December 23, 2009

From left:  Caloy Ortiz of IRRI; Ramon Cortez of Networld Hotel; Grace Castillo, sales head of Globe Business; Ronald Vallesteros of Sofitel Philippine Plaza; Joey Santos of Hyatt Hotel & Casino; and Sarah Austria of Globe Business.

Globe, a leading telecommunications company in the Philippines, presented the first Hotel IT Managers Conference together with the Hotel IT Association of the Philippines at Canyon Cove, Nasugbu Batangas. The event provided a venue for the IT Managers from the hospitality industry to know the latest technology available in the market today.

Led by Globe Business, the corporate arm of Globe, the Hotel IT Managers Conference 2009 gave updates on hotel trends and shared insights on best practices for hotel IT. The participants also got a view of the communication solutions that Globe Business provides the hotel industry.

Among the topics discussed at the conference were the preferred internet and voice solutions for the hospitality industry, and ways to make the hotel stay experience more personalized. As partners of Globe Business for this event, AVAYA, HP, MEC, Axis Communications and Teledata also shared the solutions that have been tailor fit to the needs of the hotel industry.

Globe Business provides solutions that will simplify and enrich the day-to-day communication of enterprises such as Voice Solutions and the Broadband Internet Zone (BIZ). BIZ is the broadband-to-the-room internet service of Globe suited to hotels, condominiums and property management enterprises. It provides secure, reliable and convenient high-speed internet connectivity to hotel guests.

Globe Business also offers voice plans and packages that suit the different flexibility and usage needs of companies. It has the Corporate Load Allowance Plans that are prepaid extension plans paired with a corporate postpaid plan, which will allow the latter to send a predefined load amount every month to the prepaid extension plans.

Among other voice solutions are the Employee Prepaid Plus that allows an enterprise to set the schedule and amount of load credit to be sent out to employees. The Corporate Business Loop provides discounted call rates to employees that are part of a calling circle.

Globe Business offers wireless and wireline data and voice solutions relevant to the needs of various local and foreign small, medium and large enterprises from diverse industries, including the top corporations in the Philippines. It understands the needs of enterprises and provides them with solutions that match what their business demands, whether cost efficiency, security, mobility, IT integration, and reliable connectivity solutions.

By JR Raphael
December 22, 2009

Facebook is getting into the year-end spirit by releasing its list of the top words found in U.S. Facebook status updates during 2009. The social network calls its list “Memology: the study of how ‘memes,’ or new ideas and trends, are spreading on Facebook.” To determine the list, Facebook grabbed the most popular one-to-four word phrases found in status updates this year, and then compared each phrase to 2008 trends to determine the most popular phrases of 2009.

The result of all this data mining is the following list of 15 topics:

1. Facebook Applications (Farmville, Farm Town, Social Living)

2. FML (F*&$# My Life)

3. Swine Flu

4. Celebrity Deaths (Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Billy Mays)

5. Family

6. Movies (New Moon, Transformers, Star Trek, The Hangover, Paranormal Activity and Harry Potter)

7. Sports (Steelers, Yankees)

8. Health Care

9. FB (aka Facebook)

10. Twitter

11. Years

12. Lady Gaga

13. Yard

14. Religion

15. I

The past year was the year of farms and aquariums on Facebook, but one thing the social network neglected to mention were the series of reports by TechCrunch alleging that popular applications like Farmville and others were scamming users. References to Michael Jackson and other celebrity deaths also proved popular fodder for Facebook chatters, as did the more popular movies of the year.

The term “I” might seem to be an odd one to make the list, but, as Facebook’s blog notes: “Until March of 2009, people updated their status in a box that appeared next to their name on the home page and, consequently, many updates started with the word ‘is.’ Once that box no longer was shown next to people’s name, the usage of “is” dropped off dramatically and usage of “I” doubled almost overnight.”

While the social network made its own memology list under the moniker FB, one notable exclusion from Facebook’s list is any mention of the privacy concerns that dogged the company during 2009.

First there was the flap over Facebook’s changes to its privacy policy earlier this year, which almost resulted in a formal complaint to the Federal Trade Commission by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Then, earlier this month, Facebook finally shuttered its oft-maligned Beacon program, and shelled out $9.5 million to fund a new privacy advisory board. Finally, there were the latest changes to Facebook’s new privacy settings from just a few weeks ago.

