Mobile wallet, or maybe more!

Would you like it if one day, you forget to bring your wallet, yet you can still pay for your bus ride or buy a drink from a vending machine? Or you forgot to bring your staff pass, yet you can still enter your office building. When you finally got home, you can open your house doors despite having left the keys home too.

All these and more are enabled by a new technology called mobile wallet. Mobile wallet is mobile phone that has functionality to supplant a conventional wallet and more. Unlike mobile commerce, mobile wallet is a much more versatile application that includes elements of mobile transactions, as well as other items one may find in a wallet, such as membership cards, loyalty cards and travel cards. It also stores personal and sensitive information like passport, credit card information, PIN codes, online shopping accounts, booking details and insurance policies that can be encrypted or password-protected. The technology aims to reduce the number items people will need to carry around.

With mobile wallet, the user can use their mobile phone to pay transactions at merchants that accept mobile payments. To do this, the user just needs to upload digital cash from a credit card to their mobile phone and swipe their mobile phone at payment counters. They can also swipe their mobile phone at ticketing machines. Mobile wallet can be used as a virtual train ticket where customers just wave their mobile phone across the checkout stations instead of using separate swipe cards. Another use is as an identifier to log on to a computer at Internet kiosks. The data is exchanged by mere proximity, without the need for physical contact. Users who use the same mobile wallet applications can also exchange data with one another, example bank account numbers when they need to perform bank transfers among one another. There are several technologies that could enable mobile wallet operations of handsets, including Near Field Communications (NFC), Radio Frequency (RFID), bar codes, and visual recognition.

According to InStat, a high-tech market research firm, as many as 25 million wireless phone subscribers in North America could be using their mobile phones as mobile wallets by 2011. One of the first carriers to launch mobile wallet is NTT Docomo that uses its Felica system to allow those who carry compatible 3G handsets like Fujitsu’s F900iC and other models by NEC, Panasonic, Sharp, Mitsubishi and Sony Ericsson to make payments using their handsets. A credit card-sized Sony smart card powers the system. It holds a chip which can be loaded with personal data.

With a subscription, the wallet phones work by sending data at high speeds and securely over the DoCoMo network. Special readers can also be built into cash machines and cash registers to recognise the transactions. The handsets have built-in security to stop others using the service by using password protection or fingerprint scanning.

In South Korea, SK Telecom has started a mobile wallet service called Moneta. Even in the Philipines, a service known as G-Cash allows the transfer of money via text messages (SMS). This service enables users to send money from mobile to mobile, buy goods and services and pay for business permits and micro loans and won an award at the GSM Association Awards 2005 in Cannes.

Innovations in mobile payment could also benefit people developing content for internet websites. It would be possible to charge small payments on the website using your mobile phone. Even PayPal has joined in the foray by introducing the ability to make payments or to send money to others by sending SMS. All you need is to activate your account using your phone number and you can text a message when you see something you are interested in. Every order will be followed by a Mobile PIN as an added layer of security. Hey, you can even donate money using PayPal’s mobile wallet.

While there is widespread enthusiasm about mobile wallet technology, there are fears of security breaches and identity theft. Having all your personal and sensitive information stored on a phone poses a big risk. Incidents of people having their mobile phone stolen will lead to more loss in personal information like bank accounts and passport numbers. However, it would be great if the day will come when we can leave home without our wallet, credit card, passport, membership cards and keys. There would be a lot of empty space in wallets and handbags.

Source: http://www.mobileworld.com.my

Making no waves

This article makes me smile =)
Have a good day!

Cher Linn

ATHLETES in the ancient Olympics competed in the buff, on the grounds (among other things) that clothes were a hindrance to performance. Modern technology, however, has changed that. In some sports, notably swimming, the right costume can be an enormous boon. Take Speedo's LZR swimsuit, which was introduced in February. Fully 38 of the 42 world swimming records that have been broken since then have fallen to swimmers wearing LZRs. Indeed, some of those records have been claimed by less-than-notable racers, suggesting that the difference lies in the apparel, not the athlete.

To make the LZR four innovations had to come together. The first is the fabric. The new suit is cut from a densely woven nylon-elastane material that compresses the wearer's body into a hydrodynamic shape but is extremely light. Moreover, there are no sewn seams. Instead, the suit is bonded together using ultrasonic welding. Seams act as speed bumps in the water. Ultrasonic welding removes 6% of the drag that would otherwise occur, according to Jason Rance, the head of Aqualab, Speedo's research-and-development centre in Nottingham in Britain. Compared with Speedo's previous suit, which was used by numerous gold medallists in the 2004 Olympic Games, the new material has half the weight yet triple the power to compress the body.

