The EquaTropical Realm

Bin Laden shot in the head, U.S. says

2011-05-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

Officials had long believed that bin Laden was hiding a mountainous region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. In August, U.S. intelligence officials got a tip on his whereabouts, which led to the operation that culminated Sunday, Obama said.

U.S. officials told NBC News that U.S. Special Operations forces carried out the attack on the al-Qaida compound, killing bin Laden when they shot him in the head during a firefight.

The special operations forces returned with the body to Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. They said they were ensuring that it was being handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition.

"We take this very seriously. This is being handled in an appropriate manner," one said.

Senior administration officials said U.S. officials believed they had known where bin Laden was since September. By mid-February, information developed that made them confident that the information was sound.

In mid-March, Obama headed five National Security Council meetings on the subject. Friday morning, he gave the final order to carry out the attack on a compound in what was described as an "affluent suburb" of Islamabad.

"The bottom line of our collection and analysis was that we had high confidence that the compound held a high-value terrorist target," a senior official said, with a "strong probability" that it was bin Laden.

Bin Laden's compound was huge and "extraordinarily unique," about eight times larger than other homes in the area, U.S. officials said.

They said the compound was isolated by 12-foot walls, with access restricted to two security gates. It had no telephone or Internet service and had clearly been custom built to hide "someone of significance."

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42852700/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan, Obama says

2011-05-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

US intelligence led to military operation; US has custody of al-Qaida leader's body, source says

Osama bin Laden, the Saudi extremist whose al-Qaida terrorist organization killed more than 3,000 people in coordinated attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, is dead following a military operation in Pakistan and the U.S. has recovered his body, U.S. President Barack Obama announced Sunday night.

"Justice has been done," the president declared as crowds formed outside the White House to celebrate, singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "We Are the Champions," NBC News reported.

Obama said the 54-year-old bin Laden, whom he called a terrorist "responsible for the murder of thousands of American men, women and children," was killed in Pakistan earlier in the day after a firefight in a military operation that was based on U.S. intelligence. Other U.S. officials said one of bin Laden's sons and two of his most trusted couriers also were killed, as was an unidentified woman who was used as a human shield.

Charles Wolf of New York, whose wife, Katherine, died on Sept, 11, 2001, rejoiced at the news, which he called "wonderful."

"I am really glad that man's evil is off this earth forever," Wolf said. "I am just very glad that they got him."

Former President George W. Bush said in a statement that he had personally been informed by Obama of the death of the terrorist leader whose attacks forever defined his eight years in office.

"This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001," the former president said.

"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."

Obama echoed his predecessor, declaring that "the death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's struggle to defeat al-Qaida."

But he stressed that the effort against the organization continues. Al-Qaida remains in existence as an organization, presumably under the leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri, 59, an Egyptian physician who is widely believed to have been bin Laden's No. 2.

"We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad," he said, while emphasizing that "the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam."

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42852700/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

Osama Bin Laden Killed in U.S. Operation, Obama Says

2011-05-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been killed by U.S. assetsin a mansion outside Islamabad, U.S. officials said. President Barack Obama will announce the death of the terrorist leader tonight.

Obama will deliver the news to the nation in an address from the White House, almost 10 years after the Sept. 11 attacks that bin Laden orchestrated. Bin Laden was killed, along with other members of his family, an official said.

Almost 3,000 people were killed on Sept. 11, most at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia just outside of Washington.

The administration has been briefing congressional officials ahead of the president’s address.

Obama and his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, made capturing Bin Laden a key national security priority. Obama has called the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan the “epicenter of violent extremism,” where he said al-Qaeda leader bin Laden was hiding.

The news brought a cheering, chanting crowd outside the White House fence before Obama was set to appear on television.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-02/obama-to-announce-bin-laden-is-dead-in-white-house-address-official-says.html

YouTube Videos are now transcoded into WebM

2011-04-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

To deliver great content, regardless of device, browser or other technical specification, so you never have to remember that complicated “power adapter converter” to watch a video.

To that end, all new videos uploaded to YouTube are now transcoded into WebM. WebM is an open media file format for video and audio on the web. Its openness allows anyone to improve the format and its integrations, resulting in a better experience for you in the long-term. As we work to transcode more videos into WebM, we hope to reduce the technical incompatibilities that prevent you from accessing video while improving the overall online video landscape.

Transcoding all new video uploads into WebM is an important first step, and we’re also working to transcode our entire video catalog to WebM. Given the massive size of our catalog - nearly 6 years of video is uploaded to YouTube every day - this is quite the undertaking. So far we’ve already transcoded videos that make up 99% of views on the site or nearly 30% of all videos into WebM. We’re focusing first on the most viewed videos on the site, and we’ve made great progress here through our cloud-based video processing infrastructure that maximizes the efficiency of processing and transcoding without stopping. It works like this: at busy upload times, our processing power is dedicated to new uploads, and at less busy times, our cloud will automatically switch some of our processing to encode older videos into WebM. As we continue to transcode the remaining inventory, we’ll keep you posted on our progress.

In keeping with our goal of making videos universally accessible, we will continue to support H.264 as an important codec for video on YouTube. We are also committed to continuing to develop our HTML5 video player that we announced last year, and if you’d like to join the opt-in trial, you can do so here.

The world of online video is incredibly complex and dynamic. Yet, our goal is to ensure that nothing stands between you and the great content you’ve always enjoyed. We’ll continue to invest in new video technology that improves the experiences for all users, builds a better infrastructure for online video, leads to greater access of information and spurs continued innovation.

Source: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2011/04/mmm-mmm-good-youtube-videos-now-served.html

Intel Xeon processor E7 New 10-Core

2011-04-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Intel announced its new E-series of Xeon processors today, claiming that the new processors will deliver nearly unparalleled advances in CPU performance and power efficiency. It's been just over a year since Santa Clara released its Nehalem-based octal-core Beckton processors. Whereas Beckton was focused entirely on performance and architectural efficiency, these new Xeons are more balanced. The new chips boost the core count to ten (up to 20 threads with HT enabled) and will be offered at a wide range of TDPs.

"Intel has been changing the economics for mission-critical computing server deployments for more than a decade, and today we are raising the bar yet again," said Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel's Data Center Group. "The new Intel Xeon processor E7 family delivers record breaking performance with powerful new security, reliability and energy efficiency enhancements. The industry momentum we're seeing for this new server processor architecture is unparalleled in Intel's history. The days of IT organizations being forced to deploy expensive, closed RISC architectures for mission-critical applications are nearing an end."

Intel's presentation made it clear that it's gunning for what's left of the RISC market. Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel's Data Center Group, made a point of telling the conference that there's "No workload in the world today that Xeon can't handle." History certainly favors his words. Intel's quoted figures indicate that while the high end of the server market grew just five percent from 2002-2010, Intel's share of it nearly doubled.

The company went out of its way to note that Itanium's share of the market grew enormously over the past eight years, but it's Xeon, not Poulson, Intel is betting on. The new E7 series incorporates the benefits of Sandy Bridge, its support for new instructions, and its improved power management technology. Intel has also baked in support for low-voltage DIMMs, which allows vendors to opt for 1.35v products. The power savings, at 1W per DIMM, might not sound like much, but the E7 series supports up to 2TB of RAM in a 4S system. According to Intel, low-voltage DDR3 can cut a server's power consumption by up to 128W.

OEM support for the new E7 processors seems downright enthusiastic; 19 vendors have announced a total of 35 systems with shipping to begin immediately. This may be partly due to the way the E7 helps to simplify Intel's product mix. Up to now, Intel's heavy-hitting Beckton was a 45nm chip that lacked the 32nm enhancements of the Xeon 5600 parts.

Article Source: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-Unveils-10Core-Xeons-MissionCritical-Servers/

IFFINA The International Furniture and Craft Fair Indonesia 2011

2011-03-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

IFFINA 2011 is the largest furniture exhibition event in Indonesia.

IFFINA (International Furniture and Craft Fair Indonesia) is the international meeting point where companies will present the latest trends and their innovative and, creative design. They will show their beauties, and unique Indonesian furniture's intended for Global Market. It is the trade show that brings more than 10.000 buyers together with over 400 exhibitors from Indonesia and neighboring countries. It is the easiest place to do business with potential buyers and suppliers.

In 2008, IFFINA was attended by most 240 entrepreneurs and producers who supported the exhibition with the theme “Green Furniture of Indonesia” was visited by 1.492 international visitors from 89 countries including more than 7.100 local visitors.

The theme in IFFINA 2009 was “The Gateway of Green Furniture and Rattan Lifestyle”. This year IFFINA was attended by 311 domestic companies, furniture producers & hand-craft companies from all over Indonesia including a few from abroad.

The successful trend of the last 2 years continued also last year. IFFINA 2010 had 326 exhibitors and have seen more than 2,600 buyers from 107 countries word wide with a transaction value more than 250 US Dollar.

IFFINA 2011 is one of the most prestigious international furniture exhibitions in the circle of ASEAN furniture exhibition activities. Countries that participated in this exhibition among other lines of Malaysia, Philippine, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Compared with other furniture industries, Indonesian furniture and handicraft products are more natural, with high quality, various in style and characteristics. Indonesian furniture can be a ‘simple looking’ designs ranging to very delicate and unique wood-carvings and beautiful ornaments.

Exhibitors in previous year displayed all the quality and variation in Indonesian furniture. From reproduced antiques, upholstered furniture, and bed sets. All made by various types of wood, rattan and other materials.

The majority of the goods is made of natural materials or re-used products. IFFINA 2011 is the answer of today's challenging market for furniture business and industries. The One Stop Buying Center offering Quality and Uniqueness. IFFINA 2011 includes wide selections of furniture and handicraft product, Household and Accessories. All come with the best that Indonesia has to offer.

The Indonesia Economy has been one of the fastest growing economies wordwide. Last year the economical growth was a stunning 6.5%. Many companies wordwide have put their trust in the Indonesia market and the good quality of products with attractive prices.

And even higher figures are predicted for this year. This is important knowledge for local industries and also for possible buyers. Altogether IFFINA 2011 promisses to be an even bigger event than it already was in the previous years. The biggest value for both buyer and exhibitors is offcourse the ability to meet face to face. Exhibitors have the best opportunity to meet potential buyers and display their best selling points. Buyers on the other hand can see and feel the products they like and give valueable feedback. Both of you will have the change to get to know the posibilities and do direct business.

To meet people face to face and know whether what you have to offer is what they want or need, get valuable feedback, get to know your target market better and network with not just buyers but agents, other manufacturers, distributors and the trade press.

Buyers, selling agents, distributors, other manufacturers and trade-press attend IFFINA. These business partners come from various countries, such as Germany, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, America, Middle East, Cyprus, Austalia, and many more around countries around the globe. More than 2,600 potencial buyers attended last year in IFFINA.

Success for the IFFINA 2011

Raise The Awareness of Conserving the Earth

2011-03-18T01:07:00.000-07:00

Earth is a place where all living creatures take shelter and survival. Over millions of years the living creatures depend on nature. Earth support the living creatures with the natural environment of land, sea and air.

However, in line with the old age of the earth and competition in maintaining life, the civilized creatures will ultimately control their environment.

Humans with high civilization has managed to rule the earth. But humans were not aware that in attempting to take advantage of nature can cause environmental damage to the earth and everything in it.

Trash and oil waste will polluting the sea. Deforestation causes floods and landslides. The air become dirty due to pollution and ozone layer thinning.

The rising of carbon dioxide concentration causing greenhouse effect that eventually resulted in rising world temperatures, extreme climate change and gletsers melt down every where.

All of these were also an adverse impact on human health which become susceptible to disease affecting the skin and respiratory system.

This Bad consequences are difficult to overcome and require a very long reply time to fix it. If we do not immediately stop the destruction of this natural environment so our children and grandchildren will suffer the consequences more severe..

Let us instill public awareness on the importance of protecting the environment, ranging from the smallest sphere such as the home and office environment to a larger scope such as industrial, rural and urban areas and more broadly scope such as forestry, aquatic and marine areas.

Let's save the earth!

Earthquake Prediction Technology

2011-03-18T00:11:00.001-07:00

Geologists from all over the world trying to find the right technology to predict earthquakes. From geologist at the National Taiwan University claims that they have discovered an earthquake detector. This device is claimed only takes about 30 seconds to analyze the disaster that will happen.

It also claimed to be able to analyze the size of the earthquake strength and estimate the time of the earthquake happen. By detecting the signs of an earthquake. According to one researcher, Yih-Min Wu, the price of these devices is only 302USD.

This earthquake device used to measure changes in gravity and have not been used operationally to predict earthquakes. So it still have to go through the final stages of testing, ie, connecting to the computer system. These discoveries were also still doubt the experts, because not a single human-made tools that can predict an earthquake.

Earthquake-prone countries have at least four related seismic sensors, such as:

tsunami early warning system sensors
seismometer sensor to determine the depth and magnitude quake quake
GPS sensors to monitor changes in the elastic earth by a seismic event of disruption
marine tidal sensors

With those four powerful devices, geologist are still difficult to predict the occurrence of earthquakes. This is due to the characteristics and structure of different rocks.

In addition, those devices are also used to monitor the behavior of the earth's crust that is affected the earth constellation of other planets that play a role in triggering earthquakes. Although not yet able to detect when and calculate the power of the earthquake, the data obtained from the devices is expected to be used to calculate the likelihood of an earthquake.

Indonesia a disaster prone country

2011-03-15T02:34:00.000-07:00

Disaster, a perceived tragedy, being either a natural calamity or man-made catastrophe. It is a hazard which has comes to fruition. A hazard, in turn, is a situation which poses a level of threat to life, health, property, or that may deleteriously affect society or an environment.

What is Disaster?

A natural disaster is a consequence when a natural hazard such as volcanic eruption or earthquake affects humans and their environment.

Man-made disasters caused by human action, negligence, error, or involving the failure of a system.

Technological Man-made disasters are the results of failure of technology, such as engineering failures, transport disasters, or environmental disasters.

Indonesia is One of Disaster Prone Countries of the World

About 90% of the world's earthquakes and 80% of the world's largest earthquakes occur along the Pacific Ring of Fire, which has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes.

Indonesia lies between the Ring of Fire along the northeastern islands adjacent to and including Papua and the Alpide belt along the south and west from Sumatra, Java, Bali, Flores, and Timor.

Indonesia precisely located in three major tectonic plates which are The Indo-Australian Plate, Eurasian Plate and also Pacific Plate. These three tectonic plates produce frequent earthquake which also could form a tsunami. Other disasters like floods, fires and hurricanes are the results of nature vulnerability and destruction.

The threats of environment destruction such as hurricane, floods, avalanche, epidemic, abrasion, earthquake, pest, fires, drought, volcanic eruption, and also sabotage with terrorism, nowadays are more destructive to nature itself. Because the global warming is brought unstable situation to every corner of the earth.

In the last ten years, the globe has stricken many disasters whether it’s in small or big scale. The worst is, the intensity of the event is getting higher and the variety of the tragedy is becoming wider and complex. Whatever the cause is, there always great loss in every aspect.

With those potential hazards, Indonesia needs to strengthen national capability in disaster management, empower local authorities in anticipating and responding disaster in their regions, coordinate all stakeholders and activities in disaster management and incorporate disaster risk reduction in the framework of national development plan.

Disaster Management in Indonesia

2011-03-15T02:18:00.000-07:00

Tsunami strikes again in Japan on March 11, 2011. After a deadly 8.9 earthquake, one of the largest earthquakes in the history of Japan, a massive tsunami hit the north east coast of Japan.

Indonesia is one of the world's most disaster-prone countries. Now is the time for Indonesia to priorite management disaster.

To get everything that essential about:

Understand what is a disaster, the loss from it, prevention act, what should we do in a disaster, and also survival act after it.
Reduce fatality and loss from a disaster.
Detection of disaster, avoid its potential threats, prevent its effect in every aspects.
Better in get over a disaster and helping victims.
Restore places to normal better and faster.
More efficient and effective in resources.

Potential Hazards

Geologically prone to earthquake, tsunami, volcano eruption and landslides.
Hydrometeorology (flood, flash-flood, typhoon and drought).
Biology (epidemics, diseases and pest).
Environment degradation (deforestation, forest fire, haze, water and air pollution).
Technological failure (transportation and industrial accidents).
Social Conflict (civil unrest and terrorism).

Policies

Strengthen national capability in disaster management, especially in prevention, mitigation and preparedness.
Manage and mobilize all potential resources (infrastructure and manpower) in disaster preparedness, responds and recovery.
Empower local authorities in anticipating and responding disaster in their regions.
Coordinate all stakeholders and activities in disaster management.
Incorporate disaster risk reduction in the framework of national development plan.

Strategies

Disseminate disaster risk reduction and strengthen capacity through training and education.
Prepare disaster legislation, regulations and standard operating procedures.
Set up disaster management information systems.
Disseminate hazard mapping and risk assessment.
Set up disaster management plan in all levels.
Strengthen National/Provincial/District Emergency Operation Center and Rapid Response Team.
Strengthen local capacity in disaster recovery.

