Tag Archives: Enterprise IT

Baidu Denies ERNIE Bot Link To Chinese Military Research!

Baidu just denied any link between its ERNIE Bot generative AI service, and a Chinese military AI!

 

SCMP : Baidu ERNIE Bot Linked To Chinese Military!

On 12 January 2024, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that a research laboratory under the Strategic Support Force cyberwarfare division of the People’s Liberation Army “forged a physical link” between its AI system, and large language models in China, specifically the Baidu ERNIE Bot, and the iFLYTEK Spark.

According to SCMP, the project was detailed in a peer-reviewed paper published in the December 2023 issue of the Chinese academic journal, Command Control & Simulation. It also reported this as the first time the Chinese military has publicly confirmed its use of commercial large language models.

According to scientists involved in the project, a research laboratory with the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Strategic Support Force, which oversees the Chinese military’s space, cyber, intelligence and electronic warfare, has forged a physical link between its AI system and Baidu’s Ernie and iFlyTek’s Spark, which are large language models similar to ChatGPT.

The military AI can convert vast amounts of sensor data and information reported by frontline units into descriptive language or images and relay them to the commercial models. After they confirm they understand, the military AI automatically generates prompts for deeper exchange on various tasks such as combat simulations. The entire process is completely free of human involvement.

The paper by Sun Yifeng and his team from the PLA’s Information Engineering University, discussed how they fed military AI data on the 2011 US military intervention in Libya to large language models like the Baidu ERNIE Bot, and after several rounds of dialogue, they were able to predict the US military’s combat strategy.

In the paper, Sun’s team discussed one of their experiments that simulated a US military invasion of Libya in 2011. The military AI provided information about the weapons and deployment of both armies to the large language models. After several rounds of dialogue, the models successfully predicted the next move of the US military.

After the publication of that story, Baidu’s shares fell by more than 11.5%, amidst fears that such a direct link to the Chinese military would result in US sanctions, not unlike what happened to HUAWEI.

Recommended : Were Chinese Missiles Really Filled With Water?!

 

Baidu Denies ERNIE Bot Link To Chinese Military Research!

Initially, Baidu only stated that it has no knowledge of the research project:

We have no knowledge of the research project, and if our large language model was used, it would have been the version that is publicly available online

However, after its stock price fell, Baidu issued a stronger denial on 15 January 2024.

Baidu stated that it did not have any “business collaboration” with Sun Yifeng’s team, or the PLA’s Information Engineering University, and stated that if ERNIE Bot was used in that research, it would have been the publicly-available version.

ERNIE Bot is available to and used by the general public.

The academic paper, published by scholars at a Chinese university, described how the authors built prompts and received responses from LLMs, using the functions available to any user interacting with generative AI tools.

Baidu has not engaged in any business collaboration or provided any tailored service to authors of the academic paper or any institutions with which they are affiliated.

Baidu also sated that SCMP has since “clarified and corrected” its report.

The South China Morning Post, the first media outlet that reported on this academic paper, has clarified and corrected its original media report.

SCMP removed its reference to a physical link between Ernie Bot and any Chinese military AI system, amending it t o say that the PLA laboratory tested its AI system system on Baidu Ernie and iFLYTEK Spark.

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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China Still Has Access To High-Speed NVIDIA AI Chips!

Military institutions, AI research institutes and universities in China are still able to source and buy NVIDIA AI chips, albeit in small quantities!

 

AMD + NVIDIA Banned From Selling AI Chips To China!

Both AMD and NVIDIA were ordered by the US government to stop selling high-performance AI chips to both China and Russia on 26 August 2022. This ban was introduced to prevent both countries from using those high-performance AI chips for military purposes.

With immediate effect, the US government banned the export of all AI chips that are equal to, or faster than, the NVIDIA A100 (and H100), or the AMD Instinct MI250 chips. NVIDIA then created slower A800 and H800 AI chips for the Chinese market, but even they were also banned in October 2023.

Recommended : AMD, NVIDIA Banned From Selling AI Chips To China!

 

China Still Has Access To High-Speed NVIDIA AI Chips!

Despite the ongoing ban on the sale of high-performance AI chips to China and Russia, it appears that Chinese military-linked research institutes are still able to source and buy NVIDIA AI chips, albeit in small quantities!

According to a Reuters report on 14 January 2024, public tender documents show that dozens of military institutions, AI research institutes and universities in China with links to the military, have purchased and received high-performance NVIDIA AI chips like the A100 and the H100, as well as the slower A800 and H800 AI chips.

  • Harbin Institute of Technology purchased six NVIDIA A100 chips in May 2023, to train a deep-learning model
  • University of Electronic Science and Technology of China purchased on NVIDIA A100 in December 2022, for an unspecified purpose.

Both universities are subject to the US export restrictions, although the sale of those AI chips are not illegal in China.

More than 100 tenders were identified, in which Chinese state entities successfully purchased NVIDIA A100 and H100 chips, and dozens of tenders show successful purchases of the slower A800 chips.

  • Tsinghua University purchased two H100 chips in December 2023, as well as about eighty A100 chips since September 2022.
  • A Ministry of Industry and Information Technology laboratory purchased a H100 chip in December 2023.
  • An unnamed People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entity based in Wuxi sought to purchase three A100 chips in October 2023, and one H100 chip in January 2024
  • Shandong Artificial Intelligence Institute purchased five A100 chips from Shandong Chengxiang Electronic Technology in December 2023
  • Chongqing University purchased an NVIDIA A100 chip in January 2024.

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To be clear – neither NVIDIA or its approved retailers were found to have supplied those chips. NVIDIA said that it complies with all applicable export control laws, and requires its customers to do the same:

If we learn that a customer has made an unlawful resale to third parties, we’ll take immediate and appropriate action.

– NVIDIA spokesperson

Even though Chinese state entities appear to be able to purchase high-performance AI chips, the Reuters report also shows the effectiveness of the American AI chip ban.

The training of large artificial intelligence models require thousands of high-performance AI chips, and China does not seem to be able to procure more than a handful of these critical chips.

That does not mean China is slowing down its AI initiatives. Instead of relying on “gray imports” of AMD or NVIDIA AI chips, Chinese entities are doing their best to switch to local alternatives. In 2023, HUAWEI received orders for some 5,000 of its Ascent 910B chips.

Chinese mega-companies like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent also have their own in-house AI chips like the Kunlunxin Gen 2, Hanguang 800, and Zixiao.

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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How Antivaxxers Create Fake News Using VAERS!

Like the British Yellow Card system, VAERS has long been used by antivaxxers to create fake news about vaccines.

Find out why VAERS is so important to doctors, and yet so easily abused by antivaxxers!

Updated @ 2024-01-07 : Refreshed article for new slew of VAERS-based “reports”
Originally posted @ 2021-09-03

 

VAERS : What Is It?

VAERS is an acronym for the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System used by the US government.

Like the British Yellow Card system, it is a passive reporting system that relies on individuals to submit reports of their adverse reactions to vaccines.

This open design used by both VAERS and Yellow Card lets scientists catch very rare adverse effects that even large clinical trials may not catch.

For example, anaphylactic reactions to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are so rare, they didn’t show up in their large Phase 3 clinical trials at all. They were only identified through VAERS after mass vaccinations started.

Recommended : Did Hackers Release Pfizer + Moderna Vaccine Death Data?!

 

Here’s How Antivaxxers Create Fake News Using VAERS!

Both the American VAERS and the British Yellow Card system suffer from the same problem – their open catch-all design lets ANYONE file a report.

Not just parents and patients, but also any Tom, Dick or Harry with nothing better to do. And you don’t even have to ever been to the United States to file a report!

This allows antivaxxers to abuse both the VAERS and Yellow Card systems to create fake news about vaccines.

Back in 2004, James Laidler famously filed an adverse reaction report into VAERS, claiming that his annual influenza vaccine turned him into the Incredible Hulk!

Incredibly, the CDC had to ask for his permission to remove the fake report. Otherwise, it would remain in the database forever!

Recommended : Were COVID-19 Vaccines Recalled After 40K Deaths?!

More recently, anti-vaccination websites have been using VAERS and Yellow Card reports to fabricate fake news that vaccines are killing people.

The CDC is well-aware of this problem, which is why they explicitly pointed out to everyone that :

  • Reports may include incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental and unverified information.
  • The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines.

So the next time you read an article claiming that VAERS or the Yellow Card system are reporting injuries and deaths from this or that vaccine, take them with a BIG, BIG PINCH of salt. None of those reports are verified.

 

VAERS : Anyone Can File A Fake Report!

To demonstrate this point, here is a fake report I attempted to file into VAERS, with the following information :

First Name : Donkey
Last Name : Kong
Street Address : Rolling Barrel Avenue
City : Jungle
County : Donkey
Date Of Birth : 1 January 1908
Age : 113 Years Old
Race : 1% white, 2% black, 3% Asian, 4% Latin, 90% alien

Date of Vaccination : 31 May 2021, 1:00 AM
Date of Adverse Event : 31 May 2021, 1:01 AM
Facility / Clinic Name : Jungle Clinic
Facility / Clinic Address : Jungle Clearing, Jungle

Recommended : Did Bill Gates Call For COVID-19 Vaccine Withdrawal?!

Vaccine : COVID19 (Pfizer-BioNTech)
Lot Number : 1110654
Dose Number : 6 (it actually only has 2 doses)

Description of Adverse Event(s)

I asked to be jabbed in my left arm, the doctor insisted right arm is better because right is right, no?

After the jab, I went back and on the way back, two young punks pulled up in their fancy Mercedes at the traffic light.

I challenged them to a race in my Mustang, and midway, they clipped me and sent me flying through the walls of the Grand National Bank.

As a result, I suffered two broken legs and my right arm was ripped off.

I’m absolutely confident that my driving skills were impaired by the vaccine, and it also made my right arm easy to tear off.

Recommended : COVID vaccines have 1000X death rate than safe limit?!

Medical tests and lab results

The doctors at AdventHealth Orlando have all my medical reports and my right arm.

Days hospitalised : 300
Life threatening illness : Yes
Disability or permanent damage : Yes
Congenital anomaly or birth defect : Yes

Other Vaccine : Bullshit Vaccine
Manufacturer : Google
Adverse Event From That Vaccine : My penis fell off after getting the MMR vaccine

I did not hit Submit though, because I did not want to add another fake adverse event to the holster of anti-vaccination advocates.

But take a look at the screenshots, and see just how easy it is for anyone to make a fake VAERS report. There is no need to verify any personal details, and you can do this from anywhere in the world!

Recommended : Are Residual DNA In mRNA Vaccines Dangerous?!

But as you can now see – it is very easy to abuse VAERS. With enough time and persistence, you can file all kinds of fake reports on VAERS, and use those reports to push your narrative.

That’s why responsible people do not use unverified VAERS reports. You should always be wary of anyone who makes a claim based on VAERS reports.

Please help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check article out, and please SUPPORT our work!

Don’t forget to protect yourself, and your family, by vaccinating against COVID-19!

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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IBM To Fuel AI Digital Transformation In Malaysia!

IBM is offering IT infrastructure with a new level of security and reliability to fuel Malaysia’s AI digital transformation!

 

AI Digital Transformation In Malaysia Needs Better IT Infra!

Malaysia is at a pivotal point in its digital journey, with businesses future-proofing their organisations by leveraging AI and automation.

The digital economy is now a cornerstone of Malaysia’s economy, contributing 23.2% of the nation’s gross domestic product in 2021. The Malaysia Minister of Communications and Digital, Fahmi Fadzil, anticipates that this will increase to 25.5% by 2025, with a value of RM382 billion. The National Tech Association of Malaysia is even more optimistic, and believes that the digital economy will hit that economic contribution much earlier.

The increased urgency in adopting cutting-edge technologies like AI is driving demand for better IT infrastructure. Better not just in terms of performance and availability, but also security and reliability.

An IDC report forecasted that AI spending in the Asia Pacific region alone will skyrocket to US$78 billion by 2027. And these AI investments are predominantly being funnelled into infrastructure provisioning. That’s because ultimately, digital transformation in any nation is reliant on its IT infrastructure.

Recommended : IBM Expands Power10 Server Line With New Models!

 

IBM To Fuel AI Digital Transformation In Malaysia!

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to AI infrastructure. Organisations must provision the right infrastructure for the AI task at hand.

They have to not only look at the size and scale of the AI models and tasks, they also have to consider security and privacy issues, as well as regulatory compliance. A resilient infrastructure by design is also critical, with AI workloads becoming essential backbones to mission critical applications and workloads.

To that end, IBM Power Systems offer a secure and reliable platform for enterprises to perform inference, and run AI algorithms on their most sensitive data and transactions.

IBM Power Systems run on the Power10 core, which is designed for AI acceleration. Each Power10 core on the IBM Power S1022 can process up to 42% more batch queries per second than a comparable x86 server with a peak load of 40 concurrent users, while running large language AI models.

IBM Power10 systems also offers enterprise out-0f-the-box low-latency transactional capabilities and throughput, resiliency, continuous availability (99.999%) and concurrent replace and repair.

The IBM Power10 is also designed for greater efficiency. The Power E1080, for example, offers 3X the capacity with 52% lower power consumption for the same workload, compared to the Power E880C. It also offers 33% lower power consumption than the Power E980 for the same workload.

IBM claims that, in general, Power10 systems offer 6X more throughput per container cluster, and 40% to 50% lower cost than comparable x86 solutions.

On top of that, the IBM Power Systems are built to be secure by design, with a fully-integrated secured stack from processor chip to operating system, offering quantum-safe encryption and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE).

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp

Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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Cloudflare Services Down For Almost 2 Days In Major Outage!

Cloudflare services have gone down in a major outage, due to a loss of power affecting its data centres! Find out what’s going on!

Updated @ 2023-11-04 : Added new information and updates
Updated @ 2023-11-03 : Added new information and updates

Originally posted @ 2023-11-02

 

Cloudflare Dashboard + Services Down In Major Outage!

