NewsBytes #20 - Hover Camera, multiple partnerships including Grab, Boost, MDEC, Alibaba, Samsung TV certified and more

So what has been happening? Well, one of the interesting gadgets that were introduced is the Hover Camera Passport. The 242-gram camera drone employs face-detection technology that can follow you around, and with a simple hand gesture can snap a photo of you and your friends and that's pretty cool. It can be easily folded and placed into a backpack or purse and when needed, simply opened up, turned on and let go.

Featuring a 13MP and 4K video recording capability, it has a facial recognition software which tracks users – their faces and bodies – and follows them around automatically. It can even maintain its position and avoid objects without using GPS technology, wow!

Gadget Goods Asia is launching Hover Camera Passport into Malaysia with a special pre-order discount of 20%, at RM1599 available over at their website here. Check it out!

There is never enough space for gamers, so with this, Western Digital has announced a new Western Digital Black 3D NVMe SSD to satisfy the needs of having more storage, as well as accelerating data for PC applications to enable users to quickly, access, engage and capture today’s high-resolution video, audio and gaming content.

It has the capability to read (up to 3,400 MB/s for 1TB and 500GB model) and write performance (up to 2,8001MB/s for 1TB model) combined with up to 1TB capacities. In addition, the drives feature up to 500,000 random-read IOPs (for 1TB model) to deliver extreme throughput, which is ideal for multi-threaded applications and data-intensive multitasking environments. The drive offers a five-year limited warranty with up to 600TBW endurance (for 1TB model). The WD Black 3D NVMe SSD is available in Malaysia in capacities of 250GB (RM449), 500GB (RM799) and 1TB (RM1599) at the end of July 2018 in select Western Digital retailers, e-tailers, resellers, system integrators and distributors globally.

On the other hand, the Purple 12TB drive is a surveillance-class drive that is available through Western Digital’s authorized reseller network worldwide. Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) in Malaysia is RM1699 for the 10TB (model #WD101PURZ) and RM1999 for the 12TB (model #WD121PURZ). The new drives will be available in Malaysia starting October 2018 in select Western Digital retailers, e-tailers, resellers, system integrators and distributors.

The Purple 12TB drive and Black 3D NVMe SSD

What's a "Burn-in?" You know, it's when you switch off the TV and there's this "burnt-in" image on the screen panel stuck there for a few seconds. A sign of an ageing TV, it's definitely expensive and tricky to fix it but it seems that Samsung has a solution to it. Their QLED TV has just been certified by Testlab that they have got rid of the issue once and for all.

This was carried out based on the Information Display Measurements Standard (IDMS), an international norm for panel measurements, focusing specifically on QLED TV’s HDR (high-dynamic-range) content display quality. The QLED TVs passed the stress test with flying colours and received the certificate for ‘no burn-in’ and ‘no afterglow’ after a 72-hour endurance test, which the TVs were made to display a checkerboard pattern for deep black and very bright white values for longer periods of time.

Well, I guess you know which TV to get now after this, huh? Only available at Samsung concept stores!

Grab has also announced a new partnership with the National University of Singapore (NUS). So what's the deal? Apparently, they have just launched an artificial intelligence (AI) laboratory to develop solutions to transform urban transportation and pave the way for smarter cities in Southeast Asia. Dubbed as the Grab-NUS AI Lab, this will leverage data from the Grab platform to solve complex, real-world challenges, then improving the efficiency and reliability of transportation on the Grab platform in Southeast Asia’s cities.

Anthony Tan, Co-founder and CEO, Grab, revealed how the insights from the Grab-NUS AI Lab, could make a difference for Kuala Lumpur starting today: “Data from our Grab platform can map out the traffic patterns and evolution in mobility for cities across Southeast Asia. For example, our data shows that travel time from Fahrenheit 88 to KL Sentral can be drastically improved today. If this route would be better served by more shared transport solutions, such as trains, shuttle bus services and GrabShare, we could bring travel time during peak hour down by almost 35% from 26 minutes to 17 minutes. I look forward to working with governments to turn the data from the Grab- NUS AI Lab into solutions.

