bill easily passed by the House
this week includes provisions to put federal data centers on a path to
operating more efficiently. The measure, which the House passed 375-36 on
March 5, would require the Office of Management and Budget, the EPA and the
Department of Energy to lead the development of standards for measuring data
center performance, including adopting more advanced energy metering and
power management tools, and optimizing the use of data centers so money and
energy aren’t wasted powering and cooling underutilized systems. The bill,
sponsored by West Virginia Republican David McKinley, also would require OMB
to set a performance goal for agencies to evaluate their success in acquiring
and using energy efficient IT, with the CIO Council charged with setting best
practices for achieving the goals. Under the bill, OMB would be required to update a 2007 report
that is used as a baseline for energy efficiency. Additionally, the bill
would create an open data project on federal IT energy use, to allow for
businesses and innovators to come up with their own solutions for the
problems of data center efficiency. The data center provisions were
introduced in February as a stand-alone measure by Rep. Anna Eshoo
(D-Calif.). That bill was folded into the broader package of four measures
that the House passed March 5. "My legislation will save the federal
government energy and money by requiring the use of energy-efficient and
energy-saving technologies, specifically in federal data centers," Eshoo
said in a statement, citing an estimate by the American Council for an
Energy-Efficient Economy that pegs cost savings from federal data center
efficiency at $1.64 billion over 15 years. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.)
introduced a version of the data center bill in the Senate last June, but it
has seen no action. From
http://fcw.com/
Netflix
Wants to Expand Federal Rules on Internet Speeds Netflix is calling for new federal regulations to ensure it
doesn't have to pay extra fees to deliver high-quality video streams to its
customers. In a blog post Thursday, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings warned that
without government intervention, negotiations between Web services and
Internet providers over connection deals could result in the kinds of
blackouts that already plague cable television. Last month, Netflix agreed to
pay for direct access to Comcast's network. The agreement ensured smooth
streaming for Comcast subscribers who watch Netflix, but it was the first
time the Web video company had ever had to pay for such a direct connection
deal. The Netflix chief executive urged the Federal Communications
Commission to bar Internet providers from "charging a toll" for
interconnection deals. The FCC enacted net neutrality rules in 2010 that
require Internet providers to treat all Internet traffic equally, but the
rules never covered interconnection deals like the one between Netflix and
Comcast. The FCC is currently trying to rework its net neutrality rules after
a federal court sided with Verizon in January and tossed out the old rules. In a statement, Comcast claimed it is a strong supporter of net
neutrality but that the rules were never intended to deal with Internet
connection deals. "Providers like Netflix have always paid for their
interconnection to the Internet and have always had ample options to ensure
that their customers receive an optimal performance through all ISPs at a
fair price," David L. Cohen, Comcast's executive vice president, said in
a statement. "We are happy that Comcast and Netflix were able to reach
an amicable, market-based solution to our interconnection issues and believe
that our agreement demonstrates the effectiveness of the market as a
mechanism to deal with these matters. From
http://www.nextgov.com/
Senate
Passes Bill Demanding Uniform Coding for Agencies' Spending Data The Senate passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency
Act on Thursday, raising the likelihood the spending transparency measure
will become law. The DATA Act, sponsored by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rob
Portman, R-Ohio, would require agencies to use a uniform coding system for
federal spending data so internal auditors and external watchdogs could
easily compare how one agency is spending its money versus another. The bill
would also force improvements to the federal spending transparency website
USASpending.gov, making it easier for external watchdogs to track and compare
how tax dollars are spent across federal agencies. A similar bill, sponsored
by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Chairman Darrell Issa,
R-Calif., and ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., passed the House in
November. Warner described the Senate version of the bill in a press release
as a bipartisan compromise draft crafted by sponsors and committee chairs in
both chambers. “Our taxpayers deserve to know how their federal funds are
spent -- dollar for dollar -- and it is the government’s obligation to share
that information in a clear and accessible way,” Warner said following the
bill’s passage. The White House suggested rolling back some of the DATA Act’s
transparency language in a document leaked in January, including by removing
a requirement that agencies publish spending information using common data
standards. Instead the White House suggested agencies use open data
practices. That would have ensured spending information was publicly
available but not that it was consistent across agencies. The White House
version would also have required agencies to report information quarterly
rather than monthly and would have put the White House’s Office of Management
and Budget in charge of implementing the new law rather than the Treasury
Department. The suggested changes were criticized by transparency groups, and
Warner said he would not water down the bill. Issa said the bill as it is
lays the foundation for a digital revolution in how we govern. “Without
accurate, timely, program by program spending data, we will never be able to
truly track federal spending, which is the only way we can address the
massive amount of waste and fraud in government,” Issa said in a statement.
“I applaud the Senate’s action today, and I will work with my House
colleagues to send this bipartisan, bicameral compromise to the president’s
desk.” From
http://www.nextgov.com/
Lawmakers
Want Pentagon to Clarify Cloud Security Standards Two House members are proposing legislation they say would ease
the way for cloud computing vendors to sell services to the Defense
Department. The Defense Cloud Security Act would require department officials
to set clearer security requirements for cloud storage and other cloud
services “and give vendors an opportunity to meet those standards,” said an
aide to Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass. Tsongas and Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash.,
are expected to introduce the legislation April 28. Although the Defense
Department already buys cloud services from a number of private vendors,
Tsongas and Kilmer say that more companies could be providing more cloud
services if the military had clearer security requirements. For vendors, the
military represents a large and potentially lucrative market for cloud
storage and applications. And for the Defense Department, the cloud
represents a way to reduce the cost of owning and operating its own servers
and software. “Storing benign information on internal DOD servers is an
increasingly large expense, particularly given the widespread availability of
secure, fast, reliable, and affordable storage services utilized in the
private sector,” said Tsongas aide Katie Enos. Cloud data storage by
commercial sector vendors already enables other federal agencies to store
data at a fraction of the cost of operating their own physical data centers,
she said. “The point of this legislation is to ensure that the Department
of Defense establishes its security requirements for cloud storage in a
timely fashion, and to give vendors the opportunity to meet those standards,”
said Enos said. “Without established standards, vendors are not able to
determine whether or not they can meet DOD’s requirements to provide cloud
services.” Among cloud vendors, there’s a perception that the Defense
Department has not moved quickly enough to establish security standards that
will enable more use of the cloud, said Charlie Benway, director of the “It’s important for the DOD to fully embrace innovative
technologies the private sector can provide,” Kilmer said in a statement.
Despite the difficulties some cloud vendors have encountered, four so far
have managed to satisfy DOD security requirements and win contracts. In
March, for example, Amazon Web Services received the go-ahead to provide cloud
services for unclassified information to the military services and civilian
defense agencies. To satisfy the military’s security requirements, Amazon had
to meet standards set by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management
Program, known as FedRAMP, and then meet additional security requirements set
by the Pentagon. It’s those additional standards that remain unclear to many
vendors, a congressional aide said. The Defense Cloud Security Act would
require the Pentagon to clarify the requirements. From
http://www.nextgov.com/
OMB Plans Digital Service to Improve IT
Delivery Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel wants to formalize the process of
bringing in outside experts to work on complex IT projects. The Office of
Management and Budget is looking for funds to operate a 25-person technology
shop inside the office of Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel, with an eye to
developing common platforms, moving agency development and acquisition to the
agile model, and overseeing critical, public-facing IT projects. If the
budget request is approved, this Digital Service project will include tech
professionals serving in government for two- to four-year rotations on a
full-time basis, possibly supplemented with private sector professionals
scrubbing in on a project basis for a month at a time, VanRoekel told
reporters after a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee that focused on IT acquisition. "We've talked to some
leading, cutting edge private-sector companies about establishing programs
where their sabbatical program could support a rotation in government,"
VanRoekel said. Currently, OMB is running a pilot program to scope out the
Digital Service model. While VanRoekel didn’t share specifics on agencies and
programs, he said that so far four private-sector professionals have come in
to work with agencies to analyze projects and make recommendations about how
to improve performance. If the funding comes through, the Digital Services
team will be tasked with looking at the highest priority items in the federal
IT portfolio, some as they are in mid-stream and some as they are being drawn
up. He cited the 2020 Census and a planned Social Security Administration modernization
as the kind of projects that might benefit from an advance look by the
Digital Service team. The new PortfolioStat guidance from OMB issued earlier
this week asks agencies to identify their highest priority projects. "By
bringing this team in to work with the agencies proactively to do a deep
engagement, it'll all be about figuring out where they are in-flight and then
applying recommendations to identify where are the gaps, what are the
approaches they're doing that maybe aren't compatible with getting the
results we want to see, and what do we do to address that, and then hold them
accountable with regular check-ins," VanRoekel said. "This isn't
taking over. It's not rescuing these efforts. It's really about working side
by side-with-them," he added. In his testimony before the Senate committee, VanRoekel said the
Digital Services team will work in conjunction with 18F, the design and
development squad being launched as a kind of government start-up inside the
General Services Administration. The move comes as congressional overseers
and the Government Accountability Office press for more checks on IT
spending, better management of projects, and a shift to a more iterative,
agile development style. Much of the impetus for IT reform has come from the
very public failure of HealthCare.gov when it launched in October 2013, but
committee Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) is just as concerned about everyday IT
spending. "Most struggling IT projects do not get the type of response
-- or media attention -- that we saw with HealthCare.gov, with a team of
experts rushing in to set things straight. Rather, what typically happens is
we continue to sink more money into these programs as they sputter
along," he said. The GAO released a report, timed to coincide with the
hearing, that said key federal agencies aren't following through on OMB
policies dating back to 2010 to develop IT in increments, with major projects
delivering on new capabilities every six months. According to the GAO review
of five agencies, the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security,
Transportation, Health and Human Services, and Veterans Affairs, only the VA
has requirements in place and a system to enforce compliance. Dave Powner, the GAO's Director for IT Management, also noted
OMB's plan to move TechStat -- the meetings convened to investigate what is
going wrong with projects that are behind schedule or over budget -- to the
agency level, and away from OMB. According to Powner, only two projects
received the TechStat treatment by OMB in fiscal 2013. While he supports
empowering agency CIOs to conduct TechStat, Powner said, "We strongly
think that OMB should hold TechStat sessions on a selected basis for troubled
projects, or projects that are top national priorities." Carper announced
that the Federal Data Center Consolidation Act, which would enshrine the OMB
policies on closing and combining data centers into federal law, had won
committee approval and would be brought to the Senate floor for expedited
consideration within a few weeks. However, another Senate IT reform bill to that would give agency
CIOs some measure of control over agency-wide IT budgets, has yet to come up
for a hearing or vote in the committee. A source in the Senate said the
sponsors were meeting with the committee to talk about the bill, but there
was no firm date set for a hearing. The administration continues to oppose a
related reform bill that passed the House called the Federal IT Acquisition
Reform Act. VanRoekel is concerned that it focuses on existing policy rather
than looking to the future. "It says a lot of really good stuff [but] it
doesn't do a lot of things," VanRoekel told reporters. To improve IT
delivery, you have to look outside the "IT swim lane," he said.
"It's got to be about the acquisition people, companies working with
government, all the things we have in play there need to be considered. I
think the legislation doesn't take us all the way we need to go." From
http://fcw.com/
Data
Sovereignty Laws Hamper International Crime Investigations: AFP International cyber crime police work is being hampered by data
sovereignty laws, according to Australian Federal Police's national manager
of high tech crime operations, Tim Morris. Speaking at CeBIT in Another challenge facing the AFP is what Morris called attribution.
Without attribution back to an online source, he said that cyber crime
investigations can't be successful because the AFP and other agencies need to
prove the source of the crime to build a successful prosecution case.
"That's why [police] agencies talk about the importance of
metadata," he said. Metadata is 'data about data' such as the
non-image-related information stored when people snap a photo on a digital
camera. "Without metadata, successful investigations can never be
conducted. In our inter-connected world, if it is a rape, kidnapping or
online child exploitation, without attribution back to a source it is almost
impossible to get a conviction," he said. Morris conceded that this is a
"controversial area" because of people's concerns about privacy.
"All I can offer is the policeman's realistic perspective and that is
that many investigations won't be worth taking on." From
http://news.idg.no/
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Industrial standards for China's Internet advertising went into
effect on Saturday as concerns rise over users' information security.The
standards, created by the China Internet Association, require that the
collection, use, transfer and sharing of user information should stick to
mutual agreements and abide by laws and regulations.Websites are required to
make clear to users when they are collecting and using information and notify
users in a timely manner for privacy protection. Sensitive information can
only be collected after agreement by users, according to the standards.The
association said that, unlike traditional advertising, online advertisers can
target special groups of users based on their online behaviors, which can be
recorded and analyzed, stirring privacy concerns.Mainstream Internet
companies, advertising firms, and third-party companies have also
participated in creating the standards, according to the association. From http://www.news.cn/
The From http://news.xinhuanet.com/
China's telecom industry is set to restructure its
infrastructure networks and build a "super" national base station,
as initiated by three of China's major telecom operators.China Telecom, China
Unicom and China Mobile will hold the shares of the new company (the national
base station) with a registered capital of more than 10 billion yuan,
according to Caijing.com.A source with China Telecom told the website that
the new company will be in charge of building new base stations, telecom
towers and tunnels in the first stage. Telecom operators will rent the
national base station afterwards -- instead of building their own.China's
telecom industry is in the early stages of the 4G era and the national base
station company will expand very fast. China Mobile plans to build 500,000 4G
base stations by the end of the year, which will all be part of the new
firm.The article said once the operators integrate the infrastructure
networks, the new firm will save them more costs to launch 4G networks. From http://www.news.cn/
The government will create a national licensing system to
certify the expertise, knowledge and skills of information security
specialists, probably in fiscal 2016, sources said Monday. In response to the
rising threat of cyber-attacks targeting private companies, the government is
aiming to develop greater human resources with expertise in cybersecurity.
The government expects that the licensing system will lead to improved
measures against information leakage in a wide range of sectors, including
electric power, gas and other infrastructural domains as well as hospitals,
education, academic research and financial institutions. Cyber-attacks in
recent years have targeted not only administrative bodies but also the
infrastructure essential for daily living. The 2012 London Olympics faced at
least 160 million attempted cyber-attacks. The attacks included attempts to
take down systems related to the organizing committee, and attempts to
illegally access the system. It is highly likely that It is thus an urgent task to foster human resources with expert
knowledge on information security. The new national licensing system is
tentatively being called the information security management examination. The
government expects the exam will be held twice a year, with about 20,000 test
takers each time, 30 percent to 40 percent of whom are expected to pass The
Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry will administer the new system and
consider the appropriate difficulty level for the exam during fiscal 2014.
The ministry will use know-how from the private sector to draft exam
questions over the course of roughly one year. Questions might cover how to
take appropriate measures to deal with virus attacks on company smartphones,
or how to respond when a company’s website is brought down by cyber-attacks.
In light of the fact that cyber-attack methods continue to grow more sophisticated
over time, those who receive certification will be required to keep pace, and
the government expects that the license will require periodic renewal. According to the ministry, there are about 265,000 engineers
engaged in work related to cybersecurity in Japan—a figure they say is 80,000
short of the number needed— and around 160,000 of these professionals lack
sufficient knowledge or skills to combat cyber-attacks. Although there
already exists a national licensing system called the Information Technology
Passport Examination, which tests basic knowledge concerning information
technologies in general, there is no license system specialized for
information security. Information
security refers to measures and actions to secure safety in cyberspace by
preventing illegitimate access, data thefts, computer virus infection and
other attacks. As of fiscal 2012, the number of detected cyber-attacks
against Japanese government entities was about 1.08 million. Experts have
said that it is necessary for the whole of the nation to adopt appropriate
cybersecurity measures. From
http://the-japan-news.com
The From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
Mobile
Carriers Face Tougher Public Notice Rules The government's recent revision to the Telecommunications Law
forcing mobile carriers to publicize notices on mobile phone subsidies is
expected to help chill competition. The Korea Communications Commission (KCC)
and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) announced the
revision which will become effective in October. The KCC, the nation's
telecommunications watchdog, said it would enforce an upper limit on
subsidies given by mobile carriers to 270,000 won. The KCC expects this will
help regulate mobile carriers, which habitually violate subsidy regulations.
However, companies have different positions on subsidies, which significantly
affect their business. The nation's three mobile carriers ― SK telecom, KT
and LG Uplus ― have a respective 50 percent, 30 percent and 20 percent market
share. Market insiders say that SK and KT may not agree to raising the upper
limit of subsidies because this might cause them to lose subscribers to LG,
while LG could welcome the measure. From
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr
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In an exclusive interview with FutureGov, Danny Pomanto, Mayor
of Makassar, Indonesia’s sixth most populous city with 1.5 million residents,
described his plans for a highly mobile and connected smart city. Mobility
and open data form the foundation of Pomanto’s plan for this city. “Mobile
applications will provide real-time data that helps residents plan their day
and improve ease of communicating and transacting with businesses and
government agencies.” He described how he envisions the future To prepare city residents for mobile and online services,
Pomanto is working on setting up free wifi in public spaces. During his
campaign for mayorship, he was known as ‘Son of Makassar Alley’, because one
of his priorities is to ensure the inclusion of commoners living in the
alleys. And part of this goal includes providing digital accessibility to
these people. “I want everyone to have access to internet, even people who
live in the alleys,” he added. More surveillance cameras will be put up
around the city to improve safety and traffic management. “We now have CCTV
cameras set up at five corridors. This will increase to 100 corridors in the
near future.” Pomanto will also be leveraging ICT to transform how the city
government of 18,000 employees will be managed. He was inspired after seeing
‘Flightradar24’, a flight tracker providing real-time information about
thousands of aircraft around the world. “If we can use technology to provide
oversight on our employees, tracking our activities and operation, I am
certain we can improve our efficiency and solve more problems,” he said. The
City will soon launch e-payment systems that enable businesses to easily pay
all types of taxes and fees. Pomanto expects the roll-out to increase tax
revenue by 200 From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
E-Government In 2014, it aims to have 80 per cent of government services
online and encourage the use of online services such as the myGovernment
Portal. In the long run, all public-facing government services will be
migrated online with the goal of “zero face-to-face interactions” by 2020,
stated the report. It also targets to have a paperless government by
replacing paper archives with digital ones. The Government will look into
trends around cloud computing, Big Data analytics and cybersecurity. Healthcare IT The Malaysian Government plans to provide all healthcare
facilities, patients and insurance companies with a single platform for
expedient information-sharing to help improve the quality of healthcare in
the country by 2020. The 1Gov*Net platform will allow healthcare providers to
access applications that will increase their productivity while lowering
costs and errors. The Government will also explore new models of adopting
technologies at a lower cost of rollout to support the planned transformation
of the Ministry of Health. E-Learning The Government looks to establish a “common knowledge platform
for students and professionals to enhance teaching methods”. By 2020 it aims
to have all 6 million students attending government primary and secondary
schools in the country to be connected to high-speed internet through the
1BestariNet programme. The focus for 2014 will be to ensure quality delivery
of internet access to schools and increase education content in the virtual
learning environment provided by the Government. This will be supplemented by
virtual training of teacher across all connected schools. Minister of
Communication and Multimedia, Dato’ Sri Ahmad Shabery Cheek, highlighted that
upgrades to broadband speed are a key enabler in reaching these goals. “We
will work together with the respective ministries to explore ways on how ICT
can further support Government service delivery and private sector
efficiency, towards achieving the nation’s 2020 aspirations,” he added. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The Philippine Government Department of Budget and Management
(DBM) has released PHP600 million (US$20 million) more for the Government
Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS). The system will
embed transparency in day-to-day operation of government, said Richard Moya,
DBM Undersecretary and CIO. GIFMIS will link financial processes together and
facilitate their automated management. DBM Secretary, Florencio Abad,
described it as one of the keystones in the Government’s larger plan for
fiscal transparency and accountability. “Because it’s web-based and updated
in real-time, all data in the system is easily tracked to ensure the
integrity of our public financial management processes,” he continued “Our
drive to ensure transparency and accountability in financial processes will
depend largely on our ability to come up with a seamlessly integrated IT
system. It’s an urgent governance requirement that we’re quickly addressing
head-on,” Moya added. As part of the Philippine Government Financial
Transaction Digitisation project aimed at minimising corruption in public
finance management, the tender for GIFMIS was released in August last year.
“When budgeting, accounting and auditing are accomplished faster, we’re also
in a position to serve the citizens better,” Abad concluded. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
City in the Investing in technology to enhance citizen services, government
efficiency and revenue generation is high on the list of priorities, Mayor
Oscar Moreno of Cagayan de Oro City told FutureGov. Cagayan de Oro City, with
a population of 163,676, is the hub of Northern Mindanao (also known as
Region 10), which is the fastest out of six regions in The City is looking to invest in technology that can improve
information sharing, enable easier planning and optimise government
processes. “There has been some investment in the past, but they were done in
bits and pieces. I want to catch up now and have an integrated approach. We
want to leverage IT in every possible area, starting first in real estate
management, treasury, as well as accounting and budgeting,” he noted. One of
the challenges faced by his team is in making the growth inclusive. “Everyone
in the community should benefit from the City’s growth. Currently, the
biggest difficulty is in resettlement.” •Poverty alleviation, Peace and Order •Revenue generation and Resettlement •Infrastructure •Metropolisation •Environment and Education •Hospital and Health services •Agricultural productivity •Tourism, Traffic and Transportation Cagayan de Oro City is the first local government unit in the From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The
Philippine Government Reveals ICT Priorities: Health IT, White Space, Cloud In an exclusive interview with FutureGov, Louis Casambre, Under
Secretary & Executive Director, ICT Office, Department of Science and
Technology (DOST), The Philippines reveals the key priorities and challenges
for this year. Health Services “Our focus has always been on ICT projects that impact and
benefit multiple agencies,” said Casambre, whose team is working with the
Department of Health (DOH) on getting the systems interoperable. “The
challenge we are facing now now is that many systems are operating
independently. Data is stored in separate silos. The Health Information
Exchange Layer project will provide the shared services layer by creating a
common API across systems,” he said. Local Government Electronic Local Government Units (eLGU) is another key
initiative this year. “While many local government units see the value of
e-government, they may not have the financial and human resources needed to
implement certain systems,” explained Casambre. The national government is
investing in cloud services so that local government units can benefit from
the latest technology resources without having to invest in expensive
infrastructure. TV White space According to Casambre, the technology that presents the greatest
opportunity for DOST is TV White Space. In a recent survey, the Department of
Education (DepEd) found that 83 per cent of schools are situated in areas
without an internet service provider. “This figure gives a good picture of
the actual connectivity rate across the country. How will citizens benefit
from all the great ICT-enabled public services if they don’t even have access
to the internet? We are working with the DepEd, DOH, Department of Social
Welfare on leveraging TV White Space to deliver public services,” he added.
The Philippine government is creating a regulatory environment so that the
infrastructure can be deployed by the private sector. TV White Space has
proven to be effective for enabling communications during disaster recovery.
[Casambre speaks on the benefits on white space in another recent interview
here.] Shared services iGovPhil, a whole-of-government initiative, is one of DOST’s
flagship projects to provide citizens with a secured digital signature so
that they can communicate and transact with multiple agencies without having
to register for each online service. “There will be four basic registries:
citizens, companies, land and transportation. The common registry will allow
systems across different government departments to interconnect,” he
commented. The Philippine leadership is actively pushing for the civil
service to adopt technology and deliver more ICT-enabled citizen services.
“Over the next three years, the Government will be investing in 250,000
laptops for civil servants, including teachers. There are plans to roll out
cloud-based thin client devices to replace PCs in government offices and
training programmes to build up the skills of government employees,” Casambre
concluded. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Visitors in By 2015, the IDA will double the total number of hotspots to
10,000. This will be further doubled to 20,000 by 2016. Khoong Hock Yun, IDA
Assistant Chief Executive, Infrastructure and Services Development Group,
said: “Singaporeans have become increasingly Internet savvy and at ease with
the mobile lifestyle. Since the launch of Wireless@SG in 2006, usage of the
service has increased six-fold, and now stands at nearly 32 hours per user
per month”. “The new SIM card-based login feature will provide easy access to
Wireless@SG and increase usage of wireless services among consumers. In
addition, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can tap on Wireless@SG to
support their IT needs and improve productivity through business applications
offered by Wireless@SG operators,” he added. From June 2014, enterprises can
look forward to standardised business applications such as data analytics and
targeted advertising solutions from Wireless@SG operators that ride on the
same public-facing Wireless@SG network. Such standard IT solutions can be
rolled out quickly and at a lower cost. Khoong said: “This will help From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The Singapore government will set up a S$8 million (US$6.3
million) Digital Inclusion (DI) Fund to raise the adoption of infocomm for
low-income households, and encourage social innovations to help voluntary
welfare organisations better manage the well-being of their beneficiaries
with relevant technology, announced Dr Yaacob Ibrahim (pictured), Minister
for Communications and Information. “The Internet today is increasingly
becoming a utility for individuals, households and organisations. The
Government has been stepping up its efforts at digital inclusion to ensure
that no segment of the community is excluded from the benefits that the
internet can bring – for example, access to information and e-services,” he
said. The Government’s existing programmes include the NEU PC Plus Programme,
Silvercomm Initiative and Infocomm Accessibility Centre reach out to students
from low-income families, senior citizens and persons with disabilities
respectively. The DI Fund will help individuals and households level up and
enjoy the benefits that come with advancements in digital technology as From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The Ministry of Education in 1. Stay Focused The Ministry will be focused on its commitment to a
student-centric and values-driven education, and ICT can help them do this
better. “By staying focused on our goal to bring out the best in every child,
we will use technology to transform learning in every school and every
student, enabling them to develop strong fundamentals for life-long
learning,” he said. To ensure that all schools and students benefit from
ICT-enabled learning, the Ministry is currently developing an online Student
Learning Space to provide all students access to quality digital teaching and
learning resources. The Ministry is also focused on cyber wellness among
students. “We cannot assume that just because our children can handle
technology, they know how to use technology responsibly. There is no roadmap
for the digital world. We need to give every student a compass and to help
them develop navigation skills.” 2. Stay Curious Heng urged educators to innovate and experiment new ways of
teaching and learning using technology. He believes that ICT can enable
personalise learning, he said: “This is an important aspect of our
student-centric education. The ultimate goal is customised learning and
differentiated teaching for every child.” New technologies may also improve
the way assessment is done, such as diagnosing a student’s mastery of
concepts, or recommending the most useful digital resources. 3. Stay Grounded While ICT promises a world of possibilities, Heng emphasised the
importance of sound pedagogical content knowledge. “A good technological tool
placed in the hands of a skilful teacher can breathe life into lessons, and
lessons into life. Our teachers must be grounded in strong pedagogy and have
the knowledge to use ICT meaningfully and appropriately,” he added. During
the last Master Plan, the Ministry has trained about 1,400 ICT mentors, who
were instrumental in driving ground-up initiatives. Lessons were shared on an
online platform called The ICT Connection, so best practices can be accessed
by the wider community. 4. Stay Together “From parents to industry partners, we need to involve the wider
community. Together, we can play an active role to bring out the best in each
child in every school, at every stage, whatever their starting point,” said
Heng. The Ministry will be working more closely with the industry players,
tertiary education and other key stakeholders to develop a conducive environment
to groom young talents. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
New
Programme to Train Data Protection Officers From
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/
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The three PSUs are BSNL, RailTel and Power Grid Corporation,
which are the main shareholders of Bharat Broadband and which are laying the
fibre. Bharat Broadband is the best way to take Internet to Bharat Broadband, with its pan-India spread, is capable of
increasing both usage and speed at a significant pace. "The next five
years should see the completely converged network along with affordable
devices and cheaper access," says Shanker. Demand for services is
driving the growth of the Internet. "The benefits the more savvy users
are able to get — like, apply for passports online, pay bills, buy tickets
without standing in long queues — will trickle to other areas and boost
Internet growth in the country," says Asheesh Raina, principal analyst,
Gartner, a research firm. Raina says this is not just true of urban areas;
it's also true in rural areas. "For long, we have been talking about how
fishermen from Kerala benefit by using phones," he adds. "Now, this
trend has migrated up north, with sugarcane farmers from Uttar Pradesh using
smartphones to access markets and tie up logistics to transport produce from
fields to factories." That creates the pull factor. There's also a push
factor. Facilitating such shift in usage are handset makers and telecom
operators. Handset makers are launching more smartphones and dropping price
points. Nokia, for instance, has launched 19 devices in its affordable Asha
series in the last two years. Similarly , local handset maker Karbonn has
brought 50 smartphones into the market in the last two years, at a price
between Rs 3,500 and Rs 20,000. The other push is coming from telecom operators, who are eyeing
data as their next growth lever. "Data revenue for telcos is about 10%
(of revenues) at present and will be 50% in the next three to five
years," says Debdas Sen, leader, technology consulting,
PricewaterhouseCoopers From
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/ Hundreds of millions of Indians are on the verge of gaining
Internet access, particularly via mobile devices, with huge opportunities for
users as well as serious challenges. " From
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ Indian IT
Laws Unfit for Social Media The existing IT laws governing Internet companies in From
http://www.cxotoday.com/ |
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New rules for recording labour contracts in the electronic
information system were submitted by Azerbaijani Ministry of Labour and
Social Protection of Population to the government for approval, according to
a message from the ministry. Following the approval of these rules, the use
of an electronic information system with the help of the 'electronic government'
portal will start in From
http://en.trend.az/
Issues regarding standardization, metrology and patent were
discussed at a meeting of the Caspian European Club (CEIBC) held in In general, based on international standards, the state
committee plans to adopt about 300 standards in Thematic forums, Caspian European Financial Forum, Caspian
European IT Forum, Caspian European Industry Forum and Caspian European
Infrastructure Forum, will be held within the framework of the section
dedicated to the development of the non-oil sector. He also said CEIBC was
established in June 2002 in association with Caspian Energy International
Media Group and under intensive support of largest oil and gas companies
operating in the From
http://en.trend.az/
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered creation of a
Communication and Information Agency, the Kazakh presidency reported on March
7. The measure is aimed at
further improvement of the government system in From
http://en.trend.az/
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The ACCC has
released a new publication with best practice tips for online sellers and
marketplaces. It will also help consumers. The publication is called ‘A Guide
for Business: Consumer Product Safety Online’. Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission (ACCC) deputy Chair Dr Michael Schaper said the
publication was needed because Australian consumers are increasingly looking
to online stores to purchase consumer products. “But the online environment
creates some unique product safety challenges and requirements that online
suppliers need to be aware of,” he said. “For example, while a consumer can
quickly and easily check the mandatory ingredients list of a cosmetic product
while in-store, they are unable to do this online unless the list is clearly displayed
with the product information. The ACCC is concerned that some online sellers,
particularly those based overseas, may not be aware that all businesses
supplying to Australian consumers have the same obligations under the
Australian Consumer Law,” Dr Schaper said. Businesses
breach the law if they sell banned products, do not meet all requirements of
mandatory product safety standards or fail in their obligations related to
product liability, consumer guarantees and misleading and deceptive conduct.
“Mandatory standards and bans are critical in preventing product-related
deaths, injuries and illnesses. The ACCC regularly checks for non-compliant
products being sold to Australian consumers, including via online stores,” Dr
Schaper said. For example in 2013, ACCC surveillance identified two online
businesses supplying banned small, high powered magnets to Australian
consumers. Following negotiations with the ACCC, these suppliers stopped
selling the magnets to Australians and conducted national product recalls.
“Product recalls can be expensive for a business but the cost of a recall is
not the only potential financial consequence to online businesses who supply
unsafe products. Penalties can include infringement notices and the ACCC can
seek court-imposed penalties of up to $1.1 million for serious breaches,” Dr
Schaper said. Compliance
tips for online businesses include: # clearly
displaying warnings and product labelling # using good
quality product images # providing
clear product descriptions, including #
recommended usage #
age-grading for children’s products # checking
the requirements of Australian safety standards and bans prior to listing a
product as available for sale. “Businesses
must remember that the Australian Consumer Law applies regardless of whether
products are sold in a ‘bricks and mortar’ shop, in an online store or via an
online marketplace, and regardless of where the seller is based, I encourage
all online suppliers to download a copy of the free report,” Dr Schaper said From http://www.itwire.com
Australian
digital privacy laws lag those of other countries, according to a leading
academic who says legislation has struggled to keep pace with new technology
allowing unprecedented levels of intrusion, surveillance of personal
activities and communication of private information. Professor Barbara
McDonald from the Professor
McDonald – who will tonight outline proposals for new laws to protect
individuals from invasions of privacy in the digital age - says privacy
issues arise from intrusions or surveillance by government, media or activist
organisations or data mining by commercial entities. “At the individual
level, there are concerns about things such as inappropriate use of social
media for ‘revenge porn’, bullying and harassment, or simply surveillance by
neighbours. “At the same time, the law must protect freedom of speech and the
many other valuable public interests which often collide with an individual’s
privacy.” In tonight’s Distinguished Speakers’ Program lecture, Professor
McDonald will also announce the proposals in a new ALRC Discussion Paper. The
ALRC will provide a final report to the Attorney-General in June. From http://www.itwire.com Ludlam’s Return Signals Strong Green IT Policy Counting in
the Western Australian Senate Election rerun has confirmed that Greens
Senator Scott Ludlam will remain in Parliament for another six years. That’s
barring a double dissolution on other electoral anomalies. That’s good news
for the IT and communications industries – whatever your politics it is
undeniable that Ludlam’s knowledge of and passion for the industry is a
benefit to the country, in a Parliament populated mostly by technological
illiterates. Ludlam was in danger of losing his seat after the last Federal
Election. The first count had him narrowly out, the second count narrowly in,
until the Australian Electoral Commission’s bungling, and a subsequent court
case, saw the whole state back to the ballot boxes. The count currently has
the Liberal Party with two seats, and the Greens, Labor ad Palmer United with
one seat each. The sixth is being disputed by Liberal and Labor and will most
likely fall to the conservatives. Ludlam greatly increased the Green’s vote
over the general election. His victory means he will continue to be a thorn
in Malcolm Turnbull’s side, with his articulate and dynamic membership of the
Senate Committee on the NBN. He is also a passionate advocate of digital
rights, renewable energy, and education. From http://www.itwire.com
The
Australian Government has weighed in with full support for key technology
platforms driving the business of government. These include a broader
adoption of cloud computing, big data, and digital platforms through to 2017.
The administration’s just-released Report of the National Commission of Audit
May 2014 canvasses a digital cloud first approach to whole-of-government IT
procurement. Among the recommendations, this report, delivered by an
influential National Commission of Audit, requires agencies to be proactive
about digital and cloud-first operations. With a focus on cost-savings, and
large-scale cut-backs in Cloud-first
policy Despite the
rhetoric of cloud adoption, the commission notes the Commonwealth remains
slow to adopt cloud computing. “A reliance on bespoke, legacy systems,
concerns about security and privacy of placing public data in the cloud, and
general risk-aversion all impede progress.” Drawing on the banking sector,
the commission notes a “cloud-first” policy can initially target low-risk,
generic ICT services. Over three to five years, this may progressively reduce
ICT costs, as cloud computing becomes a “default option.” The commission
proposes the Department of Finance establish a whole-of-government cloud
computing provider panel. This panel is designed to confirm the viability,
capability, and costs of using large-scale cloud computing providers. The
focus is ensuring that access to cloud service providers remains competitive,
viable, and offers appropriate levels of security. Big data The
Commonwealth holds large amounts of data. But this information is not being
used to its best effect. “Some agencies collect data in the natural course of
their operations and tend to focus more on collection, rather than analysis
and wider use.” The government’s massive data repository is often rarely
connected, has duplicates, varies in quality, and is not supported by
consistent standards. “The value of data holding to the whole-of-government
is rarely articulated.” Moreover, there is little, or no effort to fully examine
data holdings, or assess the value of existing data. Agencies can prepare
plans that make better use of data, and source innovation from outside
government. The government’s Data.Gov portal holds just 3,164 datasets. This
compares with 10,000 datasets in the The
Australian Public Service needs to improve its capacity for data analytics.
This involves analysing large datasets, in real-time, and being able to share
insights, identify anomalies, and allocate resources, as and where needed.
With a renewed focus on big data, planners need to identify and prioritise projects,
spanning key service delivery bodies. These include the Department of Human
Services, Australian Taxation Office, and the Department of Immigration and
Border Protection. Digital
by-default Like the From http://www.futuregov.asia
Australian Government Reinforces ICT Modernisation Reforms The
Australian Government has weighed in with full support for key technology
platforms driving the business of government. These include a broader
adoption of cloud computing, big data, and digital platforms through to 2017.
The administration’s just-released Report of the National Commission of Audit
May 2014 canvasses a digital cloud first approach to whole-of-government IT
procurement. Among the recommendations, this report, delivered by an
influential National Commission of Audit, requires agencies to be proactive
about digital and cloud-first operations. With a focus on cost-savings, and
large-scale cut-backs in Cloud-first
policy Despite the
rhetoric of cloud adoption, the commission notes the Commonwealth remains
slow to adopt cloud computing. “A reliance on bespoke, legacy systems,
concerns about security and privacy of placing public data in the cloud, and
general risk-aversion all impede progress.” Drawing on the banking sector,
the commission notes a “cloud-first” policy can initially target low-risk,
generic ICT services. Over three to five years, this may progressively reduce
ICT costs, as cloud computing becomes a “default option.” The commission
proposes the Department of Finance establish a whole-of-government cloud
computing provider panel. This panel is designed to confirm the viability,
capability, and costs of using large-scale cloud computing providers. The
focus is ensuring that access to cloud service providers remains competitive,
viable, and offers appropriate levels of security. Big data The
Commonwealth holds large amounts of data. But this information is not being
used to its best effect. “Some agencies collect data in the natural course of
their operations and tend to focus more on collection, rather than analysis
and wider use. The government’s massive data repository is often rarely
connected, has duplicates, varies in quality, and is not supported by
consistent standards. “The value of data holding to the whole-of-government
is rarely articulated.” Moreover, there is little, or no effort to fully
examine data holdings, or assess the value of existing data. Agencies can
prepare plans that make better use of data, and source innovation from
outside government. The government’s Data.Gov portal holds just 3,164
datasets. This compares with 10,000 datasets in the The Australian
Public Service needs to improve its capacity for data analytics. This
involves analysing large datasets, in real-time, and being able to share
insights, identify anomalies, and allocate resources, as and where needed.
With a renewed focus on big data, planners need to identify and prioritise
projects, spanning key service delivery bodies. These include the Department
of Human Services, Australian Taxation Office, and the Department of
Immigration and Border Protection. Digital
by-default Like the From http://www.futuregov.asia The
Australian Government is planning a whole-of-government Content Management
System (GovCMS) using open source Drupal software hosted on public cloud,
Government Chief Technology Officer, John Sheridan announced. GovCMS will
support more effective service delivery through the web channel and enable
agencies to focus on higher-value activities that are more aligned with their
core missions. The system
also looks to deliver cost savings to agencies as multiple government
agencies use a common and scalable cloud-based platform to host websites. It
also aims to reduce compliance costs for individual agencies and make it
easier for agencies to comply with standards and policies in security,
accessibility, privacy and digital design standards. The platform must be
able to withstand “large scale and prolonged Distributed Denial of Service
attacks” and must have a disaster recovery plan, adds the document. The
Department of Finance aims to have GovCMS go live in September 2014. The
feasibility study has found that between 182 and 437 government websites can
be migrated to the GovCMS platform in four years. From http://www.futuregov.asia
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ARABIAN
STATES: The How the small Middle Eastern country jumped from 49th to 28th in
online service delivery should have state and local CIOs in the Once considered a backwater in the Look at “Markabati,” a portal from the central authority that
lets all UAE residents connect easily with every aspect of vehicle service in
the public and private sector. Whether the need is car insurance, spare
parts, customs and registration forms, or car rental, everything can be found
and transacted through the portal. Or look at the country’s experiment with
mobile technology. The UAE sees itself as moving from e-government to
“m-government.” Home to one of the largest smartphone and mobile penetration
rates in the world, the government announced earlier this year that it was
setting up the Arab region’s first lab to test secure ways to offer residents
mobile government services. This initiative is part of the UAE’s larger
effort to make digital technology, networks and apps a central part of how it
operates and interacts with citizens. By May 2015, the UAE hopes to have all
government departments providing a one-stop store for apps and enabling all
transactions through a single log-in. It will allow the public to deal with
government departments using their smartphones “any time, any day of the
year,” The UAE backs up all of its e-government initiatives with
serious money. IT spending is expected to grow nearly 13 percent from $716
million in 2013 to $808 million in 2014, according to the International Data
Corp. All this investment and work is paying off in two ways. First, UAE
views its public spending on e-government as another way to seed the field
for private investment in the country’s growing technology sector. Second, it
has led to one of the highest rates of customer satisfaction in the world for
service delivery. There are certainly many differences between the UAE and
the (BY TOD NEWCOMBE) From
http://www.govtech.com/
The general secretaries of three of From
http://www.telecompaper.com/
NORTH
AMERICA: The Government of Ontario has once again failed in its
commitment to open government and open data. After patting itself on the back
for opening an open data portal in 2012, the governmnet has done little to
live up to that commitment and, in fact, is doubling down on releasing
information in closed formats that are difficult to navigate and read. Under
provincial law, the salary and position of every public sector employee
earning more that $100,000 per year must be disclosed annually. The so-called
sunshine list is a measure of accountability. Since it began being posted
online, the list of government employees and their salaries has been posted
in a series of closed HTML files and PDFs. In the 2012 release, the list of employees included more than
70,000 records. To most governments in Instead of being truly transparent and encouraging citizens to
mine the data, the Ontario Ministry of Finance has posted the data across
more than 60 different web pages. Alternatively, 14 different PDF files could
be downloaded and converted manually. When asked why, a representative from
the government told me: “It is possible to copy and paste the information
from the HTML version on the website into an Excel spreadsheet.” Meanwhile,
many of the names and salaries contain duplicate information and are poorly
sorted to begin with. With incredible frequency, there are duplicate entries
in the data which is published online, entries like this: The Government of Ontario opened a new Open Data site in late
2012 that promised to increase government transparency by making key
government data downloadable in machine-readable formats like spreadsheets
and databases. Meanwhile, journalists are using automated computer programs
to compile the data and strip away duplicate information anyway. Journalists
are then posting this information online for all to see and use. Journalists
are doing the rest of the job the government, which is mandated to provide
the information, is simply too lazy or inept to do. From
http://o.canada.com/
Facebook
Releases Government Data Request Stats Facebook has revealed its second report revealing all of the
crime-related information requests the social network receives from various
governments around the world. In this latest report 174 requests were made
for 217 user accounts with a 50 per cent success rate. Back in 2012, the
Canadian government received 192 information requests related to 219 Facebook
accounts. By law, Facebook was ordered to hand over information for 44 per
cent of those requests. While the report doesn’t go into deep specifics, it’s
nice to see a website, especially one that has suffered from security in the
past, show a level of transparency. Looking at From
http://www.montrealgazette.com/
To some CIOs, it may occasionally seem like the inmates are
running the asylum with all the demands for greater device choice,
unrestricted use of apps and so on. Without any kind of IT governance,
however, the situation could be even worse. Good IT governance provides a
common framework for making all kinds of technology investment decisions,
from back-office and infrastructure to data in the cloud and beyond. At the
recent CIO Association of Canada Peer Forum, we took an opportunity to talk
to Mike Battistel at From
http://www.itworldcanada.com/
Open data is a change in thinking and behavior as much as
legislation. All-ish” may be better than all in. Remember the dot-com era
excitement around digital government at the turn of the century?
Speechwriters (and even a bill or two dropped in the legislative hopper) used
the phrase “everything ‘e’ by 2003.” It rhymed and got at the important idea
that e-government was more than an alternative service delivery mechanism.
But defining the goal as everything turned out to be a mistake. It set the
jurisdictions that used the phrase up for failure if even one thing was left
offline. It also removed the need for prioritization. And it confused intent,
which a fair reading suggests was to make e-government the default for public
information and services. Fast-forward a decade to see that open data
advocates and practitioners may have been prevented by circumstance from
making the same mistake. As Government Technology reported last fall, The A year ago, the Obama administration issued an executive order
“making open and machine-readable the new default for government
information.” A bumper-sticker-length version of that same language — “Set
the default to open” — is the cornerstone of Sunlight’s 32-point plan for
sound and sustainable open data policy for government. Those five words
define the goal, the tactic for getting there and a mindset for governing.
The other 31 points boil down to four behaviors for those on this journey: ?Being purposeful enough to build on existing public disclosure
laws (with exemptions continually tested for their contribution to the public
interest) while safeguarding sensitive information; surface public
information — including bulk data — online through a designated data portal; ?Being particular and peculiar enough to maintain a public,
comprehensive list of all information holdings and processes to ensure data
quality; ?Being confident enough to appoint an oversight authority (that
may or not include you) and to knock down barriers to accessing and reusing
information held by government; ?Being bold enough to mandate things that matter — the capture
of specific new information, publishing metadata, use of open formats,
setting ambitious timelines, use of electronic filing, and the use of and
future reviews of the policy itself in light of ongoing changes in the “art
of open.” There’s one more bit of good news that distinguishes this all-ish
open data era from the earlier e-government era. There’s no year that I know
that rhymes with “open.” Take that, speechwriters. From
http://www.govtech.com/
7
Ways to Innovate Government IT Seven ingredients to tip the balance toward innovation in your
organization. At the risk of stating the obvious, the average government CIO
isn’t able to spend much time dreaming up new projects. “Keeping the lights
on” or “putting out fires,” whatever business-speak you prefer, tends to
dominate the CIO’s work schedule. This point was driven home yet again in a
recent NASCIO survey: A third of respondents said they spend up to 90 percent
of their time simply keeping the lights on. More than 40 percent said they
spend as much as 75 percent of their time on such tasks. On the other hand,
half of respondents said they spend one-quarter of their time or less on
innovation, and almost 30 percent said they spend just 5 percent or less of
their time on innovation-related tasks. Carving out time to pursue innovation
is not a new workplace challenge, nor is it unique to government. Phil
McKinney, a former CTO of HP’s Personal Systems Group and author of Beyond
the Obvious: Killer Questions that Spark Game-Changing Innovation, suspects
that most private-sector companies also are struggling to find a balance
between daily operational tasks and innovation. “Innovation needles to zero
in most organizations,” 1. Be Specific About Innovation Innovation has become so common in business lexicon that one
could argue that the word has lost meaning and become too much of a
catch-all. Everybody wants to be an innovator, but most don’t spell out what
it means. A definition can help ensure expectations are kept in check and
help avoid a “shoot for the stars” mentality that all innovation is possible
— even though resources are always limited. A definition also can help
measure time spent on innovation. “Innovation in government isn’t necessarily
you sitting there producing brand-new products that are new to the market.
