As the country continues to shoot for Thailand 4.0, talk of the digital gap is intensifying. Not only do we need a strong ecosystem for cutting-edge start-ups by ex-Googlers and MIT graduates, we also need to think of how digitalisation can reach our farmers and motorcycle drivers.

As 90 per cent of Thais access the Internet through their mobile phones, telecommunications companies are at the heart of this digital gap issue. But our pre-paid customers, who pay for their mobile phone usage as they go, are traditionally considered as being digital laggards compared to their post-paid counterparts. They are associated with lower incomes and lower digital competence.

There is an increasing amount of data that says otherwise.

Between March 2017 and March 2018, the average data consumption by DTAC’s pre-paid customers skyrocketed from 5.8 to 9 gigabytes per month. To put that in perspective, the average monthly mobile data usage in Europe reached 2.4GB per SIM card by the end of 2017, according to figures from GlobalData. Germany was below 1GB!

This has completely reshaped Thailand’s media landscape. Workpoint Digital TV now simulcasts across TV, YouTube, and social media. The result? A clip from “The Mask Singer” topped YouTube’s global trending videos in 2017. That’s right: Thailand, with a population of 69 million, topped a global ranking where it competed with content in languages like English (360 million speakers) or Spanish (400 million).

YouTube’s dominance in Thailand didn’t happen simply thanks to home and office computers or mobile users stuck in traffic. DTAC recently compiled some data on hit TV series “Love Destiny” (“BuppeSanNivas” in Thai). Aggregated data showed a majority of viewers were

connected to a single base-station during the entirety of the show, indicating they were most likely watching the show at home. Nor is this a phenomenon limited to major cities. The show’s growth was strongest in remote provinces.

My point is that everyone, pre-paid customers included, is now a heavy data user, employing their phone both at home and on the go. And to better serve those customers, banking, retail and telecommunications companies need to do a better job of meeting them where they are – which is on their phones.

DTAC conducted surveys and interviews to prototype a completely redesigned app for our pre-paid customers. What they told us is that they expect the same level of detail in managing their spending as they have in a banking app. They want to see every transaction, not just how much their wallet currently holds.

Using an iterative and highly-collaborative workflow (what’s known as “the agile method”), we were able to quickly roll out these changes to our pre-paid app. It is now available on iOS and Android. While it’s still early days, feedback has already been very positive. More importantly, it marks a shift in how we serve our 17 million pre-paid customers. They are already digital. It’s now on us to give them the tools to live the digital lifestyle they wish for.

Nuttee Sakkullapat is a vice president and head of the app and digitalisation department at DTAC.

The social media site said it found no sign that hackers accessed the exposed data, but advised users to change their passwords to be safe.

Twitter practice is to store passwords encrypted, or “hashed,” so they are masked to even people inside the company, Twitter chief technology officer Parag Agrawal explained in a blog post.

“Due to a bug, passwords were written to an internal log before completing the hashing process,” he said.

“We found this error ourselves, removed the passwords, and are implementing plans to prevent this bug from happening again.”

The San Francisco-based internet company did not specify how many passwords were exposed or how long the glitch made data vulnerable to snooping.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we ask that you consider changing your password on all services where you’ve used this password,” Agrawal told users.

“We are very sorry this happened,” he said.

The stumble comes as the sector faces intense scrutiny over the protection of personal data online, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal which saw information from tens of millions of Facebook users hijacked and misused.

Twitter shares ebbed about a percent to $30.36 in after-market trades that followed word of the password mishap.

Better to change

Going public with a security slip and getting users to take precautions is preferable to remaining mum and hoping no data was taken, according to independent technology industry analyst Rob Enderle.

“When in doubt, it is better to have people change passwords than to be wrong,” Enderle said.

“With security, it is always better to err on the side of caution.”

The analyst thought it unlikely people would abandon Twitter simply for being asked to change passwords.

“Openly admitting our mistakes quickly, learning, and moving on,” Twitter co-founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey said in a tweet that including a link to Agrawal’s blog post.

“I love my teammates.”

Out of the red

Twitter last week reported its second consecutive quarterly profit, boosting the outlook for the platform after years in the red.

The social network earned $61 million in the first three months of the year, helped by strong growth in advertising revenue and modest gains in users.