Conclusions

Indonesia is disaster prone country, both natural and human induce disaster. Disaster management in Indonesia needs support from space technology in terms of hazard and risk mapping, early warning, damage assessment and rehabilitation. The Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum or APRSAF play an important role to assist Indonesia in the disaster management.

Motorola Xoom Dual Core Processor Tablet

2011-03-15T00:50:00.000-07:00

Motorola Xoom is the World’s first tablet with a 1GHZ dual core processor. It is also the first tablet that ship with Honeycomb, a new version's of the Android 3.0 operating system. The Motorola Xoom dual core processor for 2X power 2X speed makes multitasking become very easy, access various type of file from whatever source, handling documents in an instant. It's PC-like performance for working and gaming in a flexibility gadget.

Here's the features of Motorola Xoom:

Flexibility

Multitask with ease and PC like performance.
Access various types of files, whatever the source.
Open, edit, save and share docs in an instant.
Data encrypted, for total security at work or play.
Check email, view your calendar, and set appointments.

Display

10.1 inch widescreen for HD display.
Rich, clear video playback in 720p HD.
Touch screen, with pinch to zoom navigation.
1280 x 800 pixel resolution, at 150p inch.
Coming Gorilla Glass toughness.Cameras/Video

Operating System

First device on powerful android 3.0 (Honeycomb).
Google software designed specifically for tablets.
Fully upgradable to 4G, making it next gen ready.
Best for video, streaming media and downloading.
Radical new “floating” multi finger user interface.
Supports Adobe Flash player for optional browsing.

Cameras / Video

Camcorder – Fully functioning HD camcorder for quality video.
Cameras – Front and rear facing camera for social networking.
Video Conferencing – Front facing web cam for video conferencing.
Playback – Playback in 720p HD or even output at 1080p via HDMI.
Rear Camera – Rear 5 MP camera with LED flash and digital zoom.
Edit and share videos, photos instantly.

Accessories :

Speaker HD Dock

Featured compact, built in speakers, so there is no need to connect.
Double as a hub, with there USB 2.o ports plus HDMI connectivity.
Video chat, access apps, watch movies, listen to music while charging.
Speaker HD dock remembers your settings – every time you plug in.
Use Bluetooth technology to connect to a wireless keyboard or mouse.
Allows you to use your tablet at a convenient and accessible angle.

Standard Dock

Keeps your tablet charged and ready to go.
Allows you to use your tablet at a convenient and accessible angle.
Standard dock remembers your settings – every time you plug in.
Access apps, watch TV or movies, listen to music while charging.
Set the default view to clock mode or your personal photo gallery.
Connect to external speakers to enhance listening/viewing pleasure.

Wireless Keyboard

Connects effortlessly with Bluetooth wireless technology.
Works with most Android Powered Motorola devices.
Features a lightweight, full sized keyboard with super thin design.
Includes shortcut keys for quick access to your favorite Android apps.

Portfolio

Protect and personalize your tablet with the custom fit portfolio case.
Available in two materials, including durable and leather.
Positions your tablet in easy to see angles when used as a stand.

More articles about Motorola Xoom - Android Smart Tablet

Japan Earthquake 8.9 magnitude triggering Tsunami

2011-03-11T01:52:00.000-08:00

An 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit northern Japan on Friday, triggering tsunamis and sending a massive wave filled with debris that included boats and houses inching toward land.
The number of fatalities was unclear, but Japan's Kyodo news reported at least 10 killed and numerous injured.

The quake prompted at least 19 countries and numerous Pacific islands to issue tsunami warnings. It was followed by powerful aftershocks that were felt in capital of Tokyo.

The quake's epicenter was 373 kilometers (231 miles) away from Tokyo, the United States Geological Survey said. But residents there continued to feel aftershocks long after the quake.

At Tokyo Station, one of Japan's busiest subway stations, people grabbed each other to steady themselves. Children cried. An announcement over the station loudspeaker warned commuters to remain underground.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/11/japan.quake/index.html?hpt=T1

Blackberry Phones Top Version

2011-03-08T00:38:00.000-08:00

Latest RIM Blackberry Phone

Blackberry phones are known for it's reputation in smartphone technology. The great features of Blackberry Smartphones is making staying connected in our business and personal lives easier than ever before.

BlackBerry offers a sleek, stylish and compact all-in-one mobile phone solution, with the benefit of integrated email, sms text messaging, diary, contacts, instant messaging, Internet browser and social networking as standard.

The Top Version of Blackberry Phones are:

BlackBerry 9800 Torch Slide Phone

2011-03-08T00:31:00.000-08:00

The Blackberry Smartphone Series

Launched September 2010 to North America and expected quickly in the UK, the BlackBerry Torch 9800 slide phone is the very latest and perhaps the very best BlackBerry handset. It is the first BlackBerry slide phone and whilst featuring a 3.2" HVGA+ touch screen, this latest BlackBerry also has the usual full QWERTY keyboard tucked away beneath the slide screen. Navigating this latest BlackBerry handset is very exciting, as a combination of touch screen, optical trackpad, main function buttons and QWERTY keyboard, all combine to give an outstanding user experience. And for anyone who failed to 'bond' with the BlackBerry Storm touch/click screen, this touch screen is simply light years ahead and also with greatly improved web browsing functionality.

Along with all the usual BlackBerry refinements and functionality, the BlackBerry Torch is the first BlackBerry handset to feature the latest BlackBerry 6 operating system (OS) and with it, a greatly enhanced user experience across all of the this exceptional smartphones functions. Whilst prior to a full UK launch, pre-orders can be made via Vodafone, it has been reported that Orange should have early availability and that the other major mobile phone networks will follow.

The review for Blackberry Torch and specification

BlackBerry Bold 9700

2011-03-08T00:25:00.000-08:00

The Blackberry Smartphone Series

Since it's initial launch as the BlackBerry Bold 9000, this handset has been highly popular both with business users and regular users alike. Towards the end of 2009, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 stepped in and has since been anomalously labelled as RIM BlackBerry's best handset to date, encapsulating all that is outstanding about traditional BlackBerry functionality and form. It seems that there has been universal agreement in all reviews, both written and video, that this is the BlackBerry to own. And when you read these reviews it's clear that BlackBerry have taken all that was good about the Bold 9000 and made it better - reduced size, reduced weight, higher resolution screen, improved battery life and with this enhanced power, improved talk-time and play-back time with audio and video files.

The new BlackBerry Bold 9700 also features improved navigation with optical trackpad, improved camera/video specs and an overall much faster/improved user experience. And lets not forget core email/communication/social networking applications that stand this handset (& BlackBerry generally) out, as the smartphone of choice. The Bold 9700 is available on all networks and in a variety of colors.

The review for Blackberry Bold 9700 and specification

BlackBerry Storm2 9550

2011-03-08T00:20:00.000-08:00

The Blackberry SmartPhone Series

The RIM BlackBerry Storm2 or BlackBerry Storm 9550 is one of the most ground breaking BlackBerry smartphones to date, as well as being RIM BlackBerry's first handset to feature touch screen/ Surepress technology. Storm 9550 offers a crystal-clear, high resolution 3.25" touch screen display, with auto-screen rotation - both SureType and QWERTY.The BlackBerry Storm (2) has a 624Mhz processor, 2GB of internal storage, 256MB Ram and expansion up to 32GB. This smartphone weighs just 160g, features a 3.2MP camera (with video capture) and offers up to 6hrs talk time. WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth are all standard. The BlackBerry Storm is considered to be RIM's most important phone release to follow the ever popular BlackBerry Pearl.

It's fair to say that this pioneering handset has had a somewhat rocky road and it's fair share of negative reviews, but despite this and especially with the massively improved Storm2 9550, this handset has a significant following/market share in the BlackBerry community. So we cannot give a complete 'thumbs-up' for this handset and like marmite, it seems that with the BlackBerry Storm, it's either complete love or complete hate.

The review for Blackberry Storm 2 9550 and specification

Intel Core i7 990X Processor Extreme Edition

2011-03-07T23:40:00.000-08:00

The highest performing desktop processor on the planet.

Intel now has the fastest proccessor, the new Core i7 990X which base on 32nm Gulftown core. The extreeme edition of this processor with the clock speed at 3.45GHZ and the multiplier is unlock with a Turbo Boost top-end speed of 3.73GHz. It's easily score the performance metric as the fastest six-core chip and of course it will cost you as well.

The Intel® Core™ i7-990X with the high performance platform capabilities of Intel® X58 Express Chipset-based motherboards will deliver the greater performance with a rich feature set.

Further information on Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Extreme Edition and specification

iPad 2 All New Design Coming March 11 Starting at $499

2011-03-07T03:54:00.000-08:00

iPad 2

Thinner. Lighter. Faster. FaceTime. Smart Covers. 10 hours battery.

All New Design

Less in your hands. More at your fingertips.

iPad is now 33 percent thinner and up to 15 percent lighter. You'll feel the difference when you pick it up. And when you just can't put it down.

Dual Core A5 Chip

It's Fast, times two.

Two powerful cores and faster graphic mean better surfing, better watching, better gaming, better everything. All with the same 10 hours of battery life.

Two Cameras

FaceTime, HD Video, and lots more to smile about.

Share big laughs with friends and family over FaceTime. Film youe life in HD. And put a twist on your snapshot with Photo Booth.

iPad Smart Cover

One great idea on top of another.

It attaches magnetically and aligns perfectly. Open and close it, and iPad 2 wakes up and goes to sleep. Fold it into a stand for watching and typing. It's smart in more ways than one.

Further information on Apple iPad 2

Coming March 11. Starting at $499.

Google Samsung Nexus S with Gingerbread

2011-03-07T02:45:00.000-08:00

Review by Jennifer Johnson

Google's Nexus S smartphone has a lot of attractive features, but the one that attracts the most attention is the fact that this smartphone is the first to ship with the latest version of the Android smartphone operating system—version 2.3. Otherwise known as Gingerbread, this OS is said to be the fastest version of Android yet. In addition to Gingerbread, the Nexus S touts a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and 16GB of internal memory.

Although the Nexus S is the sequel to Google's Nexus One smartphone, Google is taking a different approach with this product. Whereas the Nexus One was only offered through Google's website, the Nexus S is available through Best Buy stores. Given that the Nexus S will be more visible to customers thanks to its retail presence, we expect Google will enjoy greater success with the Nexus S than it did with the Nexus One.

Since the Nexus S is a Google-branded phone, there isn't a custom UI that alters the Android experience—In other words, you'll get to use Android 2.3 in all is raw glory. Along with that, you'll get the new and improved features of Gingerbread, including a new user interface, an improved keyboard, support for near field communication (NFC), and more. This new OS also builds on many of the most popular features of Android such as multi-tasking and Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities.

Read more review about Google Samsung Nexus S with Gingerbread with specification

Intel Unveils Next Gen Itanium Processor

2011-02-25T01:50:00.000-08:00

This week, at ISSCC (International Solid-State Circuits Conference) Intel unveiled its next-generation Itanium processor, codenamed Poulson. This new octal-core processor is easily the most significant update to Itanium Intel has ever built and could upset the current balance of power at the highest-end of the server / mainframe market. It may also be the Itanium that fully redeems the brand name and sheds the last vestiges of negativity that have dogged the chip since it launched ten years ago.

From Merced to Tukwila

Intel began work on what would become Itanium back in 1994 in a joint venture with HP. The two companies chose to pursue a design philosophy they termed EPIC (Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing). As an EPIC processor, Itanium pursued a very different design philosophy compared to the Pentium Pro and the other out-of-order execution processors that followed it.

Instead of using specific CPU hardware to re-arrange and optimally schedule instructions for execution (defined as Out of Order Execution, or OoOE), Itanium relies on the compiler to optimize code at run-time. This allowed the designers of Merced (the first generation Itanium) to devote more die space to execution hardware, thus boosting theoretical performance. The weak link in the chain was the compiler itself. If it failed to detect and exploit thread-level parallelism at runtime only a fraction of the CPU's execution units were in use at any given time.

Read more from the source of this article: Intel Previews 32nm Itanium "Poulson" Processor

Final Android 3.0 Platform and Updated SDK Tools

2011-02-24T02:47:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to announce that the full SDK for Android 3.0 is now available to developers. The APIs are final, and you can now develop apps targeting this new platform and publish them to Android Market. The new API level is 11.

For an overview of the new user and developer features, see the Android 3.0 Platform Highlights.

Together with the new platform, we are releasing updates to our SDK Tools (r10) and ADT Plugin for Eclipse (10.0.0). Key features include:

UI Builder improvements in the ADT Plugin:

New Palette with categories and rendering previews. (details)
More accurate rendering of layouts to more faithfully reflect how the layout will look on devices, including rendering status and title bars to more accurately reflect screen space actually available to applications.
Selection-sensitive action bars to manipulate View properties.
Zoom improvements (fit to view, persistent scale, keyboard access) (details).
Improved support for layouts, as well as layouts with gesture overlays.

Traceview integration for easier profiling from ADT. (details)
Tools for using the Renderscript graphics engine: the SDK tools now compiles .rs files into Java Programming Language files and native bytecode.

To get started developing or testing applications on Android 3.0, visit the Android Developers site for information about the Android 3.0 platform, the SDK Tools, and the http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html.

HTML5 Games 0.2: Integers are Your Friends

2011-02-20T20:34:00.000-08:00

By Cory Ondrejka

Two weeks ago Bruce and I released JSGameBench version 0.1. Today marks the release of version 0.2, a much faster and cleaner version. We continue to learn both from tightening the code and from the strong HTML5 community. Version 0.2 reinforces our belief in HTML5 as a strong, horizontal platform for games and highly interactive applications across the web.

Benchmarking

In order to talk about browser performance, we needed to standardize. We now have two machines that will be our testing machines:

For OS X: a MacBook Pro laptop, currently OS X 10.6.6, 4GB of RAM, 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, and NVIDIA GT 330M with 512MB of RAM.
For Windows: a Lenovo T410s laptop, currently Windows 7 Enterprise, 4GB of RAM, 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, and NVIDIA NVS 3100M with 512MB of RAM.

Both of these laptops are significantly less powerful than the Mac Pro the original tests were run on. In addition, the 3100M offers approximately half the performance of the 330M.

More is Better

Thanks to help from the HTML5 community, JSGameBench has roughly doubled performance in the most widely used browsers in only two weeks. This a very promising development for the future of HTML5 games and interactive apps. The two most significant changes are clamping positions to integer values and using the transform/transform3d style property.

PlayStation Phone The Xperia Play

2011-02-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

PlayStation Phone: Innovator or Imitator?
Sony's new phone is aimed at avid gamers, but it's unlikely to challenge the iPhone.

After seeing the mobile gaming market invaded by smart-phone makers in recent years, Sony Ericsson has now launched the first "Playstation phone," called the Xperia Play. The device resembles a regular smart phone but has gaming buttons that slide out from beneath the screen.

The Xperia Play, launched this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, is designed to fend off growing competition in the mobile gaming market while carving out a new niche among many other mobile devices.

Smart phones have encroached on the mobile gaming market in recent years—in 2009, revenue from iPhone games surpassed revenue from Sony's mobile PSP device, according to figures from research firm NPD and Flurry Analytics, a mobile analytics company.

Smart phones are now more powerful than many mobile gaming devices—the Samsung Galaxy S, for example, has three times the video processing of the Nintendo 3DS. Multitouch, motion-sensing interfaces have led to simple types of games that appeal to casual gamers. And smart-phone games sell for a few dollars, compared to around $30 for PSP games.

The Xperia Play's hardware matches that of any high-end smart phone. It has a one-gigahertz Snapdragon processor, an Adreno 205 graphics processor (both made by Qualcomm), and uses Google's Android operating system. It has a 10-centimeter, 854-by-480-pixel multitouch LCD screen, an eight-megapixel camera, and has eight gigabytes of SD memory, expandable to 32 gigabytes. Games can be downloaded via the Android Market.

In a time when many phones are focused on multitouch and motion control, the Xperia Play's slide-out keypad, featuring Sony's trademark gaming controls, may seem slightly retro. "It's almost like a step backward," says Daniel Ashdown, a mobile gaming research analyst with Juniper Research. But for the serious gamer, the buttons make sense, Ashdown says: "Sometimes you can't get such a good interaction without a keypad."

"If you are playing a driving game, you can use the accelerometers to steer, but it's quite hard to do braking and acceleration," adds Dan Hays, a mobile technology analyst and director of the consulting firm PRTM in Washington, D.C.

EA Games, which released its first games for the Android platform last October, has released two new titles for the Xperia Play: Fifa 10 and The Sims 3. According to Travis Boatman, VP of Worldwide Studios for EA Mobile, the company has been working with Sony Ericsson to ensure that the device's keypad gives players more control in the Xperia Play versions of its games.

