Singapore is also the fastest 4G country in the world, according to a report by Open Signal, a UK-based wireless technology company. The report compares 4G performance across 88 countries worldwide.

South Korea is the second fastest network in Asia followed by Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, Vodafone has jumped ahead of Telstra in the 4G speed metric, averaging LTE downloads of 40 Mbps.

Taiwan’s operators are quickly joining the global elite in 4G availability and it is the fifth fastest network speed in Asia.

It is followed by Japan and Vietnam at 25.39 and 21.49 mbps respectively.  As per the report Japan 4G network speed is by no means slow, but it is still well away from matching the LTE speeds of the elite countries.

Brunei Darussalam has eighth fastest network in Asia with 17.48 mbps speed. It is followed by Myanmar and Malaysia. Other countries below 15mbps are Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Pakistan.

India fares poorly in the report. Its operators are still focused on growing LTE’s reach rather than injecting more speed into their 4G services, according to the report.

According to the report through improved smartphone technology and new spectrum, mobile operators have elevated average 4G speeds first beyond 20 Mbps, then beyond 30 Mbps, and in the last two years, beyond 40 Mbps.

However now the industry seems to have reached a limit to what current technology, spectral bandwidth and mobile economics can support on a nationwide level.

The fastest countries average LTE download speeds have stalled at just over 45 Mbps, as per the report.  Speeds, however, remained stagnant, but that could soon change as the wave of consolidation clears the way for new high-capacity networks”.

The free application creates an encrypted VPN connection that routes internet activity through computer servers managed and secured by Facebook. The app also alerts users when sites they visit might be malicious.

Facebook is able to gather information about how people use smartphones outside of the leading social network’s services, potentially gleaning insights about rivals or internet trends.

“We’ve always been clear when people download Onavo about the information that is collected and how it is used,” a Facebook spokeswoman told AFP.

“As a developer on Apple’s platform we follow the rules they’ve put in place.”

Facebook did not comment regarding whether it is removing Onavo from the App Store.

The Journal cited an unnamed person close to the matter as saying the VPN could be gone from the Apple digital content shop by the end of Wednesday.

Onavo has been in the App Store for several years.

Apple recently let Facebook know that the app violated updated data collection rules that bar gathering information beyond that relevant to the program or what was needed to provide advertising, the Journal reported.

Discussions between companies last week led to Facebook agreeing to voluntarily remove Onavo Protect rather than have it booted from the App Store by Apple, according to the report.

Onavo Protect’s description at the App Store included saying that it “helps keep you and your data safe when you browse and share information on the web.”

Versions of the app installed on iPhones will continue to work, but Facebook will no longer be able to update the program. Onavo Protect was to remain available on smartphones powered by Google-backed Android software.

Huawei — one of the world’s largest telecommunications equipment and services providers — has been under scrutiny in some countries including the United States and Australia over its alleged close links to Beijing.

Huawei was blocked from bidding for contracts on Australia’s ambitious national broadband project in 2012, reportedly due to concerns about cyber-security.

The company has long disputed claims of any links to the Chinese government.

The federal government said in a statement that the “involvement of vendors who are likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflict with Australian law” posed a security risk.

Acting Home Affairs Minister Scott Morrison and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield added that there was “no combination of technical security controls that sufficiently mitigate the risks”.

Huawei Australia tweeted that the decision was an “extremely disappointing result for consumers”.

“Huawei is a world leader in 5G. Has safely & securely delivered wireless technology in Aust for close to 15 yrs.”

The move came amid tensions between Beijing and Canberra that has seen Australia refocus its foreign aid programmes to win hearts and minds in Pacific nations.

Beijing has been flexing its muscles in the Pacific and extending loans to the impoverished nations, with Australia raising fears some might get trapped with unsustainable debts, handing China influence.

Canberra in June said it would negotiate a security treaty with Vanuatu and also fund and build an underseas communications cable to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

The Solomons arrangement came after the Pacific nation was convinced to drop a contract with Huawei.

Applications were suspended “due to concerns around the developers who built them or how the information people chose to share with the app may have been used,” vice president of product partnerships Ime Archibong said in a blog post.

Apps put on hold at the social network were being scrutinized more closely, according to Archibong.

The app unit launched in March by Facebook stemmed from the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal.

Facebook admitted that up to 87 million users may have had their data hijacked by Cambridge Analytica, which was working for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Archibong said that a myPersonality app was banned by the social network for not agreeing to an audit and “because it’s clear that they shared information with researchers as well as companies with only limited protections in place.”