The Grab-NUS AI Lab is located in the innovation 4.0 building situated on the NUS Kent Ridge campus and will be home to 28 researchers working on various AI projects. If you want to know other Grab stories, you can check them out on their blog page.

Female power? Not really, but it's more like giving them a boost. Recently, the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) celebrated the completion of the first MaGIC Pre-Accelerator Bootcamp: Female Founders Edition. During the two-week boot camp, a total of 15 female-led startups were enrolled to get empowered and present their business ideas into investment-ready solutions through mentorship and capacity building initiatives.

“This is MaGIC’s first-ever female-centered bootcamp. While we have been witnessing a steady climb in the number of womenpreneurs these past few years, we want to keep the momentum going and in order to do so, we knew that we needed to create that mindset shift at the grassroots level to ensure that women are not left behind as we build a pool of exponential entrepreneurial with the ability to continuously generate innovative business ideas. We want to nurture their talent through the empowerment of these aspiring entrepreneurs to create new business solutions - from ideas to investment-ready solutions in just 14 days. The bootcamp was designed in such a way where we were offering a comprehensive and guided syllabus while keeping these womenpreneurs in mind.” Ashran, MaGIC CEO

If you or your female friend are fascinated by the idea, you can read more over here about their journey.

[L-R] Shuan Ghaidan - Director of Products, UnionPay International Southeast Asia, Wenhui Yang - General Manager, UnionPay International Southeast Asia, Christopher Tiffin - Chief Executive Officer of Boost, Mohd Khairil Abdullah - Chief Executive Officer of Axiata Digital Services

Have you been using Boost lately? No? Well, you should. Boost is growing up pretty steadily and they have just partnered with UnionPay to grow its footprint in Malaysia and overseas. This is a pretty big deal because UnionPay serves the world’s largest card base of over 7 billion and has enabled card acceptance in 170 countries and regions globally with issuance in 48 countries and regions!

"As part of the partnership, our long term plans are to enable users to use the app to leverage on UnionPay’s offerings to transact globally and likewise, for tourists to transact in Malaysia. On top of that, Boost and UnionPay will be jointly ramping up its marketing efforts in order to promote our services and further quicken our education and expansion plans." said Christopher Tiffin, Chief Executive Officer of Boost.

From L-R: Ir. Wan Murdani Wan Mohamad, Director of Enabling Ecosystem of MDEC; Dato’ Ng Wan Peng, COO of MDEC; Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, President & Group CEO of Axiata; Abid Adam, Group Chief Information Security Officer of Axiata Group

Meanwhile, the Axiata Group Berhad and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 18 July 2018 to further boost the nation’s cybersecurity industry by strengthening both talent development as well as futureproofing innovation. This partnership will benefit institutes of higher learnings (IHLs), the start-ups community and government agencies.

Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, President & Group Chief Executive Officer of Axiata mentioned that Axiata has always been committed to talent development and will support MDEC’s initiatives in creating future cybersecurity talents through industrial and upskilling internships as well as provide mentorships in developing cybersecurity solutions. You can read the full story on MDEC's website here.

Speaking of MDEC, Cyberjaya will be having another music festival. The CMF 2018's theme is A Kre8tif Content and Music Celebration and it will be held on 11 and 12 August 2018 on 10AM - 12.30AM and 10AM - 10PM respectively. Interested participants can visit this site to see how they can join the party!

For this year, the festival will return to the familiar grounds of Centrus Mall in CBD Perdana 3 featuring an eclectic mix of live music, animation, film screenings, creative conferences, tech exhibitions and marketplaces. In conjunction with SouthEast Asia’s Kre8tif! Conference and Content Festival, the interactive festival aims bring together creatives, entrepreneurs, technologists and artists for the all weekend affair, including a multi-layered event, family-friendly programming with hopes to unite and celebrate local creative content. If that's your cup of tea, here's the Facebook page about it.