Making PlayStation games available through the Android Market could help broaden the appeal of the platform, says Hays. Accessories could allow other Android handsets to play those games. But Xperia Play is unlikely to compete with the iPhone, says Hays. He believes the popularity of Apple and Android devices has both helped and hindered existing players in the mobile gaming market. It has drawn some customers away from dedicated consoles, but it has also drawn in fresh new users who may not have previously considered buying games, he says.

The trick, for Sony Ericsson, will be persuading some of these new players, as well as dedicated gamers, to buy the Xperia Play.

By: Duncan Graham-Rowe

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/32370/?a=f

80% of Browsers Found To Be At Risk of Attack

2011-02-17T20:17:00.000-08:00

CWmike writes “About eight out of every 10 Web browsers run by consumers are vulnerable to attack by exploits of already-patched bugs, a security expert said Thursday. The poor state of browser patching stunned Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, which presented data from the company’s free BrowserCheck service Wednesday at RSA. ‘I really thought it would be lower,’ Kandek said.

BrowserCheck scans Windows, Mac and Linux machines for vulnerable browsers, as well as up to 18 browser plug-ins, from Adobe’s Flash to Windows Media Player. When browsers and plug-ins are tabulated together, between 90% and 65% of all consumer systems scanned with BrowserCheck since June 2010 reported at least one out-of-date component. In January 2011, about 80% of the machines were vulnerable. The most likely plug-in to require a patch: same as last year, Oracle’s Java.”

Source: 80% of Browsers Found To Be At Risk of Attack

Analysis: Nokia and Microsoft Embrace in Smartphone Alliance

2011-02-15T23:16:00.000-08:00

The smart money was right. Nokia has jumped into bed with Microsoft and will produce phones running Windows Phone 7.

The cynics would say that, here, we have two lumbering dinosaurs of the technology world clinging to each other hoping that the other gives them a future. Optimists would point to two global super-giants that need each other, both bringing vital components to the alliance.

The big winner is Microsoft. Windows Phone 7, while reasonably well received by commentators, has not set the world on fire. An alliance with Nokia gives it access to the world’s largest phone maker and its huge mindshare—in many developing nations a mobile phone is known as a Nokia. Microsoft’s mobile strategy has been lackluster and tardy. The news that smartphones have outsold PCs for the first time last quarter, has put Microsoft’s core business—selling software for PCs—under threat. It desperately needs a stake in the future.

Microsoft’s “embrace and extend” strategy appears to be alive an well. In an open letter published on Nokia’s website, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wrote “Together, we have some of the world’s most admired brands, including Windows, Office, Bing, Xbox Live, NAVTEQ and Nokia.” It is clear who is wearing the trousers in this partnership.

Google must be smarting a bit today. Not only did Nokia spurn the Android operating system - a recent survey suggests each phone delivers $9.85 a year to Google - but Nokia phones will have Bing as their default search engine. An Android tie-up for Nokia made little sense; the last place Nokia wanted to be was slugging it out with the likes of Samsung, HTC and Motorola, trying to differentiate themselves by cutting content deals and making better user interface tweaks.

But the biggest loser is MeeGo, the ugly, unloved step child of operating systems. The press release says: “MeeGo becomes an open-source, mobile operating system project. MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences. Nokia still plans to ship a MeeGo-related product later this year.”

So MeeGo to No Go. Will that device ever see the light of day? Perhaps, but it will be hard to persuade developers and manufacturers to get behind an OS that clearly has been put on the shelf. WP7 will be at the centre of the company. MeeGo may yet end up in other devices; it is after all yet another flavor of Linux, the very popular open-source operating system. MeeGo’s road map always talked about it being embedded in other devices.

That may yet happen, but the omens don’t look good. Alberto Torres, who until today was Executive Vice President, MeeGo Computers, Mobile Solutions, has carried the can. According to the press release he is to “pursue other interests outside the company.”

Along with the eye-grabbing headline, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop also announced the much expected re-organization. Inauspiciously commencing on April Fool’s Day (were the PR team asleep during that bit of the planning?) the company will have two business units: Smart Devices and Mobile Phones. The former will be the new Windows Phone 7 branch. The Mobile Phones unit will continue to develop phones for Nokia’s mass market.

Neither of these two units can expect an easy time. Nokia’s core business - mass feature phones for the mass market - is under severe threat from cheap, mass produced Chinese phones. As Mr. Elop said in his famous “burning platform” memo:

“At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, “the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation.” They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.”

And life is going to be no easier down the line. Smart Devices have to go into battle against the massed ranks of Android backers, BlackBerry and of course Apple and the iOS, armed with only Windows Phone 7. A giant killer it isn’t.

What is worrying is the time frame. Mr. Elop said “Nokia expects 2011 and 2012 to be transition years”. Two years is an eternity in the mobile phone world. Moore’s Law, which roughly translates to the power of chips doubling every 18 months, means phones will be more than twice as powerful. If Nokia is going to be worrying about who gets what office for the next two years, the company is going to emerge into an unrecognisable world.

The market reaction to Mr. Elop’s announcement was as swift as it was brutal. Nokia immediately fell 11 per cent. The markets are going to take some convincing that the company can pull itself out of a hole. But it is the general public who are the real judges in this final dance of the dinosaurs. The deal with Microsoft gives both Nokia and Microsoft a route to the future.

It is a very dark road ahead, and they are starting their uncertain journey right at the back of the pack. At least now they appear to have bought a map.

Source : http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/02/11/nokia-and-microsoft/

Nokia E7 The New Stylist Communicator

2011-02-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

Overview

A beautiful, innovative design with everything you need to stay in sync. 4” AMOLED touch screen and QWERTY

Real-time work and personal emails
Maps with free GPS navigation
8 MP camera and HD video
Fully integrated social networks

Features

Your mobile office

Real-time emails with Mail for Exchange.
Easy access to your work and private email accounts from the same view.
Create, edit and share office docs and view PDF files with Adobe Reader.
Get fast, secure intranet access with the built-in VPN.
Easily set up your calendar and sync it with Microsoft Outlook.

Seamless personal communication

Get emails direct from Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail, Ovi Mail and others.
Chat through many IM services – Windows Messenger, Ovi Chat and more.
Live updates from Facebook and Twitter on the home screen.
Update your status across all your social networks at the same time.
Follow your conversations easily with threaded SMS chats.

Full-touch display and QWERTY

Constructed from anodised aluminium with an AMOLED real glass display.
Everything looks crystal clear on the high-quality 4" touch screen.
The tilting full-touch display sits at a natural angle for optimal viewing.
Pinch your fingers to zoom in or flick to scroll on any web page.
Slide the screen to reveal a QWERTY keyboard – ideal for fast typing.
Apps for business, security and travel
- Ovi Maps with free lifetime GPS navigation and voice guidance.
- Keep important data protected with F-Secure Anti-Theft for Mobile.
- Tell your phone what to do with Vlingo, the voice recognition app.
- Track flights and be notified of changes with the World Traveler app.
- Many apps at Ovi Store – business, messaging, entertainment and more.
High-quality photos and entertainment
- Capture high-resolution photos and HD video using the 8 MP camera.
- Use an HDMI* cable to view HD videos and images on your compatible TV.
- Watch and upload videos straight to YouTube.
- National Geographic, CNN and many more channels with on-demand Web TV.**
- Scroll through album art and make playlists of your favourite songs.
- Available separately at all good electronics stores. **Content may vary by region.
Powered by Symbian
- Enjoy over 250 new features from the Symbian operating system.
- Personalise your home screen to fit your needs.
- Easier, more intuitive touch-screen controls.
- Multitask without sacrificing battery life.
- Develop your own apps with ease.
  Specification: http://www.nokiausa.com/find-products/phones/nokia-e7-00/specifications

Facebook and Google wanted to acquire Twitter, at $10 billion

2011-02-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

Both Facebook and Google wanted to acquire Twitter sometime last year and even held talks with the social network. Naturally, all three companies have declined to comment on this news. While acquisition propositions for early successful companies are perfectly normal in the technology industry, it is quite shocking to learn that the service was valued by these and other companies at anywhere between $8 billion and $10 billion. This is all according to sources quoted by The Wall Street Journal:

Executives at both Facebook Inc. and Google Inc., among other companies, have held low-level talks with those at Twitter Inc. in recent months to explore the prospect of an acquisition of the messaging service, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks have so far gone nowhere, these people say. But what's remarkable is the money that people familiar with the matter say frames the discussions with at least some potential suitors: an estimated valuation in the neighborhood of $8 billion to $10 billion. This for a company that, people familiar with the matter said, had 2010 revenue of $45 million—but lost money as it spent on hiring and data centers—and estimates its revenue this year at between $100 million and $110 million.

Less than three months ago, Facebook was valued at $50 billion on SecondMarket. This was pretty unofficial, but last month, the company raised $1.5 billion at a valuation of approximately $50 billion. The fact that Twitter could be purchased at a price of up to one fifth of Facebook is simply mind-blowing.

By Emil Protalinski

Source : http://www.techspot.com/news/42357-facebook-and-google-wanted-to-acquire-twitter-at-10-billion.html

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate

2011-02-10T19:11:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate in 40 languages. You can download version 9.0.8080.16412 now for: Windows Vista 32-bit and Windows Server 2008 32-bit, Windows Vista 64-bit and Windows Server 2008 64-bit, Windows 7 32-bit, and Windows 7 64-bit and Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit.

The new RC build includes a Tracking Protection feature, which gives users the option to control what third-party site content can track them when they’re online, as well as a new ActiveX filtering option, which allows users to turn on/off ActiveX plug-ins. Best of all, Microsoft has addressed what was arguably the biggest complaint with the new version (the company has gone through over 17,000 pieces of feedback): if you want your tabs on a separate line from the address box, there's now an option to turn that on from the right click menu at the top of the browser.

At the same time, IE9 RC is significantly faster than the beta version. Furthermore, many site rendering issues have been fixed, although we can't say that it's working perfectly. Last but not least, the new build includes hundreds of bug fixes.

Microsoft released the IE9 beta five months ago. The software giant also took the opportunity to announce that the beta surpassed 25 million downloads, making it the most downloaded beta release of Internet Explorer ever. Redmond is likely to release the final version of IE9 at its Mix11 event (April 12 to April 14, 2011).

"IE9 RC supports additional emerging Web standards including CSS3 2D Transforms, HTML5 Geolocation and a set of HTML5 semantic elements," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "We've added support for the HTML5 canvas globalCompositeOperation property and improved the performance of canvas’s CanvasPixelArray. We've updated IE9 RC to reflect changes to the DOM events and added accessibility to the HTML5 audio and video controls. These additions reflect our pattern of implementing site ready HTML5 while ensuring developers can experiment with new and emerging specifications through our HTML5 Labs. As these specifications become stable, you can expect we will implement them in IE as we have throughout the development of IE9."

By Emil Protalinski

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/42358-microsoft-releases-internet-explorer-9-release-candidate.html

Islamic Banking, Beyond Banking Part 1

2011-02-09T23:35:00.000-08:00

Introduction

In 2009 alone, Middle Eastern countries are expected to channel 1.5 trillion US dollar into their investment funds, ready to be supplied to investment destinations around the world.

Background

Naturally, many countries quickly responded to the profusion of investment funds by developing Islamic-based financing and banking in the hope of enticing these funds to invest in their countries. As a result, Islamic banking and other Islamic financial products quickly became a global trend, even in countries where Moslems do not make up a majority.

The increasing enthusiasm in developing Islamic banking system has led to the adaption of a dual banking system and driven the huge growth in Islamic Banking assets. By adopting a dual banking system, Islamic banking can be developed alongside existing service and providing a broader range of banking services for public and investors

Worldwide growth in Islamic banking assets is estimated to be 27% in 2008, much higher than the 19% growth in conventional banking.

A number of countries in Asia have developed and positioned themselves as Global or Regional Islamic financial hubs links global regions.

To compete with UK, which was first recognized by the world’s banking community as an Islamic financial hub, Malaysia has worked hard to become one of the Southeast Asia’s financial hub by positioning itself as the world’s largest issuer of global bonds (sukuk). By the end 2007, Malaysia accounted for a staggering 65% of the world’s sukuk issuance.

next >>

Islamic Banking, Beyond Banking Part 2

2011-02-09T23:34:00.000-08:00

Islamic Financial Hub of Asia

Singapore as a country that has positioned itself as the gate to Southeast Asia commerce, is not far behind. Even though Moslems only make up a fraction of Singapore’s citizens, the country offered various Islamic banking products and services, as well as, Islamic-based investment instruments. The tiny island is well-known as a potential hub for Middle East investors eager to invest in Southeast Asia.

So where does this leave Indonesia? Since its inception in 1992, Islamic banking industry in Indonesia has shown an impressive growth rate, with average growth of 60% per year! With that tremendous growth rate and Indonesia demographic condition as the world’s most populous Moslem nation, plus its abundant natural resources, Indonesia has great potentials to become major provider of Islamic banking products and services, as well as Islamic Banking Invesment instruments, Indonesia can become important player in the international Islamic finance community.

Islamic Banking in Indonesia

Recognizing Indonesia's enormous potential to become a global Islamic financial hub, the Government of Indonesia has stepped up efforts to attract Islamic-banking-oriented investors and actively participate in the global trend of Islamic banking growth.

Now is the time! Now is the right time to work together and raise awareness that Indonesia’s Islamic banking system is capable of becoming a global player and serving Indonesian people’s financial needs with much wider financial products and services.

To that end, visionary measures are needed to accelerate the development of Islamic banking market so it can eventually serve the needs of Indonesian people with an international standard of quality.

<< previous | next >>

Islamic Banking, Beyond Banking Part 3

2011-02-09T11:33:00.000-08:00

Islamic Banking, Beyond Banking

The Blue Print of Islamic Banking Developmnet in Indonesia is formulated by Bank Indonesia as a long term road map for developing Indonesia’s Islamic banking industry through 2015.

The Grand Strategy of Islamic Banking Market Development, also formulated by Bank Indonesia, outlines a comprehensive strategy to develop Islamic banking market and covers many strategic aspects, such as: setting a 2010 vision to become a leading Islamic banking industry in ASEAN region, creating a new image of Islamic banking in Indonesia that is more inclusive and universal, drawing a more accurate mapping of the market segment , developing more diverse products, improving services, and creating a new communication strategy that positions Islamic banking as beyond banking.

Sovereign Sukuk Act & Islamic Banking Act

In the meantime, the government has also taken several visionary measures, such as revision of tax regulations and Sovereign sukuk act issuance (UU SBSN). The passage of this law would enable Islamic-based investment instruments to become more competitive and ready to be offered to both domestic and foreign investors. In turn, this will further drive the development of Islamic banking in Indonesia.

Besides the Sovereign Sukuk Act, Indonesia has also enacted the Islamic Banking Law. By referring to the international standards of banking and Islamic banking, the newly enacted Islamic Banking Act will support national Islamic banking industry in diversifying its products and improving the quality of its services to all segments of Indonesia’s society.

The passing of these two acts has boosted the optimism of Islamic banking industry and added significant and timely support of Islamic banking. It is hoped that the laws can help pushing the industry to close the gap and attain its market development vision to become the most attractive and leading Islamic banking in ASEAN region.

<< previuos | next >>

Islamic Banking, Beyond Banking Part 4

2011-02-09T11:32:00.000-08:00

Islamic Banking Industry’s New Image

Obviously, these goals can be accomplished only with the support and participation of everyone in the national Islamic banking industry to implement strategic programs recommended in The Grand Strategy of Islamic Banking Market Development.

Communication program to educate the public would be focused on developing a new image for the national Islamic banking: “Beyond Banking”.

This new image would show the new face of Islamic banking in Indonesia:

Positioning Islamic bank as a banking system that will mutually benefit both parties, the bank and its customers bank .
Differentiating Islamic bank as a banking system that offers diverse products with various schemes,
conducts its business transparently and fairly, and also supported by the latest information system and experts in the field of investment, finance, ethics, and Islamic practices on financial transactions.

Together, these new positioning and differentiation would be the foundation that forms the new image of Islamic banking, “beyond banking”.

To strengthen Islamic banking’s new image and help the public recognize the presence of Islamic banks and Islamic banking services, on 2 July 2007, Bank Indonesia formally began the use of iB (ai-Bi) logo as an official sign for the Islamic banking industry in Indonesia.

The new Identity’s sign of Indonesia’s Islamic Banking

Through the iB (ai-Bi) logo, Islamic banks will be more easily recognized as they expand throughout Indonesia. The iB (ai-Bi) logo presents the Islamic banks as part of a banking industry that is large, solid, strong, well-managed, and integrated within the framework of dual banking system in Indonesian Banking Architecture (API).

The iB (ai-Bi) logo is the essence of such values as balance, order, and perfection, signifying the identity of Islamic banking industry in Indonesia and conveying an alternative banking system that is modern, service-oriented, fair, transparent, ethical, and beneficial for the entire Indonesian people.

