The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) currently forecasts solar flares by identifying the locations of sunspots using a radio telescope, and detecting magnetic anomalies in the atmosphere and other unusual factors via an observation device. The current prediction accuracy is said to be about 50 percent.

In January, the NICT announced that it successfully conducted an experiment to increase the accuracy of its forecast by having AI learn 300,000 images of sunspots. However, the current observation device can only store about several months’ worth of information on sunspots and magnetism.

With the help of AI, the government intends to increase the device’s capacity to allow it to store at least several years’ worth of data.

The government also plans to build another Space Weather Forecast Center under the NICT somewhere in a provincial area — the existing center is in Koganei, western Tokyo — and install a backup antenna there that would be linked to the observation device to allow for continued monitoring in the event of a large-scale disaster hitting the Tokyo metropolitan area.

A solar flare that was generated on Sept. 6 emitted high-temperature gas that took two days to reach Earth. The NICT issued an alert concerning the phenomenon on Sept. 7.

The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry believes that improving forecast technology will help the institute release more accurate information in advance. The ministry has requested ¥100 million for enhancing the observation device in its supplementary budget request for the current fiscal year.

In October 2003, the largest solar flare to have been recorded at that time caused problems with a Japanese satellite, as well as a major power outage in Sweden. Solar activities are said to intensify about every 11 years; the next peak is estimated to be in the mid-2020s. Solar flares could occur frequently during that period, and countries are making efforts to cope with the phenomenon.

The government aims to cooperate with other countries on the issue.

■Solar flare

A large-scale explosion occurring around a dark area on the sun’s surface known as a sunspot. The explosion emits strong X-rays, high-temperature gases — which carry electrified particles — and others. They collide with Earth’s atmosphere and affect the planet’s magnetism. This phenomenon sometimes causes errors in Global Positioning System and failures at power stations that lead to blackouts.

The guest of honour who officiated at the new mobile app was Haji Abdul Manap bin Othman, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Health (MoH).

The new app, which is created to help patients perform the five time daily prayers including Wudhu (ablution) and Tayammum, can be downloaded via Google Play and App Store.

The main features of the application are guidelines on Wudhu, Tayammum and prayer for patients with physical disabilities in the form of audio, visual and text. Other features include prayer time, prayer time alarm, Surah for prayer, Doa and Kiblat direction.

The main ‘iBantu Solat’ is the result of the pilot project on ‘Khidmat Bantu Solat Pesakit’ at government hospitals which was implemented in April 2015.

In his welcoming remarks, chairman of the ceremony Haji Zulkifli bin Panglima Asgar Dato Paduka Haji Abdullah, Acting Deputy Permanent Secretary at the MoRA, said that the ‘Khidmat Bantu Solat Pesakit’ project was created three years ago to strengthen the faith of Muslim community in Brunei.

He hoped that the new application can achieve its main objectives of providing patients the convenience to perform prayers according to their situation as well as heal physical illnesses through spiritual cleansing.

The ceremony also saw the presentation of published materials and purified sand for Tayammum for the use of patients by the Acting Deputy Permanent Secretary at the MoRA to Haji Md Khairul Anuar bin Pehin Orang Kaya Pendikar Alam Dato Paduka Seri Haji Hasrin, Chief Executive Officer of RIPAS Hospital.

Also in attendance was Dato Seri Setia Haji Abdul Aziz bin Orang Kaya Maharaja Lela Haji Mohd Yusof, Permanent Secretary at the MoRA.

According to local broadcaster SBS, the Korean arm of Google reported sales of 267.1 billion won ($245 million) to tax authorities last year, much less than its estimated sales of 1.8 trillion won calculated by app analysis firm IGAWorks.

Such a low sales figure may be reported because the revenue generated in Korea — along with sales generated in other Asian nations — is sent to Google Asia Pacific, which located in Singapore, considered an Asian tax haven.

Figuring out actual sales generated in Korea is also difficult because Google Korea is not obligated to publicly disclose its sales or taxes here because it is set up as a limited liability company.

Google’s continued opaque business and its growing sales of Google Play in the nation has led to growing calls for more transparent business performance. Sales in Google Play accounts for 71 percent of the total content sales of the app market in Korea this year.