At approximately 11:54 AM UTC on 2 November 2023, Cloudflare customers started experiencing problems with its APIs and Dashboard services. Any user logging into their accounts would only see this announcement:

The Cloudflare Dashboard is temporarily unavailable.

Please reload this page to try again. If the issue persists, please visit the Cloudflare Status page for up-to-date information regarding any ongoing issues.

Cloudflare Edge security features, and Cloudflare CDN caching services were not affected. But all other services relying on the Cloudflare API infrastructure went down – Alerts, Dashboard functionality, Zero Trust, WARP, Cloudflared, Waiting Room, Gateway, Stream, Magic WAN, API Shield, Pages, and Workers.

Recommended : WhatsApp Block Button Scam : What You Need To Know!

 

Cloudflare Services Down From Datacenter Power Loss!

Just over an hour later, Cloudflare reported that the outage was far worse than it initially reported, and they were still “actively investigating the problem”. They also provided a more detailed list of its services that have gone down:

The following products are currently impacted at the data plane / edge level, meaning that the full product functionality is either partially or fully affected: Logpush, WARP / Zero Trust device posture, Cloudflare dashboard, Cloudflare API, Stream API, Workers API, Alert Notification System.

These products are impacted at the control plane / core level, meaning that only the changes to the existing configuration are affected, but the product is functioning at the edge: Magic Transit, Argo Smart Routing, Workers KV, WAF, Rate Limiting, Rules, WARP / Zero Trust Registration, Waiting Room, Load Balancing and Healthchecks, Cloudflare Pages, Zero Trust Gateway, DNS Authoritative and Secondary, Cloudflare Tunnel, Workers KV namespace operations, Magic WAN.

At approximately 1:58 PM UTC, Cloudflare finally revealed that the outage was due to a loss of power at its datacenter, which caused services to fail simultaneously.

Cloudflare is assessing a loss of power impacting data centres while simultaneously failing over services.

We are continuing to work on a fix for this issue.

Several hours later – at 5:08 PM UTC, power was partially restored to its core North American data centre, and some core services were transferred to a backup data centre. In three subsequent updates, Cloudflare reports that it was seeing “gradual improvement” to its affected services.

However, at almost 11 PM that day – almost half a day after the outage started, Cloudflare was still working to restore full functionality.

At 2:40 AM UTC on 3 November, Cloudflare released an updated list of what is now functioning, and what still remains down:

Data plane impact (i.e. full product functionality is either fully impacted or partially impacted):
* Cloudflare Dash: degraded availability but accessible
* Stream API: not available
* Healthchecks: not available
* Radar: Degraded

Control plane impact (i.e. product functionality is online however changes to configuration is impacted):
* Cloudflare Pages: restored
* Magic Transit: not available to make changes
* Magic WAN: not available to make changes
* Argo Smart Routing: configuration now working, smart updates and analytics are offline
* Waiting Room: configuration updates are propagating with delay
* ZT Gateway: degraded but online
* DNS Secondary: not available to make changes
* Billing API: Degraded
* Cloudflare API: degraded but accessible

Some six hours later, they appear to be making some progress, although it seem obvious that they are a long way from a full restoration of services.

Data plane impact (i.e. full product functionality is either fully impacted or partially impacted):
* Logpush: more jobs are being restored
* Cloudflare dashboard: degraded availability but accessible
* Stream API: not available
* Healthchecks: not available
* Radar: Degraded

Control plane impact (i.e. product functionality is online however changes to configuration is impacted):
* CDN API: potentially impacted
* Access API: Degraded
* Magic Transit: configuration plane is working internally (contact your account team to make any urgent changes)
* Magic WAN: configuration plane is working internally (contact your account team to make any urgent changes)
* SOC Proactive Alerts: not available
* Argo Smart Routing: configuration now working, smart updates and analytics are offline
* Billing API: Degraded
* Email Noticatifications: Emails updates from Cloudflare are being delayed or not sent
* Lists: List configurations are working, but there may be delays in list updates propagating throughout the cloudflare network

Almost a day later – at 10:59 AM UTC, Cloudflare said that it was still continuing to work on restoring service for the impacted applications. It is unknown if power has been restored to their North American datacenter in full… or if they are facing other problems

The good news is that – the Cloudflare Dashboard is now working, although certain services or features like Analytics are “temporarily unavailable”, and you may get error messages about certain API requests failing.

It was only at 6:42 AM UTC on November 4, 2023 – almost 2 days later, that Cloudflare finally reported that it restored all services to “operational status”.

Now, we wait to see whether it would reveal what actually happened in this exceptional downtime, for a company that prides itself on helping to keep its clients online and available…

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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WithSecure Signs Partnership Agreement With LGMS!

Finland’s WithSecure Corporation just signed a partnership agreement with LGMS Berhad to develop cybersecurity solutions for the SME market in Malaysia!

 

WithSecure Signs Partnership Agreement With LGMS

On Wednesday, 1 November 2023, Finland’s WithSecure Corporation (formerly known as F-Secure Business) signed a partnership agreement with LGMS Berhad (LGMS) to develop cybersecurity solutions for the SME market in Malaysia!

The partnership agreement was signed by LGMS Executive Chairman Fong Choong Fook and WithSecure Corporation CEO Juhani Hintikka, who flew in from Finland to emphasise its importance while demonstrating support for the progress of Malaysia’s Digital Economy.

The signing was witnessed by Malaysia Deputy Communications and Digital Minister Teo Nie Ching, together with His Excellency Sami Leino, Ambassador of Finland to Malaysia and Brunei.

Recommended : WithSecure Takes Offensive Security Approach To Cloud Threats!

The Deputy Minister said that the partnership was ‘timely’, and represents a ‘significant leap’ towards a secured Digital Economy, and more so ahead of the National Cybersecurity Bill the Unity Government is set to unveil in early-2024.

This partnership is also aligned with the government’s ‘Ekonomi Madani’ vision of attracting significant foreign direct investments and generating avenues for technological advancements and innovations.

It serves to demonstrate how collaborative efforts can facilitate a robust, secure and prosperous digital ecosystem, thereby solidifying Malaysia’s position as a preferred destination for global tech investments.

The partnership agreement today between LGMS and WithSecure embodies a philosophy of attracting significant foreign direct investments and generating avenues for technological advancements and innovations.

It serves to demonstrate how collaborative efforts can facilitate a robust, secure and prosperous digital ecosystem, thereby solidifying Malaysia’s position as a preferred destination for global tech investments.

– Malaysia Deputy Communications and Digital Minister Teo Nie Ching

WithSecure CEO Juhani Hintikka expressed his ‘deepest appreciation’ to the Deputy Minister for endorsing this partnership, stating, “Your presence significantly amplifies the resonance of this initiative, showcasing a unified front in our endeavour to foster a secure and prosperous Digital Economy for Malaysia and also the region.

Recommended : How WithSecure Offensive Security Drives Business Resilience!

 

WithSecure – LGMS Partnership Agreement Details

WithSecure is today a leading international cybersecurity group which had also invested significantly in Malaysia and in nurturing local talent. Besides its headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, WithSecure houses its intelligence, customer support, business operations and shared services in Kuala Lumpur for its Asia-Pacific operations.

LGMS Berhad, meanwhile, has been recognised as Cybersecurity Malaysia’s ‘Company of the Year’ with Fong himself being acknowledged as ‘Cybersecurity Professional of the Year’.

Fong said that, within today’s Digital Economy, cyberthreats and ransomware attacks have become more sophisticated and rampant and potential damages to SMEs, who often lack the necessary IT expertise and resources, can be catastrophic.

Most SMEs today are just one cyber attack away from a devastating setback or even closure. Recognising that most SMEs might not possess advanced IT know-how, our collaboration with WithSecure aims to deliver cybersecurity solutions that are not only robust but also intuitive and user-friendly.

The purpose is to empower our SME community to navigate the digital landscape confidently and securely.

– LGMS Executive Chairman Fong Choong Fook

This localised cybersecurity approach underscores WithSecure’s understanding of the region’s unique digital ecosystem and our commitment to crafting solutions that align with local business needs. It embodies WithSecure’s ethos of merging global cybersecurity expertise with local insights to foster a safer digital realm.

– WithSecure Corporation CEO Juhani Hintikka

One product of this partnership is the ‘Made in Malaysia’ StarSentry solution – a plug-and-play model that is more than just a ‘shield’ for SMEs but offers a proactive approach to threat prevention.

This solution is also aligned with broader sustainability goal and embraces the ESG framework of safeguarding critical infrastructures, nurturing a secure digital community and reinforcing stringent governance standards, demonstrating an unwavering commitment to responsible, transparent business operations.

Pre-orders for the solution can already be made.

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp

Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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Maybank Online + Card Services Finally Up + Running!

Maybank just announced that all of its online, mobile and card services are up and running after going offline earlier today! Here is what you need to know…

 

Maybank Online + Card Services Finally Up + Running!

At 3:46 PM on 7 August 2023, Maybank sent out an alert that all of its online, mobile and card services are temporarily unavailable

  • Maybank2U web banking services
  • M2U and MAE mobile banking apps
  • debit and credit card usage

The only good news is that ATM and counter services appear to be unaffected by this downtime.

This announcement came hours after people started complaining that they could not log into the Maybank website.

As of 4 PM, none of Maybank’s online or mobile services are working. Neither will you be able to use your Maybank debit or credit card to make payments.

Update @ 4:30 PM : Maybank just announced that it restored Maybank2U web, the MAE app, and both debit card and credit card services!

Recommended : Maybank FB Ads Scam : How To Recover Your Money?!

 

Earlier : Maybank Online + Card Services All Down!

The Maybank downtime appeared to occur at around 1 PM or so, with Maybank initially asking users to switch to the MAE mobile app:

Good day and any inconvenience is much regretted. Based on our checking, the MAE app is operating fine at the moment.uled maintenance to improve your experience and will be back up shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience.

However, some Maybank users soon pointed out that their MAE app wasn’t working either!

Be Right Back!

We’re experiencing communication error. Please try again later.

That’s when Maybank support staff claimed that they were experiencing “intermittent slowness” on their MAE app and Maybank2U web platforms:

Kindly be informed that we are experiencing an intermittent slowness on our MAE App & M2U web platforms.
We are working to resolve the matter as soon as possible. Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused. Thank you for your patience and continuous support.

It was only about two hours later that Maybank finally admitted that all of its mobile and online banking services were down, as well as its debit and credit card services.

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp

Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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How WithSecure Offensive Security Drives Business Resilience!

Find out how WithSecure harnesses the power of offensive security to drive business resilience and enhance protection for its clients!

 

WithSecure Drives Business Resilience Through Offensive Security!

WithSecure (formerly known as ‘F-Secure Business’) is harnessing the power of offensive security in its co-security and co-monitoring products and services. This revolutionary approach is designed to anticipate and mitigate cyber threats by understanding them from an attacker’s perspective.

During the SPHERE security conference 2023, WithSecure’s Chief Product Officer, Antti Koskela, shed light on their game-changing offering called ‘attack surface management.’ This managed service offers a comprehensive view of vulnerabilities in a company’s cloud-based estate.

As a result, WithSecure’s focus on the digital perimeter empowers businesses to reduce their overall attack surface, enhancing their cybersecurity posture in the ever-evolving threat landscape.

Recommended : WithSecure Takes Offensive Security Approach To Cloud Threats!

 

How WithSecure Offensive Security Drives Business Resilience!

WithSecure also introduced three groundbreaking services that amplify their commitment to ‘outcome-based security’ and ‘co-security’. This groundbreaking development was revealed by WithSecure Executive Vice President (Solutions) Scott Reininga, also at the SPHERE security conference 2023.

Reininga underscored WithSecure’s unparalleled expertise in offensive security, revealing that they are the home of one of the world’s most proficient offensive security teams. This team, a fusion of penetration testers (pentesters), red, blue and purple teamers, has profound knowledge of adversary tactics, tradecraft, and techniques.

Penetration testing is a cybersecurity practice that aims to discover vulnerabilities in a system by simulating controlled attacks. Their goal is not to cause damage but to pinpoint weaknesses for rectification. This proactive method, which can involve exploiting software vulnerabilities or simulating social engineering tactics, is key in any comprehensive cybersecurity strategy, offering a practical evaluation of potential risks rather than a theoretical one.

Our relentless pursuit of research and system testing allows us to uncover system vulnerabilities proactively. This crucial data is the building block of our products that are proactive, minimally disruptive, and crafted from the perspective of an attacker.

– Scott Reininga, WithSecure Executive Vice President (Solutions)

These insights were unveiled by Reininga during his recent product launch event titled ‘Co-security and co-managed services for partners’. He was joined on stage by WithSecure Vice President (Offering and Customer Experience) Niko Isotalo.

Expanding on WithSecure’s strategic approach, Isotalo said that the company’s outcome-based security framework model “connects Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and board members, offering clarity about the interplay between security outcomes and business objectives.”

This alignment clarifies the indispensable role of security in the core business framework to board members.

– Niko Isotalo, WithSecure Vice President (Offering and Customer Experience)

Recommended : Avanade Launches New Generative AI Services!

Reininga and Isotalo unveiled the three new offerings during their joint session. The first, termed “co-monitoring,” is a partnership model. WithSecure validates the genuineness of security incidents before alerting the duty manager, effectively curbing false alarms.

WithSecure collaborates with clients to supervise their digital ecosystems, particularly during periods when they are stretched thin on resources. This service, providing support beyond standard working hours, can also deliver round-the-clock monitoring if necessary.

Isotalo further introduced the second service, incident readiness software, recognising that many organisations lack comprehensive incident readiness plans.

Our software simplifies the creation, testing, and updating of such plans, which serve as essential shields against cyber threats.

Recommended : 5 Strategies for Negotiating Airfare Discounts with SAP Concur!

Focusing on the urgency of immediate incident response, Reininga introduced the third service, an incident response retainer.

