NewsBytes #22 - More cashless with Boost and Touch n' Go, EPF for Grab, free Yoodo 20GB data, Adobe Scan for Bixby Vision and more

With the growing lifestyle of going cashless, Boost has finally reached Sabah and reached over 700 merchants and counting integrating the app. Sabahans can now enjoy the convenience at Orange, Bataras hypermarket, KK International Airport Taxi, A Square Container night market, City Cineplex, City Optics, More Fun food delivery and food trucks and many others.

“We are delighted to have Sabah join our efforts in Boosting Malaysia! We want to support customers and merchants alike in their digital transformation process and to offer an entirely new payment experience. While supporting the government's aim in driving innovation and advanced technologies, the cornerstone of our business has always been to aid the underserved into the digital economy. With Boost, small businesses that are unable to access traditional financial channels are given opportunity to leave a digital footprint.” said Christopher Tiffin, Chief Executive Officer of Boost.

[L-R] Christopher Tiffin, Chief Executive Officer of Boost and YB Tuan Kenny Chua, Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Finance

Don't have the Boost app yet? No worries, download the app from the Apple Store and Google Play Store is free and for more information, check out the website at myboost.com.my.

It was only last month that KK Mart made a new partnership with Boost. Now Touch 'n Go is the company's latest partner and all Touch 'n Go users can use the eWallet to purchase stuff across all 330 chains nationwide. Nice!

The partnership announcement was officiated by Yg Berhormat Mr Chong Chieng Jen, Deputy Minister of Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, accompanied by special guests Datuk Michael Kang, President of SME Association of Malaysia, Yg Berbahagia Dato Roslan Bin Mahayudin, Director of Enforcement, Ministry of Domestic Trade and Comsumer Affairs, Mr. Yap Chih Ming, Group CFO of GHL System Bhd, Mr Lim Kok Hing, Co-Founder and Executive Director of iPay88 and Mohammed Roslan Dato’ Shariff, Managing Director of Maju TMAS.

By the way, TNG Digital will be giving out RM500,000 worth of soft PINs across all 330 KK Super Mart outlets nationwide from 15 August onwards. Every KK Super Mart customer who signs up with the Touch ‘n Go eWallet will receive free RM10 reload soft PINs with no minimum purchase.

Looks like working as a Grab Driver is getting better these days, as both Grab Malaysia and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) have signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in an effort to give Grab Drivers the opportunity to save for their retirement through Caruman Sukarela Insentif Persaraan (i-Saraan), a voluntary retirement savings programme with the EPF.

This includes annual dividends on their retirement savings, tax relief, death benefit, and access to the Retirement Advisory Service at no cost. Speaking of that, the Government will top up an additional 15 per cent of annual contributions to a maximum of RM250 per year until 2022 for members below age 55 for annual dividends and benefits. It has already taken effect on 16 August 2018 and Grab will also be providing a contribution of 5% on the amount contributed by selected driver-partners subject to a maximum of RM80 a year, in addition to the Government incentives provided.

(From left to right) Present at the MoU ceremony were Tunku Alizakri Alias, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Strategy), EPF; Datuk Shahril Ridza Ridzuan, Chief Executive Officer of EPF; Tan Sri Samsudin Osman, Chairman of the EPF; Rashid Shukor, Head of Operations at Grab Malaysia; Zafrul Hashim, Vice President, Regional Legal & Government Affairs at Grab and Tan Jiong Jian, Head of Business Development at Grab Malaysia

Also, Grab Malaysia has FINALLY added a photo-sharing on GrabChat. It may have been long overdue but better late than never. So if your driver can't find you next time, be sure to utilize this useful feature to show where you're waiting!

For more information on i-Saraan, please visit the EPF website at www.kwsp.gov.my or call the EPF Contact Management Centre at 03-89226000 or visit any EPF counters nationwide.

Say what now? That's right, in conjunction with our Independence Day, Yoodo is offering free 20GB Internet data pool but this is only for first-time users. Valid until 30 September 2018, you will have to order and activate your first Yoodo SIM through the Yoodo app. After you have activated it, you should see a RM20 credit in the Yoodo wallet and buy the 20GB for free. It's that simple, people. To see the complete tutorial step over to their website.

If you were one of the customers who already pre-ordered the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, here's some good news - Adobe Scan is now available for Bixby Vision with the phablet! With this, every Galaxy Note 9 users can use the Adobe Scan app to log receipts, save business cards, store class notes, file tax documents for digital safekeeping, and many more.

All you have to do is use Bixby Vision and it will automatically recognize the documents in the camera's view, automatically detect a document’s boundaries, correct perspectives, remove shadows and enhance text for a sharp and easy to read Adobe PDF. We've talked about Adobe Scan before, so head on over here if you want to know more and also, the Galaxy S8/S8+, Galaxy Note8, and Galaxy S9/S9+ will also have it.

On to somewhere else in the tech-world, Western Digital Corporation has announced that Huawei has qualified its host-managed shingled magnetic recording (SMR) helium-based HDD, the Ultrastar Hs14 – the industry’s first 14TB HDD designed for demanding big data applications. To add on to that, Huawei is breaking new ground by optimizing its distributed cloud storage OceanStor 9000 system for the sequential nature of data capture in video surveillance applications.

“With the explosive growth of data, our worldwide customers from different industries require high density, good performance and low power to meet their growing demands. Huawei provides comprehensive data management solutions for customers based on high-performance all-flash storage for critical business scenarios. Huawei has optimized its distributed file system for massive unstructured data scenarios, which enables OceanStor 9000 to support capacity up to 14TB SMR drives. This helps customers to manage massive video data with a lower TCO,” said Meng Guangbin, president of storage product line at Huawei.

Cool story, bro. By the way, the Ultrastar Hs14 14TB HDDs are now available which you can check it out here.

As what the title says, Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd had mobilized over 1000 employees (or Digizens) to the streets of Malaysia to appreciate, listen, and dialogue with their customers. Themed #DigiNation Freedom to Connect, this annual event's purpose is to gather crucial feedback that would help develop better services and overall better experiences.

“At Digi, we are completely obsessed with our customers and innovation; only by understanding their current and future needs will we be able to create and innovate personalised solutions that offer true freedom to connect and share for today and tomorrow. This is why Customer Engagement Day is arguably the most important day in our calendar,” said Digi’s Chief Marketing Officer, Loh Keh Jiat

Going out from the D'House as the starting point, the Digizens stretched out far and wide including Petaling Jaya, Bangsar, Damansara Uptown, Penang, Johor Bahru, Kuantan and Kota Kinabalu and Kuching in East Malaysia. That's some dedication there, hats off for the effort!

Petronas Dagangan Berhad (PDB) spokespeople and Common Ground spokesperson posing with the highly successful Mercedes-Benz Formula One racing car

Just over the week, Petronas Dagangan Berhad (PDB) and Common Ground have also announced their partnership. The initiative is to increase the growth of Malaysia’s existing startup ecosystem through providing the community with a conducive platform to network and co-create revolutionary ideas. Moreover, the two companies will also work together to guide and mentor startups to enable the corporations to innovate solutions that are relevant to PDB’s business.

In an effort to include increasing station maintenance efficiency and creating a more premium and convenient fueling experience for customers, PDB will be opening up doors for Common Ground’s network of startup community to participate at The Place @ Ampang. This is to enable the ventures, which are aimed at enhancing the overall customer experience.For more info, book a site visit to Common Ground Ampang to explore the different pricing packages, visit the website at commonground.work.

What's Flower Chimp? Well, it's a website that allows you to arrange flower delivery to your loved ones. There's a bunch of categories such as congratulatory flower stands, special messages on Valentine’s and Mothers’ Day, Flower Chimp caters to all your blooming needs from as low as MYR89.

Anyway, with the growing success in less than two years, the company has become the number one choice in the online flower delivery service in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. That said, Flower Chimp has recently secured an investment of MYR 6 million from its investors including Asia Venture Group (AVG). This is what Maximilian Lotz, Founder of Flower Chimp has to say:

“With the power of online marketing and social media, we aim to enhance our branding and become the top-of-mind for our customers to look forward to as they become more tech-savvy every day. We are confident that in the next twelve (12) months; from Q4 2018 to Q4 2019, Flower Chimp will grow three (3) times over with contributions from all four major markets namely Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines,” he said.

That's nice, now if you'd excuse me I'm going to make an order.

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes #23 - Sony and Nokia wins EISA Awards, Maxis’ new project, new Celcom CEO, cashless with Spotify and more

Another week has gone by and a lot has happened these past few days. Starting with our favourite brands, Sony and Nokia have picked up some awards from the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA). Sony won a total of 7 awards, which their DSLR lineup has dominated including the α7 III and α7R III that won EISA Camera of the Year 2018-2019 and EISA Professional Mirrorless Camera 2018-2019 respectively.

As for Nokia, the Nokia 7 Plus has been chosen as the Consumer Smartphone of the Year. You can check out the rest of the EISA winners on EISA website here. Once again, congratulations to both Sony and Nokia!

Here's the rest of the list of awards that Sony won:

Meanwhile, Maxis is having a project that has nothing to do with Internet data but rather the wildlife. Called the Endangered Malaysians project, the company is working closely with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN) to support the conservation of endangered animals (such as orangutans, tapirs and tigers) in Malaysia. In addition, they are also working with Huawei and Malaysian photographers to celebrate the animals through technology and photography.