On another note, Kaspersky Lab researchers are seeing an increase in supply chain attacks leveraging third-party software; high-end mobile malware; increased router and modem hacks; and much more in the second half of 2018. For example, there is a bunch of weird but dangerous malware such as ZooPark, Energetic Bear, Olympic Destroyer and LuckyMouse APT and others (on a serious note, we are not making this names up).

These terms and cyber attacks are really complicated stuff and there are a lot of technicalities behind the protection from these threats. If you would like to get the best advice, maybe you can head over to their website here to check it out and read more about it.

Finally, the Alibaba Cloud, a cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group has recently announced the launch of their second availability zone (“Availability Zone B”) in Malaysia to expand its cloud footprint and bolster its cloud capacity, serving increasing customer demand locally and in the region. As Alibaba Cloud continues to invest in Malaysia by setting up the first cloud-based Anti-DDoS Scrubbing Center in August. The centre will mitigate risks and offer customers the highest level of protection against stronger DDoS attacks, as well as featuring a variety of security functions including Anti-DDoS Pro, a service that defends against all types of DDoS attacks. That's all for the week, stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes 2019 #1 - Waze tips for Thaipusam, new LG ThinQ AI TV, SalamWeb, Mastercard drops name, Top 10 Technology Trends in 2019 and more

What's uppppp TechNaversss! NewBytes is back and it's gonna be our first 2019 edition! It's a bit late but we had a slow startup and now we are picking up some steam. There were plenty of things happening over the past three weeks, the most notable one would be the #10YearsChallenge "conspiracy theory", CES 2019 also happened over the week before, and many many smartphones were released such as Huawei's first Punch Fullview phone - Nova 4, the budget-friendly HONOR 10 Lite and HONOR Band 4 series, the magnetic slider Xiaomi Mi MIX 3, the rather late  Razer Phone 2 and finally, Samsung also announced the upcoming Galaxy S10 launching date in San Francisco, California.

Out of all the major announcements mentioned above, the one that I would like to comment on is the Razer Phone 2. In all honesty, not that I have anything against the gaming brand, but I just thought that they came a bit too late into the Malaysia market. I personally think they have underestimated the Malaysian mobile gamers here, as they did skip the first Razer Phone. This allowed ASUS Malaysia to quickly capture the hearts (including mine <3) with the ROG Phone. So whatever the Razer Phone 2 has, so does the ROG Phone with better gaming capabilities such as the AirTriggers, bigger storage space and gaming accessories availability. Sure, the Razer Phone 2 has IP67 water-resistant grade but seriously, who games nearby the pool or beach?

But I digress, there is more news below so let's just get to it!

First up and probably the most important NewsBytes of this week - Thaipusam! Well, more like giving you tips on when is the best and worst time to drive in Kuala Lumpur during the holiday. Provided by Waze themselves, below are three steps to avoid the dreaded traffic jam:

#1 Waze’s Prediction for Best and Worst Time to Drive in Kuala Lumpur

#2 Plan Your Drive for ThaipusamWaze users can also stay ahead of traffic by using the Planned Drive function to notify them when to leave in order to reach Batu Caves - or their destination of the day - on time. Planned Drive can also sync with a phone’s calendar to help coordinate the day in a stress-free fashion.

#3 Stay Alert with Live UpdatesWhile you are on the road, turn on your Waze app to get driving directions, live traffic reports and alerts about car accidents, road conditions and hazards. You may also identify new and faster routes with the help of the app. Turn on the navigational voice so you can stay alert and keep your eyes on the road when you drive!

During the CES 2019 event, LG Electronics showed plenty of products and gadgets, but one of them is a new flagship TV lineup - the ThinQ AI is powered with the latest and second-generation α (Alpha) 9 Gen 2 intelligent processor with deep learning algorithm for a higher level of AI picture and sound experience quality. Also thanks to the new algorithm, it's able to enhance and analyse the content source for the best viewing pleasure possible.  In addition, it's also able to connect with Amazon Alexa as well as a built-in Google Assistant. This will allow users to engage in a conversation with voice recognition with the Home Dashboard, which that makes it possible to control a wide variety of smart home devices directly from the TV. For more information, you can check out at their website right here.

