Tag Archives: Japan
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Disaster Risk Reduction: Is Europe different?
Brussels, Nov 25-26 – Third Civil Protection Forum organized by the European Commission. It rains heavily, but fortunately no floods as in Ireland. Ideal environment to discuss disaster risks. I speak at Seminar F titled ‘Innovative Technology for Disaster Management’. I am one of the two speakers from Asia in the entire conference; the other [...]
Productivity driving growth in China and Asia
LIRNEasia’s future work will focus on knowledge-based economies, which makes us very interested in stories like this, which place innovation at the center.
China’s productivity has been lifted by a massive expansion of private enterprise, and a shift of labour out of agricultural work and into more productive jobs in industry. China’s average return on physical [...]
Mobiles afflicted with Galapagos syndrome
What does mobile handset design and Darwin’s theory of evolution have in common. Read the full article for an answer.
At first glance, Japanese cellphones are a gadget lover’s dream: ready for Internet and e-mail, they double as credit cards, boarding passes and even body-fat calculators.
Competition is fierce in the relatively small Japanese cellphone market, [...]
A “connectivity scorecard” that places the US in first place
Several years back, Korea topped the OECD’s broadband rankings and the ITU’s Digital Opportunity Index. That caused a lot of countries to reexamine their broadband policies. It caused others to develop new indices. The NYT carries a report on one:
After the United States, the ranking found that Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and [...]
Passage to India
In 1997, NTT bought 35 per cent of a badly managed government phone company called SLT along with the right to manage it for five years for USD 225 million. The decision was bracketed by the Central Bank attack (on a per capita basis more devastating than the World Trade Center hit of [...]
Mobile broadband to soar in Asia: GSMA
The number of subscribers to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) services – a technology that enables broadband access on mobile phones and other computing devices – will more than double next year in Asia, according to a forecast by telco industry group GSM Association (GSMA).
In an interview with BizIT, Jaikishan Rajaraman, GSMA director of product [...]
What is the cheapest remittance mechanism of them all?
Last year as many as 190m migrant workers sent cash home, according to the World Bank. These remittances amounted to US$337 billion, of which US$251 billion went to developing countries. But the cost of sending hard-earned cash depends on both the source and destination. On average, sending US$500 from Spain to Brazil will incur a [...]
Australia to also provide early detection of tsunamis
In addition to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawai’i and the center in Japan, it appears that Australia will also be able to provide early detection data.
While Australia will be the main beneficiary of the new centre, upgraded and expanded seismic monitoring will now extend to Indian Ocean countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India, [...]
Canada’s broadband quality below threshold?
Canada is woefully positioned for future internet usage and the quality of current broadband networks is barely enough to cope with current traffic because of a lack of investment by providers, according to a new study.
The survey, conducted by the Oxford Said Business School in London and the Universidad de Oviedo in Spain and released [...]
Japan, Netherlands, Sweden Lead in Broadband Quality, reveals study
A recently released survey indicates Japan has the best quality broadband Internet services, with Sweden and the Netherlands completing the top three. Researchers used download/upload speeds, and internet latency when compiling numbers from eight million tests completed in May 2008.
Sweden and the Netherlands were able to be the top European broadband nations because of their [...]
Asia-Pacific region leads high-speed Broadband connectivity, but wide divide prevails, says ITU
While some Asia-Pacific economies are world leaders in information and communication technologies (ICT) where broadband access is ultra-high speed, affordable and close to ubiquitous, in most of the region’s poorer countries Internet access remains limited and predominantly low-speed.
This is what ITU’s Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Report for the Asia-Pacific region 2008 says. It was released at ITU [...]
Google extends from search business to pipe
TelecomTV – TelecomTV One – News
Google will combine with SingTel, Bharti, Globe Transit and Pacnet to build the mooted Unity cable, connecting Japan to the United States.The $US300 million system was revealed by SingTel and Pacnet this morning. The 7.68 terabit cable is expected to be ready for service in 1Q 2010.
NEC and Tyco will [...]
Another use of the Aladdin’s Lamp
Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular – New York Times
Until recently, cellphone novels — composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens — had been dismissed in Japan as a subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first [...]
The coming issue is broadband
Broadband | Open up those highways | Economist.com
As Taylor Reynolds, an OECD analyst, puts it, innovation usually comes in steps: newcomers first rent space on an existing network, to build up customers and income. Then they create new and better infrastructure, as and when they need it.
In France, for example, the regulator forced [...]
Asian countries slide e-government rankings
A United Nations survey of global e-government readiness has found that many Asian countries are sliding down the rankings. Just one Asian country—South Korea—made the top ten coming in at sixth, with Japan next on 11th.
The next highest was Singapore at a surprisingly low 23rd, and Malaysia at 34th. The top 35 countries are [...]
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