If you're interested in helping out this cause, you can visit maxis.com.my/KitaRakyatMalaysia -> Click on the “Make A Pledge” button on the website. For each pledge, Maxis will donate RM1 to PERHILITAN to aid their conservation efforts so that sounds like a great idea. Anyway, after you click on the said button, wait for a pop-up to appear with the option to share the photo and pledge on their Facebook profile. While you're at it, make sure you include the official hashtag #KitaRakyatMalaysia too.

For more information on the Endangered Malaysians project, you can also join them for an exclusive event at Ikano Power Centre, from 24 August to 2 September, 10 am to 10 pm as there will be a visual showcase of the endangered animals and park rangers from PERHILITAN will also be giving talks to the public.

Celcom Axiata Berhad announces the appointment of Mohamad Idham Nawawi as the new Chief Executive Officer effective 1 September 2018

Also on Friday recently, Celcom Axiata Berhad (Celcom) has announced Mohamad Idham Nawawi as the new Chief Executive Officer effective 1 September 2018, taking over from Michael Kuehner whose tenure as CEO ends on 31 August 2018. Just so you know, it's not like the former CEO resigned but it's part of the original plan two years ago to appoint an internal talent for the next phase of transformation.

Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, the Chairman of Celcom and President & Group CEO of Axiata, said “We are pleased to welcome Idham as Celcom CEO. With his vast leadership and notable accomplishments in many roles, I am confident he will lead Celcom to the next level of transformation into a digital world as well as to pursue our profitable growth strategy. His decades of industry experience and familiarity with Celcom, being already a Board member, will certainly help him to move quickly in the transition”.

Expect new changes from Celcom within the next couple of months, the new Celcom CEO has a good record of accomplishments such as leading the Transformation Program Office for Axiata 2.0 2012-2015, establishing the RM100 million Axiata Digital Innovation Fund for local entrepreneurs and has over 25 years of business and operations experience within the telecoms industry.

Meanwhile, LG Electronics Malaysia was busy showcasing their new product line-up for the homes. Under the theme "Create a Better Life", the products that were showcased are award-winning OLED TVs, Super UHD TV, InstaView Refrigerators and TWINWash washing machine.

While the household items are getting quite common, the OLED TV is what got us interested because it features a Cinema HDR, Dolby Vision, and Advanced HDR by Technicolor, as well as with HDR10 Pro and HLG Pro, ultimately giving customers the best viewing pleasure possible. Moreover, we were also impressed with the LG ThinQ AI embedded in the OLED TVs which enable users to command the television to perform a set of instructions, providing them with easier control when accessing the TV functionalities. This is the future!

To find out more about LG home appliance products, you may visit their website at www.lg.com/my.

What do Citi and Spotify have in common? Nothing, but they just made a partnership together. Introducing Citi's Pay with Points, Citi customers can now sign up for Spotify Premium and this marks the first time that a bank is working with Spotify allowing users to pay for music subscription with credit card points and miles. This includes Citi credit card users in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

“We are excited to partner with Citi to provide fans with a seamless way to experience Spotify Premium. Now, fans get to enjoy ad-free music anywhere, anytime. Through this partnership we hope to elevate the music streaming experience with instant access to unlimited music, personalized recommendation features and the best playlists curated by music experts and fans,” said Gautam Talwar, Managing Director, Spotify, Southeast Asia.

Nice. By the way, Citi Pay with Points has also announced partnerships with Grab, Lazada, Expedia, Shell, Jetstar, Thai Airways and Starbucks for PWP in respective markets in Asia Pacific so make sure you check those out too.

Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of PUC Berhad, CHEONG Chia Chou (left) and Ken Lim, Chief Executive Officer of Revenue Monster Sdn Bhd (right) sealing the deal with the scan of a QR code

Speaking of cashless payment, ACE Market-listed Company, PUC Berhad (PUC) announced that its subsidiary, Founder Pay S/B (FPSB) will be leasing mobile payment terminals to Revenue Monster S/B (RMSB) to support its merchant acquiring the business in order to facilitate WeChat Pay transactions in Malaysia.

Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of PUC, CHEONG Chia Chou shares: “PUC will enter into a revenue-sharing partnership with RMSB through the leasing of payment terminals, which PUC will be able to receive a portion of the transaction fee from every eWallet payment performed using these terminals. On top of that, PUC and Revenue Monster will be able to encourage the adoption of digital lifestyles among local consumers through the usage of eWallets in their daily life. This can be used for items such as online shopping, marketing promotions, deals & voucher purchases and redemptions leveraging on the terminals’ network.”

True that, there are a lot of future opportunities and we can't wait to see where it will lead us. The announcement has also been made on Bursa Malaysia where you can read the full story.

TNG Digital office opening at The Horizon, Bangsar South (from left to right): Kenny Man, Head of International Investment of Ant Financial; Cheng Li, Chief Technology Officer of Ant Financial; Syahrunizam Samsudin, Chief Executive Officer of TNG Digital Sdn. Bhd.; Yang Berhormat Fahmi Fadzil, Member of Parliament of Lembah Pantai; Mr. Mark Tan, Chief Marketing Officer of TNG Digital Sdn. Bhd.

In another tech-business related news, TNG Digital Sdn Bhd (TNG Digital) has officially opened its main operations hub in Bangsar South. If you never heard of them before, they are ard of them a fintech startup on a mission to elevate the way Malaysians live, pay and transact with its’ Touch ‘n Go eWallet.

TNG Digital’s office in Bangsar South will allow the company to leverage its central location as a popular business hub close to the cityscape of Kuala Lumpur. On top of that, they also aim to bridge the gap between the community and companies within the area of Bangsar South and is working closely with the Lembah Pantai community to launch a new internship programme. Students with a minimum qualification of Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) may apply for the 10-week internship programme with TNG Digital.

Interested candidates can submit their interest to TNG Digital’s Human Resource Department [email protected] For more information and updates about the Touch ‘n Go eWallet, log on to facebook.com/touchngoewallet.

Be a forensic expert and analyse different types of fingerprints at KidZania Kuala Lumpur 'KidZ & Tech 3.0' Programme

There's also an on-going event with KidZania Kuala Lumpur, from 18 August - 16 September 2018, the company is hosting KidZ & Tech 3.0, a month-long programme that allows kids to interact with tools and programmes that utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics.

Proudly supported by Canon Malaysia, Google Malaysia, MSP Systems (Makeblock), UKM Forensics and U Mobile. KidZ & Tech 3.0 features activities across five areas: AI-inspired Emoji Scavenger Hunt activity, Virtual & Augmented Reality (VR games, Be Internet Awesome game, DIY AR Greeting Cards), Coding & Robotics, Forensic Science (UKM Forensics, which gives kids a look at crime scene investigation with its Fingerprint Dusting and UV Light Experiment), and Creative Photography (Canon Light Tail Photography, U Mobile Clone Photography).

For more information about activities and events at KidZania Kuala Lumpur, visit www.kidzania.com.my or www.facebook.com/KidZaniaKualaLumpur, or call the KidZania Careline 1300 88 KIDZ (5439) from 9.00 am to 6.00 pm, Monday to Sunday.

According to Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018. There are five emerging technology trends that will blur the lines between humans and machines, there are Democratized AI, Digitalized Ecosystem, Do-It-Yourself Biohacking, Transparently Immersive Experiences and Ubiquitous Infrastructure. But what does that mean?

Mike J Walker, Research Vice President, Gartner Inc

“Business and technology leaders will continue to face rapidly accelerating technology innovation that will profoundly impact the way they engage with their workforce, collaborate with their partners, and create products and services for their customers,” said Mike J. Walker, Research Vice President at Gartner. “CIOs and technology leaders should always be scanning the market along with assessing and piloting emerging technologies to identify new business opportunities with high impact potential and strategic relevance for their business.”

So long story short, Gartners is able to gain insights from more than 2000 technologies into a concise set of 35 emerging technologies and trends that we don't know yet. That's quite intriguing so if you want to read the full story, go over here to check it out.

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes #24 - Microsoft Surface Go on sale, new Samsung & Sony audio products, new Lenovo & Logitech gadgets, Google Art Selfie and more

Welcome back to another NewBytes edition and to start it off - in case you haven't heard, the Microsoft Surface Go is already available in Malaysia at a starting price of RM1749 only. It's currently the smallest and most affordable Surface device yet, so if you're looking for this type it's a good time to get one because, in addition to that, the company has also teamed up with Grab so if you're getting one (at any of the participating retailers), you get to redeem RM150 worth of Grab vouchers. This promo will end on 24 September 2018.

The new Surface Go weighs only 500g and measures 8.3mm thin. It features an Intel Pentium Gold Processor 4415Y, up to 8GB RAM/128GB SSD, 9 hours of battery life, a 10-inch display, Windows 10 Home in S mode and as always, it's a 2-in-1 device that supports the Surface Pen and more.

You can find out more details from their newsroom here.

Audiophiles should be digging this new audio product by Samsung, called the Panoramic Soundbar (HW-N650). This premium soundbar is said to be able to fill every corner of the room with a dynamic and rich sound in your living room. It's currently available for RM2451 at all Samsung authorised dealers.

The Panoramic Soundbar features a patented “Samsung Acoustic Beam” technology, which is designed specifically provide a virtual surround sound effect. In addition to delivering quality sound for movie lovers, it also includes “Game Mode” for the gamers to immerse themselves in the scene with a dedicated setting with optimised sounds specifically for gaming.

For more information on the specifications, check out the soundbar right here.

Speaking of sound, Sony also showcased its latest products at the IFA 2018 event. One of the products is the Sony WH-1000XM3 wireless noise cancelling headphone, which has a newly-developed HD Noise Cancelling Processor QN1 to deliver approximately four times greater performance, as well as negating low-range noise from airplanes, street noise and people around you!

