CyberHQ.Net

During your office hours and you are sitting in front of your PC. Do you really doing your office job or are you surfing the web or you are just merely concentrating replying a message to your friend over the social networking portal?

Reported by Telegraph UK, social networking portal such as Twitter and Facebook are costing British businesses £1.38b a year in time wasted, a survey claims.

More than half of office workers use sites like Twitter and Facebook for personal use during the working day, and admit wasting an average of 40 minutes a week each.

One in three of the 1,460 office workers surveyed also said they had seen sensitive company information posted on social networking sites, leading to fears about how workers use the internet.

Philip Wicks, consultant at Morse, the IT services and technology company who commissioned the survey, said the true cost to the economy could be substantially higher than the £1.38bn estimate.

“When someone is asked for their own use they say around 40 minutes a week, but when asked about their colleagues they say they say up to an hour a day. We have used the lower of those figures rather than the high point,” he said.

In My office, the network administrator has suspended several famous social networking portal and some video/audio live streaming website as well.

What about your office?

Latest report from UNCTAD´s Information Economy Report 2009: Trends and Outlook in Turbulent Times stated mobile communications has grew strongly worldwide especially in Africa.

Since 2003, mobile phone subscriptions have grown faster in Africa than in any other region of the world

There are now more than 10 times as many mobile subscriptions as fixed lines in Africa, and more than 20 times as many in Sub-Saharan Africa. But most African nations are failing to keep up with global trends in the use of broadband Internet, which is critical for meeting many economic and social development objectives.

At the end of 2008, the number of mobile subscriptions reached 4 billion. Although growth was somewhat lower than in the previous year, it still remained close to 20 per cent in 2008.

On average, there are now 60 subscriptions per 100 people, and in many developed, developing and transition economies penetration exceeds 100. Reflecting explosive growth, the penetration level in developing countries is now eight times higher than what it was in 2000.

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As i reported on the previous post, today another case happened in Australia. And the fine in terms of monetary is really huge.

The Federal Court has fined two companies and three individuals almost $16 million for breaches of the Spam Act.

It follows the first ever court action taken against those sending unwanted text messages.

The case was brought by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

The two companies, Mobilegate Ltd and Winning Bid Pty Ltd, as well as three individuals were found to have breached the Act.

The authority says spam will not be tolerated.

It said the conduct was malicious and deceitful, offering people false hope with text message chat services at a premium price.

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ITU has given its stamp of approval to an energy-efficient one-charger-fits-all new mobile phone solution. The announcement comes as ITU lobbies hard to have the essential role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) recognized in the draft Copenhagen Agreement as a key part of the solution towards mitigating climate change.

Every mobile phone user will benefit from the new Universal Charging Solution (UCS), which enables the same charger to be used for all future handsets, regardless of make and model. In addition to dramatically cutting the number of chargers produced, shipped and subsequently discarded as new models become available, the new standard will mean users worldwide will be able to charge their mobiles anywhere from any available charger, while also reducing the energy consumed while charging.

The new UCS standard was based on input from the GSMA, which predicts a 50 per cent reduction in standby energy consumption, elimination of 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers, and a subsequent reduction of 13.6 million tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), Malcolm Johnson said: “This is a significant step in reducing the environmental impact of mobile charging, which also has the benefit of making mobile phone use more straightforward. Universal chargers are a commonsense solution that I look forward to seeing in other areas.”

Standardization of the solution within ITU was completed by Study Group 5 – Environment and Climate Change, and will hasten broad adoption by industry. Based on the Micro-USB interface, UCS chargers will also include a 4-star or higher efficiency rating – up to three times more energy-efficient than an unrated charger.

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Reported by Juniper Research that tentatively half  a billion of people will use mobile money transfer services in 2014.

According to new analysis from Juniper Research consumer demand for mobile money transfer services will see users exceed 500 million globally by 2014, principally in developing countries.

Juniper Research’s new report – ‘Mobile Money Transfer & Remittances: Markets, Forecasts & Strategies 2009-2014 ‘ – also suggests, however, that the many new mobile money services being announced will face political, regulatory or commercial challenges as they bring their services to market.

The report found that in developing world economies often only a small percentage of the population has a bank account or a credit card. A larger percentage, however, have a mobile phone or access to one. The reality is that far more people in countries that are underbanked will have used a mobile phone than will have used an ATM or visited a bank branch.

If you are a Linux beginner user,  it is can quite common that you will install a dual boot OS in your system (i.e  Linux & Windows). And today Acer Group has announced that in the coming Acer Aspire One Netbook, they will pre-installed Windows OS and Android OS – to give consumer simple usability and instant internet access.

The dual-boot netbook brings along a true revolution as it gives the best of two worlds. It offers the immediacy, the ultrafast connectivity and speed of Android™ for instant access to web browsing, emails and social interaction together the full and reliable productivity of the Windows® environment, simply by clicking to switch OS.

Boot up the Acer Aspire One with Android™ in a matter of seconds for ultrafast connectivity. When you need top productivity, just switch OS to take advantage of Windows® 7 functionalities. There is not even need to reboot. Plus, all Internet connections established on Android™ platform remain up and running even if you reboot the netbook or suspend the session.

So can i foresee that there is going to be a triple-boot OS in your system?

CIMB Bank has teamed up with Maxis Communications Bhd to launch the bank’s CIMB Clicks application for the iPhone.

They said on Monday, Oct 19 the application would enable users to check their CIMB bank account balances on the phone without having to log in to the bank’s online portal.

CIMB is the first bank to offer such an iPhone application.

Other features on the application include a CIMB bank branch and ATM locator, home loan calculator and currency converter. Downloading the application is free.

In conjunction with the launch, CIMB and Maxis will offer four iPhones as part of its campaign.

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There is a news release from PRWeb reported that ATSC (Advance Television System Committee) has announced the approval of A/153 ATSC Mobile DTV standard. This standard defines the technical specifications necessary for broadcasters to provide new services to mobile and handheld devices using their digital transmissions (DTV).

“Development and adoption of the ATSC Mobile DTV Standard is a major milestone in the ongoing evolution of digital television,” said ATSC President Mark Richer. “We have been fortunate to have strong and active industry support, including thousands of person-hours of technical volunteers, for this work which enabled us to develop the standard in an efficient manner.”

The ATSC Mobile DTV Standard will enable broadcasters to provide new compelling services to consumers utilizing a wide array of wireless receiving devices including mobile phones, small handheld DTVs, laptop computers and in-vehicle entertainment systems.

ATSC Mobile DTV is built around a highly robust transmission system based on Vestigial Side Band (VSB) modulation, with enhanced error correction and other techniques to improve robustness and reduce power consumption in portable receivers, coupled with a flexible and extensible Internet Protocol (IP) based transport system, efficient MPEG AVC (ISO/IEC 14496-10 or ITU H.264) video, and HE AAC v2 audio (ISO/IEC 14496-3) coding. ATSC Mobile DTV services are carried in existing digital broadcast channels along with current DTV services without any adverse impact on legacy receiving equipment.

Read the full press release

無線蹭網卡 – Translated by google as “Wireless Rub Card” is a product used in China for hacking a wireless network key in order to enjoy a free internet connection.

中國一些電子賣場最近暗地銷售稱為”無線蹭網卡”的高科技產品，據一些網民描述：只要把”無線蹭網卡”插在電腦上，會自動搜索左鄰右捨的無線網絡，然後破解他的安全密碼，強行”共享”他人的無線網絡。

In China, a number of electronic stores secretly sold a device recently referred to as “Wireless Rub Card” high-tech products. According to some netizens Description: As long as the “Wireless Rub Card” should be inserted on the computer, the computer will automatically search the neighbors wireless network and then break his security password ” Force Sharing” other people’s wireless network connection.

據說，有關”無線蹭網卡”是由台灣生產，接收無線信號的范圍可達3.6公裡，最後抓取數據流量包破解密碼只要幾分鍾。雖然蹭網卡開始熱銷，在中國一些城市的大型電子賣場都發現了這種設備，不過大部分賣點都藏在櫃台下面，只有熟人才能拿到貨。

It is said that the “Wireless Rub Card” is produced in Taiwan. Wireless signal can received/detected up to 3.6 kilometers and to crack the code (wireless network key) just in a few minutes time. Although the “Wireless Rub Card” has started selling in China’s major cities’ electronics stores, but most of the selling and buying are hidden below the counter, only acquaintances in order to get the goods.

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United Nation has just published a figures on how people are connected to the Web. According to the report, more people are actually using mobile phones and other portable device for high speed internet access compare to using a fixed-line.

Mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide are expected to reach 600 million, leapfrogging the estimated 500 million fixed-line subscriptions by the end of this year, the International Telecommunication Union said.

“There was a 50% increase in mobile broadband subscriptions just over the past year,” said Susan Teltscher of ITU’s statistical bureau.

The biggest winners from the emergence of mobile broadband are likely to be poor countries. Fixed-line phones are still scarce in the developing world, forcing those who want high-speed data services to resort to mobile technology.

Meanwhile, fixed-line telephone subscriptions continue to decline and are expected to drop to about 1.1 billion – less than one for every five people on the planet – this year, the report said.

Although i’ve wrote that in Europe, mobile broadband provider actually facing a network bandwidth constrain with it’s current users based but there are still more people are connected to the web “wirelessly”. I think this is the trend/direction we are heading to. What say you?

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