StarHub, with the fastest 3G and 4G network in Singapore, presents World's Fastest Band

StarHub has presented the World’s Fastest Band in commemoration of StarHub’s OpenSignal Speed Awards 2018 win. OpenSignal specialises in wireless coverage mapping.

“StarHub clocked Singapore’s fastest 4G and 3G speeds according to OpenSignal! Network quality is essential to us and our customers, and we want to celebrate our achievement with a musical masterpiece created by a sextet of the world’s fastest,” said Donovan Kik, VP, Segment & Marketing, StarHub. “Notwithstanding this achievement, we will continue working hard to fulfil our customers’ needs and expectations.”

In the OpenSignal report*, it was noted that StarHub achieved an average 4G speed score that was three times the global average.

The maiden music video, available on StarHub's Facebook and Instagram channels, introduces the six band members making tunes with unconventional instruments before performing together. 

In order of appearance; the performers are: 

- Russell Horning or The Backpack Kid, world’s fastest floss dancer. Horning shot to fame in 2015 for his signature dance move – flossing, which involves rapidly swinging his arms around his body while moving his hips and maintaining an expressionless glare.

- António Domingos, the world’s fastest pianist. Domingos holds the Guinness World Record for the Most Piano Key Hits in One Minute - 824 hits, in 2017.

- Satoyuki Fujimura, the world’s fastest finger snapper, who completed 296 snaps in one minute to enter the record books. Fujimura picked up finger snapping from his mother a year before his record-breaking performance.

Source: StarHub. Poster advertising the
World's Fastest Band.

- Sadatoshi Watanabe, the world’s fastest bum skipper. In bum skipping the skipper sits on the floor with legs outstretched in an 'L' shape and passes the rope over the head, under the legs and then over the head again to complete a single skip. Watch him break records.

- Muhammad Rashid, the world’s fastest head smasher. In head smashing, the head is used to crush an object.

- Tony Valente, the world’s fastest nunchaku master.

The World’s Fastest Band will also be touring on StarHub TV and YouTube channels as well as Golden Village cinema screens in coming weeks, StarHub said.

Explore:

Watch the debut video 

Hashtags: #worldsfastestband, #fastestunlimitednetwork 

*Based on OpenSignal’s independent analysis of 185,297,150 on-device measurements recorded by 11,742 users from February 1 to May 1, 2018. Read the report

Instagram did better than Facebook for Rio 2016

Source: ComScore. Social network interactions between Facebook and Instagram for July 2016 around the Olympic games, which ran from 5 to 21 August.

ComScore has reported that social network Instagram was the star for engagement during Rio 2016, although Facebook - which owns Instagram - was the main social platform used to share official content before the event.

In June, the UK ranked third in the world in total unique visitors on RIO2016.COM, followed by Australia and Argentina. Latin American countries were in the top two. Other highlights included:

• With 3 million fans around the world, the Rio 2016 Facebook page increased post cadence before the Olympic games when compared to the previous quarter. Frequency grew from 47 posts per week between April and May to 55 during July 2016.
• During July, 40% of total actions on the RIO 2016 Facebook page were generated by posts containing videos. Once the games started, posts with photos took precedence, responsible for 81% of total actions during the first weekend of the games, including likes, shares and comments.
• 63% of official Rio 2016 social content was posted on Facebook during July. However, despite less content, Instagram was responsible for 72% of the total actions on Rio 2016 social networks during the same month.

Yahoo launches new bots to help users stay connected

Yahoo has launched three new bots to help users get the latest news, stock market trends and weather forecasts respectively. A fourth bot is a virtual pet monkey that will exchange chats and emojis with the user.

The Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News, Yahoo Weather and MonkeyPet bots are now available on Facebook Messenger.

To get started, users can simply type @YahooNews, for instance, in the Facebook search bar and message the Yahoo News app to get the latest news. The bot will immediately answer, and might provide additional links to information or options.

Source: Yahoo. 

Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance), exclusive to Messenger, is a bot that allows users to search the latest finance and stock news and information. Information can also be shared with your friends.

The Yahoo News bot (@YahooNews) helps users to discover trending stories and dive deeper into the news.

Yahoo Weather (@YahooWeather) gathers weather information and allows selected Flickr images to be shared.

