“Brother is using ‘Strategy X’ — formally known as ‘Collaboration Strategy’ — as the foundation for this historic cooperation, and for the first time the five major brands in the IT business will join hands in a marketing activity,” said Teerawut Supapunpinyo, managing director of Brother Commercial (Thailand).

If the campaign is successful, Brother will gear up for more collaborations with brands outside the IT business industry to continuously bring surprises to the market, Teerawut added.

Brother has selected over 25 models of quality printers and scanners to participate in this programme. “Simply show a tax invoice from the purchase of a laptop or PC from Acer, Asus, Dell or Lenovo, and a tax invoice from a purchase of a selected Brother printer or scanner, and redeem a voucher worth up to Bt2,000 from August 1 to September 30,” he said.

Brother products participating in the campaign include laser printers starting from Bt1,190, inkjet printers starting from Bt4,190 and scanners starting from Bt3,190.

The affected areas are Choom-Puang district, Nakhon Ratchasima province, Warin Chumrab district, Ubon Ratchathani province, Muang district, Surin province, Pa Sak Cholasit dam and Ubolratana dam.

Farmers in these areas are being encouraged to use the app to ensure they have accurate rainfall and weather forecasts.

“Farm Man Yum” is able to accurately forecast rainfall volume for individual plots from 7 days, 6 weeks to 9 months ahead.

The rainfall volume in Nakhon Ratchasima province will be lower than during the same period last year and farmers are being advised to store water to prevent the rice plants from dying.

Similarly, Farm Man Yum has forecast 6 weeks ahead that the rainfall volume will not increase until mid August so planted rice will require irrigation from stored water to prevent it from dying.

Farmers in Ubon Ratchathani province are encouraged to store water during September-October to prevent the rice going flat.

Farmers from Warin Chumrab district, Ubon Ratchathani, meanwhile, are encouraged to store water during September-October period, which is when the rice plants flower. If the rainfall in this period is as low as the lowest forecast of Farm Man Yum, the rice will become stressed and be below standard.

The rainfall volume in Muang district of Surin province during a 9-month rainfall forecast from Ricult appears to be similar to that of Ubon Ratchathani province but the water level will be lower. Farmers in Surin must be aware of water shortages during October.

The water levels in Pa Sak Cholasit dam, Lop Buri province and Ubolratana dam, Khon Kaen province have reached critical level. The situation at Pa Sak Cholasit dam is so critical that farmers in the surrounding area have been told to refrain from planting crops with a long growing season. To make matters worse, the app indicates that rainfall volume in the second half of the year will be so low that it will affect water supply.

Argon Transform, which can be fitted to most helmets, is also touted as the world’s first dual-camera smart helmet attachment. It consists of a rear-view camera, a front dash-cam with a HUD attachment and a handlebar remote control. It also features built-in GPS and provides navigation prompts and live 170-degree rear-view camera feed via the HUD. Riders can also receive audio cues, answer or reject calls and listen to music through its speaker and microphone system.

The five inventors, who formed their company Whyre with investment from Singaporean firm Moveon technologies, are chief executive officer Tan Yishu, 27; chief business development officer Glen Ong, 27; chief technology officer (hardware) Dylan Tan, 26; chief technology officer (software) Muhammad Hafiz, 26; and chief finance officer Lim Qun, 26.

Mr Ong has a Masters degree in business management from Singapore Management University, while the other four graduated from Singapore University of Technology and Design with engineering and information technology degrees.

The biggest advantage of Argon Transform is its detachable nature. Thus, unlike some smart helmets, which have to be replaced with new ones when damaged, Argon Transform can be easily detachedfrom the old helmet to use on a new one.

Mr Ong said: “The product transfers between helmets in seconds, giving full functionality to any regular helmet.”

Since being exhibited at the mega CES 2019 consumer trade showat Las Vegas in January, the device has undergone some improvements.

The front attachment has gone through a redesign and is now 25 per cent smaller. The HUD’s optics has been improved for a clearer and brigter view. The charging port has been upgraded to USB-C for faster charging.

Having tested the product for two years, Whyre launched Argon Transform on the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform at July 23 with the target of raising $34,008 in a month.

Backers will be able to buy the smart helmet attachment at prices ranging from $543 to $815, while the retail price is expected to be around $1,090. The device will be shipped to the backers by Feb next year.

Mr Ong said the reason for the relatively low crowdfunding target, compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars some start-up wants, is because the company has funds and ready distributors who have ordered Argon Transform.