Besides that, Sony also showed off the water/dust-resistant (IP68) WF-SP900 wireless sports headphone, DMP-Z1 digital music player, IER-Z1R/IER-M9/IER-M7 in-ear stereo headphones, 4K TV BRAVIA MASTER A9F / Z9F series, and even an autonomous entertainment robot aibo. A video of the press conference can be streamed at the following URL: www.sony.co.uk/electronics/ifa.

Lenovo also got to show off some of their products too at IFA 2018. At the company’s annual Tech Life event, they unveiled a series of new smart home, laptop and AR devices. This includes the new Lenovo Smart Home Essentials, the new Yoga series - Yoga C930, Yoga C630 WOS, Yoga S730, Yoga Chromebook (C330 and S330) and a new ThinkPad X1 Extreme laptop.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, there were also the L27m Monitor, Legion Y530 Laptop with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 upgrade, Legion T730 and C730, Legion 15.6-inch Recon Gaming Backpack and a brand new New Star Wars: Jedi Challenges Dark Side Content Expansion and Limited Edition Kylo Ren Lightsaber.

You can check out all of these products on its TechLife website here

It's been awhile since we last heard of Logitech, well they are back with three new gaming gears which are the Logitech G PRO Wireless Gaming Mouse, G PRO Gaming Mouse with HERO sensor and the G PRO Gaming Headset. The gaming mice are already available at Logitech authorised retailers for RM699 and RM329 respectively, while the headset has yet to arrive but its price tag is listed as RM429.

Just so you know, Logitech G PRO Wireless Gaming Mouse is the first LIGHTSPEED wireless gaming mouse designed for pro-gamers, featuring Logitech G's next-gen HERO (High-Efficiency Rated Optical) 16K sensor for the best sensor speed, accuracy and responsiveness possible. Moreover, the PRO Gaming Mouse will get the same HERO upgrade as well.

For more information, you can visit their website about the PRO Gaming Mouse or the headset here.

Going to the PC segment, AMD has announced a new 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X for $899 (~RM3733) and it's now available for purchase in the USA. Featuring 16-cores and 32-threads, it's able to deliver up to 41% more than the Core i9-7900X. Obviously, this bad boy is designed for the hardcore gamers and users.

To add on to that, AMD Athlon desktop processors with Radeon Vega graphics, along with the 2nd Generation AMD Ryzen PRO and Athlon PRO desktop processor are also available for the commercial market. So starting from 18 September 2018, the AMD Athlon 200GE processor will be available from global retailers and system integrators, while the Athlon 220GE and 240GE processor models are slated for launch in Q4 2018. The AMD Athlon PRO 200GE and 2nd Gen Ryzen PRO desktop processors will be available with major global OEMs including Dell, HP, and Lenovo systems, dependent on respective OEM launch schedules.

There is a lot more going with what we mentioned, so to get started you can visit either one of the links below.

What the heck is an Art Selfie? Well, turns out that it's a new fun feature by Google. Available in both iOS and Android (including Malaysia), you can actually find your "doppelgänger" in the library of artworks from the collections of Google Arts and Culture partner museums from around the world.

Art Selfie is powered by computer vision technology based on machine learning. When you take a selfie, your photo is compared with faces in artworks our museum partners have provided. So after you take a selfie, you will see your results along with a percentage to estimate the visual similarity of each match and your face. Pretty cool!

Meanwhile, Adobe just announced that Adobe XD will include integrations with third-party tools such as Microsoft teams, Slack and Jira. This is pretty great for developers as this integration will allow them to build on top of Adobe XD, add new features, more automate workflows and connect the software to the tools and services designers use every day.

On the other hand, Adobe also unveiled its first recipients of the MYR 40 million Adobe Fund for Design. The fund is distributed in the form of grants and equity investments and provides support to empower designers and developers to innovate in the world of experience design and create plugins and integrations for Adobe XD.

There's actually a lot more going on as we are just giving you the summary, so to read the whole big picture you can go to their newsroom here to check it out.

Then on 26 August 2018, OPPO Malaysia had held a Konsert HaVOOC promoting the OPPO F9 with two teams of local celebrities that night. It was broadcast through a live stream on YouTube and TV3 channel. As mentioned in our news report, the two teams - Team Color and Team VOOC faced off in a number of competitions and presentations on the stage.

Aside from that, there was also a fan meet and greet session for all the artists' fans there, some even went home with many OPPO limited edition merchandises during the concert, as well as four lucky audiences that won the F9 which was part of a giveaway during the different segment of the event.

Moving on to Celcom's financial report for the second quarter of 2018. The company has an increase of 3% in its service revenue and a higher earning of 6.8% EBITA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) at RM554 million. On top of that, the total revenue is a 2.8% increase, from RM1.636 to RM1.682 billion in 2Q 2018.

“Collaboration is the key to our sustainability, and we want to encourage this among our employees. We introduced a work process that requires more inter-departmental interactions and cooperation so the employees are more receptive towards ever-changing market trends. This results in more innovative ideas so we can remain responsive and relevant,” said Michael Kuehner, former Chief Executive Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad.

To read the full financial report, you can check out it right here at Axiata's homepage.

Hold on, RM1 Billion? That's the latest news from the orange telco as they have entered into an agreement for a term loan facility of RM1 billion to fund its various capital expenditure (CAPEX) programmes. This is a three-year term loan with United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Bhd (UOB Malaysia), with the amount going towards to the company’s network expansion and enhancement goals across the country.

Signing the agreement at U Mobile's Corporate Office are (from L-R): Loh Paik Yoong, Director of Berjaya Infrastructure Sdn Bhd; Hendra Gunawan, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Bhd; Wong Heang Tuck, CEO of U Mobile Sdn Bhd; Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Vincent Tan, Chairman of U Mobile Sdn Bhd; Kenneth Chang, Director of U Telemedia Sdn Bhd and Chow Lean Keat, Director of Berjaya Retail Berhad.

Wong Heang Tuck, U Mobile’s CEO, said, “U Mobile is very pleased to be receiving support from UOB Malaysia. The RM1 billion credit facility agreement is one of the largest to be signed in this country to date and this reflects the bank’s vote of confidence in U Mobile’s credit quality and business fundamentals. The fresh injection also means we are able to expedite our network strategy and customers will soon enjoy much better experience throughout the whole of Malaysia.”

We hope so too, U Mobile. Anyway, you can check out the full story right here.

Group pic from left - Mr Dennis Low, Mr Chong Kai Wooi, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Mohd Naser Ismail and Mr Mervyn Cheah after media briefing session

Meanwhile, NEC Corporation of Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. recently hosted a NEC Smart City Forum 2018 on 6 September 2018. The purpose of the forum was to highlight the importance of transforming Malaysian cities with Smart City technology, as well as coping with the growing urban population and to meet the needs of its residents.

The Forum was officiated by Japan’s Ambassador to Malaysia, H.E. Dr. Makio Miyagawa. In the afternoon, Minister of Territories, YB Tuan Haji Khalid Abdul Samad visited the NEC Smart City exhibition that showcased solutions such as the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Driven Command Centre for Safer Cities, AI for Smooth & Convenient Public Transport, the Mobile Authenticator, and The Future of 3D Hologram, among others.

There were a lot more going on during the forum, which you can check it out right here at the official website.

Agreement exchange between Pivot City Innovation District and Cyberview Sdn Bhd. (L-R):- 1. Cameron Hamilton - Director, Pivot City, 2. Bruce Harwood - Mayor, City of Greater Geelong, 3. Andrew Hamilton - Director, Pivot City Innovation District, 4. Christine Couzens - Member for Geelong, 5. Mohd Najib Ibrahim – Managing Director, Cyberview Sdn Bhd, 6. Dato’ Teng Chang Khim - State Executive Councillor of Selangor, Chairman of Standing Committees For Investment, Industry & SME, Govt of Selangor, 7. Ben Lim - State Government of Victoria

So what does this new partnership mean? Well, this means a new exciting era of trade and investment with Southeast Asia between Cyberview and Pivot City. Just so you know, Pivot City is an industry-led Innovation District and is home to some of Geelong, Australia's most innovative businesses, including LiveTiles, Pivot Summit, g2 Innovation and Runway Geelong.

With Geelong’s new 14 times weekly AirAsia link to Malaysia and its growing focus on entrepreneurship, this has eventually led to the establishment of a partnership between the Pivot City Innovation District in North Geelong and Cyberjaya, Malaysia’s Global Technology Hub. So with that, these two different districts can explore potential trade and investment activities between the two states.

To read the full story, you can head over here to read it.

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com


NewsBytes #25 - Celcom expanding LTE, Maxis, Microsoft &Tune Talk giving back, new Sony, Logitech and AMD products, numerous conferences including Lazada and more

Here's another weekly news of NewBytes, starting off with the blue telco first - Celcom Axiata Berhad is proud to announce that they are the first telecommunication operator to have an IOS 18295-2:2017 certification globally. Sounds cool, but what does that mean? Well, it means that the company is chosen as an international standard for contact centres.

This was official on 20 September 2018, when the company was certified by SIRIM QAS International for meeting the requirements of ISO 18295-2:2017 - Managing Customer Contact Centre Continuously Improving Customer Experience and Proactive Customer Servicing.

Meanwhile, they have also signed an agreement with Ericsson to expand and upgrade their LTE network in Malaysia. As part of this agreement, Ericsson will supply RAN equipment from its Ericsson Radio System portfolio to help Celcom to serve the growing demand for data services in Malaysia. This will also help create the platform for Celcom’s network to evolve to 5G in the coming years.