Innovation could be the conversations you have, the type of initiatives you
push, your approach to solve the same old problems. That, in and of itself,
can be strategic and innovative,” said Adel Ebeid, 2. Prepare for Failure and Embrace It Nine out of 10 innovation efforts will end in failure, 3. Carve Out a Little Personal Time A short burst of brainstorming can sometimes be as productive as
a formal, department-level meeting. Each week Russell tries to set aside two
hours on her work calendar so she can get out of the office to research
something she doesn’t know about — and the topic isn’t necessarily related to
technology. She uses the time to think about strategy and innovation. “Every
time I do this it’s amazing. I walk away with 20 different ideas we could go
and do. It’s hard to carve out that time and pull myself from the desk, but
every time I do, I gain something and I bring it back to the organization,”
Russell said. Reneker makes time to visit the numerous websites that report
on government and technology news. Web browsing can be a time waste, but
Reneker’s focus is simple: He looks for creative ideas from other cities and
counties that might align with an existing project request from an 4. Consider a Name Change and an Innovation Office Perhaps the job title of chief information officer is becoming
counterproductive to the innovation agenda. The CIO’s responsibilities are
much broader and diverse than 20 years ago, when the main charge truly was
only to keep the computer systems running. The position was in the back
office. That isn’t the case anymore, of course. “I believe the title of CIO
should be abolished,” Sivak said. Sivak thinks it’s time to call the CIO the
“commodity infrastructure officer” and then put that person on the
organizational chart beneath a “chief digital officer,” who would tackle the
innovation activities that many CIOs are responsible for today. The
beginnings of this shakeup could already be under way in cities like
Philadelphia that have named a dedicated innovation officer and an innovation
management unit tasked with ensuring there are always fresh ideas in the
pipeline. Splitting off innovation workers from the IT department may or may
not be worth considering. 5. You Can’t Innovate Alone Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum, nor does it happen when
going it alone. You can say innovation is important, but if you don’t embed
it in your workplace culture among your staff, innovation will never get
traction. Culture can be built up over time, but it must be a core attribute.
When 6. Put Innovation on Paper (or in an Email) Assembling a list of innovation projects that are planned or in
progress and sending it to staff and other stakeholders seems like a
no-brainer, but the CIOs who do this say it makes them more effective. In 7. Think Big & Small Some governments expect their CIO to be a visionary who
generates grand ideas. That’s a commendable and necessary function for any
organization, but sometimes small steps can accumulate into big results.
“Everybody thinks innovation means a huge breakthrough, but you can get just
as much value derived from a little innovation — doing what you do today and
doing it better,” said From
http://www.govtech.com/
White
House Seeks Feedback on Big Data and Privacy The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy is
seeking public feedback on how the government can best protect citizen
privacy as it and the private sector increasingly turn to big data analysis.
The request for information posted on Thursday is part of a larger
investigation of big data and privacy being led by White House Counselor John
Podesta. Big data refers to data from sensors, video, Web, social media and
other content that doesn’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet. A number of tools
have been devised in recent years to draw insights from this “unstructured
data,” that analysts say could transform how the government and the private
sector gather information and manage their operations. Big data also has the
power to pare back citizens’ privacy, however, as more information about
their purchases, medical care, Web searches and social media posts becomes
fodder for government and industry data analysts. The RFI includes five questions for public input: 1.What are the public policy implications of the collection,
storage, analysis, and use of big data? For example, do the current 2.What types of uses of big data could measurably improve
outcomes or productivity with further government action, funding, or
research? What types of uses of big data raise the most public policy
concerns? Are there specific sectors or types of uses that should receive
more government and/or public attention? 3.What technological trends or key technologies will affect the
collection, storage, analysis and use of big data? Are there particularly
promising technologies or new practices for safeguarding privacy while
enabling effective uses of big data? 4.How should the policy frameworks or regulations for handling
big data differ between the government and the private sector? Please be
specific as to the type of entity and type of use (e.g., law enforcement,
government services, commercial, academic research, etc.). 5.What issues are raised by the use of big data across
jurisdictions, such as the adequacy of current international laws,
regulations, or norms? The Office of Science and Technology Policy co-hosted an event
focused on big data and privacy with the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology on March 3. The office will host another event on March 17 at From
http://www.nextgov.com/
Industry
Perspective - Open Data Is a Civil Right There is a wealth of information housed in local governments
that should be public by default to help fuel a new wave of civic
participation. As Americans, we expect a certain standardization of basic
services, infrastructure and laws -- no matter where we call home. When you
live in But what if these expectations of consistency were not always a
given? What if cities, counties and states had absolutely zero coordination
when it came to basic services? This is what it is like for us in the open
data movement. There are so many important applications and products that
have been built by civic startups and concerned citizens. However, all too
often these efforts are confided to city limits, and unavailable to anyone
outside of them. It’s time to start reimagining the way cities function and
how local governments operate. There is a wealth of information housed in
local governments that should be public by default to help fuel a new wave of
civic participation. Appallicious’ Neighborhood Score provides an overall health and
sustainability score, block-by-block for every neighborhood in the city of Buildingeye visualizes planning and building permit data to
allow users to see what projects are being proposed in their area or city.
However, buildingeye is only available in a handful of places, simply because
most cities have yet to make permits publicly available. Think about what
this could do for the construction sector — an industry that has millions of
jobs for Americans. Buildingeye also gives concerned citizens access to
public documents like never before, so they can see what might be built in
their cities or on their streets. Along with other open data advocates, I
have been going from city-to-city, county-to-county and state-to-state,
trying to get governments and departments to open up their massive amounts of
valuable data. Each time one city, or one county, agrees to make their data
publicly accessible, I can’t help but think it’s only a drop in the bucket.
We need to think bigger. Every government, every agency and every department in the
country that has already released this information to the public is a case
study that points to the success of open data — and why every public entity
should follow their lead. There needs to be a national referendum that
instructs that all government data should be open and accessible to the
public. Last May, President Obama issued an executive order requiring that
going forward, any data generated by the federal government must be made
available to the public in open, machine-readable formats. In the executive
order, Obama stated that, “openness in government strengthens our democracy,
promotes the delivery of efficient and effective services to the public, and
contributes to economic growth.” If this is truly the case, Often good legislation is blocked because lawmakers and citizens
are concerned about project funding. While there should be support to help
cities and towns achieve the capability of opening their data, a lot of the
time, they don’t need it. In 2009, the city and We should not fall behind these efforts. There is too much at
stake for our citizens, not to mention our economy. A recent McKinsey report
found that making open data has the potential to create $3 trillion in value
worldwide. Former Speaker Tip O’Neil famously said, “all politics are local.”
But we in the civic startup space believe all data is local. Data is
reporting potholes in your neighborhood and identifying high crime areas in your
communities. It’s seeing how many farmers’ markets there are in your town
compared to liquor stores. Data helps predict which areas of a city are most
at risk during a heat wave and other natural disasters. A federal open data
law would give the raw material needed to create tools to improve the lives
of all Americans, not just those who are lucky enough to live in a city that
has released this information on its own. It’s a different way of thinking about how a government operates
and the relationship it has with its citizens. Open data gives the public an
amazing opportunity to be more involved with governmental decisions. We can
increase accountability and transparency, but most importantly we can
revolutionize the way local residents communicate and work with their
government. Access to this data is a civil right. If this is truly a
government by, of and for the people, then its data needs to be available to
all of us. By opening up this wealth of information, we will design a better
government that takes advantage of the technology and skills of civic
startups and innovative citizens. Last year at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action
Conference), Former Speaker New Gingrich called Lt. Gov. Newsom’s
Citizenville, about the open data movement "the best single book on
moving out of bureaucracy into a Tocquevillian society where you, the
citizen, are empowered to solve your own problems.” In the book, the former
San Francisco Mayor also praises Republican Minority Leader Eric Cantor and
Congressman Darrell Issa for their work in empowering citizens. If a
Democratic President, two of the staunchest conservatives in Congress, the
architect of the 1994 “Republican Revolution” and a From
http://www.govtech.com/
Facing international pressure, the Edward Snowden's leaks about the National Security Agency's
mass-surveillance programs have exacerbated resentment over the central role
of the The Bob Liodice, the CEO of the Association of National Advertisers,
said he is "very disappointed" with the announcement. His group has
battled with ICANN for several years over its plan to allow for thousands of
new Web address endings beyond the traditional ".com" and
".org." "We saw the From
http://www.nextgov.com/
It's no surprise to any of us by now: Big data is changing the
way government operates. With the huge amounts of data that the public sector
is collecting, managing and storing, agencies are devising strategies and
approaches to utilize and create services geared to the public using this
data. On Wednesday, nearly 80 government and industry employees gathered for
a GovLoop in-person event focused on the Big Data Frontier (you can read our
top 5 insights we took away about big data here). The panels and speakers
shared experiences and insights from distinguished public sector and industry
leaders, and discussed applicable case studies. While the crowd expressed
excitement about the potentials of big data and the way some of their
agencies are using it, there was also plenty of shared frustration. Just
because big data is there doesn't mean everybody knows what to do with it --
or how to best use it. Wanting to address that, GovLoop asked several
attendees to tell us their biggest challenges when it comes to big data. Read
some of the interesting responses below. "There's an aversion of federal agencies to leverage other
organization's data and data of other efforts." "There are too many
different softwares and data systems trying to interact." "It's difficult to get executive
leadership buy-in on big data. There's defensiveness." "Not sure
how to answer the classic question: What's in it for me?" "Leadership
doesn't support business needs for data collection or serving." "There's a lack of organizational
support, and we're not given the funds to support the system properly."
"The government isn't yet prepared and educated enough when it comes to
big data." Regarding that
last point: That's what we're here to change. If you want to learn more about
big data, make sure to download our guide, Innovations that Matter: Examining
the Big Data Frontier. And if you're dealing with big data challenges at your
agency, share them with us below. After all, we learn more by acknowledging challenges
and obstacles than by ignoring them. Let's come up with some answers
together. From
http://www.govloop.com/
New Apps
Make Government Wallets Transparent While it may sound trite, “following the money” remains one of
the best ways to pinpoint priorities in business or government. It was on
this premise that Socrata, a Seattle-based cloud software company known for
its open data offerings, unveiled a suite of financial transparency apps that
can be used to publish and simplify spending data. The new lineup, launched
this month, includes Socrata Open Budget and Socrata Open Spending, apps that
deliver charts, graphs and tables to visualize complicated financial data for
easy-to-read analysis. "When we talk about citizen engagement, it's
really about allowing citizens to better understand how their governments are
allocating their funds and appropriating the budget, and then how that money
is being spent over time,” said Bill Glenn, Socrata’s vice president of
marketing. Interest for the financial transparency suite came from Socrata
clients -- jurisdictions that reported a rising number of financial data requests.
Primary drivers of the demand, he said, were residents, the media and
government employees. “We found these customers really looking for a way to
bring more financial transparency to budgets and spending in particular, to
be able to make a better connection with their citizens and to drive better
trust and engagement with citizens,” Glenn said. The Open Budget App features
charts and visualizations generated directly from updated budget data,
revealing details like money allocated for specific programs and departments.
Citizens can also see funding going towards programs and projects in their
own neighborhoods. A sibling to Open Budget, Open Spending depicts trends in
government spending over time and by category. The app can provide graphics
comparing spending across a large range of topics, down to check-level
detail. It also enables users to browse government vendors and identify how
much each has received for government projects and services. While the financial suite is a first for Socrata, tools like
this are becoming popular in government. As they enter the marketplace,
Socrata’s additions will compete with similar government financial
transparency apps such as the popular OpenGov platform, used by "As technology advances, I think government leaders and
government staff members are going to turn to the use of apps to communicate
highly complex information in much more understandable ways,” Glenn said. A
future adopter of both of the budget and spending apps, A collaborative development process ensued as Socrata worked
closely with the county’s technology and finance teams to understand budget
and spending practices in addition to hearing resident feedback. When Socrata
presented a concept of the two apps, Lewis said it “fit the bill.” “Unless
you really know the budget, and how we compile the budget here, or unless you
know how we spend money and what our terms are, the data sets would be really
hard for the general resident to understand,” said Lewis. “These really
common understandable ways to slice and dice this data are going to be the
best part of this.” Yet, as plug-and-play as the apps are made to be,
research and deliberation is ongoing at the county, which is why the apps have
not yet been installed on their site. Lewis explained that not all county
financial data can be made public -- exceptions include private financial
data and data protected by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act). "That's the large challenge our financial department has in
trying to figure out what they're going to filter out,” Lewis said. "I
think once we've completed this, and have a solution, we're going to learn a
lot from it.” The filtering process is expected to occur relatively soon, she
said. The budget app will launch sometime this spring, with the spending app
following shortly thereafter. Best practices for launching the apps are being
documented and the county will share this information with other interested
jurisdictions. Socrata intends to add more transparency apps to the suite
later in the quarter that will detail government contracts and revenues. The
long-term hope for the suite, Glenn said, is for it to become a robust set of
apps that benefit a variety of demographics beginning with the citizen and
extending to academia, businesses, open data entrepreneurs, political
activists, journalists and government employees themselves. From
http://www.govtech.com/
What
Government Can Do to Attract Top IT Talent Competing with the likes of Facebook and Google is tough, but
it’s more crucial than ever. In the wake of a deadly fire, Among the causes that Freedman Consulting identifies for the
severe public-sector technology talent shortage are non-competitive
compensation, a lack of access to ground-breaking work and a government
culture that often doesn't welcome potentially disruptive innovation.
Government is also highly bureaucratic and risk-averse, thanks in part to the
threat that elected officials might face punishment at the ballot box for any
failures. To those with technology skills, on the other hand, entrepreneurs
like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sergey Brin are the heroes, and
workers are more attracted to the kinds of innovative, open and creative
environments that facilitate development of the next eBay or Tumblr. In 2008,
just 1 percent of those with Ph.D.s in math or computer science worked in
state or local government. Governments must address the cultural problems that prevent them
from recruiting and retaining technology talent, but there are other issues
that have an impact. Since traditional public-sector pensions aren't
portable, for example, they exacerbate the wage gap for those who might
otherwise want to spend a few years in public service. Creating portable
retirement systems would go far toward creating a class of technology
professionals who rotate between the public and private sectors, as is the
case in so many other fields. Connections between academia and the public
sector also should be strengthened. Government technology professionals need
not be public-policy experts, but new academic programs that include public
policy basics would make it easier for technology graduates to work for
government. Prior to graduation, more public-sector internships and
fellowships would also make young people more aware of career options in
government. But strengthening the technology talent pipeline will require
more than just making young people aware of public-sector options. To attract
the talent it needs, government must take advantage of enhanced partnerships
with academia to become more sophisticated and make the changes that would
create an environment that is more welcoming to the tech-savvy. Currently, too
many government officials don't even know what their technology needs are.
Until more do, it will be impossible to create plausible public-sector career
ladders to attract technology professionals. Governments are fairly limited
in what they can do to address the gap between what they can pay and what
those with much-needed technology skills can earn in the private sector. But
there is much they can do to create a culture that is more tech-friendly. And
culture can go a long way toward attracting the best and brightest to spend
at least part of their careers working in government. From
http://www.govtech.com/
7 Things to
Know About the White House Big Data Report Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values focuses on
how the public and private sectors can maximize the benefits of big data
while minimizing its risks. A group of senior Obama administration officials
delivered a report to the White House on May 1 examining how big data will
transform the way we live and work, and how it will alter the relationships
between government, citizens, businesses and consumers. The report, Big Data:
Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values, is the outcome of a 90-day study
announced by President Obama in his Jan. 17, 2014 remarks on the review of
signals intelligence. The effort was spearheaded by White House counselor
John Podesta, who led a working group of senior administration officials in
creating the report. The working group also engaged hundreds of stakeholders
from industry, academia, civil society and the federal government through
briefings at the White House. The report focuses on how the public and
private sectors can maximize the benefits of big data while minimizing its
risks. It also identifies opportunities for big data to grow the economy,
improve health and education, and make the nation safer and more energy
efficient. One section of the report focuses exclusively on public-sector
management of data, including implications for health-care delivery,
education, homeland security and law enforcement. Though a variety of
observations and recommendations were presented, here are seven of the
notable takeaways unearthed in the findings: 1. BIG DATA IS INEVITABLE According to the report, “The big data revolution will take hold
across the entire government, not merely in departments and agencies that
already have missions involving science and technology.” The report projects
that departments and agencies that have not historically made wide use of
advanced data analytics have perhaps the most significant opportunity to
harness big data to benefit the citizens they serve. 2. BIG DATA IS TRANSFORMATIONAL AT ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT The report underscored that the power of big data does not stop
at the federal level, but will be equally transformational for states and
municipalities, pointing to 3. PRIVACY NEEDS REFORMS One action item identified by the report is reforming the
Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which drew support from a
number of technology groups, including TechAmerica and the Information
Technology Industry Council (ITI). “We are extremely pleased that the White
House has chosen with this paper to back several reforms that the technology
industry has been backing for years, namely creating a national data breach
law and reforms to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act,” said Mike
Hettinger, senior vice president for Federal Government Affairs and Public
Sector for TechAmerica. ITI Vice President for Global Privacy Policy and
General Counsel Yael Weinman echoed that sentiment. “We applaud that this
report points to ECPA reform as a priority,” he said. “Reform is critical to
address the concerns that Americans have about law enforcement having access
to their online information. ITI will continue to advocate that this statute
be updated to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant, without carve
outs, to gain access to online content.” 4. A NEW ERA OF CUSTOMIZED LEARNING While privacy safeguards were foundational in education, and
especially with children, authors duly noted that big data could spell
substantial breakthroughs in learning in future years. The ability to process
and analyze large volumes of student data, they said, would lead to an
increase in personalized teaching methods through network-enabled devices.
This personalized learning experience will be seen at all levels of learning.
Big data education is expected to be supported by the president’s ConnectED
initiative, which will connect 99 percent of 5. PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS IS NOT THE BE ALL, END ALL The study advised that though predictive analytics is a valuable
resource, it should not be a sole determinant to prove guilt; it must respect
all rights and freedoms of citizens. As an essential requisite, authors said big data analysis
conducted by law enforcement should be isolated to criminal investigations
and protect individual privacy and civil liberties — a task to require
careful monitoring. “To prevent chilling effects to Constitutional rights of
free speech and association, the public must be aware of the existence,
operation and efficacy of such programs,” authors stated. 6. BIG DATA IS THE NEW NATIONAL RESOURCE Similar to the way land wilderness was gradually acknowledged as
a national resource, the report labeled the rise of big data as a national
resource. As such, it was urged that data, like any other significant
resource, should be protected through secure storage while simultaneously
made readily available to the public, as it is deployed for economic
prosperity and social good. As an application of this mindset, open data
initiatives to release valuable data sets was encouraged. Data.gov, the
national repository of federal data tools and resources, was highlighted as a
vehicle to preserve and utilize big data. 7. BIG DATA REQUIRES INVESTMENT, RESOURCES As the saying goes, you get something for something and nothing
for nothing. This notion holds true for big data just like anything else, the
report said. Departments and agencies were recommended to match data to
resources in terms of staff, internal education efforts and financial
investment. The Obama administration was told it should lead an effort to
identify areas where big data analytics can provide the greatest impact to benefit
Americans, and to encourage data scientists to develop social, ethical and
policy knowledge. Areas where that showed promise for research included an
investigation of data sources, de-identification and encryption, and data
tools that can be used by consumers. From
http://www.govtech.com/
Tracking
Corrupt Politicians Gets Easier with New Data Platform Mass media is constantly criticized for its limited attention
span. News comes and goes, coverage exists in short life cycles, and all too
often, a story's context goes missing, along with its intended insight and
accountability. However, a relatively new tool that confronts the issue is
gaining momentum. The platform, designed by Chilean journalist Miguel Paz, is
called Poderopedia — or Powerpedia, in a Spanish-to-English translation — and
uses crowd-sourced journalism to show the links and conflicting interests of
decision-makers. Funded by the Knight Foundation in June 2011 with $200,000
and launched in It illustrates these through an interactive diagram that looks
much like a mind map with a photo of the public figure at its center,
surrounded by icons of connected individuals and organizations. Additional
features of the platform include a list of associated documents and a linked
listing of sources. The move into both In Paz’s native home of From
http://www.govtech.com/
White House
Directives Emphasize IT Effectiveness Federal agency IT portfolio review sessions will scrutinize
impact, not just efficiency, of investments, involve more leaders at the
table. The White House Office of Management and Budget issued new directives
this week to federal agencies to improve the effectiveness of the
government's IT investments. In a May 7 memo issued by OMB deputy director
for management Beth Cobert and federal CIO Steven VanRoekel, OMB laid out
enhanced guidelines for conducting OMB's IT investment portfolio review
sessions -- known as PortfolioStat -- that place new emphasis on the
effectiveness -- not just the efficiency -- of federal IT investments. The IT
portfolio review sessions will continue to focus on consolidating commodity
IT, they said, but will now devote greater attention to "identifying and
assessing high-impact investments" and ensuring they meet customer
needs, with the intended impact. The sessions, due to be completed by July 31, will also involve
more senior leaders at the table, including the deputy secretary and agency
financial, acquisition, human capital, and operations chiefs, as well as
CIOs, CISOs, and program managers. OMB began using the PortfolioStat review sessions
in fiscal year 2012 to eliminate wasteful IT spending and improve the return
on the government's IT investment portfolio. The sessions also reinforced the
president's management agenda to ensure IT initiatives improve services to
citizens and businesses; increase the quality and value of the government's
core functions; open government data and research to the public to spur
economic growth; and enhance the government's current and future workforce.
OMB developed a series of key performance indicators (KPIs) designed to gauge
whether agencies had made cost-efficient IT investments, met customer needs
in innovative ways, and protected federal data and systems. The sessions also held agency executives, not just CIOs,
accountable for delivering IT investments on time and on budget. IT projects
must also be delivered faster, in more modular fashion, and make use of new
technologies, such as cloud computing. They also must increasingly rely on
automated configuration and vulnerability management tools and other security
controls. The PortfolioStat sessions "identified approximately $2.5
billion in savings opportunities through the end of FY 2015," and
agencies have already captured 77% of those savings, Cobert and VanRoekel
said. In a May 8 report released by the Government Accountability Office,
David Powner, director of IT management issues, said opportunities continue
to exist to improve the acquisition and management of federal IT investments. The report noted that as of April, 201 federal IT investments,
worth $12.4 billion, out of 760 major government IT investments listed on
OMB's IT Dashboard were in need of management attention, with 42 of those
projects cause for significant concerns. OMB's IT Dashboard website lists IT
investments at 27 top federal agencies. Powner reiterated nine common factors
critical to successful IT acquisitions. Among them: having program officials
actively engaged with stakeholders; having end users involved throughout the
requirements and testing phases of the project; and employing program staff
with the necessary knowledge and skills. OMB said that going forward, it
would also look to strengthen the data and analysis methods it uses to
evaluate the PortfolioStat KPIs. It would would also institute more explicit
action plans and timelines around delivery, innovation, and protection goals. From
http://www.informationweek.com/
Innovative
Technologies to World Bank approves $30 million for ICT applications to support The new program will enable the national government to work
closely with county governments to improve their services through ICT reforms
and also enhance transparency and good governance in the management of county
governments’ affairs. It will help all the counties to develop road maps for
development and deployment of ICT applications. Funded by the Bank’s
International Development Association (IDA)*, the program will expand open
data initiatives to the counties by scaling up the activities being
implemented under the KTCIP. It will boost the total Bank funding for the
entire project to $199.5 million. “The information on the money collected and
used by the counties will become an important component of the data needed to
revitalize Kenya’s Open Data Initiative in Nairobi and the other counties,”
says Arleen Cannata Seed, the Task Team Leader of the KTCIP project. “The
ultimate beneficiaries of this initiative will be Kenyan citizens, who will
hold their county governments more accountable in the collection and use of
county taxes and fees.” In KTCIP is part of the Regional Communications Infrastructure
Project supporting From
http://www.worldbank.org/
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Government departments and officials are using their microblog
accounts as channels to hear voices of the public and provide public services
despite slow growth in account numbers, according to a report released on
Tuesday.The number of microblog accounts operated by government departments
and individual officials increased by 46 percent in 2013, said the report
issued by the E-Government Research Center with the Chinese Academy of
Governance. It has issued the report annually since 2011.The growth rate was
mild compared with the 249 percent in 2012 and 776 percent in 2011, the
report noted.Verified government accounts on the four top microblog services
in China -- Sina, Tencent, People.com.cn and Xinhuanet -- totaled about
258,700 by the end of 2013.About 70.8 percent of them were operated by
government departments and the rest were individual users whose identities
were verified to be government officials. The report attributed the slowdown to users shifting to new
social network tools such as WeChat, an instant massaging application
claiming to have about 400 million active users.The reducing popularity of
microblog services among ordinary Internet users dampened the governments'
enthusiasm for launching blogs, said Wang Yimin, the research center's
director.However, Wang said the slower growth is to be expected and did not
indicate that the government paid less attention to these platform.Each year,
the report selects the top 100 government microblog accounts that are
considered best maintained.In 2013, each account of the top 100 posted an
average of about 10,000 entries, or 28 every day, up 30 percent over 2012.
Each account recorded a total of 737,000 reposts annually on average, up 166
percent over 2012, and 206,000 comments, up 182 percent."We saw a
notable tendency in 2013 for these government accounts to become much more
interactive with Internet users than previous years," Wang said. Government departments and officials have gained good experience
in managing microblog accounts that can also be applied to WeChat accounts
and other newer emerging tools, he added.More efforts should be made to
integrate different communication platforms, including traditional media,
websites, microblogs and other social media, the report suggested.It also
highlighted continuing disparities among regions and government departments
in terms of microblog use.Governments in richer regions and bigger cities
have proved more inclined to communicate with the people through
microblogging, it said.Among various government departments, police have been
the most active bloggers, according to the report. Four out of the top 10
government microblog accounts were operated by police departments. From http://www.news.cn/
Official Micro Blogs
Remain Active Governmental departments and officials continue to use their
micro blogs as channels to listen to residents and publicize services,
despite a slowdown in the growth of accounts, according to a report released
on Tuesday.The number of micro blog accounts operated by government
departments and individual officials increased by only 46 percent in 2013,
the report said, a mild rate compared with the 249 percent growth seen in
2012 and 776 percent in 2011.The report was issued by the E-Government Research
Center of the Chinese Academy of Governance, which has provided such data
annually since 2011.Verified government accounts hosted on the four top micro
blog service platforms in China - Sina, Tencent, People.com.cn and
Xinhuanet.cn - totaled about 258,700 at the end of 2013.About 70.8 percent of
the accounts were operated by government departments, and the rest were from
individual users whose identities were verified as government officials. The report attributed the slowdown in micro blog growth to users
shifting to new social networking tools such as WeChat, an instant messaging
application claiming around 400 million active users.The reduced popularity
of micro blog services among ordinary Internet users has dampened
governments' enthusiasm for launching blogs, said Wang Yimin, the research
center's director.Wang said slower growth was to be expected and doesn't
indicate that governmental entities had paid insufficient attention to micro
blogs.Each year, the report recognizes the top 100 government-affiliated
micro blog accounts considered to be the best maintained. In 2013, those top
accounts averaged about 10,000 posts, or 28 posts daily, up 30 percent over
2012.The accounts averaged 737,000 reposts annually, up 166 percent over
2012, and an average of 206,000 comments, up 182 percent."We saw a
notable tendency in 2013 for these government accounts to become much more
interactive with Internet users than in previous years," Wang said. Departments of the government and various officials have gained valuable
experience in managing micro blog accounts that can be applied to WeChat
accounts and other emerging tools as they come along, Wang added.The report
suggested that more efforts should be made to integrate different
communication platforms, including traditional media, websites, micro blogs
and other social media.It also highlighted the continuing disparities between
different regions and governmental departments.The governments in wealthier
regions and in bigger cities were more inclined to communicate with residents
through micro-blogging, it said.Of the various governmental bodies that
employ the online tools, the police have been the most active bloggers, the
report said.Four out of the top 10 micro blog accounts maintained by
governmental bodies were operated by police departments, it said. From http://www.news.cn/
The government will start working out a strategy on Monday to
unify the standards of IT systems used for agricultural production, so data
such as the amount of exposure to the sun’s rays and crops’ growth situation
can be utilized as “big data” to help farmers increase their production and
improve the quality of their crops, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. A panel
of experts at the government’s comprehensive IT strategy headquarters will
begin the task. It is aimed at having data input systems for farming-related
IT, which currently differ among electronics and farm equipment makers, join
hands, with accumulated data put into a database and utilized as “big data”
for fostering more competitive farmers. The panel will compile its strategy
by the end of May and draw up guidelines for utilizing the data. Major
electronics makers and farm equipment makers have developed systems designed
to help farmers increase production and improve crop quality by enabling them
to record their daily work with portable devices and check the amount of
crops with sensors attached to agricultural machines such as combines. According to government sources, the items inputted into current
systems and their ways of obtaining data differ among manufacturers, and the
systems are not linked to each other. Because of such restrictions, farmers
using different companies’ systems cannot combine their stored data. They
also cannot have past data reflected in a new system when they change from
one maker’s equipment to another’s. The government therefore decided to
develop guidelines for standardizing data input items, such as the amount of
exposure to the sun, air temperature, soil temperature and crop growth
situation, to utilize the data from the new fiscal year. After that, the government intends to
interconnect different company’s systems. This will let farmers compare their
situation with other farmers and facilitate the making of special branded
products from particular regions and areas. There have been few attempts of
this kind in the world. The government has also considered measures for
protecting accumulated data from being disseminated to other countries,
considering the international standardization of the system in the future.
The government aims to have the standardized data lead to an expansion in
scale for Japanese farming households. “There will be more opportunities for
competent farmers, leading to the greater international competitiveness of
Japanese farmers,” a government official said. From
http://the-japan-news.com The Japanese Ministry of Defense (MoD) established a Cyber
Defence Unit (CDU) on 26 March to detect and respond to attacks on the MoD
and the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). An MoD spokesman told IHS Jane's that
the CDU's objective is to help government and the JSDF: "deal
effectively with the threat of cyber-attacks, which become more sophisticated
and complex by the day". The CDU will be tasked with monitoring MoD and
JSDF networks and will collaborate with other ministries and agencies in
strengthening From
http://www.janes.com/
From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/
Lim
Jae-Hong: E-Government Key to Good Governance With Its concept, he noted, also embraces the eight key components of
good governance laid out by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia
and the Pacific: accountable, transparent, responsive, equitable and
inclusive, effective and efficient, follows the rule of law, participatory
and consensus-oriented. Lim pinned high hopes on President Park Geun-hye’s
vision for “Government 3.0,” which calls for broader public access to state
data and participation in the decision-making process, increased transparency
and greater interagency cooperation. The initiative followed the “e-Korea
Vision 2006,” a third edition of the four-year national “informatization”
plan unveiled in 2002. The package included building ICT capacity and
industry, promoting e-commerce, upgrading the legal system and stepping up
international cooperation. “I think The awards mark the most prestigious international recognition
of excellence in public service, officials say. This year’s ceremony will
take place on June 23 in Ilsan, From
http://theinsidekorea.com
Govt to
Develop Long-Range Ship Identification System The Korean government will develop a system to identify ships
from a long range in an effort to crack down on illegal Chinese fishing boats
and prevent maritime accidents. The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future
Planning and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said they will jointly
develop the system starting in 2015. The system will take three years to
develop and cost 12-billion won. The system will utilize long-range radio
frequencies allowing authorities to confirm a ship's authorization from up to
ten kilometers away in around ten minutes. The government is also
planning to link the coast defense monitoring system to the current maritime
radar system to boost surveillance on illegal fishing boats. Authorities
estimate illegal Chinese fishing boats cause 580-billion won in damages to From
http://world.kbs.co.kr
The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), on Friday in
The agency had granted annual scholarships to Nigerian nationals
in various fields and provided infrastructure to schools and hospitals, as
well as technical aid. He, however, said that the attitude of Nigerians and
some government officers to the concept of development was not as positive
and strong as it should be, and that had stalled the development efforts of
government. ``Some Nigerians do not care about the national identity, but we
see From
http://www.dailytimes.com.ng
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From
http://www.futuregov.asia
Jakarta Provincial Government plans to collaborate with Google
to develop a system for better monitoring of civil servants’ performance in
the Indonesian capital. Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaya Purnama (or Ahok as he
is commonly known) shared that he has spoken with Google to build a tool that
will track civil servants’ position and monitor their performance. Ahok has
emphasised that technology plays a crucial role in ensuring transparency in
government. He expects such a system to help improve productivity of public
sector officials in the Jakarta Government. Moreover, Ahok has also pointed
to a possible collaboration with Waze, a community-based traffic and
navigation app acquired by Google in 2013, which has proven popular among
Indonesians. He shared that to maximise the benefits from this app, data from
the Jakarta Government’s database should be integrated with the data
collected by Waze. This would allow the government to respond to any reports
of traffic congestion in real-time and analyse traffic conditions. It would
also be useful for emergency and disaster management, he added. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The Philippine Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said
Thursday that it has released 600 million pesos (13.38 million U.S. dollars)
to kick-off the automation of government financial systems this year. Dubbed
as the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System
(GIFMIS), the information technology (IT) system will integrate all public
financial management processes and enhance transparency in the government's
financial transactions. "Because GIFMIS is web-based and updated in real
time, all data in the system are easily tracked to ensure the integrity of
our public financial management processes," said Budget Secretary
Florencio Abad in a statement. The IT system is a government-wide,
browser-based web application that will link government financial processes
together and facilitate their automated management. These financial processes
-- accounting, cash management, reporting, and auditing are regularly
executed by the DBM, Commission on Audit, and the Department of Finance. Once
in place, the DBM said the system will "embed" financial
transparency in the day-to-day operation of the Philippine government. From
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Philippine
Government Gives Donor Agencies Access to Transparency Portal’s Content
Management System Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda announced earlier this
week, that 64 partner countries and seven multilateral organisations will be
given access to the Foreign Aid Transparency Hub (FAiTH) website content
management system, in a bit to better track foreign aid given to victims of
Super Typhoon Haiyan last year. FAiTH was launched in 18 November, 2013 10
days after the Super Typhoon struck central From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The
The Philippines Government will be launching a National Feedback
Mechanism soon as part of its commitment to the Open Government Partnership
(OGP) which it has been a founding member of since 2011. “Envisioned as a
link between government and civil society, it will serve as an online
platform where citizens will be able to engage government by launching
petitions or making queries online,” Said Secretary Edwin Lacierda,
Presidential Spokesperson of the Office of the President, The Philippines.
The new platform will provide avenues for citizens to contribute to policy
making and monitor the implementation of major programmes and projects by the
Philippine Government. “Citizens play an enormous role in checking government
activities. With a structured avenue for communication, organisations and
citizens’ groups will find it easier to work with government toward our
common goal of improving our country,” said Lacierda. Since 2011, the
Philippines has launched several online portals including Open Data
Philippines, Budget ng Bayan by Department of Budget and Management, and the
Official Gazette by the Presidential Communications Operations Office to make
documents and information that affect people’s lives available to the public.
This new portal was among highlights at a forum of the Knowledge for
Development Centres (KDCs) held April 23 to 25 in the From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Singapore Police Force (SPF) is currently looking at developing
more content and increasing their engagement rate to create a larger fan base
for its Facebook page, Fong Weng Kiong, Assistant Director (Policy &
Development), Public Affairs Department told FutureGov. “We would be doing
this by widening our scope of content posted on the platform and finding new
ways to engage our current and new fans in a bid to stay connected and
relevant in the rapidly evolving media and technological environment,” said
Fong. The SPF Facebook page was set up in 2009 and has more than 353,000 fans
till date. It is currently used to push out regular and timely crime alerts,
prevention tips, recruitment information, incident updates and more. SPF is
now exploring different types of content, such as games, contests, posts on
the agency’s heritage, etc to improve the quality of the online engagement.
The monthly “Throwback Thursday” postings seek to honour our policing past
and create emotional connections with our viewers. Our first “Throwback Thursday”
post, on the last week of January this year, highlighted the role of the From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
In an exclusive interview with FutureGov, Vichai Bandasak, Mayor
of Pakkret City, a Thai city with a population of about 80,000, shares his
challenges on managing the City’s flood crisis and how technology plays a
part. The general Besides engaging the people, From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
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How
In a crucial step towards making online public services more
inclusive, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) of PHOTOS View photos RELATED ARTICLES How can government open data and open source enable disaster
risk management RELATED CATEGORIES DIGITAL INCLUSION E-GOVERNMENT FROM THIS SECTION NEWS The localisation portal offers basic tools and services for
making e-government applications available in the official language of each
state apart from English. Tools are currently available to support 6 Indian
languages, and will gradually be made available for the other 16 official
languages in The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing is helping
ministries and departments in the localisation process and has designed the
Localisation Projects Management Framework (LPMF). It will assist with
“surface localisation” of the user interface and static information on
websites and “internal localisation” of online applications including linked
databases. The localisation portal offers code converter APIs for converting
legacy data to Unicode, JavaScript based on-screen keyboards, Sakal Bharati
OpenType font (which supports all 22 Indian languages) and transliteration
services. The portal also displays a dashboard illustrating progress of
localisation across the various e-governance projects based on the LPMF. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
E-governance:
1.3 Lakh Fake Pensioners Weeded Out in State Thanks to electronic governance and linking of pensioners'
accounts with their Aadhaar cards, the state has weeded out 1.3 lakh fake
pensioners since last summer, with around 80% of them being removed from the
list in the past two months. "We have already removed 1.3 lakh fake
pensioners from the list of old-age, widowed and disabled pensioners,"
chief secretary RS Sharma told Hindustan Times. Till last year, the state had
been doling out pension of around Rs. 642 crore to 10.66 lakh beneficiaries
per year. The fresh list has 9.36 lakh pensioners, down by 12%. The state
government will now save Rs. 80 crore per year. In fact, e-governance seems
to be transforming the entire bureaucratic culture in the state. If an
official, from the peon to the principal secretary, does not turn up in
office by 10.30am, an SMS is automatically sent to his cell phone saying,
"You are yet to mark your biometric attendance." "There has
been a phenomenal change in the reporting time of staff," said Rajdeo
Pandey, an official in the rural development department. "Earlier, most
officials used to turn up around noon. Now everyone comes in before 10.30am
and does not leave before 6pm." The new human resources management (HRM) system lets anybody
check attendance summary of individuals of all departments with different
parameters in real time. The HRM software supported by biometric terminals
has been installed at 16 locations housing 63 departments in the state capital,
and will soon be installed at district and block levels too. Electronic
measures have also been introduced in the form of treasury management,
integrated financial management, SMS gateway and e-payment gateway. And then
there are some department-specific applications. The chief secretary said no
other state had yet implemented the attendance system and the integrated
financial management system. "Jharkhand is much ahead of other states in
terms of e-governance. It's a very powerful tool," he said. From
http://www.hindustantimes.com/ From
e-Governance to m-Governance: The Way Forward Today, From
http://www.i-policy.org/ Big
Data from IoT May Pose Challenges for Data Centers As Internet of Things (IoT) deployments will generate large
quantities of big data that need to be processed and analyzed in real time,
this will bring newer sets of challenges to CIOs and data centre providers,
says Gartner in a recent report. The report shows that IoT will include 26
billion units installed by 2020, and by that time, IoT product and service
suppliers will generate incremental revenue exceeding $300 billion. Fabrizio
Biscotti, research director at Gartner who sees a potential transformational
effect on the data center market, its customers, technology providers, and
business models, raises the concern that processing large quantities of IoT
data in real time will increase as a proportion of workloads of data centers,
leaving providers facing new security, capacity and analytics challenges. From
http://www.cxotoday.com/ E-Governance
Projects to Be Speeded Up in Government Departments Soon, Central Government departments could have a Chief
Information Officer for IT adoption and to fast track e-governance projects
as a part of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). This will also include
several other initiatives such as cloud implementation for all mission mode
projects (MMPs). At a recent meeting of the Apex Committee on NeGP, it was
also decided to fast-track the adoption of ‘e-office’ for independent
movement of e-files. The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Ajit
Seth, Cabinet Secretary. Senior officials from the Planning Commission, UIDAI
and Ministry of Communication and IT attended the meeting. It was also
decided in the meeting that a workshop on cloud platform would also be
organised by Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) for all departments of
ministries. The workshop will explain the features, capabilities and the way
forward for implementing cloud by default, the note said. Apart from these,
it is learnt that DeitY will organise a workshop on the new e-initiatives in
e-governance, such as Mobile Seva, e-Pramaan and e-Taal, for all ministries,
departments and the Planning Commission. The representatives of UIDAI said
that as almost 60 crore Aadhar numbers have been issued, it would be
appropriate if it could now be a unifying and unique identity in all
e-governance initiatives. The DeitY Secretary also clarified that linkage of
UID in MMPs, wherever required, has been suggested as a key component in the
‘e-Kranti’ concept note. The committee also suggested that a standard
mechanism should be established for expeditious replication of e-governance
projects across the country. From
http://egov.eletsonline.com/
New Leap in
UP in E-Governance: Driving Licenses Will Be Provided Through Online
Applications Seeking driving license will be simpler in Uttar Pradesh once
Lok Sabha elections are over. Courtesy- introduction of online service.
Taking a step ahead in e-Governance, UP government will launch online Driving
License (DL) service for people in From
http://egov.eletsonline.com/
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From
http://en.trend.az/
E-Documents
in The Data Processing Centre (DPC) of Azerbaijani Communications
and High Technologies Ministry has presented a software for signing
electronic documents online. Earlier, it was possible to sign the e-documents
only using a Microsoft Windows, however the DPC's new software helps to
simplify the process, which will no longer be dependant on specific operating
systems and browsers, according to DPC's message. The software allows to sign
e-documents online, through major popular browsers, as well as most widely
used operating systems. The software's interface supports the Azerbaijani,
English and Russian languages. The main goals behind developing the new
solution are to expand the scope of use of e-signatures and e-document
turnover, simplifying public access to state institutions' electronic
services, which are available on the 'electronic government' website (
(e-gov.az). From
http://en.trend.az/
Azerbaijani
Servicemen to Hold Discussions with German IT Experts Representatives of Azerbaijani Armed Forces will take part at an
international event in From
http://en.trend.az/
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ACT Government and the NICTA eGov Cluster started
the Mobile Canberra initiative to develop apps that provides access to
geolocational government datasets and services. This projected, initiated at
the request of the ACT Government via its Executive Director of the
Government Information Office (GIO), was prompted by its commitment to being
an open government and its goal to make Canberra a connected and digital
city. Currently, the mobile services includes locations of bus stops,
playgrounds, libraries, schools, public art, public toilets, Technical and
Further Education campuses and public furniture. Based on its review of the
pilot’s first year, these are the key lessons learnt: 1.
Reliable access to government source data is critical The team realised that the success of the
apps depends heavily on having reliable access to relevant source data. In
order to ‘go live’ with a production version of this app, the ACT government
will need to ensure that a regular updated source of published data is
available from data custodians within the public sector. 2.
Collaborative project model worked well The project team comprised of the ACT
Government through its GIO and senior Shared Services representative, NICTA
Engineering and Technology Development who provided oversight of development
and user experience design, the eGov Cluster project managers, and the
developers. According to the team, the collaborative project model has proven
to be a more flexible model, yet dynamic approach to requirements definition.
This successful model can be used as a template for governments looking to
embrace innovation as a means of transformational improvements. 3.
Open Data programmes must be treated as whole-of-government initiatives The team observed that inter-agency
collaboration on open data does not happen organically because of policy,
technical, cultural challenges within the public sector. Therefore, in order
for innovations like Mobile Canberra to succeed, government must ensure that
their Open Data programmes are first and foremost treated as whole-of-government
programme and then directed, managed and resourced properly. 4.
Challenges around using web technologies to deploy apps The team set out to explore the possibility
of using web technologies to deploy an app, which could leverage a device’s
geo-location capabilities in an accurate manner. In assessing the available
technologies, they found PhoneGap and Titanium to best fit their
requirements, and they selected PhoneGap for its open-source nature and
better OS support. However, while PhoneGap allowed for a platform-agnostic
approach to coding, it was not easy to use in practice because the team had
to spend a lot of time debugging and finding workarounds in the many
variations. From http://www.futuregov.asia Comms
Dept to Shed Up to 25 Percent of Workforce Workers at the federal Department of
Communications will be forced to reapply for their positions in a “spill and
fill” process designed to slim the workforce down as much as 25 percent.
Communications staff were this morning informed, via a 17-page document
sighted by iTnews, of a new structure to be implemented at the agency,
affecting all full-time staff members in an effort to potentially cut up to
130 positions. The department is understood to have a current headcount of
550 staff, 519 of those which are full-time equivalent. The new structure
will see the majority of the department’s workforce asked to reapply for
their current role. iTnews understands the opportunity will only be given to
full-time equivalent staff. For workers unsuccessful in re-attaining their
current position, three options are on the table: apply for a lower-grade
role on a reduced salary, take a redundancy or be redeployed elsewhere within
the APS. Voluntary redundancy applications wouldn’t be processed by
management until the job application process wraps up, the department said in
the communication to staff. “To achieve our strategic priorities, and meet
our goal to be the Australian Government’s pre-eminent advisor on communications,
the department will during the course of 2014 realign its structure and the
roles of our staff,” it advised in the document. It will take one layer of the organisation
at a time before moving on the next when ‘designing and selecting’ the roles
and staff for each individual layer. The department will make information
about the positions available for each layer to “eligible employees” at the
start of the selection process of each of the five individual organisation
layers. Employees are only able to apply for jobs at their current employment
level or below. President of the Community and Public Sector Union Alistair
Waters said in a statement the process was “disruptive, costly and deeply
divisive”. “All it will do is pit colleague against colleague and throw the
department into a tail spin,” he said. “Waking up and finding out that your
department is cutting jobs is bad enough but then to be told you will have to
fight your workmates to hang on to job is worse.” He said while the union
understood the priorities of government departments change, Communications
had not approached it in the right way, and called on the department to
rethink the process. “If jobs need to be cut, then the department should
first ask people to apply for redundancy rather than go down this divisive
route,” he said. “This is not the way to treat your staff. It’s an
unprecedented example of the appalling way that this Government deals with
public sector workers. Cutting thousands of workers’ jobs is bad enough but
to do it this way is just cruel and vindictive.” From http://www.itnews.com.au Budget
Cuts Will Force Government IT Staff Rethink on Role Government sector IT staff will consider
changing their jobs if they are affected by cuts in agency and departmental
budgets expected to be announced in tonight’s federal budget, according to
one major ICT recruitment firm. A survey of almost 3,000 government IT
staffers by Greythorn last week found that a third believed their role will
change with the budget cuts and impending restructures, and a significant 44%
said they would then be forced to consider changing agencies/departments. The
highest result was in the heart of the federal public sector in the ACT,
where 54% of IT respondents said they would consider changing agencies or
departments if their role was to change. And, according to Greythorn, 29% of
Government IT staff said they were pessimistic about the work situation, with
the highest level of pessimism also in the ACT, at 38%.The Treasurer Joe
Hockey has forewarned that the cost savings to be announced in tonight’s
budget will result in many government agencies being sold, scrapped or
merged. Lisa Kinney, Director of Greythorn’s ACT branch
said, “Despite the impending changes within Government, the vast majority
(83%) of IT candidates stated they felt satisfied and engaged in their
current jobs and would recommend their employer to others. “The challenge for
the Government at this time is to maintain that level of satisfaction and
engagement as the sector manages this change.” From http://www.itwire.com The Ministry of Justice launched an online
portal called “Justice Datalab” which aims to make the 2013 Justice Sector
Annual Report more accessible to the public. According to an official
statement, the Justice Datalab is an initiative which will give the public
full transparency on the main statistics relating to the performance of the
justice sector. It allows users to analyse conviction and sentencing
statistics and search the Ministry’s vast research and evaluation collection.