While some of these privacy issues may have gone unnoticed by Facebook status updates, the latest changes to Facebook’s privacy settings did spark updates like this, “If you don’t know, as of today, Facebook will automatically index all your info on Google, which allows everyone to view it…Facebook kept this one quiet. Copy and paste onto your status for all your friends ASAP.” That information turned out to be wrong, but so many Facebook users promoted this misinformation using their status updates, the social network felt compelled to issue this pop-up notice to its users:

But in a nod to the problems it faced this year, Facebook did say in its memology blog post that all personally identifiable information was removed from status updates during the year-end data mining exercise. The company also said no one at Facebook ready actual status updates in compiling this list.

December 22, 2009

Ravi Tirumalai, Oracle Asia Pacific’s marketing director for EPM/BI[1] and GRC[2] shares how companies can benefit from Oracle’s Strategy-to Success framework and the Oracle EPM system.

Oracle (Philippines) Corporation recently gathered IT and finance executives from various industries to share smart strategies and tools for helping firms to streamline management processes, and create a smart, agile and aligned organization.

At the Connect Strategy to Success seminar, Oracle addressed organizations’ need for management excellence to meet today’s business and economic challenges and still stay ahead in the global market.

Oracle introduced the Strategy-to-Success framework designed to help organizations to be more responsive and agile in the midst of economic uncertainties. Geared towards management excellence, the framework involves a series of interrelated management processes aligned with key performance indicators that are derived from enterprise performance management techniques and technologies.

Management excellence is the art of reconciling all stakeholder needs and deriving the most value from the performance network.  This is achieved by transforming management activities into integrated management processes and by connecting management processes to operational processes and systems.

Driving management excellence is Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) system, the industry’s most comprehensive, fully integrated EPM solution.

Oracle EPM System delivers the foundation, applications and seamless integration needed to transform management processes in the value chain, and optimize performance through improved business insights and decision making.

“Management excellence enables the transformation in the role of CFO’s/Finance office. It encompasses three key paradigms of strategize, plan and monitor execution in a holistic manner that provides organizations the next competitive edge, in every market around the world,” said Ravi Tirumalai, marketing director for EPM/BI and GRC, Oracle Asia Pacific.  “Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System brings management processes under a single umbrella, connecting performance management and business intelligence applications with transactional systems to provide a comprehensive management picture.”

December 21, 2009

Globe, a leading telecommunications company in the Philippines, wins the Platinum Award for All-Round Excellence in Financial Performance, Management, Corporate Governance, Social Responsibility, Environmental Responsibility and Investor Relations from The Asset.

Globe is the only telecom company in the Philippines that met the criteria for the Platinum Awards.

The Platinum Awards introduced new levels of rigor for companies as they are benchmarked against their contemporaries. In 2009, The Asset upgraded its corporate awards to establish this new recognition that honors excellence in both growth and social objectives. It is by far the highest corporate award given by The Asset.

The Asset recognizes listed companies who deliver strong financial performance while at the same time ensure transparency and social responsibility in their operations. With growing concerns over climate change, The Asset also looked at how companies implement environmentally responsible policies.

Recently, Globe marked a milestone in the industry as the first telco in the country to release a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability Report using the internationally recognized Global Reporting Initiative standards.

Its pioneering sustainability report details the CSR programs of Globe in 2008 with focus on its economic, social and environmental impact in Filipino communities. The report also highlights the major CSR accomplishments in the past five years through its integrated CSR program Globe Bridging Communities (Globe BridgeCom).

For The Asset Awards, companies tendered submissions in five main categories namely three-year financial performance, corporate governance, social responsibility, environmental responsibility and investor relations. The companies were given scores for each of the categories. Interviews were also done by investors, analysts and industry specialists who provided scores for the companies’ management acumen.

The Asset Publishing and Research Ltd. is an integrated multi-media company serving the elite community of leading corporate and financial decision makers in Asia. The Asset is reputed for delivering authoritative unbiased coverage and independent research of Asia’s financial industry through its key vehicles, one of which is The Asset Awards.

By Jeff Bertolucci
December 21, 2009

There’s little doubt that James Cameron’s much-hyped Avatar will be a hit during its theater run, but what impact will the sci-fi epic have on 3D entertainment in the home?