Maxis is still continuing their eKelas program and this time, they have just collaborated with Google hosting a ‘Be Internet Awesome’ training with more than 150 participants about Internet safety. This training aligns with Klik Dengan Bijak, Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission’s (MCMC) well-established initiative advocating positive and responsible Internet usage.

The recently held training session was aimed at equipping them with the right digital tools to create secure passwords, stay safe from scams, respond to cyberbullying and more. Those who were trained are made up of Managers and Assistant Managers of Community Broadband Centres (CBC) nationwide and Maxis volunteers. The MCMC-owned CBCs serve as digital hubs for communities in the underserved areas.

There's actually a whole website dedicated to this, which you can check it out over here. Keep it going, Maxis!

In related Maxis news, Maxis recently marked the end of their Endangered Malaysians Project by presenting the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN) with RM25000 to help support the protection and conservation of endangered wildlife in Malaysia. The total contribution was a result of the combination of the #KitaRakyatMalaysia pledge drive, where with each pledge, Maxis donated RM1 to PERHILITAN along with Maxis' own donation.

Tune Talk is also doing some good works. In continuing to suppor the Malaysian Paralympic Movement since 2015, the company are providing the latest coverage, as well as training kits of their athletes who will be competing at the ASIAN Para Games 2018 in Jakarta. There is a dedicated Facebook page covering the ASIAN Para Games Jakarta 2018, you can start to follow them here in show of your support. Malaysia boleh!

The ASIAN Para Games 2018 will start from 6 until 13 October 2018

Onto the product segment, Sony is introducing two new home theatre system - a 5.1 Channel Soundbar HT-S700RF and HT-S500RF. Offering surround sound providing powerful bass sound with clear vocal sound, as well as with a unique design, the new systems are a perfect fit for style conscious consumers, coming in a slim and stylish design to help upgrade your living room set-up.

The HT-S700RF (left) and HT-S500RF (right)

The HT-S700RF will be available in Malaysia from 8 October 2018 and HT-S500RF is available at both Sony Stores KLCC and The Curve, and Sony authorized dealers. You can find out more specifications on the HT-S700RF and HT-S500RF here.

Logitech also has a new toy, called SLIM Folio, this is yet another integrated Bluetooth keyboard for the Apple 9.7-inch iPad. According to Logitech, it has four years of battery life, a lightweight design and a full row of iOS shortcut keys for the iPad control at your fingertips. This product is already available in Malaysia at all Apple Premium Resellers at the suggested retail price of RM449.

Wanna know more? Visit their blog here to check it out

For the hardcore PC master race users, there are two new AMD Ryzen models, the Ryzen 5 2500X and Ryzen 3 2300X, with the Acer Nitro N50-100 desktop PC based on the new Ryzen 5 2500X currently shipping in several regions, worldwide. On top of that, these products enable AMD OEM and SI partners to develop their own unique and attractive systems that target consumers who want an off-the-shelf gaming, family, or small form factor desktop PC.

For the specs, both new Ryzen processors have 4GHz Max Boost clock speeds using the new Precision Boost 2 and XFR 2 algorithms introduced in the 2nd Gen Ryzen desktop processor line. The Ryzen 5 2500X and Ryzen 3 2300X feature a single enabled CCX, built on 12nm process technology and the “Zen+” core architecture, and are approximately 8-10% faster in single and multi-threaded workloads than the previous generation. Moreover, with up to four cores and eight threads, a 65W TDP, and support for DDR4-2933MHz memory the new Ryzen processors will be easily integrated into the AMD innovative, stable and mature mainstream desktop platform.

So how much is it? Well, we weren't given the figures so it's best to check your local system builders to see if they are available or not. You can check out shop.amd.com for an easier reference.

That's a title you don't see every day, but it has become a reality that OPPO has just became the leading smartphone brand by market research firm Counterpoint. But don't get it wrong, though, because this is in the lower premium segment. According to the chart, the company has more than 95% of flagship sales in China alone, as well as accounted for 24% of the overall premium smartphone market and in the $400-600 price segment. They are also ranked first with 22% market share, followed by Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and others.

On the other hand, OPPO continues to enter more than 30 countries and regions and operate more than 400,000 stores. The company will continue to be the brand of the “young people” around the world in sports, fashion, movies, gaming and other popular culture. Not bad, OPPO.

In the other corner, Microsoft Malaysia recently hosted an event on International Youth Day with the aim to provide an opportunity for them to learn about careers in technology, connect with Microsoft employees, and participate in hands-on technology workshops. Known as the “Microsoft pop-up Digital Skills Hub”, the event saw 120 students from low income (B40) communities between the ages of 9 to 17 years old coming together to learn digital skills as well as the basics of coding and computational thinking through the Minecraft Hour of Code session.

That's a sweet thing by Microsoft Malaysia to do, if you want to read the full story check out at its news centre here

Also over the week, Lazada just held the largest e-Commerce seller conference in collaboration with Alibaba on 25 and 26 September 2018 in Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC). The purpose of the conference was to thrust Malaysia to be at the forefront of the digital economy.

Over the two-day conference, there were about 4000 participants and they all went through training about pricing strategies, boosting traffic to an online store, using data to generate sales, customer care and experience and tools that leverage on Alibaba technology such as the Seller App, on-site Chat Now feature and Business Advisor analytics.

The attendees were welcomed by Christophe Lejeune, Chief Executive Officer, LAZADA Malaysia and graced by the presence of both Kevin Lee, Head Of e-Commerce Platform, LAZADA and Selina Xu, Head of International Training, Taobao University, Alibaba Group.

By the way, with Lazada Shopathon that's already live since 27 September 2018, Lazada Malaysia has introduced a new Image Search on its app, which allows shoppers to take a picture of an item they want and in turn Lazada will suggest similar items available on the platform. In other words, it's like Google Lens!

David Robinson, Chief Technology Officer, STT Connect; Eric Quah, Country Manager of Red Hat Malaysia; Damien Wong, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Growth and Emerging Markets (GEMs), Red Hat; Deddy Johari, Managing Director, iZeno Indonesia; and Nicholas Lim, Regional Sales Director, iZeno

Speaking conference, there was another one that was held by Red Hat, one of the leading provider of open source solutions kicking off the Red Hat Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They also celebrated their 25th anniversary, helping various industries in Malaysia including the government, financial services, healthcare and telecommunications. With the theme “Ideas Worth Exploring”, the event showcased how open source technology can provide a platform for imagination, a focal point to enable collectively pushing for new possibilities.

One of the highlights of the forum was the Red Hat Innovation Awards APAC 2018, which recognizes customers using open source to address challenges, transform and modernize their organizations’ information technology to help accelerate innovation and agility. AmBank Group and Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) were recognized as the winners from Malaysia at the Red Hat Forum for their outstanding and innovative use of Red Hat solutions. On top of that, iZeno was also announced as the Advanced Business Partner for Malaysia offering customers and solution builders greater confidence in its partner ecosystem when building their next-generation IT projects using Red Hat technologies.

To know about Red Hat, you can check out their website here and explore their 25th anniversary.

More about web application business news, Zoho is also introducing Zoho One, an all-in-one suite of applications to run an entire business across every function and organizational group in the Asia Pacific region. This product includes more than 40 integrated web applications and an equal number of mobile apps—under a single sign-on and with centralized administration and provisioning—making it a true operating system for a business. Zoho One is available for USD30 (~RM124) per month, per employee.

“The Asia Pacific region is seeing many government initiatives that encourage SMEs to go digital and embrace innovation. This has hence become an important market for us, and we are increasing our investment here,” said Gibu Mathew, Vice President and GM, Asia Pacific, Zoho Corp. “Zoho One puts all the software you need to run a business online and turns it into an accessible business utility. This means that businesses of any size and type can run all their operations online. Its incredible value and ease of use lowers the barriers in adoption of technology and eases the journey of digital transformation for companies.”

To learn more about Zoho One, you can check out the full details over at the official site here

Adobe is now investing and increasing their budgets in both personalization and optimization for a better customer experience. The company has announced a new artificial intelligence (AI) innovations with Adobe Sensei, the company’s AI and machine learning technology, in Adobe Target and Adobe Experience Manager, part of Adobe Experience Cloud.

With these new personalization capabilities in Adobe Target and Adobe Experience Manager, this will help marketers to personalize AR shopping experiences, collaborate with AI to refine customer experiences, refine recommendations with AI-powered decisioning and optimize for the highest likelihood of an action.

Colin Morris, Director of Product Management for Adobe Analytics Mobile has given his thought of how voice capabilities can help marketers capture this opportunity, you can read about it over here, as well as Adobe Principal Product Marketing Manager, Drew Burns, explaining how Adobe Target helps marketers deeply personalize the experiences they deliver to their customers.

Flying to Yokkaichi, Japan, the Fab 6 and the Memory R&D Center was celebrated and opened by Toshiba Memory Corporation and Western Digital Corporation. The building is a new state-of-the-art semiconductor fabrication facility, with cutting-edge manufacturing equipment for key production processes including deposition and etching. As for the Memory R&D Center, located adjacent to Fab 6, will explore and promote advances in the development of 3D flash memory.

Inside the Fab 6 (left) and the Memory R&D Center (right)

Dr. Yasuo Naruke, President and CEO of Toshiba Memory said, “We are excited about opportunities to expand the market for our latest generation of 3D flash memory. Fab 6 and Memory R&D Center enable us to maintain our position as a leading player in the 3D flash memory market. We are confident that our joint venture with Western Digital will allow us to continue producing leading-edge memories at Yokkaichi.”