MonkeyPet (@MonkeyPet) is a virtual pet that shares selfies from its “travels.”

Interested?

Open Facebook Messenger on either iOS or Android and send a message to @YahooFinance, @YahooNews, @YahooWeather or @MonkeyPet.

posted from Bloggeroid

Kodak Alaris introduces new networked wireless scanners

The newest desktop scanners from Kodak Alaris – the Kodak ScanMate i1150WN and the Kodak i1190WN Scanners – provide wireless and network connectivity and are mobile app ready to support BYOD and mobility in the workplace.

Source: Kodak Alaris. The Kodak ScanMate i1150WN.

The i1150WN and i1190WN scanners, enable connectivity through the office network or over Wi-Fi for a variety of office environments. Equipped with standard drivers (TWAIN, ISIS), users can integrate the scanners with their existing and legacy business applications, eliminating extra steps in the capture process and complicated software installations. IT administrators can also set security levels and disable wireless and mobile if needed, providing them with more efficient device management. A control panel supports custom commands and offers colour-coded icons to make scanning quick and easy.

“Most wireless scanners are fine for individual users but they are not designed for sharing in a workgroup or connecting with business applications,” said Susheel John, Worldwide Category Director, Distributed Capture, Kodak Alaris Information Management. “Our wireless/network scanners offer the flexibility and versatility that users need to manage complex document processes. They also provide integration capabilities that allow organisations to invest in new software and applications to address the evolving needs of their business, while meeting the needs of legacy applications today.”

Source: Kodak Alaris. The Kodak i1190WN scanner.

The ScanMate+ Mobile App lets users scan quickly and easily to a tablet or mobile phone from the i1150WN or i1190WN scanner. The app also makes it convenient to share files via email and to cloud-based applications such as SharePoint, Box or Evernote. Organisations can integrate proprietary mobile apps with Kodak Alaris scanners using a web application programming interface (API).

Buyers Lab (BLI) recognised Kodak Alaris with the 2016 Scanner Line of the Year award for superior performance across its broad portfolio of document scanners. Kodak Alaris also won multiple BLI Winter Pick Awards—one in each of three key scanner categories: networked, departmental and production. Kodak Alaris holds the most Pick awards out of any scanner manufacturer tested by BLI.

Interested?

The ScanMate+ Mobile App is free to download for iOS and Android

Read the TechTrade Asia blog post about Kodak Alaris' BLI awards for scanners in 2016

Akamai's tips on maximising app engagement

An advisory from Akamai notes that 95% of players abandon games within a month*. According to the company, four in 10 abandon games due to long load times**, and one in five gamers expect pages to load instantly***.

Akamai offers some tips to keep gamers interested that apply quite well to retaining users for any app in general:

1. Prepare to be overwhelmed

You can never predict where in the world your new players will live and how successful your buzz building will be. Be ready to host a global audience at a global scale. Rely on a company invested in a flexible content delivery network infrastructure to deal with the crowd.

2. Give your best fans a front-row seat

Prioritise your visitors and give your rabid fans a great Web experience while managing expectations properly for everyone else – especially during a midnight launch or a beta code release.

3. Deliver landing pages quickly

Half of visitors abandon websites after just 4 seconds*** of waiting for a page to load. Use the best infrastructure possible to make the very first experience with your brand as good as the game itself.

4. Track download success rates

If you’re seeing low conversion rates, one issue might be large files. Make sure your content delivery network performs consistently and provides in-depth actionable data.

5. Optimise for the device

Develop app containers that fit under the iOS and Android over-the-air file-size capacities.

6. Accelerate every touchpoint

Nobody likes a loading screen. Speed up loading time by offloading to a cloud platform so it can do the heavy lifting.

7. Keep servers online

If your fans can’t play, they won’t stay. Take cloud security measures to protect yourself from cyberattacks that can drive high player churn and disrupt your revenue stream.