“Indiegogo is simply a trusted platform for us to gain more orders and attempt to reach out to a wider audience,” he said.

At press time, the campaign has reached 72 per cent of its target. After the crowdfunding campaign ends, interested customers can purchase Argon Transform through its website.

The company’s net profit margin was 8.7 per cent for the first half, chairman Liang Hua said on Tuesday.

He described operations as smooth and the organisation “as sound as ever”.

In Huawei’s carrier business, first-half sales revenue reached 146.5 billion yuan, with steady growth in production and shipment of equipment for wireless networks, optical transmission, data communications, IT, and related product domains.

To date, Huawei has secured 50 commercial 5G contracts and shipped more than 150,000 base stations to markets around the world.

In its enterprise business, H1 sales revenue was 31.6 billion yuan. Huawei continues to enhance its ICT portfolio in multiple domains, including cloud, artificial intelligence, campus networks, data centres, the internet of things, and intelligent computing.

It remains a trusted supplier for government and utility customers, as well as customers in commercial sectors like finance, transportation, energy, and automobile, Liang said.

In the consumer business, H1 sales revenue hit 220.8 billion yuan. Huawei’s smartphone shipments (including Honor phones) reached 118 million units, up 24 per cent year on year.

The company also saw rapid growth in its shipments of tablets, PCs and wearables. Huawei is beginning to scale its device ecosystem to deliver a more seamless “intelligent experience” for all major user scenarios. The Huawei Mobile Services ecosystem has more than 800,000 registered developers and 500 million users worldwide.

“Revenue grew fast up through May,” said Liang. “Given the foundation we laid in the first half of the year, we continue to see growth even after we were added to the entity list. That’s not to say we don’t have difficulties ahead. We do, and they may affect the pace of our growth in the short term.

“But we will stay the course. We are fully confident in what the future holds, and we will continue investing as planned – including a total of 120 billion yuan in R&D this year. We’ll get through these challenges, and we’re confident that Huawei will enter a new stage of growth after the worst of this is behind us.”

Mate 20X is the first 5G smartphone model that has been approved by China’s telecom industry regulator to connect to the network. It was approved in late-June, followed by a 5G model by its rival ZTE Corp that was approved this month. ZTE Corp said on Tuesday that its 5G smartphone was available to order domestically.

Analysts said the Huawei move is part of the tech giant’s broader push to quickly commercialize the superfast technology and it highlights the stiff competition as companies scramble to offer the cutting-edge gadgets.

He Gang, president of Huawei’s consumer business group, said Mate 20X is the world’s first model to support both stand-alone and non-stand-alone 5G networks, signifying wider use scenarios than rival products that support only non-stand-alone 5G networks. Non-stand-alone networks still rely on existing 4G infrastructure for some functions.

Ma Xin, an analyst at the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said the peak download speed of Huawei’s 5G model can hit 1,850 megabits per second in lab tests, the fastest speed reported so far. It also performs very well in supporting cloud gaming on smartphones, allowing consumers to play high-definition, sophisticated games requiring big computing capability, traditionally available only on personal computers, Ma said.

Mate 20X comes with a 7.2-inch screen perfect for gamers and entertainment bingers, Huawei said. The model is priced at 6,199 yuan (US$900) in China, far lower than industry experts’ forecasts, which held that the first 5G models would run about 10,000 yuan due to high production costs.

Huawei has strong capabilities in developing in-house chips and integrating industrial resources, allowing the Shenzhen-based company to significantly lower the price, He said.

“Our price will set the tone for 5G smartphones in the China market. I believe, in the second half of this year, flagship smartphones of most smartphone companies will be 5G-enabled, which will drive the price to quickly move closer to that of 4G products,” He said.

ZTE’s 5G smartphone starts at 4,999 yuan, but analysts said its model supports only non-stand-alone networks. Smartphone makers Oppo and Vivo are also scheduled to release their 5G models in China in the third quarter.

Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, said smartphone vendors are adopting an aggressive pricing strategy to appeal to early adopters of 5G and popularize its use.

Shipments of 5G smartphones are expected to hit 6.7 million units globally in 2019, according to market research company International Data Corp.

The company is also introducing OneWeb’s AppSpace, which will make it easy for SMEs and start-ups to expand their market by building applications quickly and easily.

AppSpace boosts business’s ability to automate the process of software configuration and deployment, and reduces cloud-based software management by six times, which in turn makes it easy to develop “maker” ecosystems to promote new innovations in different sectors, such as banking, insurance, industries, healthcare, retail business, government and state enterprises.