First quarter revenues rose 21 percent from a year ago to $665 million, and the key metric of monthly active users increased by six million from late last year to 336 million.

Dorsey said while discussing earnings that recent changes made to the service have helped “engagement,” a measure of how often people turn to the social network and how long they stay.

While Twitter has built a solid core base of celebrities, politicians and journalists, it has failed to match the broader appeal of Facebook and other social platforms, hurting its ability to bring in ad revenues.

The network has stepped up efforts to boost its user base and engagement, adding streaming video partnerships, doubling the character limit on tweets to 280 and making it easier to create “tweetstorms” by stringing messaging together.

Zuckerberg unveiled the plans as he addressed Facebook’s annual developers conference in San Jose, California — emphasizing that the focus would be on helping people find long-term partners.

“This is going to be for building real, long-term relationships, not just hook-ups,” Zuckerberg said in presenting the new feature, noting that one in three marriages in the United States start online — and that some 200 million Facebook users identify as being single.

Under the new feature, users will be able to create a separate “dating” profile not visible to their network of friends, with potential matches recommended based on dating preferences, points in common, and mutual acquaintances.

Zuckerberg did not specify whether the feature would be free of charge, in line with Facebook’s core offer — but the announcement was enough to send shares in the online dating giant Match.com tumbling by 17 percent.

The 33-year-old CEO also said the dating offer was built from the ground-up with privacy and safety in mind, as he underscored the firm’s commitment to boosting privacy protections.

Facebook’s closely-watched developer conference comes as the giant faces intense global scrutiny over the mass harvesting of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy that worked for Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

Facebook has admitted up to 87 million users may have had their data hijacked in the scandal, which saw Zuckerberg grilled at length by the US Congress last month.

“We need to make sure that never happens again,” Zuckerberg told the audience.

‘Clear history’

In a related move, Facebook Tuesday announced an upcoming feature called “Clear History” that will allow users to see which apps and websites send the network information, delete the data from their account, and prevent Facebook from storing it.

The social network has already moved to limit the amount of data it shares with third-party applications and plans further steps to prevent a repeat of the Cambridge Analytica debacle, Zuckerberg said.

Facebook is also reviewing applications overall as well as auditing those that accessed large amounts of data to make sure access isn’t abused, he said.

“Security isn’t a problem than you ever fully solve,” Zuckerberg said, outlining the slew of efforts by Facebook to battle election interference, misinformation, spam among other challenges.

“This is an arms race; we are going to be working to stay ahead of our adversaries forever.”

Message translation

Facebook separately announced Tuesday that its popular Messenger app would soon be able to translate missives in real time, deploying artificial intelligence to enable text conversations between people using different languages.

The feature will launch in the United States with English and Spanish translations of conversations in the Marketplace section of Facebook, and will be extended to general Messenger use in coming weeks, the service said in a blog post.

Facebook joins internet giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google in offering artificial-intelligence based translation features — most prominently Google’s Pixel ear buds which promise real-time translation across dozens of languages.

The slew of announcements at the developer-centric “F8” conference also included the arrival of a stand-alone Oculus Go headset aimed to get more people using virtual reality.

HIGH Quality and long-form video content, combined with free service, are the key reasons for the success of Line TV, the three-year-old leading advertising-based online video platform, according to a senior executive. Line TV this year is increasing the number of partners able to provide a variety of quality content.

Kawin Tangudtaisak, content business director of Line Thailand attributes the TV success so far to an abundance of long-form content.

He contrasts his company’s approach to other online content platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook, which have a lot more short-form content than long-form content.

“People visit Line TV a bit less often, but once they visit Line TV, almost of them stay very long on the app,” said Kawin.

Line TV positions itself as a premium video service, offering high quality content under an advertising-based model, with two options – sponsorship and pre-roll ads that allow viewers to skip the ad after a few seconds. The approach puts them in a unique position and is a key driver for their success, said Kawin.

“The key to success is good quality content. We partner with content producers. We are not a user-generated content platform. We help promote all partners’ contents. We have a huge budget [which cannot be disclosed] for marketing and promoting content on Line TV. The marketing budget for 2018 is more than 100 per cent above the marketing budget in 2017,” said Kawin.

This year Line TV is continuing to partner with TV Channels, including Channel 3. This year, the company will be adding user-generated content to their mix. Line TV will partner with Ookbee’s studio to co-create quality user-generated content that will be launched into the Line TV stream in the third quarter of 2018.