<< previous | next >>

Islamic Banking, Beyond Banking Part 5

2011-02-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

Vision and Strategy for Market Development

It is hoped that the new inclusive and universal image of Islamic banking, the use of iB (ai-Bi) logo, and comprehensive market development strategy would spur the Islamic banking industry and investors to work together and realize the development of Indonesia’s Islamic banking market within the next three years outlined in these three phases, which are:

First Phase (2008): “To build understanding of Islamic Banking as “Beyond Banking”

During the first phase, total accumulated assets are targeted to exceed 50 trillion Rupiah with the Islamic banking industry growing by 40%

Second Phase (2009): “to make Islamic Banking as the Most Attractive Islamic Banking in ASEAN”

At this phase, total assets are targeted to reach 87 trillion Rupiah with the industry growing by 75%

Third Phase (2010): “to make Indonesia’s Islamic Banking as a leading Islamic Banking in ASEAN”

In 2010, Indonesia’s Islamic banking industry is expected to reach total assets of 124 trillionrupiah and growth of 81%

Closing

These initiatives, and optimism with full support from government, provide participants in the national Islamic banking industry with the vision of transforming Indonesian Islamic banking industry to become a reputable industry in the global financial community.

By: iB Syariah - Bank Indonesia

<< previous

CherryPad for The Sub iPad Market

2011-02-07T23:56:00.000-08:00

Cherrypal Launches Powerful 7-Inch $188 Android 2.1 3D Tablet Computer for the Sub-iPad(C) Market Cherrypal Enters Into Exclusive Deal With Green Shopping Site Zecozi

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct 07, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Cherrypal, a California-based manufacturer of high quality, low-energy consuming and affordable personal computers, today announced the availability of its new sub $200 tablet computer, the CherryPad America.

The CherryPad was designed for consumers who are looking for an affordable, powerful, high quality, and low energy-consuming tablet computer with the ability to run the Android operating system. CherryPad is powered by the fast Samsung ARM11, (CPU + GPU + DSP, OpenGL 2.0) 800 MHz processor and runs Android 2.1 and all Android applications. An upgrade option to 2.2 is planned for the fourth quarter 2010.

The CherryPad America features a 7-inch resistive touch widescreen display (no stylus needed) at 800x480 resolution with built-in gravity sensor. Memory, storage and wireless functions include 256 MBs of DDRII RAM; 2 GB NAND Flash; Micro SD (1x) reader, and WiFi 802.11 b/g.

Standard I/O ports include USB 2.0 supported by an external adapter; 3.5 mm headphone jack, built-in speakers and microphone, DC port, optional external 3G modem. The CherryPad America's Polymer 3200 MAH battery has a run time of 6-8 hours. The device weighs just 1.1 pounds and is housed in a sturdy aluminum case. MSRP of the CherryPad America is $188.

"The CherryPad America does not compete against the Apple(C) iPad. The CherryPad addresses the sub-iPad market," said Cherrypal CTO Max Seybold.

According to Seybold, CherryPad has been designed for consumers who seek a lower cost, more compact tablet PC with the ability to run Android.

"The CherryPad is neither an iPad killer nor an iPad clone, it's a completely different product designed for a different market," Seybold said. "The screen of the CherryPad is only 7-inches big, the processor is slightly less powerful, and the CherryPad comes with Android 2.1 and not Apple's iOS." At a MSRP of $188, the price for a CherryPad is also less than half of the iPad.

"Early user tests confirmed the CherryPad user experience has been extremely positive. Users appreciate full access to the Android Market, its powerful processor, battery run time, and high quality," Seybold said.

Cherrypal Partners With Zecozi Cherrypal also announced a strategic partnership with Zecozi , a new online shopping site for conscious consumers. All Cherrypal products will be exclusively sold through Zecozi in the United States, with the exception of volume buyers. Every Cherrypal comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, as well as a 1-year replacement warranty.

"We are a hardware manufacturer first and need to focus on our core competence in order to drive down costs and offer quality products that consumers can afford. We can offer our products for such a low price because we are frugal with non-product related costs. When we looked for a strong partner who shares our green, open and fair corporate value system, Zecozi was the obvious choice," said Cherrypal CEO John Collier.

Honeycomb or Android 3.0 Oficially Released by Google

2011-02-07T23:39:00.000-08:00

Google officially launched Honeycomb or Android 3.0. They have shown a preview of the OS in Motorola Xoom tablet. Honeycomb was mentioned to beat the dominance of Apple in the realm of tablets.

Honeycomb is specifically intended for tablet devices that use a large screen and higher computing capability. But some analysts assess the presence of Honeycomb will not change the map market.

"Honeycomb does little shorten the gap. But there is nothing in it that would make me queue in a line to get it," said analyst Colin Gilis of BCG, with references from the queues that occur when launching the iPad.

Quoted by Reuters on Friday (04/02/2011), Apple still straddling Android in the realm of the tablet. But Apple is not able to pursue Android in the smartphone market, which had just overthrown the most popular Symbian OS in the world.

Google's ambition to beat iPad tablet market will depend on support from the manufacture of Honeycomb, communication providers and application software developers. Google currently has more than 100 thousand applications for Android, still less with about 300 thousand applications for Apple's.

With the introduction of Honeycomb, the big vendors are expected to release the latest tablet-based OS 'beehive' soon in mid-2011. Motorola Xoom for example, will start shipping in the first quarter of this year.

Hold Out for Honeycomb: Five Android Tablets Born Too Soon

2011-02-07T23:08:00.000-08:00

When you look at the Apple iPad's sales figures, it's not hard to see why every technology company on the planet is jumping on the tablet bandwagon. The thing is, even despite its wild popularity, not everyone can afford the $500 minimum required to get into the iPad game, and not everyone wants an Apple tablet.

With scores of hardware manufacturers aiming to snag a slice of the big, fat Apple pie, the Android tablet army is growing fast. Too fast, in fact: The truth is, a lot of these tablets just aren't very good.

In some of the tablets we've tested, we've encountered flimsy hardware, low-quality resistive touch screens, serious display resolution issues, and poorly skinned or old Android versions with limited or non-existent access to apps. None of this makes for a very enjoyable tablet experience.

That's not to say that every Android tablet is a disaster. Take the Samsung Galaxy Tab, for example, it's fast, well-designed, and comes with a decent Android implementation. Overall, the Tab is a solid tablet, but for the price ($250 to $550, depending on the carrier you choose), it should do more than an Android smartphone can. One of the reasons the iPad has been so successful is that it provides a rich tablet-specific experience that you just can't get on an iPhone.

Google, this week, unveiled Honeycomb, its tablet-specific Android OS, which is sure to usher in an era of higher-quality, more-capable Android devices and better apps to run on them. And from what we've experienced with the forthcoming Motorola Xoom, it's definitely worth waiting for. So unless you need an Android tablet today, you should pass on the models below, and hold out for the next round of Android tablets with Honeycomb.

Tablets in this Roundup:

Read the full reviews linked below, or compare these Android tablets side by side.

Cherrypal CherryPad

$188 direct

The Cherrypal CherryPad has flaws aplenty, including a finicky resistive touch screen. The rock-bottom $188 price is tough to beat, but there are definitely better ways to spend your money.

Coby Kyros MID7015 Internet Touchscreen Tablet

$199 list

The $200 Coby Kyros MID7015 Internet Touchscreen Tablet uses a limited version of Android, doesn't hook into the full Android Market, and lacks the grace and abilities of more advanced (and expensive) tablets.

Dell Streak 7

$199.99

The first Tegra 2 tablet shows the promise of Nvidia's speedy mobile processor, but the Dell Streak 7 still struggles on several fronts. And fundamental problems, like a low-quality, low-resolution display won't be helped by a future OS upgrade.

Samsung Galaxy Tab

$249.99 to $549.99 with contract (price depends on carrier)

With solid, well-designed hardware, the Samsung Galaxy Tab for Sprint is the first viable Android-based competitor to the iPad. Don't get us wrong, the Tab, in all five carrier iterations, is a perfectly fine tablet. But you're paying a hefty price for a device with a old version of Android, and it's unclear if the OS will be upgradeable.

Viewsonic Viewpad 7

$599 direct

On paper, the Viewsonic Viewpad 7 has a long and impressive feature list, but its flaws, including a sky-high price, outnumber its features.

Author: Wendy Sheehan Donnell
Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2379345,00.asp

It's a bad time to buy an Android tablet. Skip these five models, save your cash, and wait for tablets with Google's Honeycomb operating system.

New Android Market web store could open backdoor for phone hackers

2011-02-07T20:02:00.000-08:00

If you follow the Google Android operating system scene, you will probably have heard about the new, web-based Android Market store which was launched a few days ago.

The Android Market website allows the user to browse, search and install Android apps using an alternative to the standard device Android Market app that comes on smartphones.

The user is simply required to sign in with their standard Google credentials and the application will retrieve the details of Android devices registered in your name as well as the details of all the Market applications you have already installed.

Once the user signs in to Android Market the application install is available at the click of a button.

I wanted to see what happens on the device when a request to install a new app is submitted from the web-based store.

I logged into the Android Market and found an application suitable for testing: a popular game that made me waste some time last year when I first played it on an iPhone. This seemed a good opportunity to test its usability on the Android OS too. :)

The most important security aspect of the installation process on Android are the permissions an app requires on a device after the installation. Android users should particularly carefully read the required permissions before they install any applications, from the official Android Market or any other source.

For example, a game which requests unusual permissions such as SEND_SMS or RECEIVE_SMS should be considered highly suspicious and installed only if the user is certain about its functionality.

As expected, the web-based Android Market displays the required permissions so that the user can make an informed decision about whether to install the application.

However, the next step in the installation is where a big red security flag is raised. Once the user clicks on the install button on the website, the mobile device will automatically start downloading the application in the background.

This probably happens using the INSTALL_ASSET intent discovered last year by Jon Oberheide when Google used the Android's GTalkService mechanism to remotely remove a test Trojan application created by the researcher.

In summary - if someone managed to steal your Google password they could trick your Android smartphone into installing software, without you having to grant permission on the device itself.

The result of all this is that a Google password suddenly becomes even more valuable for potential attackers, and I would not be surprised to see even more Gmail phishing attacks as a consequence.

In future, however, the phishers' intention may not be to use stolen account credentials for the purposes of sending spam but to install malware on the user's Android devices instead.

Google should make changes to the remote installation mechanism as soon as possible. As a minimum, a dialog should be displayed on the receiving device so that the user must personally accept the application that is being installed.

Let us hope that the update will come in time to prevent cybercriminals abusing the Android Market for the automatic installation of malicious software.

In the meantime, users should choose a strong password for their Google applications account.

Author: Vanja Svajcer

Source: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/02/04/android-market-web-store-backdoor-phone-hackers/

Microsoft makes Chrome play H.264 video

2011-02-04T05:03:00.000-08:00

Users of the Chrome browser will be able to play H.264 video - thanks to Microsoft.

Google ditched HTML5 support for H.264 video last month, citing the codec's licensing requirements. Instead, Google said the HTML video tag should favour the freely available WebM.

Today, Microsoft revealed the Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome, which will let users of the Google browser play H.264 video.

"At Microsoft we respect that Windows customers want the best experience of the web including the ability to enjoy the widest range of content available on the internet in H.264 format," said Claudio Caldato, interoperability program manager, in a Microsoft blog post.

He noted that Internet Explorer 9 will support H.264 as well as Google-sponsored WebM video - as long as users have installed the codec - and that Microsoft had already created a Firefox extension. "We also recently provided an add-on for Windows 7 customers who choose Firefox to play H.264 video so as to enable interoperability across IE, Firefox and Chrome using HTML5 video on Windows."

The move hasn't convinced everyone. One comment on the post read: "H.264 isn't an open standard and isn't supported by Firefox or Opera, so in what way is this in support of interoperability? Commercial interests absolutely, but interoperability certainly not."

source: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/364948/microsoft-makes-chrome-play-h-264-video

Hacker Steals $12 Million Worth of Zynga Poker Chips

2011-02-04T05:01:00.000-08:00

Gamasutra reports that a 29-year-old British man has been convicted of hacking into Zynga's game servers and helping himself to 400 billion virtual poker chips.

"The defendant sold around one third of the 400 billion poker chips, and looking at the auction history where one can purchase such items, he was selling them for around £430 ($695) per billion,' said prosecutor Gareth Evans, according to a report from local newspaper Herald Express. Sold legitimately through Zynga, the full amount of chips would have brought in some $12 million. The prosecutor estimated that if Mitchell sold all of the virtual chips on the black market, he would have made a fraction of that, around £184,000 ($297,000). Evans admitted that valuing virtual currency can be difficult and that the company was not actually deprived of tangible goods, but he said that the theft could still affect the developer by indirectly causing legitimate online gamers to stop playing Zynga Poker or its other games."

29-year-old IT businessman Ashley Mitchell plead guilty to stealing $12 million worth of Zynga Poker chips in a British court yesterday, and is now facing a substantial jail term.

Mitchell appeared at Exeter Crown Court in Devon, England and admitted to accessing the developer's servers some time between June 30, 2009 and September 7, 2009, stealing 400 billion virtual chips for Zynga Poker, then selling a portion of them for £53,000 ($86,000).

Sold legitimately through Zynga, the full amount of chips would have brought in some $12 million. The prosecutor estimated that if Mitchell sold all of the virtual chips on the black market, he would have made a fraction of that, around £184,000 ($297,000).

Evans admitted that valuing virtual currency can be difficult and that the company was not actually deprived of tangible goods, but he said that the theft could still affect the developer by indirectly causing legitimate online gamers to stop playing Zynga Poker or its other games.

Mitchell plead guilty to four charges of converting criminal property and a fifth charge for violating the Computer Misuse Act ("unauthorized access with intent to commit or facilitate commission of further offenses").

He was previously convicted in 2008 for hacking into his former employer's website and changing his personal information to receive £3,498 ($5,600). Mitchell was given a 40-week suspended sentence by the court then -- which he is in breach of with these Zynga charges.

The hacker was remanded in custody and now faces a substantial jail term for the latest offenses. Defense solicitor Ben Derby argued that Mitchell committed the crimes during a time when he was "wrestling with a gambling addiction", having spent £3,000 ($4,800) on online games .

source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32803/Hacker_Steals_12M_Worth_Of_Zynga_Poker_Chips_Facing_Jail_Term.php

Android tops ailing Nokia's Symbian

2011-02-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

Google's Android has overtaken Nokia's Symbian as the best selling mobile operating system.

In the last quarter of 2010, manufacturers shipped 32.9 million Android devices, while Nokia shipped 31 million Symbian handsets globally, according to analyst firm Canalys.

Android now holds a third of the market, compared to 31% for Nokia. Apple held steady from the same quarter in 2009 with 16.2% market share, while RIM slid from 20% to 15%. Microsoft fell from 7.2% to 3.1% last year, as it unveiled its new OS, Windows Phone 7.

Android first arrived two years ago, in the form of Google's G1 handset. "It's gone from nowhere to number one in the space of two years, which is pretty impressive," Canalys analyst Pete Cunningham told PC Pro.

He said Android hit the market at just the right time, when the success of the iPhone drove rival manufacturers to look for an operating system to take on Apple.

"Android offered a platform that was pretty competitive to the iPhone, and gave the opportunity to vendors like Samsung and HTC to be able to compete with Apple," Cunningham said.

"Android has certainly benefited from the timing and the fact that the established platforms such as Symbian and Windows Mobile couldn't compete with the Apple iPhone."

Canalys expects Android to keep on growing - at twice the rate of its competitors in 2011. "One of the reasons is 2011 is going to see a lot of growth from smartphones in the mid and low tier... and a lot of vendors are going to be using Android to do that," he said.

The lower-end of the market has long been Nokia's stronghold, but despite posting a drop in profits last week, the struggling mobile firm retains solid market share, Cunningham said. "Nokia's still growing well [in terms of units sold], it's growing 30% year-on-year," he said. "Nokia's not going backwards, it's just growing at a slower rate than the rest of the market."

Indeed, he noted Nokia is still the number one handset manufacturer. "You've got lots of vendors shipping on Android, so that's why Android is the biggest platform, but Nokia is still the number one smartphone vendor," said Cunningham.

by Nicole Kolbie

source: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/364816/android-tops-ailing-nokias-symbian

Windows MHTML Vulnerability Warning From Microsoft

2011-02-01T04:26:00.000-08:00

An HTML scripting bug impacting all supported versions of Windows is receiving Microsoft’s attention

Microsoft issued an advisory on a Windows security vulnerability today after exploit code for the bug went public.

The bug, which lies in the MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate HTML (MHTML) protocol handler, can be exploited to cause data leakage. Though proof-of-concept code for the vulnerability has already gone public, the company said it is unaware of any attempts to exploit the bug.

Fault Lies In MHTML Execution

“The impact of an attack on the vulnerability would be similar to that of server-side cross-site-scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities,” blogged Angela Gunn, security response communications manager for Microsoft Trustworthy Computing. “For instance, an attacker could construct an HTML link designed to trigger a malicious script and somehow convince the targeted user to click it.”

If a user clicked that link, the malicious script would run on the user’s computer for the rest of the current Internet Explorer session, and could be used to collect user information, spoof content displayed in the browser or for other acts, Gunn added.