“Avatar,” which cost north of $300 million to make, uses state-of-the-art 3D filmmaking techniques to create a visually stunning alien world. The spectacle, rather than the story, is the selling point here, and you can bet that Hollywood will churn out similar fare to capitalize on the 3D craze.

3D at Home?
But will the 3D trend extend to home entertainment, too? In recent months, the consumer electronics industry has been working behind the scenes to build the framework for 3D in the home. The Blu-Ray Disc Association this week announced specifications for creating full 1080p 3D Blu-Ray content. The first 3D-enabled Blu-ray players will likely debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Meanwhile, major TV manufacturers are hoping 3D TV becomes the next big thing. Sony, for instance, predicts that 3D sets will compose 30-50% of all the TVs it sells in its 2012 fiscal year.

Avatar’s Impact on 3D Blu-ray
Blu-ray’s movers and shakers are optimistic that “Avatar” will whet consumers’ appetites for home 3D.

“While I have not seen the movie yet myself, I have read enough rave reviews to believe that it could transform a lot of skeptics into 3D believers,” writes Pioneer executive Andy Parsons, chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association, in an e-mail interview with PC World US.

“We have always said that Blu-ray, as was DVD before it, is a content-driven business. With many of the studios now putting enormous resources and creative energy into 3D for the theater, it’s only a matter of time before consumers will be striving to achieve a similar experience in their own homes,” Parsons adds.

Avatar’s 3D: Gimmick or Godsend?
Granted, “Avatar” packs a visual wallop. But 3D movies are hardly new. “House of Wax,” a 1953 horror flick with Vincent Price, had a 3D version, as have other movies over the past few decades. So what’s different this time? And how will the new 3D revolutionize home entertainment?

“3D is not some sort of gimmick in this new generation of films — it’s being used to completely change the storytelling experience. I read one Avatar review yesterday where the reporter said that after the film ended, he felt as if he had actually visited the location of the film instead of having just watched it from a distance,” writes Parsons, who says he’s heard similar reactions from viewers of recent 3D films like Disney/Pixar‘s “Up.”

The hope is that 3D Blu-ray can create the same immersive experience, and that new, high-quality 3D movies like “Avatar” and “Up” will create consumer demand.

Early Adopters (Guinea Pigs)
But are 3D flicks enough to drive home adoption of 3D entertainment systems, which would require a significant consumer investment, including a new HDTV set, a 3D Blu-ray player, a few pairs of 3D glasses, and (for a truly immersive experience) surround-sound speakers?

“If the published content is engaging enough, and the experience is fun enough, I think the next time consumers are ready to buy a TV, they will seriously consider one that can reproduce 3D on Blu-ray,” write Parsons, who stressed there’s no guarantee that recent 3D flicks will appear on 3D Blu-ray anytime soon. (But it’s a safe bet they will at some point.)

Blu-ray with 3D would certainly appeal to early adopters first, the same risk-takers who invested in HDTV a few years back. If it succeeds there, 3D Blu-ray would then migrate to the mass market.

“A good number of the early adopters may be ready to move their first HDTV into another part of their homes, and upgrade to a newer, better set with 3D. Most U.S. households have more than one SDTV in them, so I think HDTV can follow a similar path,” Parsons adds.

OK, but what about those clunky 3D glasses?   We’d have to wear those at home, right?

Yes, but that may change eventually. “There are a lot of technology hurdles to get over first,” Parsons writes. “Glasses will probably be part of the equation for quite a while. Perhaps making them less clunky could be a market opportunity for some companies.”

By PCWorld (US) Staff
December 19, 2009

The typical Twitter post has a life span of seconds; other tweets seem destined for greater glory, as diagrammed below by our friends at GDS Digital. (Click to enlarge the image.)

By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld
December 19, 2009

Hackers redirected Twitter.com’s traffic to a rogue Web site for more than an hour Friday by accessing its DNS records using an account assigned to Twitter, the company that manages Twitter’s DNS (Domain Name System) servers said.

Twitter initially blamed the early-Friday hour-long blackout of its site on changes made to the company’s DNS records, which act like a telephone directory to match the twitter.com domain name with the IP addresses used by its servers.