“Partnering with Ookbee is to open an opportunity for new producers to have a platform for showing their [user-generated] content,” said Kawin.

He said Line TV is not an online content disrupter, but instead plays the role of partner to content producers who wish to go on the online platform. The online platform and TV are complementary to each other, he said.

The target audience of Line TV is 15- to 40-year-olds, with around 80 per cent living in urban areas and 20 per cent in rural areas.

There are four key focus area of content – TV re-runs, original content, music experience, and miscellaneous content including music videos, live concerts, artists’ original content, animation, sports, variety, and movies.

Kawin said that benefits for Line TV stakeholders include offering a platform for showing content for content producers; offering an advertising platform for a safe brand; and offering quality content for end-users free of charge.

“Line TV is not yet the largest online video platform, so we need to put more emphasis on awareness,” said Kawin. “This year, Line TV is set to be the number one online video platform in term of the largest amount of quality content watched by audiences.”

The brand is now trying to optimise data consumption to allow users to enjoy watching even on low-speed networks. Locally designed and developed in Thailand, the TV is now also available in Taiwan.

It is not right for a rollout to all countries, said Kawin, but is suitable for markets in which Line enjoys access to both content and a large number of users. “It is a hyper-location strategy,” he said.

Three years after launching, Line TV is now the leading advertising-based online video platform in Thailand and was voted the top re-run video platform in Thailand, according to Nielsen.

For 2018, the company has set its hopes on becoming Thailand’s No. 1 online video platform.

Being an app that is associated with the Line chat app is another success factor for the TV brand.

In Thailand, there are more than 42 million Line users, a number that is expected to reach 45 million by 2020.

Meanwhile, the Line TV app has been downloaded 20 million time and enjoys similar numbers for active monthly users. Time spent on Line TV is 176 minutes or around two-thirds of total time spent on TV.

“In Thailand, the subscription-based model can penetrate the market only to around 5 million people, according to market research. Line TV want to reach more than that, so the advertising-based model is the right one,” said Kawin.

Line Today

In addition to Line TV, Line Thailand has introduced Line Today, offering short-form content to over 42 million Line users.

Line Today has claimed the spot of number one news portal in Thailand, with 32 million monthly active users and over 1 billion page views per month.

Currently, Line Today has around 110 content partners, providing sufficient content to allow it to offer fully-personalised content, which it is planning to launch by the second half of this year. “Our strategy is to partner with traditional media and help facilitate them turning to the online platform easily and successfully,” said Kawin Tangudtaisak, content business director of Line Thailand.

Line Today, like Line TV, is an advertising-based model, with revenue coming from banner and native ads. It offers Line users free quality content from partners.

“The key focus of Line Today is to curate quality content, and to do personalised content for different users in order to create better engagement,” said Kawin.

All incoming calls went to the Apple Watch. And I could make a phone call directly from the watch, and found the sound and signal as strong as with the phone.

The watch shows how the strength of the cellular signal via the green buttons on its screen. When all four button are green, the signal is very good, while a solo green button denotes a poor signal.

The one thing the user needs to prepare for is the battery charge. The battery ran out much faster the day that I forgot the phone at home. Starting from a fully-charged battery on the watch in the morning, the juice had run out by the end of the day. So, that day’s lesson was that the watch can double as my mobile phone, as long as the iPhone I left at home was fully charged for my return from work. Also note that if the iPhone’s battery has run out, the connection between the watch and the phone will be lost.

Thanks to the Apple Watch 3 Cellular, my life ran as usual on the workday that I forgot my phone at home. When relaxing, like in the evening when I do fitness exercises or play badminton, I do not want to carry a phone with me. The Apple Watch is very helpful in keeping me always connected through incoming calls.

To experience a phone call without a phone, I first needed to pair the Apple Watch with the iPhone mobile phone. The setting is not too difficult. But the user needs to make sure their mobile phone package covers the e-sim for the Apple Watch. Currently, only one mobile phone provider in Thailand, True Move H, has offered the e-sim for the Apple Watch 3 Cellular. The other two carriers, Advanced Info Services (AIS) and Total Access Communication (DTAC) are committed to later rolling out the e-sim for Apple Watch 3 Cellular.