“Much of the information currently available about crime and safety trends is
situated across various sources and may be hard to find, access, and compile.
With the new tool in place, all that information is made available through
one website, in a form which is easy to understand and where crime and safety
trends can be easily identified,” says Justice Minister Judith Collins.
Datalab will be a useful tool for students, journalists and other members of
the public to research based on many variables such as the region or type of
offence and create graphics displaying results and trends.” The Minister
added that Datalab is a practical addition to the current pool of justice
sector initiatives outlined in the recently released 2013 Justice Sector
Annual Report. “Crime in New Zealand is at a 33 year low
and the Justice sector is on track to meet, if not exceed, all of its Better
Public Services targets by 2017. The report shows that since June 2011, the
total crime rate has fallen 13 per cent, the violent crime rate has fallen 9
per cent, the reoffending rate has fallen 11.4 per cent and the youth crime
rate has fallen 22 per cent. The sector will continue to build on these
results, seeking innovative and effective ways to better support vulnerable
people and families, tackle the causes of crime and stop people –
particularly young people – from entering a life of crime. The new Datalab
tool will allow New Zealanders to see first-hand this progress we are making
and increase transparency and confidence in the Justice sector”. From http://www.futuregov.asia From http://www.futuregov.asia With a global reputation for transparent
government, the She told FutureGov that demand remains high
for improved access to on-line services. A re-designed central government
site offers the ability to source and manage information in an interactive,
and more intuitive environment, directly from the desktop, or mobile devices.
Details about this project are available at Beta.govt.nz and the Web Toolkit
site. Fact-check usage “We want to bring customers right into the
site,” Sommer says. “We’re developing new ways to locate information,
restructure content, and make better use of evidence-based reporting tools.”
Agencies and Crown entities, linked to this site, are already able to
“fact-check” content, track traffic and usage, and will be able to streamline
their data analytics and information management capability. Collaborative
development with agencies is critical to success. “This is because we’re
talking about all-of-government programmes,” adds Sommer. “So we find that a
co-creative co-design model is really important.” Manage content Tech-savvy citizens, used to navigating
commercial sites, expect the same look-and-feel from government sites. Mobile
apps, social media, and dash-board features improve information access for
people on the move. “There are other aspects, like social media, mobility,
and real-time access that remain critical to creating an open interface, and
connecting more readily with citizens.” By mid-year, the Make design responsive “We want to ensure that what we design is
usable and accessible, especially on websites,’” Sommer says. “Apart from a
highly-responsive design, people should be able look at what government is
presenting online via any device.” Improve security The goal is helping citizens interact
safely and securely with government online. A Domain Integrity Project is
examining the current state of agencies’ web presence, and security
management mechanisms. Plans are underway to streamline the security of
critical infrastructure. Moreover, an online engagement service, that has
guidance and a community-of-practice, will help agencies actively connect
with end-users and other agencies. This helps inform about services and
policy development. Share governments’ digital project updates at the 3rd
Annual FutureGov Forum New Zealand being held Wednesday 6th August in From http://www.futuregov.asia With a global reputation for transparent
government, the She told FutureGov that demand remains high
for improved access to on-line services. A re-designed central government
site offers the ability to source and manage information in an interactive,
and more intuitive environment, directly from the desktop, or mobile devices.
Details about this project are available at Beta.govt.nz and the Web Toolkit
site. Fact-check usage “We want to bring customers right into the
site,” Sommer says. “We’re developing new ways to locate information,
restructure content, and make better use of evidence-based reporting tools.”
Agencies and Crown entities, linked to this site, are already able to
“fact-check” content, track traffic and usage, and will be able to streamline
their data analytics and information management capability. Collaborative
development with agencies is critical to success. “This is because we’re
talking about all-of-government programmes,” adds Sommer. “So we find that a
co-creative co-design model is really important.” Manage content Tech-savvy citizens, used to navigating
commercial sites, expect the same look-and-feel from government sites. Mobile
apps, social media, and dash-board features improve information access for
people on the move. “There are other aspects, like social media, mobility,
and real-time access that remain critical to creating an open interface, and
connecting more readily with citizens.” By mid-year, the Make design responsive “We want to ensure that what we design is
usable and accessible, especially on websites,’” Sommer says. “Apart from a
highly-responsive design, people should be able look at what government is
presenting online via any device.” Improve security The goal is helping citizens interact
safely and securely with government online. A Domain Integrity Project is
examining the current state of agencies’ web presence, and security
management mechanisms. Plans are underway to streamline the security of
critical infrastructure. Moreover, an online engagement service, that has
guidance and a community-of-practice, will help agencies actively connect
with end-users and other agencies. This helps inform about services and
policy development. Share governments’ digital project updates at the 3rd
Annual FutureGov Forum New From http://www.futuregov.asia |
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NORTH
AMERICA: Canadian Nearly 25 per cent of developers extremely concerned about a
skill shortage. Software developers creating mobile applications generated
$1.7 billion in revenue last year according to a new study of the size of the
app industry here. The Information and Communications Council report,
released Monday, found that the number of people employed in the development
of business, games and entertainment mobile apps has grown by nearly 25 per
cent since its released a first report in October 2012. An estimated 64,000
people work developing and distributing applications here, the council found
— 45,800 are employed by companies that specialize in app development, while
another 12,800 are “induced,” meaning their jobs were indirectly created by
the apps labour market. Most of them — 28,700, including technical and
non-technical people (sales, marketing, management) – work in Still, it points out the sector has a number of challenges:
international competition, shortage of skilled app developers, lack of
awareness of the development companies’ service offerings and shortage of
capital. “Mobile apps are a fast-growing, vibrant sector of the economy,”
said Namir Anani, CEO of ICTC. “We consider that talent is one of the most
important considerations in ensuring Canada takes full advantage of this
opportunities offered by mobile technologies and mobile apps. We continue to
work towards ensuring a sufficient supply of this talent by encouraging
youth, Aboriginals and women to pursue technology careers, and by providing
opportunities for training and up-skilling to all Canadians in all sectors of
our economy.” In particular the report says those in high demand will be apps
designers; apps developers; apps testers; programmers (C#); technical
artists; software engineers; software developers; graphic designers (UI/UX);
product managers; system designers; system developers; JavaScript, MYSQL, HTML5,
and PHP developers; software designers with CSS3; cloud architects; data
analytics; coders and user support analysts. The ICTC is funded by the
information and communications sector to research technology and labour
market trends including immigration initiatives, women in IT, industry
forecasts and identifying emerging technologies. The mobile apps report was paid for in part by the Canadian
Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), which represents some of the
country’s biggest cellular carriers. The report was complied from 100 replies
from three surveys sent to mobile app development companies between June and
December 2013. The study figures there are nearly 18 million app users in From
http://www.itworldcanada.com/
Half
of Canadian Businesses Lacking in For many businesses, having a mobile-first strategy seems like a
“must” – and it follows logically that businesses would have some kind of
mobile presence. However, in a new survey of more than 270 IT professionals
in Canada, 54 per cent of CIOs said they don’t have a mobile app in place for
their organizations – nor do they have any plans to build one, according to
research from Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing company. While 21 per
cent of the companies surveyed said they do plan to offer a mobile app in the
next 12 months, just 21 per cent said they already offer one. Four per cent
of the respondents said they didn’t know if they had a mobile app, or they
refused to answer the question. That being said, 77 per cent of the firms
surveyed said they do have a mobile strategy, with 61 per cent saying they
use a mix of apps and mobile-optimized web pages to do business. However, 19
per cent said they don’t have any mobile strategy at all. “As mobile devices increasingly become a part of day-to-day
life, businesses will want to make it easy for customers and clients to
connect with them through mobile platforms. In the next few years, this will
likely become more of an expectation from consumers for doing business, and
less of an option,” said Deborah Bottineau, senior regional manager of Robert
Half Technology, in a statement. “While most organizations have a mobile
technology strategy, many are not making the leap over to the use of mobile
apps as a means to connect with customers and clients … Organizations that
aren’t looking to develop mobile applications are potentially missing out on
the opportunity to further engage with their business audience.” Beyond a
mobile strategy, Canadian businesses may also be lagging in other areas.
Earlier this month, the Canadian
Internet Registration Authority released a study showing just 45.5 per cent
of Canadian businesses had their own websites, even though half of Canadian
consumers have gone online to buy a good or service. From
http://www.itbusiness.ca/
Windows
XP: The Final Shutdown On April 8, Microsoft Corp. will end its support for the Windows
XP operating system. After 12 long years of receiving security updates,
having Microsoft technical support answering your phone calls or emails, and
confidently receiving third-party support for new software products and
peripherals, that will all end next Tuesday. Microsoft is encouraging its
user base to migrate away from Windows XP to a more modern version of
Windows, namely Windows 7 or Windows 8. Of course businesses will also have
the option of moving to a different operating system like Mac OS X or perhaps
a Linux variant. Microsoft is also cutting support for Office 2003, so that
productivity software you’ve been enjoying on that old PC will also need to
be upgraded. Just like Windows XP, it will no longer receive assisted
support, software updates, or security patches. Without that sort of service from Microsoft, anyone running
either Windows XP or Office 2003 risks attack from a hacker that takes
advantage of an unpatched vulnerability or exploit. Aside from the security
risks, businesses that have to meet compliance standards may also face risk
of breaching their regulatory obligations by not upgrade the software. If
your business is still running Windows XP, there’s some urgency to take
action to ensure you don’t suffer as a result. At IT World Canada, we’ve been
following this topic for long ahead of the expiry date. Back in 2008 we even
spearheaded a “Save XP” campaign asking Microsoft to extend the length of
time it would sell Windows XP (it did, more than once). But now that the OS
is finally on its last legs, we can offer you a full guide on what the end of
support means and what you can do about it. Get help migrating from Windows XP Migrating away from Windows XP might not be the easiest IT task
ever accomplished. Complicating the issue is the fact you can’t just upgrade
from Windows XP to Windows 7. The upgrade path would be XP to Vista to 7, and
Is this the end of Windows XP, or Y2K? Since we’ve known about Microsoft’s planned end of support for
Windows XP for a long time, there have been plenty of time for rumours to
fly. Some trumped up the migration woes faced in an upgrade from XP to a new
version of Windows. Others wondered what might happen to the legions of PCs
still running the unpatched OS and what mayhem that could unleash. Here’s a
look back at some of the real threats posed to users of Windows XP and some
migration myth busting with Steve Heck, CIO of Microsoft Canada. What's the worst that can happen? Windows XP PCs are 6 times more likely to be infected: Microsoft
Businesses still running Windows XP are six times more likely to
become infected by malware than users running new operating systems (OS) like
Windows 8, according to a new report from Microsoft Corp. I really want to keep running XP If you’re running Windows XP still, you’re not the only holdout.
Windows XP is still being run by 58 per cent of Softchoice Corp. customers,
the IT services firm reported late last year. Another IT services firm,
Fiberlink, reports 40 per cent of its users are still running Windows XP. So
is there any way you can keep it without taking unreasonable risks? Maybe. If
you can move to a terminal services model, or just completely isolate your PC
from outside files that are possibly malicious, then you can keep your
Windows XP PC running for as many games of solitaire and minesweeper as you
like. Our Community Blogger Brian Bourne walks you through it. From
http://www.itbusiness.ca/
Canadian
Businesses Ahead in Canadian companies are ahead of the global competition in
bringing mobile technologies into the workplace – but if they want to disrupt
their industries, they’ll need to get the C-suite involved. In a recent
survey from IT consulting firm Accenture, 85 per cent of 150 Canadian
respondents said they’ve adopted and deployed mobile technologies. The global
average was just 69 per cent among the 1,475 executives polled, showing
Canadians are ahead of the curve. However, only 31 per cent of Canadians
polled said their CEO is directly involved with their organization’s plans
for mobile – less than the global average of 35 per cent. And there’s another
factor holding Canadian businesses back. Like many of their counterparts in
other countries, 70 per cent of Canadian companies are finding it hard to
keep up with all of the new mobile devices and systems constantly being
released. “To stay competitive and become digital disruptors in industries
that have gone through years of disruption from new entrants, CEOs need to
become more engaged in creating and implementing their digital strategies
with their IT teams,” said Stephen Gardiner, managing director of Accenture
Digital Canada, in a statement. “The entire business strategy must be fully aligned and
integrated in order to take advantage of digital technologies, including
continuing the strategic shift to mobile that Canadian businesses are doing
so well at. From
http://www.itworldcanada.com/
The world's largest technology companies are coming out in force
against the Federal Communications Commission's proposed regulations of
Internet access. In a letter to the FCC Wednesday, Google, Facebook, Amazon,
Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo, Netflix, and dozens of other companies warned that
the FCC's plan to allow Internet service providers to charge websites for
faster service in some cases "represents a grave threat to the
Internet." "Instead of permitting individualized bargaining and
discrimination, the Commission's rules should protect users and Internet
companies on both fixed and mobile platforms against blocking,
discrimination, and paid prioritization, and should make the market for
Internet services more transparent," the companies wrote. "Such
rules are essential for the future of the Internet." It's not yet clear whether the tech giants are planning any
larger protest of the proposed net-neutrality rules. Many of the same
companies participated in a massive protest in 2012 that derailed the
controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Google, for example, blacked
out the logo on its home page (the most visited website in the world) and
collected 7 million petition signatures in a single day. Two Democratic FCC
commissioners also expressed concern with the proposal on Wednesday, throwing
the regulations into jeopardy. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will need both
Democratic votes to move the planned regulations forward at a meeting next
Thursday. The FCC first enacted net-neutrality rules in 2010, but the D.C.
Circuit Court of Appeals struck them down in January. Wheeler is trying to
rework the rules in a way that can survive future court challenges. His
proposal would ban Internet service providers from blocking websites but
would allow them to charge for special "fast lanes" as long as the
arrangements are "commercially reasonable." Wheeler argues that his
proposal is on strong legal ground and would prevent abuses. From
http://www.nextgov.com/
Open
Data: Embracing 21st Century Economic Development in A California Open Government working group launched earlier this
year aims to increase collaboration between government and civic startups. We
launched an Open Government working group for the State of One example is BuildingEye, a civic startup that has created a
real-time map with all of the locations that have building permits in the
cities in which BuildingEye operates. The San Francisco Entrepreneur in
Residence company makes it easier for the public to see what is going to be
built in your neighborhood with a click of button. Currently, though,
BuildingEye only works in a handful of cities that have opened their data. At
our second open data roundtable hosted at San Francisco-based accelerator
Runway last week, we charted a roadmap to bring new policies to unlock civic
innovation. While the geographic boundaries of our goals are limited to city,
county and state agencies within We’ve been lucky to count Kish Rajan, Director of the Governor’s
Office of Business and Economic Development, as an active member of the
working group. Rajan has been willing to engage in the important
conversations necessary to drive an open gov platform which, he argues, will
undoubtedly lead to vast economic development and the creation of an industry
in its most infant stage. Rajan discussed strategies for implementing open
data policies on the state level. He talked about how there is the potential
for significant job creation when government agencies make their data more
accessible. He also spoke about the importance of creating better, richer
data systems and tools with open data that policymakers could use to make
more informed decisions, which ultimately benefits constituents. But, he
stressed the need for Californians to “re-envision” what economic development
looks like, both at the state and local level, so that products and programs
work from one city to another. From
http://www.govtech.com/
Bitcoin
Website Exchange Offline The website of major Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox is offline amid
reports it suffered a debilitating theft of the virtual currency. The URL of
the Tokyo-based From
http://www.skynews.com.au/
Digital
Music Market to Grow $9 Billion Worldwide This Year Mahindra Comviva, the global leader in providing mobility
solutions and Ovum Consulting, today released a research study on Digital
Music Market. The study encapsulates future trends on the uptake of digital
music in terms of adoption rates; devices used to consume music services and
segregation of listeners and suggested target approach. The research study
reveals that digital music market grew by around 9% in 2012 and is expected
to grow $9 billion worldwide in 2014. Strong growth is driven by the
expansion of international and regional music brands as well as active
smartphone growth in South East Asia, India and The study reiterates our belief that the future of digital music
will be based on enhanced engagement, 360 degree music experience and
addressing the needs of price sensitive markets. Localized and customized
content will play a greater role in enticing consumers." Across the nine
markets surveyed (both emerging and developed), the share of devices used for
listening, purchasing or downloading music has changed dramatically in 2013,
as compared to 2010. Computer share has dropped significantly by 14% points
with mobile and tablets together up 15% points, emphasizing the importance of
mobile for reaching lean-back listeners. Segregating the group of digital
music consumers into lean-back and lean-forward listeners, the study suggests
that there is a huge opportunity for operators when it comes to offering
personalized music packages and targeted music services that will help reduce
churn, drive subscription and increase revenues. From
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/
Global
Mobile wallet market set to register 127.5% CAGR in next seven
years on account of growing smartphonesadoption. Reports and Intelligence
today added a new study on "Mobile Wallet Market (Applications, Mode of
Payment, Stakeholders and Geography) - Global Share, Size, Industry Analysis,
Trends, Opportunities, Growth and Forecast, 2012 - 2020". The analysts
of the report predict that the mobile wallet market will witness an
exponential growth during 2013 and 2020 to be worth $5.3 trillion in 2020;
registering a CAGR of 127.5% during the forecast period. Mobile network
operators will be most benefitted with wave and will bag largest chunk of the
revenue, while OSS/BSS solution providers, handset and other hardware
solution manufacturers, software developers and cloud computing companies,
and content and applications aggregators will have their chunk of shares. The
key vendors who have established their dominance include, ISIS, MasterCard
Inc., PayPal Inc., and Visa Inc., American Express Serve, Citibank NA and
Google Inc. Strides in mobile phone technology have increased the scope of
mobile wallet market. Its scope is further expected to increase due to
continuous research and developments in the smartphone technology and
enhanced security levels. Increasing forays of Smartphones in developing
countries and widespread popularity in developed countries are working in the
favor of global mobile wallet market. Further, the mobile wallet market would
grow exponentially due to inclination of consumers and retailers for NFC
(Near Filed Communication). Mobile wallet is handy to use and also accessible
anytime, anywhere. Apart from providing economical transaction facility, it
also helps users to maintain account details. However, factors such as
security, high investment cost, lack of technological understanding by
consumers would prove to be detrimental for mobile wallet market. Even though such limitations work against
the growth of the market, many industry players are teaming up to study and
provide an enhanced product in order to provide quality service to customers
and fulfill their needs. As per the report, global mobile wallet applications market is
segmented based on mobile commerce, mobile coupons, mobile ticketing,
micropayments and mobile transfers. Further, depending upon the mode of
payment, the global mobile market consists of remote and NFC payments. Down
the hierarchy, NFC mobile payment is categorized into NFC handsets, NFC tags
and chips KEY BENEFITS OF THE REPORT This report provides market intelligence with respect to
applications, mode of payment, stakeholders and geographies Deep dive of top factors impacting the market growth Value chain analysis, Porter's five forces, top investment
pockets are analyzed and presented in detail in the report SWOT analysis and strategic developments are included in the
report for key players Study the challenges and opportunities available in the mobile
wallet market Derive market estimates for mobile wallet market and its
sub-segments Analyze the key strategies adopted by major market players
engaged in the market Analyze the market factors in various geographic regions and
understand business opportunities Assess and rank the top factors that are expected to affect the
growth of the market MARKET SEGMENTS GLOBAL MARKET, BY APPLICATION Mobile Commerce Market Mobile Wallet Shopping Market Mobile Wallet Bill Payments Market Mobile Wallet Hotel Booking and Payments Market Mobile Wallet Entertainment and Event Pay Market Mobile Ticketing Market Rail, Metro and Bus Tickets Airline Tickets and Mobile Coupons Market Mobile Transfers Market Micropayments GLOBAL MARKET, BY MODE OF PAYMENT Remote Payment NFC Payment NFC Product Market GLOBAL MARKET, BY STAKEHOLDERS Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) Handset and other Hardware Solution Manufacturers OSS/BSS Solution Providers Software Developers and Cloud Computing Content and Applications Aggregators Other Stakeholders GLOBAL MARKET, BY GEOGRAPHY Asia-Pacific RoW From
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/
How
E-commerce Is Taking Over the World The internet has been responsible for changing the way we go
about many of the tasks in our day-to-day lives. Not least it has changed the
way we shop. Customer experience specialist Baynote has released a new
infographic map showing the growth of e-commerce across the world.
Interesting highlights include the fact that in the The graphic also highlights the hotspot cities that play host to
major players in the e-commerce world. From
http://betanews.com/
How
Reputations Are Won and Lost in Modern Information Markets Democratisation of online information, always-on media and the
proliferation of audiences creates distorting effects that are not well
understood, according to a new white paper published by the Oxford University
Centre for Corporate Reputation at Why information networks breed extreme views Positive and negative social potential of networks Who owns your reputation and what influences them How even 'honest' online ratings can 'lie' -- and the broader
implications of the 'herding' tendency Based on a conference co-hosted in San Diego by the two university
institutions, and including contributions from leading academics, business
executives and journalists, the report also suggests initiatives to counter
some of the 'biases' fostered by information networks and to create a more
productive environment for the exchange of information between business,
government and their audiences, as well as helping policy makers understand
how they can use reputation 'as a mechanism to hold organisations and
institutions to account'. 'The effects of information networks and 21st
century instant communication work in surprising and often counter-intuitive
ways,' says Rupert Younger, Director of the Oxford University Centre for
Corporate Reputation at Technology - the effects of the speed at which information is
disseminated Stakeholder Plurality - the challenges of addressing ever
broader stakeholder audiences with conflicting agendas Polarisation - why the market in information encourages extreme
viewpoints The subject matter covered, based both on academic research and
practitioner experience, ranges from: the growing distrust between business
and media and its wider implications; the positive 'herding' effects of
ratings websites; the reputational challenge of dealing with consumer data
across different territories; maintaining long-term business goals in the
face of short-term information cycles; and the survival of traditional
publishing in a digital age. It makes a number of recommendations that seek
to redefine the way information networks are understood and engaged with,
grouped under Trust, Humanity and Literacy: Encourage Public-Private Engagement Technology has democratised authority. At the same time it
provides tools that allow large groups to know one another. The institutions
of state and senior corporate leaders have yet to embrace this
democratisation due to fears about losing control. Yet legitimacy and
reputation can be gained by embracing this democratisation. We recommend that
government organisations formally ramp up their engagement with society in
order to rebuild trust. At a minimum, this public-private engagement should
include transparent focus groups, polling, and public consultations. The
public sector should formalise relationships with private sector groups to
study how governments and corporations can harness technology and instill
reasonable principles of transparency and self-policing. Help Manage the Information Cycle Technology has led to quicker cycles of information, which have
a profound effect on reputation. These quicker cycles present serious
challenges for policy makers, given the nature of electoral cycles and the
media. For businesses, pressure comes from the constant need to (re)act
quickly and to deliver short-term financial results. We recommend that
government and business leaders put in place public-private teams to help
leaders manage the increasing speed of the information cycle. These teams
should include a wide range of media representation. The goals should include
managing informational feedback loops, processing information as it arrives
in stages and understanding -- and potentially avoiding -- quick reactions
that are conditioned by biases. Support financial literacy Financial illiteracy is a serious problem in complex modern
information markets. Unless there is a real understanding of the causes of
economic problems, particularly the recent financial crisis, policy responses
are likely to be inadequate. Basic literacy is important, not only in
safeguarding vulnerable stakeholders, but also to improve the decision making
of policymakers and corporate leaders and ensure that critics offer their
views from an informed position. We recommend a systematic and sustained
programme of public and private education related to core financial issues.
Both the Help Counteract Biases A strong 'herding' tendency occurs, especially around the early
expression of views. In the Encourage Businesses to Invest in Tools that Facilitate the Desire
to Do Good. Human networks and human impulses underpin all information
markets. A clear theme that emerged from the conference is the power of
humanity as a force for good in modern markets. There are signs that
businesses are starting to recognise their responsibilities in this area.
Strong policy initiatives are needed to support and nourish these nascent
efforts, which will help to restore trust among business leaders, their
employees, politicians, and the public. We recommend that governments play a
light-touch, yet important, role in this area, signalling through their
actions that the way businesses relate to society is a national priority.
Business leaders should consider formally articulating and embedding a
culture of humanity in their mission and vision statements.Policy makers
should consider tax incentives and reporting initiatives to encourage
investment in tools that make it easy for companies' employees, customers and
other stakeholders to accomplish social goals. Technology, in particular, can
help stakeholder groups to form information and communications networks that
facilitate the basic human desire to do good. Encourage 'Yes And' -- Particularly in Risk Management Positive working environments can generate productivity gains
and make workers happier and better off. But the increasing plurality of
stakeholders that corporations must consider often leads to a focus on risk
management, rather than opportunity management, especially in areas such as
social media. We recommend that private and public leaders attempt to harness
the power of 'yes and', rather than 'yes but', in their decision-making
forums. We do not mean that decision makers should ignore risks or critical
oversight, but rather that the analysis should embrace possibilities and be
more constructive than restrictive. For example, businesses could focus their
risk management efforts, not on regulatory requirements and negative
possibilities, but on the potential for positive outcomes. Contributors to
'How Reputations Are Won And Lost In Modern Information Markets' include:
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone; senior executives from global companies eni,
Experian and Millennium Management; prominent journalists from Reuters, the
New York Times and CNBC; and professors from the Universities of San Diego,
Stanford, Oxford and MIT. The full list of contributors is available in the
paper. Notes to editors 1 'How Reputations are Won and Lost in modern Information
Markets' paper http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/ideas-impact/reputation 2 About The Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation,
established in January 2008, is an independent research centre which aims to
promote a better understanding of the way in which the reputation of
corporations and institutions around the world are created, sustained,
enhanced, destroyed and rehabilitated. 3 About Said In the From
http://finance.yahoo.com/
Frost &
Sullivan Study: The mobile collaborative market in the Asia-Pacific is expected
to exhibit a compound annual growth rate of 21.4 % through 2018, according to
a study by the global market research/consultancy firm, Frost & Sullivan.
The study is titled, " Analysis of the Mobile Collaborative Market in
Asia-Pacific, CY 2013". The study estimated the total number of users of
mobile collaborative platforms in the Asia-Pacific as worth US $ 1.12 million
in 2013. The study covered mobile email, voice messaging and conferencing
solutions of which mobile voice, messaging and conferencing represented key
growth areas. Adoption of mobile collaborative services hosted in
public/hybrid cloud environments is presently low among price sensitive,
large enterprises in the Asia-Pacific that already have premises-based ICT
infrastructure, according to the press statement. But the study expressed
optimism that cloud-based enterprise mobile collaboration services would soon
grow traction, due to the improved security situation and lower upfront
investment requirements. The study noted the present state of quality among
wireless infrastructure networks in the Asia-Pacific as uneven. But it
expressed optimism the uneven state would be corrected in the next five years
as networks in From
http://www.computerworld.com.sg/
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Chinese group buying service website Didatuan.com will formally
close its group buying business on March 31, 2014, and will transform its
brand to a new business model in the future.Founded by Song Zhongjie, former
sales general manager of Google From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Over 80% of Chinese Families Shopped Online
Last Year China Central Television published a report on China's economic
life between 2013 and 2014 which shows that 81.52% of Chinese families had
online shopping experiences in 2013.Compared with other consumer groups,
university students and people in management positions shopped online more
often, especially those in the 18-25 age demographic.By region, citizens in
Hainan, Tibet and Jiangsu were more enthusiastic about Internet shopping;
while those in Beijing, Xinjiang and Shanxi were at the bottom of this list.
The survey shows that Internet shopping has become a national trend; however,
products purchased online were mostly low-price ones. During 2013, the most
popular products in online shopping were clothing, books, home appliances,
and digital products. CCTV said that though the consumption method has changed and
online shopping gradually has become a national trend, it is worth noting
that the top three popular online shopping products are still mainly
low-price products.Based on overall consumer desires, over the past five
years, consumers have always been willing to buy home appliances and tourism
products. Meanwhile, the demand for high value-added products like
automobiles declined. In addition, consumer services are still in a secondary
position, except for education and training which is among the top five
products demanded by consumers in 2014. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Lenovo Succumbs to
Patent Troll in USD100 Million Deal Unwired Planet, a technology company headquartered in Reno,
Nevada, announced that China's Lenovo has agreed to buy a series of patent
portfolios and licenses for an intellectual property portfolio from Unwired
Planet for about USD100 million.The payment will be made entirely in
cash.Under the agreement, Lenovo will purchase a 21 patent portfolio owned by
Unwired Planet, covering 3G and LTE mobile patents as well as other important
mobile patents. At the same time, the Chinese company will gain a multiyear
licensing of Unwired Planet's intellectual property portfolio, covering
mobile device standard basic patents, installation patents, and application
technologies. The deal is expected to be completed in 30 days.Jay Clemens,
Lenovo general counsel, said in a statement that this investment is an
extension of Lenovo's existing intellectual property portfolio. It will serve
the company well as they grow and develop their worldwide smartphone and mobile
PC Plus business in new markets. Unwired Planet's share price surged by 61% after the
announcement of the deal. Unwired Planet, previously named OpenWave, is
called a patent troll by some media in the United States because of Unwired
Planet's allegedly dubious activity to get companies to pay money for
licensing patents owned by Unwired Planet.Unwired Planet's technology claims
to have enabled many industry firsts, including mobile browsing, mobile
photo-messaging, and the world's first Wireless Application Protocol
deployment. The company has built a patent portfolio of approximately 200
issued U.S. and foreign patents and approximately 75 pending applications,
many of which are considered fundamental to mobile communications, and span
smart devices, cloud technologies and unified messaging. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
JD.com Signs Chinese
Retail Store Deals for O2O Development Chinese B2C e-commerce company JD.com signed agreements with
about 10,000 convenience stores in China to develop an innovative
online-to-offline retailing model.JD.com announced that the company will
implement O2O cooperation with about 10,000 convenience stores in 15 cities,
including Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. Those 10,000 convenience stores
cover brands like Quik, Good Neighbors, Buddies, C&U, and Meiyijia. These
deals will eventually allow Chinese netizens to buy goods online and have
them delivered or picked up at physical locations, and it will allow Chinese
consumers at retail outlets to use online payment methods to purchase goods
at brick-and-mortar retail outlets.This marks JD.com's latest O2O deal
following its cooperation with Shanxi Tangjiu Supermarket. JD.com said that
in the future they plan to expand this model into all provincial capitals and
prefecture-level cities in China.In addition to cooperating with convenience
stores, JD.com signed strategic cooperating agreements with mainstream ERP
software providers such as SAP, IBM, and Heading to jointly realize the
seamless connection between retailing ERP systems and JD.com's platform. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
JD.com Jumps into
Chinese Virtual Communications Sector JD.com unveiled its virtual communications operating brand JD
Mobile.At the same time, the e-commerce company announced that JD Mobile's
business will be officially launched in May 2014 and the exclusive JD Mobile
communications products and numbers will be available by then.JD.com also
released the brand logo and sample SIM card designed for JD Mobile. As an
important signature of JD.com, the dog image mascot Joy is kept in the logo
of JD Mobile, and it represents the link between the parent company and the
subsidiary.At present, JD Mobile is still undergoing beta testing. On March
21, the company opened its first number and completed the first voice
communication. Users are expected to access the communications services in
May.A representative from JD Mobile said that users will be able to apply for
service opening and invoice printing via the Internet. JD's delivery staff
are also business hall staff, so with this arrangement JD Mobile will
establish a mobile Internet business hall for users. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Survey: Chinese Lead in Online Shopping Chinese consumers are more online-shopping savvy than their
global peers, fueling a business trend of merging physical shopping with
digital experience, PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a report yesterday.Chinese
consumers led the way in online shopping with more than 60 percent of those
surveyed claiming they shopped weekly, compared with 21 percent for global
respondents, PwC said. The Achieving Total Retail report surveyed 15,000
online shoppers around the world in 15 countries and regions, including 900
in China.One in four Chinese consumers shop with a mobile phone at least once
a week, compared with 9 percent for global respondents.“ “It is critical to bring the benefit of e-commerce,
online-to-offline business in a bricks-and-mortar environment.”Consumer
demands for handy access to goods, in-store stock level, consistent online
and offline promotions, and easy return of purchased goods mean that
retailers’ efforts in building an omni-channel retailing lag behind,
according to the survey report.Recent business cases of e-commerce companies
buying stakes in retailers and establishing cooperation with convenience
stores reveal a trend of deeper cooperation between online and offline
retailers, said Carrie Yu, PwC Hong Kong Assurance Partner.China’s e-commerce
giant Alibaba said last week that it will invest HK$5.37 billion (US$692
million) to buy a 9.9 percent stake in Hong Kong-listed Intime Retail (Group)
Co to expand its online-to-offline business. From http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Baidu Launches Baidu Inc., which operates China's most popular search engine,
formally launched its mobile payment platform "Baidu Wallet" on
Tuesday.The launch follows the release of similar products from major rivals,
including Tencent's mobile application Wechat Payment last August and
Alibaba's Alipay Wallet in January 2013.Baidu Wallet provides money transfer,
payment and wealth management services, according to Zhang Zhenghua, general
manager of Baidu's payment branch Baifubao.Mergers and acquisitions have been
popular in the past year in China's Internet sector as online giants
"BAT" -- Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent -- are speeding up development
of their mobile Internet business.The Nasdaq-listed Baidu closed a 1.9 billion
U.S. dollar deal to acquire 91 Wireless Websoft, a major Chinese smartphone
application distributor, last August.In May, Baidu spent 370 million U.S.
dollars to acquire the online video platform PPS in order to rival industry
leader Youku Tudou. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/ Tencent Breaks Off
Online Literature Service into Independent Business Unit Chinese Internet company Tencent announced that its Internet
literature business will implement independent operation as a subsidiary and
Wu Wenhui has been appointed chief executive officer of this new
entity.Meanwhile, Shang Xuesong was appointed president of Tencent
Literature; Zhang Rong was appointed senior vice president; and Cheng Wu,
vice president of Tencent, was appointed chairman of this new company.Wu said
at Tencent's annual launch meeting that Tencent Literature will fully embrace
the mobile Internet. By using the latest technical carriers, they will
provide a comfortable environment to writers and offer the joy of reading to
more readers. Meanwhile, Wu said that Tencent Literature will have a new
brand portfolio after commencing its independent operation. For content, they
have literature websites for both male and female readers, which will become
their two major vertical websites and the sources of original works. For products and channels, they will focus on mobile
reading.Founded in September 2013, Tencent Literature's various websites
gained total growth of 50% over the past seven months' operation. The company
accumulated 200,000 works, over 300 well-known writers, and 15 million daily
active users on mobile devices.Wu said Tencent Literature will continue to
enhance investments to achieve the full intercommunication between mobile and
PC products. They will also improve the interactivity of mobile products and
optimize reading experience and smart push basing on Tencent's big data
platform. At the same time, the company will implement platform analysis and
optimization, new channel development, as well as channel content
optimization. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Baidu Officially Opens
Big Data Engine Chinese search engine Baidu has officially opened its big data
engine to provide big data storage, cloud computing analysis and research
technologies to the outside world.Baidu's big data engine is formed by three
core modules: an open cloud, data factory, and Baidu brain. By applying
platform and interface technologies, Baidu will open its big data storage,
analysis, and intelligent processing functions, creating what is claims to be
the world's first open big data engine.With this open big data engine,
Baidu's cooperating organizations and enterprises will be able to use Baidu's
big data structure via the Internet to process their own accumulated big
data. Meanwhile, they can integrate Baidu's big data technologies to improve
enterprise management and business model links in traditional industries.The
opening of Baidu big data engine will happen gradually. It currently has an
invitation system and free-of-charge mode to first cooperate with traditional
sectors such as government, non-governmental organization, manufacturing,
medical, finance, retail, and education.China's national transport management
unit reportedly plans to relocate parts of its application plans to the Baidu
open cloud platform. The From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Best
Days Ahead for Some people have cried wolf following the decision by Chinese
authorities to regulate the online broadcast industry and penalize Internet
firms for allowing pornographic content.Pessimism about Online video content regulation and anti-porn laws should be
familiar to Internet users in most countries, especially in the West, where
the most sophisticated and sound laws are in place to guard against misuse of
the Internet and harms to public interests, especially minors.Both cases
should not have come as surprise. For the TV show case, the state broadcast
regulator issued a notice in March to enhance online video content
regulation. For the Sina case, it is common sense that any law-breakers must
be penalized.It is as simple as this. Nothing more. All the other conspiracy
theories are misleading, either to ordinary people or investors coveting Be it against online rumors, against pornographic content or
measures to guard Internet security, they are all part and parcel of China's
efforts to create a healthier environment for people and businesses to jump
on the Internet economy bandwagon.In this sense, the two cases should have
come as a boon to Internet companies, as they would herald a cleaner,
healthier, more certain and rule-based Internet business environment.The
Internet economy is booming, and, given the huge user base in China, is set
to thrive for many years to come.In 2013, China's Internet was a platform for
about 9.9 trillion yuan of commerce, and about 1.2 trillion yuan was paid on
mobile phones, the users of which reached a whopping 838 million by January
this year.It is business as usual in China's Internet economy and Internet
firms, calm and cool, are pursuing their business plans. Coincidentally,
online video business, which was claimed to be under threat, was a target in
a 1.22-billion-U.S.-dollar takeover deal between Alibaba and Youku Tudou on
Monday. From http://www.news.cn/
T.Mobile, a unit of Telephone World Digital Group, on Sunday
became China's first mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) to offer wireless
voice and data services.Currently, the services, wholesaled from China
Telecom, are restricted to Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang
Province, but they will expand to other parts of Zhejiang later, the company
said without elaborating.MVNOs do not own telecommunications infrastructure
but provide services through network access they have leased at wholesale
rates from another mobile operator.Telephone World Digital Group is one of 19
companies, mostly privately owned, that have received mobile virtual network
operator licenses. The companies also include subsidiaries of e-commerce
giant Alibaba, and retailers Suning, JD.com and D.Phone.Several other virtual
operators are also expected to begin services soon. Suning and D.Phone
started taking pre-orders for their telecom services on May 1. Zou Xueyong, secretary general of the Industry Association of
the Mobile Virtual Network Operators, said the mobile virtual network
operators are expected to bring a "catfish effect" to the country's
telecom industry, improving prices and services through competition."The
virtual operators will help push forward reforms in the telecom industry and
drive down prices of telecom services," Zou said.However, many industry
insiders remain cautious.An executive from an MVNO, who declined to be named,
said the virtual operators are not expected to bring about sweeping changes
to the industry, which is dominated by three state-owned basic telecom
operators -- China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom -- due to their
unequal relations.It might take a long time before people accept the virtual
operators, he said.The virtual operators will each need 1 million active
subscribers to reach the break-even point, said an executive with China
Telling Communications who declined to be named. From http://www.news.cn/
Aliyun's Alibaba's cloud computing subsidiary Aliyun has formally opened
its From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Chinese E-Commerce
Giant Provides Subsidies for Exporters Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will offer subsidies to small
and medium-sized domestic exporters that complete transactions on its
platform, the company announced on Tuesday.If exporters complete services
including logistics, customs clearance and tax rebates through Alibaba's
online platform OneTouch, they will get a maximum subsidy of 0.03 yuan, or
less than half a U.S. cent, in cash for each 1 U.S. dollar of transaction
volume, Alibaba said."The move is to integrate scattered services of
small and medium-sized export enterprises via the platform, thus lowering
down costs and breeding more profits," said Wu Minzhi, President of
Alibaba's business-to-business (B2B) unit.Statistics released by Alibaba
showed that for Chinese small export enterprises, spending on commodity
circulation has taken up over 30 percent of total costs."Logistics, customs
clearance and tax rebates have consumed time and manpower of small and
medium-sized export companies," said Wei Qiang, a manager in charge of
Alibaba's foreign trade service sector.He said for banks, logistics companies
and customs, the OneTouch platform serves as "a key client" by
integrating tens of thousands of export-oriented enterprises."As for
those companies, convenient channels for export, financing and logistics
could help them lower costs," he said. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
China Mobile will start to lower prices of its fourth-generation
(4G) mobile phone network services on June 1 to attract more users, the firm
announced on Wednesday.The country's largest mobile telecommunications
provider will launch a 30-yuan service for 500Mb of data. Some new packages
will be lowered to 58 yuan from 88 yuan.The data price will drop up to 50
percent in the new packages, said Lu Wenchang, a deputy general manager of
the company's marketing department.In some new packages, 70 yuan will buy 2G
data instead of 1G. In others, users can enjoy two to six times more data at
the same price as a previous package.The company also offers a service which
allows a user to share his package data with up to four relatives or
friends.More than four million clients from about 200 cities have used China
Mobile's 4G service.On Saturday, Chinese authorities freed up telecom fees,
allowing all operators in the sector to make pricing decisions on their own as
long as the charges abide by law and regulations. From http://www.news.cn/
Mobile Internet
Business Booming in Mobile Internet is becoming a lucrative business in China, with
improving telecom infrastructures a main contributor, according to a report
released on Thursday.Total revenue in the mobile Internet sector reached
108.3 billion yuan (17.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013, said the China
Internet Development Report 2014, jointly issued by the Internet Society of
China (ISC) and the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC).China
has more than 500 million cellphone-based Internet users and high-end
subscribers used an average 1.6 Gb of data every month last year, according
to the report."Chinese Internet users are shifting from desktop to
mobile devices," said Shi Xiansheng, vice secretary-general of the ISC.Shi
attributed the expansion of the mobile Internet business to the improvement
of the country's underlying Internet facilities.As of the end of the third
quarter last year, 130 million households had access to optical-fiber-based
broadband Internet, and 3G mobile Internet had covered all townships. Along with the development of mobile Internet business,
smartphones saw rapid growth. Last year, smartphone shipments grew by 64.1
percent to 318 million units.At the same time, shipments of wearable device, such
as smart watches and glasses, topped five million units in 2013 and the
number is expected to reach 40 million units by 2015, according to data
released by Internet observer website iresearch.com.cn.Ruan Jingwen, CEO of
the website, said in addition to wearable devices, products that make medical
treatment and transport "smart" are likely to boom in the
future.However, the report warned that slack regulation of mobile Internet
resulted in security loopholes, especially on the Android platform.Some 703,000
malicious mobile Internet applications were detected in 2013, 4.3 times the
number found in 2012. The spread of cellphone viruses accelerated as it
became easier to get infected when accidentally downloading such
applications.Zhou Zhen, a senior analyst with the CINIC, said despite the
rapid expansion of mobile Internet in From http://www.news.cn/
Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten said Friday it has told online
retailers to stop selling whale meat after a UN court ordered an end to the
country's Antarctic whale hunt. The move -- which also includes a ban on
dolphin meat sales -- comes as Japan said Thursday it was cancelling this
year's hunt for the first time in more than a quarter of a century to abide
by the decision of the United Nations' Hague-based International Court of
Justice this week. Australia, backed by New Zealand, hauled Japan before the
international court in 2010 in a bid to stop the yearly campaign, which has
attracted widespread condemnation outside Japan. "We issued a notice to
all stores on April 1, asking them to stop sales of whale meat products by
the end of the month," a Rakuten spokeswoman said. "We made the
decision... following the ruling by the International Court of Justice and a
subsequent comment by the Japanese government that it will obey the
ruling," she added. The notice was issued to about 42,000 online shops
that operate on Rakuten's digital marketplace, she said, adding the company
did not have a figure for how many sold whale meat. A search of the site
Friday turned up about 700 listings for whale meat products. There were no
listings for dolphin meat. However, it has never made a secret of the fact that whale meat
from these hunts often ended up on dining tables. Rakuten's move to ban the
sale of whale-meat products appeared to go above and beyond the ruling, which
said that From
https://au.news.yahoo.com
Online
Retailers Looking for a Change in the Sales Tax System Before They Raise
White Flag So, now that we’re one month in, how’s everyone enjoying the
latest sales tax increase to 8%? A consortium of Japan’s online businesses, including ebook sellers
and advertisers, met on April 10 to hash out some demands for the government
before they get taxed right out of the competition since business such as
segments of Apple and Google aren’t necessarily subjected to Japanese sales
tax rules. If you were to buy a physical product from overseas, you wouldn’t
have to pay the Japanese sales tax since it was not a domestic transaction.