Facebook planned to notify the approximately four million members of the social network who shared information with myPersonality, which was active mostly prior to 2012, according to Archibong.

Facebook has modified app data sharing policies since the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

“We will continue to investigate apps and make the changes needed to our platform to ensure that we are doing all we can to protect people’s information,” Archibong said.

Britain’s data regulator said last month that it will fine Facebook half a million pounds for failing to protect user data, as part of its investigation into whether personal information was misused ahead of the Brexit referendum.

The Information Commissioner’s Office began investigating the social media giant earlier this year due to the Cambridge Analytica data mishandling.

Cambridge Analytica has denied accusations and has filed for bankruptcy in the United States and Britain.

Silicon Valley-based Facebook last month acknowledged it faces multiple inquiries from regulators about the Cambridge Analytica user data scandal.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the European Parliament in May and said the social media giant is taking steps to prevent such a breach from happening again.

Zuckerberg was grilled about the breach in US Congress in April.

This new type of cyberattack is called “cryptojacking” by security experts.

It “consists of entrapping an internet server, a personal computer or a smartphone to install malware to mine cryptocurrencies,” said Gerome Billois, an expert at the IT service management company Wavestone.

Mining is basically the process of helping verify and process transactions in a given virtual currency. In exchange miners are now and then rewarded with some of the currency themselves.

Legitimate mining operations link thousands of processors together to increase the computing power available to earn cryptocurrencies.

Mining bitcoin, ethereum, monero and other cryptocurrencies may be very profitable, but it does require considerable investments and generates huge electricity bills.

But hackers have found a cheaper option: surreptitiously exploiting the processors in smartphones.

To lure victims, hackers turn to the digital world’s equivalent of the Trojan horse subterfuge of Greek mythology: inside an innocuous-looking app or programme hides a malicious one.

The popularity of games makes them attractive for hackers.

“Recently, we have discovered that a version of the popular game Bug Smasher, installed from Google Play between one and five million times, has been secretly mining the cryptocurrency monero on users’ devices,” said researchers at IT security firm ESET.

The phenomenon is apparently growing.

“More and more mobile applications hiding Trojan horses associated to a cryptocurrency mining programme have appeared on the platforms in the last 12 months,” said David Emm, a security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, a leading supplier of computer security and anti-virus software.

“On mobiles the processing power available to criminals is less,” but “there is a lot more of these devices, and therefore taking in total, they offer a greater potential,” he added.

Google cleans house

But for smartphone owners, the mining is at best a nuisance, slowing down the operation of the phone and making it warm to the touch as the processor struggles to unlock cryptocurrency and accomplish other task.

At worst, it can damage the phone.

“On Android devices, the computational load can even lead to ‘bloating’ of the battery and thus to physical damage to, or destruction of, the device,” said ESET.

However, “users are generally unaware” they have been cryptojacked, said Emm.

Cryptojacking affects mostly smartphones running Google’s Android operating system.

Apple exercises more control over apps that can be installed on its phones, so hackers have targetted iPhones less.

But Google recently cleaned up its app store, Google Play, telling developers that it will no longer accept apps that mine cryptocurrencies on its platform.

‘Cat and mouse game’

“It is difficult to know which applications to block,” said Pascal Le Digol, the country manager in France for US IT security firm WatchGuard, given that “there are new ones every day.”

Moreover, as the miners try to “be as discreet as possible” the apps do not stand out immediately, he added.

There are steps to take to protect one’s phone.

Besides installing an antivirus programme, it is important “to update your Android phone” to the latest version of the operating system available to it, said online fraud expert Laurent Petroque at F5 Networks.

He also noted that “people who decide to download apps from non-official sources are at more risk of inadvertantly downloading a malicious app”.

Defending against cyberattacks of all kinds is “a game of cat and mouse”, said Le Digol at WatchGuard.

“You need to constantly adapt to the evolution of threats.”

In this case he said “the mouse made a large leap”, said Le Digol, adding cryptojacking could evolve to other forms in the future to include all types of connected objects.

The education ministry plans a pilot project costing around 250 million yen ($227,000) to improve Japanese students’ notoriously weak oral and written English, an official told AFP.

“AI robots already on the market have various functions. For example, they can check the pronunciation of each student’s English, which is difficult for teachers to do,” added the official in charge of international education, who asked not to be named.

AI robots “are just one example of the trial and we are planning other measures” such as using tablet apps and having online lessons with native speakers, he said.

The move comes ahead of a change in the national curriculum in two years that will require children from the age of 10 to learn English.

Japanese schools struggle to find qualified teachers for English classes and generally lack the cash to hire trained language assistants.

