BusinessMirror
A12 Saturday, April 15, 2016
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HE government must push further the deployment of information and communications technology (ICT) in the countryside to enhance its development.
Bettina Quimson of the Department of ICT (DICT) said the deployment of ICT infrastructure has to be accelerated to hasten the process of inclusive growth. “However, the government must also be prepared to tackle and hurdle the sustainability challenge on ICT rollout in the provinces,” Quimson, DICT deputy executive director for eSociety, said in a roundtable at the recently concluded i-City Summit in Mandaluyong City. She ex plained the gover nment can focus in the delivery of
services for people living in the rural areas. Quimson said the government can build a system that would not require people to go all the way to Metro Manila to secure official documents. “For instance, people still need to go a regional unit of the National Bureau of Investigation [NBI] to get their clearance instead of going to the nearest NBI office.” Prof. Rey na ldo Lugtu of the Asian Institute of Management said academe can play a major role in developing the dig ita l
capabilities of barangays and t he for m at ion of i ntel l igent cities (I-cities) in the countr y. “ T he academe can fil l in the gap by doing research on the policies of the government and recommending the solutions to the problems,” he said. Lugtu added the education sector can also foster collaboration between the government and its potential partners on future projects in ICT. “The academe can advise government to develop a sustainable road map.” The DICT has implemented the National Community eCenters (CeC) Network and instituted the Philippine CeC Program to provide digital capabilities to the country’s 42,029 barangays, according to Quimson. The initial blueprint was the First Strategic Roadmap of the Philippine CeC Program for 2008 to 2010. This was followed by the Strategic Roadmap of the
Philippine Community eCenter Program for 2011 to 2016. “ The new road map is not just connecting people in far-f lung communities,” the DICT said in a statement posted on its web site. “It is giving them the opportunity to change their lives and their futures as their communities gain self-reliance and a new power to initiate change.” According to the DICT, the goal is “to promote the socioeconomic development and enhance the productivity of Filipino communities through the convergence and availability of affordable, appropriate and critical ICT-enabled services in the CeCs, thereby improving the overall quality of life.” Other goals include the establishment and strengthening of CeCs across the country and the provision of services and content for socioeconomic development of communities. Rizal Raoul Reyes
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N executive of a security company warned of more network attacks once the Internet of Things (IoT) comes into full swing. “There will be 20 billion to 100 billion devices connected to the Internet. As the attacks increase, the sophistication also gets higher,” Kevin Chin of Palo Alto Networks (PAN) Inc. said in a news briefing in Makati City. Vincent Oh, director of system engineering, PAN-Asean, urged companies pursuing digital transformation to pursue the same degree of security in their information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure. “You don’t want hackers to penetrate your apps and move into your business,” Oh pointed out. Although companies accept the rising cost of computing power, Chin said ICT executives do not give importance to the security of the networks. Nevertheless, he pointed out that officials should always factor the mathematical element because attacks would cost higher in the long run. Chin, country manager for
PAN Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, said the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) should strengthen its ranks to fight the present and future perils of hacking. “There should be a joint effort in fighting hacking,” he said. C h i n a l so sa id Pa lo A lto introduced advancements to its next-generation securit y platform that extend the ability for customer organizations to safely enable applications, including software as an application services (SaaS) options, content and users regardless of location; prevent successful cyberattacks; simplif y security operations; and securely embrace the cloud. Oh said Palo Alto is aware that security companies must be always aware that new risks are a threat, especially as organizations expand their IT architecture. Oh said inclusion of SaaS application usage to the mix, and the need to secure all these architectures against ever-increasing, sophisticated threats and adversary techniques being used to gain access to assets and data regardless of where they are located. Rizal Raoul Reyes
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A model demonstrates the Welwalk WW-1000, a wearable robotic leg brace designed to help partially paralyzed people walk at the main system with treadmill and monitor, at Toyota Motor Corp.’s head office in Tokyo on April 12. Toyota Motor Corp.’s Welwalk WW-1000 system is made up of a motorized mechanical frame that fits on a person’s leg from the knee down. AP