Second, the suit has what Speedo calls an “internal core stabiliser”—like a corset that holds the swimmer's form. As a swimmer tires, his hips hang lower in the water, creating drag. By compressing his torso, the LZR not only lets him go faster, because it maintains a tubular shape, but also allows him to swim longer with less effort. In tests, swimmers wearing the LZR consumed 5% less oxygen for a given level of performance than those wearing normal swimsuits did.

Third, as a further drag-reduction measure, polyurethane panels have been placed in spots on the suit. This reduces drag by another 24% compared with the previous Speedo model. Fourth, the LZR was designed using a three-dimensional pattern rather than a two-dimensional one. It thus hugs a swimmer's body like a second skin; indeed, when it is not being worn, it does not lie flat but has a shape to it.

The results are a suit that costs $600 and takes 20 minutes to squeeze into, and a widespread belief among swimmers competing in the Beijing Olympics this summer that they will have to wear one or fail. The director of the American team, Mark Schubert, for example, thinks the LZR improves performance by as much as 2%—a huge leap considering that tenths of a second may mark the difference between first and fourth place. Arena, a rival swimsuit-maker, called the situation “unprecedented” and, initially, lobbied for a review of the garment rules in an open letter to the sport's governing body, FINA (the Fédération Internationale de Natation). Another maker, Tyr, has launched another type of suit altogether. It is suing Speedo's parent company, Warnaco Swimwear, Mr Schubert (for more or less insisting that members of his team wear the LZR) and others on antitrust grounds. The LZR is thus being referred to by some people as high-tech doping on a hanger.

Speedo's success is partly due to a subtle rule “clarification” made by FINA in April which confirms that polyurethane areas can be incorporated into racing swimsuits. Other manufacturers complain it is unfair that a revision with sweeping implications took place only a few months before the Olympics. Still, they are rushing to bring forward rival products. On June 4th FINA approved new suits by Arena, Adidas and Mizuno, so Speedo's technological lead may not last. In technology as in sport, records are simply there to be broken.

Source: The Economist 11th June 2008

US: California Marriage Ruling a Victory for Human Rights

Historic Decision Confers Equal Right to Marriage to Same-Sex Couples

(New York, May 15, 2008) – The California Supreme Court’s ruling today striking down state law that limits marriage to opposite-sex couples is a victory for equality that should set a national and international example, Human Rights Watch said today.

“California’s highest court has affirmed that equality does not come with exceptions,” said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “This historic decision should push the US government to stop obstructing equal treatment of relationships and families.”

On May 15, by a vote of 4 to 3, the court overturned a 2000 ballot measure that had limited the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. The ballot measure presaged the issuing of marriage licenses to same-sex couples by the city and county of San Francisco in 2004. The court had ordered the city and county of San Francisco in 2004 to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, pending resolution of whether California’s restriction of marriage to different-sex couples violated the state’s constitution. The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, and the National Center of Lesbian Rights filed suit under the California constitution’s provisions guaranteeing equality, liberty, and privacy to all state residents.

Opponents of marriage equality in California have been collecting signatures for a further ballot measure this year, which would amend the Constitution to enshrine a discriminatory definition of marriage as restricted to a man and a woman. State authorities will determine next month whether advocates have collected enough signatures to force the measure onto the ballot, which would also invalidate any marriages performed under the court’s decision.

“Human rights aren’t things to be revoked or repossessed,” said Long. “California’s voters, if it comes to that, will respect the principles behind this decision, and refuse to treat equality as transitory.”

In 2005 and again in 2007, the California legislature passed bills which would have ensured equal treatment under the law by allowing same-sex couples to marry in California. Both times, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bills. However, Schwarzenegger has stated he would oppose a discriminatory ballot measure this year. Under the 1996 “Defense of Marriage Act,” the US government is barred from recognizing same-sex relationships. Thus the California decision will still have no effect on marriage rights under federal law.

Source: Human Rights Watch

The Guantanamo Hearings

In November 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration announced that it planned to try foreign terrorism suspects by special military commissions.

In January 2002 the US began sending persons apprehended in the “war on terror” to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, and the Pentagon drafted rules to hold military commissions there. These measures were taken in part to prevent US courts from hearing claims by detainees about the legal basis for their detention or charges of mistreatment. Human Rights Watch believes that the US federal courts are fully capable of prosecuting terrorism suspects.

In June 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions were unlawful because they violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions and because the president had not sought congressional authority establishing them. In September 2006, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, authorizing a new system of military commissions.