“Because Google Korea does not accurately disclose its service sales, doubts remain over whether the company properly pays taxes,” said Ahn Chang-nam, a professor at Kangnam University’s tax law college.

Globally, some nations have begun to take action to collect “unpaid taxes” from Google. The UK and Italy announced they would recoup 130 million pounds ($174 million) and 360 million euros ($424 million), respectively, in taxes from the search firm.

“Korea should also have legal grounds and join international movements of tackling BEPS to improve its bargaining power with global firms,” said Shin Min-soo, a professor at Hanyang University. Base erosion and profit shifting, or BEPS, refers to tax avoidance strategies that exploit gaps and mismatches in tax rules to artificially shift profits to low or no-tax locations.

Setting legal groundwork is ongoing here from both lawmakers and the government. Rep. Kim Sung-tae of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party has proposed a bill to revise the current Telecommunications Business Act to impose the same regulations on global companies as it imposes on local firms.

The government began reviewing how to regulate global companies, including Google, by creating a task force comprised of representatives of the ICT Ministry, Finance Ministry, National Tax Service and Financial Services Commission.

A Google Korea spokesperson said, “Gogle follows the laws and pays all applicable taxes in Korea. Information on Google Korea’s revenue and profit is regularly reported to the Korean tax authority.”

Chinese bike-sharing top player Mobike Technology Co Ltd on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership with LINE Corp, Japan’s largest mobile social network service provider, to better facilitate its expansion in the Japanese market.

Under the partnership, LINE led an undisclosed Series A round of investment in Mobike Japan, the Beijing-based dockless rental company’s subsidiary in the country. LINE Corp, which operates Japan’s popular messaging platform LINE with 71 million local users, will own less than 20 per cent of Mobike Japan, taking the largest minority stake.

The two companies will also work together to integrate Mobike service into the LINE app in a similar way as it did with WeChat in China. The integration will allow LINE users to rent Mobike shared bikes inside the chat app, simply by scanning the QR code on the bike and paying using their LINE pay account or other payment methods.

“LINE is the clear leader in Japan’s social media space, with a strong culture of innovation and creativity, and therefore, is the perfect partner to support our ambitious growth plans in Japan,” Mobike founder Hu Weiwei said in a statement. “Working together with LINE, we will be able to provide tens of millions of LINE users with a seamless and localized experience for finding, unlocking and paying for bikes with the LINE app.”

Takeshi Idezawa, president and CEO of LINE Corp, said via the new partnership, LINE was eager to offer additional value-added services that make life more convenient and comfortable for users.

“Through this capital investment and strategic business partnership with Mobike, we can support the expansion of Mobike’s service in Japan by leveraging our network that make use of our various activities and services,” he added.

The partnership marks Mobike’s latest move to further its global expansion strategy and to better integrate in local markets.

“Similar to WeChat in China, LINE is Japan’s most popular messaging service platform,” said Zhang Xu, a Beijing-based internet analyst. “Thus the integration will greatly benefit Mobike, providing a larger user base and enabling new ways of conveniently accessing the shared bike services.”

Founded in 2015, Mobike currently rents out more than 8 million bikes in more than 200 cities in 12 countries.

Under its ambitious goal to expand the services to 200 cities globally by the end of this year, Mobike began offering its services in the Japanese city of Sapporo in August. And it is set to officially pedal to Fukuoka this week.

Its top domestic rival, Ofo Inc, also expanded its bike-sharing services in Japan in August, with a similar global strategy, via a partnership agreement with Japanese technology firm SoftBank Commerce & Service Corp.

HANOI — YouTube has removed approximately 90 per cent of “toxic” video clips the Vietnamese Government complained about in 2017, Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan claimed yesterday.

During a conference on the ministry’s performance this year and its agenda for 2018, Tuan said that the Government so far requested Google to block and delete about 5,000 clips with bad content on YouTube, which is one of Google’s subsidiaries.

Of which, 4,500 clips were erased from YouTube.

The largest social network in the world and also the most popular in Vietnam, Facebook,  removed 159 accounts smearing the reputation of officials and leaders or those posting anti-Party and State content this year, Tuan said.

Under Vietnam’s request, Facebook also deleted 107 fake accounts and another 394 advertising and selling illegal goods and services.