Despite that advantage, the customer would still have to deal with shipping
costs and other hassles to make a domestic dealer the better choice. However,
when we consider data purchases, you can basically get the same ebook in the
same time without any shipping from a foreign company. Adding an increasing
sales tax in According to an interview by Economic News, the president of
Kinokuniya bookstores had this to say: “The 8% tax is a big handicap. When
the tax becomes 10%, we may start seeing some raise the white flag.” His and
other ebook businesses may consider abandoning the market all together if
nothing changes. Still in its early stages, the group hasn’t made any
specific demands regarding what kind of reform they want to see. The Ministry
of Finance is said to be preparing a plan to have a “tax agent” to ensure
that foreign companies operating in From
http://www.japantoday.com
The head of From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
ICT Ministry
Under Audit for Alleged Business Favors to Google: Sources From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/
S. Korea
Fifth Largest Supplier of High-Tech Goods to According to the Korea International Trade Association (KITA),
locally manufactured goods made the top 10 list in seven of the 10 high-tech
fields. From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) in “The new IBM IT infrastructure will help us provision and
combine call centres much faster than before and better respond to the
demands of our society,” Lee said. The partnership between ARC and IBM will
run for the next three years. An initial pilot project will see six
government departments move to the call centre before the end of July, with
the rest of ACRC’s departments being integrated at a later time. Despite the
fact that most From
http://www.businesscloudnews.com
“Most growth came from a collection of established franchises
some of which have been around for nearly a decade and one that launched way
back in 1998,” IHS said. “New games released during the year failed to break
the stranglehold of these biggest titles underlining the entrenched nature of
the market. With growth being driven from these established games it is
perhaps no surprise that it was relatively suppressed at 8 percent. In
contrast the mobile and tablet games market grew over 250 percent in 2013 and
was worth over $1 billion for the first time.” After Lineage, the No. 2 game
was Nexon’s Sudden Attack, with $208 million in spending last year. That
debuted in 2005 and is a free-to-play title that makes money
off microtransactions. Other top titles were EA’s FIFA Online 3 (which
Nexon operates) and Riot Games’ League of Legends. IHS expects the Korean PC
online game market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.7 percent,
hitting $3.39 billion in 2018. The question is to what extent mobile and
tablet games will disrupt the market. From
http://venturebeat.com
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Meanwhile, state-owned lender Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN)
director Sri Purwanto said he had no objections to the idea of improving
cooperation in. Internet banking as long as it benefited those involved.
According to him, e-banking was showing positive growth in the country and
would continue to do so in the future. “I am optimistic that the growth of
e-banking will be sustainable in the years to come due to the positive trend
of rising Internet users,” Sri added. In BTN, e-banking transactions have
grown on average 41.5 per cent every year. Additionally, e-banking
transactions now account for 74.2 per cent of all transactions at BTN. “We
predict that e-banking transactions in BTN will grow by 50 per cent this
year,” said Sri. According to Mark Plus Inside Netizen Survey, the number of
Internet users in From
http://www.asianewsnet.net/
The Information and Communications Technology Office of the
Philippine Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and IBM have launched
the Intelligent Operations Centre (IOC), a new multi-million disaster
management facility in Diliman, located at the centre of southern From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Google
and The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) will be
collaborating with Google to develop the much needed analytics talent in From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore
(ACRA) has launched its revamped customer-centric web site to improve user
experience and access to information. ACRA, the national regulator of
business entities and public accountants in Under the section “What would you like to do today?”, users can
click on their profile - companies, sole-proprietorship, partnerships or
start-ups - and the web site intelligently shows services that relevant to
them. Information is organised and clearly presented to make it easy for
users to navigate through the pages. Its ‘How-to-Guides’ section categorises
guides based on users’ business events. For example, on the ‘How-to-Guides’
page for companies, the site divides the collection of guides into three
major events - before starting up a business, when managing a company, and
when exciting a company - so that users know where to go at a glance. There
are also dedicated sections for public accountants and corporate service
providers. ACRA celebrated its 10th anniversary last month. In the last 10
years, ACRA has been staying ahead of the curve in terms of innovation and to
facilitate the ease of doing business. An upcoming initiative include the
revamp of its one-stop business registration and filing portal, BizFile,
which will see an improved customer-oriented user interface, streamlined
processes and new value added e-services and mobility options. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
This is the first time exports of phones topped the list of From
http://vietnamnews.vn/
The Ministry of Information and Communications plans to withdraw
mobile bandwidths that it provided to S-Fone and EVN Telecom mobile carriers
due to fading operations. The EVN Telecom uses 450 MHz bandwidth spectrum and
Sfone uses 850MHz, both of which were allocated by the ministry since the two
companies began operations. However, while EVN Telecom had been taken over by
Viettel in early 2012, Korean-invested S-Fone nearly postponed its operation
due to falling subscribers. Pham Sy Hoa, general director of SPT, the
Vietnamese partner of S-Fone, stated that the network is still running its
operations at a bare minimum level as its Korean partner, SK Telecom, had not
yet fully withdrawn from the joint venture. In late 2012, ailing S-Fone made
most of its nationwide employees redundant in order to end its Business
Co-operation Contract mechanism and change to a limited liability company.
Having commenced operations in The company also became the first mobile operator to implement
the advanced CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology in From
http://vietnamnews.vn/
The Vietnam Ministry of Finance (MoF) has signed an agreement
with Microsoft that will see the Ministry examining and adopting the latest
IT solutions to enhance its efficiency. MoF will collaborate with Microsoft
to provide online public services and optimise IT infrastructure for cloud.
The two organisations will also work to develop an internal information
portal on the financial sector with multi-dimensional data integration. This
follows the signing of two deals covering cybersecurity between Microsoft and
the Ministry of Information and Communications. “Through the MoU (Memorandum
of Understanding), the Ministry will continue to work closely and effectively
with Microsoft to exploit business intelligence solutions and cloud computing
to raise the capacity of IT in the finance industry. This helps local people
and enterprise to gain more benefits from modernised public services,” said
Dang Duc Mai, Director of Financial Informatics and Statistics at MoF.
Microsoft will share with MoF knowledge on new global trends in IT and
cooperate to develop human resource for IT in the financial sector. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Online
Banking Services in Online banking services in From
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Electronics
Sector in Need of Support Domestic electronics industry still struggle to survive as local
electronic manufacturers have to narrow their production. The most important
problem of the electronics industry is attributed to poorly-developed support
industry. Electronics businesses are still facing difficulties in having
access to bank loan and seeking workshop for their production. In addition, Furthermore, one of the obstacles hinder local electronics
manufacturers getting into global value chains in the electronics industry is
the concept of building a comprehensive electronic industry ranging from
eletronic accessories to CKD products. Local insiders noted that to develop
this concept is not a simple thing. To participate in the global value chains
in the electronics industry, Vietnamese electronic makers need to shift their
production structure by changing from production and assembling of civil
electronics products to design and development of specialised ones. They are
also asked to focus on specific investment strategies. General secretary of
Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Pham Thi Thu Hang said local
electronics makers needed to specify which are the best products and
accessories having high competitive edge to be produced so as to meet the
three following targets: "quality, on time delivery and reasonable
price." If the three targets were met, local electronic producers could
participate in the global value chains in the electronics industry, she said.
According to the General Statistic Office (GSO), From
http://vietnamnews.vn/
Programme
Aims to Create E-Commerce Payment System Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has signed a decision to approve
a national electronic commerce programme in the period 2014–20. The programme
aims at building a national e-commerce payment system for e-commerce models,
especially business to consumer (B2C). It also targets to develop a payment
card used widely to decrease cash usage and popularise digital signature to
ensure the safety of e-commerce transactions. The objectives of the programme
are also to transform online shopping into a popular method of purchasing goods
for customers and to make enterprises apply widely e-commerce models, such as
business to business (B2B), B2C and business to government (B2G), in their
business operations.The programme aims for the construction and development
of e-commerce infrastructure, including building an integrated card payment
system and an online management system on transportation. Besides, the
programme also aims at building standards in data exchange in e-commerce, as
well as building a system to guarantee the trust in online shopping and
mechanisms to tackle online disputes. The programme will target to develop
products and e-commerce solutions, including building an online sales
solution to assist SMEs implement e-commerce and build an e-commerce trade
floor to spread the images and brands of Vietnamese enterprises. The
government also supports and increases the capacity for export firms to take
part in prestigious local and international trade floors. During the period, From
http://vietnamnews.vn/
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Report:
Indian E-Commerce to Become $8 Billion Industry The outlook for Revenue of e-commerce firms grew by 56% annually between the
financial year that ended March 31, 2008, and the year ended March 31, 2013,
according to Crisil. The scope for growth in this sector has already
attracted a lot of interest from venture capital investors. Earlier this
month, online retailer Jabong.com raised around $100 million from CDC Group
PLC, a From
http://blogs.wsj.com/ E-commerce
in MUMBAI: From
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ eTailing Prominent e-commerce players like Amazon.in, Ebay.in, BigBazaar
Direct, Yepme.com, Flipkart and Jabong have been conferred the first eTailing
From
http://www.dnaindia.com/
Consulting
Loses to E-Commerce at B-schools MUMBAI: In a stamp of approval for the fast-growing startup
ecosystem in the country, one-fourth of MBA students from across What is significant though is that despite economic uncertainty
still looming large, the trend of young MBA grads looking to board the
startup bandwagon has only gone up over the past couple of years in From
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ Flipkart: The Indian e-commerce company expects a fast growing
Internet-connected population and smartphones to be the biggest drivers to
online shopping driver over the next few years. From
http://www.zdnet.com/
Introducing
Our New E-Mail Newsletter, 'E-Commerce Insider' Catch up on the latest e-commerce industry news with E-Commerce
Insider, a daily email newsletter that tracks the biggest changes in the
e-commerce industry, highlighting the technologies and companies that are
transforming retail. As e-commerce continues to take a much bigger slice of
total retail sales — and as browsing for products online becomes integrated
into every consumer's shopping behavior — there's a lot at stake for physical
and digital retailers, consumer brands, and the payments industry. We'll
follow all the top trends, companies, and people spurring the biggest
innovations. Signing up is quick and easy. Click on this link, enter your
email address, and click, "Submit." You'll receive it every morning
in your inbox. The newsletter is produced by BI Intelligence, Business
Insider's subscription industry news and research service. Any comments or
suggestions, please email mballve@businessinsider.com. From
http://www.businessinsider.com/
Indian e-commerce portal Flipkart recently announced it has
clocked US$1 billion in sales. Others such as Snapdeal and Myntra are
expected to follow. These figures may be small compared when compared to
Amazon or eBay turnovers or Facebook’s valuation of WhatsApp, yet they are
significant milestones for a country such as I am one of many I am sure, evidenced by shutdown of most music,
movie and book stores in Gurgaon, where I live. The only DVDs that continue
to do brisk business are pirated. These are good value for money and decent
quality, but they are illegal. A popular music outlet close to my home that
has existed for as long as I can remember closed down recently to offer
laundry services. I spoke to the owner, who I know. His answer: “In a
progressive fast growing city like Gurgaon, everybody downloads music from
iTunes and we can’t match the prices.’’ However, my friend was not worried.
He was sure his new laundry business would do well, given disposable incomes
floating around in a city such as Gurgaon replete with high earning
professionals. Change does open doors for newer opportunities. I would like
to debunk any theory that my online usage makes me an anti-social person in
any way. It saves me a whole lot of time, allowing for more face-to-face
interactions with friends and family, instead of just Facetiming or liking
Facebook posts. Visiting my bank to book a fixed deposit, for example, would
otherwise be a nightmare involving negotiating traffic, parking and sweet
talking insurance agents masquerading as customer relationship managers. Is
there any bank manager who has not tried selling an insurance policy when all
a person wants is a new cheque book or some small administration matter dealt
with. I would also like to debunk any theory the Internet makes me lazy, akin
to a TV couch potato. Rather, I am able to do more with greater efficiency. I
am, however, still not fully confident about buying electronic or very high
value items on the Internet, though there are many that do. I believe some of
the redressal mechanisms of Indian online retailers are still not world
class, like, say, Amazon. I have heard some harrowing tales of damaged TVs,
mobile phones, cameras and laptops that are usually not available on Cash on
Delivery arrangements. A friend recently told me that it took almost a month
to get a refund on a printer she ordered online that arrived broken. She was
repeatedly told by customer care to send multiple pictures of the item, the
courier company assigned to pick up the dysfunctional printer never arrived
and finally the refund process itself got lost in a bureaucratic maze. “It was so difficult to get through on the phone to customer
care that I had to call many times. I was always in queue,’’ she told me. We
castigate government departments for red tape. Private entities can sometimes
be worse. E-commerce retailers need to trust their customers more, not focus
on making money only. It is about putting in place an effective process that
assuages an unhappy customer quickly. Maybe, it is a good idea to allow
foreign players more leeway in the market to improve standards and customer
deliveries. I believe there is plenty more that can or should be possible via
the virtual world. The government can surely make more efficient use of the
Internet. Politicians such as Narendra Modi do. The Aam Aadmi Party does. I
believe Lok Sabha candidate Gul Panag kept herself relevant via thousands of
tweets, even as her movie career nosedived. So far most online state-backed
services are mostly limited to downloading forms, which is not saying much.
Any government document, whether passport or driving license involves layers
of approvals and interactions that can easily be streamlined online, provided
antecedents of an applicant are verified. I believe even voting should be
possible via a virtual click, thus saving the exchequer huge expenditures and
avoiding deployment of security forces on such a large scale. E-democracy
could re-define democracy. There could be ways to minimize foul play, like it
is with online payment gateways that encrypt credit card details. This can
only be wishful thinking for now. But who knows. Did anybody imagine the
power and reach of the Internet even a decade back? From
http://asiancorrespondent.com/ Semantics
and Definitions; Klevu Turns E-commerce Search Fields Smarter Not that this is a rule of thumb by any means, but when you take
three men with doctorates and some computer science background, there’s a
good chance they’ll come up with a pretty convincing business model for a
startup. For example, when Dr.Jyrki Kontio, Dr. Niraj Aswani and Dr. Nilay
Oza put their heads together and mindstormed Finland-based Klevu into
existence. How convincing the startup is will eventually be up to you to decide,
but it was enough to recently raise and close a �250 000 capital investment
round led by Finnish seed investor & accelerator KoppiCatch and joined by
Inventure, as well as Finnish and Russian business angels. Klevu relies
purely on academical logic; It’s a smart search engine specifically built for
e-commerces relying on analysis of semantics and what you could think of as
an automated virtual dictionary. Dr. Nilay Oza, Klevu’s CEO, told us how 15% of web shops have
never even considered looking into their e-commerce search engines, usually
relying completely on Google powered search results, which aren't a pure
catastrophe but do leave quite a bit for improvement. The result of
inaccurate or too broad search results leads to a whopping 42% rate in online-cart
abandonment, which translates to lost customers, which in turn translates to
lost revenue. Sure enough, there was a significant market gap to be filled,
and since its establishment to the day of the closed fund, Klevu took form
while being bootstrapped by the three Ph Ds. As things moved on, Jyrki Kontio
used his networks to get in touch with one of Klevu’s current angel backer
Jaakko Salminen, and as they say, one thing led to another. Once KoppiCatch
was on the line, the deal wasn't far away anymore; Klevu perfectly fit what
they were looking for, which was a company in the field search engineering
and e-commerce. The deal moved on, including Inventure, four Finnish and one
Russian Angel into it. Today’s Klevu is dealing with clients over three continents
including clients from the US, UK, India not to forget Klevu’s “home”-ground
Finland where they have deals with multiple major enterprises. Klevu’s search
engine owes much to the massive open source software GATE (General
Architecture for Text Engineering) which is sort a text engineering bible. At
this moment, Klevu offers both faster final as well as autocomplete results
(search results appearing while you’re typing), faceted filtering
(categorized filtering options) and most importantly, trend mining. Trend
mining is basically keeping up with what’s “cool”. This means results are
adjusted automatically based on search trends on your shop. Product promotion
and search analytics are a given. Klevu is already looking pretty good with many well constructed
search related features, but Oza says the future will take all of this even
further. He explained how on top of marketing, the funding will play an
essential role in developing Klevu into a search engine that takes into
account an emerging trend among e-commerces, which is content on top of
products. Today’s bigger companies with online shops usually provide content
on top of products. As an example Oza mentions H&M, which today has both
the traditional e-commerce and since recent years, blogs. The next gen search
engine would somehow connect the two in results with each other. Oza says
this is the next step and though it’s a big challenge it's a possible one.
Now including Finnish and English, Klevu’s also working on bringing French
and German into their language repertoire. Implementation prices start at
�19/month and go up to �99/month for bigger needs. Klevu’s also offering a
no-obligation free trial of 30 days, so give it a look. From
http://www.arcticstartup.com/
Gap and
Myntra May Partner for E-Commerce Biz in After starting delivery services to Indian patrons through its
global site, American lifestyle clothing retailer Gap is now inching closer to
them by partnering with ecommerce portal Myntra. As per reports, talks are on
to finalize a deal with Myntra to launch its online store in From
http://thirdeyesight.in/
Indian Govt
Rejects Sports Retailer Decathlon’s Proposal to Sell Goods Online French sports good retailer Decathlon’s proposal to sell its
products to consumers online in Decathlon had claimed that allowing this proposal would further
improve local sourcing in the country, thereby benefitting Indian vendors.
The company had estimated that it will be sourcing 35% of its products
locally in the next few years. Last month, commerce and industry minister
Anand Sharma has mentioned in an interview that he is in favor of allowing
100% FDI in the e-commerce sector and they are currently awaiting the
approval of Election Commission to relax the existing FDI guidelines in the
business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce segment. However, with forthcoming
general elections this month, it’s not clear whether these guidelines will
now be actually relaxed or not. It’s worth noting that competing party BJP’s
views on E-Commerce are not clear yet. Responding to a query on the party’s
stand on FDI in E-commerce Arvind Gupta, Head of the BJP’s IT Cell had told
Medianama in August last year, that the political party was going to review
Industry needs because “More and more businesses want to operate out of
India. FDI in e-commerce is a huge issue because companies are dying here”. From
http://www.medianama.com/ Online
Retail Swells to $12.6 bn, with One Million Traders According to an IAMAI report, online retail in GMV is the industry term for the total worth of sales transacted
on the e-commerce portal. Snapdeal, another key e-commerce player, is
expected to top $1-billion mark in GMV soon. IAMAI has identified key segment
drivers such as apparel and jewellery brands, which are marketing and selling
their products increasingly through the online channel. The Association's
report notes that consolidation and growth of logistics will drive further
development of the sector. According to the report, although marketplace
players run from city centres, the bulk of logistical management such as
storage and deliveries are being handled from Tier-II or Tier-III cities.
This leads to "equitable employment generation and bridging the urban
rural divide", says Ray. Regional growth patterns indicate that apparel
and fashion accessories account for the bulk of sales in the east and south,
while jewellery, leather and consumer item sales are prominent in the
northern and western sectors. While online retail is growing at roughly an
equitable growth rate across all regions in From
http://www.afaqs.com/news/ Indian
e-Commerce Boom Produces Acceptable Casualties Istream, initially funded by Saif Partners, shut down because it
ran out of money. Similarly, Letsbuy, once a popular shopping site, opted for
a distress sale to e-commerce giant Flipkart. "Investors decided it was
time to consolidate their risk profile and opt for one big player rather than
put their money into too many smaller baskets," says Gaurav Saraf,
director, Epiphany Ventures that has funded a few e-commerce ventures. Satyan
Gajwani, CEO of Times Internet that operates many successful portals
including Indiatimes, says the Indian online retail industry is still in its
nascent stages. "It's not even 1% of the country's total retail
business. So, the market opportunity is still huge. But it requires an
ability to stay in for the long haul. Businesses that have been buying
transactions while losing money were not sustainable, so they were likely to
be shut down or sold. We have focused on being operating-margin profitable,
and that allows us to sustain ourselves in an aggressive market." Other e-commerce websites that shut down are Dhingana, an online
music-streaming site that failed due to T-series not renewing its licensing
agreement. Education portal Studyplaces was sold to Educomp in a distress
sale. Fashion and You shut down Urban Touch, a site it acquired for a
reported $30 million. "It's time the e-commerce companies came to terms
with the fact that only growth at the cost of profitability is not a wise
idea on a sustained basis," says Viraj Malik, CEO and founder of PK
Online, an online video streaming and digital advertising company.
"Emerging economies like Currently there are more than 900 e-commerce ventures in the
Indian digital space compared with only 10-20 three years ago, according to
industry sources. Experts believe only 5% of them would be doing healthy
volume of transactions on a daily basis. Arvind Singhal, chairman of retail
consultancy Technopak says that the consolidation is a natural process and
it's nothing to get worked up about "It happened in many industries
including software," he says. "Unless you have a sustainable model
you won't survive. Eventually, the ventures that have the muscle to invest in
technology, go for market share and have the patience to wait it out will
survive." Interestingly, Youtube took more than five years to see the
tip of profit. From
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
PE, VC
Investors Warm Up to Indian e-Commerce Mumbai: India’s slowing consumption story has meant a decline in
the interest shown by private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) investors
in consumer product, retail, and restaurant companies, even as it has meant a
revival of their interest, which appeared to be fading, in e-commerce firms.
Investments in retail, e-commerce, consumer packaged goods and quick service
restaurants rose to $1.142 billion (across 94 deals) in 2013-14, from $855.53
billion (across 107 deals) in 2012-13, according to investment tracker
VCCEdge. Of this, investments in e-commerce firms rose 258.31% to $805.36
million in 2013-14 from $224.85 million a year-ago. Investments in consumer
products and restaurants fell by more than half. Fast-moving consumer goods were the focus of many investors, but
with the “consumption story” fading, that is no longer the case, explained
Ashish Bhide, executive director, Avendus Capital Pvt Ltd. “Investors need to
get out of a business in five-six years and if the slowdown lasts for two to
three years, they know that they will not get the desired returns,” added
Bhide. Growth in the consumer packaged goods industry dropped by nearly
half to 9.4% in 2013 from 18.1% in 2012, according to market research firm
Nielsen In contrast, e-commerce was the fastest growing segment in the
consumer space, albeit on a small base. The total digital commerce market in “We will continue to see activity in the e-commerce space in the
new financial year. Activity will also pick up in fast moving consumer goods
and the food space,” said Rachna Nath, executive director,
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) From
http://www.livemint.com/
One of the things that really separate us as humans from the
high primates is that we’re great tool builders and we learn and execute
fast, hence are acknowledged as the crown of creation. We have seen this
happening for long that we don’t settle but keep improving and innovating for
convenience. There has always been a strong wave of revolution in existing
models to try and make them better for our convenience. Take for example
e-commerce, when it started in By June 2014, There is a common saying about the Indian retail consumers’
mentality, “can’t touch, won’t buy”. In L-commerce the experience is totally
magical, for instance you saw a t-shirt, which you wanted in your vicinity,
you could immediately visit there and check for great discount and get a
guarantee of return and refund. Nothing can replace this experience. In an
environment that is getting better every year we would witness the big
location-based commerce (l-commerce) revolution soon and local merchants will
start competing with the big brands in e-commerce. L-commerce refers to the
localisation of products and services through mobile commerce and context
aware computing technologies. L-commerce revolves around five key service
areas: Location: determining the basic position of a person or a thing;
Navigation: plotting a route from one location to another; Tracking:
monitoring the movement of a person or a thing; Mapping: creating maps of
specific geographical locations; Timing: Determining the precise time at a
specific location. E-commerce is publishing best products with great offers and is
a one way communication, but l-commerce is a personal two way communication
and the merchant would treat you with velvet gloves to ensure he gets a
long-term customer. L-commerce has, in a way, revolutionised the industry,
benefitting both — the consumers and merchants. With the entry of e-tailing,
malls, supermarkets and grocery stores have seen a decline in the number of
annual footfalls. This has drastically affected the revenues of these stores
as they mostly have only physical presence. The larger players are a huge
threat to these smaller players. With the five key service areas of
l-commerce, it is proving to be a great platform that will help in the
revival of this number. The location aware technology is proving a be an innovatory
technology by providing real-time offers and deals that consumers can avail
of in a vicinity closest to them. By using location aware technology, user’s
location can be identified to provide the most relevant offers and deals in a
category the user is looking for. The categories can range from apparel,
entertainment, mobile devises to food, health and beauty. Another added advantage of this revolution is that it has caught
the attention of the unorganised markets as well. Local stores have seen the potential
business it can bring if they publish their offers and deals online. This
technology is undoubtedly helping merchants to promote their offers and
discounts to drive consumers in their stores, which otherwise went
undiscovered. In the early days, it was only the organised market that was
getting accounted for. But with l-commerce and location aware technology, the
unorganised market is also being recognised and will soon have a revenue
number being put on this market. From
http://www.mydigitalfc.com/
eBay Aims to
Create the World's Largest Trader Base in From
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/ As Lanka’s exports to
“This is a challenge and a tryout for Sri Lankan
exporters. I thank the EDB for inviting me to show you this novel concept.
From
http://www.news.lk
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From
http://en.trend.az/
As of Jan.-Feb. 2014, the volume of From
http://en.trend.az/
As a result of the joint collaboration of International Bank of From
http://en.trend.az/
Azerbaijani
Ministry Obliges The Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and High Technologies
will put pressure on mobile operators in the country to solve the problem
with traffic exchange between their own networks, Azerbaijani Minister of
Communications and High Technologies Ali Abbasov told media on April 17.
"The tariffs for the traffic exchange among mobile operators have
declined in early 2014," he said. "This must affect the reduction
of tariffs for mobile services rendered to the end user."
"Unfortunately, this has not happened yet," he said. "We
believe that this is inadmissible as the tariff is regulated at the level of
the Tariff Council and the Cabinet of Ministers. We will take coercive
measures, by using the legislative base for the cost of traffic exchange
among operators to comply with the established rules. This will inevitably
affect the reduction of tariffs for mobile communication services in From
http://en.trend.az/
Another
Favorable Offer from Azercell for Azercell Telecom - the leader of the mobile communication market
of The 'Asan İmza' helps every subscriber to use electronic
services and easily benefit from the opportunities created by digital
signature. The speed, comfort and reliability of this service have enabled
the easy access to public services and foster the active adoption of new
technologies by consumers and developers. To use the service, subscribers
have to apply to ASAN Service Centers, where they can get an 'Asan İmza'
SIM-card from Azercell Registration Desk, as well as a digital signature
certificate from the module of Asan Certification Services Center (ASXM) of
Azerbaijani Taxes Ministry. The 'Asan İmza' SIM-card is valid for both
current and new Azercell numbers. Azercell - the driver of innovations on the
mobile communications market of Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996 and since the first
years of its activity the company sustains a leading position on the market.
Azercell introduced a number of technological innovations in From
http://en.trend.az/
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The
frustrations of using the physical wallet is driving the popularity of
contactless card and smartphone payments, with research conducted by Lonergan
Research, on behalf of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), revealing
that mobile wallets will replace physical wallets in Australia by 2021.
According to the survey, frustrations like forgetting to take their wallets
out, forgetting to put specific items in the wallet, and having to carry a
bulky wallet, are some reasons why 73 percent of Australians expect that
mobile wallets will replace their entire wallet in the next seven and a half
years, and cash and card payments within six and a half years.
"Consumers are 'going mobile', and they are clearly showing their
preference for the convenience and simplicity of transacting on mobile anywhere,
anytime, and on any device. We expect this trend will only continue,"
said Michael Harte, Commonwealth Bank group executive enterprise services and
CIO. But consumers are just expected to be able to use their mobile wallet to
pay for purchases. The survey also found that consumers expect to use their
mobile wallet to be able to access loyalty schemes (55 percent), redeem
coupons (45 percent), store receipts (44 percent), and get around on public
transport (43 percent). However, 77
percent of consumers still believe at the same time that there will always be
a need for cash. Commonwealth Bank card, payments, analytics, and retail
strategy executive general manager Angus Sullivan said that while mobile
banking and payments are going to be the primary functions of the mobile
wallet in the short term, consumers are also expecting that it will replace
their bus tickets, and loyalty and membership cards. "While there may
always be a need for different payment methods, such as cash for emergencies
and cards for travel, it's clear the mobile wallet is set to become a part of
many Australians' everyday lives," he said. "As a nation, we've
been at the forefront of the contactless payments revolution, and Australians
appear keen to lead the world into the new era of the mobile wallet,"
said Sullivan. The main influencer for why Australians have adopted the
mobile wallet is trust and confidence in the security of it. The survey
showed that banks and financial institutions are by far the most trusted
providers of mobile wallets (44 percent), ahead of the government (16
percent), technology companies (14 percent) such as Google and Apple, and
retail stores (10 percent). From http://www.zdnet.com
Mobile
Broadband Boosts Economy by Billions: ACMA A report
commissioned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has
said that businesses and households using mobile broadband added AU$33.8
billion in economic activity in The report
measured that between 2006 and 2013, productivity growth was 11.3 percent per
year, but would have been 6.7 percent per year without mobile broadband. In
that time, prices for mobile broadband were measured to have declined by 8.4
percent per year. It found that most mobile broadband use came from
households at 70 percent, followed by businesses at 28 percent. Smartphones
were said to use an average of 1.7GB of data per month in Businesses
in the utilities sector, followed by the transport and postal sector reported
the biggest impact in mobile technology saving time or reducing costs to the
business. IT, media, and telecommunications reported the lowest impact on
their businesses. ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said in a statement that the research
showed the real impact of mobile communications in From http://www.zdnet.com
Australian
Businesses Reach for the Clouds to Improve Efficiency A few years
ago, cloud to many organisations and analysts was just another buzzword, but
today, according to Accenture Australia, cloud has evolved to where it is now
considered by many businesses a core investment for their operations.
Accenture "Once
you're able to get your data onto the cloud it suddenly becomes elastic and
therefore it becomes far more available. This allows all these businesses to
have more intimate conversations with their own customers because they are
able to find out more about them at any time," she said. "Our
businesses also talk about how creating this intimate relationship with
customers involves the use of analytics. It's very hard to do that if you
don't have your data in the cloud." A key consideration when cloud is a
topic of conversation for businesses is security, which From http://www.zdnet.com
From http://www.cellular-news.com
NZ Businesses Paying Bills in Record Time Businesses
are paying their bills in record time, with the forestry and agriculture
sectors winning the prompt payment stakes while the transportation industry
is a distant last place, according to credit checking agency Dun &
Bradstreet. Average payment times across When local
businesses experience stronger sales and profitability they have a greater
capacity to pay their expenses in a timely fashion, which in turn returns
finance back into circulation providing a positive knock-on effect through to
the entire economy, Martin said. "Our forecasts are for D&B's
analysis found that companies with more than 500 staff paid their invoices in
an average of 45 days, up from 41 days. "Even though the Reserve Bank
has commenced an interest rate tightening cycle, the boost to the economy
from the dairy sector, construction and household spending is likely to see
company payment times remain low for at least the near term," said
Stephen Koukoulas, Economics Advisor to Dun & Bradstreet. From http://www.nzherald.co.nz |
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EUROPE:
The Netherlands Cyber Security Centre announced the creation of
the National Response Network, a cooperation of public and private
organisations aimed at increasing the digital resilience of the nation's
critical systems. The agreement to set up the NRN was signed on 17 April at
the Security and Justice Ministry. The initial participants include the Tax
Service, Surfnet, DefCERT, the Information Security Service for
municipalities and the NCSC. The aim of the NRN is to share information and
coordinate responses in the event of major cyber security incidents. More
public and private partners will be added in the coming period. From
http://www.telecompaper.com/
NORTH
AMERICA: OTTAWA — The Prime Minister’s Office and the federal
Conservative party appear to be blurring the lines between official
government business and partisan work in their online activities, as they
look to identify new supporters the party can tap for financial
contributions. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s profile on his main Twitter
account, @pmharper — which is largely operated by the taxpayer-funded PMO —
directs people to his personal website, stephenharper.ca, which is operated
by the Conservative Party of Canada and harvests names and email addresses of
potential voters. Staff from the PMO who travel with the prime minister on
official government trips tweet pictures and information for Harper on his
@pmharper account that often direct people back to Conservative party
websites such as stephenharper.ca or conservative.ca. Harper has more than 439,000 followers on his Twitter account.
The use of government resources for political party purposes appears at odds
with the prime minister’s own ethical guidelines for ministers and their
staff. That guide, titled “Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers and
Ministers of State,” says, “In no
circumstance should any political activities be performed at a government
place of work; nor should any government equipment or material be used for
such purposes.” It also states that ministerial responsibilities include
“ensuring that all expenditures in ministers’ and ministers of state’s
offices are properly and prudently managed and are related to the conduct of
official business.” However, the PMO insists no government resources are used
for political activities that relate to Harper’s role as party leader. “Social media accounts belong to Stephen Harper who is both the
Prime Minister of Canada and the Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
The PMO has a role to play when Stephen Harper posts content online relating
to the government,” the prime minister’s press secretary, Carl Vallée, said
in an email. “The party has a role to play when Stephen Harper posts content
online relating to the Conservative Party of Canada. No government resources
are used for political activities in Stephen Harper’s capacity as Leader of
the CPC.” The PMO over the past week or so has tweeted from the @pmharper
account: “Canadians are better off today under our gov’t than under the
previous Liberal gov’t,” with a link to the Conservative party website.
Another tweet from @pmharper urges Canadians to visit the Conservative
party’s website and sign their support for the federal legislation that would
adopt “tougher penalties for child predators.” Many of the tweets also
include links to the prime minister’s official government webpage: pm.gc.ca —
which is a normal use of government social media. From
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
The intelligence community is perhaps the most innovative data
collector on the planet, with each of its 17 agencies able to siphon off
various pools of information from nearly any source. Yet the IC collects
voluminous amounts of mostly fragmented data, and therein lies a challenge
every other body in government struggling to make use of big data can relate
to. “In our world, we’re very good at collecting data, we’re also pretty good
at analyzing it – we have to quickly parse out what is valuable,” Roger
Hockenberry, a former chief technology officer for the Central Intelligence
Agency, said during a panel session March 11 at the Symantec Government
Symposium in Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s
public disclosures of classified information have highlighted how the NSA and
other agencies collect various sorts of signals intelligence. A significant
amount of this data doesn’t come packaged neatly for ingestion and analysis
in any open-source or proprietary platform. Social media feeds and emails,
for example, represent large but highly unstructured datasets. To “normalize”
that kind of unstructured data in a way that it becomes useful continues to
be a major challenge, Hockenberry said. To conduct its large-scale analytics
effectively, the CIA uses a mixture of open-source and commercial products
built off a data-science oriented reference architecture that sprung up from
one of its small labs in the past decade. The CIA started with OpenStack and
added commercial products in various places to note differences and build an
effective and scalable solution. Hockenberry said platforms and tools differ
in usefulness depending on the environment in which they’re operating, and
that logic also carries over to the post-analytic visualizations a dataset
produces. “You have to decide the right mix,” said Hockenberry, adding
that big data forces analysts or data scientists to be creative in how they
ask questions. The intelligence community is at the forefront of big data as
a technology, but even at its most effective levels, analyzing piles of
unstructured, fragmented data is challenging. Algorithms will improve and
data holders will inevitably learn to ask better questions of data, yet as
the deluge of unstructured information continues to pour forth, finding
meaningful signal in the noise is likely to remain problematic for some time.
“It’d be nice if al-Qaeda would ship us all their records in a nice, standard
format, but they don’t,” Hockenberry said. From
http://fcw.com/
With some 30 percent of Angelenos not having access to broadband
Internet, city officials on Monday launched an effort to ask the private
sector for ideas on how to connect the entire city. Under the proposal from
Councilman Bob Blumenfield, the city issued a request for information over
the next seven weeks on a proposed program that would provide high-speed
Internet access, either through wi-fi or wired connections, to every
residence and business. Blumenfield called it “one of the most important
steps the city will take during this generation.” “It is vital we move
forward, just as accessibility to roads, highways and bridges is important to
our residents,” Blumenfield said. Blumenfield said the city is not locked in
to whether the service will be wired or wireless, but that something needs to
be done to help the 30 percent of the city that doesn’t have Internet access.
Mayor Eric Garcetti fully supports the plan, Deputy Mayor Rick Cole said.
“Mayor Garcetti believes the single most important factor to be competitive
in the global economy and for our residents to be successful is that we have
universal high-speed broadband access,” Cole said. “We are looking at a suite
of solutions of different technology that no single company can provide.” Blumenfield said the request for proposals is expected to be
prepared in the next six months. Also, he said, the city is looking to avoid
any direct costs in the project, leaving it up to the Internet companies to
cover the costs, in exchange for benefits from the city such as expanded
access to infrastructure. Several other cities have undertaken similar
efforts, including From
http://www.govtech.com/
White
House Website Helps Veterans Find Jobs Resumés submitted through the site become part of a
comprehensive database used by employers. "Employers are provided with a
direct feed of resumes from veteran applicants, can view reverse skills
translation (military to civilian skills) for applicants, and can make public
their own veterans hiring goals," Rich Morales, executive director of
Joining Forces, explained in a post on the White House blog. Joining Forces
is a nationwide initiative launched by Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden in 2011. The
initiative focuses on employment, education, and wellness of service members.
Companies working with Joining Forces have hired more than 540,000 veterans
and spouses, according to the blog post. While there are already several
websites dedicated to job-seeking veterans-- including VA for Vets, VA
Careers, Vet Success, My Career @ VA, and Feds Hire Vets -- this is the first
interagency tool that combines public and private job openings. It's a
collaborative effort among the Department of Defense, Department of Labor,
Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration, and Department
of Veterans Affairs. USAJobs.gov is an online job board that offers various resources
to veterans, but it's restricted to employment within the federal government.
Earlier this year, Monster Worldwide, the Consumer Electronics Association,
and several technology business groups introduced a job site that
specifically focuses on moving veterans to civilian careers within the
technology industry. USTechVets.org uses Monster's 6Sense semantic search
technology, a more intelligent version of traditional keyword search engines
that can contextually interpret the meaning behind words. The site provided a
similar tool to the From
http://www.informationweek.com/
Using
Technoloy to Transform the Health Care Industry May 6, 2014 -- Today's interview is with Dr. Harry Greenspun,
senior advisor, Healthcare Transformation and Technology at Deloitte. The
discussion starts off with the observation that Dr. Greenspun is wearing a
Nike Fuel Band on his wrist. This initiates a wide ranging discussion that
begins with mobile devices and touches upon advanced analytics. Mobile
devices produce data for physicians to improve care and reduce cost. This can
be in a regular commercial hospital or one of the 157 VA hospitals or 773
outpatient centers. During the interview, Dr. Greenspun mentions that mobile
devices could provide information that would make physicians more productive
as well as helping monitor patients in remote locations. The downside of the
proliferation of mobile devices is the glut of information that they provide.
This will cause an increased focus on advanced analytics of the data
provided. Big data is a big problem if not used properly. Dr. Greenspun also
mentiones the Deloitte University Press, an arm of his company that assists
in understanding healthcare issues by publishing articles and studies to
assist in using technology to reduce healthcare costs. From
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/
The
Role of ICT in Building Smart Cities – Infrastructure Objectives •Provide a market and technology analysis of the latest trends
in smart energy, smart water, and smart transportation in urban spaces. •Provide strategic recommendations to key stakeholders eyeing
smart city markets. Research Scope Physical smart city infrastructure and related services for
citizens (further referred to as smart city infrastructure): •Smart grid and smart energy customers in cities. •Smart public transportation and traffic management. •Smart urban water management. No strict definitions for smart cities have been developed for
the purpose of this analysis. The scope of the study is defined pragmatically
by smart city goals, not a smart city label. The analysis focuses on three
infrastructure-related smart city pillars—smart energy, smart transportation,
and smart water—to show growth opportunities driven by future smart cities. Research Methodology •Primary research: interviews with key stakeholders including
utilities, software providers, meter data management system providers, and
hardware suppliers. •Secondary research: Frost & Sullivan research services,
online databases, online energy, transportation, and water portals, and
market participants' reports. Smart Energy 'Smart energy' refers to all energy projects aimed at reducing
energy losses, improving supply services, increasing energy efficiency, and
reducing energy wastage. All of these projects are based on advanced
information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and services.
'Smart transportation' focuses on data-based traffic management and freight
and people transportation. This category, thus, includes the implementation
of intelligent transportation systems for traffic and fleet monitoring and
control, services for drivers and passengers based on real- or near-real-time
information, and integrated public transportation. Smart Water 'Smart water' refers to projects promoting water conservation
and energy efficiency in the water sector through the application of
machine-to-machine (M2M) technology, data mining, and analytics. Key Data-related Trends Driven by Smart Cities With the emergence of smart cities and enabling technologies,
authorities and other stakeholders will start exploiting new data
sources—sensors, meters, and in-car telematics—to improve the efficiency of
daily city operations relating to facilities and infrastructure. They will
also have to include social media and various Web-data sources in their
decision-making models. City stakeholders are used to dealing with simple and
structured data that is limited in volume and velocity. Collection, storage,
and processing of M2M data from sensors and meters will pose a challenge for
authorities and companies from the energy, transportation, and water sectors.
The greatest difficulty will be to define required output of data processing
and choose cost-feasible data management platforms. Open data platforms will
have to be established to unlock the potential of multi-source data for
citizens. Customers and other smart city stakeholders consume or generate
data using mobile devices increasingly often, particularly smartphones and
tablets. Their behaviours become more geographic information system
(GIS)-related. This drives not only changes in user interface but also in
customer interaction strategies. Smart transportation is receiving a strong boost from local
authorities and transportation operators. The intelligent transportation
systems (ITS) market in the European Union is in a growth phase and has
attractive growth perspectives ahead. Tenders for ITS are being launched in
the largest European cities. Over time, new ITS functionalities will emerge
that will drive further market growth. Smart energy is in an early
development stage. Energy companies are still looking for a business case for
smart grids. The availability of smart meters and grid data will drive
investments in customer and grid analytics. Frost & Sullivan foresees
that smart energy will bring the highest investment opportunities within
smart cities by 2020. So far, the interest in smart water is low and limited to a few
countries. The smart water market presents the weakest growth opportunities
by 2020. 2020 Market Trends Smart Energy (Smart Energy Network) •Integration of renewables and decentralised energy •Demand response and demand-side management •Network monitoring and control Smart Transportation •Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) •Driver behaviour management •Mobile applications based on open data Smart Water •Pressure management •Remote control and predictive maintenance •Integrated platforms for water management Executive Summary Introduction to Smart Cities Smart Energy in the Smart Transportation in the Smart Water in the Conclusion From
http://finance.yahoo.com/
Concise
Analysis of the International ICT Market in the Education Sector There has been a radical change in the way that knowledge is
being imparted in schools, wherein textbooks are gradually being replaced by
tablets. This has led to the development of more meaningful and functional
applications in the field of education. Tablets have changed the way in which
teachers interact with their students. Tablets can store a large volume of
information that a student can access at any time. At secondary and higher
education levels, tablets reduce the need for a student to refer to a lot of
textbooks for each subject. Moreover, with the increasing number of
applications being developed specifically for the Education sector, teachers
can engage students with interesting educational applications. Hence, students
will find the learning process exciting and motivating. This will help
increase interactivity between students and teachers, which will in turn
enhance the learning process for the student. One of the major drivers in
this market is the need for creative and innovative learning. Educational
institutions are in the process of adopting best practices in delivering
creative, innovative, and quality education through the use of computing
devices. This has resulted in a focused approach toward the global integration
of various educational institutions, thereby enabling them to share their
knowledge base and resources to promote interaction among students and
teachers. Key Topics Covered: 1. Executive Summary 2. List of Abbreviations 3. Scope of the Report 4. Market Research Methodology 5. Introduction 6. Market Landscape 7. Revenue Segmentation by Category 8. Revenue Segmentation by Level of Education 9. Country-wise Education Initiatives 10. Geographical Segmentation 11. Key Leading Countries 12. Buying Criteria 13. Market Growth Drivers 14. Drivers and their Impact 15. Market Challenges 16. Impact of Drivers and Challenges 17. Market Trends 18. Trends and their Impact 19. Vendor Landscape 20. Key Vendor Analysis 21. Other Reports in this Series Companies Mentioned: Acer Apple Dell Fujitsu Technology Solutions HCL Technologies Hewlett-Packard IBM Lenovo Group Microsoft Oracle SAP Toshiba Wipro From
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/
Smart
Homes in Asia-Pacific--A CEO's 360-Degree Perspective Building Homes Beyond Green Residential buildings in Asia-Pacific will continue to evolve
and it will be directly affected by the growth in population and urbanization
rate, as well as development of new cities and new economic zones. Smart
homes will emphasize on eco-friendly building materials in addition to the
deployment of energy saving devices and information and communications
technology (ICT), as well as advanced technologies such as home fuel cells.