Last but not least, the 12-week SuperCharger FinTech Accelerator Programme returns for the second edition. Launched at the Securities Commission Malaysia, Bukit Kiara, this is the result of an ongoing partnership with Allianz Malaysia and the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).

All in all, over 200 companies from over 32 countries submitting applications to join the event, the final 10 companies represent diverse sub-sectors of financial technology such as insurance technology (InsurTech), regulatory technology (RegTech), payments, wealth management, artificial intelligence (AI), and compliance. The ten finalists for the 2018 SuperCharger Kuala Lumpur accelerator are

[FROM L to R] Zaryl Tan (Country Director Malaysia- Laka), Jens Hartwig (CPO & Co-founder- Laka), Anna Gong (CEO - Perx Technologies), Janos Barberis (Founder- SuperCharger), Navaneeth Pasham (Co-Founder & Business Head- Pensieve), Steve Kucia (Co-Founder & Director- Curlec), Dato' Ng Wan Peng (COO - MDEC), Zac Liew (Co-Founder & CEO- Curlec), Jovin Shen (Director of Sales and Marketing- Privé Technologies), Ridwan Abdullah (Co Founder- HelloGold), Mukund Mudras (Co-Founder- Heckyl Technologies), Johnny Mayo (General Manager-SuperCharger Malaysia), Nadeem Shakoor (Co-Founder and COO- AuditXPRT), Sereyboth Van (Technical Director- MotionsCloud)

The programme will operate out of the DOJO KL co-working space and will culminate in the SuperCharger Demo Day that will be held on the second day of the SCxSC FinTech Conference 2018 the annual conference organised by the Securities Commission Malaysia, which will take place 28 and 29 November 2018. You can visit its website here to see what is it all about.

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


ASUS announces PadFone X and refreshed 4G LTE enabled ZenFone 5 and new ZenFone 4 smartphones

ASUS has recently announced the global release for the ASUS PadFone X, which was earlier tied to AT&T in the US. Looking much like a PadFone Infinity, the PadFone X has tech specs which include a 5-inch smartphone combo with an 8.9-inch tablet. Other tech specs for the PadFone X include a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, full HD display resolution, microSD support, a 13MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, 1MP front camera for the tablet and 2300 mAh battery. The tablet gets a 4990 mAh battery while the smartphone can also support certain 3G and 4G LTE bands.

In related news, ASUS have also released a 4G LTE enabled ASUS ZenFone 5 smartphone with the A500KL model number. Unlike the earlier Intel powered ZenFone 5, this one packs in a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor. The ASUS ZenFone 4 also got a refresh with a newer Intel processor. No specific Malaysia release dates or pricing information for any of the above but the PadFone X is expected in Q3 while the refreshed ZenFones could be coming in Q4 of 2014. Stay tuned for more developments.[Source]


NewsBytes #26 - Boost partners with 11street, free movie ticket with Touch 'n Go, #BigMacTikTok challenge, self-driving concept Acer car and more

Boost is back with another new headline, this time a new collaboration with 11street and it's the first eWallet service to do so for online shoppers. With that, Boost users now have access to 11street by tapping on 'Online Shopping' on the Boost app and they will automatically be directed to the online shopping platform.

Also to celebrate this partnership, Boost and 11street will be offering customers ‘Boosted Daily Deals’ on exclusive items from 28 September onwards. These ‘Boosted Daily Deals’ will be refreshed daily, and shoppers will get to enjoy attractive discounts and savings on new and limited items but only one customer is allowed to purchase one unit of each ‘Boosted Daily Deals. Each customer must be registered as a Boost and 11street user to make the purchase.

The Boost and 11street management teams at the partnership launch event

To add on to that, both companies are also launching a 'Win A Car' Campaign where customers stand a chance to win prizes worth up to RM86,000, including 11street vouchers, game consoles, mobile phones and the grand prize of a brand new Myvi. The contest will end on 30 November 2018. Each shopper’s first purchase over RM40 paid with the Boost mobile wallet will entitle the shopper to one entry and can be repeated three more times with the same amount of transaction.

For more information, you can check out 11street's FAQ section here.

You read that right, Touch 'n Go eWallet now allows its users to catch the movies every Saturday at TGV Cinemas. This promotion is only valid throughout October 2018 and can only be done over-the-counter. Here are the steps for you to utilize free tickets!

To know more about this, you can check out www.tngdigital.com.my for more information.

There's also another freebie promotion and this time is from Tik Tok and McDonald's Malaysia. What's the relationship between them? Well, the two companies have partnered up and are now launching the #BigMacTikTok challenge, it has already started and will end on 31 October 2018.

All the Tik Tok users have to do is create their own videos with a Big Mac chant song, even if they don't win, each entry will give them a complimentary Big Mac and a chance to win a prize worth RM20,000! Below are 6 simple steps for you to do join the social contest:

Only the top 3 participants with the most creative entry will win cash prizes worth a total of RM10,000, while 5 more participants with the best entry under selected categories will win special prizes of RM1000 each. In addition, 50 McD vouchers worth RM100 will also be given out as consolation prizes.

To find out more about the #BigMacTikTok challenge, you can visit the official contest page right here.

Okay, so it's not a flying car yet but a self-driving car is still pretty cool. Currently, the car is just a concept and it's an initiative by both Acer and Yulon Group from Taiwan, along with its subsidiaries car brand Luxgen and automotive electronics provider HAITEC. The car made its debut at the Taiwan Automotive Technology Innovation Summit 2018, featuring Acer’s autonomous driving system with the Luxgen S3 electric vehicle platform.

“Autonomous driving is the future trend of the automotive industry, manufacturers around the world are stepping up from level 2 autonomous driving to level 3 and 4,” said Jung-Kuei Chen, Vice President, Product Engineering Group II, HAITEC. “With Acer, we’ve jointly unveiled Taiwan’s first self-driving concept car with ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), IoV (Internet of Vehicles) and autonomous driving technology. Integrating Acer’s expertise in AI and the cloud with HAITEC’s self-developed open vehicle platform, we’ve achieved so much through our cross-industry collaboration.”

Acer’s self-driving system makes dynamic vehicle control decisions through AI models based on key data including image recognition, 3D Lidar obstacle detection, high-precision maps and real-time positioning to help the car steer, brake, cruise, manoeuvre, or park. It also has a cloud management system for car sharing services so that a control centre can dispatch vehicles when users make transportation requests through their mobile device.

In other news, Acer also won some 2018 Good Design Awards for outstanding product design. This includes the Acer OJO 500 Windows Mixed Reality headset, the Acer Swift 7 laptop, and the Chromebook 11. Way to go, Acer!

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes #27 - Celcom billing system maintenance, new Grab Chief Tech Officer, Google and Adobe conference, Canon PhotoMarathon, KL Major Talent Line-up

For this Sunday (21 October 2018), Celcom Axiata Berhad will be carrying out a billing system upgrade at 8.00pm until 22 October, Monday at 9.00am. Even if the upgrade takes place, customers will still be able to make and receive calls, utilise data quota, SMS, MMS and roam overseas, as usual, but not for selected transactions.

Just to be safe, prepaid customers are encouraged to reload and subscribe to mobile internet in advance before the upgrading exercise. For postpaid customers, they are advised to make payment for any outstanding balance before the stated duration.

Below is the list of things that won't be working during the upgrade for prepaid and postpaid:

For further queries on the billing system upgrade, customers may reach the company through Celcom Facebook or Xpax Facebook, or dial *123# from abroad.

Mark Potter, Grab Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Transport

Meanwhile, Grab has appointed Mark Porter as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Transport. What is his role? Well, Mr Porter will be overseeing Grab’s technology infrastructure and teams dedicated to its Transport business, which includes private car hires, taxi-hailing, motorbike taxis, carpooling, multimodal services and more.

In other words, his new job is to ensure Grab’s technology infrastructure is robust to deliver high standards of reliability and stability for Grab users and to support constant product innovation. Besides that, he will also monitor the development of agile platforms and machine learning, AI, and data science capabilities to deliver a safer, more seamless and personalized transport experience.

To read the full story of Grab's latest recruitment, you can check it at their blog here.

Google-certified trainer Ashley Ong of ClickAcademy (centre bottom) shared valuable digital marketing insights with participants

Entrepreneurship is getting really popular and it's slowing spreading to East Malaysia as well. As of 11 October 2018, Google Malaysia held a Google Digital Workshop (GBW) in Kuching, Sarawak, in association with Google Business Group (GBG) Sarawak and around 60 participants came to join. The workshop is also supported by iCube Innovation.

During the workshop, the participants were given a tutorial on how to analyze the digital market, as well as having how to build a better digital presence using the free Google My Business platform. This includes various digital marketing means of helping businesses reach their potential customers like Google Ads. They also got to know more about Google Analytics, which is helpful in optimizing campaigns.

If you would like to know more about GBW, you can visit the official website here to get started.

Video highlight of Canon PhotoMarathon Malaysia 2017

Do you love photography? Presented by Canon SnapShot, there was a Canon PhotoMarathon Malaysia 2018 event on 20 October 2018 at Sunway Pyramid. It started from 7AM until 8PM so that's a whole day of doing a photography spree, you can visit the website here to find out more.

On the other hand, if you couldn't make it to that event, there's a website dedicated to teaching you tips and "developing an eye for photography". There are several photography tips in there, such as how to play with the lighting, colours, patterns as well as looking from interesting perspectives and details.

