The Internet in Asia

Online learning distance has taken a different spin in India today.

Its nothing new for a  16 year old high school student  to be tutored in Chemistry by someone who has a Masters degree in the subject - such arrangements have been going on for a long time. The only difference here is that the student is based in the US, and the tutor in Cochin, India and that they are 'connected' through broadband and their learning is facilitated by and software that lets him sketch chemical formulas onto a computer screen.  Although the Indian accents may be hard for students to understand initially, this barrier is significantly reduced with the help of real-time white boards and other software. Thus, there is little difference between this tutoring method and face-to-face tutoring sessions. Parents too like the flexibility afforded by these online tutoring arrangements.

India has score of math and science scholars who are willing to work for a fraction of the price charged by their US counter-parts. Students are usually charged between USD 47 and USD 52 an hour by companies that employ US based tutors. Those that employ Indian based tutors on the other hand only charge between USD 18 to USD 25 an hour.  Entrepreneurs from the US have taken advantage of this, and with the help of high speed broadband connections have linked the two parties up, making a profit for themselves in the process.  One example is Studyloft.com which currently links 5,400 students in the US to tutors in India.

Citizen journalism and technology

According to Ronald  Meinardus of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the term 'media' itself is being redefined today. As a result, he expects blogs and podcasts will become part of mainstream journalism in the next five years as he predicts that traditional media giants will start to adopt the ways of new media more and more. This does not mean however that all of the successes of citizen journalists so far should be attributed to technology alone, as its impact and use obviously go beyond that. Read the whole story here.

Yahoo to increase presence in Southeast Asian region

Yahoo  has decided to increase its presence in the Southeast Asian region to keep up with the growing number of Internet users here - increasing both its staff and investment. Currently, about 10% of Yahoo's 429 million Internet users a month are from Southeast Asia. It is predicted that the number of Internet users in Southeast Asia is expected to rise by 83% to 100 million by 2008 from the 54.7 million users at present.

Last Wednesday, Yahoo released its localized home pages for Malaysia and Singapore, and plans to release a Thai version in the next 6 months. Currently, the Singaporean and Malaysian markets account for 50% of Yahoo's business here.

Malaysia: Cyberattackers focusing on money now

According to Internet security specialist Symantec Corp, cyber-attackers are more focused on 'stealing data' for cyber-crimes then they are in destroying data or hacking into systems. Their report also stated that hackers are becoming more cunning in their hacking methods, as codes today are designed to steal data without doing noticeable damage so that the victims will not notice the intrusion. According to Symantec, the United States has the highest number of bot-infected computers in the world at 26%. In Asia Pacific, Malaysia is ranked No 9, with 1% bot-infected computers. The low percentage on infected computers in the country was attributed to low broadband penetration in the country, as it does not allow hackers enough time to for bot networks to establish and coordinate attacks.

Mobile phones, a new form of voyeurism?

It was recently reported in a Singapore daily that voyeurs are using mobile phones to take compromising pictures of unsuspecting victims in Singaporean MRTs. In fact, one man was so forthcoming that when the lady whose chest he was trying to take a picture of shifted her posture to block him, he merely moved to get better access, and seemed pleased that she was uncomfortable and scared. The victim said that she was not dressed provocatively, and was worried about what could be done with the pictures, especially with the current trend of moblogging and merging of ICTs.

According to SMRT authorities, reports of these incidences are low and that they rarely happen (but that could simply be because many of these cases go unreported as victims are not aware of their rights, and are unlikely to lodge such complaints due to the nature of Asian cultures). However, they do encourage commuters to lodge official complaints if such an incident does occur. According to lawyers, any man who takes a photo of a woman's cleavage can be charged for insulting her modesty, and that victims are protected under the law, as perpetrators can be jailed for up to a year, and fined for outraging her modesty.

If this is the case, then victims are indeed protected by the law and they should start speaking up if something like this ever happens to them.

Singapore considers one year of free wireless broadband

The Singapore Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) invited service providers to submit proposals for providing wireless broadband to the island nation. The operating model specified by IDA requires operators to offer a basic service with access speeds of at least 512K bps (bits per second). The operators will be required to offer this basic service for "the lowest possible cost," which may include one year of free access. Service providers can also offer premium services that users will have to pay more for. What these services entailed was not stated.

Demographics of Internet users in Thailand

The results of the survey conducted by  the Thai National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec)  between September to November last year  of Thai Internet users show that 54.4% of Thai net users are female. The majority of net users were between 20 and 30 years old. 66% of Internet users  access the Internet from home, while 40 % use the Net in the workplace, 29 % at an educational facility and 25 % at an Internet cafe. It is the first time in the survey's seven-year history that home Internet use has dominated.

The most common activity on-line is email (24 percent), followed by information searching at 22 percent, while games and chat were used by 13 percent of respondents. 69% of Internet users have made some sort of e-commerce transaction over the past year, with males making more purchases on-line.  The most common were service reservations (20 percent) and buying movies (19 percent) and software (16 percent). 

The top five Internet problems cited were virus attacks, communication speed, junk mail, pornography, and impolite/inappropriate content.

The number of broadband users is expected to increase to 60% of all Internet subscribers in Thailand by the end of this year, last year,  ADSL-based broadband Internet was used by 43 percent of the Net population. Respondents not using broadband cited cost as the main deterrent stopping them from making the switch.

Singapore firm charged for using illegal software

A Singapore based web design firm PDM International is the first company to be  charged for using illegal software : Microsoft, Adobe and Autodesk software valued at SGD 50,000 under stricter enforcement of copyright laws in the island nation. Acting on a tip from Business Software Alliance (BSA), police raided the premises of the company. Trial is currently underway, and the company is appealing for reduction in the charges filed against the company.

The BSA offers rewards of up to SGD 20,000 for tips, and receives up to 40 tips a month from the public.

Thai users starting to use more domestic websites

According to a recently released report by True Internet Co., Ltd , more Thai surfers are turning to Thai based websites for information and entertainment as the quantity and quality of sites produced in Thailand increases.

Citizen journalism in Thailand

The recent political events in Thailand have provided a great platform for Thai citizen journalists to display their skills. One of the more popular blogs -The Media Slut,  publishes a composition of photographs taken by ordinary citizens at the numerous anti-government rallies that have been organized in the past few weeks. Within 48 hours of posting these pictures, its server crashed due to heavy traffic to the website. The site has grown from just a small hobby into one with a network that now has writers from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Surprisingly, the site is hosted in Singapore, and not in Thailand. The official reason for this is that although political opinions may not be presented freely in Singapore, facts can. Another more plausible reason according to the author of this article is that as Singapore positions itself as the media hub of Asia, it cannot afford to be viewed as a censorship happy nation state. 

One of the first few meetings of Thai citizen journalists will be held in Thailand on 19th March at the Thammasat University Faculty of Journalism.