Our incident response retainer provides unlimited incident response within the critical initial 72 hours of an event. We eliminate the need for negotiation about budget and resource allocation.

We engage consultants rapidly, supported by our globally lauded 24/7 incident response team and top-tier threat intelligence unit, guaranteeing our customers industry-leading service level agreements (SLAs).

By integrating offensive security acumen, co-monitoring capabilities, incident readiness software, and swift incident response, WithSecure empowers organisations to effectively safeguard their digital assets and curtail the impact of potential breaches.

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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Avanade Launches New Generative AI Services!

Avanade just unveiled new generative AI services to help organisations and their people work responsibly and innovate with artificial intelligence!

 

Avanade Launches New Generative AI Services!

July 10, 2023 – Avanade, the leading Microsoft solutions provider, today unveiled new services to help clients address the pressing challenge to ready their people, processes, and technologies for artificial intelligence (AI).

As generative AI technology continues to transform the way we work, live and conduct business in every part of the world and in every industry, expectations are growing exponentially.

Avanade’s Trendlines research reveals that 85 percent of organisations expect AI to increase revenue growth by 2025, with more than two-thirds anticipating AI to be responsible for up to 16 percent growth in global annual revenue. All this points to lucrative rewards for those that seize the growth opportunities of AI now.

Avanade’s new services will enable leaders to assess and monitor multiple business and IT domains to prioritise actions, so they can responsibly harness the benefits of AI.

However, the research also indicates organisations are not ready. Trendlines shows that only 36 percent of business and IT leaders are completely confident that their organisation currently has sufficient checks and balances in place to mitigate the potential risks and harms of AI. Meanwhile, nearly half (48 percent) admit to not having specific guidelines and/or policies put into effect yet for responsible AI.

There is no end point to AI readiness. As generative AI continues to reshape the global business landscape, the importance of adopting an AI-first mindset cannot be overstated.

To seize the growth opportunities of AI and mitigate risks for unintended consequences through continual change, leaders need to consider more than the technology implications of AI. Ultimately, AI-first is people-first.

– Jillian Moore, Global Head of Advisory at Avanade

Recommended : Avanade + Accenture: 2023 Microsoft Global SI Partner of the Year!

 

New Avanade Generative AI Services!

Avanade’s new services have been designed to expedite business value derived from AI while cultivating an AI-first mindset:

The Avanade AI Organisational Readiness Framework provides a comprehensive assessment of an organisation’s business and IT areas. It offers detailed insights into AI readiness across people, processes, and technologies, enabling leaders to prioritise responsible actions for leveraging AI’s benefits.

The service includes executive coaching, tailored employee training, and an innovative “AI control tower” with cloud-based tools, dashboards, and knowledge resources. This ensures continuous AI readiness and empowers leaders to monitor and take real-time actions.

The Avanade AI Governance Quick Start Service addresses the crucial requirement for responsible AI governance. It enables leaders to translate corporate values into guidelines and practices for governing the ethical use of AI.

With a strong framework and methodology, organisations can proactively assess risks in AI projects and enhance their existing business and IT governance processes, policies, and behaviours to effectively manage and reduce AI risks across all functions.

These new services compliment Avanade’s existing portfolio of generative AI strategy workshops, with options ranging from a 2-hour workshop to a 6-week strategy Proof of Concept engagement.

Recommended : WithSecure Takes Offensive Security Approach To Cloud Threats!

As generative AI gains momentum in Southeast Asia, we see a profound shift in how people engage with technology and how organisations function. Avanade is committed to helping our clients navigate this dynamic landscape, focus on doing what matters, and fully embrace the potential of generative AI responsibly.

By evaluating their AI readiness and establishing an ethical technology framework, organisations can ensure their digital advancement aligns with their core values – enabling them to simultaneously prioritise innovation and responsibility.

Bhavya Kapoor, Southeast Asia Managing Director, Avanade

 

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Name : Adrian Wong
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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WithSecure Takes Offensive Security Approach To Cloud Threats!

WithSecure is harnessing the power of the offensive security approach in tackling evolving cloud threats!

 

WithSecure Takes Offensive Security Approach For Cloud Threats!

In a shifting cybersecurity landscape, WithSecure (formerly known as ‘F-Secure Business’) is harnessing the power of offensive security in its co-security and co-monitoring products and services. This revolutionary approach is designed to anticipate and mitigate cyber threats by understanding them from an attacker’s perspective.

During the recent SPHERE security conference 2023 in Helsinki, Finland, WithSecure’s Chief Product Officer, Antti Koskela, shed light on this approach.

We’ve done identity assessments for many cloud-based companies, unveiling weaknesses in their cloud platforms.

Our offensive security approach is about understanding the attack surface of a cloud-based estate. We focus on the digital perimeter, which is crucial to reducing the overall attack surface.

Koskela went on to explain that WithSecure has distilled this insight into an innovative managed service offering called ‘attack surface management’. This service provides a comprehensive view of a company’s vulnerabilities, including IP addresses, port vulnerabilities, exposed APIs and web services, identity matters, patching levels and more.

With more open architecture, control over your attack surface becomes paramount. ‘Zero trust’ alone isn’t the answer as human errors happen. Our holistic approach helps mitigate this.

Recommended : Avanade + Accenture: 2023 Microsoft Global SI Partner of the Year!

WithSecure’s product suite integrates various cloud-native solutions to deliver protection based on specific client requirements. This collaborative process, termed ‘co-security’, is driven by the security and business outcomes defined by the clients. Koskela emphasised the tripartite focus of their solution:

It’s about process, people, and technology. We collaborate to secure the outcomes, letting company directors steer the course of business.

Our WithSecure Elements platform is the cornerstone of our technology, built collaboratively with our clients.

Koskela acknowledged the evolution of the IT industry, from client-server in the ‘90s to hosted services in the 2000s, cloud computing in the 2010s and cloud-native in the 2020s. He underscored the need for a new security approach to match the evolving business environments:

The cloud offers agility, speed, cost-efficiency. But with new technologies come new security considerations.

WithSecure has been proactive, creating solutions for every technological shift – be it firewalling and endpoint protection during the hosted services era, or data security and VPNs for the cloud computing era.

And now, with the rise of cloud-native tech, we’re helping clients to understand and secure their digital perimeter through our offensive security approach.

Recommended : 5 Strategies for Negotiating Airfare Discounts with SAP Concur!

WithSecure Chief Product Officer, Antti Koskela (left), and APAC Regional Director Yong Meng Hong (right)

 

WithSecure Elements Picking Up In APAC

Since its mid-2021 debut, WithSecure’s Elements platform has gained considerable momentum here in Malaysia and the broader Asia-Pacific region. This comprehensive cybersecurity platform has made its mark by providing organisations with a unified solution to their security needs.

Elements equips enterprises with the insight, adaptability, and technology to tackle evolving threats and changing business environments.

Offering unified endpoint protection across devices, clouds and servers, Elements consolidates everything from vulnerability management and collaboration protection to detection and response into one easy-to-navigate security console.

– WithSecure Asia-Pacific Regional Director Yong Meng Hong

Yong further emphasised that the cloud-based Elements platform provides real-time visibility across an entire IT infrastructure, simplifying how enterprises manage their cybersecurity.

Flexible licensing options, including fixed-term subscriptions and usage-based billing, ensure that organizations can tailor their cybersecurity services according to their specific needs.

Elements offers centralised management capabilities, giving IT managers a comprehensive overview of their enterprise’s IT infrastructure, enhancing their reassurance and control.

Today, WithSecure is globally recognised, trusted by a myriad of enterprises to safeguard against cyber threats, while also protecting tens of millions of consumers through over two hundred service providers and telecommunications partners.

For organisations looking to navigate the cloud’s security challenges, WithSecure’s offensive security approach could be just the safeguard they need.

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp

Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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5 Strategies for Negotiating Airfare Discounts with SAP Concur!

Timothy Shim gives us the low-down on the 5 strategies for negotiating airfare discounts with SAP Concur!

 

Negotiating Airfare Discounts with SAP Concur!

Whether it’s a short hop to a neighboring city for a client meeting or an international conference halfway around the globe, airfare costs can significantly dent your company’s budget. That’s where systems like SAP Concur step in.

From leveraging data to setting up effective travel policies, we will explore five strategies for negotiating airfare discounts with SAP Concur. But before we dive into the nitty-gritty, let’s understand what SAP Concur is and how it functions as a critical part of your corporate travel management toolkit.

5 Minute Read

  • Use SAP Concur’s robust reporting tools to gain insights into your company’s travel patterns and use this information to identify potential areas for negotiation with airlines.
  • Centralize your company’s travel bookings with SAP Concur and present your travel volume data to airlines when negotiating for discounts.
  • Use SAP Concur to plan and book corporate travel in advance, demonstrating your commitment to airlines and leveraging this in your negotiations for better rates.
  • Track airfare fluctuations with SAP Concur and use your active engagement with market trends to secure better deals from airlines.
  • Leverage SAP Concur to manage and track your company’s relationships with airlines, leveraging your loyalty and long-term commitment to negotiate for ongoing discounts.

Recommended : Avanade + Accenture: 2023 Microsoft Global SI Partner of the Year!

 

5 Strategies for Negotiating Airfare Discounts with SAP Concur!

SAP Concur is a cloud-based solution integrating travel, expense, and invoice management into one unified system. It aims to simplify these processes and provide a seamless, user-friendly experience.

Travel Management with SAP Concur

Concur Travel is a feature within the platform that allows businesses to manage and streamline their corporate travel processes. It offers a comprehensive range of services, including online booking tools, travel management services, and mobile applications.

These services aid companies in reducing costs, enforcing travel policies, and providing travelers with a smooth and efficient experience.

Expense and Invoice Management

Concur Expense and Concur Invoice are additional features to simplify the expense and invoice management processes. Concur Expense lets employees quickly capture and submit expense reports from any location.

That does much to reduce errors and improve compliance. Concur Invoice automates invoice processing, helping businesses manage spending and cash flow more effectively.

SAP Concur’s Impact on Business Operations

By integrating travel, expense, and invoice management, SAP Concur gives businesses visibility and control over their spending. It also offers valuable insights into spending patterns, helping companies make informed decisions and save money.

Whether a business has a small travel team or a large multinational operation, SAP Concur is designed to adapt to unique needs and deliver tangible benefits.

Recommended : SAP: Malaysian Companies Yet To Gain From Sustainability Plans

Strategy #1: Understand Your Travel Data

The first step to effective negotiation is knowing your ground, and in the context of airfare discounts, that means understanding your travel data. SAP Concur shines here, providing businesses comprehensive insights into their travel habits.

Key Data Points to Focus On

First, pay close attention to your company’s frequently traveled routes, preferred airlines, and ticket classes. Focus on asking the right questions to provide the most actionable insights for your business. For example;

  • Which routes are your employees traveling the most?
  • Which airlines are they choosing?
  • Are they booking economy, business, or first-class tickets?

These data points provide a solid foundation for negotiation discussions with airlines.

Analyzing Trends and Patterns

SAP Concur allows you to analyze trends and patterns in your travel data over time. For instance, you may find that your employees travel more frequently during certain times of the year or prefer specific airlines for international flights. These patterns can provide leverage when negotiating airfare discounts.

Translating Data into Negotiation Power

Armed with this data, you can approach airlines with confidence. Showcase your loyalty to specific airlines, emphasize the volume of business you bring, and demonstrate your understanding of your company’s travel needs.

When airlines see that you know your travel patterns and preferences, they’re more likely to consider offering discounts.

Actionable Tips

  • Use SAP Concur’s reporting tools to gain a comprehensive overview of your company’s travel patterns.
  • Analyze the data to identify trends, such as the most frequently traveled routes, the most used airlines, and peak travel periods.
  • Use this information to identify potential areas for negotiation with airlines.

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Strategy #2: Leverage Your Travel Volume

Once you’ve grasped your travel data, it’s time to focus on volume. As with many things in business, higher volumes can often lead to better deals, and air travel is no different.

With SAP Concur, you can aggregate your travel data to demonstrate the volume of your bookings, forming a compelling case for discounts.

Consolidating Travel Bookings

It’s essential to consolidate your company’s travel bookings as much as possible. Instead of allowing your employees to book flights individually, use SAP Concur to centralize your travel bookings.

This simplifies the booking process and allows you to negotiate with airlines as a single, high-volume customer.

Presenting Your Case to Airlines

When you approach airlines with a substantial volume of business, you’re in a much stronger negotiating position. Airlines are always looking for consistent, reliable customers. Showing them that you provide significant business can encourage them to offer you better rates.

The Win-Win Situation

By offering airlines a substantial and steady volume of business, you’re creating a win-win situation. The airline gets a reliable source of revenue, and in return, your company gets more favorable airfare rates. This symbiotic relationship is the heart of effective negotiation.

Leveraging SAP Concur’s Tools

SAP Concur provides the tools necessary to leverage your travel volume effectively. This platform is an essential partner in your negotiation journey, from consolidating bookings to presenting comprehensive reports.

Using SAP Concur to showcase your travel volume, you can confidently negotiate airfare discounts and ensure your company gets the best possible deals.

Actionable Tips

  • Use SAP Concur to centralize all your company’s travel bookings.
  • Make a report showcasing your company’s travel volume.
  • Present this report to airlines when negotiating discounts.

Strategy #3: Utilize Advanced Booking

We’ve all heard the saying, “The early bird gets the worm,” right? In our case, replace “worm” with “discount.” Being an early bird can be a real game-changer when bagging those sweet airfare deals. And here’s where SAP Concur comes in handy, making advanced booking a breeze.

Think about it – when airlines see steady, early bookings, they’re more willing to give us a break with some discounts. Plus, it’s a stress reliever! You get to avoid the last-minute scramble for tickets, and it’s easier to plan your budget when you know the costs upfront.

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How SAP Concur Helps With Advanced Bookings

SAP Concur is like that incredibly organized friend we all wish we had. With its advanced booking feature, planning your corporate travel well in advance is simple. You can book flights, reserve hotels, and even arrange ground transport, all in one place.