Adobe’s Scott Belsky announces Adobe Photoshop is coming to iPad Pro at Adobe MAX in Los Angeles, Calif. on Monday, 15 October 2018

Also on the other side of the world, Adobe MAX 2018 conference has unveiled the next generation of CreativeCloud for the community. There are several major updates including Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Premiere Pro CC and Adobe XD. Moreover, Adobe Premiere Rush CC was also introduced as the first all-in-one, easy-to-use video editing app for social media creators for YouTubers and even Instagramers. Even the Apple iPads series are getting Photoshop CC and Project Gemini, which is a drawing app.

Creative Cloud updates are now available to all Creative Cloud subscribers, this includes membership plans for individuals, students, teams, educational institutions, government agencies and enterprises. However, Photoshop CC on iPad, Project Aero and Project Gemini on iPad will be available in 2019. You can check out the full details at Adobe MAX website right here.

Finally, eGG Network, PGL & ImbaTV are happy to announce the English talent line-up for the highly anticipated Kuala Lumpur Major tournament at Axiata Arena on 16 - 18 November 2018. In total, there will be 16 of the best Dota 2 teams around the world fight in a LAN event for a $1,000,000 prize pool. Below is the official talent line-up:

By the way, Monster Energy is now the Official Energy Product Sponsor of The Kuala Lumpur Major. Participants of the KL Major are invited to visit the Monster Energy booth to discover the activities that The Official Energy Product Sponsor has prepared for them. All ticket categories for the Kuala Lumpur Major are still available, which you can purchase now here.

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com and thanks for reading.


NewsBytes #28 - Samsung CSR work in Perak, new prepaid card by Grab & Mastercard, Music with Facebook, New Wiko Sunny3 Plus for RM249 and more

What's up, TechNavers? Welcome back to another edition of NewsBytes and over the past few days, we got some news on some companies doing some community activity together online and offline, new products ranging to phones to storage devices, and some news on 5G by vivo. Without further ado, head on below to check out what has been happening around the world of technology!

Samsung Malaysia is sure on a roll with its CSR crusade. Just recently over the weekend last week, the company launched a Love and Care campaign in its Samsung Smart Community Centre within the rural areas of RPS Legap of Sungai Siput, Perak. The purpose is to educate the orang asli community access to Information & Community Technology (ICT) in this increasingly digitised world.

Around 30 children and 5 teachers of the village had a day trip at Sunway Lost World of Tambun, teaching them more about the technology and fun features of the Samsung Galaxy Note9 in various activities around the theme park. Besides that, the Samsung Malaysia team and villagers also participated in a tree-planting activity.

To read the full story, you can visit the newsroom here to check it out.

On the topic of looking out for the community, Grab and Mastercard has announced a new partnership between them and are ready to issue prepaid cards tailored to Southeast Asia. The prepaid card will come in both virtually and physically directly from the Grab app and customers can top it up at any merchant around the world, online or offline, accepting Mastercard.

Grab and Mastercard expects to offer the card in the first half of 2019, starting in Singapore and the Philippines, representing some of the most banked (98%) and the least banked (34%) countries in Southeast Asia respectively. It's not known when Malaysia will get it but stay tuned for that!

Have you ever skipped a ton of songs to fit your mood, feeling or personality? Well, Facebook is introducing a new way for you to express yourself with music and the company is launching Music on Facebook Stories with Lip Sync Live, as well as adding songs to your profile in the near future.

According to the Facebook Newsroom, the update is currently rolling out as we speak to several countries around the world so do keep a lookout. You will be able to add a song to photos and videos you share to Facebook Stories from Stickers after recording. In addition, Lip Sync will also be included to all profiles soon and the company is looking into to open up more artists and creators by expanding to Pages to connect with their fans. Pretty cool!

If you read our NewsBytes last week, Canon Marketing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd held another PhotoMarathon 2018 at Sunway Pyramid on 20 October 2018 which attracted over 1000 participants of all ages. This officially makes it the largest photography competition ever in Malaysia.

There were three categories for the enthusiastic photographers - Open, Student and Varsity Challenge. They were challenged to capture photos based on the themes of Hidden, Beauty of Earth and Fragile. Among the thousand competitors, Mohd Safuan bin Salahudin emerged as the Grand Prize Winner and won a Canon EOS R mirrorless camera and an all-expenses-paid photography trip to Japan to participate in the Canon PhotoMarathon Asia Championship.

As for the first and second runner-ups, it came from the Student Category - the young nine-year-old Aliyah Zainab binti Asmady and seven-year-old Muhammad Adam Mikhael bin Mohd Hafizan. You can check out the full story of the event at Canon Malaysia's official page right here.

France smartphone brand, Wiko is excited to announce a new Wiko Y-range member called Sunny3 Plus. This is a budget-friendly phone so don't expect anything fancy. It features a 5.45-inch display with an 18:9 ratio, a quad-core processor, a tiny 1GB of RAM, 8GB ROM (with 64GB worth of expandable memory), a 2200 mAh battery, using Android Oreo (Go edition) out of the box, and more.

This should be good enough as a second-hand phone and Wiko will be carrying all 4 colours: Anthracite, Gold, Cherry Red and Grey into Malaysia. To read the full tech-specs, you can check it out here.

The 3D NAND EU312 IXeUFS 256GB (left) and the new WD Purple microSD card (right)

Meanwhile, Western Digital has manufactured some new products focusing on data storage devices built for the modern surveillance market. Introducing the industry's first industrial-grade 3D NAND UFS embedded flash drive (EFD) for surveillance; an expanded WD Purple microSD card series to support up to 256GB capacity; and Western Digital Device Analytics which is a new device analytics technology enabling OEMs and system integrators to manage their storage subsystems and maintain optimal operation.

These new devices and tools are designed to address the complex and dynamic data demands of a surveillance market in transformation, supporting the high performance, capacity and endurance required by networked and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled camera systems, as well as other smart video devices operating at the edge. For the 3D NAND UFS-Based EFD, it's able to read speeds up to 750 MB/s1 and write speeds of up to 320 MB/s1, as well as support for up to 768 TBW for continuous recording. The other products are new improvements for 4K and AI enabled videos, as well as proactive storage management. You can know more about it at their website here.

In another related storage news, Veritas Technologies is a company that offers enterprise data protection and software-defined storage products and they are coming into the Malaysia market this year. They will also hold an upcoming event, Veritas Tech Symposium 2018 on 31 October 2018 at Hilton Hotel Kuala Lumpur to help customers address data challenges.

In the event, participants will get to hear from various experts on how to take control of their data and manage it across an equally growing and diverse IT infrastructure, as well as how to keep pace with compliance in a world of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and improve resiliency in a world of ransomware. So if you would like to know how to make strategic choices around data protection, collection and storage, backing up their data and others, you can visit the registration page right here.

Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang speaks at 2018 11.11 Global Shopping Festival event

With 11.11 approaching, Alibaba Group has recently celebrated its 10th year anniversary and they are offering a ton of promotions for three weeks for Malaysians. There are a host of interactive marketing initiatives are planned including Taobao Lite friend referral program, new member specials and a one-of-a-kind interactive offline event at the iconic Kuala Lumpur Tower. Just on Alibaba's flagship marketplaces, there will more than 500,000 items will be available.

Just so you know, the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival website is in Mandarin. But if you're up for it, you can refer your friends to sign up on Mobile Taobao and Taobao Lite app! and the user with the highest number of referrals and fastest engagement rate will stand a chance to win prizes worth up to RMB100,000 (~RM60,128).

The 10th Anniversary 11.11 Global Shopping Festival Malaysia Offline Event will kick off on 31 October at the iconic Kuala Lumpur Tower with a host of interactive engagements and activities. So be there or be square!

That's it, folks. Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com!


NewsBytes #29 - Samsung social contest announced, a RM728 Fitbit Charge 3, OPPO gets an award, Touch 'n Go eWallet, new WD, AMD & Epson products and more

What's up, TechNavers? Before we get to the NewsBytes, it's been a rather quiet week with some eventful happenings. First, Huawei Malaysia has been madly promoting about its 11.11 promotion sales. They have been super productive this time, so we decided to do a compilation so that you can check out all the tips at one-go from our online guide to Huawei Malaysia's Mega Online Sale Day on 11 November 2018. Samsung also showed off a new Infinity Flex Display prototype (note - not a device) as well as new notch designs at the SDC 2018.

For our local news, Realme Malaysia has officially launched its Realme 2, Realme 2 Pro and Realme C1 starting from RM449. A new Mi Store has just also opened in Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur along with the  Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro and Mi 8 Lite debut starting from RM999. And finally, AEON has introduced a new AEON Member Plus Visa Card and AEON Wallet as an initiative for a cashless society.

While the Samsung Infinity Flex Display shows a lot of potential, the new notch designs are... umm (you should know my position on notches by now, lol).  Oh well, at least the upcoming new Infinity displays will have no bezels at all at both sides (at least it looks like it). That said, the Mi 8 Pro takes the spot of the most exciting one out of the bunch here as it's on sale for RM2399. For a flagship, that's pretty affordable and it has a really cool back cover design too. But anyway, onward to the NewsBytes!

Over a month ago, Samsung Malaysia kicked off its social media contest which invited all Samsung Galaxy smartphone users to snap their most creative mirror selfie for a chance to win a 4-days 3-nights all-expense paid trip to South Korea. The three winners were announced during the contest’s grand finale, Mirror Mirror Me night, where Noor Liyana Asha Binti Mohd Noor, Laven Lim Jia Hui and Noor Ashyla Binti Mohd Jalil won the chance to be a part of South Korea’s number one reality TV show ‘Get it Beauty’, as well as personally meet South Korean celebrity Jung Hae-in.