In addition to expanding the existing customer base, AppSpace also targets medium-sized customers, SMEs and start-ups.

“We are confident that OneWeb can address the shortage of technical resources. Developing in-house technical skills takes time and incurs significant cost for organisations. But now, medium-sized enterprises, SMEs and start-ups can leverage OneWeb for their cloud initiative. We expect this new and exciting sector to grow 200 per cent this year,” Akarapol Bunworaset, managing director of Avalant, said.

A survey conducted by Gartner Inc shows that business trends are heading towards the cloud and “low code”, namely software development that requires less coding. This trend is resulting in the growth of cloud-based services in the form of aPaas (application platform as a service) and iPaaS (integration platform as a service) in line with market demand. By 2021, cloud-based software will grow 59 per cent, while data-centric software will drop 2.6 per cent.

It is also predicted that by 2024, 65 per cent of applications will be developed on a low-code or no-code platform.

Today, both the government and business sectors have crossed the digital transformation era and are entering the “make-generation” era, in which every organisation is expected to quickly and efficiently launch innovations.

In order to compete in a disruptive environment, “makers” in each organisation must acquire the ability to innovate using agile, flexible and complete development platforms. These platforms should also be able to cope with rapid changes and help drive sustainable innovation for organisations.

“The Digital Maker Platform will play an important role in this exciting digital economy, by giving the ‘maker generation’ a platform to leverage their experience and creativity to develop innovations that eventually become the core engine of our future. Avalant believes this platform will play a key role in supporting business and public sectors to compete in the global market and boosting the local economy,” Akarapol said.

The Fortune 500 list ranks companies according to their revenue and profit, focusing on the size of the companies. The Fortune 500 rankings have become an important indicator used by companies to measure their own strengths, size and international competitiveness, a parameter of the global economy that transcends beyond borders, nationalities and cultural differences.

Huawei’s elevated ranking is reflects its 22 per cent increase in revenue and a 27.5 change in profits year-over-year. And the company’s rankings progress goes far beyond profitability.

“Our continued elevation in the Fortune 500 list rankings is yet another notable marker of success for the company in 2019,” said Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group. “Our dedication to delivering the latest technologies to our customers, with a sharp focus on innovation through our commitment to investing in R&D enabling us to continue to enjoy record success.”

Earlier this year, Huawei ranked 47th on BrandZ’s annual Top 100 “most valuable global brands”, in large part due to groundbreaking product innovations such as the Huawei P30 smartphone’s advanced camera system, the unprecedented technological innovations baked into the Huawei Mate X handset, as well as the anticipated Mate 20 X (5G).

The former, a mouse pad with wireless charging function that supports Qi, is a certified product and conforms to the international standard “Qi” formulated by WPC, and boasts a built-in charging pad on the right side of the pad. Up to 5W can be charged just by placing a smartphone that supports Qi standard. A smartphone with 3 mm or less thick case can be charged with the case.

It comes with an operation confirmation LED to indicate the status of standby / charging / error and its built-in safety function stops charging the smartphone when foreign matter such as metal is detected. The pad surface is made of a leather-like material.

Sanwa MA-WBL157BK / R is a wireless mouse with 2.4 GHz band connection. It can be charged simply by placing it in a Qi compatible charger, and in combination with the MPD-WLC11BK, it can be charged simply by leaving it unused. By using a highly sensitive blue LED as a sensor, operations can be performed even on glass surfaces. User can use it as a wired mouse with attached Micro USB cable. The mouse has 5 buttons and the dpi can be selected from 80 / 1,200 / 1,600dpi.Continuous operation time is about 60 hours.

The wireless system adopts 2.4 GHz RF radio system, which is resistant to radio interference, and stable data communication is possible over a wide 10m radius communication range. Sanwa Qi compatible wireless charging function mouse pad MPD-WLC11BK measures 325 x 244 x 6 mm, weighs 220 g. The MA-WBL157BK / R wireless mouse measures 69 x 121 x 38 mm and weighs 105 g.

An ECG is a medical test that detects abnormalities such as atrial fibrillation (AFib), which is a form of irregular rhythm in a person’s heart, by measuring the electrical activity generated by the heart as it contracts.

This test is usually done by a technician attaching 12 small electrode patches to the skin of a patient’s chest, arms and legs. But with the Apple Watch Series 4 smartwatches, the wearer only needs to stay still and hold the smartwatch’s Digital Crown for 30 seconds to get an ECG reading.

Singapore is the second market in Asia after Hong Kong, and the first in South-east Asia, to get the ECG feature, now available in 31 markets around the world. The Apple Watch Series 4 was launched in September last year.

