RIM Gives Scholarships to 30 Indonesian Students at Its BlackBerry Innovation Center

After loads of negative publicity when Research in Motion (RIM) opened a BlackBerry factory in neighboring Malaysia, Canada-based RIM built the BlackBerry Innovation Center as a sort of peace offering in May 2012. Today it’s announced that, in partnership with the Institut Teknologi Bandung (Bandung Technology Institute; or ITB), RIM will give 30 scholarships to mark its commitment to develop the Innovation Center.

This Innovation Center is focusing on developing mobile apps – useful ones, such as for mobile healthcare systems, smart transit/transportation, smart mobile learning, logistics, etc. The 30 high-potential students will receive mobile computing research funding. So far, eight scholarships have been given for master’s and doctoral degrees. RIM will add 10 master’s degree students and 12 final semester undergraduate students to its list.

The scholarship covers tuition at ITB and research incentives during their studies at the BlackBerry Innovation Center ITB. Master’s degree students also receive laptops and BlackBerry smartphones. Grantees will follow the curriculum organized by ITB. While working there, the program will provide training to develop the student’s BlackBerry apps. The students will also be mentored about entrepreneurship. The managing director of RIM South Asia, Hastings Singh, explains:

As corporations become part of the community, RIM has committed to Indonesia and to invest back into the community in the form of long-term initiatives. Our collaboration with ITB, which in turn will help encourage Indonesia to become a leader in the mobile industry, is a good example. The 30 scholarship recipients will be equipped with the latest technology and education that will equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to build his career and start a business in this sector.

Eight scholarship for the master’s program were received by Ardhian Ekawijan, Dicky Arinal, Puspoko Poncho Ratno, and Rizky Ario Nugroho. While the doctoral program awardees are Rahmadian Pamungkas Iqbal, Nurul Oktariani Pratiwi, Susetyo Bagas Bhaskoro and Nur Iksan. An ITB spokesman, Dr. IGB Baskara Nugraha, stated that ITB had chosen them based on its own criteria:

The scholarship recipients have demonstrated excellent performance and personality, impressive academic record, and have motivation in the field of mobile software development and entrepreneurship.

This research program might help repair RIM’s lack of apps compared to iOS and Android. Not only that, the Innovation Center is also a way of winning the hearts of Indonesians so as to secure RIM’s (very uncertain) future. RIM said in January that Indonesia has five million users and predicts that’ll rise to 9.7 million users by 2015. This clearly shows Indonesia holds an important role in BlackBerry sales in the global market.

The post RIM Gives Scholarships to 30 Indonesian Students at Its BlackBerry Innovation Center appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More

WoW Mists of Pandaria Gets October 2 Launch Date in China

Chinese gamers will only have to wait one week longer than the rest of the world for the launch of the World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria. That’s because Blizzard and China’s Netease (NASDAQ:NTES) jointly announced today the arrival of the pandamonium-filled game on October 2nd. The global roll-out is on September 25th.

After getting the nod from regulators at the Ministry of Culture at the start of this month, it was hoped for a simul-launch, but at least one extra week is not too long to wait for its many fans in China. Its speedy release might be down to it being less controversial than a lot of other MMORPG titles.

The official name for Mists of Pandaria in Chinese will actually be: World of Warcraft: Panda Man of Mystery. Yes, “panda man”.

Netease has the license to operate the game in China, and the expansion pack will be available at the official Netease-Blizzard online store at bmall.163.com. As seen in the image above, it’s priced at 486 RMB (US$77). It’s already hitting some other e-commerce sites in the country, such as Amazon China and 360Buy, though shipping won’t really begin until September 28 in China, allowing Blizzard to first deal with the likely huge demand from the Korea and Taiwan launches on September 27th and midnight local time.

In an announcement from Blizzard about the mainland China launch, CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime said:

We’re excited to bring Mists of Pandaria to China on October 2, making this expansion a truly global launch. Mists of Pandaria contains the biggest variety of new content we’ve ever created for a World of Warcraft expansion, with features that will appeal to new players, veterans, and everyone in between. We hope players enjoy exploring everything Pandaria has to offer.

[Source: Netease Tech - article in Chinese]

The post WoW Mists of Pandaria Gets October 2 Launch Date in China appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi : The God of Startups!

In popular Indian culture, Ganesha is often referred to as Vigneshwar – The Lord of the Obstacles and often sought blessings from to help overcome them. He is also the Lord of Beginnings – and pretty much every ceremony, every new business, every housewarming, every journey, starts with an invocation to Ganesha.

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

The deity is also revered as the God of Prosperity, as well as the destroyer of vanity, selfishness and pride. He is the personification of material universe in all its various magnificent manifestations, and also the patron of arts and sciences, and of intellect and wisdom.

Ganesha is universal – worshipped by people with varying beliefs, across various sects, and even those across religions! Given all these amazing, practical attributes we enshrine in this deity, the spiritually inclined amongst entrepreneurs would be pretty spot on if they picked Ganesha as the God of the Startups.

Wish you all a Happy Ganesha Chaturthi. Start something amazing on this auspicious day of great beginnings, and do not worry about the obstacles you find – Ganesha will help turn those into opportunity and prosperity!!

[Image credit: wikipedia]

 

Link to full article

Read More

Kompas.com Embracing Citizen Journalism, Launches K-Report App

If you’re starting to think K-Report is related to some kind of Korean pop culture, I’m saying it now: no, it is not. Kompas.com, whose parent company, Kompas Gramedia Group, is one of the biggest media moguls in Indonesia, yesteday announced that it launched a Blackberry application called K-Report to embrace citizen journalism.

With K-Report, Blackberry owners can write their own news and send it to Kompas. News submitted will be published in both the K-Report app and a dedicated section in Kompas’ website. To make things more interesting for users, K-Report came with some interactive (I’m trying to avoid the G word here) features like challenges and a point system. In the challenge feature, Kompas provided several topics and challenge users to write about them. While with the point system, K-Report users will be able to rate every news posted by fellow users.

A user can rate from one star to five stars for each post. For every rating people give to his/her post, the poster will get points that then will be accumulated and shown in a leaderboard. Although I’m not really sure how the rating to point conversion works, because I have only tried to give some ratings, not to post a report. It’s worth noting that in my own experience, I could only rate three stars somehow. Probably a bug that people at Kompas.com should fix.

Judging from the amount of news reported by users and points scored by people in the leaderboard, K-Report seems to have a welcome reception from the public. This should be no surprise as Kompas has already had a solid public participation platform called Kompasiana since 2008, although it’s mostly filled with opinions rather than reports. I myself look forward to see how well K-Report will handle the process of verifying reports submitted by users when this platform has gathered a significant amount of user base.

The post Kompas.com Embracing Citizen Journalism, Launches K-Report App appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More

Research In Motion Singapore Director outlines country plans

Research In Motion’s Singapore director highlights the key focus for the smartphone company in the country. Research In Motion’s new Singapore director, Charles Dufourcq, is a French man with a strong enterprise telecommunications background. Given the task to head the Singapore office, e27 decided to find out what he has planned to drive the company’s...

The post Research In Motion Singapore Director outlines country plans appeared first on e27.

Link to full article

Read More

Research In Motion Singapore Director outlines country plans

Research In Motion’s Singapore director highlights the key focus for the smartphone company in the country. Research In Motion’s new Singapore director, Charles Dufourcq, is a French man with a strong enterprise telecommunications background. Given the task to head the Singapore office, e27 decided to find out what he has planned to drive the company’s...

The post Research In Motion Singapore Director outlines country plans appeared first on e27.

Link to full article

Read More

ASUS launches 3-in1 Padfone ( smartphone, tablet and netbook) in India for Rs 64,999

ASUS has announced the launch of its Padfone, a unique three-in-one device that can be used as smartphone, tablet, as well as a netbook. Though, the PadFone is a regular smartphone with a 4.3-inch 960×540 display that runs Android 4.3. However, after Combining with a PadFone Station it transforms into a 10.1-inch 1280×800 Android tablet with up to 63 hours of talk time. When Padfone paired with its Station Dock, it becomes a netbook with extended battery life up to 104 hours and access to card reader and USB ports.

ASUS' Transformer Pad

Padfone offers seamless transition between standalone and docked modes, where most of applications are automatically enhanced with their display layouts adjusted to suit the screen. With the help of this device, users can connect the PadFone to the PadFone Station while halfway through typing and email. In addition to that, Padfone also enables users to to resume the game where it stopped so that they can immediately continue playing that game without having to start all over again.

ASUS Transformer Pad

After docking, the Padfone Station uses the Padfone’s 3G connection for internet access allowing users to use a single data plan for both devices. The Padfone Station also offers its own keyboard dock to meet the needs of more frequent users.