“One of the highlights of the (communications) ministry this year is making Vietnam one of those countries pioneering in implementing

measures to tighten management of enterprises providing trans-border services, particularly Google and Facebook,” the minister said.

“Vietnam is among those countries of which the rate of their (removal) demand stisfied by Google was the highest in the world,” he added.

In times of rapid technological development, Tuan said forces with evil intents would take advantage to deliver toxic information using foreign-based social services.

The mission of the communications ministry in 2018 is to improve mechanisms to monitor information on the Internet and manage foreign content service providers operating in Vietnam, while encouraging domestic firms to join the sector.

Communications growth

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the sector gained revenue of more than VND2.13 quadrillion (US$94.9 billion) this year, a growth rate of 9.34 per cent over 2016.

The information technology industry yielded about VNĐ1.7 quadrillion, about 80 per cent of the total sector’s revenue. .Communications service providers were far behind in the second place, with only VNĐ352 trillion in the year despite growth over 2016.

All virtual currency transactions are recorded on public ledgers called blockchain, which are managed jointly by PC users around the world. People can obtain the digital coins through mining — a process where remuneration is earned by adding new transaction records to the ledgers.

In many cases, high-performance PCs are used for this mining operation because it involves a huge volume of data calculation. There is also a method called pool mining, in which multiple PCs share the same task.

The illicit websites in question abuse this pool mining method. PC or smartphone users are directed to the illicit websites without their knowledge if they browse certain fake websites or ads. If their device’s operating software or apps have flaws, the device then automatically downloads a malicious program, which starts the mining operation. Any digital coins that are obtained are sent to the operators of the illicit websites.

PCs that run this mining program see a drop in their performance speed in some cases, but it is difficult for users to tell if their PCs are being used for mining.

Information security firm Trend Micro Inc. in Tokyo confirmed that there were a total of 1,749 such illicit websites from July to September, about 12 times the figure in the April-June period.One bitcoin, which had a value of about ¥100,000 at domestic exchanges at the beginning of this year, topped ¥1 million for the first time on Nov. 26 and ¥2 million earlier this month.

“If your PCs are used without your permission, that means you are forced to join in a plot by an illicit website operator to gain revenue,” a Trend Micro official said. The official called for keeping software up-to-date at all times, saying, “There is also a danger of viruses entering your PC.”

 The new system also has the advantage of being able to handle trains with different door placements.

Safety barriers to prevent people from falling onto the tracks are being installed on station platforms ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. The Tokyo metropolitan government launched a practical demonstration of the new system on the municipal Toei Subway lines last month.

When a train pulls into the Toei Asakusa Line’s Daimon Station in Minato Ward, doors open in a safety barrier that has been temporarily constructed on the platform. Affixed to each train door window is a QR code sticker measuring about 15 centimeters by 15 centimeters.

“Cameras installed on the platform read the codes, and the barrier doors located in front of the train doors open and close in unison,” an official of the metropolitan government’s Bureau of Transportation said proudly.

The stickers display a geometric pattern similar to the QR codes that mobile phone users read with their device’s camera to connect to a dedicated website.

The metropolitan government worked with Denso Wave Inc., an Aichi Prefecture-based company that creates QR codes, to develop the world’s first method for operating safety barrier doors that uses QR codes. Trials of the new system began on Nov. 24.

Huge savings likely

One issue that has made installing safety barriers difficult is that trains in the Tokyo metropolitan area run through an increasing number of directly connected lines operated by different companies.

These operators run trains with differing numbers of cars and doors, so precisely opening and closing the correct safety barrier doors requires the installation of expensive communication devices in train cars.

Installation of safety barrier doors has not been completed on the Asakusa Line, which operates through services on four private railway lines operated by Keikyu Corp., Keisei Electric Railway Co., Hokuso-Railway Co. and Shibayama Railway Co.

Some trains on these lines have six cars, and others have eight. Some cars have two doors on each side, and others have three. With such a variety of train cars running on these lines, installing communication equipment needed the understanding of each rail operator — and for them to bear the financial burden.

To resolve this problem, the metropolitan government approached Denso Wave in 2015. The QR codes contain information including the number of cars in each train and the number of doors on each car.

Scanner cameras mounted on the platform ceiling read the QR codes, and this newly developed technology opens and closes the safety barrier doors located in front of the train car doors.