The additional convenience offered by having the watch means you might have to pay a little bit more. You will be charged for the e-sim service, but how much depends on the provider’s promotion and package.

It is not only the communication feature that I love about this watch. Another key feature of the Apple Watch allows me to actively know about my health and exercise activity. The GymKit lets me pair the watch directly to the treadmills when working out.

To use GymKit, users just tap the Apple Watch function with the near field communication (NFC) reader on the machine to get them connected, then the machine, and the watch communicates via Bluetooth. The machine and the watch will synchronise user’s data immediately. It works for all Apple Watches with Watch OS 4.2. During the exercise, all data shown on machine were the same on the watch, and users can control any data on the machine. I can view metrics during the workout, and the metrics on the machine match what I see on my wrist.

If the user at first forgets to connect the watch to the machine, they can be connected as the user continues to exercise by just tapping the watch with the NFC reader on the machine. Once the devices are connected, data is immediately updated and synced to the watch.

The data exchange is two-way data and in real time, resulting in the most accurate measurements possible with less device management. The work-out machine does not store any personal data, so once the connection is lost the data on the machine will disappear, but all data will be stored on the Apple Watch.

GymKit enables the user, with a simple tap, to pair their Apple Watch directly to their favourite cardio equipment, including treadmills, ellipticals, indoor bikes or stair steppers from global manufacturers such as Matrix, Technogym and Life Fitness. The Smartwatch and fitness machine will sync seamlessly, including calories, distance, speed, floors climbed, incline and pace.

Apple GymKit, was first announced in June 2017 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple has since launched GymKit in a number of countries including the US, UK, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand.

Currently, 80 per cent of the world’s cardio equipment manufacturers are onboard to enable GymKit to hook up with their equipment. Apple GymKit is included by default for new equipment as it rolls off the line.

Jetts fitness chain offers equipment

that links to Apple Watch

Jetts 24 Hour Fitness, a 24/7 gym chain, is the first facility to introduce Apple GymKit-enabled equipment in Thailand and Southeast Asia.

All seven Jetts clubs in Bangkok have been enabled to pair with the Apple GymKit.

Dane Cantwell, country manager of Jetts 24 Hour Fitness said that the GymKit would provide a great experience for members who wanted to better track their heart rate and fitness level in order to improve their fitness regime.

“We really feel that people are embracing technology and they want to find out more information about themselves, how do they improve their efficiency and everything,” he said. “We implemented around 25 to 80 pieces of cardio equipment in each branch. Feedback is quite good and positive,” said Cantwell.

I also remember looking at what technology did exist – the cars, televisions and phones surrounding us – and thinking, “Why can’t Thailand create these such things for itself?”

Those two questions inspired me to study telecommunications engineering. I completed an undergraduate degree from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Lad Krabang. Then, I jumped into the AI world by pursuing a masters degree at Germany’s Ulm university followed by a doctorate at Caen University, in France, majoring in computer visions and data mining.

My first job was linked to the future of self-driven cars. Working at Stuttgart-based automotive company, Daimler AG, I researched ways for cars to detect pedestrians. To do that, we used what’s called artificial intelligence (AI).

AIs grant a machine the capacity to think a little bit more like a human – the ability to read complex situations, make a decision by itself, and even learn, all of which are critical skills for technological advances like self-driving cars.

AIs are created with the idea that the best way to learn is from experience. Humans remember from past experience the best and worst ways to accomplish a particular task. Every time we make a mistake, our brains add that feedback to the learning process in order to prevent those mistakes from happening again.

This auto-feedback system has long been studied by researchers. And we are now applying it to machine learning. We turn that feedback process into a piece of software, an algorithm, which imitates human brain functions.

One such piece of code is Google’s AlphaGo, an AI that recently beat the world’s best human go player. Conceptually, the programer lets two robots play each other a million times. Every time they failed, they learned from that, until their tactic becomes increasingly refined. Ultimately, they reached a point where they can beat the very best humans.

Data science is simply that same method of machine learning applied to business. DTAC, for example, analyses its customers’ data with hundred of variables that affect the decision factors behind the services they use, such as Internet speed, number of calls, price plan,

etc.

It allows DTAC to offer more relevant packages that match their customers’ usage, as opposed to letting the customer sift through thousands of offers in search of the one that best fits them.