Favorable factors such as the need to reduce energy consumption, are
positively influencing the adoption of smart homes in Asia-Pacific. Market
participants in the synergistic smart home value chain will face competition
at both intra-industry and inter-industry level. Executive Summary—CEO 360 Perspectives Mega Trends • The buildings industry is expected to be directly affected by
the mega trends related to population and urbanization rate. • The rise in population in Asia Pacific is likely to push the
demand for new residential houses, especially in • Emergence of new cities or satellite cities and new economic
zones will spur construction of residential buildings. • Increasing energy consumption with rise in construction is
likely to give way to high-tech (smart or green) innovations, introducing
various green technologies in future buildings, including residential. Industry Convergence • Asia-Pacific is a heterogeneous market, with smart homes at
different stages of evolution. • Smart homes will emphasize on eco-friendly building materials
in addition to the deployment of energy saving devices, and information and
communications technology (ICT). • ICT platform integration gives property developers a complete
lifecycle approach to the construction of new houses. Technology • Cost efficient LED lamps would eventually replace traditional
light bulbs in the near future. • Home-based miniature fuel cell technology would boost the
market for 'zero energy' homes. • Remotely controlled building automation systems will
increasingly become a necessity in the future. • Integration of IT with waste removal system will be common and
it will be used to gauge, manage, and minimize the volume of household waste. Economic • Although the smart home market is still in its infancy,
favorable factors such as the need to reduce energy consumption are
positively influencing the adoption of smart home. • Inadvertently, new buildings in Asia-Pacific will increase the
demand for electricity and push up the consumption of oil and gas in turn. Competitive and Best Practices • The building industry of Asia-Pacific is dominated by major
foreign companies, with smaller local participants having a marginal share. • The competition within the Smart Home ecosystem is both
intra-industry and inter-industry. • Two likely scenarios could occur in the smart home market,
either a consolidated industry standard will emerge or a fragmented
marketplace having multiple standards exists. Customers • Asia-Pacific's target demographics are middle-class, younger,
and tech-savvy home owners. • Market participants should invest in developing more efficient
and cost-competitive devices and systems to cater to the emerging
middle-class population who are price sensitive. Executive Summary—Key Takeaway 1. Continuous innovation is expected in lighting and heating,
ventilation and conditioning (HVAC), as such equipment consume maximum energy
in the homes. 2. Cost and resource optimization benefits would pressure companies
to have a complete plan of the construction before embarking on the actual
task. 3. Developed Asia-Pacific markets provide key opportunities,
especially those with highly-wired cities such as 4. Financial pressures may result in the decrease or abolishment
of government subsidies, but tax rebates may be introduced to encourage
adoption and development of green technologies. 5. Respective Governments are currently embracing sustainable
economic growth and have introduced grants for both commercial and
residential applicants for adopting green practices and technologies. Definitions Homes of the Future Home is defined as residential buildings, such as apartments,
condominiums, and landed-houses (terrace, bungalow, semi-detached). In this document, future homes will incorporate current and
future trends that have shaped the demand for residential homes. The homes of
the future may be referred as smart homes in the study. Market Size Unless otherwise indicated in this study, market size refers to
sales revenue of products or services within mentioned markets. It excludes
book revenue or uncollected revenue from current and future sales or
contracts. CAGR Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is the year-over-year growth
rate of a market or investment over a specified period of time. Geography Unless otherwise indicated in this study, the region is
Asia-Pacific, which includes countries such as Characteristics of Homes of the Future Economical Must be affordable to the masses for the benefits to be seen. Neutral Being energy efficient is no longer enough, carbon neutral is
the new fad. Automated So that optimal settings could be set even when the occupants
are out. Connected Integration of information and communications technology (ICT)
into our daily lives have made this a necessity. Aesthetic Consumers are getting demanding, and want both functionality and
style. Table of Contents 1. Executive Summary 2. Introduction 3. Building Construction Market Overview 4. Mega Trends 5. Industry Convergence 6. Technology 7. Economic 8. Competitive and Best Practices 9. Customer 10. Conclusion 11. The Frost & Sullivan Story From
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/
Achieving Improved Energy Efficiency with Green Data Centres Speaking to over 200 senior IT decision
makers from the Singapore Government at the 11th Annual FutureGov Forum From http://www.futuregov.asia/ Action
Needed to Protect Telco Infrastructure from Climate Change ICT sector needs to prepare for the 'new normal' argues an ITU
report The role of ICT in driving increased greenhouse gas emissions
has been well documented. However a new report produced under the auspices of
the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union argues that the ICT
sector needs to prepare to adapt to climate change in order to preserve vital
communications infrastructure from both the short- and long-term impacts of
global warming. "ICT sector responses to climate change involve actions
aimed at mitigating its effects... monitoring climatic trends... and adapting
to its impacts (e.g. by helping to reduce the vulnerability of various
sectors, strengthening networking, decision making and resource access for
adaptation)," states the ITU report, Resilient pathways: The adaptation
of the ICT sector to climate change. However, the report adds that "much
less is known" about "adaptive strategies that the ICT sector itself
could adopt to better prepare for, respond and adjust to more frequent and
intense climatic impacts". Speed of innovation, smaller infrastructure than sectors such as
energy and logistics, and "reliance on a combined network instead of
individual structures" are all factors in favour of ICT when it comes to
adapting to climate change. However, the growth in frequency and impact of
extreme weather-related events, such as heat waves, flooding, extreme winds
and landslides, and a rise in sea level can still disrupt ICT services and
degrade comms infrastructure, increasing operational costs and cutting
revenue. "The magnitude of climate change impacts, coupled with the
increasing pervasiveness of the ICT sector in the global networked society
and the growing reliance on its services, evidence the urgency of re-thinking
and adjusting... to reduce the sector’s vulnerability to climatic impacts, to
improve its responses to short- and long-term effects, and to benefit from
business opportunities that may arise with change," states the report.
ICT needs to adopt the "notion of resilience" and take a holistic
sector-based approach. Backbone networks require redundancy and comms
infrastructure should be decoupled from the electricity grid as much as possible.
Backup power generators or solar-powered batteries should be deployed at
mobile towers, the report argues. Measures to increase the robustness of telco infrastructure can
also include running cables underground wherever possible, or replacing some
vulnerable sections of wired networks with low-powered wireless. The telco
sector needs to undergo a "comprehensive assessment" of its
resilience to current conditions and predicted future climate conditions. The
ITU report advocates that new standards be developed for the ICT sector to
promote increased resilience. "Available evidence suggests that climate
change will cause unavoidable impacts that will affect the ICT sector both
directly and indirectly. Within this context, adaptive practices will
increasingly become part of the 'new normal' for business operations around
the world, including those of the ICT sector," the report concludes. From
http://www.computerworld.com.au/
More than two-thirds of the world's Wi-Fi hotspots are in the
Asia-Pacific region, partly because of huge deployments by mobile operators
in From
http://news.idg.no/
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China's growing number of cell phone users has led to a surge in
data flow as more of them access mobile Internet via their phones, latest
government data showed on Monday.The number of cell phone users in the
country hit 1.24 billion in January, up 6.16 million from December, according
to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.The increase has
boosted mobile Internet traffic, which reached 133 million gigabytes in
January, up 46.9 percent year on year, the data showed.Business revenues of
mobile telecommunications hit 69.52 billion yuan (11.36 billion U.S. dollars)
in January, up 11.1 percent year on year. From http://news.xinhuanet.com/
China's mobile Internet consumption will reach 2.16 trillion
yuan (351.45 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015, said Lu Wei, secretary-general of
the Internet Society of China (ISC), at a press conference on
Thursday.E-retail transactions amounted to 1.8 trillion yuan last year, and
was estimated to take over 10 percent of the country's total retail sales in
2015, according to the ISC.Lu attributed the surge in consumption to the
booming e-commerce industry in China. with more businesses and new technology
involved and integrated.Lu said the accelerating e-commerce will create more
new business and service models like location-based services, mobile health
care and Internet of Vehicles, which are predicted to become part of people's
daily lives soon. From http://www.news.cn/
Social Media Messaging
Causes Chinese telecom operator China Mobile announced its annual
results for 2013 in Hong Kong, and those financial numbers did not
impress.During the entire year of 2013, China Mobile's operating revenue was
CNY630.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 8.3%; but its net profit was
CNY121.7 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 5.9%.This is reportedly the
first time for China Mobile to see an annual net profit decline.China Mobile
stated in its chairman's report that 2013 was a key year for the company's
transitional development. On one hand, the issuance of 4G license brings new
opportunities; on the other hand, its operating pressure continues to
increase as it faces the competition from over-the-top services and market
saturationThe competition from OTT Internet services was a major reason for
China Mobile's net profit decline. For example, with the launch of new
communication methods such as Tencent's Wechat Weixin service, China Mobile's
short message business continued to decline since January 2013.Information
from Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China revealed that
in January 2013, the short message business volume of Chinese carriers
decreased by 10% year-over-year. At the same time, though the mobile call
times increased by 11.3%, the growth rate decreased. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
ChinaNetCenter Net
Profit Up 129% in 2013 ChinaNetCenter, a content distribution network and data center
service provider in China, published its annual results for
2013.ChinaNetCenter's operating revenue reached CNY1.205 billion, a
year-on-year increase of 47.89%; its operating profit was CNY254.898 million,
a year-on-year increase of 126.73%; and its net profit attributable to
shareholders was CNY237.112 million, a year-on-year increase of
128.55%.During 2013, ChinaNetCenter's CDN business launched a network
security acceleration solution named SAS and a network security protection
service named WSS, which mainly target government and financial websites.
Meanwhile, its Internet data center business launched an ECB cloud backup
solution. During the reporting period, the company's CDN business sales
reached CNY966 million, accounting for 80.17% of its major business revenue;
while its IDC business sales were CNY224 million, accounting for 18.63% of
its major business revenue.For research and development, ChinaNetCenter
invested CNY83.721 million in 2013, a year-on-year increase of 139.46% and it
accounted for 6.95% of the company's total operating revenue. ChinaNetCenter
said that based on the company's CDN technical platform, they implemented
mobile Internet acceleration and secure cloud service platform projects in
2013. For technical upgrades, they realized upgrades of CATM and streaming
media acceleration platforms. At the same time, the company continued to
promote basic technology upgrades and launched a management system for
large-scale business platforms. ChinaNetCenter's CDN platform has finished
its nationwide distribution and has already deployed nodes abroad.For its
cloud distribution platform, ChinaNetCenter completed an interface
standardization for major products and teamed with mainstream cloud computing
manufacturers in From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Guizhou Province, one of the least developed in China, has
emerged at the center of China's big data ambitions, with Alibaba Group and
other tech leaders moving to cash in on the big data boom.Alibaba signed a
framework agreement with the Provincial Government of Guizhou on April 17 to
use the province as its industrial base for the development of cloud
computing and big data.Big data refers to enormous sets of data that cannot
be analyzed using traditional processing. The data can be used by businesses
and governments to analyze trends and improve services.Both sides will
cooperate to cultivate a data trade market, intelligent logistics system and
an experience center for the online-to-offline business of department store
operator Intime Retail Group Co. Alibaba announced last month that it would
pay 692 million U.S. dollars for a 26-percent stake in the Hong Kong-listed
retail group.Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group, said at the signing ceremony
that Guizhou boasts good potential for the development of the big data
industry and enjoys geographical advantages. Guizhou's visibility has been rising in China's big data
frontier as a number of heavyweight telecommunication carriers, including
China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile, have moved into the province's
Guian New District since October to establish cloud computing bases and big
data centers.So far, more than 100 big data enterprises, including Baidu,
Jingdong and Dawning, and Internet giants such as Sina.com and Sohu.com have
moved in. ( In the eyes of Li Guojie, academician of the Chinese Academy of
Engineering, the swarming in of heavyweight players is not driven by
bandwagon appeal.According to Li, the province is an ideal industrial base
for big data development. Cool weather, plenty of energy resources,
well-developed equipment manufacturing, military industry, sufficient power
supply and lower electricity prices are all advantages to lure data centers
to set up bases in the region, Li said.As one of China's least developed
provinces, Guizhou is eyeing the big data industry to boost its economic
sustainability while China speeds up its reforms. In 2012, the GDP per capita
of Although rich in energy and natural resources, Guizhou has seen
its economy heavily dependent on traditional heavy industries such as
chemical manufacturing and ferrous metal production, whose growth potential
have been declining.Guizhou Governor Chen Min'er has taken the big data
industry as an opportunity for the province to add jobs, build new economic
boosters and lift the personal income of residents in the coming years.The
province mapped out a plan in February to boost the big data industry to
serve governments, the public and business. Under the plan, e-governance
systems, intelligent transportation, logistics, tourism, industrial cloud
computing, e-commerce and food security will be upgraded through big data
technologies to improve the efficiency of government departments and improve
people's lives.However, the province faces a lack of talent to supply the
industry's needs.To remedy the situation, Guizhou launched a talent
recruitment project to attract college graduates to set up big data companies
in Guiyang by offering them preferential policies. Leading Chinese universities such as Peking University and
Tsinghua University have signed agreements with Guizhou, promising to provide
information technology talent to Guiyang, the provincial capital.A total of
42 higher education research institutes have so far invested in Guiyang to
enhance local innovation capability. Their aggregate investment totaled 17.4
billion yuan (2.79 billion U.S. dollars).Under the provincial government's
blueprint, a domestic first-class data resource center is expected to be
established in 2017, which could make related industries worth 300 billion
yuan (48.06 U.S. dollars). From http://www.news.cn/
Chinese Government Will
Invest CNY20 Billion to Promote IPv6 The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China
says it will continue to promote the Internet sector's adoption of IPv6 with
an investment of over CNY20 billion.Chen Jiachun, deputy director of the
Communications Development Department of MIIT, said during the Global IPv6
and Next-Generation Internet Summit that MIIT will coordinate with related
government departments to promote the network and website transformation
process and promote the construction of next-generation Internet
demonstration cities. Taking 4G LTE development as an opportunity to do this,
they will open up the supply chain to accelerate the commercial use of IPv6
on the mobile Internet.According to Chen, they are facing problems in
end-user transformation and website applications, which require a large
number of software and hardware facility procurement and upgrade as well as
long transformation period. In addition, IPv6 business strategy and business
models are still unclear, which brings large pressure to network
transformation projects. With the encouragement of MIIT, over 200 metropolitan area
networks in China will be transformed over the next three years.Zhao Huiling,
director of the cloud computing center of China Telecom, said that the
transformation from IPv4 to IPv6 involves multiple levels of government
coordinating, and the existing network elements on the various levels are
huge. The upgrade and transformation of the entire network will cost over
CNY20 billion.Chinese carriers already claimed to have implemented full
deployment in the IPv6 sector. China Telecom is actively moving its base
businesses, including online gaming base, music base, and video base, to
IPv6. The group's official website has completed IPv6 transformation.China From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
From
http://newsonjapan.com Japan
Schools Look to Teach Online Morals, Safety Schools across the nation are redoubling their efforts to teach
students rules and ethics for their use of the Internet. Until recently, this
kind of education mainly focused on preventing minors from accessing harmful
websites. Nowadays, however, education experts agree on the importance of
instilling a sense of online ethics early on, to prevent young people from
engaging in behaviour such as inappropriate use of documents, academic papers
and other sources, as well as the questionable posting of photos to the
Internet. The NPO has worked with local university students on a variety
of projects, include staging plays with such complicated topics as "What
should be done if a book report copied from the Internet wins a writing
contest?" The NPO has also produced educational videos. This fiscal
year, the Ogi municipal board of education will work with IT Support Saga to
draft and implement a plan for teaching Internet morals in each school
subject at all primary and middle schools in the city. At the Kamakura
Jogakuin Junior and Senior High School in This fiscal year, second-year high school students will take
part in the programme. In a class in late April, these students were taught
about a variety of ethical situations. Their instructor explained, "If
you take a person's photo without permission and upload the photo on the
Internet, it constitutes an infringement of the person's portrait
rights," and "If you take mischievous photos and carelessly post
them to the Internet, it could lead to trouble." One 16-year-old student
said, "Considering how best to share our knowledge with our juniors
while we learned increased our own interest." Shoji Sato, a 54-year-old
teacher at the high school, explained the idea behind the method saying,
"I believe our students will feel closer to the issues when they're
taught by people from the same generation." The need for education in
Internet morals was pointed out in the fiscal 2002 school curriculum
guidelines for middle school technology and home economics classes. Since
fiscal 2011, education in this area has been seen as necessary for all
students from primary to high school. In recent years, there have been increasing problems due to
inappropriate or careless messages and posts on the Internet, a phenomenon
partly attributable to the proliferation of smartphones. This year, the
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry issued guideline
materials and films for instructors about Internet moral education,
distributing them to prefectural and municipal boards of education across the
country in April. Because Internet-based data is easy to copy and alter, the
guidance and teaching materials explain that careful consideration of other
people and associated rights, including copyright, portrait right are
important. Prof. Kazuhiro Sumi of Saga University, who heads IT Support Saga
and is an expert on technological and information education, said, "As
issues about plagiarism in academic papers have created great controversy,
it's necessary to ensure that minors learn not only to protect themselves
from dangers on the Internet but also to have a sense of responsibility for
their own actions." From
http://news.asiaone.com
The Korea Customs Service plans to establish a system that
provides comprehensive information regarding the travel records of Koreans
traveling abroad. The customs service said on Wednesday that it will combine
relevant data and records, currently managed by the Foreign Ministry and the
Immigration Office, to create a combined information system. Customs said
that it will set up the system to secure easier access to data, that is
currently managed separately by the two other organizations. From
http://world.kbs.co.kr/
Mobile
Banking Users Top 50 Mln The number of mobile banking users in From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
Medical
Insurance Info Goes Online An online communication channel that will help people better
understand domestic health insurance policy for four major diseases launched
on May 9. In 2013, the government began the process of expanding health insurance
coverage until 2016 for cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and
rare and intractable diseases, known by Statistics Korea to be the four major
causes of death. The new insurance policy has been designed to help lessen
the burden of medical expenses. In the future, health insurance coverage will
be expanded even further to include other less-serious illnesses. The online
communications platform opened on May 9 provides information and all the
details about national insurance coverage and how to progress with a claim.
The online service provides more than just information about coverage for the
four major diseases, though. It will also help people stay informed about
medical technologies that weren't covered preciously and let people know about
adjustments to their coverage concerning a certain proportion of their total
expenses. The homepage will also give information about coverage of rare and
intractable diseases and expensive anti-cancer drugs that have no specific
alternatives. Moreover, the service website is designed to receive people's
questions or opinions on each category of illness covered by the national
insurance scheme. The online service can be accessed through the website of
the Ministry of Health and Welfare (www.mw.go.kr), the National Health
Insurance Service (www.nhis.or.kr) or the Health Insurance Review &
Assessment Service (www.hira.or.kr). From
http://www.korea.net/
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Visualising Big Data Setiaji also noted As An important lesson Setiaji shared is that inspirational
leadership is important for the success of the From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology
(PHIVOLCS) will be rolling out a wide-area disaster prevention system to
detect volcanic and seismic activity by using seismic intensity meters and
tide indicators, as well as offering disaster countermeasures. Being on the
circum-Pacific seismic belt, The Philippines often suffers from damage caused
by active volcanoes and seismic activity. The country therefore has an urgent
need to reduce the impact of natural disasters and to improve its capacity to
respond to disasters through the enhancement of earthquake and tsunami
surveillance systems and the real-time provision of related information. The
system, scheduled to begin operating in February 2015, gathers sensor data
from the strong-motion seismographs and tide indicators located throughout
the Seismic intensity meters will be located in approximately 40 locations
and tide indicators will be located in approximately 20 locations all over
the From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Professor Goh Chee Leok, Senior Consultant Dermatologist and
Chairman of NSC’s Medical and Healthcare Informatics Committee spearheaded
the project in 1998. He said, “We are proud to be first ambulatory outpatient
care hospital to do so in From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Singapore Police Force will accelerate the posting of alerts on
social media, both on its existing Twitter account and upcoming Instagram
account, Fong Weng Kiong, Assistant Director (Policy & Development), From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
How
The National Council of Social Service (NCSS), a Singapore
government statutory board responsible for about 400 Voluntary Welfare
Organisations (VWO) highlighted the importance of leveraging data to produce
powerful insights that can help social policy makers and practitioners
improve social services. NCSS and its manpower development arm, the Social
Service Institute, gathered 400 social policy practitioners from 80 member VWOs
last week to discuss practical frameworks, methodologies and tools that
collect, manage and analyse data. NCSS believes that its member VWOs can
employ data meaningfully to identify emerging and unmet social needs, and
design or improve social service programmes. Using The School Pocket Money
Fund (SPMF) project as an example, NCSS showed how data can be mined and
analysed to optimise fund and benefit needy families. SPMF is a charity that
provides school pocket money to children and youth from low-income families.
For SPMF to extend assistance to clients effectively, its fund disbursement
policies and eligibility criteria are jointly reviewed by NCSS and SPMF
regularly. 1. Keeping social
initiatives current NCSS monitors trends in the community through surveys to ensure
SPMF remains current and relevant. In 2013, NCSS conducted a survey with
schools to better understand the after-school activities and the patterns of
expenses of students. The survey findings were revealing - compared to 2009,
students stayed back in schools on more days and longer, and hence, spent
more on food and transport. NCSS subsequently increased the monthly quantum
assistance accordingly to dispense more pocket money to the students and
their families. Secondary school students now receive $90 every month, an
almost two-fold jump from $50 in 2000. The amount of pocket money given to
needy students monthly has been steadily increasing over the years to keep
pace with the rising cost of living and basic needs. 2. Monitor impact of
social projects In addition, NCSS analyses data from SPMF’s disbursing agencies
to track how the fund is helping the clients. NCSS uses the electronic Case
Management System it developed to draw aggregate information on clients. NCSS
uses the demographic, educational and financial information of beneficiaries
and their families to gain insights on the profile, risks and needs of
low-income families with school going children and youth. Safeguards are put
in place to ensure client confidentiality and the NCSS can only draw on
aggregate information for decision-making, analyses, planning and
projections. “VWOs should capitalise on advances in technology and use smart
data tools to synthesise and make sense of the deluge of information that
they have access to. Such tools can help uncover connections and reveal
patterns that can help solve a social problem, meet a social need or even
spark a transformative innovation that can improve the lives of vulnerable
populations,” urges Tina Hung (pictured), NCSS’s Deputy CEO and Group
Director for Service Planning and Development. 3. Effective reporting
of social impact The use of data can also effectively communicate social
services’ impact to funders and donors. Communicating social impact is
important as funders and donors are increasingly seeking assurance that their
contributions are put to worthy and effective uses. NCSS published the first
impact report for the Tote Board Social Service Fund (TBSSF) this year where
the social impact of the Fund achieved between Financial Year (FY) 2010 and
FY2012 is clearly articulated. In the three years, the Tote Board injected
$160.3 million in 1,127 social service programmes and new initiatives,
including research and pilot projects across four key sectors: families in need,
children and youth, persons with disabilities and eldercare, to benefit over
285,000 individuals and families. The impact report revealed that funds
amounting to a total of $39.4 million by TBSSF in FY2010 increased to $64.8
million in FY2012. The increase of 65% in funding resulted in an additional
121 social service programmes receiving support from TBSSF, and a total of
104,000 individuals benefiting from the funded programmes in FY2012. In part
due to the unequivocal demonstration of the social outcomes, the Tote Board
has pledged $301.9 million to TBSSF for FY2013 to FY2015, the largest amount
NCSS has received from them this far. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
A record number of Singaporean senior citizens are attending an
IT workshop organised by Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA)
this week to pick up basic computer and Internet skills from students. The
Intergenerational IT Boot Camp is hosted in the computer labs of schools
where senior citizens can learn IT skills, including e-health, online health
tools and social networking from their grandchildren or student volunteers.
This week it has attracted 348 senior citizens - the highest since the
programme began in 2012. This boot camp was co-organised with the People’s
Association Active Ageing Council and Tampines Group Representation
Constituency Active Ageing Committees. The boot camp is part of IDA’s Silver
Infocomm Initiative which aims to help the elderly pick up essential IT
skills and applications in a convenient and friendly environment. Since 2010,
53 schools have co-organised 77 bootcamps and reached out to 1600 senior
citizens. In 2012, the programme was awarded for ‘Innovations in Citizen
Engagement and Dialogue’ by the Commonwealth Association for Public
Administration and Management for its contributions to the public service. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Expected to be ready by mid 2014, the second version of
Police@SG Mobile App will include a geo-tagged notification system, among
other new enhancements, Fong Weng Kiong (pictured), Assistant Director
(Policy & Development), Public Affairs Department, Singapore Police Force
(SPF) told FutureGov. The system will allow the agency to broadcast emergency
information on a location basis. “For example, if you are at a location and a
major fire breaks out, the mobile app will e-alert you and users within the
vicinity of the incident and advise all of you to move away,” said Fong.
Another feature will enable users to respond to a Police Appeal directly via
text or call through the application. Beyond this, users will see more crime
prevention and other police related information inside the app as well. The
app is already available on both iOS and Android platforms. The Police@SG app
was first launch in 2011 and has attracted more than 100,000 downloads so
far. It was designed to serve as an information portal and to crowd source
for crime-related information from the public. It provides easy access to
police information and services, such as localised crime statistics, crime information,
police stations locations and useful telephone numbers and links. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The 1. The 365 Days of Student Ivan Oon wanted to attract tourists to revisit 2. Wildlife Wonder Dian Sofia and Syam Ariffin created an interactive mobile app to
enhance the experience of visitors to the Wildlife Reserves of Singapore -
Night Safari, River Safari and Singapore Zoo. They wanted to target teenagers
and young adults by leveraging mobile technologies and social media. The
entire campaign includes viral videos and digital mascots interacting with
the public through Twitter. 3. Storigami Chua Pei En created an iPad app to better engage children in
learning. The app, designed for children aged five to 10, features a series
of classic fairytales. As a child goes through each digital story, the app
will guide him or her to fold origami versions of characters in the story.
Chua hopes that this will promote a healthy balance of digital and hands-on
learning. 4. Everybody Eat Rachell Tay and Shirley Ngiam wanted to promote family bonding
in 5. The Hawker Flame Using an interactive and attention-grabbing web site filled with
images of local food, Zhihao and Lim Si Hui aim to reignite the passion for
hawker food among the youth. The portal highlights familiar sights and sounds
of local hawker culture, such as the unique practice of ‘choping’ or
reserving the table with a packet of tissue. It also encourages users to
share photos via Instagram and Twitter. 6. Harvestack With an aim to encourage urban gardening, Sim Mei Jun and Claire
Liang created ‘Starter Kits’ for people who are interested in growing herbs
and vegetables in their own homes but may not be experienced gardeners. A
portal allows users to place their order for ‘Starter Kits’ and learn how to
take care of their plants. The site even features videos and recipes to guide
users on cooking with these herbs and vegetables. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Republic Polytechnic (RP), a tertiary institution in Popular e-Learning Holdings Limited had positive feedback about
the contribution of past batches of IIP students in enhancing the company’s
digital learning products and solutions. This factor was instrumental in the
formalisation of the agreement, which will allow both institutions to jointly
develop more innovative and vibrant e-learning solutions. “We are pleased to
collaborate with an established brand name like Popular e-Learning. We
believe that this MOU will open up new opportunities for our Infocomm
students to work with industry partners and produce work at a level relevant
to industry needs. We are also hopeful that this collaboration will pave the
way for more opportunities between RP and Popular to work together to produce
more innovative digital e-learning solutions,” said Boo Chong-Han, Director, From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Group Director, Innovation and Infocomm Technology, LTA, Rosina
Howe said, “Since early 2013, we have been working with both SBS Transit and
SMRT to define a unified transport control system which is able to relay
real-time information to the operation control centres, bus drivers and
commuters. This will be an intelligent system capable of providing timely
advisories to bus drivers through touch screens, enabling better optimisation
of the fleet resources by despatching buses to where they are needed and
disseminating more accurate bus arrival timing to benefit commuters. With
more accurate bus arrival information, commuters can better plan their
journeys and travel options.” Based in From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore has been using
its highly sophisticated and integrated Intelligent Transport System to
collect, process and disseminate real-time data, said Chang Mook Choong,
Deputy Director of Intelligent Transport Systems Development Division at the
Cities and Big Data Summit. Speaking to over 100 city administrators, Chang
described how LTA has harnessed technology to optimise the use and efficiency
of the country’s transportation infrastructure, improved safety and enhanced
the travelling experience of commuters. “LTA’s three key strategies are to
provide innovative mobility solutions, establish collaborative partnership,
as well as develop and adopt technology standards,” he said. The Agency
collects data from several sources, including road sensors, Expressway
Monitoring and Advisory System (EMAS), Green Link Determining System also
known as GLIDE which controls over 2000 traffic lights to enhance drivers’
experience, Junction Electronic Eyes, TrafficScan which uses GPS technology
on 9500 taxis to monitor road condition, Parking Guidance System, and finally
data crowdsourced from the public. “We started out with several systems, each collecting and
processing data separately. However, in order to make sense of all data, we
have now integrated all into the unified ‘i-Transport Platform’,” Chang said.
“Using a single interface, our operators can now make sense of different
sources of data. The platform fuses raw traffic data so that it can be
converted into meaningful traffic information,” he added. Once data has been
processed into information that is relevant and useful, LTA disseminates this
information via electronic signboards on the roads, web portals, its Twitter
account, radio, and mobile applications. “Data is also made available to the
industry to encourage collaboration. Companies have used the data for
navigation devices and to create new innovative applications,” concluded
Chang. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
In an exclusive interview with FutureGov, Vichai Bandasak, Mayor
of Pakkret City, a Thai city with a population of about 80,000, shares his
challenges on managing the City’s flood crisis and how technology plays a
part. The general Bandasak and his team has been using social media, particularly
Facebook, to educate the City’s residents. “The reach and engagement on
Facebook have been positive. Most of the audience consists of working adults
and students. Many of them now support the City’s cause.” Besides engaging
the people, From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
The National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre
(NECTEC), a statutory government organisation under Ministry of Science and
Technology in From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
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From
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ Innovative
Fully Integrated Cloud Based e-Health Centre Launched in Mediciti Hospitals in collaboration with Hewlett Packard (HP)
and SHARE Partnering in this innovative initiative, HP has designed the
fully integrated cloud technology and deployed its solution at the e-health
centre. The solution will connect the medical equipment deployment at the
e-health centre with an e-health cloud collect basic patient health data to
enable better medical diagnosis. The e-health centre will also provide remote
consultations using built in video conferencing options tapping into
specialist experts worldwide. Using HP’s cloud-enabled healthcare solutions,
now it is possible to provide
health services for local people. Millions of people in Dr Krishnaiah, CEO, Mediciti Institute of Medical Sciences said,
“Providing access to quality healthcare in rural areas is the main goal and
Aliabad e-health centre is one step forward in this direction. We thank
Hewlett Packard and CSIR for providing innovative technology to support our
initiatives.” The eHC health cloud integrates the process of healthcare
delivery and health data collection. This centralized patient information
sets the platform for data-driven research such as disease surveillance by
tracking disease patterns and risk factors. The health profile of the region
as well as monitoring of the daily usage of the eHC is enabled by an
integrated eHC dashboard, providing comprehensive yet digestible analytics
that will help health policy makers. From
http://www.pharmabiz.com/ Six months ago, 34-year-old Gouri Shankar, a US-based techie,
decided to return to his village. And he didn’t come empty-handed. After
spending eight years abroad, he launched a company to introduce “We have integrated features based on the needs of farmers,”
Shankar said. The e-kisaan tablet will provide information on fertilisers,
pesticides, seeds, crop combinations and other farming parameters, besides
providing real-time weather data and enabling access to e-governance
platforms. Various e-governance schemes come integrated into the software.
For instance, Sakala – the right to delivery – can be directly accessed
through the software. For Internet connectivity, the company has collaborated
with Airtel 3G services, which will provide data for free for the first six
months to the tune of 5 MB per day per table. When offline, the tablet can be
used to access information from the village panchayat office to which it is
connected. The team has also established a call centre to resolve problems.
“After initial feedback from farmers through the call centre and also from
our partners, we will roll out the second phase of the project,” Shankar
said, adding the software will soon be made available on Android. From
http://indianexpress.com/ National
Launch of Post Office Savings Bank ATM and Core Banking-postal Life Insurance India Posts is operating small savings schemes since 1882.
Presently, the following seven schemes are being offered- Savings Account,
Recurring Deposit, Time Deposit, Monthly Income Account Scheme, Senior
Citizens’ Savings Scheme, Public Provident Fund and National Savings
Certificates (VIII and IXth Issue). The total number of accounts of Small
Savings Schemes is 29.89 crores. The Department of Posts has undertaken an
end to end ‘IT Modernization project 2012′ to equip itself with requisite
modern tools and technologies. In order to IT enable Post Office Savings
Bank, Core Banking Solution (CBS) is being implemented across Core Banking Solution (CBS) will enable customers to operate
their accounts and avail account related services from any post office in the
country. ‘Anywhere Anytime Banking’, Net-banking, RTGS, NEFT shall be
available for the Post office customer. The objective of CBS is to provide
faster and easier banking services through internet, mobile devices and ATMs.
The Post Office ATM will facilitate the customer to withdraw money anytime.
The ATM at Indraprastha Head Post Office and Delhi GPO will be replicated in
1000 locations across the country in the next few months. This will be scaled
upto 2800 ATMs by 2015. A total of 600 Post offices in From
http://egov.eletsonline.com/ Biocon
Launches e-Healthcare Programme in Odisha Biocon has started an e-healthcare program for the
underprivileged and rural communities in the Odisha in collaboration with the
state government. Biotech major’s CSR arm Biocon Foundation along with state
government and OTTET (Orissa Trust of Technical Education) has launched the
scheme to deliver e-healthcare program for underprivileged and rural
communities, the biotech firm said in a statement. The scheme will be
implemented under the public private partnership (PPP) model. This
e-healthcare program aims to provide quality healthcare services for the
51,000 villages in Odisha. Canara bank has lent its support to the scheme and
MoU has been signed for that. The official statement reads that, “Under this
PPP, Biocon Foundation & OTTET will set up an electronic diagnostic
facility, an e-Health Centre, managed by local young entrepreneurs, at all
the Primary Health Centers (PHC) of the Odisha government.” Young entrepreneurs will be provided financial assistance by the
Canara Bank and will be trained by Biocon Foundation & OTTET to support
the medical officer at the PHC for various healthcare and diagnostic
services. Commenting on the development Biocon Chairperson Kiran
Mazumdar-Shaw said:” We aim to strengthen the present public healthcare
delivery system in Odisha, by providing solutions around primary &
secondary healthcare with effective use of technology From
http://egov.eletsonline.com/ Now, e-Aadhaar or electronic-Aadhaar will be considered an
official valid document for opening a bank account, rules RBI. How to use
e-Aadhaar at banks. An e-Aadhaar is an electronically generated document that
contains an image of your Aadhaar card and a letter from the Unique
Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The letter issued by UIDAI, which
gives your details such as name, address and Aadhaar number, will now be
accepted as a valid identity proof when you go to open a bank account. The
central bank has also told banks that if the address provided by the customer
is the same as that on the Aadhaar letter, it can be accepted as a proof of
both identity and address. Let’s say you only know your Aadhaar number or
have a soft copy of e-Aadhaar with you when you go to a bank branch to open
an account. The bank will be responsible for printing your e-Aadhaar letter
directly from the UIDAI portal, or adopt the e-KYC
(electronic-know-your-customer) procedure or confirm identity and address of
the resident through simple authentication service of UIDAI. This is now
possible as RBI said in the same circular that it has decided to accept e-KYC
service as a valid process for KYC verification. Axis Bank Ltd is the only bank
that have already started using e-KYC. It is an
authentication process provided by UIDAI. With an Aadhaar number and
biometric authentication, you can open a bank account without carrying any
photocopies of other identification documents with you. All you need is your
Aadhaar number and fingerprints. Remember that physical Aadhaar card
containing details of name, address and Aadhaar number received through post
will continue to be accepted as a valid document. How to download e-Aadhaar
You will first have to visit the UIDAI website (https://eaadhaar.uidai.gov.in
). You can either use your enrollment number or your Aadhaar number to get
your e-Aadhaar. Besides the number, you will have to key in your full name
and the pin code. If you only have your enrollment number, you will also have
to put the date and time of issue and your mobile number to get a one-time
password. However, if you have the Aadhaar number, the system will
automatically pick your mobile number and send you a one-time password. Once
you enter this password, you can download the e-aadhaar document, which will
be in PDF format. Use your postal code to open the file. If you have your
Aadhaar number, but have not registered your mobile number, then you have to
use your enrollment number which is available on your Aadhaar card or your
receipt. From
http://egov.eletsonline.com/ Reliance Jio
to Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited will launch its services across The mission therefore, is to provide anytime, anywhere access to
innovative and empowering digital content, applications and services, thereby
propelling From
http://egov.eletsonline.com/ As internet users are expected to increase from 214 million
currently to 494 million by 2018, online services market is likely to double
to $29 billion in the next three years. Internet companies are investing to
develop the market which will result in a larger active base and higher
online usage. The e-commerce or online retail segment will be the
fastest-growing one over the next few years, and online travel, which
includes rail, air and hotel segments, is the most mature segment. Moreover,
as digital advertising is expected to grow three times by 2018, digital media
will present an opportunity to engage specific target segments in a more
cost-effective way. A Morgan Stanley analysis says that leading e-commerce companies
have been doubling their gross revenues every two years and are expected to
grow at around 40-50% per annum over the next three years to touch $8.5
billion for the top three companies. Interestingly, 80% of e-commerce in From
http://www.financialexpress.com/
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Attaching a high importance to education, science and
innovations, From
http://en.trend.az/
Growth
of Cloud Technology Usage Recorded in A growth was recorded in the number of organisations and
enterprises using 'cloud' technology in From
http://en.trend.az/
Bakcell
Launches SMS Notification Tool for Emergency Situations Bakcell, the First Mobile Operator and The Leading Mobile
internet Provider of Azerbaijan is pleased announcing development of SMS
notification jointly with the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan
Republic, the company said on March 19. The project aiming at mitigation of
public safety concerns in emergency situations is being implemented in The customers do not need to activate any service in their
phones or to pay to receive the SMS. This is the first-ever location and time
based SMS alert available in Bakcell inform that the SMS notification tool has been
successfully tested and is fully ready for implementation. Bakcell, The First
Mobile Operator and the Leading Mobile Internet Provider of Azerbaijan,
offers a variety of products for modern mobile communications customers.
Bakcell provides class leading 3G mobile internet experience in the country
under the Sür@ brand name. As one of the largest national non-oil investors, Bakcell
today continues making large investments in the economy of From
http://en.trend.az/
A list of electronic services rendered in From
http://en.trend.az/
Mobile
Operator Prepares to Launch Cable Television in Azerbaijani mobile operator Azerfon is preparing to introduce a
"NarHome" product, which involves provision of broadband services
on the principle of "Fibre to home" according to the general
director of the company, Kent McNeley.
The company will also provide cable TV services (under the NarTV brand
name) together with B&B TV Communications company in the framework of
this project, according to McNeley.
"At present, details on the deployment of TV services are at the
stage of discussion" McNealy said. "At the initial stage, the
"NarHome" project will start in From
http://en.trend.az/
Speaking to Trend on April 21 the public relations specialist at
Azerbaijani Transport Ministry's From
http://en.trend.az/
E-Signature
Tariffs Decrease in Azerbaijani Communications and High Technologies Ministry has
reduced the cost of electronic-digital signature, the ministry said on
Wednesday, April 30. The cost of an e-signature for citizens was reduced from
30 manats to 18 manats; for individuals and legal entities engaged in
entrepreneurship the e-signature costs 36 manats and 72 manats respectively.
Previously, the e-signatures' cost for legal entities and individuals was 168
manats. The cost of the e-signatures for employees of the state institutions
remained unchanged at 80 manats. The new tariffs for e-signature envisage a
three-year period of use, according to the message. Upon receipt of the
signature the users will be given a card reader. A digital signature can be
obtained throughout From
http://en.trend.az/
Uzbekistan`s mobile operators can upgrade to an eight digit
number format for mobile subscribers in mid-2014, General Director of Unitel
LLC, a subsidiary of JSC VimpelCom in Uzbekistan, Alexander Vorobyov told
journalists on March 11. "As far as I know, the programme will be
launched from the middle of this year," he said. The company has set
high hopes on the eight-digit substitute of numbering capacity as it will
improve the quality of communication, according to Vorobyov. Earlier, the
operator reported that its subscriber capacity utilisation reached 90 percent
and in some regions of From
http://en.trend.az/
A resolution of the State Committee for Communication,
Information and Telecommunication Technologies has entered into force in From
http://en.trend.az/
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Crucial
reforms to Australia’s Privacy Act 1988 come into action today (March 12) to
better regulate the handling of personal information by Australian Government
agencies and the private sector, including all private health service
providers. The changes include a new harmonised set of Australian Privacy
Principles - replacing the two sets of principles that applied separately to
the public and private sectors previously. Moreover, the Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) now has the power to conduct a
privacy performance assessment and, in the case of serious or repeated
breaches, seek civil penalties. “These are the most significant changes to
privacy laws in over 25 years and affect a large section of the community.
The world has changed remarkably since the late 1980s when the Privacy Act
was introduced and so the changes were required to bring our laws up to date
with contemporary information handling practices, including global data
flows,” explained Australian Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim. The new laws
require government agencies and businesses to be more transparent about how
they handle personal information. Organisations have to clearly express and
update their privacy policies about the way they handle personal information.
A recent survey on community attitudes to privacy by OAIC revealed that 23
per cent have not dealt with a government agency because of concerns on how
their personal data will be used. Pilgrim added that the OAIC’s focus in the
following months “will be on working with entities to ensure that they
understand the new requirements and have the systems in place to meet them”. From http://www.futuregov.asia
Australian
Government Farmers
affected by drought are encouraged to visit Mobile Service Centre ‘Desert
Pea’ when it is in central west Payne said
staff on board the Mobile Service Centre have extensive experience in rural
servicing and understand the needs of people living in rural and regional
communities. “In fact, the original Mobile Service Centres were known as the
‘drought buses’ and came into service in 2006 as a drought response measure,”
Payne said. “Since 2009, the Mobile Service Centres have travelled over
300,000km to 1400 rural and regional communities across the country and
helped more than 50,000 people access Centrelink, Medicare, Australian
Hearing and Child Support information, payments and services.” From http://www.futuregov.asia
Australian
Health Department Upgrades Online Application System for Over-the-Counter
Medicine The
Therapeutic Goods Administration under the Australian Department of Health
has upgraded its over-the-counter medicines online application system to simplify
the application process for businesses. Made available online yesterday, the
new system enables applicants to submit their dossier and covering letter
online, instead of on paper. The Department expects to cut down application
processing time with the upgraded portal. For example, an evaluation of a
C2-type or low risk medicine application will fall from 105 working days to
90 working days. The team targets to complete initial evaluation of C2-type
applications within 60 working days. The upgraded
system provides the following new features: # built-in
validation ‘rules’ that provide prompts on information that is required to be
submitted with an application # clear
prompts as to the supporting documents required for each application category # the ability
to submit supporting documentation as electronic attachments directly through
the system # enhanced
visibility to the applicant of the status of their application from the date
of submission until finalisation. From http://www.futuregov.asia
The
Australian Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) have released a new Case
Formulation e-learning programme to assist clinicians prioritise multiple
conditions and adopt a case formulation and treatment planning approach with
their clients. Launched by the the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Senator
the Hon. Michael Ronaldson yesterday, the e-learning programme together with
the other existing resources are developed to support the mental health and
well-being of the new generation of Australian veterans and their families.
They are available to all mental health providers, and deliver insight into
the unique veteran experience and the specific mental health issues veterans
face. DVA offers a range of free online training programmes to increase the
knowledge and skills of mental health providers who treat serving and
ex-serving personnel. “The mental health of veterans is a key priority for
the Coalition Government and part of this is ensuring that mental health
practitioners are able to respond to the needs of contemporary veterans,”
Senator Ronaldson said. “Veterans
commonly present with comorbid disorders and complex needs that require
careful treatment planning. Military personnel have a unique occupational
experience. Addressing the mental health needs of veterans is a challenge not
only for DVA, but for all governments as well as for veterans and their
families. It is clear to me that early intervention is undoubtedly the surest
way to minimise the risk of escalating symptoms which in the worst cases can
lead to tragic loss of life. I am pleased that we have been able to partner
with tertiary institutions, like the Australian Centre for Posttraumatic
Mental Health, in developing these evidence-based resources. The ongoing
development of new resources and professional tools means that mental health
providers are much better prepared to recognise mental health problems,
intervene early and provide effective treatments,” Senator Ronaldson
concluded. For further information on Online Case Formulation Training
Programme and other veteran mental health related education programmes,
please go to the At Ease website. From http://www.futuregov.asia
ICT
Skills Shortage, What Shortage? Offshoring
has decimated the local ICT jobs market. On the
oversupply in the market, Clarius Group CEO Kym Quick says growth in
offshoring IT services accelerated during 2013, up by a “staggering 20%” over
the year, but that there are signs the project and employment tide is
turning. “Monthly imports of computers and similar devices were much stronger
in the first two months of 2014 compared to last year signalling a step up in
IT sector investment. Business and governments across the board have reduced
investment in new technology and IT. Australian businesses took advantage of
the high Aussie dollar which underwrote their use of foreign suppliers of ICT
services. But we’re beginning to see a lift in project activity in the first
half of 2014. Industry sectors showing positive signs include the transition
by business and government to Cloud and mobility solutions, particularly in
banking, finance, and health, digitisation and app development. There is also
an increase in demand for data centres, and due to the demand for space which
is expensive in all CBDs, there will be further opportunities in rural and
outer suburbs.” According to
Quick, app development is driven by demand for smartphones, tablets, smart
watches, in-car technology and in-flight technology. “ ACT • Candle has
had a 34% in job opportunities in the March quarter for senior positions
including project managers, business analysts, architects and senior
developers for a variety of federal government projects • Most
demand is for contractors but this may be offsetting jobs lost by retrenched
public servants • Telco’s
and other large vendors supplying government departments are ramping up
projects. NSW • In NSW
demand is increasing in Continuous Integration and Release Engineers in the
Financial Sector, specifically in core banking and financial trading •
Infrastructure Engineers in the IT consulting space with high level design
experience across Exchange and Active Directory are in demand as
consultancies engage in large scale projects with various NSW Government
Departments • Skills in
project management have been in high demand this quarter – a good sign that
large and more complex projects are getting off the ground. •
Queensland’s healthcare sector has been the most active with sought after
skills being PHP developers, help desk, web designers, architects, systems
testers, business systems analysts
and specific SAP skills • While
further opportunities will arise in health, management services, consulting
and in cloud based expertise, the move to offshoring and outsourcing has
adversely impacted the industry • Salaries
remain flat with contractor rates reducing by about 10 per cent in 2013.
Hours have reduced from 40.0 to 36.25 hours for some. Clients are looking at
flexibility to reduce costs. • Most
activity in • The
contract market is improving while the permanent market remains consistent • The market
has seen an increase in business analyst work, help desk support and in the
development space – both in infrastructure and programs • Two
significant IT roll outs are taking place in 2014 – deployment of the SA
Health EPAS project in the Royal Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth hospitals. Both
will need more contractors, largely in the development space. • The market
is starting to move across a range of skills requirements with a continued
increase in the demand for software developers particularly with .Net skills • The most
activity is at the top end of the market in the Telco, Healthcare, Insurance
and Education (Tertiary) sectors • Other
skills categories in demand are data analysis and SQL reporting – SSRS,
network engineers for VMware and Cisco, and Citrix Cloud based technologies • • WA has not
experienced a resurgence in ICT opportunities in 2014. While a number of oil
and gas projects are proceeding, many are behind schedule • Mining is
slow, but with the Roy Hill mine and some smaller projects outside of iron
ore, demand may start to grow in the latter parts of 2014 • Business
is particular about who it hires in the project management space due to the
diverse range of demands. There’s a large pool of professionals resetting
their rates following long term mining contracts • Demand for
back-end help and service desk staff with experience remains high as is
demand for SharePoint and .Net developers. From http://www.itwire.com
‘Digital
Revolution’ Driving Rise in ICT Jobs Demand There’s
encouraging signs that "Demand
is strong for Data Analysts, those with specialist skills in Business
Intelligence and Cloud-based operations, as well as for Business Analysts and
Project Managers focussing on turning big data into opportunities."
According to the Peoplebank survey, most salaries and rates were unchanged,
continuing a trend of static remuneration that has persisted for more than a
year, and Acheson says that with many projects in the pipeline, businesses
may need to offer rate and salary increases to attract key skills later in
2014. "Interestingly, there are also early signs of ICT hires being made
by business units, rather than the organisation's ICT department. The
implications of this trend include that industry professionals will
increasingly need to speak the language of marketing and other disciplines to
advance their careers." Table -
Comparative Sample of Row 1 -
April 2014 Row 2 - Jan
2014 Row 3 –
November 2013 Row 4 -
March 2013
From http://www.itwire.com
Slipping
Australian Education Under Threat from Reduced ICT Spending Australian
higher education is going through a nightmare downward spiral, with declining
standards, decreased revenues and a corresponding decrease in ICT spending.