The cost of installing communication equipment, which according to a bureau official could amount to “tens of millions of yen for each train car formation,” can now be replaced by the cost of affixing stickers on each train car.

Platform safety barriers featuring this new technology will be installed in four of the Asakusa Line’s busiest stations — Shinbashi, Daimon, Mita and Sengakuji — before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. They likely will be installed in the line’s 16 other stations after the Games.

Other types being tried

The central government and railway operators aim to install platform safety barrier doors at 882 stations across Japan by fiscal 2020, when the Tokyo Olympics will be held. As of the end of March this year, they had been installed at 686 stations. However, at the 260 stations used by 100,000 or more people daily, only 84 had barriers.

Installing the barriers can often involve extending and strengthening the platforms. Rail operators are making various efforts to overcome these problems.

In 2016, East Japan Railway Co. started an experiment involving a new type of door at Machida Station on the Yokohama Line. The doors have a frame made from metal pipes that reduce the overall weight by about 30 percent. This will reportedly eliminate the need for major strengthening work on some platforms.

Keikyu trialed a new type of platform barrier at Miurakaigan Station in Miura, Kanagawa Prefecture, until September. Trains with differing numbers of doors use this station. The new platform barrier can adjust the position of its doors so they line up with the train doors.

“The test revealed problems such as the sensor reaction speed and the length of time needed to open and close the doors,” a Keikyu public relations official said. “We’ll continue to consider how we can put the new system into practical use.”

They go to the shopping mall and they get a push message saying, “You’re close to our shop and we have a special, exclusive discount for you. Come visit us.” That makes them feel very special. It’s almost like being famous. It’s not perceived as “creepy.”

I think this is going to change, though. There’s a new story about identity theft or “phishing” every second day in the news. People are starting to hear more often about getting scammed or robbed online. They start to realise that their information is out there for anyone to see.

Certainly, at some point, the awareness levels will increase. A quick look at Pantip or blognone, reveals that they now have pop-ups asking for consent to use your data. That didn’t exist last year.

If you’re ready to improve the safety of your data, know that there are two sides to data privacy: the side you control and the side you don’t control. It’s up to you whether you want to check into every single venue you visit and share every dish you eat, or even your photos of the toilets when they’re particularly fancy. You can control that.

Then there’s the personal data that you’ve handed over to companies because you needed to use their services. For example, your bank or mobile service provider has your ID number, address, and phone number. Your bank would also know all your transactions, while your mobile service provider would know who you’ve called and which websites you’ve visited.

That is a lot of data for them to hold and with it comes a great responsibility. And it begs the question: what is being done with that data? Are you confident it is safeguarded carefully? Is everything being done to protect it? Or are they just ticking off the boxes to meet bare legal requirements?

If you’re counting on your data being |protected by legal requirements, know that the only requirement is “consent”. That form you signed ages ago, or those boxes you ticked on a website – that’s all the law requires.

Everything else depends on the commitment of individual organisations. I’ve worked in a number of them and I can tell you I’d say the average local company gets a two out of five rating on privacy, even the very big ones. The ones with a global footprint usually do better, even if their presence here is small. Size isn’t what matters.

At DTAC, privacy is not just a principle and a policy posted on our corporate website. It goes beyond that. You have to look at the users, the people at the operations level. They are the most risk exposed. For the month of November, we trained 700 people across eight 2.5-hour sessions. And we’re continuously producing internal campaigns online, on our in-house radio and on billboards.

Training is key because of the ambiguities surrounding privacy. If you just look at the code of conduct, well, how do you interpret it? The code of conduct says that our employees should not reveal, disclose, sell or distribute company secrets in any form. So if I go into a company’s records and look at my girlfriend’s file, I’m not revealing, disclosing or selling any information, am I? And yet, it’s clearly not okay. These are the kind of scenarios we have to cover in training. I use real-world examples to show the risks that can come with consulting information other than for work-related reasons. And I remind our teams that there are better avenues to do this without infringing on privacy. Want to consult your elderly grandparents’ phone bill? Ask them for their password and use the DTAC website. Don’t do it using your employee privileges.

But training without a control system is not enough. Every access to information at DTAC has to be reconciled with a customer’s request for that information. If we spot any unreconciled access, our managers will investigate it, and I randomly investigate the managers, too.

Finally, full data protection is actually a combination of data privacy plus data security. We’ve made big changes on who can access what. A single password won’t get you access to everything anymore. And it’s impossible to download staff records in bulk, which is what happened in a hacking attack on a competitor last year. You’d have access to one or two records at most.

I really hope consumers will demand more regarding their data protection. If someone steals your identity and commits a crime, you could get in serious trouble. There is no 100-per-cent protection, but do ask yourself: Is your data held by a company that is watching, a company that cares, and a company with systems in place to spot anomalies?

Montri Stapornkul is an assistant |vice president, policy governance culture department, DTAC.

Life was good for Sri until she fell ill for a few days. After recovering, Sri found herself short of the cash needed to reopen the shop. Due to a lack of credit and only needing a small sum, Sri couldn’t go to a bank, and so turned to a loan shark. What happened next was the kind of story we all know but, perhaps, never really care enough about – high interest rate and debt collection methods that border violations of human rights.

Fintech refers to tech companies that use new technologies to offer new and more user-friendly forms of financial services. The Millennial Disruption Index – a survey done by Viacom Media Network in 2013 – showed that more than 70 per cent of the millennials believed financial innovation would come from outside the industry, and were more excited about new financial service offerings from Google, Amazon, or Paypal than from the banks. The index showed that Fintech was popular among the younger generations back when it was started.

However, there have been rapid shifts in the domination of financial technology by the tech companies in recent years. Most commercial banks, including those in Thailand, now have a division focusing on fintech and financial innovation to come up with new financial products and services that leverage the same cutting-edge technologies, such as mobile computing, machine learning and blockchain, to compete with the tech competitors. Some banks went so far as to create new organisations, outside of the parent organisations, that think and work like a tech company. In doing so, they transformed their situation from being disrupted to becoming a disrupter. A good example of this is Kasikornbank’s KBTG.

Aside from offering new innovative financial services to their existing customers, the use of Fintech also allows banks to serve potential |customers – those considered “underbanked” and “unbanked” – who in the past did not have access to financial services due to costs, lack of credit or access. The ability for the banks to serve everyone is known as “financial inclusion.” According to the World Bank, around 2 billion people don’t use |formal financial services and over 50 per cent of adults in the poorest households are unbanked.

Financial inclusion is a key enabler to reducing poverty and boosting prosperity. The president of the World Bank Group has called for universal financial access, where everyone can have access to financial services, by 2020. A report from Thailand’s Ministry of Finance in 2016 shows that 56 per cent of Thais received micro finance from special financial institutions and less than 9 per cent from commercial banks. Clearly, most Thais often turn to non-bank providers for small sums of money.

The K Plus Shop is an example of fintech for financial inclusion from KBank. It is a mobile application designed to be a one-stop solution for micro businesses such as small shops and street vendors. The app is a point of sale, sales tracking, sales reports and PR tool combined into one app that anyone can download and use free of charge on any smartphone – iOS or Android. With K Plus Shop, the vendor can receive QR payment from any customer using K Plus, other mobile banking or e-Wallet applications via the standard QR for PromptPay, as well as from WeChat Pay and Alipay. The vendor can also use the app to create and send out promotions to nearby customers in real time at no cost. The real beauty of K Plus Shop in terms of financial inclusion comes with the use of machine learning to create behaviour-based credit models based on sell information. A variety of new financial services using the app can be offered to the vendors over a period of time. For example, Sri can choose to borrow Bt2,000 and return it in seven days from the app with instant approval. As a lifelong practitioner in |information technology, I have never been so |excited by the potential of technology as a means to make a difference. The fact that we now have super computers that are always connected to the Internet in everyone’s hand allows business and technologies to really make profound impacts on people’s lives. The poorest households are more likely to have access to mobile phones than to toilets or clean water, the World Bank has said. This underlines the significance of mobile technology and its potential in making the world a better place for everyone. We can all make good apps to make the rich richer. But what about making apps that can make life better for those who have always been underserved? Banks are not for charity, you might say. A study done by Accenture and CARE (care.org) found that serving the unbanked is a US$380 billion (nearly Bt12.5 trillion) market opportunity worldwide.

Apirut Vancha-Am is the principal visionary |architect, Kasikorn Business-Technology Group.