Samsung’s ‘Mirror Mirror Me Night” was held at Nathalie Gourmet L’espace, which was attended by 50 participants. Although not all were able to win a trip to South Korea, they were graced by the attendance of Kim KiSoo; a South Korean comedian turned celebrity makeup artist and was followed by a live performance by Han Hee-jun, a finalist of the US talent show American Idol Season 11, K-Pop Star Season 3, and the new co-host for After School Club.

Looking for a sports smartband? Well, Fitbit is back with a brand new band called the Charge 3. It's already on sale for RM728 in black with a graphite aluminium case or blue-gray with a rose gold aluminium case. Or if you want the Special Edition, that's RM838 and there are also accessories available ranging from RM128 to RM228.

As Fitbit fans know, the Charge series are swim-proof and the latest one is not without exception. It also features a large touchscreen display, notifying you the most accurate health and fitness results (yet) and can stay alive up to 7 days of battery life. You can check out more information about it right at the website here https://www.fitbit.com/charge3

If you're a tech geek who loves reading tech news, chances are that you probably know TechRadar and recently during its TechRadar Mobile Choice Consumer Awards ceremony, the reputable tech website has given OPPO the "One to Watch Award". Sounds cool, but what does that mean actually?

Well, it basically reflects OPPO's continuous commitment to explore new technologies in terms of design and tech-innovation. Despite being not one of the top dogs in the competitive smartphone industry, OPPO is willingly to challenge the norms. The OPPO Find X is one fine example of those, although it's not perfect - the flagship is still the first to introduce a motorized camera for a true fullscreen experience. You can check out our OPPO Find X review right here.

This is a pretty big step towards a cashless society, Touch 'n Go (TND) Digital Sdn Bhd has just announced a new partnership which will allow EzCab and Public Cab taxi drivers to accept cashless payments via the Touch ‘n Go eWallet (“eWallet”).

Under the theme #JomTeksi, taxi drivers can now do cashless payment and remain competitive with other ride-hailing services in Malaysia. The QR code payment system powered by Touch ‘n Go eWallet only requires passengers to scan the driver’s code for payment of fares. As a result, taxi drivers do not have to install any kind of terminal or hardware in their vehicles. It's expected that QR system will be ready to go in 10,000 taxis by the end of the year. Sweet.

Users of the Touch ‘n Go eWallet can follow these simple steps to pay:

Minister of Transport Malaysia, Yang Berhormat Tuan Loke Siew Fook (middle) alongside Yang Berhormat Fahmi Fadzil, Member of Parliament of Lembah Pantai (right); and Mr Syahrunizam Samsudin, CEO of TNG Digital Sdn Bhd at the launch of Touch ‘n Go eWallet’s partnership with EzCab and Public Cab.

Rewind back to September 2018, Huawei Malaysia previously collaborated with the National Art Gallery to host a digital art workshop with its latest MediaPad M5 Pro tablet. Under the theme "Capture the Beauty of Malaysia", the company gave the participants a tutorial on how to take advantage of the tablet and the M-Pen stylus, with tips and tricks on what they can do. The workshop was conducted by a local digital artist, Chong Fei Giap.

Huawei Malaysia’s collaboration with the National Art Gallery is in line with the centre’s 60th-anniversary celebration, which was officiated by the Prime Minister on the 4th of September 2018 (picture above). To congratulate the centre for six decades of excellence, the company presented a congratulatory gift to the National Art Gallery during the workshop. The gift was in the form of a framed digital art, produced by local digital artist Chong Fei Giap on the MediaPad M5 Pro tablet.

The tablet features a 7500 mAh battery, PC Mode, Eye Comfort Mode, and 280 PPI 2K display. Currently, it comes in two variants - RM1929 (Pro) and RM1539 (standard) in every Huawei store.

Meanwhile, Western Digital has unveiled a brand new 15TB Ultrastar DC HC620 host-managed SMR HDD. It was designed in mind for cloud and traditional data centre workloads, such as large video surveillance, storage for regulatory compliance and Big Data storage. It even allows 4U60 HDD enclosure to reach a raw storage capacity of 900TB, which is an additional 60TB per 4U rack in the same footprint compared to those utilizing 14TB HDDs.

“With data continuing to grow at unprecedented rates, many hyperscale and cloud storage customers know that their workloads trend toward data that is written sequentially. In these instances, customers are optimizing their infrastructures with the lowest TCO and the maximum capacity,” said Eyal Bek, vice president of product marketing, Western Digital. “By capitalizing on our highest-capacity SMR storage solutions, our customers’ investment can not only be fully leveraged today, but for subsequent generations of SMR areal density improvements for continued infrastructure optimization.”

Western Digital is currently shipping Ultrastar DC HC620 qualification samples to select customers with broader availability later this quarter. To find out more about this kickass product, you can check out at their blog site here.

AMD also had a conference of its own, called as the AMD Next Horizon, the company took this opportunity to showcase a handful of new products. Below are some of the highlights that include:

If you would like to know more, you can check it out at the Next Horizon website over here.

If you're looking for some laser projectors, Epson got some for you but for some reason, they didn't reveal any price tag at all. Anyway, the EB-L500 and L600 series offers one of the most compact laser projectors so it's easy to bring around, along with minimal maintenance, ease of installation yet able to deliver respectable images up to WUXGA resolution at 6000 and 5000 lumens (respectively) lumens of white and colour brightness.

Moreover, the EB-L600 series is compatible with a wide range of external devices, and additional ports include HDMI and HDBaseT, as well as having a split screen feature from two different sources at the same time. There's also an iProjection app, which users can easily share and transmit images, texts and files from smart devices and laptops wirelessly.

To find out more about the new laser projectors, you can check it out here.

That's all, folks! Stay tuned for more Newsbytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes #30 - 11street 11.11 results, Cantonese in Waze, get fit with Digi, Facebook Mentorship, #runfreefun with TikTok and more

Welcome back to another weekly NewsBytes segment where we bring you the latest tech news from the edge (at least for us). So how was your 11.11 shopping spree? You might have spent quite a sum but don't feel guilty about it - our TechNave team also did the same becase this year's 11.11 sale was really good and I bought some items that I don't even need like a ninja flu mask, but it's too cool and cheap to ignore it. Thanks to my and the many Malaysians contribution to 11.11, Huawei Online Store did great, so did Lazada, Shopee,  honor Malaysia and 11street too which you can read below after this introduction.

As for our local tech scene, news was rather quiet as we will be entering the holiday season soon in just two more weeks. But Acer Malaysia took this opportunity to introduce the futuristic gaming mean machine Acer Thronos and this is seriously every hardcore gamer's dream. While I wasn't there to see it first hand, I can imagine it to be super comfy and immersive but there's no way I can ever afford it because it freaking costs RM56,999!

Do you know how many kolok mee you can buy with that? MANY. On the other hand, Lenovo Malaysia introduced a new lightweight Yoga S730 laptop which has rapid charging speed technology and I almost won a lucky draw to bring that home (#truestorybro). I WAS THIS-CLOSE TO WIN DANG IT! Oh well, at least I got a nice customized Nerdunit t-shirt for free.

First, we start off with the recent crazy 11.11 sales and it has been quite successful for each e-commerce platform. This year, 11street offered shoppers a tonne of Shopping Madness 11 deals and discounts which saw its total gross merchandise value (GMV) surging by six (6) times compared to the daily average in 2018 and double the increase it saw in 2017.

According to the company, the total number of orders during Shopping Madness 11 this year tripled the daily average number of orders compared to 2017, which recorded at 2.6 times the daily average. 11street shoppers also spent close to RM300 on each order which attributed the growth. Well done, 11street!

Say what now? That's right, the Cantonese dialect is now available and it can be used for everyone globally, thanks to the large users from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. You can simply go into your Waze settings and tweak it, as the Cantonese language is a new addition to the improved Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese languages there. Now Chinese-speaking drivers won't have any trouble navigating the road!

Is this what you think it is? Yes, a programme by Digi to get Malaysians to stay fit! But just so you know, it's not some gym class that you have to go to, but rather you can monitor your well being by measuring your average daily steps through a fitness wearable.

The program is in collaboration with insurance provider, AXA AFFIN Life and online healthcare solution provider, BookDoc, as well as a lifestyle management application provider, Naluri. Any Malaysians between the age of 18 and 39 can join and enjoy rewards and cash backs from various merchants based on the daily steps they take. If that's the type of staying fit you're looking for, you can visit their website right here to check it out.

Looking for a mentor is not easy but what if we told you that it can be done over Facebook? Just recently, Facebook has launched a new Mentorship feature to help you get connected with one who you share common interests with, starting with the Groups you’re in.

So what does the Mentorship feature do exactly? Before we get there, the group admin will have to choose a wide variety of template programs such as career advancement, skill development and encouragement and support, and many more. Members of a group can sign up to be either a mentor or mentee then the admin can pair them up. After that, both can have a 1 on 1 guided mentorship program(s) on Facebook in private every week.

At the moment, mentoring is only available for parenting, personal development and professional groups on Facebook. The new feature is currently available in the US for now and will be globally available when it's ready. You can read more about it here at their newsroom here.

So what's this #runfreefun campaign by TikTok? Well, from 10 to 24 November 2018, the campaign featuring Malaysian celebrities (Janna Nick, Nazim Othman, Anzalna Nasir, Shukri Yahaya, and Saharul Ridzwan) and they want you to have fun and be free to express your creativity with them doing video challenges! Here's how:

If you're on, you can start now by challenging. Good luck and have fun!