Some primary and middle schools have already turned to technology to bolster English teaching, introducing English-speaking AI robots in the classroom.

English classes are currently compulsory for Japanese students aged between 12 and 15 but the starting age will be lowered to primary school children in 2020.

WITH SO MANY trade and investment opportunity in the so-called CLMVT subregion, Thailand could take the leadership role within the bloc and build on its hub status, say  industry experts.

The CLVMT subregion is composed of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand. With the region’s rapid economic growth, as seen in its rising gross domestic product, the combined 240-million population offers a nearby destination market and a chance for Thailand to leverage its strengths.

The Thai government last week hosted the CLMVT Forum 2018: CLMVT Taking-Off Through Technology, to strengthen economic ties in the CLMVT subregion. It also aimed to promote regional cooperation amid the current challenges in global trade and in the use of digital technology.

Trade and investment opportunity in the region dominated the forum discussions.

Paul Srivorakul, CEO of aCommerce Thailand, said geography is the great advantage held by the CLVMT subregion. Thailand is particularly well-situated, and that will only get better as its Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) rolls out, providing access through nearby borders. Companies locating in Thailand could open up easy distribution channels to the remainder of the region. That opportunity positions Thailand to lead in shaping the CLMVT subregion.

Thailand on its own has a relatively small domestic market. But if Thailand strengthened its position as the regional hub, ensuring access to the emerging neighbouring markets for a combined 240 million people, the potential for Thailand’s economy would be much greater. Adding in the markets within the Asean group, and then including China and Indonesia, offers further potential for the Kingdom.

For aCommerce, the big opportunities in CLMVT are Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar – less so for the consumer market as the B2B business market, which now provides around 30 per cent of business for aCommerce.

“For us as business, we look at the Southeast Asia region,” said Paul. “But from Thailand’s perspective, not just in e-commerce but in terms of businesses overall, how can Thailand get all the countries on board and build CLMVT as a subregion?” he asked. “Thailand has an advantages over the others.”

Singapore and Malaysia can be seen as one market, with a lot of trade between them, he noted. The Philippines and Indonesia are another such example. In terms of inter-trade these pairs already have their nearby trading partners. Singapore and Malaysia share investors who see their markets as similar, as do the Philippines and Indonesia. Thailand and CLMV members are similar, and that has led a lot of Thai companies to grab CLMVT as an opportunity, including Central Group, TCC, Big C, he said.

For digital services, there is infrastructure in place, telecom companies are already there, Google and Facebook are present, and companies can leverage the regional platforms to grow.

CLMVT is like a sub-set of Southeast Asia (SEA), almost like a second-tier city, he said. Digital and technology companies have the platforms to be able to reach those customers via Facebook or Google. It makes sense to go into CLMVT neighbours to capture the market, because the rest of SEA is becoming very competitive, billion-dollar unicorn companies are there now. If companies want to really capture the opportunities, they can go to the second-tier city –the CLMVT countries – to grab the market, said Paul. That is the big opportunity. And it is not limited only to digital technology, but rather can also include physical distribution. It does not mean only digital technology but it can be physical distribution.

James Z Dong, CEO, Lazada Thailand, said the company focused on two things – ecosystems and new retail – to address CLMVT opportunities in trade and investment through digital platforms in term of offline to online.

Ecosystems – including the platform, service provider, infrastructure and consumer – are important since e-commerce platform cannot do everything. For example, he said, China’s Alibaba has more than a million sellers, because it is difficult for one platform to serve everyone.

“We have service partners to fill in the gaps,” said Dong. “In neighbouring countries, we have companies like aCommerce, that are very innovative and embrace digital. They provide a lot of services that help the offline merchants do business online. They offer a full spectrum of services and the merchants can choose the service they want. They help these offline players to go online.”

Infrastructure, payment and logistic are important for e-commerce and other cross-border business, he noted. Once the platform, service provider and infrastructure are ready, consumer adoption of e-commerce and other businesses will be much faster.

“It was easy to switch from offline, to cash-on-delivery, to online almost overnight. It is very quick once consumers adapt to that,” said Dong.

E-commerce and e-consumer apps play different roles in the daily life of consumers. They started earlier in the US than in China. In the US, people spend less time on shopping apps, finding what they want with just a few clicks, and value simplicity and efficiency. The model in China is different. Consumers spend a lot of time on an app, they walk through the different pages, they see content and engage with it, and talk to the storeowner. For consumer in the emerging markets, the amount money they can spend, and the role of apps as a source of joy and entertainment, differs from consumers in the developed countries. In the emerging markets, an Internet company’s responsibility is to provide fun.