1 Chinese Gamers: In-game behavior of players from China
2 Cooper Waddell, Deconstructing Mobile & Tablet Gaming (EEDAR, 2014)
3 The Akamai Performance Matters: 9 Key Consumer Insights Research Report

posted from Bloggeroid

LINE shows how LINE@ can raise customer engagement

LINE, the global lifestyle platform, is highlighting how LINE@, one of LINE’s Family apps, can help entrepreneurs reach out to a wider audience. The service lets users create official accounts to share both personal and professional content. A LINE@ account allows users to engage directly with customers and fans with functionality such as a Timeline to post content on, one-on-one chats with fans and customers for real-time business updates, as well as a polling function that allows users to gather feedback seamlessly:

Reach an audience of thousands
Send mass messages to customers and fans that have friended your account to promote your business and events, or gather feedback from followers.

Share updates easily
Post your updates via the Timeline and keep your followers updated on new products and services.

Stay connected anytime, anywhere
Add LINE@ account information to business cards so fans and customers have another way to reach you.

Survey customers for feedback
Set up polls with LINE@’s research page to gather feedback on products and services, or capture customer profile data such as age, gender. You can even use the statistics provided to monitor user behaviour.

Thank fans for their support
Give readers, fans and customers a treat with coupons with your LINE account. LINE’s new app feature, Coupon Book, allows LINE users to keep track of all the coupons they receive via LINE.

Interested?

Choose from two plan options – free or paid – to gain access to LINE@’s features. A free plan includes 1,000 sent messages a month. A paid plan starts from US$50 a month and includes 50,000 messages sent a month. Each message beyond that costs US$0.01 for paid plans; free plans are limited to 1,000 messages. Sign up

Twitter offers video content for marketing campaigns with First View

Source: Twitter. How First View works.

Twitter has introduced First View in Asia Pacific. The feature is a way to share brand stories with video content across Twitter's audience, the company said. As of April 2016, Statista says that Twitter has 320 million users.

Asia Pacific is the largest and fastest-growing region for Twitter worldwide, and First View can empower Asian businesses of any size to take their marketing campaigns to the next level using Twitter's platform for real-time, public conversations. Nike Philippines, Samsung Australia and Tata Motors India are among the first advertisers in the region to leverage the feature.

"Audiences today demand video content. With First View, marketers have the ability to connect with their audience through richer forms of communication and creative content, while ensuring that they are constantly top-of-mind on their feeds," said Maya Hari, Senior Director for Product Strategy & Sales, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Emerging Markets. "First View provides advertisers with the opportunity to own the most valuable ad space on our platform on any given day, expanding their reach within a 24-hour period."

Premium placement

When users first visit the Twitter app or log in to twitter.com, the top ad slot in the timelines will be a Promoted Video from that brand. "Word of mouth is more important than ever. Twitter's First View gives Samsung the opportunity to reach a wide audience to generate buzz and conversation about our new #GalaxyS7 and #GalaxyS7edge smartphones. We are able to hit a broad audience with great video content to help drive social momentum," said Philip Newton, Corporate Vice President & CMO Samsung Electronics Australia.

"Video is one of the hottest topics for all marketers at the moment. We are delighted to see exciting products being launched by Twitter, giving us more opportunities to build great experience for our audience. The ability of using video to generate global conversations and dominate moments of interest with First View opens up a great playing field, and ties in strongly with Mindshare's vision of Adaptive Marketing," said Quentin Perrot, Senior Account Director APAC, MindShare, the company managing Nike's media strategy in Southeast Asia.

Interested?

First View is now available in 29 countries including the Asia Pacific markets Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore.

HPE lowers threshold to entry storage portfolio

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) recently announced enhancements to its entry storage portfolio to help customers with limited budgets harness content and accelerate applications. The new HPE MSA Storage options enable the most affordable dual-controller hybrid flash array from a major vendor¹ while the new HPE StoreEasy 1650 Expanded transforms the economics of storing large volumes of information.

The ability to quickly and efficiently harness the value of information is critical for success. “In today’s economy, agility and speed are critical to stay competitive, regardless of business size,” said Manish Goel, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Storage, HPE. “That’s why Hewlett Packard Enterprise is bringing enterprise storage scale and performance within reach of customers who have even the most constrained budgets.”

Hybrid flash performance for 45% less²

HPE has enhanced its HPE MSA Storage family to include solid state drive (SSD, also called flash) support for the HPE MSA 1040. This expanded support for SSDs results in new hybrid flash configurations starting at under US$8,500³. SSDs have the advantage of requiring less power and space while offering better performance than traditional mechanical hard drives. Both the MSA 1040 and 2040 can now take advantage of flash media. These new SSDs deliver hybrid flash acceleration at prices that are 30% lower⁴ for the same capacity point, putting higher performance and latency reduction within reach of more businesses.