According to the advisory, the vulnerability affects all supported editions of Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability exists due to the way MHTML interprets MIME-formatted requests for content blocks within a document. Even though proof-of-concept code is available, the bug is difficult for attackers to exploit in a successful and useful way, opined Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle.

“To create a successful attack with this bug the attacker needs to entice a user to click on a specific URL and he also needs control over the user’s Web,” he said. “These factors, together with the fact that the mitigation is easy to install, make successful exploits less likely.

“The risk with this bug is not huge, especially since Microsoft has already provided easy and fairly safe mitigation techniques,” he added.

Microsoft offered a few workarounds to protect users. For example, users can follow instructions in the advisory to lock down the MHTML protocol and set Internet and local intranet security zone settings to high to block ActiveX controls and active scripting.

“This bug looks like a strong candidate for the regular patch process,” he added. “So far, there are no active exploitations. You also have to consider that the bug is in the Windows OS and it affects all versions of Windows, so testing is going to take some time. Microsoft is not going to rush out a patch just yet.”

source: http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/windows-mhtml-vulnerability-warning-from-microsoft-19514

Open-source challenge to Microsoft Exchange gains steam

2011-02-01T04:21:00.000-08:00

An open-source, cloud-based e-mail alternative to Microsoft Exchange called Open-Xchange has signed up two new service providers and predicts it will have 40 million users by the end of 2011.

Based in Germany, Open-Xchange has tripled its user base from 8 million to 24 million paid seats since 2008, with the help of three dozen service providers including 1&1 Internet, among the world's largest Web hosting companies. Open-Xchange has 7 million users in North America today, but says most of its 2011 growth will occur on this continent, in part due to new agreements with service providers Lunarpages of California and Cirrus Tech in Toronto.

An open-source, cloud-based e-mail alternative to Microsoft Exchange called Open-Xchange has signed up two new service providers and predicts it will have 40 million users by the end of 2011.

"You will see a lot of new partners coming on board using Open-Xchange as their primary e-mail and collaboration solution," CEO Rafael Laguna said this week.

Microsoft Exchange Server, the 800-pound gorilla in the room, had a worldwide install base of 301 million mailboxes in 2010 and expects to reach 470 million by 2014, according to a market analysis by the Radicati Group. On-premises Exchange accounts for 76% of users, but that number will drop to 72% by 2014 because of growing demand for hosted, or "cloud" services.

Although Microsoft Exchange is still growing, Laguna predicts that third-party hosting companies will increasingly become wary of Microsoft because Redmond is offering e-mail and other hosted services through its own cloud platform, rather than relying solely on partner companies.

Open-Xchange's strategy is to make e-mail cheaper for both partners and customers. Open-Xchange mailbox prices vary by service provider, but will typically cost $5 per user per month, about the same as Microsoft's own Exchange Online.

But Laguna says the Open-Xchange price includes more than just basic e-mail, coming with mobile access through support for Exchange ActiveSync, social media features, collaboration and file management. In other words, you don't have to pay extra for SharePoint-like services.

The Open-Xchange software itself is available under the GPL open-source license. The software can integrate with various e-mail clients including Microsoft Outlook. The Outlook user base "is probably the biggest hurdle for us to overcome," Laguna says. "We have to support Outlook the way Outlook supports Exchange."

Open-Xchange was founded in 1996 as Netline Internet Service and changed to its current name in 2005. While its cloud-based software is primarily attracting small businesses, up to 100 seats each, Open-Xchange also has customers running its software on-premises. In-house deployments account for 3 million of the company's 24 million e-mail accounts, and include some installations of more than 10,000 users.

But while Open-Xchange can scale up to enterprise environments, Laguna says "that's not our primary goal."

"We're telling people Internet architecture is the way to go," he says. "The browser is the client of the future."

Gartner profiled Open-Xchange last August in a MarketScope report on e-mail systems, giving it a rating of "caution," one of its lowest ratings, behind "promising," "positive" and "strong positive."

Only Microsoft was rated "strong positive," while systems from Google, IBM, Novell and VMware/Zimbra got the "positive" rating.

Gartner's report notes that Open-Xchange is "a small vendor with 50 employees and revenue of under $4 million in 2009." Despite the "caution" rating, Gartner's MarketScope doesn't say anything overtly negative about the company.

"With its strong push into the ultra-competitive service provider channel, Open-Xchange is less of an option for premises-based deployments, although large companies looking to cut e-mail costs by utilizing an ISP-type approach to service delivery might consider Open-Xchange," Gartner writes.

source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/012811-open-source-challenge-microsoft.html?hpg1=bn

HTML: The standard that failed?

2011-02-01T04:08:00.000-08:00

HTML is officially whatever the top browser vendors say it is at the moment. You call that a standard?

That seems to be the message from the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), which last week announced that it would be dropping version numbering from the HTML specification once work on HTML5 is complete. Henceforth, HTML will become a "living standard," with the most current version of the specification being the one maintained on the group's website. In other words, the standard is whatever WHATWG says it is this week.

Technically anyone can participate in the HTML standardization process, via WHATWG's mailing list. But those who do so are known as "contributors," and their role is much like that of concerned citizens at a city council meeting. Actual membership in the WHATWG is an elite affair, however, and is by invitation only. Currently the total membership consists of three representatives from the Mozilla Foundation, two from Opera Software, two from Apple, one from Google, and one independent developer.

In effect, that's who's deciding the future of the Web: four of the leading Web browser vendors, all of whom have incentive to pile ever more features into their products to compete with alternative RIA (rich Internet application) platforms such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. (If you're wondering where Internet Explorer fits into all this, notice that Microsoft is not a WHATWG member.) What's more, Apple and Google are both prominent providers of Web content. But hey -- surely they all have our best interests at heart, right?

HTML5: A long time coming

WHATWG was founded for good reason. The last formal HTML specification from the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) was XHTML 1.1, published in 2001. XHTML was intended to be the natural successor to HTML, with an XHTML 2.0 standard to follow soon after. But that effort became mired in committee, and the W3C was effectively silent for three years -- a virtual lifetime by IT standards. WHATWG began as an ad hoc consortium of Web technology companies aimed at breaking that silence.

By 2008 the W3C, still unable to move forward on XHTML 2.0, accepted WHATWG's independent work as a new draft specification, to be known as HTML5. The main goal of the new standard was to evolve HTML from a simple hypertext document format into a standard better suited to modern Internet applications. That sentiment resonated with the broader Web development community, and by 2009 the W3C decided to drop its work on XHTML 2.0 and concentrate on finalizing HTML5 as the next major iteration of the Web standard.

But for the W3C to say it's doing something and to actually do it are two different things. Work on HTML5 has continued ... and continued ... and still goes on to this day. The standard is not expected to be finalized until next year at the earliest.

Nobody ever said drafting industry standards was easy. But in the meantime, browser vendors -- eager to showcase the most talked-about features of the new spec -- have resorted to implementing half-baked ideas and incomplete specifications, often in inconsistent ways. Most famously, the HTML5 committee gave up trying to specify codecs for the much-anticipated tag when no consensus could be reached, leaving each browser vendor to support whichever video formats it saw fit.

No version control

That's exactly the point of giving up version numbering for HTML, says Google's Ian Hickson, a WHATWG member and current editor of the HTML5 specification. "Most of the [objections] seem to be based on the misconception that browsers target a particular version of the spec, possibly even targeting one version before moving on to the next," Hickson wrote in a comment posted to the WHATWG blog. "That's not the case. Browsers always follow the latest draft, because that's where all the bugs have been fixed."

Doubtless that's true. If I were implementing a browser today, I'd concentrate my efforts on supporting the latest version of the standard. I'd have to if I hoped to compete with Apple, Google, Mozilla, and Opera Software. What Hickson seems to be ignoring, however, is that not everybody who has a stake in HTML is a browser vendor.

Browser vendors might aim to support whichever version of the standard is current, but they have to ship their products sometime. Once they do, their customers will end up with a browser that supports some form of HTML as it was specified at some point in time. Without so much as a version number to go by, it will be virtually impossible for the customer to understand -- or even express -- just what form of HTML that actually is.

Furthermore, assuming browsers always track the latest version of the HTML spec might be fine for Google, because its Chrome browser regularly auto-updates to the latest version. That's not the case for most browsers, and enterprise environments in particular are known for their slow upgrade cycles. (Witness how many users are still stuck on IE6.) Without a version numbering scheme for HTML, there will be no easy way to measure what has changed between the browser I'm using today and the browser I could upgrade to -- which, perversely, could make upgrades even harder for IT departments to justify.

But hardest hit by this change will surely be independent Web developers, who now face the prospect of coding to a standard that, by WHATWG's own admission, will never be finalized. Companies who contract developers to build Web pages don't much care about Web specifications or version numbers; they want their sites to look good and to work well on as broad a range of browsers as possible. But how do you set a scope of work and specify coding standards for a project when you can't even express which version of the HTML specifications you're coding to? And what happens if the specification arbitrarily changes before the project is finished?

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

Hey, WHATWG: We get it. The W3C standardization process for HTML is too slow. Browser vendors and content providers are eager to pile on features to support the new generation of Web applications. HTML has to change and grow in at a pace more in keeping with that of the broader IT industry.

Still, the decision to drop version numbers from HTML is a mistake. A "living standard" is essentially a dead standard, because it amounts to an admission that WHATWG can't really agree on anything, except in the most incremental and revocable fashion. That's not a standard; it's a handshake agreement among a few of the Web's most prominent vendors, and an entire industry is expected to follow along.

A standards body that can't set genuine standards is a failure. In that respect, I fear WHATWG may be heading down the same road as the W3C before it. Say it ain't so.

source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/html-the-standard-failed-585

Facebook adds secure browsing and social authentication

2011-02-01T04:00:00.000-08:00

The "social CAPTCHA" method of authentication that Facebook developed to prevent the Tunisian government to access the accounts of the people whose login credentials they have stolen will become a standard fixture, confirmed Facebook's Alex Rice.

The call it social authentication, and if suspicious activity is detected on a user's account - for example, if the account was accessed in America in the morning and then a few hours later from a IP address located in Australia - the person who's trying to access the account will be presented a few pictures of friends of the account's legitimate user and asked to name the person in those photos.

"Hackers halfway across the world might know your password, but they don't know who your friends are," says Rice.

Another feature that Facebook is introducing is secure (https) browsing. So far, encryption was limited to your login process, but from now on - if you choose to do so - you can change your Account Security Settings by enabling that option.

Rice warns that those who choose that option might notice a slowing down when it comes to the loading of the pages, and some features and third-party applications not working because they are currently not supported in HTTPS.

"We'll be working hard to resolve these remaining issues," he says. "We are rolling this out slowly over the next few weeks, but you will be able to turn this feature on in your Account Settings soon. We hope to offer HTTPS as a default whenever you are using Facebook sometime in the future."

We can speculate on whether these features were triggered by the recent hacking of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook account, or are really the result of the work done following the Tunisian government's attempt to steal the passwords of Tunisian Facebook users, but in the end it doesn't matter because it's a welcome improvement.

source: http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=10498

'Universal' memory aims to replace flash/DRAM

2011-02-01T03:51:00.000-08:00

A single "universal" memory technology that combines the speed of DRAM with the non-volatility and density of flash memory was recently invented at North Carolina State University, according to researchers.

The new memory technology, which uses a double floating-gate field-effect-transistor (FET), should enable computers to power down memories not currently being accessed, drastically cutting the energy consumed by computers of all types, from mobile and desktop computers to server farms and data centers, the researchers say.

"Memories made using our new double floating-gate structure should be about as fast as DRAM—and will need to be refreshed as often—but their densities will be about the same as flash," said EE professor Paul Franzon at NC State.

The double floating-gates use direct tunneling when storing charge to represent bits—instead of hot electron injection like flash—thus enabling operation at lower voltages. The first floating-gate in the stack is leaky, thus requiring refreshing about as often as DRAM (16 milliseconds). But by increasing the voltage its data value can be transferred to the second floating-gate, which acts more like a traditional flash memory, offering long-term nonvolatile storage.

In operation, computers using the double floating-gate FETs for their main memory can operate normally until they become idle, at which time their data values can be transferred to the second gate in order to power down the memory chip. Then when the stored values need to be accessed again by the computer, the second gate quickly transfers their stored charge back to the first gate and normal operations can resume.

"We believe our new memory device will enable power-proportional computing, by allowing memory to be turned off during periods of low use without affecting performance," said Franzon.

So far the researchers have only built the gate structures in their new FET design and are currently performing cycling testing to make sure that memories stored and retrieved from the floating gates do not cause fatigue that could eventually wear out the devices. Flash, for instance, uses voltages so high during hot-carrier injection that devices can only survive about 10,000 read/write cycles. Double floating-gate FETs use lower voltages, but only cycling testing can determine whether the devices experience excessive fatigue.

If the test devices pass cycle testing, then the researchers' next step will be to fabricate real semiconductor memories out of them—a task the researchers hope to perform by next year. Also working on the project was Neil Spigna, a research assistant professor at NC State and doctoral candidates Daniel Schinke and Mihir Shiveshwarkar. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation.

source: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4212372/-Universal--memory-aims-to-replace-flash-DRAM

Open-source social network Diaspora goes live

2010-11-24T20:52:00.000-08:00

IDG News Service - Diaspora, a widely anticipated social network site built on open-source code, has cracked open its doors for business today, at least for a handful of invited participants.

"Every week, we'll invite more people," stated the developers behind the project, in a blog item posted Tuesday announcing the alpha release of the service. "By taking these baby steps, we'll be able to quickly identify performance problems and iterate on features as quickly as possible."

Such a cautious rollout may be necessary, given how fresh the code is. In September, when the first version of the working code behind the service was posted, it was promptly criticized for being riddled with security errors.

While Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg may not be worried about Diaspora quite yet, the service is one of a growing number of efforts to build out open-source-based social-networking software and services. Others include Identica, a Twitter-like messaging service built on open-source software, and the Free Software Foundation's GNU Social.

Four New York University students came up with the idea of Diaspora earlier this year, and quickly raised US$200,000 from investors in the project. In interviews, they have stated their collective goal was to develop open-source software for social networking as an alternative to commercial alternatives such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

"When you give up that data, you're giving it up forever," said co-developer Max Salzberg, in an interview with The New York Times. "The value [sites such as Facebook] give us is negligible in the scale of what they are doing, and what we are giving up is all of our privacy."

The students' plan with Diaspora is to allow participants to retain ownership of all the material they use on the site, and retain full control over how that information is shared. It will also allow users to divide their social connections into individual groups, called Aspects, and control which groups see which material, according to the website.

by Joab Jackson

source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9197882/Open_source_social_network_Diaspora_goes_live

Mitsubishi Concept PX MiEV at the 18th IIMS 2010

2010-07-27T01:28:00.000-07:00

Mitsubishi’s attendance at 18th Indonesia International Motor Show 2010, July 2010 should come with a bevy of concept cars in tow to unveil to the automotive world. One of its newest showcase vehicles is the PX-MiEV, a next-generation hybrid crossover CUV that the Japanese automaker says was created to maximize fuel efficiency, decrease emissions, all while keeping the Mitsubishi standard of performance at a high level.

The PX-MiEV comes with a 1.6-liter inline-four powerpack for the front wheels and a revolutionary auto-volt plug-in system. Similar to previous Pajero models, the PX-MiEV is capable of running on either front or all-wheel drive, only this time the CUV also has a hybrid mode plus a parallel hybrid system when the PX-MiEV is running on heavy. Mitsubishi also gave some of its Evolution X configurations to the PX-MiEV, including the S-AWC and E-AYC systems, which is capable of triggering power shuffling in any part of the car whenever the need arises.

As far as the car’s interior is concerned, Mitsubishi installed a bevy of technological features, including what looks like two touch-screen configurators found in the front and rear of the car. The PX-MiEV also comes with a revolutionary safety system that – by all accounts – should make its way to a number of Mitsubishi vehicles down the road. The system, which in all appearances looks just like a camera, warns the driver of any potential problems through visual or audio warnings, in addition, of course, to alerts of the vibrating persuasion.
The CUV is set to be unveiled at 18th Indonesia International Motor Show 2010 where it is expected to be one of Mitsubishi’s meal tickets during the two-week event.

Audi R8 V10 5.2 FSI Arrived in Indonesia

2010-07-27T01:01:00.000-07:00

PT Garuda Mataram Motor (GMM), the sole agent of the Audi in Indonesia seem to want to strengthen its presence in the premium car market for Indonesia. GMM will present one of the super-fast car that Audi R8 V10 Spyder in the homeland.

The Audi R8 Spyder will be on display at leading automotive exhibition in Indonesia, the Indonesia International Motor Show (IIMS) 2010 at the JI Expo Kemayoran, on July 2010. Not only are displayed, in conjunction with the appearance of the Audi R8 at IIMS 2010, PT GMM plans to start selling Audi R8 in the domestic automotive market.