What’s more the already dismal scenario is forecast to get even worse in the
immediate future, according to a new report. Overall Australian education
standards, revenue from Higher Education institutions and ICT-enabled
spending for education have been slipping, particularly in comparison to
other developed global economies and a number of key East Asian countries
including The
education sector, Emilie
Ditton, Head, A/P Vertical Markets, IDC Australia, adds that education
spending and investment, while always highly politicized, is receiving a
great deal of focus in Australia in 2014 as a consequence of the downward
trajectory of outcomes, particularly in the K-12 segment. “However, the
conversation in From http://www.itwire.com
The New
Zealand Government unveiled today an online tool called StatsMaps, that uses
data derived from the 2013 Census to visualise and help users have a deeper
understanding of New Zealand, and the changes in its economy, environment and
society. StatMaps features information on: the five main ethnic groups in From http://www.futuregov.asia
From http://www.futuregov.asia
Online Service to
Identify Blocked Phones Launched The New
Zealand Telecommunications Forum (TCF) has launched an online service that
allows mobile phone users to check whether a handset has been blocked from
use on The service
is free and can be used by From http://www.computerworld.co.nz ICT
Candidate Market Dries Up as Professionals Seek Lucrative Contracts A skills
shortage is being felt in With this
new found local confidence, the off-shore flow of IT talent has reversed and
Kiwi professionals are coming home from The report
says the flexibility of From http://www.ict.org.nz
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EUROPE:
The government has launched its Cyber Essentials scheme to
provide "clarity to organisations on what good cyber security practice
is" and to "set out the steps they need to follow to manage cyber
risks". Once organisations have been independently assessed against the
best practice recommendations they can apply for the "Cyber Essentials
award". The government said this will demonstrate to potential customers
that businesses have achieved a certain level of cyber security, and that
they take it seriously. The new scheme is applicable to not only businesses,
but also universities, charities and public bodies, said the government.
Universities and science minister David Willetts said: "Cyber Essentials
is an easy to use and cost effective way to help businesses and the public
sector protect themselves against the risks of operating online. "Organisations will now be able to easily demonstrate they
are 'cyber safe' - reassuring their clients, boosting confidence and
profitability. I encourage all organisations to adopt it." David Booth,
managing director of the Information Assurance for SMEs (IASME) body, said:
"We welcome this initiative, which fills an important gap in enabling
organisations, particularly SMEs, to understand the most important technical
aspects of cyber security protection. It fits nicely into IASME's wider
governance approach to information assurance for small companies." The
scheme is being funded by the government through the National Cyber Security
Programme. Organisations can self-assess themselves now, and from this summer
will also be able to apply to be assessed and gain formal certification,
leading to the award of a Cyber Essentials badge. The scheme has been
developed following consultation with the British Standards Institution
(BSI), IASME, the Information Security Forum (ISF), as well as businesses and
professional bodies. From
http://news.idg.no/
NORTH
AMERICA: Here’s a roundup counting down 10 concerns he has with the
public cloud. 10. Shared technology vulnerabilities For Russinovich, one of the difficulties of the public cloud is
that everyone using it has shared technology vulnerabilities. If a breach of
the cloud were to happen, that would look bad for every cloud vendor. “We’d
be notifying people, cleaning up, and bringing things back online,” he said.
“But to customers, it’d be a big public cloud fail.” For one thing, there’s
no firewall attached to the public cloud, and there’s a huge variety of data
in the public cloud up for grabs, if hackers were to gain access to it.
Luckily, however, the public cloud is better at responding to threats, since
most businesses recognize how risky it would be to fail to defend it.
Businesses need to be aware they can’t wait for patches if they know about a
vulnerability – instead, they need to automate software deployment, ensure
they have strong detection tools for breaches, and be determined to preserve
their customers’ trust. 9. Insufficient due diligence There’s a lot of talk nowadays about shadow IT, where employees
come up with their own IT solutions and bring them to work. One of the most
popular of these is the cloud. Russinovich said he’d even like to coin a
phrase for it – like the bring-your-own-device trend, or BYOD, he’d name it
BYOIT – bring-your-own-IT. What IT departments need to do is to help their
organizations’ employees with implementing the cloud and ensure they’re
complying with security best practices, he added. 8. Abuse of cloud services While having a public cloud can be helpful, businesses run the
risk of attackers taking it over and using it as a malware platform, or
becoming botmasters taking advantage of trusted IP addresses. The public
cloud can also be used as storage for illegal content, like copyrighted
content being stored through 7. Malicious insiders When hiring employees who will be able to access data within the
organization, there’s always the danger they may walk away with sensitive
data, Russinovich said. He put up a picture of former National Security
Agency contractor Edward Snowden on his presentation slide. “It’s a real
risk, better understood by third-party audits,” he said. Ways to mitigate
this risk include doing employee background checks, as well as security
controls on what data each employee can access. 6. Denial of service (DOS) Whether this happens through an attack – like a distributed
denial of service (DDoS), or through an outage, customers don’t really care,
Russinovich said. What they do care about is whether cloud providers are
responsible. For example, in August 2011, a lightning storm brought down the
clouds for Amazon and Microsoft in 5. Insecure interfaces and application programming interfaces
(APIs) As the public cloud is still so new, a lot of APIs will crop up
– and not all of them are particularly secure. Organizations need to ensure
their APIs use strong cryptography, for example, Russinovich said. 4. Account hijacking and service traffic hijacking It’s been said time and time again, but organizations need to
ensure their employees’ accounts are using strong passwords. While it’s not a
problem unique to the public cloud, there’s a lot of data at stake,
Russinovich said. He added IT administrators need to turn off any unused
endpoints, and that they need to ensure their employees are trained to avoid
opening strange attachments or clicking on suspicious links. 3. Data loss Whether this happens because someone accidentally deletes or
modifies data so it can’t be accessed, or if an attacker steals it or uses
ransomware to encrypt it until he or she is sent a sum of money, this is
definitely a problem for the public cloud, Russinovich said. And of course,
there’s always the chance an organization could lose data through a natural
disaster – for example, a flood or hurricane destroying its servers.
Russinovich says companies should mitigate this danger by setting up backups,
as well as geo-redundant storage. There’s also the practice of deleted
resource tombstoning – by ensuring it’s possible to recover deleted data by
removing a tombstone, organizations can return data to their customers. “This
is something we’ve learned through painful lessons,” Russinovich said. 2. Data breaches While this appears to be a very general heading, Russinovich
said it’s an important one. “Data is at the heart of the matter. The data is
the company. If there’s no data, there’s no company,” he said. “It’s the most
important asset, so there’s the highest risk of loss.” For example, if an
attacker gains access to data’s physical media – for example, a disc holding
the data – that’s a problem. A fix might be to encrypt that data and to set
up extensive physical controls, like a strict rule not to allow any employees
to take data out of a data centre. Or, an organization might make a rule
saying any discs that are no longer used should be crushed by a
disc-destroying machine. At Microsoft Azure, no data is allowed to leave the
building, and the company also uses third-party certifications like FedRamp
to ensure its employees are handling the data properly. 4. Self-awareness In giving his presentation at the RSA conference, Russinovich
asked the audience whether they could hazard a guess to his final concern on
the public cloud. No one could, but he said as the public cloud grows more
and more sophisticated, the data in that cloud may take over and we may stop
focusing on what we need to do to secure it. “This is new technology. We’re
learning as we go,” he said. From
http://www.itbusiness.ca/
Canadians
Confident, Concerned About Cyber Attacks: Study More needs to be done to raise Canadian exec awareness, says
vendor. Leaders of Canadian organizations are more confident than American,
British and Australian they can beat back targeted Internet attacks,
according to a new survey. The study, paid for by BAE Systems, which sells
security and data solutions for governments, carriers and the transportation
industry, showed that Canadians were the most confident when asked if their
company and their sector were well equipped to prevent targeted cyber
attacks. The vast majority – 92 per cent — were confident in their
organization’s ability to prevent targeted attacks compared to 88 per cent of
respondents overall. A similar majority (90%) were confident in their
sector’s ability to prevent attacks versus 78% overall. Respondents were 350 strategic and IT decision makers in the In a news release BAE said Canadians have a “curious combination
of confidence and concern” on IT security. Canadian respondents were least
likely to be confident when asked about their board of directors’ grasp of
cyber threats, with a significant proportion of Canadian respondents (36 per
cent) saying they did not believe that their boards fully understood the
risks. Another way Canadians differed from respondents from other countries
was when they were asked which groups were most likely to mount a targeted
cyber attack. Canadian respondents chose hobbyist hackers (60 per cent) as
the top ranking threat, compared to 46 per cent internationally. By contrast, each of the other countries ranked organized groups
of fraudsters as the chief threat group (55 per cent of respondents
internationally), compared to 48 per cent of Canadian respondents. “The
research demonstrates there is a growing attentiveness of the increasing
cyber threat,” Martin Sutherland, managing director of BAE Systems Applied
Intelligence, said in a statement, ”but more work needs to be done to raise
awareness levels across Canadian organizations of the unique risks inherent
in a coordinated cyber attack. We are now seeing a dangerous combination of
organized criminal groups using highly-sophisticated cyber techniques to
carry out financial crime on an industrialized scale.” From
http://www.itworldcanada.com/
Malware
from Spying on Governments Now Used in Cybercrime, Sophos Says Advanced persistent threats (APTs), once the province of hackers
hired to spy on foreign governments and to gather intelligence, are no longer
a rarity in the world of cybercrime – cybercriminals are now using them to
make money, according to new research from security solutions provider Sophos
Ltd. In a blog post from Sophos Labs, security researcher Gabor Szappanos
wrote that in early 2013, hackers were using exploits in Microsoft Office
with DOC, XLS, and RTF files to launch targeted attacks. Typically, patches
would eventually appear and the attacks would no longer be effective. But
then, these attacks began spreading from the APT community and into the
bigger world of cybercrime. At first, Sophos researchers only observed classic APT malware
families, but in March 2013, they began spotting Zeus malware in the wild.
With this kind of malware, attackers use bots and zombies to steal banking
credentials, like usernames, passwords, and the access codes used in the
two-step authentication process when people log into their bank accounts. And
there seem to be more attacks on companies that wouldn’t have been expected
to be targets in the past, Szappanos wrote. He pointed to Sophos’ collection
of different samples of malware, scooped up from voluntary detection reports
from Sophos product users, Google’s VirusTotal malware submission program,
and collections from other security organizations. All told, Sophos researchers uncovered about 34,250 detection
reports of malware from 4,335 “booby-trapped” documents, belonging to 86
different malware families. “A much larger user population is now being
targeted and infected by the set of exploits listed above.When a small number
of people end up infected by a narrowly-focused attack mounted by artisan
operatives in an intelligence service, that damages our economy,” Szappanos
wrote in his post. “When a large number of people end up infected by
industrial-scale plunderers from the cyberunderworld, that damages our
economy even more heavily. Sadly, these two sorts of digital criminality are
no longer as compartmentalised as they used to be.” For organizations and
consumers looking to protect themselves, they should search for an anti-virus
solution that includes an HIPS detection feature, Szappanos wrote. Plus,
organizations should turn on APT protection features to prevent malware from
communicating with outside attackers, and they should use tools that will
assess their patches to make sure they’re not missing any updates. From
http://www.itbusiness.ca/
The Canadian agency says its findings of asset misuse and ethics
breaches are not related to national security information, the privacy of
Canadians or the continuing construction of CSEC's elaborate new Nor would he say when the matter came to CSEC's attention, or
when were the corrective steps were taken. "They basically tell you
nothing," said Liberal public safety critic Wayne Easter. NDP defence
critic Jack Harris said the response "shows an unwillingness to be
up-front with the public." "It just seems to me to be a public-relations
response which doesn't do much to inspire trust and confidence,
frankly," Harris said in an interview. "If they're hoping to
inspire public trust in their agency, it would be in their interest to
provide a little bit more disclosure here so that we'd have some sense of
what was going on." The federal whistleblowing law, the Public Servants
Disclosure Protection Act, allows employees a confidential means of informing
superiors about serious wrongdoing in the workplace. If a resulting investigation
confirms improper acts, the senior official of an agency or department, such
as CSEC chief John Forster, can suspend, demote or fire an employee. Other
legal penalties may also apply. In addition, the senior official must
"provide public access" to information about the wrongdoing and any
corrective action taken, the government says. CSEC's values and ethics code —
released to The Canadian Press after repeated requests — spells out detailed
procedures for reporting suspected malfeasance. "In this case, allegations of employee wrongdoing were
reported, investigated and addressed through these established
procedures," Foreman said. In addition, he noted, CSEC employees may
report allegations of employee wrongdoing to Jean-Pierre Plouffe, the independent
watchdog who keeps an eye on the agency. Easter, who advocates creation of a
full-fledged national security committee of parliamentarians, said the
finding of wrongdoing at CSEC — and the lack of public information about it —
underscores the need for such a review body. "We do not have the checks
and balances in place in this country that other countries do with their
oversight agencies." Classified material leaked by Snowden showed that
the U.S. National Security Agency, CSEC's American counterpart, had quietly
obtained access to a broad sweep of emails, chat logs and other information
from major Internet companies, as well as data about a huge volume of
telephone calls. The revelations have sparked widespread concern among
privacy and civil liberties advocates. Documents Snowden handed to
journalists also indicated that From
http://www.thecanadianpress.com/
Majority
of Cyber Attacks Coming from Legitimate Sites - Report Hackers and cybercriminals are becoming savvier, with the bulk
of their attacks now aimed at specific targets, according to a new report
from security solutions provider Websense Inc. Instead of launching Hail
Mary-esque attacks and trying to snare people with pleas for help from
Nigerian princes, many attackers are now reacting to organizations’ defenses
and finding ways around them by using exploit kits or command and control
servers. Using Websense’s Threat Intelligence Cloud, researchers found about
85 per cent of malicious links in web or email attacks actually came from
legitimate websites that had been compromised. Hackers are also gearing their
attacks towards specific populations by geographic region or political
boundary, or going after people in specific groups or with particular
business functions. And sometimes, they target just one person, going after
him or her for that individual’s strategic value. All of this says hackers
are becoming wiser about who they attack. However, for this year’s report, Websense came up with a threat
model called “the kill chain,” which outlines seven stages of an attack:
recon, lure, redirect, exploit kit, dropper file, call home, and ultimately,
data theft. The goal of the model is to help organizations understand they
can defend themselves at every stage. he key is to tap into the psychology of
a cybercriminal, says Charles Renert, vice-president of research and
technology. “The most important aspect of defeating threats is understanding
how they are made, how they are achieving the attacker’s end, and therefore
how to stop them based on those motivations,” says Renert, who co-authored
the report. “The kill chain views, from start to finish, not just the
techniques that are used, but why they are used. And it is that understanding
that future-proofs an organization against the next attack.” For example, the
first stage of the kill chain is recon, where hackers look for “lures” and
try to infiltrate an organization’s network to get data, with the whole
campaign basically being a reconnaissance exercise. One common way to trap
victims is to send a phishing lure over social media. Later, hackers may
stage more campaigns to get more personal or corporate data. To stop an attack at this first stage, organizations need to
ensure their employees are educated and are aware that hackers may be
targeting them. “The secret to fighting the later, more dangerous stages of
the attack model is to catch the early warning signs that recon can reveal at
the apparatus level. Paying attention to all security events and performing
due diligence can expose the true intent of even the most seemingly basic
events,” the researchers wrote in their report. “Recognizing that attackers
will achieve some level of success at every stage, aggressively monitoring
such early-stage activity can help you determine whether a multi-stage attack
might be forming.” However, there are still stages where attackers are very
hard to block – for example, the fourth stage focuses on exploit kits. Once
users click on links to compromised websites, hackers will use exploit kits
like Black Hole, Magnitude, or Neutrino to scan users’ systems and pull out
data about known and zero-day vulnerabilities. Once they find a
vulnerability, hackers can install malware, like key logging software, making
it easier for them to pick up even more valuable data. There’s also stage five, “dropper file,” where cybercriminals
install command and control software to bypass traditional defenses created
by security solutions providers. For example, they might evade defenses by
installing use-time delays, so scanners don’t notice them until later, when
they’ve already exhibited malicious behaviour. Or they might check for human
interaction or clues this is a virtual environment, giving them more
information about whether they’ve managed to actually get into an
organization’s network. Nor do traditional security solutions providers
monitor enough of their outbound communications through the Secure Socket
Layer (SSL), Renert says. Instead, most of them only scan inbound
communications – which isn’t enough given today’s advanced persistent threats
(APTs). “Security is always a move and response phenomenon. When
attackers try a technique, the security industry responds with a way to
defeat it, which then promotes a new technique from the attackers,” Renert
says. For example, he adds the security industry used to focus on
signature-based approaches to stop attackers. While that might have worked at
one point, nowadays, it’s not enough to prevent APTs, he says. In fact, more
than 90 per cent of the attacks Websense has detected are using other methods
besides signature-based approaches. It’s not easy to defend against hackers
in the fifth and sixth stages of the kill chain, but organizations need to
try to intercept them every chance they get, Renert says. “At any point along
the progression of an attack, it’s a moment to protect,” he says. “You need
protection across all of the stages.” From
http://www.itworldcanada.com/
The National Guard has a critical role to play in coordinating
cyber-resources across federal, state and local governments. A $46 billion
annual business of protecting infrastructure from cyberattacks largely
revolves around the federal government. But within the past year, efforts
have ramped up to bring federal-level cybertools and resources to state and
local governments — and the National Guard may be the vehicle for driving
that collaboration. The feds have been trying to go at cybersecurity alone
for years, but they’re finally coming around and including states and
localities, said Heather Hogsett, director of the National Governors
Association’s (NGA) homeland security and public safety committee. Last year,
the NGA backed a bill called the Cyber Warrior Act of 2013, which would have
directed the Department of Defense to establish “Cyber and Computer Network
Incident Response” teams composed of National Guard members in each state.
Although the measure failed to pass last year, it drew attention to the
issue. And state-level efforts — like the National Guard’s cyberteam in Congress is hearing from lower governments on the cyberissue.
Last September, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder briefed Congress on the NGA’s
cybersecurity efforts, emphasizing the importance of state government’s
growing role. During the event, Snyder released a paper called Act and
Adjust: A Call to Action for Governors for Cybersecurity, a-six page document
outlining recommendations for states that want to improve their
cybersecurity. Snyder also released a piece of software, now being tested in “The National Guard is unique in the fact that it can serve both
the governors and the president. It’s the only military service that can do
that,” she said. “Both the federal government and states have pretty widely
put out there that there’s a shortage of trained, qualified personnel to help
perform cybersecurity functions.” And the National Guard is in a perfect
position to recruit skilled private-sector professionals to assist the
government with cybersecurity. Concerned IT professionals wouldn’t need to
join the guard, Hogsett said — they could just help during their free time
because the National Guard has the ability to do that. The National Guard is
trusted, well known and cost-efficient, she added. “For the cost of a single
active-duty soldier, you can essentially provide two to three National Guard
members,” she said. “It’s a really solid resource that we believe can and
should be better leveraged.” The timeline on this isn’t five or 10 years, she
said — this is more likely something that could happen in the next 12 to 18
months. Although the measure failed to pass last year, it drew attention to
the issue. And state-level efforts — like the National Guard’s cyberteam in Congress is hearing from lower governments on the cyberissue.
Last September, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder briefed Congress on the NGA’s
cybersecurity efforts, emphasizing the importance of state government’s
growing role. During the event, Snyder released a paper called Act and
Adjust: A Call to Action for Governors for Cybersecurity, a-six page document
outlining recommendations for states that want to improve their
cybersecurity. Snyder also released a piece of software, now being tested in “The National Guard is unique in the fact that it can serve both
the governors and the president. It’s the only military service that can do
that,” she said. “Both the federal government and states have pretty widely
put out there that there’s a shortage of trained, qualified personnel to help
perform cybersecurity functions.” And the National Guard is in a perfect
position to recruit skilled private-sector professionals to assist the
government with cybersecurity. Concerned IT professionals wouldn’t need to
join the guard, Hogsett said — they could just help during their free time
because the National Guard has the ability to do that. The National Guard is
trusted, well known and cost-efficient, she added. “For the cost of a single
active-duty soldier, you can essentially provide two to three National Guard
members,” she said. “It’s a really solid resource that we believe can and
should be better leveraged.” The timeline on this isn’t five or 10 years, she
said — this is more likely something that could happen in the next 12 to 18 months. In states like Coordinating the state’s efforts through a central authority has
the advantage of increased awareness and shared resources, Hughes said. It
also gives them the opportunity to work with the FBI and the state fusion
center so they can reach out to other organizations that may have been
affected by an attack but didn’t know it. For the last few years, the
Washington National Guard has been running cyberexercises with technical help
from the DHS, Hughes said, but last fall the state was scheduled to test its
cyberincident response plan without input from the federal agency. “We’re
going to test that plan with a group of policy folks from state, local and
hopefully some local private industry as well to say, ‘If we did have [an
incident], how would we respond? Bring your Rolodex. How many smart guys can
we call off our own phones before we have to ask somebody else to come in and
help us?’” The National Guard is a great partner, said In It doesn’t make sense to put federal agencies in charge of
critical infrastructure such as power grids and dams, Stone said, because
that’s not who’s operating them. “Eighty percent of all critical
infrastructure is privately owned,” he said. “And 85 percent of all people
operating networks for critical infrastructure are civilians, nonfederal
government.” Not everyone favors more local control, though. Gartner Analyst
Lawrence Pingree said the fed-centric model has some strengths. “I am
unconvinced that the state and muni level is the right approach since the
amount of spend should be more centralized and administered in a similar
fashion to support efficient deployment of capital,” he said. “Also, one
major problem government has is that it is often unwilling to pay the
appropriate salary levels that security practitioners can demand in the
private sector, significantly limiting their ability to execute or retain
talent once it is developed.” But Stone contends that a network of state cyber-ranges would be
both valuable and economical. He said the cost for establishing each facility
in the network is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, as opposed to the
millions spent by the federal government. “The dollar figure to stand up hubs
is really the cost of running fiber optic to the buildings we want, which is
about $50,000 a mile,” he said. “Once you’re there, it’s really the human
capital cost.” The Michigan National Guard partnered on the initiative with a
handful of other organizations, including the California National Guard;
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly); and
Michigan’s Merit Network, a high-performance network linking universities,
K-12 schools, government agencies and nonprofits in the state. Electricore, a
nonprofit group of public and private organizations established by DARPA to
develop advanced technology, applied for a U.S. Department of Energy grant on
behalf of the team’s members. From
http://www.govtech.com/
Survey
- IT Pros Not Concerned About NSA Spying You may have heard that the NSA has been spying on just about
everyone, everywhere without regard for whether or not they are an actual
threat to national security. The allegation that RSA accepted a payment of
$10 million in exchange for cooperating with the NSA led some to boycott the
recent RSA Conference, or participate in the TrustyCon counter-conference
that was hosted around the corner. As it turns out, though, most IT
professionals don't seem all that concerned with the activities of the NSA.
AppRiver conducted a survey of the attendees at the RSA Conference.
AppRiver's Fred Touchette describes in a blog post how the boycott and the apparent
success of TrustyCon piqued his interest about where government hacking ranks
on the overall threat landscape for IT professionals. "We decided to do a face to face survey with conference
attendees one on one to ask them a few simple questions about these issues
compile the data and see what is on people's minds," Touchette explains.
"These are people that deal with security every day, whose jobs depend
on keeping networks secure, and who use threats as a practical problem not
[as] theoretical or philosophical issues." The AppRiver survey only
includes responses from about 110 people--out of a total attendance of about
25,000--so it doesn't qualify as a scientifically relevant sampling.
Nevertheless, the results are interesting. What AppRiver discovered is that
only a meager 5.3 percent of respondents ranked external threats from
government hacking attempts as the top threat. Government spying, like that
conducted by the NSA, ranked at the bottom of the survey results, tied with
malicious insiders--authorized individuals like Edward Snowden who
intentionally compromise or expose data. A third of the respondents cited the insider threat without
malicious intent as the top threat. In other words, random users compromising
data or putting the network at risk by circumventing security controls,
ignoring security policies, or just plain human error. The biggest concern by
far, though, remains external hackers. More than 56 percent of the survey
respondents cited evil bad guys on the outside of their network trying to
infiltrate and infect their PCs as their number one security concern.
Interestingly, regardless of what is considered to be the top threat, nearly
three fourths of those surveyed believe that people are most frequently the
weak link in the security chain that leads to network or endpoint compromise.
More than 20 percent claim that faulty policies are to blame, while only 7.2
percent fault technology as the point of failure. The debate over government
intelligence gathering is far from over. But, according to AppRiver's
unscientific survey of IT security professionals, the ethics and legality of
NSA activities is simply not part of the day-to-day concern when it comes to
defending against malware and cyber attacks. From
http://news.idg.no/
RSA
2014 - Can the Government Earn Back the Public’s Trust in the Cyberfight? Cybersecurity is no longer a niche subject for IT aficionados;
it is a government problem, in addition to a mainstream, societal problem.
Cybersecurity issues grow in pop culture prominence as breaches become more
pervasive. Last year, media outlets simmered with the news that Edward
Snowden leaked documents exposing the agency’s global surveillance program,
and today the flames have badly burned the NSA’s reputation. The firestorm is
what caused comedian Stephen Colbert to blast both the NSA and Snowden during
his closing keynote at this year’s 2014 RSA Conference. Colbert, famous for
hosting his political satire show The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, isn’t
someone people would expect to speak before a live audience at a
cybersecurity conference. A mainstream celebrity’s presence at RSA is
evidence of the fact that cybersecurity is no longer a niche subject for IT
aficionados. Colbert’s appearance also speaks to the government link between
society and information breaches. His claim to fame is the political satire
and government commentary on his show, so his RSA visit underlines the fact
that cybersecurity is a government problem on top of being a mainstream,
societal problem. But how can the American government work with the public to
enhance cyberdefense if citizens are filled with mistrust? “If you breach the
trust in general in that context and then you’re saying, ‘We need to be able
to guard that private user information but we have good intentions,’ the
general citizenry will have a lack of trust. You’ll have a backlash,” said
Jack LeGrand, Dell security specialist. LeGrand’s colleague at Dell, Jackson Shaw, senior director of
product management, felt that the government could take an active role in
offering cyberfitness advice via public service announcements, which would
improve the government’s image. “I’m sure they could come up with something
catchy,” he said. “I really think that one of the things that’s missing, that
the government could help with, is just educating the everyday person about
email and about phishing scams, those kind of things where a lot of these
threats start.” But regardless, the government, along with the private
sector, will always have to play catch up with the bad guys. “I think the
greatest challenge we have in the year ahead is figuring out ways to get
defenses that can match up with the offensive capabilities that, as a whole,
the world is struggling against,” said Paul Kocher, president and chief
scientist of Cryptography Research. From
http://www.govtech.com/
Snowden -
Proposed NSA Reforms Vindicate My Data Leaks (Reuters) - Former security contractor Edward Snowden,
addressing a sympathetic crowd at a tech-heavy event in NSA officials declined to comment on the Snowden remarks. Last
year, Snowden, who had been working at a NSA facility as an employee of Booz Allen
Hamilton, leaked a raft of secret documents that revealed a vast "The government has gone and changed their talking points.
They have changed their verbiage away from public interest to national
interest," he said, adding that this poses the risk of losing control of
representative democracy. He said the government's priority has been an
expansive and ill-executed system of massive information collection instead
of protecting the vast amounts of intellectual property that support the "Rewarding Mr. Snowden's behavior in this way encourages
the very lawlessness he exhibited," Pompeo wrote. To many in government
and at the NSA, Snowden is a traitor who compromised the security of the From
http://www.reuters.com/
Big
Data Google-style Comes Under Attack The article in TIME is headlined "Google's Flu Project
Shows the Failings of Big Data." However, critics says the real failing
here is not with big data but with Google. The article takes issue with a
project named Google Flu Trends (GFT), pioneered by the Internet search giant
to produce real-time monitoring of flu cases around the world using search
data the company collects. The idea was that analyzing how many people are
searching for flu terms in an area can predict where there are cases of the
flu. The work was lauded in a book, "Big Data: A Revolution That Will
Transform How We Live, Work and Think." Google admitted at the time that
not everyone who searches for flu terms would be sick, but it said it found
"a close relationship" between search terms and flu cases. The only problem is that it didn't. The journal Science released
a reports showing some flaws in GFT. Specifically, it said that GFT's
predictions of flu cases were overestimated by 50% or more in some cases
compared to figures produced by the federal Centers of Disease Control (CDC).
"From August 2011 to September 2013, GFT over-predicted the prevalence
of the flu in 100 out 108 weeks," TIME reported. "During the peak
flu season last winter, GFT would have had us believe that 11% of the So what do big data enthusiasts think of all this? They point to
the specifics of Google's approach in critiquing GFT, not big data in
general. "What happened with Google wasn't a failure of big data,"
says Charles Caldwell, director of solutions engineering, Logi Analytics.
"It is about believing that big data can be a replacement for everything
else." It's not a surprise that a team of professional epidemiologists
at the CDC will have better information about the flu that an Internet search
company. For big data projects, it's about picking the right tools and having
the right data. That didn't happen with the GFT, but So is big data overhyped as being a panacea?
"Absolutely," or at least the term is says Clarke Patterson, senior
director of product marketing at Cloudera, which is one of the leading
companies delivering Hadoop, the big data platform as a product. The fact of
that matter is that there is a huge amount of new data that businesses and
researchers have access to. But it's not just about having data, it's about
knowing what to do with it and getting true insights out of it.
"Unfortunately, this transformation is in its early stages and as a
result projects are going to fail (like the Google GFT example) if we get
over excited about the technology alone," he says. A few bad apples shouldn't spoil the bushel, says Jim Ingle, SVP
at NTT Data, which consults with companies to hone a data management
strategy. Many companies, he concedes don't have the need for a big data platform.
But, he says traditional data warehousing tools are also not idea. New data
platforms allow for faster and easier access to data. "It is difficult
to effectively predetermine how an organization will want to access and
analyze its data over time," he says. "Flexibility and speed of
data analysis is the future and big data technologies enable this regardless
of whether you have massive amounts of data or not." From
http://news.idg.no/
Pentagon
Chief Says US Cyberspace Force to Expand Further US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday the cyberspace
force at US Cyber Command will grow to more than 6,000 by the year 2016.
Hagel disclosed plan while addressing the retirement ceremony of General
Keith Alexander, the outgoing head of US Cyber Command and of the
controversial National Security Agency (NSA), at the NSA's headquarters in The force would expand President Barack Obama's options with
"full-spectrum cyber capabilities that can complement other military
assets," he added. Hagel also praised Alexander's service, especially
his tenure of more than eight years at the helm of the NSA and his duties as
Commander of the Cyber Command since May, 2010. "As the longest-serving
director of NSA, General Alexander has led this agency through countless
intelligence breakthrough and successes. He's also led NSA through one of the
most challenging periods in its history, in our history." It was
announced in October 2013 that General Alexander and one of his deputies, were
leaving the NSA. The announcement came four months after former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden's disclosure of the agency's secret surveillance
programs, which have triggered huge controversy and fury at home and abroad. From
http://www.globaltimes.cn/
Pentagon
to Triple Cyber Staff to Thwart Attacks WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon plans to more than triple its
cybersecurity staff in the next few years to defend against Internet attacks
that threaten national security, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday.
Hagel's comments at the National Security Agency headquarters in suburban "Our nation's reliance on cyberspace outpaces our
cybersecurity," Hagel said. "Our nation confronts the proliferation
of destructive malware and a new reality of steady, ongoing and aggressive
efforts to probe, access or disrupt public and private networks, and the
industrial control systems that manage our water, and our energy and our food
supplies." He said government and private businesses have a far better
grasp of cyber threats than they did a few years ago, thanks in part to
Alexander's work as the first commander of Cyber Command. Vice Adm. Mike
Rogers, head of the Navy's Cyber Command, is awaiting Senate confirmation for
a fourth star to allow him to succeed Alexander at Cyber Command. No
confirmation is needed for his appointment as head of the NSA, but officials
said Friday that Noting President Barack Obama's announcement Thursday on reforms
to the government programs that have swept up data on Americans' phone calls,
Hagel said: "We will continue to engage in a more open dialogue with the
American public." Obama asked Congress on Thursday to end quickly the
government's bulk collection of phone records under reforms he hopes will
address privacy concerns while preserving the government's ability to fight
terrorism. The From
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/
Cyberattacks:
Too Much How, Not Enough Why Legislators, executive branch agencies and industry pay too much
attention to the mechanics of cyberattacks and not enough to why the attacks
occur, according to a report by the Intelligence and National Security
Alliance. The nonprofit, public/private INSA's March publication
"Strategic Cyber Intelligence" states that national security and
intelligence communities need to identify the broader goals and perspective
on cyberattacks to properly allocate resources and counter assaults. INSA
seeks to recognize and promote standards in the national security and
intelligence communities. Its members include current and former high-ranking
intelligence, military and government leaders, analysts, and experts from industry
and academia. Tactics dominate the discussion of cybersecurity, the reports
states. The tactical focus is apparent in the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and
Protection Act, which defines cyber intelligence as "information in the
possession of an element of the intelligence community directly pertaining to
a vulnerability of, or threat to, a system or network of a government or
private entity including information pertaining to the protection of a
network or system." The focus on "system" and "network" instead
of an organization's intellectual property, trade secrets, sensitive
operations, and other competitive and mission-oriented data misses the larger
point, according to INSA. A broader strategic vision that looks for reasons
why an attack is occurring and what the attackers are after can lead to
better tactical, on-the-ground defenses. "Many organizations do not
consider themselves to be attractive targets for a cyber incident until after
the threat occurs," the paper states. INSA officials said they hope to
help C-suite executives, top managers and other senior-level leaders
interpret and understand the full context of cyber threats, including the
bond between strategic cyber intelligence and risk management. They also want
a more thorough consideration of the role of strategic cyber intelligence
analysis based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology's risk
assessment methods. Among other vulnerability exercises, INSA recommends
"red teaming" to understand possible attackers' motives, goals and
potential targets. Vulnerability assessments that follow NIST's
recommendations are also essential to any risk management plan, the report
states. From
http://fcw.com/
DHS Prepares
Overhaul of Internal Security Operations The Homeland Security Department late Thursday announced future
plans to overhaul an organization that defends DHS’ own internal networks. A
counter-hack mechanism called the intrusion defense chain, or "kill
chain” -- developed by researchers at Lockheed Martin -- is expected to drive
the revamp, according to DHS officials. The current DHS security operations
center, or SOC, manages the department's wide area network, its data centers
and agency-level local area networks. Verizon in 2008 was awarded a $678.5
million, 10-year contract to run the center. A kill chain predicts an
intruder’s attack plan and breaks it down into steps that must be taken to
achieve the ultimate hack -- for instance, obtaining a map of the most
critical The office of DHS Chief Information Security Officer Jeff Eisensmith
is requesting SOC operation ideas, "including most notably the
employment of an Intrusion Defense Chain methodology to 'align enterprise
defensive capabilities to the specific processes an adversary undertakes to
target that enterprise," stated a market research survey posted on
Thursday night. The notice quotes a 2011 Lockheed paper. Lockheed used kill
chain in 2011 to successfully thwart a sophisticated intruder who had hacked
the firm’s security provider RSA, according to Dark Reading. The potential
plans also ask vendors how they would measure the effectiveness of the
center, if given the management job. And officials want contractors to list
staffing and facilities requirements DHS should consider. DHS apparently is
still trying to figure out how much authority should be delegated to the
department's many agencies. "What level of direct responsibility should the ESOC,"
or Enterprise SOC, "retain over host-based and network-based
infrastructure? What responsibilities should be delegated to an IT
department?” officials ask. The revamp already has begun, according to the
notice. Officials are in the process of transitioning stewardship of the
center from management within the Customs and Border Protection to the CISO’s
office. “Once transitioned, this ESOC will serve as a baseline for creation
of the new NextGen ESOC capability,” Homeland Security officials said. “For
the NextGen ESOC, DHS is seeking new and significantly enhanced capabilities
to effectively counter current and emerging cyber threats in a cost-effective
operational environment.” From
http://www.nextgov.com/
Data
Protection in Internet of Things Era The Internet of Things brings an explosion of data, along with
security and privacy concerns. We need IoT rules of the road. If the digital
revolution was one of the most transformative events of our time, then the
Internet of Things (IoT) is about to redirect history. Today three billion
Internet users are demanding digital content anytime, anywhere, and on
multiple platforms. Next year it's estimated that there will be 15 billion
connected devices. By 2020 that number will reach 50 billion. These devices
will include more than just smartphones and tablets. Cars, sensors, and even
appliances -- nearly anything will be connected in the emerging IoT era. With
a surge of new devices comes a virtual explosion of data. According to IDC,
from 2005 to 2020 the digital universe will grow by a factor of 300 -- from
130 exabytes to more than 5,200 gigabytes for every man, woman, and child in
2020. Between now until 2020, the digital universe will double every two
years. Much of this data can benefit humanity, in a game-changing
development in the evolution of information technology and the global
economy. Connecting vast computer networks with everyday devices enables a
multitude of applications with incredible potential. Imagine electronic
medical devices that can monitor patients' health and remotely connect them with
doctors to treat life-threatening conditions. Think about the practicality of
smart grids for utilities to optimize renewable energy. Picture networks of
sensors that can make self-driving automobiles a reality or increase the
safety of schools and neighborhoods with automated monitoring. People are
already benefitting from these technologies. Businesses, governments, and
educational institutions use data to create new products and services,
generate operational efficiencies, enhance services, and drive economic
growth. But any revolutionary technology includes challenges. Consider the
introduction of the motorcar, for example, and the debates it prompted about
cost and safety. In the end, rules of the road resolved anxieties and
liberated the car to transform our lives. Now we need some "rules of
IoT." It's no surprise that regulators at the US Federal Trade
Commission (FTC), the European Commission, and other organizations are
looking at privacy and security issues related to IoT. Concerns about how marketers,
insurance companies, and government agencies use personal data and about
potential criminal activity lead to serious questions that we must address as
the IoT's capabilities expand. The good news is that solutions to security
issues related to IoT, mobile, and cloud computing are quickly being
developed, and an increasing number of security standards and requirements
are being implemented in the IT ecosystem. Of course, protecting the IoT,
data, and privacy is a shared responsibility. Industry collaboration -- not
competition -- will accelerate broader ecosystem support by aligning current
computing-industry standards with the world's most widely adopted security
ecosystem. ARM and AMD, for example, are working together to advance ARM
TrustZone technology, which allows consumers and businesses to secure their
data and perform secure transactions with a greater level of trust and
protection than current technologies. Additionally, as policymakers and regulators wrestle with the
privacy and security implications of IoT, we are proposing the following set
of common policy principles that will mitigate security threats, while
allowing IoT innovation and its benefits thrive: Consumers should own their own data. Data can drive economic growth and provide a multitude of
societal and individual benefits. Not all data are equally sensitive. Consumers must have confidence in how their data are used,
stored, and transported. Technology is a significant part of the solution. A data-handling framework that categorizes different types of
data and associated management strategies is required to unlock the potential
of IoT. With these policies, highly sensitive data, such as health,
financial, and individual communications, should be subject to more stringent
privacy and security requirements than data that have been volunteered. For
example, some people may want to share information on Facebook about their
shopping preferences or how fast they ran marathons. They also have a right
to expect that their personal addresses and credit card information will be
protected when they do business online. By adhering to these principles and a
data-handling framework, policymakers can develop rules that address privacy
and security concerns for IoT while also ensuring that social and economic
benefits are not restricted. While there is more work to be done, this new
IoT-era is already providing tremendous benefits. It promises
transformational change going forward for individuals and society as a whole. From
http://www.informationweek.com/
The The In a typical year, the foundation that supports OpenSSL receives
just $2,000 in donations. The programmers have to rely on consulting gigs to
pay for their work. "There should be at least a half-dozen full-time
OpenSSL team members, not just one, able to concentrate on the care and
feeding of OpenSSL without having to hustle commercial work," says Steve
Marquess, who raises money for the project. Is it any wonder that this Heartbleed
bug slipped through the cracks? Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who saved
the Internet from a similarly fundamental flaw back in 2008, says that
Heartbleed shows that it's time to get "serious about figuring out
[t]hat software has become Critical Infrastructure to the global economy, and
dedicating genuine resources to supporting that code." The Obama
administration has said it is doing just that with its national cybersecurity
initiative, which establishes guidelines for strengthening the defense of our
technological infrastructure — but it does not provide funding for the
implementation of those guidelines. Instead, the National Security Agency, which has responsibility
to protect In the meantime, the rest of us are left with the unfortunate
job of changing all our passwords, which may have been stolen from websites
that were using the broken encryption standard. It's unclear whether the bug
was exploited by criminals or intelligence agencies. (The NSA says it didn't
know about it.) It's worth noting, however, that the risk of your passwords
being stolen is still lower than the risk of your passwords being hacked from
a website that failed to protect them properly. Criminals have so many ways
to obtain your information these days — by sending you a fake email from your
bank or hacking into a retailer's unguarded database — that it's unclear how
many would have gone through the trouble of exploiting this encryption flaw. The problem is that if your passwords were hacked by the
Heartbleed bug, the hack would leave no trace. And so, unfortunately, it's
still a good idea to assume that your passwords might have been stolen. So,
you need to change them. If you're like me, you have way too many passwords.
So I suggest starting with the most important ones — your email passwords.
Anyone who gains control of your email can click "forgot password" on
your other accounts and get a new password emailed to them. As a result,
email passwords are the key to the rest of your accounts. After email, I'd
suggest changing banking and social media account passwords. But before you
change your passwords, you need to check if the website has patched their
site. You can test whether a site has been patched by typing the URL here.
(Look for the green highlighted " Now Safe" result.) If the site has been patched, then change your password. If the
site has not been patched, wait until it has been patched before you change
your password. A reminder about how to make passwords: Forget all the
password advice you've been given about using symbols and not writing down
your passwords. There are only two things that matter: Don't reuse passwords
across websites and the longer the password, the better. I suggest using
password management software, such as 1Password or LastPass, to generate the
vast majority of your passwords. And for email, banking and your password to
your password manager, I suggest a method of picking random words from the
Dictionary called Diceware. If that seems too hard, just make your password
super long — at least 30 or 40 characters long, if possible. From
http://www.govtech.com/
Improving IT
Security by Implementing Better Governance In the face of ever-increasing cybersecurity risks, significant
attention is being paid to improving agencies' preparedness and response to
vulnerabilities and threats throughout the public sector. Two ways to go
about supporting those activities involve addressing cybersecurity from a
risk-based framework and engaging top-level leadership in addressing security
as a strategic priority. A third complementary imperative involves
establishing an overall IT governance structure that includes cybersecurity
as a key enabler to achieving programmatic outcomes. Fortunately, agencies
have a number of tools at their disposal to enhance their governance framework. 1. OMB policy drivers for IT governance At the end of 2008, the Office of Management and Budget
reaffirmed and clarified the organizational, functional and operational
governance framework required within the executive branch for managing and
optimizing the effective use of IT. OMB Memorandum 09-02 established an IT
governance framework that addresses the management structure,
responsibilities and authorities of heads of departments and agencies and
their CIOs in planning, acquiring, securing, operating and managing IT
systems and assets within the department or agency. The memo requires that
agencies designate an executive-level CIO who reports to the head of the
organization and has formal and full responsibility for all requirements set
forth in statutes, regulations and public laws. That CIO also has ultimate
responsibility for the governance, management and delivery of IT mission and
business programs at the agency and must have an effective operative means of
meeting that responsibility. Furthermore, the CIO has the authority to set agencywide IT
policy, including all areas of IT governance such as enterprise architecture
and standards, IT capital planning and investment management, IT asset
management, IT budgeting and acquisition, IT performance management, IT risk
management and IT workforce management. The authority also extends to IT
security and operations and IT information security, working with the agency
chief information security officer and other security officials. In August
2011, OMB issued related guidance in memo 11-29, which updated policy
regarding the CIO's role in IT governance and explicitly discussed
information security as part of the CIO's responsibilities. Taken together,
those two OMB memos provide a strong framework for incorporating security
considerations into overarching IT governance and strategy. That approach
allows agency leaders to properly assess security risks in the context of
risks and benefits from IT initiatives more broadly and from the programs
that leverage IT and require good security to be successful. 2. An industry framework for implementation One way to achieve the objectives of strong IT governance is to
incorporate the COBIT 5 framework as a guide to implementing sound IT
governance at the enterprise level. COBIT, which stands for Control
Objectives for Information and Related Technology, serves as a business
framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT and clearly
defines IT governance as distinct from IT management. According to the COBIT
5 framework: "Governance ensures that stakeholder needs, conditions and
options are evaluated to determine balanced, agreed-on enterprise objectives
to be achieved; setting direction through prioritization and decision-making;
and monitoring performance and compliance against agreed-on direction and
objectives." Furthermore, "management plans, builds, runs and
monitors activities in alignment with the direction set by the governance
body to achieve the enterprise objectives." As technology use continues
to increase the spread and impact of IT and cyber vulnerabilities and
incidents, so do the tools and techniques to improve controls to protect key
enterprise resources. The COBIT 5 framework is one of those tools. (COBIT 5
currently consists of the framework, two enabler guides, four professional
guides, and COBIT 5 Online Collaborative Environment.) Moreover, COBIT 5 is
one of the informative references contained in the National Institute of
Standards and Technology's Cybersecurity Framework. COBIT 5 is built on five basic principles and includes extensive
guidance on enablers for governance and management of enterprise IT.