The enhanced HPE MSA 1040 can:

· Boost storage efficiency with advanced storage virtualisation capabilities such as thin provisioning, enhanced snapshot services, wide-striping, and flash-based acceleration.

· Make read caching 70% faster and performance tiering 90% faster for an incremental investment in SSD capacity that costs from US$1,599⁵

· Up to 75% lower storage costs by taking advantage of MSA’s archive tiering capabilities, which automatically place data in the appropriate storage tier - data that is required the most often is stored in more expensive, faster storage, while data that is rarely required is stored in cheaper storage with longer retrieval times⁶.

Network-attached storage (NAS) at 41% lower cost, in 80% less space⁷

For customers who need an affordable solution for bulk and secondary file storage, the HPE StoreEasy 1650 Expanded NAS appliance accommodates 28 large form factor (LFF) drives for up to 224 TB of internal capacity in the 2U form factor, making it the most dense 2U NAS appliance on the market⁸. This scalable solution enables customers to store unstructured data at 41% lower cost in 80% less space with 82% fewer components than the equivalent NetApp FAS system⁹.

This new addition provides rapid configuration tools, storage provisioning templates, and a centralised monitoring dashboard to simplify management. The system features many layers of security—including drive, file system, and data-in-flight encryption—as well as sophisticated data access policies based on automatic file classification. The StoreEasy solution also provides secure anywhere sync-and-share support for Apple iOS and Microsoft Windows devices.

Interested?¹⁰

The HPE StoreEasy 1650 Expanded and the HPE MSA 1040 are part of the HPE Just Right IT portfolio and are available through the HPE Small Business Marketplace. The new MSA SSD drives are currently available at the following prices and capacity points: 400GB for US$1,200; 800GB for US$2,278; 1.6TB for US$4,300; 3.2TB for US$7,500.

SSDs on the MSA 1040 are supported via firmware update GL220, which is posted on hpe.com and free of charge to customers on warranty or a current service contract. The MSA 1040 Advanced Virtualization Upgrade license is priced at US$384 as of February 15, 2016.

The StoreEasy 1650 Expanded starts at US$14,720 with 32TB of capacity.

¹Based on published US List pricing from Dell, EMC, IBM, HPE and Network Appliance, January 2016.

²Cost reduction is based on US list price for MSA 2040 SAN small form factor (SFF) array with 4 x 1GbE iSCSI small form factor pluggables (SFPs)  and 2 x 200 GB SSDs (US$14,768) as compared to the US Smart Buy list price for 1GbE iSCSI MSA 1040 SFF array with 2 x 200 GB SSDs and MSA 1040 Advanced Virtualization upgrade (US$8,038).

³Based on publicly available US list Smart Buy price for 1.4TB, 1GbE iSCSI MSA 1040 SFF array with one 200 GB SSD, four 300GB 10k (10,000 revolutions per minute) HDDs and MSA 1040 Advanced Virtualization upgrade, totaling US$7,817.

⁴Based on US list prices for 400GB SSD at US$2,220 (previously US$3,099), 800GB SSD at US$4,219 (previously US$5,999), 1.6TB SSD at US$7,979 (previously US$10,969).     

⁵Based on US list price for a single 200 GB SSD and a series of workload tests performed by Demartek in coordination with Read Cache and MSA Performance R/W Tiering functionality. Full reports can be found at the Demartek website under the following links – Exchange, SQL, Mixed Virtualized Workloads.

⁶Expressed as cost per gigabyte for storage moved to the Archive Tier and based on HPE internal testing using Archive Tiering capabilities to store infrequently accessed data from Enterprise SAS (10k/15k) drives to Midline SAS (7.2k) drives.

⁷Based on publicly available product information. As compared to NetApp FAS2520 with 216 TB of raw capacity.

⁸Based on HPE internal analysis of publicly available information, February 2016

⁹Based on publicly available product information. As compared to the NetApp FAS2520 with 216 TB of raw capacity.

¹⁰US list prices or publicly available US Smart Buy prices where indicated. Actual prices may vary.

Singtel ups max speeds on fibre broadband for home offices

Singtel will offer a 10Gbps fibre broadband service to residential customers in Singapore starting this month. Leveraging on its Next Generation 10GPON or Gigabit Passive Optical Network, this first-of-its-kind service for residential customers follows the launch of the pilot phase last year.

Goh Seow Eng, MD, Home, Consumer Singapore, Singtel, said, “We made a commitment to our customers to bring them the best network innovations, the very latest technologies for work and play. We recognise that residential customers are using greater bandwidth and requiring faster speeds for their online activities.”

Through a dedicated, ultra-high-speed 10Gbps wired connection*, users will be able to download and stream at larger volumes of data. The service, which also features four 1Gbps ports, can serve as a home networking solution for multi-user environments such as home offices and large households. This will enable individuals working from home to conduct multiple videoconferences, file transfer sessions and even run a home business without compromising on connectivity and bandwidth.

To enhance their 10Gbps experience, customers can set up Singtel’s latest WiFi Mesh to improve wireless performance and connectivity in their homes. WiFi Mesh ensures consistent bandwidth at high speeds and increased coverage, providing robust wireless connectivity for data-demanding applications.

Interested?

Singtel’s 10Gbps Fibre Home Bundle** is priced at S$189/month and includes a 10G optical network router, a wireless Dual-Band AC router, NetLink Trust installation and Singtel weekday installation, a 4G Mobile Broadband 500MB subscription, and for a limited period, a pair of WiFi Mesh devices worth S$240.  Customers can register their interest up to 15 February.  
                                             

System Requirements***,****	End User Macintosh	PC
Processor	Core i7 minimum	Core i7-4790K minimum
System Memory	8GB RAM minimum	8GB RAM minimum
Hard disk	SSD	SSD, PCI-E interface
OS	Mac OS X	Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10
Cable	Cat6/6a cable	Cat6/6a cable
Required connection port	10 Gigabit Ethernet port (10GBase-T) network card or Thunderbolt 2 to 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter (e.g. SANLink2)	10 Gigabit Ethernet port (10GBase-T) network card

*10-GbE copper (10GBase-T) network port required to communicate over CAT6 (or 6a/7) copper LAN cable to another 10-Gb-T supported computer or network device. Actual speed experienced using the service will be dependent on various elements such as the bandwidth of the destination application, performance of your device and other extraneous factors.  

**Plan comes with 24-month contract. Terms and conditions apply. 

***Customers can connect a 10 Gigabit switch to the 10GbE optical network router (ONR) port available to share connection to more 10GbE computers or network attached storage (NAS) devices   

****Customers can utilise the ONR 4x1GbE to distribute bandwidth to multiple rooms with any existing Gigabit Ethernet enabled devices/computers/WiFi routers   

Singapore, Australia offer the best speeds for mobile data

Source: Ericsson South East Asia and Oceania regional Ericsson Mobility Report.

Singapore is the only Southeast Asian country with mobile network connections fast enough to assure a smooth delivery of high-bandwidth applications – such as video streaming – to consumers on their mobile devices, says Ericsson.

Singapore is also the first and only country in the region to have smartphone subscription penetration of more than 100%, according to the latest edition of the Ericsson South East Asia and Oceania regional Ericsson Mobility Report*, published November 2015.

Singapore and Australia have reached the point where high definition video streaming can be delivered anywhere there is mobile network coverage** due to their leadership in deploying LTE and LTE-Advanced infrastructure. LTE adoption also helps increase app coverage for operators. Singapore has already reached 100% population coverage with LTE while Australia has reached 90%. By the end of 2015 LTE will represent around 40% of total mobile subscriptions in Australia and 50% in Singapore. In both countries, this number will have increased to around 80% by 2018.

”As societies become more connected, communications are increasingly app-centric and consequently, high expectations are placed on network performance,” says Nicholas Seow, President of Ericsson Singapore and Brunei. "This is significant as one of the most demanding apps in terms of performance – video streaming – will account for almost 70% of all global mobile data traffic by 2021. Different countries will face different app coverage challenges depending on the apps users are consuming.

"Singapore’s regional leadership in network performance has been clear for a few years now as evidenced in our latest reports. With nation-wide LTE-Advanced coverage and a growing ecosystem of compatible devices becoming available to Singaporeans, we can only expect this trend to continue.”

Source: Ericsson South East Asia and Oceania regional Ericsson
Mobility Report.

The report adds that:

• The amount of data used monthly by each active smartphone will increase substantially from an average of 1.2 GB in 2015 to approximately 9 GB by 2021.
• Population coverage for LTE will be more than 75% by 2021. 
• LTE/5G subscriptions are forecast to gain momentum and surpass 500 million by 2021, driven by 3G migration and new services like VoLTE (Voice over LTE).

Interested?

Download the report (PDF)

*This South East Asia and Oceania Report is a supplement to the global Ericsson Mobility Report, and shares the differences across the South East Asia and Oceania region, including smartphone uptake, mobile broadband plans, and network performance.

**Analysis performed by Ericsson based on Ookla’s Speedtest Intelligence Data from Speedtest.net

Synology introduces first router

Source: Synology. The Synology Router
RT1900ac.

Synology has launched its first router. The Synology Router RT1900ac can be connected to an external storage device to create a personal cloud.

The router supports up to 1,900 Mbps combined transfer speeds and supports beam-forming, which can maximise the Wi-Fi signal for specific devices. The router can be controlled with a mobile app.

2G handsets to stop working in Singapore on 1 April 2017

M1, Singtel and StarHub will stop providing 2G services in Singapore from 1 April, 2017. This will apply to 2G voice, messaging and data services. Those using 3G and 4G handsets will not be affected.

According to all three telcos, mobile networks have evolved since the launch of 2G service in 1994, and Singapore’s extensive 3G and 4G mobile networks have led to high smartphone ownership and usage rates. To cater for consumers’ increased demand for mobile data and faster access speeds, the spectrum currently used for 2G will be used to provide faster, more advanced 3G and 4G services instead.

In the last few years, mobile operators have been conducting outreach programmes to encourage customers to migrate to newer networks. Today, the majority of mobile customers are on 3G and 4G networks, only an extremely small percentage of customers remain on 2G-only mobile devices. The mobile operators will continue to reach out to affected 2G users through various channels as relevant, including SMS, calls and posters at their retail outlets, in the runup to the 2G network closure.

A wide range of 3G and 4G handsets are available at different price points to enable customers to migrate to the newer networks. Existing SIM cards used for 2G-only handsets can be used in a 3G or 4G-compatible device to enjoy the 3G or 4G services. 

Digi expands LTE coverage in Klang Valley, Malaysia

Source: Digi. Chief Executive Officer Albern Murty (left) showcasing the high-quality, consistent Internet experience with Digi’s 4G LTE via video call with Hitz.FM radio DJs Ean and Adam C (on the small screen to the left). Loh Keh Jiat, Digi’s Chief Sales Officer, is on the right.

Digi Telecommunications (Digi) announced today that it now serves more areas in the Klang Valley, more than doubling the company’s LTE footprint in this area. This benefits the telco’s customers in the Klang Valley with consistent LTE services.

Albern Murty, Digi’s Chief Executive Officer said Digi’s effort to bring LTE services to more Malaysians nationwide echoes the government’s ambition to ensure greater access to Internet services for all. Together with Digi’s existing 3G coverage, bringing expanded LTE services in the Klang Valley is aligned to the Economic Transformation Programme’s (ETP's) call for improving broadband access for 80% of the populated areas in Greater Kuala Lumpur, with a target of a minimum speed of 2Mbps.

“Our commitment to expand LTE coverage in the Klang Valley and across Malaysia reflects the company’s long term plans to continue investing heavily in its network to deliver Internet for all Malaysians,” said Murty. 

Digi aims to maintain this LTE rollout momentum in the coming years, focusing on areas with a strong demand for LTE services and devices, and where it serves to make a real difference in bringing Internet to more people nationwide. Digi’s 4G LTE services are currently available in the Klang Valley, Penang, Johor Bahru, Kuantan, Kota Kinabalu, Tawau, Labuan, Kuching, Miri, Bintulu, Kampar, Langkawi and Port Dickson.

The company also has a deep focus on improving network quality. In the next few quarters, Digi will simultaneously increase network coverage, boost capacity and significantly improve both the indoor and outdoor Internet experience in the Klang Valley.

“Our focus is to continue to ensure everyone has access to quality Internet services nationwide, fuelled by significant improvements in our network performance and coverage, the proliferation of a wider range of affordable smartphones bundles including choices under RM200, and innovative digital service offerings to fit different customer usage patterns,” Murty said.

Digi will be hosting a four-day roadshow starting today at One Utama, where customers can sign-up for the new range of LTE postpaid DG Smart Plans, iDiGi Plans and Broadband plans. Customers have a choice of premium devices like the iPhone 6 to more affordable options such as the Lenovo A606, Meizu MX 4 and Honor 6, available for free with selected DG Smart Plans. Existing Digi prepaid and postpaid customers can begin enjoying 4G LTE on their LTE-enabled devices with a free LTE SIM upgrade redeemable at the roadshow itself.

Customers will also enjoy Digi’s special 20th Anniversary RM1 million prizes giveaway for new and existing Digi customers who sign up or purchase items at the roadshow. Additional 20th anniversary promotions for Digi postpaid customers include up to RM240 rebate for 12 months or select range of free smartphones for new DG SmartPlan sign-ups; up to RM60 rebate for DG Smart Family plan for 12 months, and friends who switch to Digi will get up to RM200 extra rebates. Enterprise customers will also enjoy free MobiFis, smartphones and data for selected Biz Plus plans. 

LinkedIn's Asia Pacific members mostly from tech, financial sectors

Need to reach a particular industry? You're in luck if you are looking for people in tech-related industries and would like to mine LinkedIn's professional network for the right audience targets. 

IT & Services is the top industry for Asia Pacific LinkedIn members, while Telecommunications, Computer Software, Semiconductors and Internet also appear.

Financial Services professionals are also easily reached through the LinkedIn network, according to the table below. The other industries in the top five regionally are Oil & Energy and Hospitality, but are likely highly represented in other countries in the region, rather than those shown.

 

Source: LinkedIn

Tech companies predominate in Asia Pacific LinkedIn members' mindshare

IBM, HP, Accenture, Google, Tata Consultancy Services. These are the top five companies that LinkedIn says its 50 million-plus members in Asia Pacific follow, and all of them are international tech companies.

Source: LinkedIn

The story differs in different countries. Google is in the top three in Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan, but not even in the list for India, Indonesia, Malaysia, or New Zealand. LinkedIn observes that many 'home-grown' companies or those with a significant market presence also have strong local followings. These include Petronas (Malaysia), Rio Tinto (Australia), Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore), Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong) and DeNA (Japan).

Thought leader and consumer darling Apple is, strangely enough, not in the regional top five list, nor Facebook, which you might reasonably believe to be one of the social platforms which many people use today. Apple does rank 4th in Singapore and Japan and 5th in Hong Kong, but that's it. Facebook does not even make it to the list by country.

LinkedIn does mention that it has helped clients across the region "reach out and engage with a broader audience". These clients include Standard Chartered Bank, AirAsia, SingPost, Lenovo, University of Queensland and Van Heusen. It's possible that such campaigns have helped put certain brands into LinkedIn members' mindshare beyond the ones most likely to be there - certainly Standard Chartered Bank is in the top five in Singapore and Hong Kong, and AirAsia in Malaysia. 

LinkedIn could well be a good channel for reaching out to targeted audience segments, especially if your brand makes it to the top in terms of companies that LinkedIn members want to follow. With 50 million-plus users already in the Asia Pacific region, reaching the people you want to will not take long.

Learn more about Wireshark from the original author of the source code

Riverbed Technology, which provides application performance infrastructure, will host a “Troubleshooting with Wireshark” Virtual World Tour with Gerald Combs, Director of open source projects at Riverbed, and the original author of the Wireshark source code, and Laura Chappell, Wireshark expert, educator and author. 

Wireshark sees more than 500,000 downloads per month. A Facebook page lists more than 13,000 likes. Created by Gerald Combs under the original name Ethereal, Wireshark is maintained today by a dedicated group of core developers and sponsored by Riverbed through its 2010 acquisition of CACE Technologies. As the sponsor, Riverbed is committed to maintaining the strong, independent, community-driven nature of Wireshark.