The ECG feature needs the approval of a local health authority before it can become available in the market the Apple Watch Series 4 is being sold in. For Singapore, the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) is the approving authority.

Dr Sumbul Desai, Apple’s vice president of health, told The Straits Times in a phone interview that HSA took time to review the ECG feature and understand it. “They were very positive about us bringing the feature to Singapore,” she said.

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One benefit of the Apple Watch Series 4’s ECG feature is “democratising health information so that individuals can really engage and empower themselves”, said Dr Desai, who is also a practising physician.

She added: “You now have the ability to take snapshots of what’s going on with your heart as you live your everyday life, so…when you go to your doctor, you have more information.”

She emphasised that the ECG feature of Apple Watch Series 4 will not replace physicians but rather provide another avenue of data for them to understand more about their patients.

“We really look at it as a way of augmenting the physician-patient relationship,” she said.

Apple emphasised that the ECG cannot detect a heart attack, blood clots, stroke or other heart-related conditions. If left untreated, AFib can cause blood to clot in the heart. If the clot is pumped out, it can lead to a stroke, heart failure or other medical conditions.

Dr Julian Tan, an interventional cardiologist at The Cardiology Practice, said: “For cardiologists, the key is the validation (and accuracy) of such portable ECG systems. Based on Apple’s white paper, I am quite confident of the usability and feasibility of such devices.”

Along with the ECG feature, the watchOS 5.3 update on Tuesday will also add irregular heart rhythm detection feature to all Apple Watch smartwatches from Series 1 to Series 4.

How to take an ECG reading with the Apple Watch Series 4 smartwatch

You can take an ECG at any time, when you are feeling symptoms such as a rapid or skipped heartbeat, or when you have other general concerns about your heart health. However, you have to be at least 22 years old to take an ECG reading using the Apple Watch Series 4.

1. Make sure your Apple Watch is strapped on snugly and that you have selected the correct watch-wearing wrist – either left or right wrist – in the Apple Watch app.

2. Launch the ECG app.

3. Rest your watch-wearing arm on a table or in your lap and keep it steady.

4. Rest your index finger – of the hand not wearing the watch – on the Digital Crown and hold it there. Do not press the crown.

5. The ECG recording takes 30 seconds. You will not get a reading if you remove your finger from the Digital Crown before the stipulated time. At the end of the recording, you will receive a classification. Tap Add Symptoms and choose your symptoms, which includes “fatigue”, “shortness of breath” and “chest tightness”.

6. Tap Save, followed by Done.

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Facebook terms such a scheme “Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB)”, which it deems abusive, and had resulted in multiple Facebook or Instagram accounts and pages removed, in an attempt to prevent Facebook and its services from being used deceptively to manipulate people regardless of the content involved.

Under Facebook’s rules in effect in recent years, CIB-related acts are banished through removal of accounts and pages, because Facebook, in an official but simple description put in its regular Newsrooms Post – “wants people to be able to trust the connections they make on Facebook”.

In a live video conference held on Thursday at noon at Facebook’s Bangkok headquarters connecting a number of Thai journalists with Nathaniel Gleicher, head of Facebook’s cybersecurity policy, the American expert said that multiple accounts and pages had been removed in four additional CIB cases in Thailand, Honduras, Russia, and Ukraine, on top of numerous removals in recent years.

The case involving Thailand presents details about local politics – under a channel fronting as a news outlet – protests in Hong Kong, the sour relations between China and United States as well as criticism of Thai pro-democracy activists.

Gleicher also warned Facebook users against involvement in CIB acts, saying that their authentic accounts will be removed permanently or deactivated temporarily if they are found to have been part of unproductive acts under CIB definition.

A computer scientist and lawyer, Gleicher works at the intersection of technology, policy, and law. Gleicher served as director for cybersecurity policy at the National Security Council (NSC) in the White House. At the NSC, he developed US government policy on key technology and cybersecurity challenges, including encryption, cyber deterrence, internet governance, and network security.

In other cases relating to CIB acts originated in Asian countries, actions termed as takedowns were taken in August 2018 against Myanmar military officials registered in Facebook, as well as banning 20 Burmese individuals and organisations from Facebook.

Another was a series of takedowns against hate groups and radicalisation forums based in Indonesia, whose content had already violated Facebook’s community standards regulations.

Facebook had coordinated with local authorities, together with local civil action groups for further possible legal actions against the people found involved in CIB-related acts, in case their activities are in violation of local criminal or civil laws.