Then in Malaysia, apparently there is a new web browser called SalamWeb Browser launched by SalamWeb Technologies MY Sdn. Bhd. and as the name implies, it's a web browser for Muslims around the globe to discover, connect, and contribute in a free, safe online environment. Besides that, there's also SalamNews, SalamChat and SalamSadaqah.

Endorsed by Amanie Shariah Supervisory Board, in conformity with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation's (MDEC’s) Islamic Digital Economy Mi'yar, SalamWeb’s products have been thoughtfully designed to optimize the Islamic way of life. For instance, SalamWeb Browser has some inbuilt features called Qibla compass, prayer timings and a custom news feed aggregated from verified news sources. And there's even SalamProtect, an advanced content filter. Much wow.

If you're curious to know more, you can visit their website right here to find out more.

So what does dropping its name mean? What's happening here? Well, basically it's just as the title says - the name "Mastercard" will no longer appear on its recognizable Mastercard Symbol. But why? According to Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communication Officer at Mastercard, it's just for modern simplicity sake.

"And with more than 80 percent of people spontaneously recognizing the Mastercard Symbol without the word 'mastercard,' we felt ready to take this next step in our brand evolution. We are proud of our rich brand heritage and are excited to see the iconic circles standing on their own."

He then continued: “We live in a time where, increasingly, we communicate not through words but through icons and symbols. Mastercard has had the great fortune of being represented by two interlocking circles, one red, one yellow, since its founding in 1966, said Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram. Now, by allowing this symbol to shine on its own, Mastercard enters an elite cadre of brands that are represented not by name, but by symbol: an apple, a target, a swoosh. Mastercard's two interlocking circles have always represented their commitment to connecting people. Now, that commitment is given greater presence by Mastercard's status as a symbol brand."

Fair enough, good point and cool story bro.

Meanwhile, Alibaba's DAMO Academy, which is a global research program published their own Top 10 Technology Trends in 2019. Interestingly, the O cut-out display is not one of them but I guess it's not really part of technology, but more to aesthetic design. Anyway, check out the list below: Trend 1: Real-time urban simulation becomes possibleMore resources will be allocated to technologies powering an intelligent “city brain” and its applications, while a city simulation model reflecting the real-time impulses and movements of a physical city can be built to facilitate the optimization of city governance. More cities in China are expected to have a “city brain” in 2019. Trend 2: Speech AI in certain areas to Pass Turing TestAs speech intelligence technology advances, real-time text-to-speech on mobile devices would be almost identical to human speech, even passing the Turing test in certain conversations, such as ones using a robotic voice to alert about delivery status. Rules and regulations need to be established to regulate the industry, to avoid misusing the technology in advertisements, harassing phone calls and fraud.

Trend 3: Specialized AI Chips on the RiseMemory-centric AI chip architecture based on the latest-generation of 3D-stacked memory technology will become mainstream. In addition, brain-inspired neuromorphic computing chips will gain momentum, while researchers seek killer applications. Specialized AI chips may challenge the dominant position of GPUs for AI training in data centres.