The tour will present the latest Wireshark tips and tricks to audiences in Dubai, Singapore and Sydney among other cities on using the free network analyzer solution to quickly detect network and application delays and errors. The tour is open to anyone interested in Wireshark, including users and developers, network and application engineers, network analysts, protocol analysts, software developers, software engineers and IT professionals. 

Guests are welcome to attend a presentation in one of six time zones over the course of three days. Registration is available here. Dates and times for the sessions in Asia Pacific and the Middle East are:

 

• February 26, 10:00 a.m. in Dubai (GST)
• February 28, 10:00 a.m. in Singapore (SGT)
• February 28, 10:00 a.m. in Sydney (AEDT)

Topics to be covered during the one-hour live sessions include:

·         How to use Wireshark to quickly detect network and application delays and errors

·         How to customise Wireshark for faster problem identification

·         Identifying network problems 

The Virtual World Tour coincides with the release of Laura Chappell’s newest book in the Wireshark Solution Series, Troubleshooting with Wireshark: Locate the Source of Performance Problems. This new 408-page book provides instruction on how to use Wireshark to identify the key causes of poor network performance, is now available in paperback and Kindle format. 

Digital freelance work most in demand around the globe

If you don't have any digital skills, it's time to obtain some. The job categories that are most in demand at global marketplace Freelancer.com are all digital-related. 

 

According to Australia-listed Freelancer, which owns the site, web and software development, web and graphic design, Internet marketing including search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM) as well as online sales and content development incorporating corporate content and social media are the most active out of 600 job categories on the site. 

The portal, which links businesses and freelancers, now has 10 million members, the company said. Over 5 million projects have been posted to date. Freelancer.com has positioned itself to take advantage of this growth by supporting more than 30 languages, the company said.

"In an increasingly competitive global market small businesses are turning to freelancers to outsource short term projects in skill categories they do not necessarily have the resources for. By tapping into a global talent pool like Freelancer.com, a small business can operate like a major corporation on a shoestring budget," said Freelancer CEO Matt Barrie.

CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap thrived in first 100 days, says CA Technologies

CA Technologies, which provides IT management solutions that help customers manage and secure complex IT environments to support agile business services, has announced a new version of its first freemium offering, CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap.

CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap has been downloaded by 5,000 SMBs, Fortune 1000 companies and IT service providers in 147 countries in the 100 days since its launch. The feature-rich version of CA Nimsoft Monitor shares the same code base, and proactively monitors servers, networks, storage, databases and applications in order to ensure reliable delivery of critical IT services to end-users and customers. It is free for up to 30 monitored devices each with unlimited monitors—not a limited time-trial. 

Also indicative of the success of CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap are the 4,000 members who have flocked to its online community, CA Snap Central, and the 60-plus CA Technologies partners that are now promoting the product to their own customers.

“We will continue investing in CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap and the Snap Central community to give everyone the ability to better safeguard the health of their critical service delivery infrastructure no matter how tight their budgets may be,” said Stephen Miles, Vice President, Service Assurance, Asia Pacific and Japan, CA Technologies.  

 

Family-owned and US-based Indmar Marine Engines, the world's largest privately held manufacturer of gasoline-powered, inboard marine engines with a global network which includes dealers in Hong Kong, Korea and New Zealand, has replaced Spiceworks with CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap as its primary IT monitoring tool.

“CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap was a breeze to install and immediately gave us insight into issues that we hadn’t noticed with Spiceworks that could have caused us significant business disruption,” said Kris Kirby, IT Manager, Indmar Marine Engines. “We find the dashboards in CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap more usable than what we had to work with in Spiceworks, with fewer false positives and more monitoring configuration options.”

The new version of CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap provides monitoring for a broader range of IT resources—including Citrix CloudPlatform and VMware vCloud—and a free mobile app that allows IT staff to keep an eye on the health of their infrastructure from both iOS and Android devices. 

Users of CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap who need to manage more than 30 devices can upgrade to the paid-license version of CA Nimsoft Monitor, which has been enhanced with new alarm management features, IPv6 support, additional languages and more.

CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap supports English, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. A free download is available here.