Western Digital is on a roll here, they have been releasing quite a few products this year and the latest one is the Ultrastar DC ME200 Memory Extension Drive. This product is the company’s first product that enables customers to better optimize in-memory system capacity/performance for running demanding applications that drive today’s real-time analytics and business insights. The Ultrastar memory drive has a memory pool size up to 8X the DRAM capacity while offering substantial CAPEX and OPEX savings. With larger memory pools, this is ideal for in-memory applications such as Redis, Memcached, Apache Spark and large-scale databases. Compatible with most Intel x86 servers, it also available in 1TiB, 2TiB and 4TiB and to expand further, a 1U server can typically support up to 24TiB of system memory using the Ultrastar DC ME200 drive for in-memory compute clusters.

It's not officially on commercial sale yet, but it's currently available and sampling with selected customers. You can check out more information about it on their blog here.

Meanwhile in Malaysia, Signify has officially launched its new IoT (Internet of Things) platform and it took place at the Malaysia International Trade & Exhibition Centre (MITEC). During the event, the company showcased its Interact IoT solutions to government officials and business owners eager to adopt Industry 4.0 initiatives and systems driven by connected technologies.

VIP guest of honour, InvestKL Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Zainal Amanshah and the rest of the media members were given a tour around the event, getting a first-hand experience on several real-world application and live demonstrations of Interact connected lighting in industrial, retail, city and commercial environments. The company also highlighted several solutions to local government officials on how the Interact platform could improve and manage outdoor environments and road lightings. There was a lot of things that went down there, but if you want to know more you can head over here to read the rest.

Ericsson MoU Signing with Axiata's Apigate

Wait, there's more IoT news. Ericsson has also announced a new partnership with Axiata Group Berhad and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The new collaboration will allow them to create innovative value propositions in the Business Support System (BSS), Operational Support System (OSS) and Internet of Things domains by leveraging on the next generation digital API platform offerings of Apigate, an Axiata subsidiary, and Ericsson’s Digital Business Systems portfolio.

Axiata’s Group Chief Financial Officer Vivek Sood, who signed the MoU on behalf of the Group, adds, “This MoU is further testament to the relevance of Axiata’s Apigate platform in powering digital transformation to meet the fast-evolving demands of our regional markets. Our partnership with Ericsson places us in a sweet spot as an enabler for greater industry wins specifically in creating API-driven digital solutions, aligning well with our drive towards becoming a New Generation Digital Company.

Finally, AmBank Group has adopted Red Hat’s hybrid cloud architectures and practices. This is so that the bank can provide better mobile banking and cash management in a manner that is easier, more simple and faster to its valued customers, across all touch points.

“As part of our digital journey, it was critical for us to transform and innovate our services. By adopting Red Hat solutions, we were able to build up our digital capabilities with a more agile and scalable application delivery. This further helped us develop new applications and services to expand our market reach. We have upgraded our digital banking experience and services for our valued customers, making their banking experience with us more convenient and seamless,” said Datuk Iswaraan Suppiah, Group Chief Operations Officer of AmBank Group.

LG recently announced receiving multiple CES 2019 Innovation Awards for the LG V40 ThinQ smartphone, LG ThinQ smartphone and LG Watch W7. They also got awards for their new laundry appliances, TVs, audio systems, computers and more, with all these due to be introduced at CES 2019 on 7 January 2019.

While we can safely say we'd love to see all these products, the most we're expecting to see are the consumer electronics. It'd be great if we're wrong and LG Mobile comes back to Malaysia soon (or next year) but for more details on that check out LG's newsroom.

So that's all for this week's NewsBytes, stay tuned for more of that next week at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes #31 - Star Wars VR coming to Genting, TikTok's Got Talent, Maxis and Celcom's CSR initiative and a lucky Proton X70 winner from Lelong

What's up TechNavers? We are already coming to the end of November and once again, there isn't much news around except for a couple of smartphone releases and promotions. In anticipation of Christmas, vivo Malaysia has dropped the price tag on the Vivo V11i and the Y81i starting from RM499, the Realme C1 was on a special sale for just RM399, the  HONOR Play – Player Edition Red x Audi Sports LMS lucky draw has begun on HONOR Malaysia's #Fansgiving Campaign, and the quad-cam Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018) got a rather quiet release for RM1999 (which is a pretty good deal if you ask me).

That said, OPPO Malaysia was the only smartphone brand to do something this week which was the release of the much-teased R17 Pro. As beautiful as it looks, the triple-cam device (well, sort of) is actually priced at RM2699 which we didn't expect at all. To be honest, the price is a kind of out there for a mid-range device but I guess we have to consider its new processor (QUALCOMM SNAPDRAGON 710 BABY), as well as its 8GB + 128GB memory, the 6.4-inch AMOLED display, a switchable aperture, a 50W SuperVOOC Charging technology and more.

Moreover, the emerald model is also the same price but then again, there are other affordable flagships around that price range as well like OnePlus and Xiaomi. Just sayin'. Anyway, without further ado... here are this week's NewsBytes!

So perhaps the most intriguing news of the bunch here, Resorts World Genting and The VOID will be bringing a first-of-its-kind hyper virtual reality experience to Malaysia. Dubbed as Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, it will be held at the Skytropolis Funland on 6 December 2018. Ticket sales will be available for preorder to the public on 30 November 2018 at RM130 each.

In collaboration with ILMxLAB, Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire brings guests directly into the Star Wars universe on the planet Mustafar, allowing guests to hear, feel, touch and even smell for a super immersive experience. You will be disguised as a stormtrooper alongside with droid K-2S0 (you know, that sarcastic droid from Rogue One) to recover an Imperial intelligence on Mustafar, navigating through an enemy facility, solving puzzles, and blasting them blasters against giant lava monsters. Also, don't be surprised to see Darth Vader, it's his home ground after all.

TikTok seems to be doing well with its social events, they just recently launched its See Music Campaign in collaboration with KKBOX, Warner Music, Universal Music Group and Sony Music. Just like America's Got Talent, the campaign is to discover and support original, independent musicians in hoping to find the next superstar in the music industry. Several well-known judges such as Paul Lee and Peter Lee, Singaporean composer, Gem Tsang, Hong Kong singer-songwriter, David Tao, famous R&B Taiwan singer, Jay Chou appointed lyricist Vincent Fang alongside famous composers including Steven Shao-Wen Hao, Wang Chi-ping, Mingyang Lin, Jason Huang, Kevin Lin, Erika Lee and Ding Xiaowen will also be part of the judging panel.Winners stand a chance to receive TikTok platform resources, famous producer-customized songs and KKBOX promotional material. If you want to know more about it, you can head over here to check it out.

Then during Deepavali, more than 40 Maxis employees headed to SJKT Ladang Escot in Tanjung Malim, to help give the school a makeover and bring joy to the students as part of Maxis’ Deepavali Festive Charity 2018. Known as the M Squad, the team did various tasks including cleaning the school’s storage areas, equipped the school’s ICT room with six new PCs, WiFi broadband, a flatscreen TV and printer.

Besides that, the M Squad volunteers also conducted a Google ‘Be Internet Awesome’ Workshop for the students and teachers. The training session taught the importance of security and passwords, responding to cyberbullying, and trustable information, which is relevant to today’s society, especially the youth.

From L-R: Batu MP, P. Prabakaran, Zuraida Jamaluddin, Chief Corporate Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad, Pei Yee (the cat's owner), Purrteri (the fury ambassador), Zuraida Kamaruddin, Minister of Housing and Local Government Malaysia, Grace Chan, Head of Brand and Marketing of Celcom Axiata Berhad and Dr. Rizal Razman, Deputy Director of Center of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Malaya (UM) at the launch of Celcom #ICanCareMy

In collaboration with University of Malaya (UM), Celcom Axiata Berhad has launched a new campaign called #ICanCareMy. As the name implies, the purpose of the campaign is to reduce the number of stray cats in Klang Valley. Yes, stray cats. It's not a typo. STRAY CATS.

Celcom’s #ICanCareMy was launched by Zuraida Kamaruddin, Minister of Housing and Local Government Malaysia, who was also joined by Batu MP, P. Prabakaran, Zuraida Jamaluddin, Chief Corporate Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad, and Dr. Rizal Razman, Deputy Director from the University of Malaya. The campaign is also made to spread awareness on animal welfare and the public can take part of it to pledge their support via #ICanCareMY’s website with Boost.

For more details on upcoming #ICanCareMy activities, please visit www.icancare.my.

Richard Tan, Co-Founder and MD of Interbase Resources Sdn. Bhd. with the winners

On the other hand, Lelong.my just recently concluded its social contest and handed the keys of a brand-new Proton X70 car to a lucky winner, Denise Anak Julie from Sarawak as the winner of "Shop and Win" from Lelong’s 20th anniversary last Friday (16 November 2018).

If you're a car enthusiast, you'd know that the new car has yet to make its debut in the Malaysia market and this effectively makes Denise as one of the first owners of Malaysia's first-ever local SUV. The contest previously ran from 13 August to 16 September, where customers only need to spend a minimum of RM60 on the Lelong website or mobile app to stand a chance to win the exclusive grand prize.

Besides that, other 55 lucky participants also won other lucky prizes such as a vacation getaway worth up to RM10,000, as well as Lelong.my’s exclusive 20th Anniversary Party Box, RM200 vouchers, Fujifilm Mini Instax 9, Mini Drones and TGV Indulge experience.

Realme Malaysia recently announced the grand opening of their Realme Image Store in Sunway Pyramid. The value busting Realme 2 Pro and other Realme products should be available at the store for offline purchases especially if you want to take a closer look at them before you buy.

That's all folks, stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com!