“Twitter’s DNS records were temporarily compromised, but have now been fixed,” the company said on its service status page at 2:30 a.m. ET. “We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon.” The status page has not been revised with more information since then.

Twitter uses a New Hampshire firm, Dyn Inc., to manage its DNS records, which match Twitter’s domain name (twitter.com, and numerous others) with the IP addresses of its servers.

Today, Dyn denied that its infrastructure had been hacked. Early Friday, Tom Daly, Dyn’s chief technology officer, told the Washington Post it appeared someone changed Twitter’s DNS records to point visitors to a different IP address using the proper account credentials assigned to Twitter.

“Someone logged in who purported to be a legitimate user of their [DNS] platform account and started making changes,” Daly told the Post ‘s Brian Krebs . “It was not a failing on our systems whatsoever.”

Kyle York, Dyn’s vice president of marketing, echoed that in an interview with Computerworld. “No unauthenticated e-mail address associated with the account accessed the [Twitter] account,” York maintained. “This was not an unauthorized breach of our system.”

When asked whether the Twitter account had been used by someone authorized to do so, or if those account credentials had been pilfered by hackers, York declined to answer directly. “You’ll have to read between the lines,” he said. However, he did point to a tweet on Dyn’s own Twitter feed as having the right explanation.

That tweet referenced a story on The Tech Herald , in which reporter Steve Ragan used the clues available, including Dyn’s public statements, to theorize that someone compromised a Twitter staffer’s e-mail account, presumably via malware that snuck onto the Twitter employee’s computer, or through a standard phishing-style identity theft attack.

Once in control of the e-mail account, the hackers then used it to request a password reset for Twitter’s account with Dyn, Ragan speculated. “The password reset process is completed, and at this point the person(s) posing as a Twitter staffer gets the reset password via e-mail,” Ragan wrote.

That approach makes the most sense, agreed Ray Dickenson, chief technology officer at security vendor Authentium. “That’s the most logical explanation,” said Dickenson. “If someone obtained administrator credentials for Twitter’s account with Dyn, or even if it was inside job, everything worked except the human element.”

Dickenson said Dyn’s claim that its servers had not been officially hacked is also likely true. “It’s very difficult to directly hack a top-tier DNS provider,” he said, noting that security at such firms is extremely tight. “You’ve got to believe that Twitter looked at the options, and made the right choice when it went with Dyn. Twitter’s a huge site, and a huge brand.”

Also in Dyn’s favor, said Dickenson, is the company’s contention that only Twitter’s DNS records were altered, a fact that York stressed. “The fact that virtually all of Twitter’s records were pointing to this defaced site, and that no other [Dyn] customers’ records had been altered, corroborates what Dyn’s saying.”

According to York, Twitter will post a more detailed explanation of the cause of the outage later Friday. “It will fully exonerate us, that’s one thing I can say,” York said.

Twitter has been on shaky security ground for some time. Last August, determined distributed denial-of-service attacks knocked it offline for several hours. Two months before that, a hack of a URL-shortening service redirected millions of Twitter users to an unintended destination.

By Sumner Lemon
IDG News Service
December 18, 2009

Microblogging site Twitter went offline for a while Friday after hackers calling themselves the Iranian Cyber Army apparently managed to change DNS records, redirecting traffic to another Web page.

Instead of the usual Twitter Web site design, visitors to the site instead saw a black screen with an image of a green flag and Arabic writing. The defaced site also included a message that said, “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army,” and an e-mail address.

Whether or not Iranian hackers are responsible for the attack wasn’t immediately clear. However, Twitter and other Internet sites have been used by Iranian opposition groups and protestors to share details of anti-government protests in that country.

Twitter blamed the outage on changes made to the company’s DNS (Domain Name System) records, which match the company’s domain name with the IP addresses of its servers.

“Twitter’s DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed. We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon,” Twitter said on its Twitter Status page.

Based on Twitter’s account of the attack, it’s possible that the company’s servers were never compromised. The actual attack may have instead targeted Dyn, the DNS service provider that manages Twitter’s DNS records, according to whois records.

While the outage left Twitter users cut off from the service for about an hour, the type of attack wasn’t serious, according to Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran , founder and CEO of Hack In The Box, a Malaysian company that runs security conferences in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

“Yawn, is my comment. It was a simple defacement. So what?” Kannabhiran said.

