The New Nation - Internet Edition

WiMAX provides telemedicine

Md. Habib-ur-Rahman Mollah

As a broadband wireless access (BWA) technology, WiMAX is able to provide ubiquitous internet access allowing end users to be connected to the internet independently of their location. Additionally, it also contributes for decreasing the digital divide gap, by providing internet access to rural areas where the deployment of a wired access solution will not be economically feasible for the telecommunication operators. WiMAX technology plays a crucial role such as: Telemedicine.

E-health is one of the areas where WiMAX technologies can substantially contribute to improve the daily activities and thus enhance the quality of life. Today a large number of activities are carried out with limited success, unnecessary costs and human difficulties because of the impossibility to exchange real time information between different elements of the chain that are not at fixed locations.

Remote Diagnosis is one of the possible cases where Mobile WiMAX plays an important role. For instance, a doctor is on duty on an ambulance and is called to intervene in a city street where a car accident occurred. The ambulance is equipped with a portable ultrasound device, connected to a notebook and to the hospital through a Mobile WiMAX channel. The doctor finds a laying man who might have internal injuries. To allow the fastest possible intervention, he charges the patient on the ambulance and, while going to the hospital, takes some images with the portable ultrasound and sends them via Mobile WiMAX to the hospital, where the surgery is being prepared He also sets-up a videoconference session with the surgeon at the hospital to inform him about the patient health condition and discuss the treatment options. This scenario is illustrated in Following Figure.

Besides the Remote Diagnosis scenario, Mobile WiMAX is also important for other Telemedicine applications such as Remote Follow-up, Remote Monitoring and Remote Assistance.

The Telemedicine scenario requires real time services and applications such as voice and video over IP in a mobility environment to support real time communication in case of emergency.

WiMax technology and its potential advancements are recently realized. Using WiMax technology broadband access can be provided to more rural and urban areas where internet can not be provided by other sources like fiber optics or by other regular telephonic cables. There are so many plus points of this technology out of which one is range, it ranges starts from minimum 30 miles, if we look in past, about 30 feet wireless connectivity is provided by Wifi technology.

WiMax range depends upon connectivity, if the connection is with Line of Sight (LoS) it can increase from up to 75 miles. WiMAX offers a solution called "Last mile" it can be used as alternative of cable and DSL internet access.

Oracle introduces ORMS for financial service

IT Report

Oracle and i-flex solutions have announced that they were evaluated and positioned in the Leaders quadrant of the recent Gartner report, "Magic Quadrant for Operational Risk Management Software (ORMS) for Financial Services."

The Gartner Magic Quadrant positions vendors within a particular quadrant based on completeness of vision and their ability to execute on that vision.

Oracle's Reveleus Operational Risk solution provides in-depth insight across the enterprise to effectively identify, monitor, and manage operational risk within a comprehensive Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) framework.

"Financial institutions internationally are using Reveleus GRC solutions to help achieve quantifiable benefits, ranging from simple cost efficiencies to improved share price, that are driven by reductions in perceived risk from investors," said S Ramakrishnan, CEO for Mantas and Reveleus.

Reveleus Operational Risk provides a full-range operational risk framework across assessment, process mapping, workflow management, key risk indicators (KRIs) and loss event capture, including data management and Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) tools for quantitative operational risk and compliance management. "We believe Reveleus' placement in the Leaders quadrant underscores the value we provide in helping organizations achieve business objectives while also protecting their assets and reputations in the highly competitive financial services industry," S Ramakrishnan added. According to Gartner, "This (Leaders) quadrant tends to be occupied by vendors with software applications that are addressing qualitative as well as quantitative aspects of ORM (Operational Risk Management). Such vendors approach operational risk more comprehensively and holistically across the enterprise and link operational risk to CPM. They have robust organizational structures and professional services resources."

Data loss and laptop theft increase

Grant Draper

Absolute Software, a laptop tracking and recovery firm, has offered its advice on security as the number of cases relating to data loss, and laptop theft, increase.

The fact that laptops continue to fall in price for a basic model is irrelevant, as the data stored on them becomes ever more valuable, with the average laptop containing data worth £550,000, and up to £5,000,000 in some cases, depending on its sensitivity.

This is why Absolute software stress that it is essential that correct precautions are taken to avoid such loss or theft.

Absolute Software provide a computer theft recovery, data protection and Secure Asset Tracking(tm) solution, ComputraceOne®, which can delete confidential data stored on stolen laptops, as well as recovering a vast number of laptops every year.

Visual deterrents are sometimes all that’s needed to make a thief steer clear of your laptop, a simple lock can some time do the trick.

Advertising a laptop is as bad as stealing one, you’re inviting theft, so instead of carrying the normal laptop bag, use less suspicious laptop carrying solutions, such as backpacks.

The not so obvious advice, as so many people do it, is don’t leave a laptop unattended.

Even in a work environment you may know 90% of people and feel safe, but what are the other 10% of people thinking while you leave your laptop unattended?

Last but not least, use indentification methods for your laptop.

Engrave company or personal details in, that are visually apparent, which may deter a thief, who will find it harder to sell it on as used goods with someone elses name on it.

The issue of trust is with Google

IT REPORT

Earlier this month Louis L. Stanton, the senior judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, ordered Google to hand over YouTube user log data to Viacom to help Viacom determine damages in their ongoing billion dollar litigation with Google.

We and others cried out in protest, since the data being delivered included username, IP address and identifiers of all videos viewed on YouTube. And the entity it was being delivered to has a penchant for litigating over copyright infringement (some of their many lawsuits are mentioned in the original post). The fear is that if data is turned over to Viacom, any YouTube user who has watched a copyrighted video would be subject to a lawsuit.

Viacom's first line of defense when the negative press hit was obfuscation. They said "Viacom has not asked for and will not be obtaining any personally identifiable information of any YouTube user. The personally identifiable information that YouTube collects from its users will be stripped from the data before it is transferred to Viacom."

Sounds good, right? The LA Times mentioned it in their article on the issue and quoted Viacom. A number of other publications then followed, saying that Viacom wasn't going to collect all the data they were entitled to under the order.

But not really. Everyone involved in the lawsuit (except the users, who weren't asked) agreed that a YouTube login ID isn't personally identifiable. The original Stanton order summarized: "Defendants do not refute that the ?login ID is an anonymous pseudonym that users create for themselves when they sign up with YouTube? which without more? cannot identify specific individuals?."

So Viacom didn't abandon any of their data rights, but they sure went out of their way to suggest they did. And anyone who watched the 2006 AOL search debacle will know that users were absolutely identified based on nothing more than a list of the search terms they entered. Does anyone really believe that a motivated plaintiff couldn't identify individuals based on a user selected ID (mine is "TechCrunch"), IP address and a list of all watched videos?

Now Viacom is talking again, and saying that they won't use the information to go after individuals. Here's the problem - I don't know if Viacom will live up to their promise, or not. The fact that Google is unwilling to hand over employee data tells me they're not so sure, either. And frankly I shouldn't have to care or have to worry about Viacom's trustworthiness. As a user I interacted only with Google, and there are implicit and explicit promised by Google to protect my data. If Google hands my data over to Viacom, it doesn't really matter to me if Viacom uses it or not.

Push mail technology in HTC PDA handsets!

IT REPORT

Users of HTC PDA handsets are able to exchange e-mails just like the SMS through Push Mail technology. Push mail is such a technology through which one can exchange e-mails instantly and efficiently.

Available in most of today's smartphones and PDAs, push mail allows a user to synchronize their email account with their PDA, enabling them to receive emails, contacts and even calendar appointments directly to their phones.

By synchronizing their email account, the user does not need to sign in to his mail account using his phone's web browser to check email. Rather, any emails that are received are directly pushed to the phone with the user getting an instant notification, just like in the case of regular SMS. This "instant" e-mail experience- new e-mails appearing on the device as soon as they arrive, without the need for any user intervention- has made PDAs and Smartphones like the Blackberry very popular in the West, especially among corporate users.

In Bangladesh, the trend of push-email is also catching up fast. HTC, one of the world's leading manufacturers of Smartphones and Pocket PCs, recently introduced a range of PDAs offering the Windows Mobile 5.0 Direct Push technology.

Using this technology, users of HTC can sync their phone with office Exchange Servers, enabling them to directly access their outlook email with their PDAs and truly stay "mobile".

Furthermore, the HTC mobile devices are equipped with Microsoft Windows Mobile applications like MS Mobile Word, MS Mobile Excel, MS Mobile PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer Mobile, making it a true "pocket PC".

Recently, Warid Telecom, the fourth largest mobile operator in the country, has launched a handset bundle deal with HTC, which brings a variety of PDAs and Smartphones to postpaid users equipped with this push mail technology.

The HTC handsets have been bundled with Zahi Royal connection and unlimited mobile internet, and are available at all Warid Sales and Customer Service Centers.

Founded in 1997, High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) is a technology provider specializing in cutting-edge converged mobile devices. HTC has established unique partnerships with key mobile operators, including the leading five European mobile operators, the top four US operators, and many fast-growing Asian operators.

HTC is one of the fastest-growing companies in the mobile device market and today, it makes 80 per cent of the mobile phones running the Windows OS.

Dwarf planet rechristened

IT REPORT

A dwarf planet circling the sun out beyond the orbit of Neptune has been rechristened Makemake after a Polynesian god and designated the third of the solar system's new class of plutoids, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced recently.

Makemake is a small, red-tinged world that ranks among the largest objects in the outer solar system.

But it is still smaller and dimmer than the already demoted dwarf planet Pluto, which astronomers reclassified as a plutoid last month.

Astronomers discovered Makemake (pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh), the fourth dwarf planet so far, in 2005 and believe its surface is covered by a layer of frozen methane.

It is bright enough to be seen by a high-end amateur telescope, the IAU said.

"The orbit is not particularly strange, but the object itself is big," said astronomer Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., who led the team that discovered Makemake. "Probably about two-thirds the size of Pluto."

Related

Pluto, Makemake and a third object - officially dubbed Eris - are all classified as plutoids as well as dwarf planets.

The solar system's largest asteroid, Ceres, is also a dwarf planet, but not in the plutoid class. That's because its orbit, which falls in the belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, is smaller than that of the more distant Neptune.

Originally designated 2005 FY9, the object was nicknamed "Easter Bunny" by its discoverers before officially being named Makemake after the Easter Island creator of humanity and god of fertility, the IAU said.

"We consider the naming of objects in the solar system very carefully," said Brown.

Makemake's methane ice-rich surface, while fascinating, did not easily relate to Earthly mythology, he added.

But the small dwarf planet, like Eris and the object 2003 EL61 ("Santa") also spotted by Brown and his team, was found while his wife was pregnant with their daughter.

It was the discovery of those three objects that led to Pluto's drop from full planet to dwarf planet in 2006.

[Three other large, distant bodies found in recent years by Brown and his colleagues - Sedna, Quaoar and Orcus - are still awaiting classification.]

Brown was researching the mythology of Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, in the South Pacific for prospective names when he learned of the creator and fertility god Makemake.

"I am partial to fertility gods," Brown said, recalling the discovery of Makemake, Eris and 2003 EL61. "I have the distinct memory of feeling this fertile abundance pouring out of the entire Universe. Makemake was part of that."

Designing ICT Roadmap: A holistic approach

Md. Anwarul Kabir

A Chinese proverb suggests, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do.” However, as for our future existence in this competitive world, we need to develop our ICT arena significantly and rapidly and so we should have a concrete roadmap for this endeavour. A realistic and achievable national ICT policy can be considered as such roadmap. In the context of non-achievement of objectives of the National ICT Policy, 2002, the Ministry of Science and Information & Communication Technology has been initiated to reformulate a new ICT policy for the country.

The vision of 2002 ICT policy has been stated as below:” This Policy aims at building an ICT-driven nation comprising of knowledge-based society by the year 2006. In view of this, a country-wide ICT-infrastructure will be developed to ensure access to information by every citizen to facilitate empowerment of people and enhance democratic values and norms for sustainable economic development by using the infrastructure for human resources development, governance, e-commerce, banking, public utility services and all sorts of on-line ICT-enabled services.”

However, even in 2008, in the field of ICT, our achievement is very insignificant and we are still gulf away from transforming ourselves into a knowledge-based society. In line with a Humphrey’s proverb, “If you don’t know where you are, a map won’t help”, the ICT Policy 2002 has reached its obvious destiny. Now it has been realised that in 2002, we were overambitious and without assessing the harsh realities of our socio-economic and cultural aspects we envisioned and formulated the ICT policy 2002. So, at the advent of reformulating new National ICT policy, I emphasize on assessing our strength and weakness relevant to development in ICT of the country. For this, with a view to evaluating our status in this respect, I would like to present following relevant factors for the readers convenience.

A. General Features

a) Literacy rate: For overall improvement of ICT, general literacy of a country is a crucial issue. Although literacy ranking of Bangladesh is the lowest among some Asian countries as noted in the table, we are not far behind Pakistan and Nepal.

CountryCountry Adult Literacy RateAdult Literacy Rate Youth Literacy RateYouth Literacy Rate

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka 92.192.1 97.097.0

ChinaChina 90.990.9 98.998.9

India India 61.361.3 73.373.3

NepalNepal 44.044.0 62.762.7

PakistanPakistan 41.541.5 53.953.9

BangladeshBangladesh 41.141.1 49.749.7

Table1: Literacy rate of some Asian countries Source: Wikipedia

b) English literacy rate: From different sources, it has been learnt that, English literacy rate of Bangladesh is less than one percent. Whereas English literacy rate of India and Pakistan are 60% and 20% respectively,

There is a strong correlation between English literacy and ICT development in the present context of globalisation. Especially, in the arena of ICT, as English has become Lingua-Franca and as we have not localised Bengali in the domain of computing, English literacy is a must for our ICT development. Unfortunately, in this case our position is the worst one.

c) Per capita income and groth of GDP: According to the latest statistics, the per capita income of our country is $599,. whereas for India and Pakistan, this is $840 and $652 respectively.

It may be noted that the threshold per capita income for a country’s transforming into middle-income country is $750. No doubt, Bangladesh is one of the promising countries to be a middle-income country in near future.

GDPGDP 2003-042003-04 2004-52004-5 2005-62005-6 2006-72006-7 2007-82007-8

GNPGNP 418418 441441 447447 487487 554554

GNIGNI 440440 463463 476476 523523 599599

Table 2: Per capita GDP and Gross National Income (GNI) of Bangladesh

(2003 to 2008) Source: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BSS)

The progress of per capita income as shown in the table d,, is due to high growth of remittance. However, this is one of the positive aspects of the country.

B. ICT Infrastructure

a) Power deficit: Latest statistics reveals that Bangladesh faces a power deficit of up to 2000 MW against demand of 5000 MW daily. It may be noted that for proper ICT development an uninterrupted power supply is a must

b) Teledensity: Teledensity of the country is one of the important parameters for developing ICT infrastructure of a country. The following table reveals the tremendous growth of teledensity in Bangladesh.

ItemItem 20082008 20062006 20042004

Population(million)Population(million) 140.6140.6 138.8138.8 135.2135.2

Mobile Phones(millions)Mobile Phones(millions) 36.436.4 11.011.0 3.83.8

Fixed Lines (PSTN) (millions)Fixed Lines (PSTN) (millions) 1.21.2 1.01.0 0.90.9

Total telecom users (millions)Total telecom users (millions) 37.637.6 12.012.0 4.74.7

Teledensity (%)Teledensity (%) 26.826.8 8.68.6 3.53.5

Table3. Teledensity of Bangladesh: Source: BTRC, January 2008

It may be noted that the increase of teledensity is mainly due to expansion of mobile networks. But for making cost effective ICT infrastructure and communication we need to have more growth in PSTN.

c) Network infrastructure: Outside Dhaka, at present a few computer network infrastructures have been developed so far. Apart from some educational institutes outside Dhaka, observation finds that most of the LAN setups are Dhaka centric. This observation reveals the reality of the digital gap even within the country.

Since 2006, Bangladesh has been connected to worldwide Internet Super High Way through an under sea submarine cable. But this single submarine cable frequently faces disruption resulting in slow bandwidth.

d) Use of internet: For the ICT development Internet users of the country must be increased.