Now, more than six years after the commissions were first announced, no case has gone to trial, and only one person -- Australian David Hicks -- has been convicted. He agreed to plead guilty to one count of providing material support to terrorism in exchange for a nine-month sentence, which he served in Australia.

Meanwhile, the military commissions have been subjected to numerous legal challenges and come under a barrage of criticism that they do not provide fundamental fair trial rights. Last year the commissions’ chief military prosecutor resigned stating that it would be impossible for detainees to receive full, fair and open trials in the presently constituted system. Among the primary concerns are the commissions’ vulnerability to executive pressure, what looks like an effort to rush the cases to trial and the allowance of evidence obtained through abuse. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has warned that commission trials at Guantanamo will have a “taint” to them.

Despite widespread concerns about the commissions raised in the United States and abroad, commission hearings are proceeding. To date, the US government has announced charges against 15 men, including six cases in which the US is seeking the death penalty.

1) Ali Abdul Aziz Ali; Nationality: Pakistani
2) Walid bin ‘Attash; Nationality: Yemeni
3) Ali Hamza al-Bahlul; Nationality: Yemeni
4) Ramzi Binalshibh; Nationality: Yemeni
5) Ahmed al-Darbi; Nationality: Saudi
6) Ahmed Ghailani; Nationality: Tanzanian
7) Salim Hamdan; Nationality: Yemeni
8) Mustafa al-Hawsawi; Nationality: Saudi
9) David Hicks; Nationality: Australian
10) Mohammed Jawad; Nationality: Afghan
11) Mohammed Kamin; Nationality: Afghan
12) Omar Khadr; Nationality: Canadian
13) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Nationality: Kuwaiti
14) Mohammed al-Qahtani; Nationality: Saudi
15) Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi; Nationality: Sudanese

Source: Human Rights Watch

p/s: Don't you feel something fishy is going on in the military commission? There's only one non-Muslim among the 15 charged and well, he's the only one convicted while the rest remain pending infinitely..

Cher Linn

The Clean Energy Scam

This is a blog post written by a friend of mine. I find that he did a good summary on what's on about this supposely environmentally friendly + resource saving + profit generatng industry of alternative fuel and what is really the backlash of it.

Cheers,
Cher Linn

"Renewable fuels has become one of those motherhood-and-apple-pie catchphrases, as unobjectionable as the troops or the middle class. But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it." - Michael Grunwald, The Clean Energy Scam.



In the latest cover story of TIME Magazine, Grunwald writes about the basic problem concerning the use of alternative fuels (in this case, corn ethanol): since researchers have mostly ignored the prospect of using corn ethanol on a wide scale, the sudden transition means that the land used to grow fuel leads to deforestation of areas which store large amounts of carbon.

I found the entire article to be extremely interesting, so I feel compelled to share some bits of information about it on this blog. (You can read the full article here.)

The article focuses on the deforestation of the Amazon forest in Brazil. What happens is:
1. 1/5 of the US corn crop is diverted in more than 100 ethanol refineries. The increased demand boosts the price of corn to record levels.
2. Eager to cash in, many US soybean farmers switch to corn. Soybean prices rise as supplies decline.
3. To meet global demand for soybeans, Brazilian farmers expand into fields previously used as cattle pasturelands. Displaced ranchers clear new grazing lands in the Amazon or the Cerrado savanna, releasing carbon.

When the deforestation is taken into account, corn ethanol and soy biodiesel produce about twice the emissions of gasoline (Science magazine). In other words, the apparent solution to the one of the world's biggest problems is one big problem on its own.

The math of all this is surprisingly simple, and I'm knocking myself on the head for never even thinking about this before. And clearly, a lot of people have not thought about it (or have, and chose to ignore it for political reasons) - The US quintupled its production of ethanol and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. And since there's much more money to be made from tearing the forests down than to preserve them, it's extremely difficult to tell Brazilian farmers not to make use of the resources they have to grow crops for the alternative fuel market.

Also, the article also touches on the other non-environmentally-related consequences of the so-called 'clean energy myth'. For example, because corn is being grown for production of ethanol fuels, there is less food available on the market, so the poor will eat less due to soaring food prices. It is predicted that by 2025, the ranks of the hungry will increase to 1.2 billion after adjusting inflationary effects of biofuels (four years ago, it was predicted to fall to 625 million).

Tsunami: the political one and climate change

Cheers :) W2

Political change: worldwide trend

Malaysia's political sea change
March 9, 2008

Malaysians awoke today to the biggest sea change in politics in almost 40 years, with opposition Islamists and reformists winning control of five states and giving the Government a humiliating wake-up call.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's multi-racial Barisan Nasional coalition (BN) won just a simple majority in Parliament, and his future as leader is in doubt after he watched a record majority collapse to the weakest level ever.

His predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, urged him to quit.

"He should accept responsibility," said Mahathir who now says he made a mistake in picking Abdullah as his successor and that the current deputy premier, Najib Razak, should have taken over.

Mahathir, who led the ruling United National Malays Organisation (UMNO), which leads the BN, for 22 years before stepping down in 2003, lashed out after the coalition's worst performance in history.

"My view is he has destroyed UMNO, destroyed the BN and he has been responsible for this," Mahathir told reporters.

The streets were unusually quiet today, with many older Malaysians fearful of trouble.

The last time the coalition suffered a heavy setback, in 1969, race riots erupted.

Barisan has effectively ruled since independence from Britain in 1957.

"I am shocked. It feels Malaysia is a whole new country. It feels like it has been reborn," Daniel Sia, a 27-year-old civil engineer, said as he did some shopping in the capital.

Lai Yee Fei, 28, who works at a coffee bar beneath Kuala Lumpur's soaring twin towers, said she was glad that Malaysia now had a strong opposition to press the Government.

"It's good to give some pressure for Barisan Nasional," she said.

"If the opposition parties can stand up for us, on behalf of us, I think it's good."

Abdullah, who only four years ago led the coalition to a record election victory on a wave of hope for change, faced a bleak political future today, his aides stunned but not willing to concede that he must step down.

"Frankly, this is not really the time because a lot of component parties [of Barisan] have been decimated," one close aide said, declining to be identified.

"We have lost a few people and I think it's time to consolidate."

Abdullah's humbling performance nationally - the coalition ended up with 62 per cent of federal seats, down from 90 per cent previously - was compounded by the fact that his own home state, the industrial heartland of Penang, fell to the opposition.

The leftist Chinese-backed Democratic Action Party (DAP) won Penang, the hub for Malaysia's electronics industry, which accounts for about half of exports.

The opposition Islamist party PAS scored shock victories in the northern heartland states of Kedah and Perak and easily retained power in its stronghold in north-eastern Kelantan state.
DAP and PAS also joined the People's Justice Party, or Parti Keadilan, to take control of the industrial state of Selangor and almost all the seats in capital Kuala Lumpur.

Political experts and economists wondered aloud whether the Barisan government could now pursue its agenda, including plans for $US325 billion ($351.5 billion) in development zones across the country.

Without a two-thirds parliamentary majority, Barisan can no longer change the constitution or make some key appointments and could struggle to alter electoral boundaries, powers that the opposition have long maintained were abused by Barisan.

"This is probably not good news for the equity market or the ringgit," said Tim Condon, Singapore-based head of Asia research for investment bank ING.

The pro-government media, Abdullah's cheer-leader during the campaign, changed tack today, urging Barisan to ensure better job and education opportunities in the multi-racial nation.
Malaysia is largely a mix of ethnic Malays, which make up about 55 per cent of the population, and ethnic Chinese and Indians, who account for about a third.

A protest vote from Chinese and Indians, upset over what they saw as racial inequality in terms of business, job and education opportunities, had been expected.

The Indians were merciless, voting out the leader of the coalition's Indian component party and handing a seat to an Indian activist now in detention.

But Malays, who are all Muslims and traditionally support Barisan in good times and bad, completed a perfect storm for the Government, handing the opposition Islamists a record vote in what was perceived as a protest against rising prices.

"Tomorrow we will start building a brighter future," said opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim, de facto leader of Parti Keadilan, which emerged as the biggest opposition party in federal parliament with 31 seats.

"This is a new dawn for Malaysia."

Anwar, a Malay and former deputy premier, is widely seen as the only politician who could unify the ideologically divided opposition into a coherent and credible political force, though many political experts see this an almost possible task.

Anwar was banned from standing in the elections because of a criminal record - he spent six years in jail until 2004 on what he called trumped-up charges - but is expected to take over his old seat from his wife, who has held it since his 1998 jailing.

Results from the elections commission late today showed the National Front with 137 seats in the 222-seat Parliament versus 82 for the opposition, with three seats still being tallied.

Reuters, AFP

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/03/09/1204998272533.html

Kenya

The Kenya public needs to see progress
Story by KEN OUKO
Publication Date: 3/30/2008
Kenneth Boulding authored these famous words back in 1970 in reference to a Europe stuck at the crossroads. He cautioned that what Europe required most was progress but that the feeling of progress had to seep through to the public, be felt by the public and, by subsequence, endorsed by the public. This is the point our two crest-wave leaders are missing.

The Kenyan public needs to be imbued with a sense of progress. The Kenyan public needs to feel a part of this progress. We need to indulge in the renewal of hope clad in the attire of progress.
Oxford Concise offers a variety of definitions of the word public, the most relevant of which is “of or engaged in the affairs or service of the people.” The immediate implication here is that whatever leaders do, it ought to be for the good of the people they serve. In Kenya it seems to be the opposite. What the leaders do seems to be for their own good and for the good of their advisers.

Sociologists, on the other hand, define the public as “a large collectivity of persons with effective inter-member communication regarding an ongoing issue, event or person.” The public plays a critical role in determining who governs them and the pursuant quality of such governance.
Recent Kenyan history has revealed that it doesn’t matter what the declared outcome of an election is until there is public consensus about the mandate to govern. It has also revealed that public sentiment can easily rubbish procedurally endorsed legitimacy given to a leader by existing institutionalised methods.

Global history also teaches that leaders who undermine the need for public goodwill do so at their fatalistic peril. Sadly, this appears to be the precipice President Kibaki and PM-Designate Odinga seem to be dangling their fortunes on.

For, as long as our country has a leadership that seems insensitive to public sentiment, we will never experience change in the true form of the concept.

A sociologist’s take on change is that it must entail two prime components -- progress and an evolved mindset.

The benefits of such progress must be appreciated by the governed public while the transformation of mindset must be exhibited by the leadership. This is the current mouse-trap fix we, as a country, find ourselves in.

The Kenyan public is increasingly becoming disenchanted with its leadership while the leadership is unflinchingly exhibiting a rigidity of mindset that is almost pathological.
Our leaders cannot pretend to have inhaled fresh breath and exhaled steamy hope from the Kofi Annan-led mediation process when their mindsets remain collectively sandwiched between political rigmarole and rhetorical gerrymandering.

What our leaders are putting us through is not very different from inviting the whole world to witness the spectacle of a serial rapist graduate with an exemplary PhD in Gynaecology.
The PNU outfit in particular does not seem to care much for public perception or sentiment.
To even suggest a bloated cabinet at this point in our history is to deliberately stir negative public perception.

Of particular wonder is how a president who has recently been on the mend with the Kenyan public as a man with the interests of the nation at heart can succumb to the avaricious interests of those surrounding him by suggesting the creation of absurdly christened ministries for their comfort.

From the onset of the coalition agreement, observers immediately became aware of the president’s dilemma especially in regard to the incorporation of ODM-K into the PNU side of the bread.

The President needs to realise that ODM is not necessarily composed of angels but his PNU side is suddenly making the ODM brigade look heavenly, which is bad for business. For as long as our leaders remain caught in the spinney-web of combative mindsets and the tiring rhetoric of reductionism, this country will simply never experience meaningful change.

It is hard to name any Kenyan leader in all 44 years of independence with the ideological originality of Napoleon Bonaparte, the pragmatism of Muammar Gaddafi, the fieriness of Fidel Castro or the charisma of Nelson Mandela.

Such is the dearth of leadership quality in Kenya that one has to scratch his head trying to locate a leader who could have or who will lead us into the new Kenya we all thirst for.
A revolution need not be a bloody and violent affair. Modern revolutions simply imply a complete overhaul of the political and economic structures of a nation complete with the transformative social existence that follows such overhaul by natural subsequence.

Only last week, I was cheering the constructive symbolism hidden in Minister Amos Kimunya’s proclamation of goodwill from Mr Odinga. Days later, Mr Odinga contemptuously dismissed Mr Kimunya as unqualified to speak on his behalf.

Meanwhile, as Mr Kimunya is dismissing Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o’s concerns as the whimpering of a misguided individual, ODM MPs are giving ultimatums to Education Minister Sam Ongeri to nullify the KCSE examination results. When did the new-found spirit of joint leadership evaporate?

Ken Ouko is a sociology lecturer at the University of Nairobi

News Updates

Hi, here are several links to articles or recent happenings around the globe. Check them out and be informed.

Kind regards,
Cher Linn

A hit of a decade:
Earthquake hits much of England

Kenya Crisis: Crying Out for Resolution
Annan suspends talks with Kenyan crisis negotiators

Mr. Mugabe:
Zimbabwe : Divide and conquer

Raul Castro: A Change?
Hints of Change Are Met in Cuba by Cautious Eyes

Bioethics:
Transplant Surgeon Charged in Patient’s Death