Currently, I’m working on an AI-based chatbot (a computer program designed to simulate human conversation with human users) to relieve the call centre team of routine queries and allow them to focus on more complex cases.

They’re clearly doing a great job since DTAC just won The Consumer Protection Thailand Call Centre Award. As for the bot, it’s currently available for SMS queries and will be launched on Facebook next month.

During my free time, I also created “Botnoi,” an experiment I coded to allow users to talk with and befriend a robot. Botnoi has chalked up more than a million downloads through Line and Facebook. Botnoi also received the Line Bot Award last year, from Line Corporation.

Its impact is beyond what I could have imagined. It once helped a suicidal person by just being a good friend to them. Botnoi is still a far cry from Doraemon, but I am proud of the contribution it makes to society as a chatbot friend for all.

Winn Voravuthikunchai is group data scientist at the Telenor Group.

Scientists working on the Resource Prospector (RP) mission, a robotic rover that had been in development for about a decade to explore a polar region of the Moon, expressed astonishment at the decision.

“We now understand RP was cancelled on 23 April 2018 and the project has been asked to close down by the end of May,” said the letter dated April 26 by the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, addressed to NASA chief Jim Bridenstine and posted on the website NASAWatch.com.

“This action is viewed with both incredulity and dismay by our community,” particularly because Trump’s space policy “directs NASA to go to the lunar surface,” the letter said.

The robotic rover was being built as the world’s only vehicle aimed at exploring the polar region of the Moon, and was expected to undergo a design review next year ahead of launching in 2022.

It would have been the first US lunar lander since Apollo 17 in 1972, and the first ever US robotic rover on the surface of the Moon.

RP was intended to be the first mission to mine the surface of the Moon, in search of volatile compounds like hydrogen, oxygen and water.

NASA responded with a statement posted online Friday which said some of the instruments aboard RP would be flown on future missions.

“NASA is developing an exploration strategy to meet the agency’s expanded lunar exploration goals,” said the statement.

“Consistent with this strategy, NASA is planning a series of progressive robotic missions to the lunar surface.”

It did not specifically refer to any plans to cancel RP, but said the space agency is seeking “to evolve progressively larger landers leading to an eventual human lander capability,” as part of a broader strategy to return people to the Moon for long-term exploration.

“As part of this expanded campaign, selected instruments from Resource Prospector will be landed and flown on the Moon,” it said.

Bridenstine, who was confirmed this week as the new head of NASA, insisted on Twitter that the US space agency is “committed to lunar exploration.”

“Resource Prospector instruments will go forward in an expanded lunar surface campaign. More landers. More science. More exploration. More prospectors. More commercial partners,” he wrote.

In December 2017, Trump formally directed NASA to focus its efforts on returning people to the Moon as a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars.

Michy Gustavia, Go-Jek’s vice president for acquisition and development, said the video content segment would be called “Go-Play”, noting that it would implement a subscription-based business model such as those of Netflix, Hulu and Hooq, according to a report by kompas.com.

Go-Play users will be able to subscribe daily, weekly or monthly. No information has yet been revealed on the details of the type of video content Go-Play will provide. However, the company said it would also produce original content through its services called “Go-Studio”, which would be based on data collected from its users’ habits.

“Go-Jek will make content to create a positive social impact,” Michy said. “The content that we produce and help produce will be exclusive for Go-Play. So the content will be 95 percent focused on Indonesia,” she added.

Read also: Google invests in ride-hailing app Go-Jek

Michy said one of the first projects would be made based on the high cancellation rate by Go-Ride users when obtaining a female motorcycle driver. From the data retrieved, Go-Jek worked together with Indonesian filmmakers to create a documentary.

“Users cancel the order because they perceive that women can’t drive motorcycles or are not that good at it. This cancellation directly affects the livelihood of female drivers, where they are the main breadwinners of the family,” Michy said.

“The result is very strong and good, we have submitted it to several international film festivals,” she added.

Michy expressed optimism that Go-Play would provide an original voice from Indonesia.

“We want to nurture and empower domestic talent and filmmakers and promote Indonesian content,” she said.

The ride-hailing app as of December last year had accumulated 9.7 million users through its wide range of services, among which are courier services Go-Send, shopping Go-Mart, house cleaning Go-Clean, as well as pampering services Go-Glam and Go-Massage.