The Art of Negotiation with Advanced Booking

But let’s get back to the discounts. Advanced booking can give you a leg up when negotiating with airlines. Showing them that your company is organized and committed to booking in advance can be a persuasive argument for a lower rate.

Creating a Win-Win Situation (Again!)

Just like with travel volume, advanced booking creates a win-win situation. The airlines have the security of early and regular bookings, and you get to bag those tempting discounts. It’s like a beautiful dance, and SAP Concur is your dance partner, guiding you through each step.

So, remember to plan. It’s not just about saving your sanity; it’s about saving dollars. Advanced booking with SAP Concur? That’s a smart move.

Actionable Tips

● Use SAP Concur’s booking tools to plan and book corporate travel well in advance.
● Track the cost savings achieved through advanced booking.
● Highlight your company’s commitment to early booking when negotiating with airlines.

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Strategy #4: Implement Dynamic Pricing

Next up on our list of strategies is dynamic pricing. That might sound like some sort of jargon straight out of a business textbook, but trust me, it’s more complex than it sounds. It’s all about adaptability, flexibility, and being ready to ride the ever-changing airfare prices.

Airfare prices are like a rollercoaster—they go up, down, and make sudden turns. As a savvy business, we must monitor these fluctuations and use them to our advantage. When we know that prices are changing, we can swoop in and grab those discounts when they pop up.

This is where SAP Concur struts its stuff. It allows us to track these price changes and alerts us when prices drop. It’s like having a vigilant guard dog that barks (or, in this case, sends notifications) when a good deal is on the horizon.

Dynamic Pricing and Negotiation

When you’re at the negotiating table with airlines, being able to talk about dynamic pricing can give you an edge. It shows airlines that you’re not only aware of the market trends but you’re also ready to react to them. This can make them more willing to offer special deals and discounts.

Creating Yet Another Win-Win

By now, you’ve probably noticed a pattern—we’re all about creating win-win situations. With dynamic pricing, the airlines get a customer who’s engaged and responsive to the market, and you get to save some of those hard-earned dollars.

So, let’s embrace the rollercoaster of dynamic pricing. We can ride the ups and downs with great discounts with SAP Concur. Remember, being adaptable in business is a virtue; in this case, it can save you money!

Actionable Tips

  • Use SAP Concur’s tracking features to keep an eye on airfare fluctuations.
  • Book immediately to secure the lower rate when you notice a significant price drop.
  • Mention your dynamic pricing strategy during negotiations with airlines to show that you’re an active and engaged customer.

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Strategy #5: Establish Long-Term Partnerships

Last but not least is the power of long-term partnerships. We’re not just talking about fleeting, one-off deals here. No, we’re looking at the big picture—establishing relationships with airlines that can lead to ongoing discounts.

Loyalty goes a long way in business, and air travel is no different. Airlines appreciate customers who stick around. Knowing they can count on your company’s regular patronage gives them stability.

This is where SAP Concur’s ability to track and manage your travel data shines. It helps you keep track of your company’s relationship with each airline and makes it easier to demonstrate your loyalty when negotiating for better rates.

Using Partnerships to Negotiate Discounts

When you’ve established a long-term relationship with an airline, you’re no longer just another customer—you’re a valued partner. This gives you a significant advantage when negotiating airfare discounts.

Airlines are more likely to give better rates to customers who will continue to bring them business.

The Long Game Wins

Establishing long-term partnerships is like playing the long game. Yes, it requires commitment and consistency, but the payoff can be substantial. Airlines get the assurance of your loyalty, and you get the benefit of ongoing discounts. It’s a classic win-win.

Actionable Tips

● Use SAP Concur to track your company’s relationship with each airline.
● Share this data with airlines to demonstrate your loyalty and commitment.
● Leverage your long-term relationship with airlines to negotiate for ongoing discounts.

Final Thoughts: Turning Strategies into Savings with SAP Concur

We’ve certainly covered some ground! From understanding your travel data, leveraging your travel volume, utilizing advanced booking, and implementing dynamic pricing, to establishing long-term partnerships, it’s clear that there are multiple strategies for negotiating airfare discounts.

And guess what? SAP Concur has been our faithful companion, offering us the tools and features to implement these strategies effectively. It’s more than a travel, expense, and invoice management platform.

It’s a powerful ally that helps us navigate the tricky terrain of corporate travel and airfare negotiation.

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp

Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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Avanade + Accenture: 2023 Microsoft Global SI Partner of the Year!

Avanade and Accenture have just been named 2023 Microsoft Global SI Partner of the Year, for the 18th time!

 

Avanade + Accenture: 2023 Microsoft Global SI Partner of the Year!

Avanade and Accenture have been named 2023 Microsoft Global SI Partner of the Year. This is the 18th time that Avanade and Accenture received the Global SI Partner of the Year recognition from Microsoft.

In total, Avanade and Accenture received close to 120 Partner of the Year awards across various technology and country categories throughout their history, for helping clients transform their employee and customer experiences by creating and delivering leading-edge solutions using Microsoft solutions.

Both companies were also recognised with 17 other awards including Malaysia Partner of the Year and Singapore Partner of the Year.

  • Dynamics 365 Sales & Marketing Partner of the Year
  • Low Code Application Development Partner of the Year
  • Automotive, Mobility and Transportation Partner of the Year
  • Customer Experience Partner of the Year
  • Malaysia Country Partner of the Year
  • Singapore Country Partner of the Year
  • Germany Country Partner of the Year
  • Greece Country Partner of the Year
  • France Country Partner of the Year
  • Portugal Country Partner of the Year
  • UK Country Partner of the Year
  • Denmark: Azure Core: Cloud Infrastructure Partner of The Year
  • Finland: GSI Growth Champion Partner of The Year
  • Asia Pacific: Azure Data & AI Partner of the Year
  • Asia Pacific: Azure Infrastructure Partner of the Year
  • Singapore: Financial Services Industry Partner of The Year
  • Japan: Energy and Resources Partner of the Year

The companies were also named finalists in the following five categories: Retail & Consumer Goods Partner of the Year; Dynamics 365 Finance Partner of the Year; Dynamics 365 Services Partner of the Year; Security Compliance Partner of the Year; Business Intelligence Partner of the Year

The unique partnership between Avanade, Accenture and Microsoft truly enables us to do what matters for our clients – building more resilience in a world of continuous change, empowering employees to embrace new ways of working, strengthening customer experience and now, guiding them on their journey to an ‘AI-first’ world.

Being recognized as Microsoft’s Global SI Partner of The Year for the 18th time is a remarkable achievement that is only possible because of our people all over the world who, every day, bring unrivalled expertise, experience and insights to help our clients solve their toughest business challenges.

– Avanade CEO Pam Maynard

Recommended : Microsoft : No More Windows 10 Updates, EOL In 2025!

 

Avanade + Accenture Collaborates With Microsoft On AI

Avanade, Accenture and Microsoft recently announced an expansion of their close collaboration to help organizations adopt the disruptive power of generative AI, accelerated by the cloud, to fundamentally transform their businesses.

By tapping into the new Accenture Center for Advanced AI, with its deep focus on generative AI and large language models, and the new Avanade AI Organizational Readiness Framework, the companies can help their clients take advantage of generative AI for safe and responsible innovation at scale.

Over the past year, we’ve expanded our partnership with Microsoft by helping more clients transform their organizations through the adoption of data and AI, cloud, metaverse, sustainability and other technologies.

Together with Avanade, we take great pride in helping clients accelerate change to achieve new growth and value, and we look forward to an exciting journey forward with Microsoft.

– Chris Howarth, Senior Managing Director and Accenture Microsoft Business Group Lead

Combined, Avanade and Accenture now have more than 65,000 professionals dedicated to delivering Microsoft technologies.

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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Malaysia To Ban SMS With Personal Details!

Telcos in Malaysia will soon ban SMS messages with personal information, as part of the MCMC’s initiative to prevent scams! Here is what you need to know!

 

Malaysia To Ban SMS With Personal Details!

On Sunday, 2 July 2023, four Malaysian telcos – Maxis, Celcom, Digital and U Mobile will ban SMS messages containing personal information , as part of the MCMC’s initiative to prevent scams.

In addition to the May ban of SMS links, both local and international users will be prevented from sending any SMS message containing:

  • personal details
  • mobile or fixed line phone number
  • banking details like account number
  • MyKad number

All SMS messages containing these forbidden items will not be blocked, but their senders won’t be charged for those blocked messages.

Read more : Malaysian Telcos Ban SMS Links To Prevent Scams!

 

No Ban For SMS With Personal Details Via Short Codes

It should be noted that this ban on SMS messages with personal details do NOT apply to businesses using legitimate Enterprise short codes. They will still be allowed to issue SMS messages with URLs (links), phone numbers, and personal details.

Here are the current Enterprise short codes for Celcom and DIGI, from which you “may” continue to receive SMS messages with hyperlinks (URLs) and personal information.

Telco Enterprise Short Codes
Celcom CelcomDigi / EASYRELOAD
Celcom / CELCOM
2000 / 2901 / 20000 / 78888
28888 / 28882 / 22288 / 28282 / 22888
2001 / 22002 / 22009 / 21888 / 22022 /
22033 / 22162 / 22244 / 22262 / 22990 /
23000 / 23222 / 23777 / 25000 / 25555 /
26664 / 26668 / 26674 / 26680 / 26699 /
27100 / 27200 / 27999 / 28000 / 29888 /
29992 / 29999 / 39131 / 39140 / 39146 /
39170 / 39172 / 39230 / 39231 / 39240 /
39254 / 39258 / 39281 / 39291 / 39442 /
39466 / 39470 / 39471 / 39496 / 39504 /
39505 / 39506 / 39509 / 39513 / 39514 /
39515 / 39518 / 39881 / 39437 / 39132 /
39133 / 39144 / 39162 / 39177 / 39498 /
39502 / 39511 / 39512 / 39495
Digi CelcomDigi / Digi / DigiRewards
200 / 2901 / 2691 / 5001 / 27676
20000 / 21000 / 28879 / 28888 /
28882 / 22288 / 28282 / 22888

Maxis has 5-digit short codes like 1XXXX, 2XXXX, and 6XXXX, but has chosen to block SMS messages containing personal information from their Enterprise short codes:

In order to prevent individuals from becoming online scam scams, the Malaysia Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has issued a directive to all telcos on 14 February 2023 to block sending and receiving of short messaging service (SMS) from local, international mobile numbers and applications containing below contents:

  • URL link and any clickable link e.g. shorten URL; shorten URL;
  • Request for user’s personal information e.g name, IC number, account number and
  • Mobile and fixed line number

Blockings are being implemented in stages; started from 2 May 2023 for SMS between individuals; the next and last stage is the blocking of SMS containing the above 3 elements from mobile and applications such as Enterprise SMS service and Maxis IoT SIM from 2 July 2023.

Recommended : Scam Alert : Watch Out For Telegram Phishing Attack!

 

Risky SMS Ban Helpful, But Other Platforms Still A Risk

While this measure is really helpful in reducing scams, the ban is limited to SMS messages. It does not prevent scammers from sending similar scam messages through instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, etc.

I should also point out that links are not inherently bad. Links in messages, even SMS messages, are mostly safe.

Perfectly Fine

  • Clicking on a link to read an article / terms and conditions of a promotion
  • Clicking on a link to enrol in a promotion which does not require you to log into any website
  • Clicking on a link to check in for a flight, or get a travel update

However, they can be used to send you to a phishing website which is designed to look like a genuine bank / payment website. Hence, it is critical that you should NEVER log into any website through a link.

NEVER DO THIS

  • Clicking on a link to log into a bank website
  • Clicking on a link to make a purchase or payment
  • Clicking on a link to log into any account / email

Phishing attacks work by tricking you into going into a fake website that looks like the real website. But you still have to log into the fake website to give the scammers your login details.

If you click on a link, and you are asked to login – this is likely a phishing attack. But don’t worry – as long as you refuse to log into any website after clicking on a link, the phishing attack fails.

 

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He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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Microsoft : No More Windows 10 Updates, EOL In 2025!

Microsoft will no longer issue major Windows 10 updates, and will end support for the operating system in October 2025!

 

Microsoft : No More Windows 10 Updates, EOL In 2025!

On Thursday, 27 April 2023, Microsoft announced that it will no longer issue any further major Windows 10 update. The current 22H2 version that was released in October 2022, and entered broad deployment on November 18, 2022, would be the final version of Windows 10.

In addition, Microsoft announced that all editions of Windows 10 will reach the end of support on October 14, 2025.

  • Windows 10 Home
  • Windows 10 Pro
  • Windows 10 Enterprise
  • Windows 10 Education
  • Windows 10 Pro Education
  • Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
  • Windows 10 IoT Enterprise

However, Microsoft will continue to issue monthly security update releases (including Windows Defender updates) until that EOL date.

Windows 10 will reach end of support on October 14, 2025. The current version, 22H2, will be the final version of Windows 10, and all editions will remain in support with monthly security update releases through that date. Existing LTSC releases will continue to receive updates beyond that date based on their specific lifecycles.

The only exception will be existing LTSC (Long Term Servicing Channel) releases – they will continue to receive updates beyond that EOL date, based on their specific lifecycles.

  • Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 : Jan. 9, 2029
  • Windows 10 IoT LTSC 2019 Core : Jan. 9, 2029
  • Windows 10 IoT Core LTSC : Jan. 9, 2029
  • Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 : Jan. 12, 2027
  • Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2019 : Jan. 9, 2029
  • Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 : Jan. 13, 2032

Microsoft also took the opportunity to announce that two Windows 11 LTSC releases will be available in the second half of 2024:

  • Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC
  • Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC

Enterprise users who want to plan and test applications and hardware while waiting for a Windows 11 LTSC release, should start doing so with the current Windows 11 22H2 edition.

 

Microsoft : Please Upgrade Before Windows 10 EOL!

Microsoft is therefore encouraging users to transition to Windows 11, because it will no longer release any feature upgrades.

Despite Windows 11 being introduced over 1.5 years ago, many Windows 10 users still refuse to upgrade / migrate to Windows 11.

According to the both Steam Store’s March 2023 and StatCounter’s survey, more than 73% of Windows-based PCs are still running on Windows 10!

On its part, Microsoft stopped selling Windows 120 downloads in January 2023, but until Microsoft starts cutting off security updates in October 2025, there will be little impetus for Windows 10 users to migrate to Windows 11.

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

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HP Launches 2023 Smart Tank + LaserJet Printers!

HP just launched its new 2023 Smart Tank and LaserJet printers targeted at home / hybrid workers, and enterprises!

 

2023 HP Smart Tank 580 / 520 Printers

HP just unveiled a new line of budget-friendly 2023 Smart Tank printers to cater to home- and office-based hybrid workers.

The 2023 HP Smart Tank 580 and 520 printers offer an intuitive setup process, with smart features and better connectivity, including self-healing Wi-Fi, and Smart App and Smart Advance capabilities.

They also offer low printing costs with a pre-filled ink supply that can print up to 6,000 black or colour pages. Assuming a monthly output of 150 pages a month, that’s almost 3 years of printing from the start!

Smart Experience

  • HP Smart App helps to guide you through everyday tasks like print, scan, copy and fax.
  • Automatically detects IDs, and prints with the ID copy button
  • Comes with self-healing Wi-Fi and better mobility with Smart App and Smart Advance.
  • Protected by HP Wolf Essential Security to protect sensitive information.

Affordable Cost

  • Engineered for high-volume printing with cost-effective colour and monochrome printing
  • Up to 6,000 pages of black or colour from ink bottles provided in-box
  • Easy monitoring of ink levels with integrated ink sensors

Sustainably Designed

  • Sustainably manufactured using 45% post-consumer recycled content.
  • EPEAT Silver and Energy Star certified.
  • Energy-saving Auto On/Off Technology
  • No-waste tank, and spill-free recyclable bottles

Recommended : Samsung Unveils 2023 QLED, OLED TVs + Monitors!

 

2023 HP LaserJet Managed E800 / E700 Printers

HP also introduced new laser printers – the LaserJet Managed E800 and E700 series printers, which are intelligent solutions to streamline enterprise workflows.

The new HP LaserJet Managed E800 / E700 series offers enterprises centralised control with HP Web Jetadmi, and HP Workpath for personalised, integrated digital workflow.

  • Customisable design – they come with five colour panels, to match your office decor, and HP Speed Licence for flexible configurations to meet different business needs
  • Comprehensive workflow solutions with new Flow 2.0 features, including the ability to make edits directly to the content on the control panel (highlight, redact, even sign) as customised shortcuts.
  • Reverse and Retry technology which detects and resolves double feed issues and paper jams.
  • Better performance with up to 70 ppm print speed, and 300 ipm duplex scan, powered by HP’s custom-designed quad-core processor.
  • Auto-sensing technology to save time with tone and colour management, two sided document detection, and automatic job separation features.
  • Protected by HP Wolf Enterprise Security, the HP LaserJet Management E800 / E700 series protects, detects, and self-recovers. They also come with Memory Shield, which helps to detect malicious attacks on the printers, and automatically self-heals if detected. Memory Shield uses a hardware-protected solution called Runtime Intrusion Detection to actively scan memory for anomalies, and Guard CFI from Karamba to monitor the execution flow of the printer firmware to help prevent zero-day attacks.

Recommended : MSI Users At Risk Of Rogue BIOS / Firmware Updates!

 

2023 HP Smart Tank + LaserJet Printers : Prices + Availability

Here are the official launch prices for the 2023 HP Smart Tank printers:

  • Smart Tank 580 : RM619 (about US$139 / £111 / A$209 / S$185)
  • Smart Tank 520 : RM519 (about US$116 / £93 / A$176 / S$155)

HP is giving away a RM50 e-wallet rebate for the Smart Tank 580, and a RM100 e-wallet rebate for the Smart Tank 520. And if you purchase any of these printers from now until 30 April, you will get an extra black ink bottle.

Here are online purchase options for your convenience:

HP did not reveal the prices for the LaserJet Managed E800 or E700 series printers, but they are available for sale to interested enterprise customers.

 

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He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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What Zoom Announced @ Zoomtopia APAC 2022!

Here is a short summary of what Zoom Video Communications Inc. announced at the Zoomtopia APAC 2022 conference!

 

Zoomtopia APAC 2022 : What Is It?

Zoomtopia APAC 2022 was the Asia Pacific edition of Zoom Video Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM)’s annual conference.

Hosted virtually on Zoom Events (obviously), Zoomtopia APAC 2022 featured a distinguished array of guest speakers, as well as announcements on Zoom Phone and other products.

  • Education: Developing the next generation of changemakers with digital innovation
  • How to unify communication and collaboration in the new world of work
  • The Trust Imperative: How you can build (or destroy) trust in a hybrid world
  • Financial services: How secure digital collaboration tools are transforming the future of finance
  • Is Voice DEAD? The future of conversation is in the cloud
  • Reimagine the future of customer experience in a video-first world
  • Improve the Customer Experience and Agent Productivity with Conversational AI
  • What’s new with Zoom Phone?
  • Zoom Events Product Tour
  • How to Create a Buying Experience Your Customers Love with Zoom IQ for Sales
  • The Future of Asynchronous Collaboration
  • Transforming for the Future Office: Enabling the Flexible, Hybrid Workplace

Eric Yuan, CEO and Founder of Zoom, also shared his vision for Zoom at Zoomtopia APAC, distilling the next phase of Zoom’s evolution and the key innovations that will underpin the Zoom platform in this new era.

“We have always been a company built to connect and bring people together. As many people around the world start rethinking what really makes them happy, we want to empower them to zoom in on what matters.

Zoom’s vision for the future is about bringing physical and digital environments together in new ways to create more inclusive, immersive, collaborative experiences. 

We are focused on giving organisations, their employees and customers a platform that works best for them, their lives and their workflows.”

 

What Zoom Announced @ Zoomtopia APAC 2022!

For those who could not make it, here is a short summary of what Zoom Video Communications Inc. announced at the Zoomtopia APAC 2022 conference!

New Zoom Platform Innovations

Zoom has launched more than 1,500 features and enhancements on the Zoom platform this year.

The Zoom Mail and Calendar clients work together with the communication and collaboration offerings already available within Zoom Meetings, Phone, Whiteboard, and Team Chat. Now, teams can move quickly and seamlessly from email to a video meeting, elevate a chat message to a phone call, collaborate on projects and early next year, they can share out whiteboards, all without ever leaving the Zoom app.

Zoom also rolled out Zoom-hosted email and calendar service options available in  beta, directly integrated with the Zoom platform, ideal for businesses without dedicated IT services looking for enhanced privacy in their business communications.

Zoom also introduced Zoom Spots – its virtual co-working space. Coming in 2023, Zoom Spots is a video-enabled persistent space, integrated with the Zoom platform, to help foster inclusive discussions, keep colleagues connected and bring the fluid interactions of in-person work to distributed, hybrid teams throughout their day.

Fuelling APAC Innovation Together With Customers

In his keynote, Ricky Kapur, Head of APAC at Zoom, was joined by Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), and Australian online employment marketplace SEEK.

Highlighting innovative use-cases in which Zoom was utilised for each of these organisations, the speakers discussed the role of Zoom in driving digital inclusion, transforming employee experience as well as reshaping the future of banking, among others.

Zoom is also collaborating with workspace on-demand marketplace Switch (part of JustCo Group), to equip physical work booths or co-working spaces in Singapore with video-conferencing capabilities. This will take the work-from-anywhere model to the next level, as individuals will be able to comfortably attend virtual meetings at a location of their choice.

Continued Growth Of Zoom’s Partner Ecosystem In APAC

Since the Zoom Up Partner Programme was launched in March 2022, over 800 channel partners across APAC have signed up for the programme, comprising of over 25% of Partner Demand Centre adoption globally.

These partners which are focused on helping customers address their communication and collaboration needs yield 35% in channel contribution to the overall Zoom business in APAC.

As of FY23Q3, Zoom has onboarded DMOA as its new distributor in South Korea, adding to Zoom’s extensive APAC partner ecosystem which includes Dicker Data in Australia, Tradewinds in New Zealand, rhipe in Asia, and Savex Technologies in India.

The strength of Zoom’s partner ecosystem has contributed to the resounding success of Zoom Phone, which hit four million seats globally in just 3.5 years.

Building A Platform APAC Users Can Trust

As trust becomes the business currency of the future, Zoom is accelerating efforts to keep security and privacy of its platform at the forefront, and building a platform users can trust.

Amongst the company’s host of updates announced at Zoomtopia APAC 2022, its latest security offerings include:

  • an end-to-end encryption feature (in Beta stage) as part of Zoom Mail Service (also in beta stage),
  • advanced encryption for Zoom Phone voicemail, and
  • the rollout of automatic Zoom client updates for enterprise customers (to help users take advantage of Zoom’s latest features and security updates).

Zoom has also recently completed the Australian Information Security Registered Assessor Program (IRAP) assessment, demonstrating that Zoom’s products are well-positioned when judged against Australian security standards for delivering communications services to the Australian public sector.

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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Did Kelana Jaya LRT Fail Due To Cracked Software?!

Did the Kelana Jaya LRT service fail because Prasarana used cracked software downloaded on BitTorrent?!

Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!

 

Claim : Kelana Jaya LRT Failed After Using Cracked Software!

After the Kelana Jaya LRT service was shut down for a week after multiple failures, this message went viral on WhatsApp and social media, claiming that it was due to the use of cracked software Prasarana downloaded on the BitTorrent network!

LRT KELANA JAYA MALFUNCTION DUE TO CRACKED SOFTWARE THAT PRASARANA USED IN THEIR SYSTEM. THIS MAY CAUSED BY LIMITATION OF SOME ACCESS DUE TO NEW UPDATE TO THE SOFTWARE. ISSUE HAS BEEN HIGHLIGHTED TO HIGHER MANAGEMENT TO PURCHASE THE SOFTWARE BUT PRASARANA DECIDED TO DOWNLOAD IT USING TORRENT.

 

Truth : Kelana Jaya LRT Did Not Fail Because Of Cracked Software!

This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS circulating on WhatsApp and social media, and here are the reasons why…

Fact #1 : Kelana Jaya LRT Problems Due To ATC System Failure

On 9 November 2022, Prasarana conducted a special media briefing, in which it confirmed that the failures encountered by the Kelana Jaya LRT service was due to its malfunctioning Automatic Train Control (ATC) system.

In fact, they were forced to turn it off several times, and resort to manually driving the trains, which caused further delays to their train schedules.

Prasarana CEO admitted that they knew about the problem earlier, and had already approved the RM150 million ATC system replacement, but it would take a few months to complete.

Fact #2 : ATC System Is More Than Just Software

From what I can find out, the Kelana Jaya LRT service is using the SelTrac Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) signalling system from the Thales Group.

This automatic train control system is a combination of both communications and control hardware on the train, communications and control in the trains and station, as well as both hardware and software in the Operation Control Centre.

This isn’t like your typical Windows PC, where you can just mix and match compatible components, and then install and run cracked versions of Microsoft Office or Photoshop, to get some work done.

That’s why the ATC system replacement that Prasarana approved in October 2022 would take several months to complete. It isn’t simply a matter of installing new software.

The ATC system used in the Kelana Jaya LRT line is more than 24 years old. Not only is the software outdated, the hardware is likely way past its lifespan!

Fact #3 : Unlikely For Thales ATC Software To Feature Copy Protection

Automatic train control (ATC) software is proprietary and designed to work only with specific hardware. So it is unlikely that Thales would bother to add copy protection to their ATC software.

There is no reason for them to add copy protection, because no one would be able to use it with other hardware. They can reverse-engineer and learn from the software, but not actually do anything with it.

In short, even if someone gets a copy of the Thales ATC software, there is no need for him/her to “crack” the software to share them on BitTorrent.

Even if you get a copy of the Thales ATC software, what are you going to install it on? Your laptop? To run what? Your kids’ toy train set??

Fact #4 : Thales ATC Software Isn’t On BitTorrent

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing network, which people use to share files with each other.

Because the files being shared are stored on your computer, generally people will only share popular files – music, videos, and yes, games and office applications.

Thales automatic train control (ATC) system software is sadly, much too niche to be found on the BitTorrent network.

A search for everything Thales related, only shows three files with Thales in their name and none of them have anything to do with trains, or even software. In fact, all three are just ebooks.

  • Thales the Measurer
  • Unlocking the Customer Value Chain by These S Telxelra, Greg Piechota EPUB
  • Drawing Physics – 2,600 Years of Discovery from Thales to Higgs (2017) (Pub) Gooner

No matter what we may think of Prasarana, it’s really stupid to suggest that they would even be able to find a cracked version of the latest Thales ATC software on BitTorrent!

Now that you know the facts, please SHARE this fact check out, and SUPPORT our work!

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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How NVIDIA A800 Bypasses US Chip Ban On China!

Find out how NVIDIA created the new A800 GPU to bypass the US ban on sale of advanced chips to China!

 

NVIDIA Offers A800 GPU To Bypass US Ban On China!

Two months after it was banned by the US government from selling high-performance AI chips to China, NVIDIA introduced a new A800 GPU designed to bypass those restrictions.

The new NVIDIA A800 is based on the same Ampere microarchitecture as the A100, which was used as the performance baseline by the US government.

Despite its numerically larger model number (the lucky number 8 was probably picked to appeal to the Chinese), this is a detuned part, with slightly reduced performance to meet export control limitations.

The NVIDIA A800 GPU, which went into production in Q3, is another alternative product to the NVIDIA A100 GPU for customers in China.

The A800 meets the U.S. government’s clear test for reduced export control and cannot be programmed to exceed it.

NVIDIA is probably hoping that the slightly slower NVIDIA A800 GPU will allow it to continue supplying China with A100-level chips that are used to power supercomputers and high-performance datacenters for artificial intelligence applications.

As I will show you in the next section, except in very high-end applications, there won’t be truly significant performance difference between the A800 and the A100. So NVIDIA customers who want or need the A100 will have no issue opting for the A800 instead.

However, this can only be a stopgap fix, as NVIDIA is stuck selling A100-level chips to China until and unless the US government changes its mind.

Read more : AMD, NVIDIA Banned From Selling AI Chips To China!

 

How Fast Is The NVIDIA A800 GPU?

The US government considers the NVIDIA A100 as the performance baseline for its export control restrictions on China.

Any chip equal or faster to that Ampere-based chip, which was launched on May 14, 2020, is forbidden to be sold or exported to China. But as they say, the devil is in the details.

The US government didn’t specify just how much slower chips must be, to qualify for export to China. So NVIDIA could technically get away by slightly detuning the A100, while offering almost the same performance level.

And that was what NVIDIA did with the A800 – it is basically the A100 with a 33% slower NVLink interconnect speed. NVIDIA also limited the maximum number of GPUs supported in a single server to 8.

That only slightly reduces the performance of A800 servers, compare to A100 servers, while offering the same amount of GPU compute performance. Most users will not notice the difference.

The only significant impediment is on the very high-end – Chinese companies are now restricted to a maximum of eight GPUs per server, instead of up to sixteen.

To show you what I mean, I dug into the A800 specifications, and compared them to the A100 below:

NVIDIA A100 vs A800 : 80GB PCIe Version

Specifications A100
80GB PCIe
A800
80GB PCIe
FP64 9.7 TFLOPS
FP64 Tensor Core 19.5 TFLOPS
FP32 19.5 TFLOPS
Tensor Float 32 156 TFLOPS
BFLOAT 16 Tensor Core 312 TFLOPS
FP16 Tensor Core 312 TFLOPS
INT8 Tensor Core 624 TOPS
GPU Memory 80 GB HBM2
GPU Memory Bandwifth 1,935 GB/s
TDP 300 W
Multi-Instance GPU Up to 7 MIGs @ 10 GB
Interconnect NVLink : 600 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
NVLink : 400 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
Server Options 1-8 GPUs

NVIDIA A100 vs A800 : 80GB SXM Version

Specifications A100
80GB SXM
A800
80GB SXM
FP64 9.7 TFLOPS
FP64 Tensor Core 19.5 TFLOPS
FP32 19.5 TFLOPS
Tensor Float 32 156 TFLOPS
BFLOAT 16 Tensor Core 312 TFLOPS
FP16 Tensor Core 312 TFLOPS
INT8 Tensor Core 624 TOPS
GPU Memory 80 GB HBM2
GPU Memory Bandwifth 2,039 GB/s
TDP 400 W
Multi-Instance GPU Up to 7 MIGs @ 10 GB
Interconnect NVLink : 600 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
NVLink : 400 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
Server Options 4/ 8 / 16 GPUs 4 / 8 GPUs

NVIDIA A100 vs A800 : 40GB PCIe Version

Specifications A100
40GB PCIe
A800
40GB PCIe
FP64 9.7 TFLOPS
FP64 Tensor Core 19.5 TFLOPS
FP32 19.5 TFLOPS
Tensor Float 32 156 TFLOPS
BFLOAT 16 Tensor Core 312 TFLOPS
FP16 Tensor Core 312 TFLOPS
INT8 Tensor Core 624 TOPS
GPU Memory 40 GB HBM2
GPU Memory Bandwifth 1,555 GB/s
TDP 250 W
Multi-Instance GPU Up to 7 MIGs @ 10 GB
Interconnect NVLink : 600 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
NVLink : 400 GB/s
PCIe Gen4 : 64 GB/s
Server Options 1-8 GPUs

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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SAP: Malaysian Companies Yet To Gain From Sustainability Plans

New research from Oxford Economics and SAP has revealed that Malaysian companies have yet to gain from their sustainability plans.

 

SAP: Malaysian Companies Yet To Gain From Sustainability Plans

Sustainability goals are a key part of any company’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) efforts, but many companies still find it difficult to derive significant value from their sustainability strategies.

Verena Siow, President and Managing Director of SAP South East Asia, share key findings from new research from Oxford Economics and SAP that showed that Malaysian companies have yet to gain from their sustainability plans.

While 60% of businesses don’t think it’s difficult to be sustainable and profitable at the same time, just 4% say that they actually benefited significantly from their sustainability strategies.

That may be due to a disconnect between the organisations’ plans and its actions. While 63% of Malaysian businesses have a clearly communicated sustainability plan, only 23% have incentivised leaders to achieve those goals, and only 33% say that their employees are active participants in their efforts.

Recommended : NetApp BlueXP : A New Unified Hybrid MultiCloud Control Plane!

It is an encouraging sign that businesses across South East Asia are increasingly mindful of sustainability practices along their entire supply chain, including those of their suppliers.

There is no time to waste to move beyond strategy and to achieve real, tangible results. In three years, almost a third of businesses expect significant value from their sustainability strategy – and we believe that with the right focus, this number can be even higher.

Public, private and plural partnerships are quintessential to affect the required change for a green economy in ASEAN. Business leaders in South East Asia should not perceive sustainability action as a risk mitigation measure only. It is an opportunity to realize new sustainable revenue streams, find new efficiencies, and build new business models based on low-emission, circular, and ultimately regenerative concepts to benefit both the organization and for our society at large.

 

Regulatory Compliance : Sustainability Driver + Challenge In Malaysia

Sustainability strategies are largely driven by regulatory compliance in Malaysia, with survey respondents noted that these are the primary drivers in their businesses:

  • the threat of regulatory mandates : 52%,
  • operational efficiencies : 54%, and
  • market reputation (48%).

That focus aligns with regulatory compliance being the second biggest benefit derived from sustainability so far (39%), behind only reduced carbon emissions.

It’s clear that organisations may need to refocus their strategies to achieve greater value from sustainability. Too much focus on compliance was cited as the third highest challenge to sustainability success by Malaysian respondents, trailing only the lack of reinvention of business strategy and ineffective data.

 

Data Is Key To Improving Sustainability Outcomes

According to the survey, the key to improving sustainability outcomes will be the effective use of organisational data to make more informed decisions.

Accurate data was ranked as among the most significant activities to help reach carbon reduction goals, only trailing sustainable sourcing and monitoring energy among respondents.

Unfortunately, ineffective data for decision-making is considered a moderate challenge for 75% of Malaysian businesses. The research also found that:

  • less than a quarter (23%) businesses have calculated their total organisational carbon output,
  • although a majority (77%) have begun the process in some areas.

Of the businesses who have made begun measuring their carbon, only 33% actually made changes to their processes based on the data. More obviously needs to be done.

Just over a third (35%) of Malaysian respondents said they had invested in data analysis to measure sustainability in their business, while half (50%) said they were training staff how to capture sustainability data.

Recommended : Chop Cheong Bee Now A Leader In Smart Farming!

 

Malaysian Companies Need Sustainability Leadership

Action on sustainability is needed urgently in Malaysia, and has to be driven from the top down.

Beyond the impact on the environment, just 21% of Malaysian businesses say that their workforces are not even aware that missing sustainability targets will drive customers to their competitors.

Businesses that have obtained value from their efforts have these qualities :

  • they set clear expectations at the strategic level,
  • they apply the transformative power of technology and data management, and
  • they engage with important audiences such as employees, supply chain partners and policymakers.

“Sustainability leaders go beyond vision to ensure that sustainability initiatives are acted upon,” said Edward Cone, editorial director, Oxford Economics. “They communicate with key constituencies both inside and outside the company, and they use integrated technologies to measure and track performance in a way that drives accountability.”

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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NetApp BlueXP : A New Unified Hybrid MultiCloud Control Plane!

NetApp just introduced BlueXP – a new unified control plane for hybrid multicloud environments. Here is what you need to know.

 

NetApp BlueXP : A New Unified Hybrid MultiCloud Control Plane!

On November 3, 2022, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) announced the availability of NetApp BlueXP – a unified control plane designed for easy hybrid multicloud management for storage and data services across on-premises and cloud environments.

NetApp BlueXP allows users to manage their broader hybrid multicloud data estate, including on-premises unified storage and first-party native storage with the leading public cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and AWS.

Offering a simple, yet powerful experience driven by AIOps, BlueXP delivers integrated, broad data service capabilities to deploy, automate, discover, manage, protect, govern and optimize data, infrastructure, and the business processes that support them – with the flexible consumption options required in today’s cloud-led environment.

“We are excited to deliver a whole new, unified cloud experience that is simple, secure, sustainable and cost effective,” said Sanjay Rohatgi, Senior Vice President and General Manager, NetApp Asia Pacific & Japan. “With BlueXP, our customers and partners in Asia Pacific can better compete in the hyper-dynamic digital economy of tomorrow and realize the full potential of a true hybrid multicloud world.”

NetApp BlueXP is the preferred method to manage NetApp ONTAP, NetApp’s industry-leading data management software, both in the cloud and on-premises.

The latest release of ONTAP, announced today, contains over twenty major innovations including a new tamper-proof snapshot feature and integrated AIOps-driven anti-ransomware protection, making ONTAP the leading option for secure data storage.

In addition, an expansion of NetApp’s innovative unified multi-protocol technology allows simultaneous NAS file and S3 object access to the same data, increasing the flexibility of ONTAP as a repository for massive data lakes used for today’s modern AI/ML pipelines.

“Organisations today have increasingly moved to hybrid multicloud environments to accelerate their digital transformation and drive growth, even in uncertain times. But in managing these environments, companies face daunting challenges and inefficiencies that can impede innovation.”

“With BlueXP, NetApp is leading the way to a more ‘evolved cloud’ to simplify and automate critical operations across on-premises and public clouds in order to help organizations drive business impact and improve customer experience.”

“Today’s cloud environments are complex. Organizations are looking for a better cloud experience – simpler, streamlined, governed, and optimized for performance and cost across their entire hybrid multicloud environment,” said Archana Venkatraman, Research Director, Cloud Data Management, IDC. “An ‘evolved cloud’ is one of the most grounded, AI-driven, and practical approaches to cloud management as a whole – and organizations will quickly benefit from migration to operations, to FinOps, to innovation.”

“With the launch of BlueXP, NetApp is uniquely positioned to help organizations unlock the promise of the cloud by making infrastructure, applications and data true assets to their business,” said George Kurian, Chief Executive Officer at NetApp. “By taking an evolved cloud approach, customers can integrate cloud into their architecture and operations, eliminate complexity and increase their speed of innovation to deliver quickly on the business outcomes that matter most.”

 

NetApp BlueXP Capabilities

NetApp BlueXP capabilities include:

  • Unified Storage Management: The SaaS-delivered BlueXP global control plane gives a single point of visibility and management over wide-ranging hybrid multicloud environments. This includes the ability to manage NetApp AFF, FAS, StorageGRID, and E-Series on-premises storage, as well as the major clouds with Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, Azure NetApp Files, Google Cloud Volumes Service and Cloud Volumes ONTAP, all in a single console.
  • AIOps-Driven Health: Integrated AI/ML-driven automation reduces manpower demands, resource loads, and risk profile, while AI-enabled health and status monitoring not only alerts of infrastructure and workload issues, but offers proactive guidance to avoid trouble scenarios. BlueXP integrates NetApp’s leading Active IQ technology for always-on telemetry across the hybrid multicloud.
  • Cyber Resilience: Unified control of data protection and security with an integrated zero-trust model. A single ransomware dashboard provides company-wide visibility into ransomware vulnerabilities with the ability to fix many issues automatically with a single click.
  • Governance at a Glance: A complete view of the digital estate to monitor compliance and permissions. The AI/ML capability audits both user and data level activity, immediately detecting anomalies and taking prescribed actions.
  • Seamless Mobility: Integrated data movers allow for copying, syncing, tiering, and caching data across all major clouds and the data center as easily as “drag and drop.” Integrated security and efficiencies ensure data is protected in transit and stored on the lower-cost storage tier possible.
  • Flexible Consumption: BlueXP allows customers to only pay for the capabilities they need, billed on usage. A Digital Wallet allows for licenses for data services to be easily interchanged as an enterprise’s needs change. NetApp Keystone, the leading Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) offering, is integrated into BlueXP to allow customers to manage their consumption-based data center storage side by side with their cloud storage.

 

NetApp BlueXP Offer

NetApp currently has a special BlueXP offer for new users (excluding current Cloud Manager users):

  • 30 days of free BlueXP data protection
  • 30 days of free BlueXP tiering
  • 1 TB of free BlueXP governance and ransomware protection.

Just register here for the NetApp BlueXP offer!

 

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Intel’s Habana Labs Cuts Over 10% Of Workforce!

Artificial intelligence chip developer, Habana Labs, just laid off over 10% of its workforce, just as Intel plans to layoff up to 20% of its employees.

 

Intel’s Habana Labs Cuts Over 10% Of Workforce!

Intel acquired artificial intelligence chip developer Habana Labs in 2019 for $2 billion. The acquisition allowed Habana Labs to rapidly increase its workforce from 180 people to over 900.

That breakneck expansion has not only come to a shuddering halt, it is being reversed – Habana Labs is laying off 100 of their employees. According to an Intel statement:

Habana Labs assesses and updates its technical and business focus from time to time in order to adapt to the current business reality and to continue and improve its competitiveness.

As part of these processes, it makes adjustments to its workforce and the balance between different disciplines from time to time. This is a normal process which occurs constantly and allows Habana to continue and develop attractive and competitive products and solutions.

Habana Labs was founded by David Dahan and Ran Halutz in San Jose in 2016, for the purpose of developing processors optimised for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications.

Both Dahan and Halutz were former executives of PrimeSense Limited, which was acquired by Apple for $360 million in 2013. Its first investor and chairman was Israeli tech entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz.

Recommended : Intel Planning Major Layoffs, Amid Market Downturn!

Habana Labs Cuts Employees Before Major Intel Layoffs

Habana Labs functions as an independent unit within Intel, which is why it announced its layoffs before Intel announced its own major layoffs later this month.

According to Bloomberg News, Intel is planning major layoffs of its staff, “as early as this month” – around the same time its third quarter earnings report is announced on October 27.

This reduction in headcount will be substantial, affecting Intel sales and marketing team the hardest – around 20% of their members are expected to receive pink slips.

This decision comes after two years of booming sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, and just as Intel is set to receive billions in funding from the US government under the CHIPS Act.

The PC market is currently struggling due to high inflation, new US-Chinese tech restrictions, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Gartner recently announced that worldwide PC shipments only totalled 68 million units in the third quarter of 2022 – a 19.5% drop from a year ago. This was the steepest market decline it recorded since it started tracking the market in the mid-1990s.

 

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He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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Dell 40-Nation Survey : Employees Are Greatest Asset!

Dell Technologies just conducted a new 40+ country survey to find out things have changed after two years of accelerated digital transformation!

Take a look at their results, and find out why most businesses consider employees as their greatest asset!

 

Dell 40-Nation Survey : Employees Are Greatest Asset!

After two years of accelerated digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, 64% of IT leaders in Malaysia (APJ: 45%; Global: 50%) say their organisations know what it takes to digitally transform a workforce.

But after such rapid change, many employees now face the challenge of maintaining the pace. What’s more, more than two-thirds of the 10,500 respondents believe that their organisations are not able to engage with their employees properly when planning transformation programs.

The results suggest that after 2 years rapid transformation, businesses and their workforce are in need of time to recharge, reflect and refine before embarking on new or iterating projects.

The research also highlights how there is still the danger os digital transformation stalling, as 68% of Malaysian respondents (APJ: 72%; Global: 64%) believe that their employees’ resistance to change can lead to failure.

Over half or 57% of Malaysian respondents (APJ: 62%; Global: 53%)  fear that they will be shut-out of the rapidly-evolving digital world due to a lack of people with the right authority or vision to capitalise on opportunities offered by new technologies, like as-a-Service models.

Most organisations around the world – including Malaysia – realise the need to digitally transform, but they find digital transformation hard, and their people don’t always embrace change.

This human-technology friction is only compounded by the pandemic and what we end up with is businesses that are more digitally resilient, but many of their people are exhausted.

Today, businesses aspiring for sustainable success need to be asking themselves how they can thoughtfully and purposefully help their people navigate further change.

– Mak Chin Wah, country manager, Malaysia and general manager, Telecom Systems Business, South Asia, Dell Technologies.

 

Dell 40-Nation Survey : Readiness For Digital Change

Dell and independent behavioural experts also studied survey respondents’ appetite for digital change, and they found that only 8% of the Malaysian workforce – from senior business leaders to IT decision-makers and staff – are pursuing modernisation projects (APJ: 7%; Global: 10%).

Furthermore, 40% of Malaysian respondents are slow or reluctant to embrace change (APJ: 46%; Global: 42%).

Breakthrough Benchmark Malaysia APJ Global
Sprint: Will chase innovation and
trailblaze technological change.
8% 7% 10%
Steady: Poised to adopt technological
change, selected by others.
50% 41% 43%
Slow: Inclined to hold back and
observe / deliberate.
40% 46% 42%
Still: Tend to anticipate problems and
resist proposed technology innovations
based on perceived risk.
4% 6% 5%

 

Dell 40-Nation Survey : The Way Forward

The Dell study also charts a way forward for businesses to focus on keeping pace with digital transformation:

1. Connectivity

Businesses performed tremendous feats to connect, collaborate, and conduct business online during the pandemic, but the job is not done.

Around 76% of Malaysian respondents say they need their organisations to provide the necessary tools and infrastructure to work anywhere (along with the autonomy to choose their preferred working pattern) (APJ: 78%; Global: 72%).

In fact, they worry their employees might be left behind because they do not have the right technology to shift to a highly distributed model (where work and compute are not tied to a central place, but occur everywhere).

Technology alone is not enough. Businesses also need to make work equitable for employees with different needs, interests, and responsibilities, including the 82% Malaysian employees (APJ: 78; Global: 76%) that would like their organisation to do any of the following:

  • Clearly define their ongoing commitment to flexible work arrangements and the practicalities of making it work – Malaysia: 54% (APJ: 46%; Global: 40%)
  • Equip leaders to effectively and equitably manage remote teams – Malaysia: 41% (APJ: 42%; Global: 42%)
  • Empower employees to choose their preferred working pattern and provide the necessary tools / infrastructure – Malaysia: 49% (APJ: 47%; Global: 44%)

Read more : Dell Commissions Largest Solar Panel Globally In Malaysia!

2. Productivity

Every employee’s time is limited and there are now too few qualified candidates for open roles. To address these limitations, businesses can delegate repetitive tasks to automated processes and free-up employees to focus on higher-value work.

At present, 19% of Malaysian respondents say that their work is stimulating and not repetitive (APJ: 32%; Global: 37%). With the opportunity to automate more repetitive tasks, 81% of Malaysian respondents would look forward to learning new, sought-after skills and technologies, like leadership skills, courses in machine learning, or focusing on more strategic opportunities to elevate their role (APJ: 74%; Global; 69%).

However, businesses with limited budgets are concerned they will not be able to advance their workforce and compete.

3. Empathy

At their heart, businesses must build a culture, modelled by empathetic leaders, that treats people as their greatest source of creativity and value.

The research shows there is still work to do and empathy has to inform decision making – from simplifying technology for approximately half (Malaysia: 51%; APJ: 52%; Global: 49%) who often feel overwhelmed by complex technologies, to tailoring change programs to individuals’ skills (Malaysia: 54%; APJ: 50%; Global: 41%;) of employees believe their leaders do this).

Read more : Dell Survey On Remote Work Readiness In Malaysia!

 

Dell 40-Nation Survey : A Quick Primer

To find out how things have changed after two years of accelerated digital transformation, Dell Technologies conducted a survey across 40+ countries from all regions of the world, from August to October 2021.

Fieldwork was conducted by Vanson Bourne, and involved 10,500 senior business decision-makers, IT decision-makers and knowledge workers (employees involved in digital transformation).

In Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ), 2,900 respondents across 11 locations were surveyed. The APJ locations include Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. In Malaysia, 200 number of respondents were surveyed.

On 22 September 2022, Dell Technologies presented their key findings at the Dell Technologies Forum 2022, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

 

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Japan To FINALLY Kill Off Floppy Disks + CD-ROM!

Japan is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century – its government has FINALLY decided to kill off floppy disks!

 

Japan Is Still Using Floppy Disks + CD-ROM!

Most of the world began transitioning from floppy disks to USB flash drives and rewritable CDs (yes, they exist!) in the late 1990s.

By the 2000s, floppy disk sales tanked globally … except in Japan, where they continued to thrive.

That’s partly because government agencies in Japan continue to require data to be submitted using floppy disks or CD-ROM.

So while the world moved to USB flash drives capable of storing gigabytes of data, Japan remained loyal to floppy disk with its storage capacity of 1.44 MB or 2.88 MB.

Today, Japan is arguably the only country in the world where kids do not stare blankly if you mention “floppy disk”.

 

Japan To FINALLY Kill Off Floppy Disks + CD-ROM!

On 31 August 2022, Taro Kono – the Minister of Digital Transformation of Japan, announced that the government will rewrite rules requiring the use of floppy disks or CD-ROM.

This is part of the Japanese government’s plan to introduce a national identification number for its citizens, called MyNumber.

MyNumber will be the lynchpin for many of the Japanese government’s future digital services, and will require significant amounts of data to be uploaded to its online databases.

That was when Kono’s department found more than 1,900 regulations regulating how data should be shared with the government, and many of them required the use of floppy disks or CD-ROMs. Even worse – uploading data over the Internet was forbidden for security reasons.

So the Ministry of Digital Transformation will have to fix these regulations before both the Japanese government and its citizens can rid themselves of 1970s-era technology once and for all.

Digital Minister declares a war on floppy discs. There are about 1900 government procedures that requires business community to use discs, i. e. floppy disc, CD, MD, etc to submit applications and other forms. Digital Agency is to change those regulations so you can use online.

But updating those old regulations is only part of the solution. Kono still has to deal with poor digital literacy, as well as the bureaucratic and conservative culture in Japan which are obstacles to its digital transformation.

Some Japanese government officials continue to insist that floppy disks offer a degree of security and authenticity that an email just cannot. Yoichi Ono – a Tokyo official – claimed in 2021 that floppy disks “almost never broke or lost data”.

That is not true, as many tech old-timers who had to put up with a corrupt disk or two in a multi-disk installation can attest to. But it speaks to the great reluctance in many Japanese organisations to do away with old tech.

Unbelievably, many Japanese companies and government agencies continue to rely significantly on an even older technology from the past – the fax machine.

I’m looking to get rid of the fax machine, and I still plan to do that,” Kano told a news conference this week.

He will be fighting against hundreds of government officials who claim that “banishing fax machines would be impossible” because of “security of sensitive information” and “anxiety over the communication environment (email)”.

I wish Minister Kono all the best in his attempt to drag Japan into the 21st century.

 

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He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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AMD, NVIDIA Banned From Selling AI Chips To China!

Both AMD and NVIDIA have just been banned from selling high-performance AI chips to both China and Russia!

Here is what you need to know…

 

AMD, NVIDIA Banned From Selling AI Chips To China + Russia!

On Friday, 26 August 2022, NVIDIA and AMD were both ordered by the US government to stop exporting high-performance AI chips to both China and Russia.

In its regulatory filing to the SEC, NVIDIA stated that the US government introduced this ban to prevent them from being used for military purposes, or by the Chinese or Russian military.

The ban uses the A100 Tensor Core GPU as the baseline for NVIDIA, and the 3rd Gen Instinct MI250 accelerator chip for AMD.

Effective immediately, anything equal to, or faster than, the NVIDIA A100 or the AMD Instinct MI250 can no longer be exported to either China or Russia. That includes the upcoming H100 chip.

On August 26, 2022, the U.S. government, or USG, informed NVIDIA Corporation, or the Company, that the USG has imposed a new license requirement, effective immediately, for any future export to China (including Hong Kong) and Russia of the Company’s A100 and forthcoming H100 integrated circuits.

DGX or any other systems which incorporate A100 or H100 integrated circuits and the A100X are also covered by the new license requirement.

The license requirement also includes any future NVIDIA integrated circuit achieving both peak performance and chip-to-chip I/O performance equal to or greater than thresholds that are roughly equivalent to the A100, as well as any system that includes those circuits. A license is required to export technology to support or develop covered products.

The USG indicated that the new license requirement will address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China and Russia. The Company does not sell products to customers in Russia.

I should point out that the NVIDIA A100 was launched two years ago – on June 22, 2020, while the AMD Instinct MI250 was introduced on November 8, 2021.

So it appears that the US government wants to maintain at least a 1-year advantage in high-performance AI chips.

 

AMD, NVIDIA Set To Lose Billions From AI Chip Sales To China!

Both AMD and NVIDIA stopped selling chips to Russia, after the invasion of Ukraine, so there is no material loss from such a ban on sales to Russia.

However, they both stand to lose billions of dollars worth of sales to China. NVIDIA alone estimates that the ban will affect US$400 million of sales, just in the third fiscal quarter.

Even more worrying was the likelihood that this ban may delay the H100 chip’s launch, and force NVIDIA to move “certain operations” out of China.

The new license requirement may impact the Company’s ability to complete its development of H100 in a timely manner or support existing customers of A100 and may require the Company to transition certain operations out of China.

AMD however claims that the ban will not have a material impact on its business, because shipments of its less powerful MI100 chips are not affected.

At this time, we do not believe that shipments of MI100 integrated circuits are impacted by the new requirements.

We do not currently believe it is a material impact on our business.

Both AMD and NVIDIA will now have to discuss with their customers in China on using alternative (less powerful) chips, or obtaining special licenses from the US government.

 

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How Wikipedia Was Used To “Kill” Conor McGregor!

Find out how a prankster used Wikipedia to fool Google into “killing” Conor McGregor!

 

Google Fooled Into “Killing” Conor McGregor!

On August 5, 2022, Google was fooled into “killing” Irish mixed martial artist, Conor McGregor.

Many people started posting screenshots of Google Search showing that Conor McGregor died on August 4, 2022.

But the truth was – Conor McGregor is very much still alive. In fact, he posted photos he took with Arnold Schwarzenegger a day after he purportedly died…

And a day later – a photo of himself relaxing in Ralph Lauren tights by the sea on August 6, 2022.

Despite those social media posts, people were still confused, asking why is Google showing that Conor McGregor died on August 4, 2022.

why does it say conor mcgregor is dead if you google it?

Wtf is this? Searched Conor dead and this is what came up? @TheNotoriousMMA
you good champ? Google saying you’re dead

Are we not gonna talk about this how he is allegedly dead 🤷🏼‍♀️@TheNotoriousMMA

 

How Wikipedia Was Used To “Kill” Conor McGregor!

This Google search debacle was traced to a prankster who edited the Spanish Wikipedia article about Conor McGregor, to include a date of death.

Due to the importance Google Search gives information on Wikipedia, and how Knowledge Graph pulls from Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, the false date of death was given undue prominence.

Even after the fake date of death was removed from Wikipedia, it remained cached in the Google search results, prolonging the confusion.

This was what a spokesperson for Wikimedia Foundation explained :

It looks like the Spanish Wikipedia article about Conor McGregor was vandalized yesterday to include a date of death and has since been resolved.

Given the way Knowledge Graph results pull from Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, this can (in rare instances) result in some vandalism being cached in search results, sometimes even after it’s already been addressed on Wikipedia.

It appears that the issue has also been addressed in search results.

This death hoax highlights the dangers of open databases like Wikipedia, and the importance Google Search gives its information.

This makes us wonder – what other Wikipedia entries have been faked / vandalised without admins realising it, that are reflected in Google Search results.

Perhaps Google needs to tune down its reliance on Wikipedia entries…

 

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He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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IBM Expands Power10 Server Line With New Models!

IBM just expanded the Power10 server line with new mid-range and scale-out systems with flexible consumption options!

Here is what you need to know…

 

IBM Expands Power10 Server Line With New Models!

IBM announced a significant expansion of its Power10 server line on July 12, 2022, with the introduction of new mid-range and scale-out systems.

The new IBM Power10 servers tout improved performance, scalability and flexibility with new pay-as-you-go options for clients looking to deploy new services quickly across multiple environments.

Joining the Power10 E1080 server that was introduced in September 2021, are these new models :

  • Power10 Midrange E1050 – a 4-socket rack server
  • Power S1014 – a 1-socket, 4U server
  • Power S1022 – a 2-socket, 2U server
  • Power S1024 – a 2-socket, 4U server

These new servers offer 2x more cores, and more than 2x more memory bandwidth than the previous Power generations.

 

IBM Partners Ready To Leverage Power10 Server Capabilities

The newly expanded IBM Power10 Server Line now offers a flexible and broad range of servers for data intensive workloads such as SAP S/4HANA, and SIBS from Silverlake Axis.

The Power10 Midrange E1050 server, for example, delivers scale (up to 16 TB) and 4-socket performance for clients who run BREAKTHROUGH with IBM for RISE with SAP.

Regional banking solution provider, Silverlake Axis, is also ready to leverage the increase compute capabilities and scalability of the new Power10 servers for their Integrated Banking Solution – SIBS.

“Today’s highly dynamic environment has created volatility, from materials to people and skills, all of which impact short-term operations and long-term sustainability of the business,” said Steve Sibley, Vice President, IBM Power Product Management.

“The right IT investments are critical to business and operational resilience. Our new Power10 models offer clients a variety of flexible hybrid cloud choices with the agility and automation to best fit their needs, without sacrificing performance, security or resilience.”

 

 

IBM Offers Power10 Server Line With Flexible Consumption Options

IBM also recently announced new flexible consumption choices with pay-as-you-go options, as well as by-the-minute metering for IBM Power Cloud.

These flexible consumption models offer clients more opportunities to lower their cost of running OpenShift solutions on IBM Power, compared to alternative platforms.

In addition, the IBM I subscription offers clients a comprehensive platform solution with hardware, software as well as support and services included in the subscription price.

 

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He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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Maybank MAE + M2U Apps Running Again After Going Down!

Maybank just announced that their MAE and M2U mobile banking apps are now up and running, after going down for several hours!

Here is what you need to know…

 

Maybank MAE + M2U Mobile Apps Down!

On the morning of 25 July 2022, the MAE and M2U mobile apps went down, which Maybank confirmed.

As it so happened, both apps failed on the 25th of the month, which is when Malaysian civil servants and many other employees receive their pay.

That led to a lot of complaints, as people could not transfer the funds using the apps.

Fortunately, the Maybank website itself was operational, so users were advised to access the Maybank2U website using their web browser instead.

#MBBAlert Dear valued customers,

Kindly be informed that you may perform your banking services on Maybank2u web. We are currently experiencing intermittent slowness on our MAE and M2U MY apps.

Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused and we are working to resolve the matter as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and continuous support.

Maybank did not reveal what was the reason both their M2U mobile banking app, and their MAE ewallet failed.

They finally resolved it several hours later, just before 2:30 PM.

#MBBAlert Dear valued customers,

Kindly be informed that all our services are back to normal and you may perform your banking transactions across our platforms.

Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused today. We thank you for your continued patience and support.

This isn’t the first time Maybank users had trouble with their banking services. On 17 January 2022, all of Maybank’s online and banking services went down!

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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China Fines Didi Global $1.2 Billion For Violating Laws!

China just fined Didi Global a whopping $1.2 billion for violating its cybersecurity, data security and privacy laws!

 

China Fines Didi Global $1.2 Billion For Violating Laws!

On Thursday, 21 July 2022, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced that Didi Global breached the country’s cybersecurity law, data security law, and personal information protection law.

The Chinese cyberspace regulator fined Didi Global 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion), as well as a personal fine of 1 million yuan ($148,000) each on Chairman and CEO Cheng Wei, as well as President Liu Qing (also known as Jean Liu).

The facts of violations of laws and regulations are clear, the evidence is conclusive, the circumstances are serious, and the nature is vile.

Didi Global responded to the regulator’s announcement with a contrite statement “sincerely” accepting the judgement and penalties :

We sincerely accept this decision, and resolutely obey it. We will strictly follow the penalty decision and the requirements of relevant laws and regulations, conduct comprehensive and in-depth self-examination, and actively cooperate with supervision and complete rectification carefully.

We will take this as a warning and further strengthen the construction of cyberspace security and data security, strengthen the protection of personal information, and earnestly fulfill our social responsibilities. We will serve every passenger, driver and partner well, and realize the safe, healthy and sustainable development of the enterprise.

 

What Did Didi Do To Incur China’s Wrath?

According to an FAQ by the CAC, its investigators started their investigation of Didi in July 2021.

After conducting an extensive investigation, they found that Didi conducted data processing activities that “seriously affected national security”, and refused to comply with “the explicit requirements of regulatory authorities” and conducted “malicious evasion” of regulatory supervision.

They also stated that Didi Global committed 16 violations of China’s laws, including :

  1. Didi illegally collected 11.9639 million screenshots from its users’ mobile phone photo albums.
  2. Didi excessively collected 8.323 billion pieces of its users’ clipboard information, and application list information.
  3. Didi excessively collected 107 million pieces of passenger face recognition information, and 53.5092 million pieces of age group information, 16.3556 million pieces of occupational information, 1.3829 million pieces of family relationship information, and 153 million pieces of taxi address information.
  4. Didi excessively collected passengers’ evaluation of the drivers, when the app is running in the background, and 167 million pieces of precise location (longitude and latitude).
  5. Didi excessively collected 142,900 pieces of driver education information, and 53.976 billion pieces of “intent information”, 1.538 billion pieces of resident city information, and 304 million pieces of non-local business/travel information.
  6. Its users are frequently asked to provide “telephone permissions” while using its services.
  7. Inaccurate and clear description of user personal information processing, including device information.

The CAC noted that Didi started its bad practices in June 2015, and continued even after the Cybersecurity Law was implemented in June 2017, the Data Security Law started in January 2022, and the Personal Information Protection Law was implemented in November 2021.

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

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Why Microsoft Teams Suffered Such A Massive Outage!

Microsoft Teams has finally been restored after suffering a massive outage that lasted many hours!

Here was what happened…

 

Microsoft Teams Suffers Massive Outage!

On Wednesday, 20 July 2022, thousands of users were unable to access Microsoft Teams, and it continued into Thursdays, 21 July 2022.

This was a big problem, because Teams had become an integral part of daily operations for many businesses that had adapted to a hybrid work pattern during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Microsoft Teams users relied on the service to organise their workflow and communicate internally like making calls and messaging each other.

The MS Teams problem also affected other services downstream, with some users reporting issues with Microsoft Office 365 as well.

Microsoft acknowledged the downstream impact to multiple Office 365 services with Teams integration, like Microsoft Word, Office Online and SharePoint Online.

 

Why Microsoft Teams Suffered Such A Massive Outage!

After 1.5 hours after Teams went down, Microsoft announced that they found the root cause – “a recent deployment contained a broken connection to an internal storage device, which result in impact“.

That’s tech-speak for “we installed a system upgrade that pointed to a storage device that does not exist, so MS Teams stopped working“.

They quickly redirected traffic to “a healthy service to mitigate impact“, which have allowed unaffected users to continue using MS Teams, but it did not seem to help those who lost access.

Although they identified the root cause, restoration appears to be taking time. Two hours later, they could only report that “Microsoft Teams functionality is beginning to recover“, which they repeated two hours later.

In the meantime, affected MS Teams users are creatively expressing their “frustration” on social media…

Update @ 3:56 PM (GMT+8) : The Microsoft 365 team announced that Teams availability has “mostly recovered“, but “a few service features” still required attention.

 

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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Canada Internet Outage Due To Software Update, Not China!

The country-wide mobile and Internet outage in Canada was due to a software update, not hacking by China!

Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!

 

Claim : China Responsible For Mobile + Internet Outage In Canada!

Within hours of news breaking that Canada suffered a massive Internet outage, Vancouver Times posted a story claiming that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) identified China as the responsible party.

Vancouver Times also claimed that the RCMP will issue arrest warrants for the hackers responsible, who are connected to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Chinese state hackers are responsible for a massive internet outage that paralyzed large parts of Canada, according to the RCMP. The federal police agency is in the process of issuing arrest warrants for several people they believe are connected to the People’s Liberation Army.

The RCMP will be holding a press conference in the next few days to announce the arrest warrants, according to sources. Canadian intelligence agencies are reportedly receiving guidance from the CIA and the FBI.

On Friday a widespread network outage from Rogers left many Canadians without mobile and internet service. The outages caused significant problems for police, courthouses, passport offices and other facilities.

The outage also disrupted services across retailers, courthouses, airlines, train networks, credit card processors and police forces, pushing many to delay business transactions. Many people were seen at Starbucks, trying to use their internet service.

The mainstream media and big tech want to hide the truth. Beat them at their own game by sharing this article!

Read more : FBI + MI5 Issue Joint Warning On Chinese Spying!

 

Truth : Canada Internet Outage Due To Software Update, Not China!

This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by Vancouver Times to generate page views and money from gullible people.

Fact #1 : Vancouver Times Is A Fake News Website

Vancouver Times is a “content aggregator” (copy and paste) website that is known for creating fake news to generate more page views and money.

To look legitimate, they copy and paste news from legitimate news organisations. To drive traffic, they create fake news, sometimes masked as “satire”.

To give themselves a veneer of deniability, they label themselves as a “satire website” in their About Us section.

Vancouver Times is the most trusted source for satire on the West Coast. We write satirical stories about issues that affect conservatives.

Here are some of their fake news that we debunked :

Fact #2 : Outage Only Affected Rogers Communications

On Friday, July 8, 2022, Canada was hit by a massive mobile and Internet outage that hit businesses, banks, and even police emergency lines.

However, it only affected Rogers Communications, and did not affect rivals like BCE, Telus and Shaw Communications.

The outage was extensive because Rogers is Canada’s leading telecommunications provider, with about 11.3 million wireless subscribers, and 2.25 million retail Internet subscribers.

Read more : Shanghai Police Data On 1 Billion Chinese Citizens Leaked!

Fact #3 : RCMP Did Not Blame China For Mobile + Internet Outage

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police did not blame China for Rogers Communications’ mobile and Internet outage.

This was made up by Vancouver Times to trigger right-wing conspiracy theorists, to go viral and draw more page views.

Fact #4 : Rogers Did Not Blame China For Mobile + Internet Outage

Rogers Communications themselves did not blame China for their mobile and Internet outage.

Fact #5 : Canada Confirmed Outage Was Not A Cyberattack

While the reason behind the outage was still unknown, a spokesperson for Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino confirmed to CTV News that “the outage was not due to a cyberattack“.

Fact #6 : Rogers Confirmed Outage Due To Maintenance Update

On 11 July 2022, Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri apologised for the country-wide outage of its services.

He also said that the failure was due to “a maintenance update in our core network“. The maintenance work “caused some of our routers to malfunction early Friday morning“.

Fact #7 : Prior Rogers Outage Also Due To Software Update

This wasn’t the first time Rogers Communications’ network failed so drastically.

Just 15 months earlier – Rogers and its subsidiary, Fido, experienced a nationwide cellular service outage in April 2021.

That outage was ultimately traced to “a recent Ericsson software update” that “affected a piece of equipment in the central part” of their network, leading to “intermittent congestion impacting many customers across Canada“.

Fact #8 : It Would Have Been Considered An Act Of War

China attacking Canada’s mobile and Internet network would have been considered an act of war, if it was proven.

The Canadian government would at least have issued a strong statement, if not cut diplomatic ties with China and/or enact sanctions against the Chinese government.

Fact #9 : No One Else Reported This Story

China attacking Canada’s mobile and Internet infrastructure would have been major international news, reported across the globe.

Yet not only did no mainstream media cover this incredible story, it hasn’t even been reported in the usual conspiracy theory websites!

That’s because it was a fake story created by one publication – Vancouver Times, in their attempt to go viral again for more page views and ad money.

Fact #10 : There Is No Such Thing As A Publication Ban

Vancouver Times likes to use the “media blackout” claim, to explain why you can’t find any reputable media outlet reporting on China attacking Canada’s mobile and Internet infrastructure.

That’s utter and complete bullshit. No one – not a judge, not even the Canadian government – can control the worldwide media, or prevent anyone from writing about such an incredible story.

You can also be sure that even if the mainstream media in the Canada refused to run the story, it would have been reported by foreign media outlets, websites and blogs.

Yet, not a single foreign media outlet or online website published their account of this incredible story? That’s because IT NEVER HAPPENED…

Read more : Did Ghislaine Maxwell Just Commit Suicide In Prison?!

Fact #11 : Mainstream Media + Big Tech Would Have Loved The Hype

Vancouver Times is gaslighting you about how mainstream media and Big Tech want to hide the “truth” about China attacking Canada’s infrastructure.

They would all loved such shocking news, because it would have driven tons of traffic and engagement to their websites / platforms.

In fact, that was precisely why Vancouver Times created the fake story – to drive traffic, for the ad money.

Everything that Vancouver Times publishes should be regarded as FAKE NEWS, until proven otherwise.

Please help us fight fake news websites like Vancouver Times – SHARE this fact check out, and SUPPORT our work!

 

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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