OKYO—Toyota is introducing a wearable robotic leg brace designed to help partially paralyzed people walk. The Welwalk WW-1000 system is made up of a motorized mechanical frame that fits on a person’s leg from the knee down. The patients can practice walking wearing the robotic device on a special treadmill that can support their weight. Toyota Motor Corp. demonstrated the equipment for reporters at its Tokyo headquarters last Wednesday. One hundred such systems will be rented to medical facilities in Japan later this year, Toyota said. The service entails a one-time initial charge of ¥1 million ($9,000) and a ¥350,000 ($3,200) monthly fee. The gadget is designed to be worn on one leg at a time for patients severely paralyzed on one side of the body due to a stroke or other ailments, Eiichi Saito, a medical doctor and executive vice president at Fujita Health University, explained. The university joined with Toyota in developing the device. A person demonstrating it strapped the brace to her thigh, knee, ankle and foot and then showed how it is used to practice walking on the treadmill. Her body was supported from above by a harness and the motor helped to bend and straighten her knee. Sensors in the device monitor the walking and adjust quickly to help out. Medical staff control the system through a touch panel screen. Japanese automakers have been developing robotics both for manufacturing and other uses. Honda Motor Co.’s Asimo humanoid can run and dance, pour a drink and carry on simple conversations, while Welwalk is more of a system that uses robotics than a stand-alone robot. Given how common paralysis due to strokes is in fast-aging Japan, Toyota’s device could be very helpful, Saito said. He said patients using it can recover more quickly as the sensitive robotic sensor in Welwalk fine-tunes the level of support better than a human therapist can. “This helps just barely enough,” said Saito, explaining that helping too much can slow progress in rehabilitation. The field of robotic aids for walking and rehabilitation is growing quickly. A batterypowered wearable exoskeleton made by Israeli manufacturer ReWalk Robotics enables people relying on a wheelchair to stand upright and walk. Such systems also can aid therapists in monitoring a patient’s progress, Luke Hares, chief technology officer at Cambridge Medical Robotics in Britain, said in a phone interview. “They can be so much more precise,” he said. Previously, Toyota has shown robots that play the violin and trumpet. It plans to start sales in Japan of a tiny boy-like robot for conversational companionship. It is also investing in artificial intelligence and developing self-driving vehicles. Toshiyuki Isobe, Toyota’s chief officer for research, said Welwalk reflects the company’s desire to apply robotics in medicine and other social welfare areas, not just entertainment. The company also has an R2-D2-like machine, called the Human Support Robot, whose mechanical arm can help bed-ridden people pick things up. “Our vision is about trying to deliver mobility for everybody,” said Isobe. “We have been developing industrial robotics for auto manufacturing, and we are trying to figure out how we can use that technology to fill social needs and help people more”. AP
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PPO Electronics Cor p. said sales of its f lagship dual selfie phone, the F3 Plus, posted a strong start after a three-day marketing campaign. In a statement, the Dongguan, Guangdong, China-based Oppo said over 8,000 units of the F3 Plus were sold in concept and dealer stores nationw ide since the debut sale on April 1. “The success of our three-day sale tells us that our newest Selfie Expert answers the growing need for perfect ‘groufies’”, Oppo Philippines Brand Marketing Manager Stephen Cheng was quoted in a statement as saying. Oppo is considered one of the five China smartphone vendors that now accounts for onefifths of the total Southeast Asia
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PYING tools and operational protocols detailed in the recent Vault 7 leak have been used in cyber attacks against at least 40 targets in 16 different countries by a group Symantec Corp. calls “Longhorn”. Symantec said it has been protecting its customers from Longhorn’s tools for the past three years and has continued to track the group in order to learn more about its tools, tactics and procedures. The tools used by Longhorn closely follow development timelines and technical specifications laid out in documents disclosed by WikiLeaks. T he Longhorn group shares some of the same cryptographic protocols specified in the Vault 7 documents, in addition to following leaked guidelines on tactics to avoid detection. Given the close similarities between the tools and techniques, there can be little doubt that Longhorn’s activities and the Vault 7 documents are the work of the same group. According to Symantec, Longhorn has been active since at least 2011. It has used a range of back door Trojans in addition to zeroday vulnerabilities to compromise its targets. Longhorn has infiltrated governments and internationally operating organizations,
smartphone market in 2016, the International Data Corp. (IDC) has said. Being half a decade old in Southeast Asia, the Chinese electronics manufacturer “has become one of the leading vendors by investing heavily in its marketing activities and incentivizing its resellers,” IDC said. IDC added another factor that contributed to Oppo’s inroads in the region’s smartphone market is due to the Chinese vendor’s decision to standardize marketing approach across countries. IDC said Oppo mainly relied “on local celebrities as brand ambassadors to promote itself as an ‘aspirational/trendy’ brand and targeting mainly the millennial crowd.” Isagani dela Paz
in addition to targets in the financial, telecoms, energy, aerospace, information technology, education and natural resources sectors. All of the organizations targeted would be of interest to a nation-state attacker. L onghor n has infected 40 targets in at least 16 countries across the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa. On one occasion a computer in the United States was compromised but, following infection, an uninstaller was launched within hours, which may indicate this victim was infected unintentionally. Longhorn first came to Symantec’s attention in 2014 with the use of a zero-day exploit (CVE-20144148) embedded in a Word document to infect a target with Plexor. The malicious software had all the hallmarks of a sophisticated cyber-espionage group. Aside from access to zero-day exploits, the group had preconfigured Plexor with elements that indicated prior knowledge of the target environment. To date, Symantec has found evidence of Longhorn activities against 40 targets spread across 16 different countries. Symantec has seen Longhorn use four different malware tools against its targets. Oliver Samson