Trend 4: Super-large graph neural networks (GNNs) will equip machines with common senseGNNs that combine with deep learning can link end-to-end learning and inductive reasoning together, which might be able to address issues, such as relational reasoning and explainability that couldn’t be tackled by deep learning before. Robust GNNs can function like a human brain that consists of neurons, equipping machines with common sense, comprehension and cognitive capabilities.  Trend 5: Restructuring of computing architecture The heterogeneous computing architecture with FPGA, GPU and ASIC, along with emerging memory devices, are driving the evolution of traditional computing architecture. In the foreseeable future, the fundamental changes to computing architecture, underscored by the transition from CPU-centered general computing to Domain-specific computing driven by applications and technology, will accelerate the arrival of AI and the quantum-computing era. Trend 6: 5G networks will enable new applications The fifth generation of wireless technology (5G) will see a significant increase in wireless bandwidth, enhancing the peak speed of the 4G network nearly 100 times. This will speed the development of 4k/8k ultra-high-definition videos and immersive interaction based on AR/VR. Additionally, with features like high reliability, low latency and large capacity, 5G networks will enable the development of new areas, such as vehicle-infrastructure cooperative systems and the Industrial Internet.  Trend 7: Digital identity will become your second ID Card Biometric and liveness detection/anti-spoofing technology is reshaping people’s identification and verification. From phone unlock door access control to dining at restaurants, checking out at supermarkets, entering train stations, passing an airport security check and seeing doctors in hospitals, biometric technology are playing an increasingly important role in making trust simpler and our daily life better. Trend 8: More-prudent developments in autonomousThe advance of vehicle-infrastructure cooperative systems will foster the development of autonomous driving. In the next two to three years, new technological progress should be seen in certain commercial areas, such as logistics and transportation, with fixed-route public transport and unmanned delivery for commercial buildings and campuses.  Trend 9: Deployment of blockchain applications speeding upPeople are more rational about the prospects of the blockchain, which was once much overhyped. The deployment of blockchain applications with sustainable commercial value is expected to speed up. More and more blockchain applications will be seen in our daily life, such as cross-border remittances, supply-chain financing, electronic invoices and tamper-proof judicial records.

Trend 10: Data-protection technologies will thriveGovernments around the world intend to enact/implement more stringent policies and regulations on data security. Corporates will need to invest more in protecting individual data privacy. Traceability technologies across systems, such as watermark, and data-asset protection technology, including advanced anti-crawlers against strong cyber attacks, will be more broadly adopted.

For the gadget testers, the 3DMark bench test app now has a new update. Catered to the Sling Shot Extreme benchmark, the update modifies the Vulkan version of the Sling Shot Extreme test to enable a fairer comparison with scores from the OpenGL ES 3.1 version. With this, Vulkan scores will improve on many devices and it's recommended that the Vulkan scores from previous versions should no longer be used to compare devices.  Other than that, this update also fixes an unrelated issue that could cause the API Overhead feature test to fail on newer devices. To know more about the new update, you can check out this page right here.

A bit outdated but TikTok closed its success in 2018 with style. Just a few weeks back ago, they celebrated a TikTok Year-End Party in Malaysia with their fans and creators from all over the world including Malaysia, Indonesia and Korea. For Malaysians, they were gathered at APW Bangsar with special guests including popular Malaysian creators including the ultra-talented Pong siblings, Jeii and Gaston, Findy Yong (#1 TikTok creator in Malaysia), Ai Wahida (1 Million Audition winner) and Nurul Nurizzati or popularly known as Rose Nicotine (artist and comedian).

Meanwhile, global creators such as Elina Karimova and An Eunwoo from South Korea, along with Dinda Cassanova and Tiara Adhelya from Indonesia also lent their star power to this event, which was attended by local celebrities such as Aiman Tino, Kaka Azraff, Izzue Islam, Diana Danielle, Fasha Sandha, Kamal Adli, and Farhan Kapor.

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


NewsBytes 2019 #10 - Good Q1 TIME, KFC on TNG, Maxis eKelas, DOOGEE S90 Pro and more

Over the past few days, there were quite a few smartphone launches. First, the OPPO Reno was announced for RM1999 in Malaysia (a bit expensive, tbh), then came along the ASUS ZenFone 6 with a rather odd Flipping Camera in Valencia starting from ~RM2328, the OnePlus 7 Pro was also launched in Malaysia from RM2999 (no longer the flagship killer, I suppose) and finally, the HONOR 20 series was revealed in London with an affordable price of RM1699 for us. Sweet.

Despite the sweet price tag, it doesn't look like a good idea to purchase one now, or any other Huawei smartphone ever since the US Government has ordered Google to stop its services for them. Unfortunately, