2013 the year of Internet innovation

A man uses his smartphone to take a picture of a person wearing a mask of former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden during a protest in Berlin, July 4, 2013.

As the year comes to a close, we need to reflect on what are the most important things that have affected our lives in 2013.

The Internet continues to transform our world. The most significant Internet event in 2013 was not the listing of Facebook, which priced the company at $104 billion (almost Bt3.4 trillion), but Edward Snowden's July revelations of Internet surveillance, which revealed that Big Brother, friend or foe, is really watching. Since my smartphone is smart enough to track me even in the toilet, there is really no privacy left in this world.

On the plus side, Singles Day - November 11 - garnered 35 billion yuan (Bt187 billion) in online sales on one day in China. Since China already accounts for one-third of the smartphones in the world, and they can make and sell smartphones at one-third the price of Apple or Samsung, it is not surprising that e-commerce in the Middle Kingdom is set to overtake even the US in volume next year.

Online business is here to stay.

What the combination of the Internet and smartphone means is that a person in the remotest part of Indonesia can sell his or her product to buyers worldwide, and collect over the smartphone, which was impossible to imagine even 20 years ago.

Amazing also are the apps downloaded in their millions to maximise personal efficiency. Ease of personal communication, meanwhile, has been taken to a new level with apps like WeChat. Such free Internet services are rising so fast that even revenue from SMS text messages is slowing down.

On the other side, after Snowden, what must consider the proper role of the government in the Internet and how it should behave to encourage Web innovation and growth?

Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz was one of the first to tackle the subject, in "The Role of Government in a Digital Age" (2000), with Peter and Jonathan Orzag. Their report recommended 12 principles. The first three cover the state's proper role in the affairs of the Internet:

1. Provide public data and information.

2. Improve efficient government services.

3. Support basic research.

The next six principles are areas where the government should exercise caution. These include:

4. Adding specialised value to public data and information.

5. Providing private goods only under limited circumstances.

6. Providing services online where private services are more efficient.

7. Ensuring that mechanisms exist to protect privacy, security, and consumer protection online.

8. Promoting network externalities only with great deliberation and care.

9. Maintaining proprietary information or exercising rights under patents or copyright.

The report also signalled "red light" areas of state intervention in the Internet:

10. Governments should exercise substantial caution in entering markets in which private sector firms are active

11. Governments (including government corporations) should generally not aim to maximise net revenues or take action that would reduce competition.

12. Government should only be allowed to provide goods or services for which appropriate privacy and conflict-of-interest protections have been erected.

The Stiglitz-Orzag report was written for the US market, but the general principles are useful guides for all states. The trouble is that Snowden showed that the US government might have failed to follow some of these guidelines. We do know that governments are becoming increasingly intrusive on the Internet, and that such intrusion inhibits competition and innovation.

Because the Internet is evolving very fast, the role of government in Web affairs also needs to evolve. Businesses are becoming even more service and information-oriented, with increasing numbers going digital and in the "Cloud". This means that governments are struggling with three major issues: protecting private privacy, ensuring a level playing field in competition, and taxing online activities.

Governments must also sort out jurisdictional duties and powers, because the Cloud is global, and taxation and regulation is not only national, but departmental. It is as if each small part of the bureaucracy is trying to regulate the whole Cloud. We can all touch and feel its power, but there is no overall central authority that can control the Cloud.

An island nation in the Pacific might pass a law on the Cloud, but could it enforce it?

Individual privacy is being threatened by the practice of hacking, and the biggest hackers are not bedroom-bound nerds, but governments everywhere.

The second problem of a level playing field is a serious one. If Google has maps and can monitor everything I do through my smartphone, does that information belong to Google or to me? If it belongs to the large platforms, does that not confer a huge informational advantage on them? How can governments ensure that there is a level playing field between these massive online platforms and the small businesses that have no such information or may have to pay the platform for it?

The third area is taxation. Online commerce has escaped the tax radar because it is new. In contrast, bricks-and-mortar shops have rents, create jobs and pay value-added taxes. If everything moves online, the government loses the ability to tax, and bricks-and-mortar retail shops will complain they are losing out to larger and larger platforms. Bookshops around the world are closing in droves now that everyone can order through Amazon.

There are no easy answers to these tough questions. The interdependent and interconnected nature of the Internet means that regulatory or government action in one part may affect the system as a whole. In other words, government action or non-action creates a shadow system - the business moves offline, offshore or into cyberspace.

What we need is better transparency, better education, wider access and also some key principles of fair competition that should be enforced for online business to innovate.

Finally, a year-end reminder: use your smartphone in the toilet, and someone (not Snowden) can hear you flush. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to all.

Contributed by Andrew Sheng, President of the Fung Global Institute.

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Learn and look to China for space technology

The Jade Rabbit moon rover is seen in a picture taken by a camera on board the Chang'e-3 probe lander on December 15, 2013 (CCTV/AFP, CCTV)

IT was a fitting tribute to China for successfully landing a lunar rover on the moon on Dec 14.
The Chinese people must be proud of their achievement for it was the Chinese who invented the gun powder which was a precursor to the rocket.

Not only China, but all developing countries or the Third World shared the joy and achievement which was thought impossible to be achieved by a developing country.

Being a superpower, it is only right that China should take its place beside the United States and Russia in space exploration.

The country has come a long way since the infamous Cultural Revolution to show its might in science and technology.

It has paved the way for other developing countries to emulate China’s feat, which may not ­necessarily be in space exploration.

The successful lunar rover touched down “... on an ancient 400km wide plain ...” has restored the great civilisation that it had, long before other countries had invented rudimentary science and technology.

By landing its lunar probe on the moon, China had put smiles on all her past emperors and leaders who had painstakenly built the great nation which is now the envy of many.

Perhaps Malaysia will now look at China too besides the US and Russia in acquiring space technology by sending more students and scientists there.

Since the bamboo curtain has been dismantled, there is much that China can offer Malaysia in space science.


By HASSAN TALIB Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia

China 'ready' to launch Mars mission

Photo: Xinhua

China is likely to expand its horizon in space travel by possible Mars exploration, expert said.

After the unmanned Chang'e-3 successfully completed its soft-landing on the moon, people from both home and abroad have been wondering whether China will send probes to Mars, which has become a key goal for many foreign space organizations.

According to the chief designer of China's lunar probe program, Wu Weiren, China is ready.

"We have the potential to go there in the wake of the successes of the Chang'e-1 and Chang'e-2 missions," Wu said at a news conference held in Beijing on Tuesday, adding that the final decision is up to the government, Xinhua News Agency reported.

"We follow our own approach that respects stable progress and dislikes rash and reckless moves," he said. "We don't want to compete with any country in this regard."

Wu added that the Long March-5 rocket series with the maximum thrust of 1,100 tons can ensure the sending of a Martian probe.

"In terms of the carrying capacity of the rocket and the tracking and control system, China is capable of sending Martian probes," Pang Zhihao, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Space Technology, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Pang said that the two deep space monitoring stations in China have shown their ability tracking Chang'e 2, which is about 64 million kilometers from Earth.

"But China still needs to build deep space monitoring stations abroad to make up for blind measurements to track deep space detectors round the clock," Pang said.

Furthermore, as scientists around the world have been exploring the possibility of living on the moon, the research on bioregenerative life support systems, which hold much promise for planetary bases, has been conducted in China.

The Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics has recently been praised for its work on closed ecological systems suitable for growing plants in outer space, according to the university's website.

Wu also noted that compared with the US spending 2 to 2.5 percent of GDP on its lunar exploration program at that time, China's input - only a few ten-thousands of the country's GDP - is not very much.

Besides, only about 40 percent of the 118 lunar probe attempts by the US and the Soviet Union during the space race in the 1960s and 1970s had been successful, while China's Chang'e-1 to Chang'e-3 missions have all succeeded, he said.

Although China has not officially announced any intention to fly a human mission to the moon, the door is now open and - if they have the will - nothing will stand in their way, said James Longuskian, associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics .

Contributed By Fang Yang Global Times

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China's lunar probe Chang'e-3 landing on the Moon a success

Five tech-powered changes in next five years, IBM predicted

Technology stalwart IBM on Tuesday predicted classrooms getting to know students and doctors using DNA to customize care are among five big changes on the horizon.

IBM said that its annual forecast of five ways technology will change lives in the coming five years was "driven by a new era of cognitive systems where machines will learn, reason and engage with us in a more natural and personalized way."

And while software evolves to "think" in ways similar to the human brain, computing power and troves of data kept handy in the Internet "cloud" will enable machines to power innovations in classrooms, local shops, doctors' offices, city streets and elsewhere, according to the firm behind the Watson computer that triumphed on US television game show Jeopardy.

"Over time these computers will get smarter and more customized through interactions with data, devices and people, helping us take on what may have been seen as unsolvable problems by using all the information that surrounds us and bringing the right insight or suggestion to our fingertips right when it's most needed," IBM contended.

Predictions for the coming five years included "classrooms of the future" equipped with systems that track and analyze each student's progress to tailor curriculum and help teachers target learning techniques.

"Basically, the classroom learns you," IBM vice president of innovation Bernie Meyerson told AFP. "It is surprisingly straight-forward to do."

In another prediction, IBM sees retail shops large or small blending online and real-world storefronts with 'Watson-like' technologies and augmented reality.

Also, doctors will tailor treatments using patient DNA, according to Meyerson.

"Knowing your genetic make-up lets you sort through a huge variety of treatment options and determine the best course to follow," he said.

"They don't have to carpet bomb your body to treat cancer," Meyerson continued. "There is the ability to tailor the attack to improve the efficacy against cancer cells while leaving healthy cells untouched."

Smart machines tapping into the Internet cloud will also be able to serve as "digital guardians" protecting people from hackers by recognizing unusual online behavior, such as shopping binges at dubious websites, and spying scam email messages or booby-trapped links.

"The digital guardian will know you are not someone who goes to a poker site and tops off your account," Meyerson said. "Not only does it shut down the behavior, but it tracks it back to who is doing it and passes the information on to authorities."

The final prediction was that cities will weave social networks, smartphones, sensors, and machine learning to better manage services and build relationships with citizens.

"The city will help you live in it," Meyerson said. "There is a new generation of leaders coming in who are extremely tech savvy and making good use of it."

Sources: AFP-Times