The price of Padfone is Rs. 64,999 and the device boasts of a Super AMOLED HD display and is powered by dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and comes with 1GB RAM, 32GB of internal storage and a 8-megapixel digital camera with Fuji image processor, F2.2 aperture and 5-element lens.

Link to full article

Read More

What is the Best E-Commerce Strategy For Western Companies China?

Tmall is a good initial strategy in China for foreign brands

I always enjoy connecting with other Asia technology professionals to share insights on how to best leverage digital media and e-commerce in China. I recently connected with an industry veteran on who asked me, “Which Western companies are getting e-commerce right in China?” This was my response:

Online is becoming an increasingly important retail channel in China, considering there were approximately 210 million online shoppers by June of 2012. In my opinion, it is easier for foreign brands to open online stores on Tmall.com (Alibaba’s Taobao mall) at the initial stage given the existing large user base, one-stop services and technology support provided by Alibaba – and most importantly, the trust and existing shopping habits which Chinese consumers have developed through regular shopping on the platform.

Given these thoughts and the initial question, I found that there are many global brands that have official stores on Tmall. The following is a list of companies and brands that are successfully operating online stores on Tmall, broken down by industry.

• Computers & Electronics: Microsoft, Samsung, Dell, HP, Nokia, Philips, Sony, Nikon Sports: New Balance, Reebok 

• Beauty: Unilever, P&G, Loreal, Neutrogena, Olay, Maybelline, Dove 

• Clothing & Accessories: GAP, Esprit, Uniqlo, Wenger 

• Auto: Chevrolet 

• Health: GNC 



Additionally, many of these brands, including Samsung and Nokia also have a partnership with other China e-commerce companies. It is really smart to cooperate with local platforms and leverage the local understanding and resources these platforms have to offer.

Another approach to consider is building your own e-commerce platform like Apple or Estee Lauder, which have their own online stores. High-end or luxury products which need to maintain an exclusive distance from average consumers and popular brands might take this approach instead of opening stores on Tmall. Overall, I think this will not be easy given the different online shopping habits I mentioned earlier.

Lastly, Chinese online shoppers are price-sensitive, or at least very practical, in their online purchases. As a result, a luxury brand store usually can’t compete with those personal stores on Tmall which sell the same products at much lower prices. After all, Chinese online shoppers are young and not as sophisticated consumers as their peers in developed markets. They are willing to spend 5000RMB (about $790) to buy an iPhone, but not willing to spend 10RMB ($1.50) to buy the latest app. 



The post What is the Best E-Commerce Strategy For Western Companies China? appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More

Organize your social life with the latest Loop & Meet app by SingTel

Ever felt like you’ve been stuck in a situation where you are totally clueless of what to do? Fret no more. SingTel has launched a mobile app called Loop & Meet where it allows users to discover fun things to do and organize outings with friends. Not only that, it enables mobile users to send...

The post Organize your social life with the latest Loop & Meet app by SingTel appeared first on e27.

Link to full article

Read More

Amid Flood of Traffic from China, UK Wine Site Responds with Chinese Version

decanterchina.com, click to enlarge

We recently pointed out figures from Analysis International which said that Chinese consumers are expected to buy $2 billion in wine, beer, and spirits from online e-commerce sites by 2012. Naturally there have been a number of companies springing up to capitalize on this trend, particularly online wine retailers.

Two weeks ago Chinese site Jiumei (aka WineNice.com recently revealed a series B funding round worth $15.8 million. And the week before that it was wine and spirits vendor Jiuxian.com which wrapped up series C funding worth almost 32 million.

Understandably, Western sellers also want a piece of the action, and as Jing Daily points out, Decanter.com doesn’t intend to be left out. Indeed the UK-based wine magazine notes that in May of this year, Chinese visitors to its website outnumbered visitors from both the UK and US, and now make up a third of its readership.

If that’s not a good reason to start a Chinese version of your site, then I’m not sure what is. And indeed, that’s what Decanter has done launching DecanterChina.com in both Chinese and English. The website isn’t outstanding, and I found it a little clumsy to navigate. Decanter China also may want to rethink using Flickr for their photo gallery, given that it’s blocked.

But thankfully Decanter has also taken to Sina Weibo as well, and plans to interact with fans there too.

The launch of the website coincides with Decanter’s Asia Wine Awards in Hong Kong this month.

The post Amid Flood of Traffic from China, UK Wine Site Responds with Chinese Version appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More