"We're going to show off the Audi R8 V10 Spyder in IIMS. Not only be displayed but our immediate and direct selling can be obtained," said Wanny Bhakti, the Head of Public Relations Department GMM, Sunday (05/09/2010).

Audi R8 V10 5.2 FSI quattro is the next variant of its top-of-the-line model. With the Audi R8, the brand has established itself at the forefront of high-end sports cars from the very start - and now comes the Audi R8 V10. Its 5.2-liter, ten-cylinder engine churns out 386 kW (525 hp) and 530 Nm (390.91 lb-ft) of torque, which makes for breathtaking performance. With superior Audi technologies such as quattro all-wheel drive, the lightweight aluminum body, the innovative all-LED headlights, and its striking design, the Audi R8 V10 takes pole position against the competition.

The V10 engine in the production sports car will be almost identical in construction to the one in the racing version. Its displacement is 5,204 cc, at 6,500 rpm it delivers 530 Nm (390.91 lb-ft) of torque, at 8,000 rpm its power tops out at 386 kW (525 hp).

The specific power output is 100.9 hp per liter of displacement - and each hp has to propel only 3.09 kilograms (6.91 lb) of weight, because the Audi R8 V10 in the version with the six-speed manual gearshift weighs only 1,620 kilograms (3571 lb). The engine accounts for 258 of these kilograms (569 lb) - that's only 31 kilos (68 lb) more than the V8.

The Audi R8 V10 5.2 FSI quattro rockets from zero to 100 km/h (62.14 mph) in 3.9 seconds. In the version with the sequentially shifting R tronic it reaches 200 km/h (124.27 mph) in another 8.1 seconds. Even then its propulsive power hardly lessens: it's sufficient to reach a top speed of 316 km/h (196.35 mph). The immense force, the spontaneity and the thrust of the acceleration, plus the sound of the engine - all these impressions coalesce into a breathtaking sports car experience. The V10 plays a concert with growling bass tones and powerful high notes, which grows into a grandiose fortissimo as the engine revs up. This sonorous acceleration doesn't reach its limit until 8,700 rpm.

The 5.2-liter powerplant uses direct injection according to the FSI principle developed by Audi. A common rail system injects the fuel into the combustion chambers with up to 120 bar of pressure. Direct injection reduces the susceptibility to knocking and provides a certain amount of cooling through the evaporation of the fuel, which in turn supports a high compression ratio of 12.5:1. This in turn contributes to superior performance and improves fuel economy. The Audi R8 V10 with R tronic gets by on an average of 13.7 liters per 100 km.

Although Audi has not announced the price of this new model for the Indonesian car market, but the mere comparison of the Audi R8 V10 prices in the United States market is USD 147,000 or approximately IDR 1.3 billion.

Then what the price of Audi R8 when it arrived in Indonesia?

The 18th Indonesia International Motor Show 2010

2010-07-27T00:14:00.000-07:00

The 18th Indonesia International Motor (IIMS 2010) Show is the most prestigious motor show in Indonesia featuring the latest automotive products and most innovative services with emphasizing the latest trends in the global automobile industry and will show a dazzling array of full range passengers and commercial cars to grand public growing from year to year. This 23 July – 1 August 2010, the IIMS 2010 will once again bring new atmosphere and experience with most entertaining and business enabling at Jakarta International Expo, Kemayoran.

Event Date :

23 July - 01 August 2010

Opening & Press Day :

23 July 2010 (Press Credentials are Required)

Public Show :

24 July - 01 August 2010Monday - Thursday : 12.00 - 21.00 WIBFriday - Sunday : 10.00 - 22.00 WIB

Venue :

Jakarta International Expo - Arena PRJ Kemayoran

Organized by:

GAIKINDO and Dyandra Promosindo

Website:

18th Indonesia International Motor Show 2010

Garmin Asus nüvifone M10

2010-05-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

The nüvifone M10 is a full-featured smartphone that works as hard as you do. Combining the enterprise-friendly Windows® Mobile platform with Garmin's proven navigation, the nüvifone M10 was designed to take you places. And with access to Windows Marketplace, you'll have hundreds of apps right at your fingertips.

Connect Your Worlds
With nüvifone M10, you'll have a digital assistant at your side. This stylish smartphone was built to give you the best of both worlds — seamlessly connecting your business life with your personal life. In addition to running the powerful Windows Mobile OS, the nüvifone M10 comes preloaded with FacebookTM and YouTubeTM apps — allowing you to stay in sync with your surroundings while getting more done in less time.

Designed to Move You
The nüvifone M10 is ready to go with the included car kit and power cable. Simply plug it in and snap it in the car mount and you'll be on your way in no time. The nüvifone M10 also features a bright 3.5" display to help guide you on your way. And with a 5.0 MP camera that automatically geo-tags your pictures, you'll be able to share location details about the places around you.

Stay Informed
The nüvifone M10 puts all the information you need right on the home screen. From new emails and text messages to missed calls and calendar appointments, you'll have at-a-glance details via the intuitive interface. And to give you easy access to your contacts and emails while keeping the content secure, the nüvifone M10 can be synched over the air with your computer and enterprise systems via Exchange ActiveSync functionality.

Choose Your Own Path
Featuring Garmin's award-winning navigation, the nüvifone M10 will get you wherever you want to go. With the nüvifone M10, you can find addresses and get voice-prompted, turn-by-turn directions that speak street names to your destination. The nüvifone M10 also supports junction view and lane assist — so you'll always know the right lane at the right time. And with highway mode on the nüvifone M10, you'll have details on upcoming exits to give you perspective on your trip. In addition, the nüvifone M10 comes preloaded with millions of points of interest so you'll have details — including phone numbers — to assist you while you're on the move.

Experience Location-based Services
Recognizing that location is relevant to every aspect of every day, the nüvifone M10 is designed with location-based services (LBS) at its core and it has the most advanced LBS experience for a Windows Mobile phone. Navigation functions are linked to frequently used applications such as calendar, contacts, email, Internet browser, and messaging. Because no matter where you're going, getting there is as important as being there.

Make it Your Own
The nüvifone M10 is easy to customize to fit your needs. In addition to the apps available from the Windows Marketplace, you'll also have access to our suite of connected services, which include flight status information, weather forecasts, traffic details, and more. With the nüvifone M10, you'll have a phone designed for the way you work.

Source: http://www.garminasus.com/en_GB/phones/nuvifone-m10/

Nokia N900, The Phone & Mobile Computer

2009-09-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

Maemo 5 on the Nokia N900

Extreme speed. Outstanding performance

Enjoy fast application processing and multitasking on a live Dashboard. Experience the full web with the Maemo browser and high speed wireless broadband connection. Personalise your own panorama desktop on the touch screen.

Keep your conversations going

It's a phone. It's a computer. Chat with regular voice calls, internet calls, instant messages and SMS. Share your location, mood and status. Email on the go with rich HTML and full keyboard.

Capture, tag and share

Take high quality photos and wide screen videos using the 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Tag photos and browse them using the tag cloud, share online, or store in the massive 32 GB internal memory.

Get to know Maemo

Maemo brings the benefits of computers to the mobile world. Designed with the internet in mind, Linux-based Maemo software introduces a new era of mobile computing.

Technical Specifications:

Display - 3.5 inch touch-sensitive widescreen display800 × 480 pixel resolution
Processor and 3D accelerator - TI OMAP 3430: ARM Cortex-A8 600 MHzPowerVR SGX with OpenGL ES 2.0 support
Memory - Up to 1GB of application memory(256 MB RAM, 768 MB virtual memory)
Mass memory - 32 GB internal storageStore up to 7000 MP3 songs or 40 hours of high-quality videoUp to 16 GB of additional storage with an external microSD card
GPS and navigation - Integrated GPS, Assisted-GPS, and Cell-based receiversPre-loaded Ovi Maps applicationAutomatic geotagging

Microsoft Lowers Price of Xbox 360

2009-08-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

New round of price wars among the game consoles: The software company Microsoft makes it a competitor to Sony and lowers the price of its flagship model, the Xbox 360 Starting from this coming Friday is the Elite version of the console with a 120-gigabyte hard drive for 250 euros, thus giving about 50 euros cheaper than in the past, the company announced today. The cheapest version of the console, the Xbox 360 Arcade is no hard drive, have continued for 200 euros. During the past Christmas season, the manufacturer had lowered the price of the entry model, however, already at 180 euros. The Xbox 360 Pro with 60-gigabyte hard drive will slowly phase out Microsoft.

Sony announced just last week before the computer game trade fair in Cologne Gamescom a smaller and more fuel-efficient version of the Playstation 3 for $ 300. Also this device contains a 120-gigabyte hard drive. The price of the PS3-old model also falls from 400 to 300 euros, but he will be sold only remnants. Nintendo wants to turn to hold on to the price of the Wii, which has been offered since the initial release in late 2006 for 250 euros.

"We know that the price is a critical factor," said Microsoft manager Chris Lewis. Users respected but also on the utility and entertainment value of the consoles. Microsoft wants the Xbox 360, therefore, continue to expand in the living room entertainment center. From fall through the Console, there will be a direct access to social network Facebook, or short message service for Twitter. In addition, the video-on-demand offerings will expand and movie downloads in full HD with 5.1 audio will be possible.

Our Future is in the Ocean

2009-08-27T03:56:00.000-07:00

This fact was revealed by Desy Mantiri, the Secretary of Local Secretariat of World Ocean Conference, at a restaurant in Jakarta. Sinyo Harry Sarundajang who not long ago was elected as governor of North Sulawesi province likes to visit the islands under his territory and one day he reached the borders with the ocean territory of the Philippines. On one occasion, when visiting the northern-most island, the Island of Miangas, the Governor all of a sudden said that “our future is in the ocean”. At that time the idea was not that clear. Does that have anything to do with the life of the people in the North Sulawesi? Does it anything to do with the economy? Or is it about tourism? Or is it about something else?

At the end of October 2005, about two months after elected as governor, Sarundajang had to attend a working meeting with the ministers. In this meeting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked the governors to search for policies in order to solve the impact of the increase of fuel oil prize in respective areas. This latest prize of fuel oil was effective for five months (the increase was announced in May 2005), and has noticeably affected the economy of the people.

Upon arriving from the working meeting, Sarundajang became more and more fervent in thinking of the ocean and the territory of North Sulawesi. “The future” that was mentioned in the Island of Miangas became more obvious. “The future” has many aspects: it’s about the economy, ecology and tourism. Although this province has many tourist sites, the promotion and facilities that support it is obviously far from adequate. The most obvious evidence is that not many tourists have visited the tourist site in North Sulawesi; way far lesser than the tourists who come to Bali and Lombok. As a result, the tourism in North Sulawesi is not truly an economic strength for this province. So what to do? “Manado must be promoted to the world by inviting the world to visit the area,” said the Governor.

This idea was in the subconscious mind of the Governor Sarundajang and when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited North Sulawesi, the plan in his head was revealed; the plan to “make the world visit Manado” by conducting a World Ocean Conference (WOC). The participants are all the countries in the world that have sea territory. The Governor knows that as many as 121 countries out of 192 country members of the United Nations have sea in their territory. The President immediately shares the same idea to carry out such an international ocean conference. This event will not only benefit Manado but will also bring something useful for the surrounding areas and Indonesia as a whole.

Talking about the WOC, not many people know what was happening before the revelation of the idea in front of the President. It started merely as a big idea, how about in Manado that has sea territory part of “the triangle of coral reeves” we organize World Ocean Summit. “The triangle of coral reef” is the term for the ocean territory of six Asia-Pacific nations which are 75% of the coral reef of the world. This idea was presented behind closed doors, directly or indirectly, by three key figures to the Governor Sarundajang. The three leading figures are: Joop Ave, former Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunication 1993-1998; Pieter Sondakh, a national entrepreneur of North Sulawesi descent, Sander Batuna, local leading figure of North Sulawesi who has great concern about the development of his soil. Sarundajang strongly supported the idea, but he had to figure out how to make the idea a reality.

Source: Venue Magazine

Sail Bunaken The Biggest Maritime Event in 21 Century

2009-08-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

Manado (ANTARA News) - Sail Bunaken is the largest maritime event in 21st century. This big event held in Manado and Bitung, 12-20 August 2009, involving dozens of countries completed with battle ships and sailing vessel.

"This is a good moment to restore the image of Indonesia, because Sail Bunaken - as the biggest maritime event in the world - has been successfully held in Manado," said Aji Sularso, The Directorate General of Supervision and Control of Marine Resources and Fisheries, The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Republic of Indonesia in Manado, Thursday 13 August 2009.

The programs in Sail Bunaken such as Sailing and Flying Pass from various war aircraft and battle ships is an activity that is rarely done in the world.

To get a best credit in this prestigious event, North Sulawesi province needs the local community's support to succeed the event.

According to him, there are two important issues related to the implementation of the Sail Bunaken in North Sulawesi, which is the great potential and resources of the marine biological, that very suitable to be converted to people's economic activity.

"The Indonesian can promote the available potential by inviting investors to invest capital in Indonesia," he said.

Then, the Indonesian people can show the power of defense and maritime security, so that it can not be regarded lightly by any country.

"There are already thousands of foreign participant residing in North Sulawesi, it means that they acknowledge that the event in Indonesia has been recognized internationally," he explained.

source: Antara News

RIM Adjusts Blackberry MDS

2009-08-12T00:57:00.000-07:00

The Canadian Blackberry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) continues approach on two software -Java and Web applications- development in the future. It can be derived from elements of the so-called Web Widgets that generate HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and as an application to install.

For that RIM adjusts the development environment Blackberry MDS. MDS Runtime and MDS Studio starting at the end of the year has no longer available, the support ends in mid-2010. New devices with OS 4.7.1 and higher are no longer MDS Runtime support.

To ensure the support of Web applications development, RIM offers a new version 1.2 plug-ins for Visual Studio . It requires Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition on Windows XP and Vista in 32-bit version. In addition, RIM released a new plug-in for Eclipse 3.4, which is based on the same version of Windows.

Both tools include a device simulator, so that applications can be run directly on your PC for free, without having to install them on a BlackBerry device. Javascript can be used with the new plug-ins both for debug and profile. Moreover, they show the contents of transmissions to XMLHttpRequest.

The old Visual Studio plug-ins with V.1.0 and 1.1 are in the same frame as MDS Studio and Runtime. Both are no longer available or supported.

LNG Bontang Excess Diverted to Tangguh's Buyer

2009-08-11T05:30:00.000-07:00

Jakarta, 07-29-09 (Antara News) - The government maximizes the decrease in liquified natural gas (LNG) export from Bontang Plant, East Kalimantan, and Arun Plant, Aceh because of a global crisis to meet domestic needs.

"Our priority is to fulfill domestic market," said Chief Executive of Upstream Oil and Gas Supervisory Agency (BP Migas) Mr. R. Priyono in Jakarta on Wednesday (07-29-09).

According to him, the domestic market is done by divert it to LPG and supply it to PT Pupuk Iskandar Muda (PIM) through the exchange scheme (swap) between Bontang and Arun. Some of the other LNG used as a commitment substitute of Tangguh Plant in Papua.

PT Pertamina (Persero) has ensured will absorb eight cargo or equivalent to 340,000 metric tons from 400,000 metric tons LPG Bontang production.

The first shipment of LPG Bontang cargo (eq. 44,000 metric tons) have been done on 26 July 2009.

The Expert Staff for Information and Communication Affairs of Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Mr. Kardaya Warnika add, Indonesia can not simply divert the export contract of LNG Bontang and Arun in the country without the agreement with the buyer.

"Contract does not mention the divert option of the buyer to another," he said.

Until the end of the year 2009, a decrease in export volume of Bontang and Arun is estimated to reach 12 cargo (a cargo equivalent to 125,000 cubic meters) lower than initially predicted as many as 18 cargo. The plan of LNG export reduction that comes from Bontang (10 cargo) and Arun (2 cargo).

Due to the global crisis, the buyers of LNG Arun and Bontang usually called as the traditional buyer, which is Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan has reducing the purchase.

Indonesia and previous buyers agreed to lower the cargo 18 on this year, but eventually become a 12 cargo.

What is Flock?

2009-08-10T03:24:00.000-07:00

Flock is a browser. The people here at Flock are committed to building a browser unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before - because we start by focusing on user needs. We take pride in solving for common behaviors on the Web that seem clunky today, and will seem ridiculous tomorrow. We’re taking you there.

Stay connected. Rule the world.
Get the Award Winning
Social Web Browser!
Power by Mozilla.

We’re focused on keeping you close and better connected to the people, places and things you love, more informed about the topics that turn you on, and smiling about the way it all comes together. We love nothing more than hearing from users who didn’t know they were experiencing ‘conventional browser fatigue’ until they’ve downloaded Flock..and voila. Their lives get that much better.

We're big fans of the many interesting and innovative sites and services that continue to emerge to keep our online lives interesting. We also share a common vision that your browser should do much more than just get you to where you want to go. It should make sure you don’t miss out on things that are important to you and help you break down any barrier to easily share, publish, discover and communicate, so that you can enjoy the web to the fullest extent possible.