Enterprises can use COBIT 5 framework principles to create optimal value by
governing IT in a holistic manner, implementing comprehensive risk management
and security controls, and ensuring that those controls are defined and
implemented at a level appropriate to the increasing complexity of the
enterprise. The COBIT 5 framework delivers to its stakeholders the most
complete and up-to-date guidance on governance and management of enterprise
IT, as depicted in the graphic below. COBIT has proved to be very effective
for implementing IT governance and detailed security controls globally at all
sorts of institutions and a number of federal and state government agencies,
including the Department of Veterans Affairs. 3. Sound IT governance can make a significant difference In light of the constant changes in the IT environment, all
enterprises should look to IT governance to secure information from the
moment it is created to the time it is destroyed. That is why, in the past
decade, IT governance has moved to the forefront of enterprise efforts to
effectively manage and appropriately protect IT systems and assets,
contributing to the success of risk-based security and supporting strategic
decisions made by C-level executives across the public and private sectors. From
http://fcw.com/
National Day
of Civic Hacking Widens Reach in Second Year The civic hacking celebration goes international for 2014. Last
year thousands participated, hundreds of civic apps were created and myriad
civic hackers collaborated with government agencies and localities across the
New additions for this year’s event series will include opening
participation up internationally for hackathons in As with last year, government agencies and departments will be
joining in, either by opening up data sets for developers to work with or by
hosting hackathons -- or both. Agency backgrounds are diverse and spread
across a wide array of disciplines. According the event’s official website,
there are currently 14 government organizations that have volunteered as
event hosts or facilitators, including the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), among others. A contributing sponsor,
the Knight Foundation, a media and civic tech philanthropy organization,
supplied the event with $150,000, a donation announced May 1, to be
distributed by Khadem to event organizers to facilitate events. Knight plans
to hold a special challenge as well, one which pits hackers against the
hurdles facing “Currently more than 20 percent of workers are self-employed,
and this trend is predicted to continue in the coming years,” said Carol
Coletta, Knight’s vice president for community and national initiatives.
Considering the self-employed’s unique challenges, Coletta said Knight hopes
the tech community can provide solutions in three specific areas. The first,
matching skilled workers with jobs; the second, creating connections within
the increasingly distributed and virtual workforce; and third, to aid in the
development of professional and personal support networks. “For Knight’s
Community and National Initiatives program, the events get the tech community
— which is one of the groups most affected by the changing modes of work —
talking about one of the questions that’s core to building successful
cities,” she said. Examples from last year’s National Day of Civic Hacking include a project to harness the White
House’s “We the People” petitions system API so developers can build apps
using data from submitted petitions and signatures; a Peace Corps application
to allow its volunteers and teachers to connect in real time; and a project
involving the Digital Public Library of America that used its library
datasets containing more than 2.4 million records to create visualizations,
mapping applications and other tools to inform educators and researchers.
“This is very much based around being a civic engagement event,"
Massarrat said, "and it’s about really understanding that the toughest
challenges are not for one community alone to solve." From
http://www.govtech.com/
Defense
Authorization Bill Boosts Cybersecurity The House Armed Services Committee is moving forward on a fiscal
2015 defense authorization bill that would meet the Pentagon’s $5.1 billion
request for cybersecurity operations. The Pentagon has prioritized building
up the federal cyber workforce, with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recently
calling for more than 6,000 professionals to work in support of the National
Security Agency by 2016. In relatively austere times for the Pentagon,
cybersecurity has been one of the few areas to see a boost in funding. The
measure would “direct the secretary of Defense to establish an executive
agent to coordinate and oversee cyber training and test ranges, critical to
operationalizing and improving our DOD cyber forces,” according to a summary
of the IT provisions included in the portion of the bill approved last week
by the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities. The defense authorization bill, which the full committee began
debating May 7, “fully” supports the broader IT requests in President Barack
Obama’s budget and tasks the Government Accountability Office with reporting
on insider threats to IT systems, the summary said. GAO is also tasked with
reporting on “opportunities to improve services contract processes,” as part
of a larger move toward acquisition reform. The legislation also would
require “assessments” of DOD’s Joint Information Environment, an effort to
standardize IT operations across the department. An amendment by Rep. Tulsi
Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and approved in the May 7 markup, focused on bettering
“situational awareness” at U.S. Cyber Command. The amendment directs the
command to coordinate with the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition,
technology and logistics to submit a plan for “improving cyber situational
awareness tools” to congressional defense committees by March 1, 2015. That
plan should include a “common, open cyber situational awareness architecture”
that includes privacy and civil liberty protections, the amendment said. The
amendment singles out “net flow data, host-based monitoring, anomaly
detection, audit logs and agent-based algorithms” as cyber tools for DOD to
consider focusing on. From
http://fcw.com/
Medical
Informatics World Conference Debuts New Track on Information Security and
Privacy Second annual conference will also explore provider-payer-pharma
collaboration, coordinated patient care engagement and population health management.
Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI) and Clinical Informatics News’ Medical
Informatics World Conference today announced it will debut a new disciplinary
track focused on information security and privacy. The new track,
“Information Security and Privacy in Healthcare,” focuses on navigating the
challenges presented by technology, remote access, HIPAA and the increased
need for information sharing between patients, providers and payers. The
second annual conference, a professional forum focused on the cross-industry
connections and innovative solutions needed to take biomedical research and
healthcare delivery to the next level, will be held at Today’s healthcare industry is undergoing a rapid evolution that
creates challenges for organizations to maintain and protect personal health
information (PHI). Due to the growth of electronic health records – both in
number and in volume – new government regulations, and more complex
technology – from smartphone access to the cloud – organizations need to
focus more on how to ensure privacy and security of medical information. This
has produced a growing need among organizations to ensure knowledgeable and
credentialed security and privacy practitioners are in place to protect this
sensitive information. “After last year’s inaugural event, many of the
attendees felt that with the ever-changing regulations around PHI and the
rapid advancement of technologies, a track focusing on security and privacy
should be added to the conference,” said Micah Lieberman, Executive Director
of Conferences for CHI and Medical Informatics World. “In addition to this
new track, we will again feature our core tracks that attracted attendees to
the conference last year, which will explore provider-payer-pharma
collaboration, coordinated patient care engagement and population health
management.” In addition to the new track on information security and
privacy, other tracks being featured at Medical Informatics World include: Provider-Payer-Pharma Cross-Industry Data Collaboration:
Integrating real time data analysis into the economy of the health care
ecosystem Coordinated Patient Care Engagement and Empowerment: Connected
health, remote monitoring, personalized medicine and analytics to improve
outcomes Population Health Management and Quality Improvement: Using
technology and analytics to predict outcomes, target high-risk populations,
increase compliance and control quality From
http://finance.yahoo.com/
What Heartbleed Teaches Governments About Cybersecurity “All government agencies and enterprises
should run a quick inventory of all their servers and PCs, such as those that
host web sites, email and chats,” said Angel Averia, President of the
Philippines Computer Emergency Response Team (PhCERT). “Computers that are
running with OpenSSL implemented more than two years ago and have not been
upgraded since may not be as vulnerable. However, those running OpenSSL
versions later than the first implementation of Heartbleed should be deemed
to be vulnerable and appropriate action must be taken,” he added. The
Malaysia CERT (MyCERT) has since notified relevant parties in government
about the threat and released two alerts on how to mitigate the problem,
Megat Muazzam Abdul Mutalib, Head of Department at MyCERT told FutureGov. The most recent advisory by MyCERT
explained the impact of the Heartbleed vulnerability and provided a
step-by-step guide to fix it. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
has been working with other agencies to analyse their systems to identify
where they have the Heartbleed vulnerability and implementing response
without disrupting critical operations. According to a recent update by DHS
National Protection and Programs Directorate, Deputy Under Secretary for
Cybersecurity, Phyllis Schneck, “[We have] enabled our network defences
across the Executive branch to detect someone trying to use the exploit and
in many cases to block those attempts. We have begun scanning government
networks for this vulnerability to ensure that we know where it exists.” The Department has also issued technical
alerts and mitigation steps through the National Communications and
Cybersecurity Integration Centre and engaged with industry partners to
discuss the threat posed by Heartbleed. DHS, through the Multi State
Information Sharing and Chong Rong Hwa, Senior Malware Researcher,
FireEye said that organisations should adopt a patching strategy to
prioritise fixing the servers and devices depending on its exposure risks.
“Due to the severity of information exposure, system owners should also
consider resetting of administrator and user passwords, reissuing of SSL
certificate, conducting of security assessments, as well as auditing systems
and network hygiene.” Open source software has been known for the
effectiveness of finding and fixing bugs since the large community of users
and developers can spot and deal with security holes. This is commonly known
as the Linus’ Law: “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”. Some have
started to question the validity of this principle after the report on
Heartbleed. “The fact that the bug was found, and more
importantly, rapidly fixed, actually proved the validity and truism of Linus’
Law,” explained Harish Pillay, Global Head for Community Architecture and
Leadership, Red Hat. “Linus’ Law does not, however, state when bugs will be
found, if they will ever be found or even who will fix the bugs. It is not
constrained by time or person,” he continued. “One thing stands true - that the
Linus’ Law has been proven repeatedly over the years. For example, a
six-year-old Linux kernel critical bug that was reported in 2004, was fixed
in 2010.” “What I love about the open source community and Red Hat’s role in
it specifically, is that we rally together to fix issues as they come up. The
tremendous amount of engineering talent in the community enables
collaboration which transcends commercial interests and cuts across the
entire ecosystem for the well being of the software we all love and use,” added
Pillay. [He answers government’s queries on trends and misconceptions around
open source in another recent article here. One of the questions that came up from this
incident is: whose responsibility is it to ensure the security of an
organisation’s IT infrastructure and software, noted Averia of PhCERT. “It is
costly for government agencies to develop and maintain a testing capability
to determine if a piece of software is safe to use. The alternative is to
check if the software or hardware has been tested for vulnerability and
certified. Governments can also engage other organisations equipped to do the
testing,” he said. “An expensive proposition perhaps, but with the growing
use of technologies and increasing dependence on information systems, plus
the fact that government agencies amass data about citizens, especially of
those who transact with them, such investment may be well worth it,” Averia
concluded. From http://www.futuregov.asia/ |
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Security concerns forced China's central bank to suspend
payments via code scanning and virtual credit cards, a People's Bank of China
(PBOC) senior official told Xinhua on Monday.The PBOC would allow such online
payments to be reintroduced on a trial basis once related security and technical
standards were in place, said the anonymous central bank official.The online
shopping boom has led to e-commerce leaders like Alibaba and Tencent
scrambling to give customers a quick and convenient way to pay, such as
payments by scanning a bar or QR code.Alibaba and Tencent said earlier this
month that they had joined China CITIC Bank to each issue one million online
credit cards, only to be called off by the central bank two days later.The
central bank official attributed the suspension to concerns about multiple
risks.Technological and business models concerning payments via code scanning
are only in the experiment stage, and there is no uniform technological and
certification standards, the official said. The official said substantial risks were in the "formation
mechanism and transmission process" of the codes, lack of security
guarantee for the payment terminals, and a shortage of protective tools for
code verification.In most countries, central banks, bank card associations
and financial institutions are relatively cautious with payments via code
scanning and there has been no widespread use of the payment model, he
said.The official also referred to a number of cases in China resulting from
virtual payments where consumers, after code scanning, found their personal
information had been leaked or money stolen from their account."With so
many problems unanswered, the security risks would be unimaginable if
code-scanning payments were adopted by hundreds of millions of users of
payment companies," he warned.Concerning virtual credit cards, the
official pointed to the application process which has no strict risk control
procedures or face-to-face qualification checking required by traditional
banks. "So, the anti-money laundering system and the real-name
system for bank accounts are at risk of being damaged," he said.Virtual
credit cards are not allowed for now, also because of the lack of a uniform
regulation governing the issuance of virtual and real credit cards, which
might lead to unfair competition, the official said.However, both virtual
credit cards and code-scanning payments still have a future in China, but
only after security concerns are addressed."It is suspension, not
termination," the official stressed.The PBOC would work with all
relevant sides including the payment firms to evaluate the two business
models in terms of technological security, consumer protection, fighting
money laundering and real-name system, he said."We would take security
as our bottom line and support the payment companies in improving business
procedures and regulations. After the security concerns get addressed, they
can conduct the business on a trial basis," he added. From http://news.xinhuanet.com/
The Chinese military will increase cyberspace security after
reports of From http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Overseas Attacks on
Chinese Cyberspace Rising Cyber attacks from overseas on China's Internet are on the rise,
according to a report released on Friday by the country's Internet security
watchdog.Backdoor threats, phishing and trojans or botnets constitute three
main forms of attacks, said the National Computer Network Emergency Response
Technical Team Coordination Center of China in a report covering 2013.Last
year, 31,000 overseas mainframes controlled 61,000 websites on the Chinese
mainland through backdoor programs. Despite an annual decrease of 4.3 percent
in the number of mainframes involved, the number of affected websites was up
62.1 percent compared to the previous year.Some 15,349 websites, about a
quarter of the total, were attacked by 6,215 mainframes located in the United
States.Moreover, 90.2 percent of phishing websites targeting Chinese users
were running on foreign servers.A total of 3,823 overseas IPs lured Chinese
users to 29,966 fake websites to obtain password and other personal information,
up 54.3 percent and 27.8 percent year on year respectively. U.S.-based
servers hosted 12,573 fake phishing websites.In addition, 29,000 overseas
servers controlled 10.9 million mainframes on the Chinese mainland via
trojans or botnet. Servers originating from the From http://news.xinhuanet.com/
China Tech Entrepreneur
Lands Internet Privacy Startup in Online information security and privacy have increased in
prominence over the past year, especially since Edward Snowden’s allegations
revealed a wide array of government and corporate spying around the
world.Danny Levinson, an American technology entrepreneur who has
successfully grown and exited Internet ventures in China over the past 20
years, is focusing on online privacy with his latest venture named Kovurt
based in Hong Kong. The company is headquartered in Hong Kong’s Cyberport, where
many Internet startups are based, and has staff working in From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
A Foreign Ministry spokesman vowed on Monday that From http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Hacking into Computers
Drops as Nation Beefs Up Protection Overseas cyberattacks remain a major problem in China, the
nation's Internet security watchdog said on Friday, and special government
departments and laws must be established to tackle the increasingly serious
online attacks and boost international cooperation against hacking.Last year,
11.35 million computers in China were hacked into, a 22.5-percent drop from
2012, according to a report issued by the National Computer Network Emergency
Response Technical Team and Coordination Center of China.The report said last
year's figure represents the first decline in five years mostly as a direct
result of the nation's efforts to eradicate online threats.But of these
hacked computers, roughly 10.9 million were attacked by more than 29,000 threats
originating from overseas Internet provider addresses and servers, the center
said."It means overseas online attacks are still major problems for the
cybersecurity of our country even if the total number of affected computers
dropped," said Wang Minghua, director of administration and operation
department at the center. Among the IP addresses listed as threats in the report, 8,807
originated from the From http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/
Alibaba Throws Money at
Internet Privacy Hu Xiaoming, Alibaba's vice president for small- and
micro-financial group and chief risk officer, announced in Beijing that the
company will invest CNY40 million to establish a security fund.The security
fund will be used to fight Internet phishing, trojans, money laundering,
malicious attacks, and to protect user information.The security fund will
cooperate with banks, financial organizations, industry peers, and security
manufacturers. Meanwhile, Alibaba's Internet payment subsidiary Alipay will
enhance security investment in product design. The upcoming Alipay wallet
version 8.1 has reportedly added innovative security services such as device
management and short message safeguards.With the device management function,
users can use their own mobile phones to check on which mobile phones they
have ever used with Alipay and they can delete those records via their own
mobile phones. Commenting on the new function, Hu said that most mobile
payment users make payments with multiple mobile phones and this new device
management service will effectively control the risk of losing personal
information. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Drop
Cold War Mentality on As Facing threats to its cyber security or even national security, It is true that cooperation and competition coexist in
international cyberspace. It is equally true that some powers' pursuit of a
long-term Internet monopoly cannot be a reason for them to block others'
development.Cooperation should outweigh confrontation as the world faces
common cyber threats.As the two largest economies, China and the United
States have conducted many candid and effective dialogues. But we cannot deny
that mistrust and attempts to hold China back remain ingrained in the mindset
of U.S. politicians.Unless they cast away the Cold War mentality of turning
cyberspace into a battleground to curb China's rise, it will be impossible to
build a just international order or avoid high-risk behavior in
cyberspace.With official claims that the United States "does not seek to
militarize cyberspace" and "will maintain an approach of restraint
to any cyber operations outside the U.S. government networks," there is
the expectation that such words be translated into concrete policies and
actions.If not, the Internet will never become a "catalyst for freedom
and prosperity," as the United States hopes. From http://www.news.cn/
The network security safeguard team of the Beijing Municipal
Public Security Bureau and the Chinese Internet security company Qihoo 360
jointly announced they will establish a network security anti-fraud
initiative.The initiative's official website at Fanzhapian.360.cn has
officially started operation.Meanwhile, Ye Manqing, director of the network
security safeguard team, announced that with the approval of the Beijing
municipal government, they have selected April 29 as Beijing's Internet
security day to educate the public and help fight Internet fraud.The newly
established anti-fraud alliance will have information sharing of malicious
URLs, fraud-related instant messaging, fraudulent phone numbers, and spam
text messages between the bureau and Qihoo 360. The two parties will build a
network fraud database to warn users and help the anti-fraud campaigns of
many public security units.The next step of the alliance will expand
cooperating partners to cover enterprises, institutions, and social
organizations, broaden information source channels, and enhance the network
fraud information database. At the same time, the official website of the
anti-fraud alliance will handle reports, complaints and inquiries from
individual users. They will also open a network security education channel to
provide related knowledge via articles and videos. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera and his Lithuanian
counterpart, Juozas Olekas, agreed Tuesday on the need to share information
on cyberattacks, including destructive system intrusions and computer virus infections.
During their meeting in From
http://the-japan-news.com/
The government forecasts From
http://finance.yahoo.com
SDF
Cyberdefense to Use ‘Decoy’ Sensors The Defense Ministry plans to position sensors at what it
designates “monitoring bases” on the Internet, designed to defend the
information network of the Self-Defense Forces from cyber-attacks, it was
learned Thursday. Envisaged in the three-year project from this fiscal year
is a framework under which “decoy sensors” will be installed at points away
from the true core of the online information network. These sensors are to
detect any signs of incoming cyber-attacks so the information network can
quickly be warned of imminent danger. They will also be utilized for crisis
control for the entire government. The cyberdefense unit established last
month will be in charge of operating the system. The ministry plans to set up
its own servers on the external network and locate sensors at these servers,
aiming to lure cyber-attackers to obtain the latest information on them. Some
of the functions the sensors are expected to carry out include: 1) understanding
possible attacker movement, 2) detecting illicit websites, and 3) blocking
distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which disrupt computer
functions by overloading servers with massive volumes of data. The sensors are to collect e-mails with viruses attached and to
trace them back to compromised computers likely to be used in DDoS attacks,
allowing such malicious telecommunications to be blocked. The information
will constantly be transmitted to the ministry’s information network, which
will be utilized for defense purposes. Alerts about any serious threats will
be sent to the entire government through the “Imagine a facility equipped with lots of security cameras on
the inside, but with virtually nothing monitoring the nearby vicinity,”
remarked a senior Defense ministry official. It was also confirmed that
“public drinking fountain attacks” have been occurring since around summer
last year, in which cyber-attackers deploy viruses to websites frequently
browsed by governmental officials, such as news sites, to infect their
computers. The sensors will also monitor these new types of attacks. The
cyberdefense unit is an organization newly established in March in the Joint
Staff Office at the ministry. Manpower is a major issue, with the unit only
having a staff of about 90. At the meeting of the Japan-U.S. Security
Consultative Committee held in October, attended by foreign affairs and
defense ministers from both countries, From
http://the-japan-news.com
Recent
Online Exposures Reveal Lack of Awareness of Terrorism Risk With so many people streaming through every day, it is needless
to say that the highest level of attention should be paid to guarding
airports and train stations. Thus the recent online exposure of blueprints
for terminal buildings and other facilities has raised grave concern over the
security of public transportation. It has been revealed recently that floor
plans and other sensitive information regarding It is likely that the series of exposures started in July 2012.
The privacy settings have since been adjusted, but it’s possible that many
Internet users have seen the exposed information. With the exposed floor maps of the two airports visible, the
locations of employee-only passages and the airport’s secure areas—where
access is limited due to security reasons—can be determined at a glance. The
exposed blueprints for Tokyo Station show the location of the operations
control center—the heart of the building—and the layout of high-voltage
cables. An interrogation room belonging to the Railway Police Unit was easily
found on the floor plans for Shin-Osaka Station, along with other sensitive
facilities. Public transportation is prone to becoming a terrorist target. If
the locations of core functions of airports and stations become public,
terrorists may gain an unnecessary advantage. JR and the operating companies
of the airports provided the floor plans so that information for the Google
Maps service could be updated, but it seems the way the floor maps were
passed to Google It has also been discovered that the operating company of From
http://the-japan-news.com
Gov't Looks
to Mobilize SDF to Defend Nuclear Plants from Cyber-Attacks The government is working out rules on mobilizing Self-Defense
Force (SDF) troops to defend key infrastructure, such as nuclear power plants
and communications facilities, from large-scale cyber-attacks, government
sources said. Officials are considering whether to authorize the SDF to send
viruses to computers used for such attacks to cause the machines to
malfunction. The Defense Ministry launched about a 90-member anti-cyber-attack
unit at the end of March to maintain the chain of command should a
cyber-attack be launched on the SDF and prevent such an attack from adversely
affecting its operations. However, the team is only allowed to defend a
computer network system connecting the ministry with SDF bases across the
country. Since the SDF's activities rely largely on infrastructure, such as
electric power grids as well as transportation and communications systems, a
growing number of government officials are demanding that the SDF be
empowered to defend such key infrastructure as well. It is difficult to
ascertain whether cyber-attacks have been launched by hackers in From
http://mainichi.jp
EU, The European Union will discuss Internet security during talks
this week in From
https://au.news.yahoo.com
Fujitsu Cuts
Response Time to Cyberattacks by 97% Fujitsu has announced the availability of There are two services being offered as a part of Information
Security Enhancement Support Consulting. One is the identification of
security risks, and the other is training services for establishing security
policies. Both are aimed at strengthening the security of control systems. As ICT is used more widely, companies are being challenged to
respond to increasingly sophisticated and damaging cyber attacks. These
responses require both preventing intrusion in the first place and reacting
quickly and effectively to those intrusions that succeed, as that will
largely determine the extent of privacy breaches and attendant problems. In
the past, measures taken after malware had been detected included determining
the risk level of the attack, identifying the vulnerable terminal and
requesting the responder to take action.
Fujitsu said it was necessary to have a process that used automation
to respond swiftly and appropriately. Moreover, automating a response process
would also enable action to be taken with limited resources. Cyberattacks do
not stop at information systems; their scope has expanded to the control
systems essential to infrastructure and that are used at manufacturing
facilities. Given the deep concern that control systems infected by malware
will cause machinery or entire systems to stop work or break down, Fujitsu
said it recognized the need to strengthen the security management of these
systems. From
http://www.japantoday.com
Japanese-Israel
Defense Accords Cover Cyber Security Cooperation Against Japanese-Israel military intelligence collaboration in cyber
security was at the center of bilateral defense agreements reached in debkafile adds: This was the first time the Israeli prime
minister had openly mentioned a prospective Iranian nuclear test like those
carried out by From
http://www.debka.com
Ruling
Parties to Establish Cybersecurity Headquarters The ruling parties plan to submit a bill aimed at establishing a
government cybersecurity headquarters and obliges ministries and agencies to
provide information about cyber-attacks they are subjected to, The Yomiuri
Shimbun has learned. The bill, which the Liberal Democratic Party and New
Komeito plan to submit at the current Diet session, would be the first basic
law on cyberdefense stipulating the government’s duties on cyberdefense.
According to the bill, the headquarters will be headed by the chief cabinet
secretary. The aim of the bill is to reinforce the nation’s defenses against
cyber-attacks ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, according to
sources. Currently, there are two government organizations in charge of
measures against cyberattacks: the Information Security Policy Council, which
is chaired by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, and the From
http://the-japan-news.com
In line with From
http://japandailypress.com
From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
S. Korea, From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
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As part of From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
NEC Asia Pacific, an infocomm technology provider, and Sypris
Electronics, a provider of high-end global cybersecurity solutions, will
jointly develop a Cyber Security Laboratory for the Singapore Government. It
was announced today the their team was awarded this multi-year contract by
the Ministry of Home Affairs. The lab will include a simulation-based
training and modeling platform that will provide a safe, realistic hands-on
environment for the participants to hone their skills in countering cyber
attacks. Toshiya Matsuki, Chief Executive Officer, NEC Asia Pacific, said
that the technologies deployed will address the cyber security needs of the
Singapore Government to prevent and mitigate against potential attacks. “With
the increasingly complex and sophisticated attacks from cyber criminals, an
organisation faces a multitude of cyber security risks to its IT system,
ranging from web defacement and malware infections to network and operation
system attacks,” he warned. From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
Technology will continue to revolutionise the way governments
operate. The Singapore government will be leveraging the opportunities
provided by Big Data, sensors, cloud and open data to improve productivity
and citizen services, while ensuring information security, said Zaqy Mohamad,
Member of Parliament & Chairman for the Government Parliamentary
Committee, Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), Singapore. Speaking
to over 240 public sector leaders at the 11th annual FutureGov Forum Above-Ground (A-G) Boxes will also be rolled out to improve city
management and services. These boxes have sensors for better monitoring and
enable intelligent services, such as traffic monitoring cameras,
environmental sensors, pedestrian crossing monitors, speeding monitors,
traffic light control system, junction crowdedness, street lighting control
systems and more. Big Data analytics is another area of focus for The Finally, while technology provides ample opportunity to improve
government administration and services, it can also benefit the industry.
“This year, the From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
VN
Faces High Risk of Cyber Attacks Viet Nam ranks 12th in the list of countries facing the maximum
cyber attacks, according to the Internet Security Threat report (ISTR19)
released by the Symantec Corporation last week. Director for Systems
Engineering, Asia South Region, Symantec, Raymond Goh said that From
http://vietnamnews.vn/
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NEW DELHI: As enterprises are increasingly adopting technologies
like cloud and mobility, they are also facing more security challenges with
cyber criminals using malware that are dormant while entering a secure
network and then becoming active, networking solutions giant Cisco said. With
companies increasingly adopting concepts like BYOD (bring your own device)
and cloud services, they face more security challenges and complexities.
Besides, 'Internet of Everything' (IoE) that connects all devices and grids,
also opens them to heightened security threats. "In a world that is
rapidly moving towards connecting everything, the security risks are also
increasing. Now there are dormant cells, which could suddenly get active and
how would you then seek protection," Cisco Worldwide Director (Security)
Jawahar Sivasankaran told. The basic action that can be taken when there is a
suspected intrusion is to pull the plug and shut down the system, he added.
Cisco is working on a solution called 'Before, During and After' to check
such dormant cells. Organizations are putting a lot of focus on the 'before'
part with strategies like security walls. Cisco continues to invest in
innovative technologies in the 'before' area, Sivasankaran said. "There is a critical need to protect the customers in the
'during and after' phase as well. In our 'Before, During and After' strategy
we have focus on visibility driven, threat focus and platform based
intrusions," he added. The focus is continuous security and
retrospective analysis. This is what the company is doing through its 'Fire
amp Advanced Malware Security' solution, he said. Mobile security today has
become mainstream and people expect more from their IT and security
programmes. From
http://www.siliconindia.com/ |
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A Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), functioning under the
State Agency for Special Communications and Information Security of the
Azerbaijani Special State Protection Service is preparing for a large scale
project for the protection of the Azerbaijani segment of the Internet from
attacks and hackers, CERT told Trend on Feb. 25. The necessary hardware and
software are planned to be bought and installed as part of the scheduled
work. The project will be implemented by late 2014, CERT said. The project
envisages the filtering of incoming Internet traffic to protect the AzNET
network. The main task is to ensure the information security of not only
state agencies but also consumers. A new technology will detect malicious
threats and protect against frequent DDoS- attacks. CERT uses the most
advanced technology solutions, including special software products developed
by its own programmers to combat the adverse effects of the Internet. The
vast majority of attacks occur during important events in From
http://en.trend.az/
Users of
Azerbaijani State-Owned ISP Suffer Hacker Attack Users of AztelekomNet, an Azerbaijani state-owned internet
service provider (ISP), faced problems in accessing the internet due to
hackers' activities, Aztelekom Production Association (PA) told Trend on
March 6. Aztelekom PA said the problem's cause was in TP-LINK modems, which
have vulnerability, allowing hackers to gain unauthorized access to user
devices and restrict access to the internet. To resolve this problem,
AztelekomNet posted a video tutorial on its website on setting up
ADSL-modems. From
http://en.trend.az/
Security of
Websites Satisfactory in Information security of the Internet resources in the
Azerbaijani segment of the Internet is at a satisfactory level, From
http://en.trend.az/
Azerbaijan’s
Telecommunication Infrastructure to Be Thoroughly Checked Azerbaijan's telecommunication infrastructure will be thoroughly
checked in the near future as part of the preparation for the first European
games, to be held in Baku in 2015, Azerbaijani Minister of Communications and
High Technologies Ali Abbasov told the media on May 6. "Work in this
area includes improving the quality of telecommunication services for the
upcoming European Games," he added. "We have asked some technology
companies to check our communication services by using special
standards," the minister said. "The inspection will be held within
one or two months. Afterwards, the relevant measures will be taken." A
decision was made at the 41st General Assembly of the European Olympic
Committee in From
http://en.trend.az/
From
http://en.trend.az/
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered creation of the
State Security Service of Kazakhstan. "The President decreed to
reorganize Presidential Guard Service and the Republican Guard through
merging into the State Security Service of Kazakhstan," Kazakh
presidency wrote in the official account in Twitter on April 21. Anuar
Sadykulov was appointed to the post of State Security Service's head. Earlier
Sadykulov served as a chief of the Presidential Guard Service. From
http://en.trend.az/
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Australia
Department of Justice has launched the Australian Ballistics Information
Network (ABIN), the latest-technology ballistics matching system to track
illegal firearms. Launched by the Federal Minister for Justice Michael
Keenan, the system will be accessible by all Australian policy agencies from
July. “CrimTrac‘s new $9.6 million ABIN provides national capability that is
equivalent to a ‘fingerprint’ system for guns and assists police to link guns
to the crooks who use them,” said Keenan. “ABIN will link local and national
incidents involving a firearm”. Keenan was joined at the launch by NSW
Minister for Police and Emergency Services Stuart Ayres, CrimTrac CEO Doug
Smith and NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione yesterday in “This will
link the Integrated Ballistics Identification Systems (IBIS) already in use
by the Australian Federal Police, NSW Police Force, Queensland Police Service
and South Australia Police, and allow for the input of ballistic data from
all states and territories. With all Australian police agencies sharing
electronic ballistic information through the ABIN, we will have a capability
to store, analyse and share evidence to solve gun-related crime nationwide,”
Keenan said. New South Wales Minister for Police and Emergency Services
Stuart Ayres said firearm related crime in “Since the
NSW Police Force acquired the IBIS in 2000, we have had 636 ‘hits’ or
ballistic matches, providing over 1200 links to crimes and crime evidence,”
Scipione said. While it has been an invaluable tool in investigating
gun-related crime, like all technology, the IBIS has its limitations – the
information it outputs is only as good as the information that is input. With
all Australian police agencies sharing electronic ballistic information
through the ABIN, we will have a capability to store, analyse and share
evidence to solve gun-related crime nationwide.” CrimTrac CEO Doug Smith said
CrimTrac is
the Australian Government Agency responsible for delivering national
information sharing services between state, territory and federal police
agencies. Since coming to Government the Coalition has introduced a range of
measures to make #
introducing Anti-Gang Squads in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and
Western Australia to detect and disrupt national and international criminal
gangs # opening
the Anti-Gangs Intelligence Coordination Centre within the Australian Crime
Commission to collate federal and state law enforcement intelligence on
criminal gangs #
strengthening unexplained wealth laws to crackdown on criminals who flout
their criminal activities, and # using
proceeds of crime to fund crime prevention projects under the A$50 million
(US$46 million) Safer Streets Programme which delivers measures such as CCTV
and security lighting in entertainment and commercial precincts of local
communities. “Now, this
new network of gun crime intelligence increases the capability of all
Australian police agencies to investigate firearm-related crime,” Keenan
said. From http://www.futuregov.asia
Network
operators may apply for some employees to be granted "Secret" level
security clearances from GCSB to allow risk information to be shared. The
guidance suggests those staff should be citizens who have lived in From http://www.zdnet.com Some Facts
About Net Neutrality The Federal
Communications Commission has taken the first step toward adopting new
regulations that could create fast lanes for Internet traffic from websites
that can afford to pay for the privilege. The recommendation, passed by a
3-2, vote, moves the proposed rules governing "net neutrality" into
a formal public comment period. After the 120-day period ends, the FCC will
revise the proposal and vote on a final set of rules. FCC Chairman Tom
Wheeler has said he wants the rules in place by the end of this year. Here
are some things to know about the proposed rules and net neutrality: What the
rules call for Under the
proposed rules, Internet providers would be able to charge other companies
for priority, high-speed, access to their users. A previous set of rules
adopted in 2010 was struck down by an appeals court in January after Verizon
challenged them. The FCC says the revised regulations now under consideration
follow the blueprint set forth by that court decision. The commission also
will consider the possibility of defining Internet service providers as
"common carriers," like telephone companies, which are subject to
greater regulation than Internet providers, under Title II of the
Communications Act of 1934. If the FCC adopts the common carrier option, then
Internet service providers would be required to treat all traffic on their
networks equally, just as telephone companies have had to do on their lines
for decades. Why some
oppose the proposed rules Internet companies
such as Netflix that do a lot of business online, and use a significant
amount of data, don't want to have to pay for reliable and fast delivery of
online video, music and other content. They contend that's something
consumers are already financing when they pay $50 to $80 per month for
high-speed Internet service from companies such as Comcast Corp., Time Warner
Cable Inc. and Verizon Communications. Netflix released a statement Thursday
saying that it is still concerned that the proposed approach could
"legalize discrimination, harming innovation and punishing What others
are saying The White
House released a statement saying that President Barack Obama strongly
supports net neutrality and an open Internet. But it added that the FCC is an
independent agency and that it will carefully review its proposal. George
Foote, a partner at the law firm Dorsey & Whitney who works with the FCC,
argues that the proposed rules don't threaten the Internet, free speech or
capitalism. "Attempts to say otherwise are merely attempts to force the
order into some self-serving narrative of disaster," Foote said in a
statement. Meanwhile, Chris Riley, senior policy engineer at Mozilla, the
nonprofit that makes the Firefox browser, said he's glad the FCC is
considering the possibility of "real net neutrality," including the
Mozilla-backed proposal to reclassify Internet providers under Title II. From http://www.nzherald.co.nz
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EUROPE:
From
http://www.telecompaper.com/
NORTH
AMERICA: IT in Colleges in In 2014 we have reached a point in the post-secondary education
system where ICT services are mission-critical and a significant contributor
to the economic benefits colleges create in “IT and attendant digital content is strategic to almost every
facet of college operation and life,” he says. “Students want e-textbooks and
mobile facilities for communicating with peers, faculty, and administration.
The need for network infrastructure, mobile apps, conferencing systems, and
content management is now necessary. Digital infrastructure and applications
are every bit as important as bricks and mortar for the college system. Given
the constrained budgets and competition for IT talent to provide such systems
and services, colleges will need to more extensively use third party
suppliers (“the cloud”) or consortia to ensure facilities are in place and
keep pace.” Mike is noted as an innovative leader in the sector and
pioneered the concept of transit exchanges as a method of linking research
and education networks to their local communities as well as to national and
international peers. When asked
what the best possible IT environment for the post-secondary system in BC
might look like, Mike sees it this way.
“IT in higher education needs wholesale improvement to meet the
demands new learners are bringing to the environment. Better networks, data
centres, and applications infrastructure are necessary for this improvement
to happen. Excellent network infrastructure is needed, emphasizing
connectivity to content providers (e.g., Google, Microsoft, etextbook
sources, …) and the general Internet.” As for the traditional bricks and
mortar and the more recent networked approach to delivery, Mike recommends
“Rethinking the institution as more than just disparate campuses that need to
be connected, but insisting on the primacy of connectivity to the outside
world.” On the infrastructure side, a constant challenge for colleges,
institutes and CEGEPs in From
http://www.itworldcanada.com/
Think about your current information technology job – would it
even have existed 15 years ago? Even if it did, it’s likely to have either
dramatically grown or shrunk, depending on your job description. That’s according
to the From
http://www.nextgov.com/
While the “best” municipality using open data is still yet to be
known, a new census has identified 36 cities making progress opening their
data. The census, officially named the U.S. Open Data Census, has scored 36
cities based on the type and quality of their open data efforts. Shaw said the list is still not final, with new municipalities
expected to be reviewed and added in the next couple of months. She cautioned
the list shouldn’t be taken as a type of final word or even as a
comprehensive evaluation since some data sets of the cities extend beyond the
17 listed categories, and the rubric for vetting and defining best practices
in is an ongoing work. “I think we’re really happy to hear about cities’
success in putting open data online and making data machine
processable," Shaw says, "but this is not the sum final word on
what the most necessary data sets are. It gives cities a point of pride to
say, 'We have these data sets available and easily findable on our website,
and those are all good things from our perspective.'” As one of the first
national attempts at cataloguing open data city by city, Shaw said, it’s
anticipated to be fine tuned year by year. Major benefits of the listing, and
the cataloging behind it, are hoped to support cities and app makers alike. “It’s not just good for cities, but also for civic hackers who
are making apps for cities,” said Lauren Reid, a spokesperson at CfA. Reid
said there’s an emphasis at CfA -- and for civic hackers and entrepreneurs --
to make sure efforts touch the widest audience possible. The U.S. Open Data
Census is hoped to become a listing that connects app makers to data sets
offering greatest exposure to cities. “The more data we have," Reid
said, "the better picture we have of the open data landscape." From
http://www.governing.com/
4
Key Trends That Every CIO Should Watch The dominant public-sector technology trends of 2013 -- which
include cloud, big data, cybersecurity and software as a service -- are here
to stay, and they continue to evolve in ways that open up new challenges and
opportunities for federal CIOs. Four technology trends in particular are
shaping up to occupy growing mindshare among government CIOs in the months
ahead, and they are worth watching as the year progresses. 1. The CIO's role will expand to being a 'broker of things' A key benefit of accessing IT services such as software, storage
and security "on demand" is that it frees agency CIOs from
time-consuming implementation issues. Instead of being mired in buyer/builder
obligations, CIOs can use their significant product knowledge to evaluate
technology options as "brokers of things." CIOs' ability to play
that role is enabled by adoption of on-demand services as a way to acquire
the highest level of technology at the lowest investment cost. The CIO becomes
a broker to mix and match opportunities based on cost, available internal
resources and other critical factors. Examples of the broker role will be
increasingly evident as agencies adopt multiple cloud models. CIOs will sort
their IT portfolios into applications that they must control entirely (in
on-premise private clouds), applications they must control partially (in
enterprise-grade public clouds), workloads that are more transient (in public
hyperscalar clouds) and those best purchased as SaaS. Then CIOs and other IT
decision-makers will act as brokers across those diverse cloud models to
arrive at the optimal posture. 2. Hybrid clouds will grow in appeal To date, agencies assembling their cloud strategies have tended
to focus on moving to a single public or private cloud architecture as
dictated by their specific requirements. Public clouds tempt agencies with
cost savings through pay-as-you-go pricing and the flexibility to scale up
and down, while private clouds allow agencies to more directly control data
and infrastructure and offer more security assurance. Deltek's Federal Cloud
Computing Market Outlook predicts that the federal cloud computing market
will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 32 percent over the next three
years. There is little doubt that cloud adoption in the public sector will
continue to grow, but every CIO must wrestle with whether the optimal path is
a public cloud, a private cloud or the emerging hybrid cloud approach. The
hybrid cloud model has been the least tapped in the public sector, but it
offers the most potential. Agencies seeking a balance between scalability and
security will gravitate toward public computing power coupled with private
cloud storage that preserves their control over their most sensitive asset:
data. In other words, the hybrid cloud model allows agencies to maintain
control of their data while fully maximizing cloud computing economics. 3. There will be no flash (storage) in the pan For government agencies facing exploding data storage requirements,
cost and scalability are important. However, for many critical applications,
the chief pain point is performance because scaling disk drives or even using
hybrid solutions cannot deliver the mission-critical sub-millisecond response
times necessary. Last year saw dozens of flash storage startups nudge into
the public sector and onto the radars of CIOs. Those startups recognized that
federal agencies could use flash-array storage for enhanced performance via
solid-state drives with flash memory drives rather than hard-disk drives.
CIOs will find the competitive landscape for flash storage expanding in 2014
as larger, industry-leading vendors launch compelling all-flash storage
solutions alongside the startups. The battle will be won by providers that
can demonstrate to CIOs that their solutions deliver reliability, scalability
and non-disruptive operations. 4. Software will define more government IT Software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined storage
(SDS) will move further to the forefront in the public sector. As an
architectural approach to managing data storage, the SDS infrastructure is
automated via intelligent software as opposed to the storage hardware itself.
SDS virtualizes and encapsulates the entire infrastructure into a container
that can be logically partitioned. Therefore, the pooled storage
infrastructure resources in an SDS environment can be automatically and
efficiently allocated to match the application needs of an enterprise. The multitenant environment of SDS allows agencies to optimize
management and control of the data and the environment through separation and
control of the data planes. Inefficient data storage typically represents as
much as 15 percent to 20 percent of IT infrastructure budgets. SDS prevents
overspending on data storage by: ?Including efficiency technologies such as deduplication and
compression. ?Extending backup technology to take efficient volume-based
backups over the network. ?Preserving compression and deduplication over the network and at
the remote site. Although SDN and SDS made strides in the public sector last
year, there remains significant room for improvement, innovation and
education. In a NetApp survey released in January, public-sector respondents
cited reducing storage costs as the top benefit of SDS, yet 33 percent were
not familiar with SDS and only 7 percent described themselves as very
familiar. Translation: More education and awareness of the benefits of SDS
will spur broader adoption. Those four trends are being driven by agency pain
points and a consistent stream of innovation that is expanding opportunities
for government CIOs to succeed with their missions in 2014 and beyond. From
http://fcw.com/
FCC
Seeks $13.5 Million for IT Modernization The Federal Communications Commission is looking for an IT
upgrade. The regulatory agency has 207 computer systems for just 1,700
employees, Chairman Tom Wheeler said. He made his case for $35 million in new
funding, including $13.5 million for IT upgrades, during testimony before
House and Senate appropriations subcommittees this week. "Our systems
are incompatible, they can't talk to each other, and they're highly
inefficient. Worst of all, they're insecure," Wheeler said on March 25.
"There are serious challenges. $13 million is a lot of money, but the
reality here is if we don't spend that now, we'll spend that in the next two
years in the baling wire and glue we need to hold existing systems together."
Wheeler noted that 40 percent of the FCC's IT systems are more than 10 years
old, and many are so out of data that they lack vendor support. The agency's
budget request of $13.5 million for IT upgrades includes $9.2 million for
modernizing IT systems, $2 million for cybersecurity programs and about $1.3
million for improvements to the National Broadband Map, an open-data project
that tracks the availability of high-speed Internet connections nationwide. FCC CIO David Bray has ambitious plans for an IT turnaround and
said the FCC could have "some of the best IT in government" in an
18-month time frame. On Twitter and in recent public appearances, he has
noted that the agency reduced its use of the soon-to-be-unsupported Windows
XP operating system to fewer than 3 percent of its computers. A rapid IT
turnaround at a small agency like the FCC could be more manageable than an
effort to transform the infrastructure at a larger agency with multiple
components -- perhaps more akin to turning around a destroyer than the
proverbial aircraft carrier. There are headwinds, however, particularly when
it comes to streamlining procurement. At a March 27 event sponsored by
Nextgov, Bray said it took the FCC about a month and a half to buy some $60
licenses to test code development in the cloud and discovered that a $90
Apple iOS developer's license couldn't be done with an agency credit card and
required a purchase order. Wheeler's budget request includes funding for 10
new IT positions at the FCC, and the modernization projects will likely
involve dozens of contract workers as well. From
http://fcw.com/
Industry
Perspective - Keeping IT (Procurement) Simple The most successful IT procurements follow a simple formula:
Identify a business need, define success and how you’ll measure it, then
carefully communicate and reward that success. Government IT procurement is
more of a challenge than ever before. Agencies are forced by economic
conditions and fewer resources to leverage IT for everything from survival to
innovation, and the challenge comes from two things: the increased complexity
of the requirements and the lack of commensurate IT procurement experience. A
good example of this trend is the legislation introduced recently by Rep.
James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) -- bipartisan
entrepreneur-in-residence legislation that aims to make it easier for
entrepreneurs to work with government, and inspire more innovation and better
use of technology. I assert that procurement tools aplenty exist to enable
the procurement process to tame the IT monster. The issue, however, is a
severe shortage of trained or experience IT procurement professionals to
break down the requirements of today’s IT monster into manageable, bite-size
pieces. In that vein, let me break this discussion down into more manageable
pieces. Many government executives and IT professionals are often heard
complaining about the IT monster — there’s either too much, not enough, or
its running or ruining life as we know it. On the other hand, most of those
same executives are very interested in what they think IT can do for them in
solving their business challenges. Think about it: Haven’t we all heard some
form of the following statements? - IT has become too complex; my contracts shop doesn’t know how
to write IT contracts based upon today’s technology! - I know we got into this mess (i.e., large number of
older/out-of-date/unsupportable systems) by letting each business unit do
their own thing; how do we get all of it under control as we try to
modernize? - Our developer is adequate, but we’re concerned about the
quality of their work and the lack of innovation — I’m not sure what to do. Of course, the challenge we face, thanks to Mr. Moore (of - Under-utilized IT capacity and capability - Unsupported products and technology - Delayed or cancelled IT projects - Mismatched expectations for IT projects - Poor system performance - Poor user acceptance - Under-achievement of business value - Declining system health (e.g., reliability) In these instances, you might need more than the “Geek Squad” to
save the day, but most of the remedy lies in the solicitations and contracts
we write when we procure the hardware, software and services to feed the IT
monster. Here’s a simple example based upon concepts of standardization and
consolidation. As City XYZ grew,
it invested in separate systems for Human Capital Management, Financial Management
and Contract Management. Because they probably seemed like the best decisions
at the time, they were made, and each system now runs on different hardware
and operating systems. Given the current situation, how should City XYZ’s CIO
procure support for these systems? Simply put, there are three ways to go: the easy way, the wrong
way and the right way. In this case, the easy and wrong ways are the same —
to continue to compartmentalize the support for these systems allowing them
to be unique. The right (or better) way to proceed is to procure support to
standardize and consolidate these systems under a single project or contract.