December 18, 2009

To encourage young people to use technology for community development, Google has launched the first Google Map Maker Global Competition. The contest invites interested participants around the world, including the Philippines, to map the universities, schools, hospitals, and medical clinics in their home countries on Google Map Maker to help humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF do their jobs better.

Google Map Maker (enables users to become ”citizen cartographers” and contribute their knowledge of their hometowns with the online community. Users can add familiar points of interests, draw roads and buildings, and generally create maps of places with just a few clicks of a mouse.

Competition entrants will be evaluated according to the quantity and quality of their map edits and moderation activity, which is essential to making sure that other peers’ edits are accurate. The winner’s efforts will result in a USD50,000 donation from UNICEF to benefit projects that empower local youth through technology in his or her homeland.

“We are very excited to be launching this mapping competition and we hope that Filipinos will participate in mapping as many universities, schools, hospitals and medical clinics in the country as possible to help humanitarian organizations implement their projects effectively,” said Therese Lim, head of communications for the Philippines, Google Southeast Asia.

“We have seen how powerful online maps can be during the aftermath of typhoons Ondoy and Peping, when Filipino volunteers used Google Maps to plot locations of people needing urgent rescue and areas with high levels of flooding. Those maps were relied on by a number of relief organizations to deliver aid.” “We are delighted that Google is supporting UNICEF’s efforts to help build a world fit for children. We know that mapping is a proven method to enhance community development. Google Map Maker is a powerful tool to create better situational awareness for both young people and communities at large. It will enable organizations like ours to better deliver services, respond to crises and adapt to change,” said Gerrit Beger, leader of UNICEF’s innovation drive focusing on youth.

Interested people can register for the Map Maker Global Competition at http://www.google.com/help/mapmaker/competitions/global/getstarted.html. The contest is open from December 15, 2009 to January 31, 2010. Entries will be evaluated on:

• Mapping quality- Mapping additions and editsmust be accurate and detailed.
• Mapping quantity- The more mapping additions and edits published, the better!
• Moderation quality- Moderations of mapping changes must be polite, helpful, and correct.
• Moderation quantity- The more moderations completed, the better!

In addition to the USD50,000 UNICEF donation, the contest winner will get a VIP tour from UNICEF officials of the local project in their country that will benefit from the donation. Google will also invite, the winner to attend the Google Super Mappers 2010 conference, all expenses paid. The winner will be announced by February 15, 2010. Additional information about the Map Maker Global Competition can be found on http://www.google.com/help/mapmaker/competitions/global/index.html.

By Jared Newman
December 17, 2009

art by Luis Anthony G. Oliveros

HP, Acer, Dell, and…Google? That’s right — Google could soon join the ranks of those netbook manufacturers. The rumor mill now suggests that a Google-branded netbook will arrive next year, in addition to the Google phone.

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington cites “multiple sources” as saying Google is working directly with at least one computer manufacturer on hardware specs, in the same way that the search giant reportedly dictated hardware and design to HTC for the Nexus One smartphone. The netbook would be branded with Google and sold directly to consumers.

In terms of performance, what would make this netbook so much different than the rest? Arrington doesn’t know at this point, but speculates that an ARM processor and Nvidia Tegra graphics chip would be used instead of the usual Intel Atom processor and integrated graphics.

As I’ve suggested with the Google phone, hardware isn’t the important thing. Smartphones and netbooks generally have similar specs. Software is key, but what’s potentially the most exciting about Google’s rumored smartphone and netbook plans is the idea of the company selling them directly.

That means you’re looking at a possible Google Store. It means that Google could advertise its hardware to you every time you do a Web search. As some have suggested, it means Google could maybe subsidize its own tech products with advertising.

It also opens the door to more Google-branded products down the line. Remember, when Google announced Chrome OS, the company said it was being designed for desktop computers as well as notebooks. Imagine a tiny box that hooks up to your monitor, keyboard, and mouse. What if there was a screen on it as well? What if this was also your home theater PC, streaming free and subscription-based content from YouTube and elsewhere?

I’m getting ahead of myself, of course, but if Google is, in fact, planning to directly market and sell a smartphone and netbook with its brand name, I don’t see any reason why it would stop there. Brace yourself for the day that Google owns your entire computing experience, from power up to shut down.