If you’re not sold yet, download Flock and get ready to meet your new favorite browser.

Apple blocks Google Voice app for iPhone

2009-08-09T22:40:00.000-07:00

The long-awaited Google Voice application for the iPhone has been officially shot down by Apple.

There were a scattering of reports on Monday, and then a Google spokesperson confirmed it: "Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users--for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers."

In addition, all third-party applications that use Google Voice have been pulled by Apple, according to a report in TechCrunch. The developer of one of those apps, GV Mobile, says he was told the decision came from Apple because his app "duplicates features that come with the iPhone."

It's unclear why Apple is refusing the app to be sold in its store, though there are hints that it may have come at the behest of AT&T, the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S. Google Voice is a free application that lets users assign a single number to ring their home, work, and cell phones, and also get voice mail as text transcriptions. Google Voice has been described by some as an "end run" around wireless carriers because it allows for free texts, but users do still use minutes on their AT&T phone plan.

John Gruber of DaringFireball.net reports that it was in fact AT&T's request that Apple block the application, but points out that Apple too has good reason to reject it: "Google Voice is a mobile phone service provided by the maker of one of the biggest competitors to the iPhone OS (Android). What if Google Voice were instead Microsoft Voice?"

It's also by now well established that the application approval process for Apple's App Store can be confusing and frustrating for individual developers, and now even for giants of the technology industry. Just last week, another dust-up occurred with Google and the iPhone, when Apple refused to approve Google's Latitude for the iPhone unless it was designed as Web-based app.

source: News CNET

STEFANIA COLAC AND ALEJANDRO SPITZNER Alert!!

2009-08-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

Breaking News...... ALERT!!!! * DO NOT REQUEST TO ADD: 'STEFANIA COLAC' AND
'ALEJANDRO SPITZNER'. THESE ARE HACKERS. SO TELL ALL ON YOUR WALL. IF SOMEONE
ADDS THEM THEY EARN YOUR CONTACTS, EMPTY COMPUTERS AND ADDRESSES. SO COPY AND
PASTE THIS TEXT ON YOUR WALL * FACEBOOK VIRUS GOING AROUND. IF YOU GET AN INBOX
MESSAGE WITH A VIDEO LINK SAYING VIDEO OF YOU - DO NOT OPEN - **IT IS A VIRUS!!!
Pass it ON.

When you open your Facebook or Twitter or Myspace account recently, maybe you will find this alert, it is on your wall, your friend wall, groups, or your inbox.

What is this alert about? In most cases, such alert are fake. This one seems to be fake too, it's a kind of hoax. If one of those two name above is in your friend's list, that doesn't mean that you'll get hacked. Even if you receive a suscpicious email with a link in it, do not open or follow the link they suggested. So disregard the alert and keep it for yourself to stop the case, the hoax doesn't work for you or maybe doesn't bother you at all.
But for some individual, especially a person with a virus-phobia, they'll act spontaneously by sending the alert to all his/her friends, website social network account, groups, YM or other community services. In this situation, the hoax is successful.

Back to the alert above, we know that there was something going on of that we cannot be sure. In some cases, that recently attacking Twitter, please read the information on Yahoo News, the spam campaign like this alert seems to be the beginning of attacking. As a result, the level of server traffic suddenly increase.

Of course, you don't want any of your social networ account turn slow-down, so not to re-distribute this alert is very wise since you can't find any reliable source to verify its voracity. You should know that this is a hoax tactic, and the good action is NEVER PASS IT ON.

LNG Bontang Sales Contract to Japan Finish in October 2009

2009-08-07T01:02:00.000-07:00

Jakarta, Kompas.com - Upstream Oil and Gas Supervisory Agency (BP Migas) to seek LNG Bontang sales contract extension to western buyer, Japan, can be completed in October 2009.

Deputy Operations BP Migas, Eddy Purwanto explains, at this time BP Migas and the parties involved in the selling process are negotiating the Sales Purchase Agreement (SPA).

They are PT Pertamina (Persero) as the appointed seller and Total E&P Indonesie, Chevron, and Vico as the field owner which supply Bontang factory. "We espect that SPA can be completed by the end of October, although we can not be sure. And, this is a technical issue, and usually technical issue is fairly sticky," said Eddy.

According to Eddy, so far there is no change in volume or price for the request of the sales contract extension by the Japanese buyers. "Still in accordance with the HoA," he added.

On 13 February 2009, the Head of BP Migas Raden Priyono went to Osaka, Japan, to witness the signing of HoA of LNG Bontang sales contract extension.

The HoA of LNG Bontang contract sales extension is signed by Pertamina, Total Indonesie, and Inpex Corporation to the six western buyers, Chubu EPC, Kansai EPC, Kyushu EPC, Nippon Steel Co. Ltd., Osaka Gas Co. Ltd., and Toho Gas Co. Ltd..

If the level of HoA up to a sales contract extension, then the sale of LNG will be valid for 10 years beginning in 2011 until 2020.

source: Kompas Bisnis Keuangan

Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition - The Superior Performance Out Of The Box

2009-08-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

The first three processors in Intel's new Nehalem generation shouldn't really have come out until mid-November, but Intel obviously wanted to forestall AMD's first 45-nanometre server processors, which are already being listed by online dealers. The market leader in semiconductors has at any rate allowed the world's press to start reporting today on the test kits that were distributed a few weeks ago. These contain the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition – 3.2 GHz – and Core i7 920 – 2.66 GHz – 45-nm four-core processors developed under the codename Bloomfield, the DX58SO motherboard – codenamed "Smackover" – with the X58 – Tylersburg 36S/I10R – chipset, the LGA1366 processor socket and three DDR3-1066/PC3-8500 memory channels, two processor coolers, and one of the X25-M solid-state disks (SSDs) presented some time ago – DX58SO Smackover X25-M.

As with the Atom, Intel has again reactivated hyper-threading (HT, Intel's implementation of simultaneous multi-threading, SMT) in the Nehalem generation processors. HT was introduced with the Pentium 4 and later abandoned. Each of the four Core i7 cores thus reports a second "logical" or virtual core to the operating system, so that in certain situations better use is made of the available arithmetic and logical units. Hyper-threading is just one of many Nehalem innovations, however. Another is that Intel has now definitively turned away from the front side bus architecture. The memory controller is now in the processor itself, no longer in the Northbridge of the chipset. This is intended to shorten latency times appreciably when accessing RAM. As in the K10 generation of the AMD64 processors, all four cores of the Core i7 – each of which has 256 kilobytes of L2 cache – now have a memory controller – with three DDR3 channels, an – 8 MB – L3 cache shared jointly by all cores, as well as a QuickPath Interconnect (QPI, up to 25.6[ gigabyte/s]) housed on a chip, with 731 million transistors jostling each other in an area of 263 square millimetres. For comparison, in its Phenoms and quad-core Opterons fabricated in 65-nm technology in Dresden, AMD currently squeezes 450 million transistors on to an SOI die with an area of 285 square millimetres.

The performance capabilities of the Core i7 965 Extreme are clearly defined through the various benchmarks performed on the test system. The strong points for the 965 were its superior performance out of the box with the dominance throughout the various benchmarks, especially with the productivity tasks performed by high end workstations. The graphics performance was not as strong in the gaming categories versus the 920, but once overclocked, the 965 out performs the 920 solidly in the gaming benchmarks with a lesser clock speed after overclocking. The additional headroom in overclocking with better cooling would certainly add to the performance of this chip, but when considering the price point and classification of this chip, many of the systems that this chip would find a home in would include water cooling and various other provisions to allow for stronger and higher overclocks, with a much stronger dominance over all the other chips in the market.

Although we are talking here about Intel's handpicked test specimens of its new processors, the first benchmark results do nevertheless show their enormous potential. In the SPEC CPU2006, and with high optimized code thanks to Intel's latest C/C++ and Fortran compilers in version 11 beta, which already use SSE4.2 commands, a Core i7 965 Extreme Edition scored 110 points in integer throughput – int_rate_base_2006 – and 85.1 points in floating-point operations – fp_rate_base_2006, measured under 32-bit Windows Vista in each case. This first representative of Nehalem thus overtakes not only all previous x86 and x64 processors, but also most of the tandems made from two quad-core Opterons – 2360 SE: 92.7/84.7 points – and, in floating-point throughput, approaches two 3.2-GHz Xeons. Unusually, we had to carry out the CPU2006 tests under 32-bit Windows instead of 64-bit Linux, because the 64-bit code of the benchmark suite requires 2 gigabytes of RAM per core, thus a total of 16 gigabytes for eight cores, but the Core i7 processors with 2-gigabyte DIMMs on boards with six slots can only drive a maximum of 12 gigabytes of RAM. Unbuffered DDR3 SDRAM DIMMs with a capacity of 4 gigabytes cannot yet be supplied.

In more practical benchmarks, the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition can't so clearly outdo its predecessor, the Core 2 Extreme QX9770, which also has a clock frequency of 3.2 GHz, particularly in applications that compute with a single thread or with only a few threads in parallel. The Core i7 965 was in any case just 8 per cent faster than the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 on an X48 motherboard with PC3 12800 memory – DDR3-1600 – in the BAPCo SYSmark 2007 benchmark, and in 3D games the Nehalem's lead was negligible most of the time – BAPCo SYSmark 2007 X48-Mainboard. Only World in Conflict, which obviously exploits several cores, ran somewhat faster on the Core i7 965. With some other games, even a Core 2 Duo E8600 – 3.33 GHz – held the lead.

Multi-threading applications, such as compiling a Linux kernel, ran 26 per cent faster, and the Cinebench R10 rendering benchmark ran 34 per cent faster. Hyper-threading yielded marked advantages in compiling – 22 per cent – and rendering – 11 per cent, and HT only minimally slowed down the BAPCo SYSmark 2007.
For our benchmarks, we had activated the new Turbo Mode, in which the processor over clocks itself unless all cores are working to full capacity. Depending on the CPU's version, Turbo Boost raises the clock frequency by one or more steps, each step being 133 MHz. That is the basic frequency of the processor, which governs the higher clock frequencies of its arithmetic and logical units, the L3 cache, the memory controller, the memory modules, and the QPI. In our measurements, both Core i7 965 and Core i7 920 could be over clocked by one step in each case, which gave a performance boost of at best 5 per cent – but this makes the computer's power consumption rise markedly under full load. At 194 watts with the CPU under full load and 82 watts in no-load operation, the system with the Core i7 965 was nevertheless still somewhat thriftier than the comparison system with the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 and with the same fittings as far as possible – the graphics card being a Radeon HD 4550 in each case. By the way, we used a standard, but quite lively SATA hard disk instead of the Intel SSD for our measurements.

With a very powerful cooler and on motherboards with overclocking functions, you can set a higher thermal design power (TDP) for the Core i7 than it nominally has – 130 watts. If you then enable even higher Turbo Boost multipliers, automatic overclocking will reach the 4-GHz mark with the expensive Core i7 965 Extreme Edition.

Besides the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition – list price $999 – and the Core i7 920 – $284, Intel also intends to release a Core i7 940 – 2.83 GHz – $562. The Lynnfield – quad-core, possibly without HT – and Havendale – dual-core plus graphics – versions of Nehalem that are intended for medium-range boards with an LGA1160 socket won't come out until the third or fourth quarter of 2009. Besides Intel itself, at least Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, Foxconn, and MSI intend to release LGA1366 boards with an X58 chipset, some with the SLI function. Any such board will cost more than 200 euros. Of course, Intel must now prove it can deliver the Core i7 and the X58 chipset as planned. Data sheets for the new products are not expected until mid-November.

source: http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/118430

IIMS 2009 has successfully reached the target of IDR 1.7T

2009-08-04T02:00:00.000-07:00

The Transaction value of the biggest automotive exhibition in Indonesia, The 17th Indonesia International Motor Show (IIMS) 2009 has successfully reached the target of IDR 1.7 trillion. During the 10-day of exhibition, the value of transactions recorded at IDR 1.731 trillion, or slightly below the previous year, which recorded at IDR 1.799 trillion.

the automotive industry will soon rise from the influence of the global crisis

"This is a proof of the national movement of the automotive industry. We are optimist that the automotive industry will soon rise from the influence of the global crisis" said Mr Johnny Darmawan, The Chairman of the Committee after closing IIMS 2009, Sunday, August 2nd 2009.

However, on the other hand, the target of 250,000 visitors was not reached. Until 07:00 PM, on the last day of exhibition, the number of visitors was only 237,687 people.

Secretary General of The Association of Indonesia Automotive Industries (Gaikindo) Mr Freddy Soetrisno added, from the total value of transactions recorded, it is about 65% car sales contribution and 35% from motor sales and automotive supporting products.

"With the conditions that IIMS has reached Rp 1.7 trillion target, then we optimistic, car sales target this year will reach 450,000 units. This is a strong indication that our automotive industry not too down " he said

source: Kompas Otomotif

BlackBerry Bold 9900 Pluto

2009-08-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

The rumor about BlackBerry Pluto or BlackBerry Bold 9900 and BlackBerry Magnum 9220 appears in Softpedia. Blackberry Pluto, which resembles Onyx, has a touchscreen display and QWERTY keypad, While the Magnum, which will be the successor Blackberry Bold will be present with the features of 3G.

Blackberry Bold 9900 is estimated to be released by the end of third-quarter of 2009 with the specification below:

RIM BlackBerry Bold 9900 (RIM Pluto) Specs

Datasheet Views:	13333 views since addition of datasheet (January 14, 2009)
Datasheet State:	Incomplete specifications
Expected Release Date:	September, 2009
Project Codename:	RIM Pluto
Predecessor Model:	RIM BlackBerry Bold 9000
Software Environment
Embedded Operating System:	RIM BlackBerry OS 4.7
Memory Storage capacity
RAM capacity:	128 MiB
ROM capacity:	128 MiB
Secondary ROM capacity:	1 GiB
Display
Display Type:	color transmissive TFT , 65536 scales
Display Diagonal:	2.6 "
Display Resolution:	480 x 360
Sound
Microphone(s):	mono
Loudspeaker(s):	mono
Audio Output:	3.5mm
Cellular Phone
Cellular Networks:	GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900, UMTS850, UMTS1900, UMTS2100
Cellular Data Links:	CSD, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA
Call Alert:	32 -chord melody
Vibrating Alert:	Supported
Speakerphone:	Supported
Control Peripherals
Positioning Device:	Touchscreen & TrackBall
Primary Keyboard:	Built-in QWERTY-type keyboard
Directional Pad:	Not supported
Scroll Wheel:	Not supported
Interfaces
Expansion Slots:	microSD, microSDHC, TransFlash
USB:	USB 2.0 client, 480Mbit/s mini-USB
Bluetooth:	Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
Wireless LAN:	802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g
Infrared Gate:	Not supported
Multimedia Telecommunication
Analog Radio Receiver:	Not supported
Digital Media Broadcast Tuner:	Not supported
Satellite Navigation
Built-in GPS module:	Supported
Complementary GPS Services:	Assisted GPS, Geotagging
Built in Digital Camera
Main Camera:	3.1 MP
Autofocus (AF):	Supported
Built-in Flash:	mobile light (LED)
Additional Details
Battery:	removable

The release of these devices are still a rumor, even you can see the image manipulation by Photoshop at Crackberry. Still everything about this smartphone is a speculation.

Samsung Star GT-S5233A

2009-07-28T23:52:00.000-07:00

	Full Touch UI TouchWiz v1.0 offers more versatile, intuitive and easy-to-use navigation Large 3.0” LCD with 262K Color WQVGA showcases brilliance and optimized view 16:9 LCD supports hyper QWERTY keypad for upgraded ease of input Haptic offers tangible feedback when using the touch screen Auto rotating display easily switches back and forth to optimize viewing of large content
	Design Compact size measures a palm-friendly 104x53x11.9mm Sleek squared shape with chic black color completes touch style
	Widgets Mobile widgets customize screen with embedded widgets such as clock, scheduler, and other useful apps Online widgets connect you to useful info including stock updates, weather forecast, latest news, etc
	Enhanced Camera Features 3.2 Megapixel Camera takes high quality photographs on the go Smile Shot only takes a photo when the subject is smiling, helping you capture even the most elusive smilers Camera-like touch user interface makes mobile photography a breeze Organize your pics in an easy-to-browse photo album Edit photos right on your mobile, no PC needed
	Music MP3 Player plays multi-format music files (MP3/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+/WMA/WAV) DNSe enhances acoustics including a virtual 3D sound effect and an equalizer Music Recognition identifies songs for you; just record a clip of the song (just a few seconds is enough) on your phone, send it to the server, and the song will be identified within seconds Music Library is easy to organize and manage with MTP Background Music lets you keep listening while you access other applications FM Radio with RDS lets you tune into 24-hour music and information
	Internet Experince Full browser (Jasmine) support lets you surf the web from anywhere Both vertical and horizontal views offer optimum viewing (auto rotates when you move the unit) Easy access to Google Mail, Google Search and Google Maps RSS Reader automatically streams news and entertainment directly to your mobile Update your blogs via SharePix, no PC needed

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

2009-07-28T20:03:00.001-07:00

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Yahoo Zimbra Desktop, The Email Manager

2009-07-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

Now you don't need to open the www.gmail.com or mail.yahoo.com to send and receive email. By using software Yahoo Zimbra Desktop email client - an open source and freely used - you can manage various of web base email.