There are many reasons why, including: Your support staff model becomes
simpler and personnel more proficient (one architecture versus three); you’re
using a higher quantity of like hardware and software products, which may
enable higher discounts; and resources can now be shared between systems to
further reduce costs and improve performance/utilization. Not as simple as
the “easy” way, but not beyond the realm of what any contracts shop can
produce. Thankfully, you don’t need to be an expert in IT procurement to
produce similar results. After 30 years in this business, I’ve found that a
handful of fundamental procurement tenets will help to tame the IT monster.
Try these on for size and see what you think: ?Don’t reinvent the wheel. Why hire somebody to make something
when there’s an 80 percent solution available off-the-shelf. ?Nobody supports Product X better than the original equipment
manufacturer (OEM) of Product X. If a product has OEM support available, most
of the time it’s the right way to go. ?Don’t buy technology for technology sake. I know, you saw it at
some trade show and can’t get it out of your mind. The smarter move is to
contract for the business capability the technology is meant to provide to
you and hold the professional system integrator with proven past performance
responsible for delivering. ?Accountability is key. Make IT decisions for business reasons
and hold your IT contractor accountable for delivering that business value. ?Standardization is key. It’s easier to contract for one order
to support 9 standard systems than it is to contract for 9 orders for 9
non-standard systems. ?Consolidation is almost without limit. There is almost no limit
to the size of an IT enterprise, so when it makes sense, consolidate similar
capabilities, technologies and values under incrementally larger and larger
contracts. Then provide incentives for industry to accomplish what your
organic staff couldn’t. ?Finally, remember (despite my last bullet) there is a
limit! Define your procurement
objectives to incrementally face and tackle areas of risk representing
obstacles to your success. Ensure increments are valuable, severable and
measurable. With any challenge IT professionals in government face, it’s
best not to venture down an IT path without a definition of success. The most successful IT procurements
follow a simple formula: Identify a business need, define success and how
you’ll measure it, then carefully communicate and reward that success. Happy
hunting! From
http://www.govtech.com/
IT
Testing for 2020 Count Running Behind Testing of IT options for the 2020 census might not be completed
before the Census Bureau has to decide on the operational design of the
decennial count. Bureau officials plan to make that call in September 2015.
Although the agency has made progress in research and testing the IT it plans
to use, several of the supporting projects have neither a schedule nor a
detailed plan, according to a Government Accountability Office report
released April 3. GAO auditors said the bureau has begun research on six
IT-related projects, including a proposal to use the Internet for survey
response, for which the bureau has been buying up URLs, and allowing census
workers to use their own mobile devices to collect data. The goal is to have
at least 60 percent of responses submitted electronically, which should drive
down costs for postage, paper and staff time, Census Bureau CIO Brian McGrath
told FCW late last year. But four of the six projects do not have finalized
schedules, three have no plan for gauging progress, and the two projects that
do have schedules are not expected to be completed until after the September
2015 decision on the census' design, GAO said. The decision must be made around the midpoint of the 10-year
cycle so that the acquisition process can begin in fiscal 2017 or 2018 and
allow provide plenty of time to test and deploy equipment. GAO also
criticized the Census Bureau for failing to determine which projects are the
most important to complete before the decision on deployment must be made.
"Officials stated that they are working with project teams to determine
what needs to be completed and by when to support the design decision, but as
of December 2013 they had not specified when this would be completed,"
the report states. "Without prioritizing its projects and establishing
schedules and plans, the bureau risks not making a timely and well-informed
design decision for the 2020 census." The bureau has identified
potential risks with its IT programs "but has not consistently developed
mitigation plans for all of them," GAO auditors wrote. They recommended
that the bureau set priorities for its IT-related research and testing
projects and develop project schedules to reflect those priorities. The
Commerce Department, of which the Census Bureau is a component, concurred
with GAO's recommendations and said it had already begun to address them. From
http://fcw.com/
Pentagon
Looks to Build a Bridge Between Military, Intelligence IT Consolidation
Efforts The federal government's intelligence community is in the
process of building an interdependent system of shared IT services for all 17
of the nation's intelligence agencies. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is on its own
path to doing roughly the same thing between the military services and
defense agencies. While the governing bodies that oversee those two parallel
efforts do communicate with one another, they have different operating models
and objectives. DoD is still struggling to chart the way forward for agencies
that have one foot in the intelligence world and another in the military.
James Clapper, the director of national intelligence announced earlier this week
that the intelligence community's shared services plan, ICITE, is ready to
start deploying capabilities to agencies, after more than two years of
development. Much like the IC, the Defense Department is making incremental
progress on collapsing its own IT stovepipes into a set of standards it calls
the Joint Information Environment (JIE). Bridging those two still-evolving
worlds has now become the job of the Defense Intelligence Information
Enterprise (DI2E), and its governing body, the Defense Information
Integration (DI2) council. "This bridging function is a critical strategic function,
and it probably makes the DI2 council more critical than it's been in the
past," said James Martin, the deputy undersecretary of Defense for
intelligence for portfolio, programs and resources. To complicate matters
further, DoD needs to bring into the fold a third effort it's been working on
for years: creating a framework to exchange intelligence information with
foreign allies. "We have to work that overlap between those three large
efforts," he said. "ICITE is very intelligence-focused, but it's
also very national-focused as it works toward our new cloud architectures.
JIE has a much larger user base, including logistics, administration, command
and control networks, as well as the defense intelligence piece. It's a much
larger population, and we need to figure out how to connect these Venn
diagrams." To build that bridge, Defense officials say they want to
repurpose as much construction material as they can from what the architects
of JIE and ICITE are already designing, even if those two enterprise IT
models didn't start from the same drawing board. With input from all of the military's intelligence components,
the council concluded that there are 183 individual IT "services"
that handle everything the intelligence community does as of today. Out of
that huge number, it identified 10 separate focus areas that it thinks should
make up the tie-lines between JIE and ICITE, including identity and access
management, data tagging and time synchronization. "We have to get those
right, and they're evolutionary right now," Martin said. "They're
being worked at different levels of maturity and agreement, and we need to be
part of the negotiation process between our own CIO and the intelligence
community's CIO, and they're the ones we need to converge on and use as a
common framework to do this bridging function. Once that happens, we believe
that everything else will be much easier. Everything else that will ride on
that common framework will achieve the kind of interoperability and
efficiencies that we need to." The DI2 council assigned most of the technical work to the
National Reconnaissance Office, which is now working through the nitty-gritty
details of how the fundamental elements of JIE and ICITE will work together. The top-level push toward JIE and ICITE also has implications
for a DoD initiative to integrate the military services' intelligence
collection and processing systems, and that pre-dates either one of them. The
DI2 council and its predecessor body have spent most of their time over the
past decade on the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS). Each military
service has its own variant of DCGS, each in varying phases of deployment.
Robert Marlin, the Air Force's deputy director for intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance capabilities, said his service has had a fully-functional
DCGS system up and running since 2008, and it has already been working on
plans to make it more agile and better able to absorb new capabilities into
the structure. But the Air Force has spent the last several months figuring out
ways to make its version of DCGS compliant with ICITE. It plans to deliver that
plan to the ODNI by September. "In a nutshell, that plan is going to
involve examining all of the potential enterprise and commodity solutions we
have available to us to adopt and reuse — and I would emphasize reuse — to
meet our IT requirements for DCGS and minimize the amount of new development
and unique applications that have to be used and developed." he said.
"We'll continue to work with the IC mission users' group and the DI2E
council to ensure our service-specific requirements are known. Any IC or JIE
solutions that are developed in the future will hopefully include our
needs." Patricia Guitard, the deputy chief information officer for the
Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence said the JIE and ICITE models
pose another big question for those organizations that occupy space in both
the DoD and the IC's organizational charts. If the military departments are
going to be paying for IT as a service, it is difficult to plan for the final
price tag, since those services are organized around at least two different
constructs. "In the JIE environment, the Department of Defense says
you're going to pay for your infrastructure as a service, you're going to pay
to maintain your applications inside of the Defense infrastructure. That's
wonderful, but then I turn around to the IC side, and we end up paying a
different set of service providers for a variety of things," she said.
"Our budget constraints really restrict us from being able to pay six
different service providers. It's a combination of budgeting and a cost model
that puts you in a position where you have to sort of rent services from a
variety of organizations when your dollars just won't support that." From
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/
Senate
Appropriators Signal Support for IT Reform Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel cautioned that the roles of
agency-level CIOs, just like those in the private sector, continue to evolve.
The botched launch of HealthCare.gov last October continues to drive
conversation about federal IT reform, with an eye to making the buck stop
with agency CIOs. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M), chairman of the Senate
Appropriations subcommittee that funds the federal CIO's office, is
continuing to fine-tune legislation to "empower federal agency CIOs to
drive more effective IT investments," he said at a May 7 Senate hearing.
Udall and Republican colleagues Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) and Jerry Moran
(R-Kan.) were among the members who sought to add aspects of the Federal IT
Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) to the Defense bill in late 2013, and they
introduced a stand-alone bill in December that tracks closely with FITARA. The Obama administration still does not appear to be ready to go
quite that far. Dan Tangherlini, head of the General Services Administration,
said that while his agency had consolidated all IT policy around its CIO
office, that approach "may or may not be a useful model for other
agencies, depending on how interrelated their functions are." Federal
CIO Steven VanRoekel said there is room for "policy and
discussions" around expanded agency CIO authorities, but he cautioned
that the roles of the agency-level and private-sector CIO alike continue to
evolve -- implying that legislation might not precisely capture the authorities
a CIO may need in the future. IT oversight expert Dave Powner of the
Government Accountability Office suggested that CIO authority over spending
on commodity IT projects like data centers and email would make sense, and
noted that policies at the Office of Management and Budget overseen by the
federal CIO are designed to do precisely that -- give agency CIOs more
control over commodity spending and more visibility into large scale IT
projects at agency components. Powner said that "good leaders in certain
agencies" were getting the job done in the absence of legislation. Separately, VanRoekel released new policy on the next round of
PortfolioStat meetings for agency officials. More senior leadership will be
included. Alongside CIOs, the deputy secretary and the human capital,
financial, acquisition, and performance improvement chiefs will attend
sessions. Agency submissions to OMB to prepare for sessions will include an
emphasis on the "effectiveness of high impact investments," a
measurement that goes beyond the on time/on budget metrics of the federal IT
Dashboard. At the hearing, VanRoekel explained that he was seeking to ramp up
the staff at the federal CIO shop to spend more time looking at investments
as they are being prepared. He's looking to shift focus "from reactive
to proactive," he told lawmakers. VanRoekel said his staff spends 40
percent of its time engaging with GAO, and much of the rest of the time goes
to statutory duties such as preparing budget submissions and other reports to
Congress. He said more staff -- the CIO is seeking a $20 million
appropriation for his office -- is about additional capacity to hire experts
from the private sector to scope out troubled projects, and rotate through
the government on a temporary basis. "What we've seen is a very small number of people that have
a notion of how to deliver things in modern technology terms can really
change the game. It doesn't take an army of new people," VanRoekel said.
Tangherlini explained that his new 18F project management team is a
complement to this proposed new OMB capacity. "We're trying to build an
additional level of capacity beyond providing agencies with contract
solutions," he said. "We can help agencies through having internal
capacity, programming capacity, and a better understanding of how you build
IT systems." Another benefit, Tangherlini said, was using lessons
learned from 18F efforts as a "feedback mechanism" so that mistakes
made on individual projects aren't repeated across government. From
http://fcw.com/
It's difficult to imagine life without the Web, even though a
large majority of Americans spent part or most of their lives without it. But
it was only 25 years ago this week that British computer scientist Tim
Berners-Lee published the proposal that is widely considered to be the birth
of the World Wide Web. When Berners-Lee published "Information
Management: A Proposal" at the European Organization for Nuclear
Research, he set out to achieve a practical goal: to make the troves of
information at CERN more accessible to the institute's scientists by using
hypertext to share information. Instead, he touched off a revolution. Today,
more than 2.7 billion people around the world acess the Web. Here is a look
back at the Word Wide Web's meteoric rise since 1989. 1990: Berners-Lee develops the first Web page and server, naming
it the WorldWideWeb, on a NeXT computer for scientists at CERN. 1992: A photo of the musical group Les Horribles Cernettes,
featuring the wives and administrative assistants of CERN scientists, is the
first photoposted to the Web. Jean Armour Polly popularizes the phrase
"surfing the Internet." 1993: On April 30, CERN makes the WorldWideWeb software
available to the public. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's student
newspaper, The Tech, is the first newspaper to develop a web presence. In
December, The New York Times publishes its first article about the Web, in
which the print paper describes Mosaic, one of the earliest Internet
browsers, as a "map to the buried treasures of the Information
Age." 1994: Netscape—the brainchild of Marc Andreessen and Jim
Clark—launches. Yahoo also gets its start this year, and the first banner ad
appears. By the end of the year, there are 11 million Americans online and
the White House and United Nations are both online. Tim Berners-Lee founds
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to create worldwide standards for the
Web. 1995: Microsoft introduces the new Web browser, Internet
Explorer, setting off a "browser war" with Netscape. Jeff Bezos and
Pierre Omidyar touch off the e-commerce revolution with the launches of
Amazon and eBay. John Wainwright orders the first book off Amazon: Douglas
Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental
Mechanisms of Thought. Omidyar is baffled by one of the first items auctioned
off over eBay: a broken laser pointer. Quietly, Craig Newmark starts
Craigslist as a way to advertise events in 1996: Hotmail becomes one of the first Web mail services. An
animated baby dancing to "Hooked on a Feeling" captivates the
country, becoming one of the earliest viral videos. 1997: Netflix opens for business, mailing DVDs to subscribers.
John Barger originates the term "Web log"—known today simply as the
"blog"—on his online journal, Robot Wisdom, that chronicles
everything from James Joyce to artificial intelligence. 1998: Sergey Brin and Larry Page officially launch Google,
setting up shop in Susan Wojcicki's garage. Pew Research finds that 20 percent
of Americans are getting their news via the Web, up 16 percentage points in
three years. 1999: One year after the Digital Millenium Copyright Act becomes
law, 19-year-olds Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker launch the file-sharing
service Napster, to the chagrin of music executives but the delight of
college students. The Internet Corporations for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN) takes over management of the Web's domain names. 2000: On March 10, the NASDAQ reaches a high of 5,048.62. By the
end of the year, it is down more than 72 percent–the dot-com bubble has
burst. AOL buys Time Warner for a whopping $165 million. The New York Times
predicts the future convergence of old and new media. 2001: Jim Wales creates Wikipedia. A Federal Judge shuts down Napster.
Google awes everyone with launch of Google Earth. Americans are spending an
average of 83 minutes online per session. 2003: The social-media revolution begins with the introduction
of Myspace, and Apple debuts its Web browser, Safari. Britney Spears and
Harry Potter are the two most popular searches on Google. 2004: Google moves into Web mail with the launch of Gmail. Mark
Zuckerberg creates thefacebook.com in his Harvard dorm, initially only
available to college students. 2005: Reddit is founded. YouTube debuts with a video posted by
cofounder Jawed Karim about the awesomeness of elephants' trunks. The number
of people connected to the Internet worldwide tops 1 billion, and broadband
overtakes dial-up connections. 2006: Jack Dorsey inaugurates the launch of Twitter with the
tweet: "just setting up my twttr." Republican Sen. Ted Stevens is
lampooned by the media after describing the Internet as a "series of
tubes" during a hearing on net neutrality. 2007: Chris Messina proposes the first hashtag (#barcamp). Steve
Jobs unveils the iPhone. "Charlie Bit My Finger" becomes a YouTube
video sensation, and remains the fifth most popular YouTube video of all
time. 2008: Google launches Chrome. Barack Obama's presidential
campaign makes savvy use of the Web. More than half the 2009: Twitter breaks news of the U.S. Airways crash in 2010: Facebook reaches 400 million active users. Pinterest and
Instagram are founded. Wikileaks upends the 2011: Twitter and Facebook are used to organize the revolutions
of the Arab Spring. The Egyptian Government responded to protests by
unplugging the Internet. 2012: The e-commerce market tops $1 trillion, according to
eMarketer. Internet companies flex their power with a widespread internet
blackout to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act. President Obama's tweet
declaring victory in the 2012 presidential election gets more than 800,000
retweets—making his tweet the most retweeted ever. South Korean performer
Psy's "Gangnam Style" becomes the most watched YouTube video ever,
with nearly 2 billion views to date. 2013: Eighty-seven percent of Americans are connected to the
Internet, according to Pew Research. Twitter hits 143,199 tweets per second,
a new record, during an airing of the animated film Castle in the Sky in 2014: The From
http://www.nextgov.com/
New
Global Network Builders Emerge New data from TeleGeography’s Global Bandwidth Research Service
reveal that demand for international bandwidth grew 39% to 138Tbps in 2013, a
4.5-fold increase from the 30Tbps of bandwidth used globally in 2009.
Internet backbones remain the primary users of international bandwidth,
accounting for 75% of demand in 2013. However, the drivers of international
bandwidth demand are changing. As private network operators, including large
content providers like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, expand their internal
networks, their bandwidth requirements increasingly exceed those of the
largest carriers. Private network bandwidth grew at a compounded rate of 55%
annually between 2009 and 2013, while international internet bandwidth grew
44%. Private networks accounted for 25% of used international bandwidth in
2013, up from 20% in 2009. Given their massive capacity requirements, some of
the largest content providers have moved towards owning infrastructure, as a
means of lowering their costs. Global network expansion has undergone a
long-term shift in focus, from connecting users to users, to linking users to
data centers and—increasingly—data centers to each other. ‘Data replication
and mirroring among data centres are key drivers in the rapid growth of
private network capacity,’ said TeleGeography Research Director Alan Mauldin.
‘Private network operators are poised to play a leading role in future global
network development, including as anchor investors and consortium members in
submarine cable systems.’ TeleGeography’s Global Bandwidth Research Service
provides detailed data for the long-haul networks and submarine cable
industry, including supply, demand, cost and pricing analysis, and profiles
for 346 network operators and 277 submarine cables. From
http://www.telegeography.com/
Global
m-Education Market 2014-2018: Advancements in ICT Have Resulted in the
Emergence of Virtual Classrooms m-Education is the ability to provide educational-related
content on smartphones and tablets. Educational-related content refers to all
the digital learning content provided on personal devices. m-Education
service providers deliver learning solutions using the latest tools and
technology, providing users with rich media and graphic-based learning. Since
this form of learning is cost-effective and helps enhance employees'
efficiency and productivity, many educational firms across the globe are
replacing the traditional forms of training with m-education to improve their
geographical presence. The analysts forecast the Global Mobile Education
market will grow at a CAGR of 20.65 percent over the period 2013-2018. The
Global Mobile Education market can be divided into seven segments: E-books
and E-courses, Game/Simulation-based Tools, LMS/Authoring Tools, Distance
Tutoring, Collaboration Tools, Test Preparation and Assessment. The report,
the Global Mobile Education Market 2014-2018, has been prepared based on an
in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers
the Key Topics Covered: 01. Executive Summary 02. List of Abbreviations 03. Scope of the Report 04. Market Research Methodology 05. Introduction 06. Market Landscape 07. Geographical Segmentation 08. Key Leading Countries 09. Buying Criteria 10. Market Growth Drivers 11. Drivers and their Impact 12. Market Challenges 13. Impact of Drivers and Challenges 14. Market Trends 15. Trends and their Impact 16. Vendor Landscape 17. Key Vendor Analysis 18. Other Reports in this Series Companies Mentioned: Amazon Inc. Apple Inc. Barnes & Noble Inc. Blackboard Inc. Google Inc. Microsoft Corp. Pearson plc Sony Corp. From
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/
Research
and Markets: Global Telecom and ICT Augmented Reality Subscription The Augmented Reality in Telecom and ICT subscription service
focuses on strategies, applications, competitive analysis and business
assessment for Augmented Reality within telecom and ICT as well as various
industry verticals. In addition, Augmented Reality in Telecom and ICT
provides the following benefits: Regularly updated reports in key technology and market
development areas Custom report development for clients subscribing at higher
levels Dedicated analyst support addressing Google and related
communications, commerce, content, and applications Target Audience: Wireless carriers and other service providers Augmented Reality (AR) application developers Telemetry, Telematics, and vehicle monitoring companies Telecom (fixed and wireless) and ICT infrastructure providers Government agencies, regulatory authorities, and commissions Key Topics Covered: Evolution of Augmented Reality, Wearable Wireless, and Body Area
Networks Wearable Technology in Industry Verticals 2013-2018 Augmented Reality: Vendor Assessment, Market Analysis, and
Forecast 2013 - 2016 Augmented Reality in Gaming and Entertainment Brave New World: Convergence of Broadband, Location and
Augmented Reality Next Generation Augmented Reality Applications Regulation and Policy for Wearable Augmented Reality Wearable Augmented Reality: Google Glasses and Beyond Mobile Commerce in Virtual and Augmented Reality Augmented Reality in the Cloud Augmented Reality in the Battlefield 2012 - 2016 Market Augmented Reality in Vehicular Safety Systems Market for Embedded Computing + M2M Solutions + Wearable Devices
+ Augmented Reality From
http://finance.yahoo.com/
OneAsia
First in OneAsia, the leading cloud solution and data center services
provider in Asia today announced that it has deployed the Pluribus Networks
F64 Server Switch, the state-of-the-art software-defined networking solution
("SDN") in its enterprise-class data centers in Hong Kong and The SDN is an approach to networking in which control is
decoupled from hardware and given to a software approach. This allows network
engineers and administrators to have more control over network traffic flow
and shorten the respond time for changing business requirements.
"Combining SDN approach with Pluribus Networks F64 Server Switch,
OneAsia is the first in Asia to offer the virtual data centre services, we
called 'OneDC' in the market," said Charles Lee. "With our unique
OneDC solution, customer can pick and choose any computing, network and
storage sources among our data centre footprint and group them as a single
DC." OneDC is the solution offered by OneAsia to address the market
demands for full suite of DC services in multiple regions. By combining NaaS (Network as a Service) & DaaS (Data Centre
as a Service), OneDC enables rapid deployment for MNC to build full suites of
DC services in multiple regions in days rather than months with very limited
capital investment. Fusing the latest technology and a wide range of
technical expertise, OneAsia offers a robust and secured IT environment for
data sensitive enterprises such as financial & banking institutions and
insurance companies. OneAsia will showcase the Pluribus Networks solution at
the upcoming International ICT Expo from 13 April to 16 April, 2014.
Furthermore, OneAsia will demonstrate its 2014 HKICT award winning cloud
based CCTV solution together with other cloud applications at its booth
located at booth#3G-C10 in hall 3 of Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition
Centre. From
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/
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By the end of March 2014, China had built over 250,000 4G base stations,
representing a solid step for 4G development in the country.Commenting on 4G
wireless development, Liu Jie, deputy director of the Bureau of
Telecommunication Administration at the Ministry of Industry and Information
Technology, said that with the rapid development of mobile communications
networking technologies, the mobile Internet sector is also becoming a hot
spot and focus for investment.Liu highlighted that after the experiment of
TD-LTE network technologies was successful and the various industrial
conditions became mature, MIIT issued 4G operating licenses to the three
major Chinese telecom carriers in April 2013. At present, the three telecom
carriers are all actively promoting 4G network construction. Meanwhile, the
entire 4G mobile communications industrial chain, covering system equipment,
terminal chips, and mobile software, achieved fast development.The issuance
of Chinese 4G licenses stimulated the rapid development of the entire
industry; however, China's 4G development still faces difficulties and
challenges. Liu said that MIIT, along with other related Chinese ministries,
is currently taking action to support and promote 4G industrial development
and network construction and optimization, aiming to improve industrial chain
and network service level, enhance user service quality, enrich business
applications, encourage information consumption, and effectively boost
demand. From http://www.chinatechnews.com/
Big
Data Reveals Trend of Chinese Auto Market Many cars at the ongoing Beijing auto show can momentarily seize
the attention of visitors, but such scenes can hardly tell what sorts of automobile
are customers' favorites.A new report based on big-data technology, however,
discloses some clues in the world's largest auto market.Prior to the opening
of the auto show, Baidu, a leading Chinese search engine, issued a report on
the features and demands of Chinese car buyers, by analyzing massive search
data in the past year generated by the country's 600-million-plus Internet
users.The report has been upgrading with a real-time feed of search inquiries
related to the show, which kicked off on April 21 and will conclude on April
29.One finding may get foreign investors excited is that the number of search
queries for "imported cars" increases slightly year on year, up to
26.1 percent, though domestic automobiles still dominate the current Chinese
vehicle market. According to real-time results generated by Baidu Index,
searchers of imported cars are mainly young people under 30 years old.Another
surprising finding shows that 42.6 percent of web users searching cars come
from the fourth-tier, or very small cities, and the number is almost three
times that from first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, which have
rolled out car-purchase restriction policies to tackle traffic congestion and
air pollution.Price-sensitive Chinese consumers are beginning to pay more
attention to car's comfort and functions, as more than 50 percent of search
queries are related to SUVs or compact cars, according to the report.The
report also offers a list of popular search keywords, including "most
popular new models", "new-energy cars", "Top 10 traffic
violations" and hot issues related to car consumption.Though the
data-based report seems only to include web users, it also reflects some
changes and habits of Chinese car buyers." It is becoming very important for people to get information
about cars online, especially in cities with very few test-drives, "
said one web user.One analyst added that the report may invoke a revolution
in the auto industry, indicating that search engine marketing would be
prevailing.It is not the first time that Baidu has used big data to launch
hot issue discussions. In February, it applied the real-time result to trace
human migration during the Chinese Spring Festival travel rush and made a
similar quantitative report on the most popular issues during the annual
political sessions in March.Baidu chairman Li Yanhong said at the sessions
that the Internet is accelerating the transformation of traditional
industries towards higher efficiency.Zhang Yi, CEO of an Internet consulting
company iiMedia Research, said the report is not a piece of pioneering work
as many conventional industries have begun to make use of big data."What
I am concerned more is how to use big data to solve the problem that people
face every day," said Zhang, who expresses the wish that Internet giants
could develop new technology to tell people traffic conditions and offer
drivers smart suggestions. From http://www.news.cn/
The government will spend 4.9 trillion won (US$4.6 billion) this
year on the national information technology strategy that aims to enhance From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/
Technical
Competency of S. Korean SMEs Lags World's Best: Poll The technical competency of From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
Telecom
Ministry to Allocate 2.5ghz Spectrum in Second Half The telecom ministry said Thursday it plans to put up for auction
the sole right to use the spectrum band of 2.5GHz, used for long-term
evolution time-division duplex (LTE-TDD) and wireless broadband (WiBro), in
the second half. The move comes as KMI, a South Korean telecom firm, seeks to
become the fourth local mobile carrier with the LTE-TDD network. The ministry
had said it will receive applications for the mobile business license through
early June and later commence the auction among qualified bidders. From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
Gov't
to Inject 50 Bln Won into loT Industry From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
KT
to Invest 4.5 Tln Won to Tap 'Giga Internet' South Korea's top fixed-line operator, KT Corp., said Tuesday it
will invest 4.5 trillion won (US$3.9 billion) to launch an Internet service
that is 10 times faster than the existing technology, while expanding its
business portfolio to emerging industries. KT said it plans to establish what
it calls "GiGatopia," a society in which all humans and devices
will be connected via high-speed network, and create new opportunities for
local businesses. From
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
According to the communiqué, both countries agreed to create an
implementation committee that would coordinate and advice the joint
commission on identified issues of mutual interest. It added that the 4th session of the joint commission also
discussed draft agreements and MoUs in the other areas of common interest for
both countries, including agriculture, trade and technical cooperation,
irrigation and water management. Later, Uhomoihbi told newsmen that as
developing countries, "We wish From
http://allafrica.com
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From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
How Big Data and GIS Will Plan a Livable Kicking off the first From
http://www.futuregov.asia/
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Grameenphone aims to get 50 to 60 percent of the country's population
online in the next three to four years, said the carrier's chief executive
Vivek Sood at a roundtable yesterday. Currently 22 percent people use the
internet, according to the data of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory
Commission. Sood urged all stakeholders including the government, regulator,
carriers, application developers, equipment suppliers, device manufacturers
to come forward in developing a comprehensive system for higher use of the
internet in He said with every “10 percent data penetration increase, 0.5
percent GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth is observed”. “The
telecommunication sector as a whole contributed 1.2 percent in the GDP but if
you consider the productivity and other factors, the effect of the
connections on the GDP is 5 percent,” Sood said. The effect of data
connections in countries like The editor said the internet was great for bridging the gap
between poor and rich countries and people, and the rural and urban
population. The objective of the event was to discuss how to achieve the
Internet For All goal. The discussion focused on the challenges of the
internet penetration in Mustafa Jabbar, President of Bangladesh Computer Samity, said 15
percent value added tax (VAT) on internet usage should be withdrawn. He added
that if the whole country could not be covered with He said the government was selling 1 megabit per second for Tk
4,800 but it was asking businesses to sell the same bandwidth for Tk 200.
Around 200 gigabits per second bandwidth remain unused due to high charges,
he said. Aminur Rashid, chief executive officer of Symphony Mobile, said 97
percent internet users were mobile device users in Munir Hasan, general secretary of Bangladesh Open Source
Society, said young Bangladeshis were earning Tk 1.1 crore by doing freelance
work over the internet. Now user-generated content should be developed, he
said. Erlend Prestgard, head of strategy of Grameenphone, said currently
carriers in From
http://www.thedailystar.net/ WB Funded ICT Project to Create Huge
Employment Government with support of the World Bank is implementing the
“Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance Project”, which is
expected to create 30,000 direct jobs in Information Technology (IT) and
Information Technology-enabled Services (ITES) sectors, says a press release.
The project will help to catalyze the growth of From
http://www.theindependentbd.com/ IT Outsourcing – Emerging Forex Earner The IT industry in Out of 800 software and ITES companies in Web designing, computer programming, mobile apps development,
SEO, data entry, logo design, music video production, researching and editing
books, legal work, consultancy, medical transcription, tax preparation and
content development are some of the main areas in which Bangladesh can earn
huge amounts of foreign currency through outsourcing. Some Bangladeshi
companies also work on product development, mobile applications development
and software development. Today many global companies – which were once
clients of these companies — have bought into them, and are using them for
mid-range software and IT outsourcing projects. Companies like Vizrt ( “I completed my Honours and Master’s degrees in Political
Science, but I’ve been doing outsourcing and earning some Tk. 30,000 to Tk.
40,000 per month,” said Sultana Pervin , who received the BASIS Outsourcing
Award To promote freelancing all over the country, the From
http://www.theindependentbd.com/
BD
Could Be Mighty Player in Global IT: Mozena He said Jim Bagnola, President
of the Leadership Group International, worked with the entrepreneurs on
building relationships and startup teams. Jim Chung, Executive Director of
Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer at From http://unbconnect.com/ Govt
Picks 160 Youngsters in 1st Batch to Develop as IT Leaders Nazrul Islam Khan said the demand for skilled human resources in
the ICT sector is growing fast with the implementation of various programmes
and initiatives in line with the Digital Bangladesh vision. “We’re creating about one lakh
freelancers, 2,000 entrepreneurs and 2,000 mobile application developers who
will make their contribution to the ICT sector,” he said. According to the sources, the
government is implementing the LICT project involving Tk 572 crore to
flourish the IT sector. The World Bank is providing 70 million US dollars
credit to implement the five-year project that began in 2013. From
http://unbconnect.com/
IT spending by different government agencies in Moreover, salaries and perks paid to IT services staff that plan,
develop, implement and maintain information systems of organizations will
also grow 9.4% in 2014, says Gartner. Finally, more government agencies in
India will spend in social media and the next one year will see widespread
adoption of Facebook and Twitter account by government agencies – both
Central and State governments, updating thier achievement and historical
landmarks as well as for answering customer queries. In a recent interview to
NDTV, I&B Minister Shri Manish Tewari mentions, “The prospect of social
media as a governance tool has been recognized by the Government of India,
and there will be a greater spends in this area.” From
http://www.cxotoday.com/ Internet of
Things to Accelerate Supply Chains Imagine never running out of a product or having surplus stock
because you always know exactly what your customers want and when. The day
may not be far as a recent Gartner study predicts that the Internet of Things
(IoT) will enable supply chain leaders to offer more differentiated services
to customers through a networked ecosystem that can formulate an intelligent
response in the coming years. The research firm forecasts a 30-fold increase
in Internet-connected physical devices by 2020 will alter supply chain
leaders’ information access and risk exposure.“It’s important to put IoT
maturity into perspective, because of the fast pace at which it is emerging,
so supply chain strategists need to be looking at its potential now,” said
Michael Burkett, managing vice president at Gartner. “Some IoT devices are
more mature, such as commercial telematics now used in trucking fleets to
improve logistics efficiency. Some, such as smart fabrics that use sensors
within clothing and industrial fabrics to monitor human health or
manufacturing processes, are just emerging.” As these capabilities become
mainstream, they will allow modern supply chains to deliver more
differentiated service to customers more efficiently. This will happen when
many more physical assets will be communicating their state to a networked
ecosystem that then formulate an intelligent response. From
http://www.cxotoday.com/ Recent outstanding achievement of having been selected as the
Offshoring Destination of the Year 2013 by the National Association for
Outsourcing (NOA) in UK, Sri Lanka's Outsourcing Industry has achieved
another significant achievement by getting shortlisted for the Offshoring
Destination of the Year Award by the European Outsourcing Association.The EOA
Awards (EOAAs) now in its fifth year recognizes and celebrates the efforts of
companies and individuals who have demonstrated best-practice in
outsourcing.The Awards bring the best and brightest of Europe's outsourcing
industry together, featuring a range of suppliers, end-users and support
service providers and affiliate organizations from the UK, Austria, France,
Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Spain, to reward European
outsourcing successes.The CEO of the NOA, which manages the activities of the
EOA, Kerry Hallard, said: "Once again the EOA Awards has seen a record-breaking
year for submissions, featuring a host of best-practice examples from across
the European outsourcing industry. I am delighted to see such variety and detail within this year's
entries, which goes to show the level of talent and professionalism that exists
within our industry. All shortlisted applicants should be incredibly proud to
have reached this stage". Expressing his views on Sri Lanka's short
listing for this year's EOAAs in the Offshoring Destination of the Year
Category, SLASSCOM Chairman Madu Ratnayake stated that" We are delighted
to be shortlisted for the European Outsourcing Awards right on the heels of
victory at the UK Outsourcing Awards. Ranked among the Top 25 Global Outsourcing destinations by AT
Kearney and among the Top 20 Emerging Cities by Global Services, Magazine,
the Sri Lankan environment is highly conducive for allowing global
enterprises to enjoy premium access to a high quality talent pool for small
to medium scale engagements whilst establishing high-in-demand niche
competency centers. Among Globally recognized customers of Sri Lankan ICT products
and services are names such as JP Morgan, Google, From
http://www.dailynews.lk/
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In January-February 2014, the organizations and population in From
http://en.trend.az/
It is expected that investment in the development of the ICT
sector in From
http://en.trend.az/
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and High Technologies
intends to attract a consultant to prepare a package of proposals,
Azerbaijani Minister of Communications and High Technologies Ali Abbasov said
at the board meeting on April 17 dedicated to the results of the first
quarter. This consultant will ensure the achievement of the objectives as
part of the new state program for the development of the information society.
The draft state program will be prepared within four months. The work on the
preparation of the state program is being conducted as part of the
"National Strategy for Information Society Development in From
http://en.trend.az/
ICT Sector Share in The average annual growth in the ICT sector in From
http://en.trend.az/
The cooperation between While recalling Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's visit to He highlighted three
main directions (space technologies, nanotechnologies and microelectronics,
creating digital infrastructure) of expanding the cooperation between the two
countries. While stressing the importance of mutual visits for intensifying
the relations, the head of the Japanese delegation mentioned that the
Azerbaijani delegation's visit to Japan played a positive role in the
development of a new stage of cooperation in the ICT and high technologies in
the Azerbaijani-Japanese relations. The Japanese guest said that the
establishment of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communication and High
Technologies shows that the goals in the area of high-technologies will be
achieved. He also appreciated the interest of Japanese companies in the
sphere of high technologies in From
http://en.trend.az/
The level of mobile communication penetration in From
http://en.trend.az/
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“If
Australian IT leaders are to ‘tame the digital dragon’, they need to address
three top priorities - developing digital leadership, renovating the core of
IT, and building bimodal capability.” According to the Gartner report, most
Australian businesses have established IT leadership, strategy and
governance, but have a vacuum when it comes to digital leadership.
Rowsell-Jones says that to exploit digital opportunities and ensure the core
of IT services are ready, there must be clear digital leadership, strategy
and governance. Gartner recommends that all business executives need to
become “digitally savvy”, and says that digital leadership needs to be clear
and unambiguous. “For Australian IT leaders, the challenge is making sure
every business executive understands the importance and potential impact of
the digital dragon,” Rowsell-Jones says. Whether your enterprise has a CDO or
not (a role not yet common in The Gartner
survey reveals that, across the globe, 42% of CDOs are currently focused on
digital marketing, but this number is falling as more CDOs become true
advisors on digital business strategy to the CEO and board of directors, and
so they move into the arena of business strategy. So, where are Australian
CIOs spending their money? According to Gartner, the focus is clearly on new
opportunities, such as big data and mobile, which Rowsell says is
unsurprising given the rapid growth in market adoption of mobile-data-enabled
smartphones and tablets, the increased popularity of BYODs, and the explosion
in devices capable of participating in the Internet of Things. “However, a
lot of new spending is also going into improving core systems and
capabilities – in other words, ensuring the infrastructure is fit for purpose
to make IT digital-ready.” Table 1:
Technology Spending Focus: 1. Mobile 1.
BI/Analytics 2.
BI/Analytics 2.
Infrastructure and Data Centre 3. Cloud 3.
Mobile 4. ERP 4.
ERP 5.
Digitalisation/Digital Marketing 5.
Cloud 6.
Infrastructure and Data Centre 6.
Networking, Voice and Data Communications 7.
Industry-Specific Applications 7.
Digitalisation/Digital Marketing 8.
Networking, Voice and Data Communications 8.
Security 9. Legacy
Modernisation 9.
Industry-Specific Applications 10. Security 10.
CRM 11.
Cost/Efficiency 11.
Legacy Modernisation 12. CRM 12.
Collaboration Source:
Gartner, March 2014 Gartner’s
survey data shows that one-fifth of Australian businesses and governments
have made significant investments in public cloud, placing them slightly
behind their global peers. And, the analyst firm says that the other striking
difference between Australian IT leaders and their peers is the type of cloud
services being purchased. According to Gartner, only 43% of Australian
businesses have invested in SaaS, compared to a “staggering” 72% globally, and
they warn this could lead to Australian businesses missing out on the
flexibility benefits of SaaS, which offer turnkey solutions to IT service
needs. Gartner analysts said that for most organisations in Australia, the
dialogue around public cloud has transitioned from concerns over service
levels and security to a pragmatic discussion of what, when and how. This
change, says Gartner, is driven by supply-side improvements from cloud
services providers, an increasingly well-informed understanding of public cloud
by business management, and pressure to achieve Web-scale architecture,
performance and agility. “Renovate
the core of IT. Prepare it to be digital-ready. This includes making
investments in mobile in the shape of app development, and bring your own device
(BYOD) support,” said Rowsell-Jones. Underpin this with investments to make
sure the IT ‘engine room’ is also digital-ready.” Rowsell-Jones highlight the
fact that in 2013, federal and state governments announced ‘cloud first’
strategies and procurement models for IT infrastructure and applications, and
says that while Australia’s
public-sector migration to cloud delivery models is currently in its early
stages, “it’s indicated that IaaS and SaaS adoption will make significant
progress in 2014.” On attitudes
towards sourcing, Gartner says this about Australia: • Australian
IT leaders have long embraced strategic sourcing, mixing in-house with
sourcing from offshore captive units, contractors and fully-fledged
outsourcers. However, the survey data shows a different story. In contrast to
the rest of the world, Australia is actually less ‘outsourced’ than its
peers. Only 6% of Australian businesses are mainly or wholly outsourced,
while 60% use mixed sourcing. This is compared to 10% and 63% respectively
among global peers. • However,
Australian IT leaders expressed a strong intention to embrace strategic
sourcing more wholeheartedly, with 76% saying they plan to change their
technology and sourcing approach in the next two-to-three years. And, on building
bimodal capability: • IT leaders
are resorting to splitting their IT organisations in two, in response to the
age-old tension between needing to provide safe, reliable and integrated
enterprise IT, and being able to experiment with and capture value from new
technologies and societal and industrial trends at high speed. Gartner calls
this division into traditional and nonlinear IT functions ‘bimodal
capability’ or ‘two-speed IT’. • Australia
is slightly behind the rest of the world in developing bimodal capability,
with 41% operating some form of two-speed IT (compared to 45% ) but in touch
with the adoption of this model. “If you are
not already bimodal, consider experimenting with separating conventional and
"nonlinear" IT work streams, with conventional looking after more
traditional waterfall development projects, and nonlinear looking after more
short-term, agile and lean startup opportunities,” Rowsell-Jones concludes. From http://www.itwire.com SMEs to Be Part of Australia’s Cloud
Revolution: Turnbull Federal
communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, wants Australian small businesses
to play a major role in the "cloud revolution", with his department
releasing a series of guides this week aimed at helping small businesses
adopt and employ cloud services. The guides have been launched following the
findings of the Department of Communication's Cloud Computing Government
Stock Take report (PDF), which was released yesterday and reviews the
existing regulation that applies to cloud services in Australia. The new
series of guides for SMEs comprises four titles: cloud computing myths;
questions to ask your cloud provider; small business privacy factsheet; and
legal tips for small business using cloud services. "The
guides ... will assist Australian small businesses to be part of this
revolution. They cover a range of topics from questions to ask your cloud
provider, to legal issues to consider in the cloud," said Turnbull in a
statement posted on his office's website. Cloud computing is already proving
to be revolutionary for small businesses, as it significantly lowers cost
barriers to ICT adoption," he said. "KPMG estimates the increased
adoption of cloud services in Australian firms could boost the Australian
economy by AU$3.32 billion a year." According to the Department of
Communications, emerging business models for SMEs that incorporate cloud
services can enable organisations to adopt information and communications
technology services at a lower cost and with greater ease than those that do
not. However, cloud services uptake in Australia amongst SMEs seems to be
lagging behind international peers, according to the department, with the new
guides intended to encourage a boost in local uptake. "Despite
the clear benefits that cloud computing can offer small businesses, adoption
in Australia has been limited compared to other OECD countries," the
Cloud Computing Government Stock Take document said, citing an MYOB Business
Monitor study showing that only 16 percent of Australian SMEs are currently
using cloud. "A vibrant Australian cloud services market, in which there
is strong competition, benefits consumers through increased choice, better
quality services and lower prices," it said. The document also said that
although the current federal regulation supports the efficient functioning of
the Australian cloud services market, there was also a need to "reflect
on the extent to which existing laws may constrain competition and
innovation" in the local cloud market. "It is government policy
that regulation should not be the default option for policy makers and should
only be imposed where it provides a net benefit to the community," the
report said. "For this reason, sector specific regulation should be
recognised as the very last option to be considered by decision makers." The
Department of Communication's push to encourage SMEs into the cloud seems to
be at odds with the government's move to put off its own shift into the
cloud, despite the Commission of Audit recommending it adopt a cloud-first
strategy. In its report, the Commission called for the government to adopt a
cloud-oriented strategy aimed at lowering IT costs over the next three to
five years. However, Treasurer Joe Hockey and Finance Minister, Mathias
Cormann, said that cloud computing would be considered following the 2014-15
budget. From http://www.zdnet.com
NEW ZEALAND: Hi-Tech
Awards Finalists Show Wellington Is the High Tech Capital Wellington
has the highest number of companies per capita in this year’s Hi-Tech Awards,
again confirming that Wellington is the high tech capital of New Zealand.
Eight Wellington technology businesses are finalists in the 2014 NZ Hi-Tech
Awards. Winners will be announced at a gala dinner on Friday 16 May. “It’s
phenomenal how the Wellington high tech sector has grown in the past few
years,” says Gerard Quinn, CEO of Grow Wellington, the region’s economic
development agency. It still probably comes as a surprise to some that more
people in the Wellington region work in technology-related sectors than in
the public sector.” Wellington-based company Xero took out the top award last
year and three other Wellington businesses won various award categories. This
year Xero is again a finalist for the Hi-Tech Company of the Year. “All these
rapidly-growing companies mean there are more and more opportunities for
talented people here,” says Mr Quinn. “As well as these local success
stories, our reputation as an innovative, well-connected region with a great
culture and lifestyle is helping to attract international tech talent and
investors.” Wellington
has the highest number of New Zealand companies (16 out of 40) in the 2013
Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific index, a ranking of the top 500
technology businesses based on revenue growth. Last year over half the
revenue growth of the TIN 100 – the report that measures the performance of
New Zealand's largest export-focused technology companies – came from the
Wellington region. Wellington TIN 100 companies also grew close to three
times faster than any other region. “We’re looking forward to seeing
Wellington businesses succeed at this year’s awards and beyond that to the
2015 event which will be hosted in Wellington, the high tech capital,” says
Mr Quinn. Grow Wellington is one of the awards supporters and is sponsoring
the Innovative Hi-Tech Service Product category. From http://www.ict.org.nz
New Zealand’s Largest
City Drives Open Data Release to Host First Civic Hackathon New
Zealand’s most populous city, Auckland, will be hosting its first civic
hackathon, HACKAKL:Transport, bringing local government together with
community members to innovate, problem-solve and create better communities
with open data. Auckland Council aims to become the world’s most liveable
city and transport services are seen as a key enabler of this goal. While
Auckland Transport (AT) has a set of service improvements underway, it
realises that its customer experience and connection with users of its
services will drive the growth of its services. The hackathon is supported by
AT in conjunction with AUT University and software house Propellerhead. It
brings together members of the community who are interested in utilising open
government data to develop fresh ideas that will help improve Auckland. A key
goal of the event is to establish a community that will drive the civic
hacking and open government agenda in Auckland. Roger Jones, General Manager
of Business Technology at AT, said, “This is a great opportunity for AT to
open itself up to new ideas and innovation.” As the event approaches, AT will
publish a beta application programming interface or API that will open up a
wide range of the organisation’s data, including real-time bus information,
geo-coding, road and congestion data. The event highlights open source as key
to supporting the evolution and democratisation of open data. The organisers
have set up a community GitHub where collaborators can store, access and
improve source code. From http://www.futuregov.asia
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