Ecosystem benefits

Alibaba has 50,000 employees worldwide. Its ecosystem has a few million merchants, and a few million customer-service staff who work part-time or full-time within Alibaba’s ecosystem. The giant claims to have created 34 million direct and indirect jobs in China.

“This is the power of the ecosystem. There is absolutely no chance that one company on its own could deliver the whole of digital transformation all of the world’s societies. But through the ecosystem, government and different types of the private sector working together, we can make it happen,” said Dong.

As a part of Alibaba Group, Lazada will learn and take the ecosystem model to Thailand and its neighbour countries, he said. Lazada now operates in six SEA countries.

The next big thing is “new retail” whose key feature is the lack of boundaries between online and offline business. The company provides a lot of data and tools to offline businesses so they can better analyse customers. It also provides online “touchpoints” to help them set up a store platform. And then it helps them create traffic from online to offline, and offline to online, so that everything is fully integrated.

“We have become a technology transformation partner to a lot of offline retailers and brands,” Dong said. “They can choose to have their own customer touchpoint or to leverage Alibaba’s customer touchpoint. We reposition ourselves not as an e-commerce company, but as a technology company, a data company. We provide all the data and infrastructure to offline businesses, to drive offline business to online. In China, we started with food and grocery businesses, then financial and fashion, and so on.”

New retail is something the company wants to eventually bring to other parts of the world. It takes a little time, but will probably happen after the ecosystem is up and running and everything is going smoothly, he said.

David Jou, CEO, Pomelo Fashion in Thailand, said that the SEA market has many different things to offer the fashion industry. Thailand has the great design talents and a lot of expertise in textiles. Vietnam is great in technology talents, he said, while Singapore boasts amazing financial services and human capital, and Indonesia provides a very large consumer market. Meanwhile, Cambodia and Myanmar are growing faster than any other region in the world.

“There are many different elements coming together to make an amazing market,” said David. “We built our home in Bangkok to capitalise on all these different things. Pomelo is ‘DNVB’, short for ‘digitally native vertical brand’. We are DNA digital, do the vertically integrated. We do everything from design to manufacturing, to servicing the customers.”

Pomelo is a small but fast-growing company set up in Bangkok four-and-a-half year ago, he added. The company wants to build the first global fast-fashion brand for the digital world.

Chhuon Dara, secretary of state for Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce, told CLVMT Forum 2018 that both policymakers and private sector players from the region needed to pay strict attention to the online platform. Online is playing a significant role as a driving force for digital economic development in today’s global economy, he said.

To utilise e-commerce and digital platforms, the private sector needed the support from governments to work safely and effectively, he said. However, although the opportunity and potential for doing online business and investment in CLMVT is huge, the commercial players are likely to face current barriers dealing with cross-border issues related to customs duties, taxes and logistics.

The government should play the key role in fostering digital platforms to support businesses.

For example, Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce is implementing online business registration to reduce the length of business registration processes, cut down on in-person contact, and allow electronic payments and the synchronising of databases with other relevant government agencies.

Thaung Tin, senior vice president of Myanmar’s Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) said that there are many challenges in Myanmar as they aim to move from offline to online in order t

Located at Thammasat University’s Rangsit campus, north of Bangkok, the dtac SIIT AI Lab will connect data science students and leading professors with real-world business cases provided by dtac. The partnership supports both dtac’s AI strategy and its ambition to train a new generation of digital talent for Thailand.

Ukrit Salyapongs, head of channel strategy and performance management division at dtac, said that dtac’s collaboration with SIIT is a strategic decision to collaborate with top-notch academics to apply new technology to tomorrow’s business challenges. The collaboration is expected to aid dtac in automating its business operation process and support highly advanced customer personalisation.

“Artificial intelligence will deeply transform business. It’s important that students not only learn how machine learning works, but also how it interfaces with real-world business challenges. With dtac’s support, the AI Lab will have access to some of the most advanced data available in Thailand,” said Ukrit. The company has invested Bt12 million in the lab over two years, and it also provides anonymised data and real business challenges to facilitate students in their work on developing applicable solutions. The AI Lab will initially focus on time-consuming processes best left to machines. For example, dtac and SIIT are already collaborating on an ID verification system that would increase safety while speeding up the process of SIM registration verification.

“We can simplify the customer experience and make it easier and more personalised by using artificial intelligence. In the future, AI will allow customers walking into our shops to receive recommendations based on their usage without having to explain how they currently use their smartphones,” said Ukrit.

To prepare for in-store AI usage, dtac is revamping its stores to introduce touchscreen interfaces and salespersons equipped with mobile devices, a series of foundational changes to make the dtac customer experience smoother.

With artificial intelligence, dtac will move further towards “invisible interfaces,” where facial recognition and voice-operated devices allow services to be delivered with the least possible friction.

The employees are demanding more transparency so they can understand the moral implications of their work, said the Times, which obtained a copy of the letter.

It has been signed by 1,400 employees and is circulating on the company’s internal communications system, the newspaper said, quoting three people who are familiar with the document.

The letter argues that the search engine project and Google’s apparent willingness to accept China’s censorship requirements “raise urgent moral and ethical issues.”

“Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically-informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment,” they say in the letter, according to the Times.

Employee anger flared with a report earlier this month in The Intercept that Google is secretly building a search engine that will filter content banned in China and thus meet Beijing’s tough censorship rules.

Google withdrew its search engine from China eight years ago due to censorship and hacking.

The new project is said to be codenamed “Dragonfly.”

The tech giant had already come under fire this year from thousands of employees who signed a petition against a $10-million contract with the US military, which was not renewed.

With the secret project, Google employees are reportedly worried that they might unknowingly be working on technology that could help China hide information from its people.

“We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table, and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we’re building,” the protest letter says, according to the Times.

At a townhall gathering of employees on Thursday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the firm was committed to transparency, and that while it was “exploring many options”, it was “not close to launching a search product in China,” the Financial Times reported, citing a person present at the meeting.

PRIME MINISTER General Prayut Chan-o-cha has urged policymakers and entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia to develop and nurture a digital trade ecosystem as information technology in the region takes off.

Delivering the keynote speech on the topic of “CLMVT Taking-Off Through Technology”, Prayut praised the region’s status as a popular destination for investment and trade. He pointed to the “Look East” policy of the western world and India, along with the “Look South” approach of China, Japan and South Korea.

The immediate challenge for the CLMVT (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand) countries, said Prayut, was to figure out how to utilise new technologies to further share prosperity among the people.

Prayut was addressing the CLMVT Forum 2018 hosted by Thailand’s Ministry of Commerce.

He said that from now on, capacity building for entrepreneurial development must focus on preparation for the new economy and should be provided to all CLMVT entrepreneurs. “A region-wide digital trade ecosystem for CLMVT should be developed and nurtured. This includes the region’s own e-commerce platforms, efficient cross-border transport and logistics, payment systems as well as common standards and interoperability,” he said.

Commerce Minister Sontirat Somtijirawong pointed to the region’s high rate of economic growth and adoption of information technology. The average GDP growth rate of the five countries was 6.28 per cent last year, he said, and there were an estimated 150 million Internet users or 61 per cent of the total population. There were about 120.5 million Facebook accounts in the region. As well, online shopping has been growing rapidly, with Thailand and Vietnam together boasting about 47 million online shoppers, said Sontirat. Each shopper spent $109 (Bt3,620) last year via e-commerce channels, a 10-14 per cent increase from 2016. Online purchases reached $5.1 billion, up 20-22 per cent up from the previous year.

Asked what actions policymakers in the five countries would together pursue to promote a digital economy, Sontirat said the Commerce Ministry will gather information from the two-day forum for future consideration.

Meanwhile, a Myanmar business executive said his country was facing challenges to improve infrastructure and in educating both merchants and consumers about the digital economy.

Htay Aung, the chief executive officer of Aung Chaw Trading Co and Myanmar’s former Hotel and Tourism minister, said his country faced a challenge to improve infrastructure as logistics costs remained high. The government also needed to reform regulations to meet international benchmarks. Moreover the Myanmar government needed to educate both merchants and consumers about e-commerce, said Htay Aung.

Mara Warwick, World Bank country director for Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, said the challenge of digital technologies was how to make sure everyone benefited from them. She said policymakers should focus on three pillars – inclusion, efficiency and innovation.

Warwick warned that digital technologies could lead to market concentration, so policymakers must ensure there was both competition and transparency in the market. Children should be educated to love lifelong learning, which would help them catch up with fast-changing technology. Also, the development of emotional skills continued to increase in importance for children in the digital economy and would help them to get jobs later, she said.

Several Thai start-ups have opened booths at the forum. Among them is Builkone, which provides software application services for construction material suppliers and contractors. Thitikorn Chanson, who is in charge of business development at Builkone, said the company had expanded its business to Myanmar and Laos and looked forward to expanding to other Asean countries.