The most interesting feature of this software is to be able to email client for various types of webmail on the internet such as Yahoo mail, Google mail, Microsoft Hotmail, AOL Mail and more. And more interesting if you have several email accounts, you will be able to manage your email simultaneously.

This software allows you to make a daily task such as send and receive setting, check messages in periodical time so you can manage when the software will make the communication to the server to send and receive email, this is very useful if you have limitations in your internet connection.

Similar service like Yahoo Zimbra Desktop has released before by Google, which is using open source applications Gears Project, Gmail users can run applications offline.

However, Zimbra Desktop has advantages over using a Web browser that has Ajax technology interface. With this technology, a Web browser could elanorate with some interface.
In addition, Zimbra Desktop has a familiar design with a look like e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.

Zimbra Desktop Service is available for a number of operating system or platform, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Red Hat Fedora 7, Debian 4, openSUSE Linux 10.2, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, and Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

To enjoy Zimbra Desktop service latest version, you can download the 49MB files for the Windows operating system, 44MB for the Mac OS, and 52 MB for the operating system Linux.

Download page www.zimbra.com/products/desktop_download.html

17th Indonesia International Motor Show (IIMS) 2009 officially opened

2009-07-27T03:09:00.000-07:00

17th Indonesia International Motor Show (IIMS) 2009 officially opened by Ad interim Coordinating Minister for the Economy who is also Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, representing the President of the Republic of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who planned to be opened this annual exhibition.

The government invites principals automotive world is not simply to sell their products in national market, but also make Indonesia as a production base.

The Chairman of The Association of Indonesia Automotive Industries (Gaikindo) Bambang Trisulo added, "This annual exhibition will takes place for 10 days, and will display 21 car's brands, 7 motorcycle's, and 124 automotive components.

"Although the crisis occurred, and shocks bombing last week, our commitment is still rounded and organized this exhibition. In addition, guests, such as JAMA and Siam, also came. This is still a good idea as evidence of the national automotive industry, in regional and even wider, "he said.

IIMS 2009 will begin to be opened to the public on 25th July to 2nd August 2009. The entry ticket is Rp. 20,000 for weekdays and Rp. 30,000 for the weekend.

The 17th Indonesia International Motor Show 2009

2009-07-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Event Date: 24 July to 2 August 2009

Opening & press day: 24 July to 2 August 2009 (presscredentials required)

Public show: 25 July to 2 August 2009, 11.00 to 21.00

Venue: Jakarta International Expo Arena, PRJ Kemayoran, Jakarta

Line ups 2009

Toyota	New Yaris
Lexus	All New RX 350
Daihatsu	Luxio, Baby Alphard, CNG-fueled Gran max
Mitsubishi	Grandis, Strada Triton Exceed, Pajero, Lancer Evolution, Lancer EX
Suzuki	APV Luxury, Grand Vitara, New Swift
Mercedes-Benz	CLC 200 Kompresor, cLS 350, C63 AMG Estate, ML350 New Generation, Roadster SLK 280 coupe, CLK 280
Honda	All New City, All New Civic, All New Jazz, All New CR-V, Freed
Nissan	X-Trail Xtronic CVT
Mazda	Mazda2
Proton	New Saga, Exora
Hyundai	i10
Ford	New Ranger, New Focus
Isuzu	Panther
BMW	7 Series, M3 Coupe
VW	BlueMotion, DSG, TDI

http://www.gaikindo.or.id/

The Green Furniture is Indonesia - IFFINA 2010

2009-07-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

International Furniture and Craft Fair Indonesia 2010

IFFINA or The International Furniture and Craft Fair Indonesia, now stepping ahead with a big improvement, more better and more attractive. IFFINA as one of the biggest furniture exhibition in Indonesia now again present for third time with a complete big variety of furniture and craft.

ASMINDO and Dyandra Promosindo proudly present “International Furniture and Craft Fair Indonesia 2010” or also known IFFINA 2010.

IFFINA 2010 will presents to you potential buyers from all over the world that will bring more buyers more than last year which success with get good points in terms of quality International Buyers which is a real important factor in terms of International Fair. Attended from 91 countries the participants were member of the sector, potential buyer and client.

With a concept of ” One Stop Buying Center offering with Quality and Uniqueness”, IFFINA 2010 includes wide selections of furniture and handycraft product, Household and Accessories, Materials of Furniture. All come with the best quality you have ever found.

With full supported from the Government, IFFINA 2010 is become a place and opportunity for you to enlarge your furniture and handycraft business with a huge potential market.

With a business to business concept, awarding and buyer’s night, IFFINA 2010 is the answer of today’s chalenging market.

The Commitee of IFFINA 2010 implement the Strategic Promotion Program that is very knowledgeable and effective, by updating and inviting all International Buyers trough various communication media.The IFFINA has become the icon of furniture and handicraft exhibition and build awareness as a compulsory annual exhibition.

IFFINA 2010 will take place at the Jakarta International Expo, one of the biggest exhibition sites in Jakarta. With an easy city access, not too far away from the International Airport of Soekarno Hatta and the Jakarta’s Port Tanjung Priok, and completed with modern facilities. JIExpo’s total exhibition area consist of around 40.000 sqm of open space and 27.000 sqm of Exhibition Halls.

So, what are you waiting for? Immediately ensure your participation in a world-class exhibition of furniture and craft, IFFINA 2010, and achieve a golden opportunity to meet and establish business cooperation with the global buyer and potential clients from all over the world.

IFFINA 2010

IIMS 2009 - Experience The New Atmosphere Of The New Venue

2009-07-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The 17th Indonesia International Motor Show

In attempt to continue working towards an even bigger and better automotive show, this year we are challenging you to experience The 17th Indonesia International Motor Show in a new atmosphere of the new venue that will surely be more fantastic than ever!

We are planning to exceed the previous Indonesia international Motor Show tremendeous achievement. The 17th Indonesia International Motor Show are expected to draw more than 200.000 visitors, 800 local and international journalists, and attract over 300 brands troughout the industry.

The 17th Indonesia International Motor Show will also cover larger area. Around 80.000 sqm of Jakarta International Expo - Kemayoran will be used for the exhibition, including Hall A, Hall B, Hall C, Hall D, Hall E and Outdoor area. Also anticipate the new and exiciting programs that push you adrenaline level to the max.

Indonesia International Motor Show 2009

Drive For A Better Life

2009-07-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

"Drive for a Better Life"

Indonesian automotive industry, which arising since the 1960s, has grown together with the global automotive industry and the country's economic. The development is not only seen on the product output but also on the drive and attraction of the sector toward its supporting industries and other related industries. Moreover, the development is also seen on its contribution to industrial and development growth of the country. The current financial crisis has forced the industry to face serious challenges such as how to maintain the innovations to produce high quality products with up-to-date designs at reasonable price, and at the same time, efficient and environmentally friendly.

Realizing the current roles and challenges of the industry, IIMS 2009 endorsed the theme of "Drive for a Better Life", meaning that the national automotive industry will keep on supporting people toward a better life.

A Better LifeA better life is a quality life. IIMS 2009, which is the 17th automotive exhibition to be held, is expected to be the benchmark of the national automotive industry that pays more attention to the environment. Especially on areas related to the production process, the product itself, and the technology - and thus creating higher value and aesthetics in life. Developments in automotive technology are also emphasized on creating environmentally-friendly technology which will lead to a healthier, safer, and more comfortable driving experience.

Contribution to Economics Indonesian automotive industry is an industry with multiplier effects. Starting from the production of components, vehicle production & assembly line, distribution & sales network to the after-sales service, the industry absorbs huge work force. In addition, the industry also helps the growth of other industries, such as financing and insurance. The development of automotive industry and the related industries provides huge contribution for tax income. The industry itself is currently the 4th largest contributor for the country's tax income. Furthermore, the high growth of national automotive industry and the sizeable market potential could attract foreign investors to develop their business in Indonesia.
The current global crisis is a challenge for any business, including automotive, to be more creative and innovative so they can continue making breakthroughs in order to remain survive and growing.

Drive for a Better LifeOn the processing and production levels, automotive industry is facing challenges to create technology innovations that use environmentally-friendly materials, to increase the use of local contents and local labors. On the value level, the automotive industry's result (the products) must be able to increase the quality of customers' life and the environment. High quality products (or the vehicles) must show their excellence characteristic not only in the design that fulfills high aesthetical value, but also on the comfort, safety, mobility, and user-friendly technology.

Unquestionably, the better life theme should be supported by the related industries, such as environmentally-friendly components and fuel, so that the emission will also have better quality.
IIMS 2009 will be the venue for Indonesian automotive industry showing their ability as one of the pillars of creative economic development as well as the place for automotive users and enthusiasts to see and enjoy the development of Indonesian automotive industry.

Indonesia International Motor Show 2009

What is Tribestan?

2009-07-21T00:03:00.000-07:00

What is Tribestan?

Tribestan is a completely natural non-hormonal herbal (phytochemical) biostimulator derived from the plant Tribulus terrestris L., Bulgaricum, which contains predominantly saponins of furostanol type (not less than 45% in Tribestan), with prevailing quantity of protodioscin. It is a natural herbal alternative to synthetic anabolic hormones without any clinically proven toxic effects.
Nearly 20 years of experience with natural herbal Tribestan administration has seen no toxicity and negative effects to date. Tribestan (Tribulus Terrestris L.) improves sexual activity, and also improves and prolongs penile erection in men. In women it improves sexual activity, stimulates ovogenesis and has other beneficial effects as well. Traditionally used as a dietary supplement to enhance vigor, vitality and stamina.

What Is Tribestan Used For?

Since the body's natural testosterone promotes protein synthesis and positive nitrogen balance, the benefits for the professional or the recreational athlete engaged in active training and workout, are muscle cell growth and increased body strength as well as faster recuperation and recovery from muscular stress.

What Should You Take It For And Who?

Sexual performance enhancer, longer erections, ovulation problems, PMS prophylactic
Libido booster
Prostate enlargement therapy
Infertility treatment, increased sperm count, improved sperm motility and viability
Impotence treatment
Optimization of hormonal levels
Increase of muscle mass for bodybuilding related to lowered testosterone production as a result of steroids and heavy loads on the body. Tribestan stimulates protein synthesis as well.
Recovery of the sexual reproductive system as a result of the use of toxic substances, steroids, etc.

Naturally Safe For Enhanced Performance

Improves muscle growth and body strength
Enhanced libido sexualis and erectile function
Increased the number and motility of spermatozoa
Optimizes body's natural testosterone and LH
Alleviates some symptoms associated with male and female menopause
No adverse effects
No toxicity and side effects

Use In Sports!

Tribestan administration leads to increased muscle mass in active sports by activating the enzyme associated with energy metabolism. At the same time it has also been reported to have the ability to stimulate some functions associated with the increase of the body's natural endogenous testosterone and lutenizing hormone (LH) levels. With the increase of the body's natural endogenous testosterone level, it can help alleviating some symptoms associated with male menopause.

On Muscle Growth And Body Strength

For years, Tribestan has been used by athletes of the Soviet Bloc. The Bulgarian strength athletes have also used it extensively with effectiveness. Tribestan has passed all the drug tests at every competitive level and has been used with significant results by top professional athletes as well as by recreational athletes. With its good safety profile and its natural herbal origin, Tribestan is sold as a dietary supplement in many countries with little restriction on its use. Nearly 20 years of experience with natural herbal Tribestan administration has seen no toxicity and negative effects to date.

On Safety

Special attention should be given to the harmlessness of the natural herbal product Tribestan.
No evidence of acute, sub-acute and chronic toxicity has been found during the experimental behavioral, hematological, functional, biochemical and morphological studies.
Absence of carcinogenic and teratogenic effect.
No adverse effects were noted in any of the clinical studies and additional research demonstrated no adverse effects on the Central Nervous System and the Cardiovascular System.

A Summary On Clinical Studies On Tribestan

Tribestan has also been reported to be a popular medicinal herb in Bulgaria, Eastern Europe and North America for the treatment of sexual deficiencies. Three major medical centers in Bulgaria have therefore conducted clinical studies on Tribestan effect on reproductive functions. Since 1981, Tribestan has been incorporated into mainstream medical treatment in much of Eastern Europe for:
Improvement of libido and erectile function.
Increasing serum concentration of testosterone and LH
Stimulation of spermatogenesis with increased concentration of spermatozoa, increase in sperm motility and viability

Report On Libido Sexualis And Erectle Dysfunction

In clinical studies on 212 patients, 85% of patients with reduced libido, demonstrated improved libido after 30 days and 94% after 60 days of treatment with Tribestan.
For 36 patients with chronic prostatitis and reduced libido, 75% reported favorable effects at the end of the treatment cycle.
In animal studies, libido and sexual reflexes were restored in 71% of subjects with complete absence of libido. In subjects with poor libido and sexual reflexes, recovery was recorded in 100% of cases.
Treatment of patients with unilateral and bilateral hypotrophy of the testes, demonstrated enhanced libido and improved spermogram after 60 days.
In patients with primary and secondary hypogonadism, 78% reported restored and enhanced libido with 22% reporting improved erection.

Report On Stimulation Of Spermatogenesis

Tribestan administered to males with idiopathic oligoasthnozoospermia or with spermogram disturbances due to varicocele, has shown increased concentration of spermatozoa, increased percentage of motile spermatozoa. Increased spermatozoa motility rate and, for some cases, increased volume of ejaculate of 1 to 2 ml. In controlled studies the number of Sertoli cells increased by 40% with no change in the number of Leydig cells.

Report On Increase Of The Body's Natural Testosterone

In patients with testosterone serum levels below the lower limit of the norm, the physiological levels were reached after treatment, whereas in patients with normal initial levels, the testosterone level was not significantly changed after treatment.

Source: http://www.tribestan.com/

Two Bomb Blast in JW Marriott and The Ritz Carlton Jakarta

2009-07-17T06:12:00.001-07:00

Jakarta - Friday, July 17th 2009, two high-explosive bombs blast in JW Marriott Hotel and The Ritz Carlton Hotel. The first bomb exploded in the basement of JW Marriot at 7.45 pm local time and the second in Airlangga Restaurant in Ritz Carlton in several minute after. 9 people died in this tragedy and 53 people has seriously injured. This is a suicide bom, The Breaking news of a local TV show a CCTV recording of a man with a hat carrying a trolley-bag just before the blast the accident.

Detik-detik Menjelang Ledakan [a CCTV Recording]

The Land of Minangkabau

2009-07-16T04:49:00.000-07:00

The Land of Minangkabau being the Capital of Indonesia’s West Sumatera region, Padang is the home of the gentle and refined Minangkabau people. Their ancients matriarchal culture is the largest of its kind in the world. Here, women are head of the family and the community. West sumatra’s main attraction is Bukittinggi Situated at 3,000 feet above sea level, this delightful town surrounded by volcanoes and green valleys has a pleasant climate and is the culture seat of the Minangkabau people. Other places of interest include Batusangkar, the home of minangkabau Kings, Ngarai Sianok, a spectacular geogolical wonder, lake Singkarak, the largest in west sumatra and a well developed recreation and water sports center and the Rimba Panti Nature Reserve.

The name Minangkabau is thought to be a conjunction of two words, minang ("victorious") and kabau ("buffalo"). There is a legend that the name is derived from a territorial dispute between the Minangkabau and a neighbouring prince. To avoid a battle, the local people proposed a fight to the death between two water buffalo to settle the dispute. The prince agreed and produced the largest, meanest, most aggressive buffalo. The Minangkabau produced a hungry baby buffalo with its small horns ground to be as sharp as knives. Seeing the adult buffalo across the field, the baby ran forward, hoping for milk. The big buffalo saw no threat in the baby buffalo and paid no attention to it, looking around for a worthy opponent. But when the baby thrust his head under the big bull's belly, looking for an udder, the sharpened horns punctured and killed the bull, and the Minangkabau won the contest and the dispute.

http://www.pactoltd.com/

The Mystery of The Stone Sculptures of Bada in Besao Valley

2009-07-16T04:45:00.000-07:00

How did they get there? Why were they made? Who made them? It is still a mystery and an exact count of these stone sculptures, which are scattered in the valleys and mountains of central sulawesi, are still unconfirmed. Are theses megalithic finds relics of a pre-historic culture or were they made during the early Hinduistic period? No one knows because their shapes do not conform to anything else found in other parts of the country and are completely strange in shape and carving. Of more than a hundred sculptures, the giant statue at SEPADA called Batu-Palindo is the most prominent. Because of this mystery, central Sulawesi, is the most intriguing place in Indonesia and so little is known about it.

http://www.pactoltd.com/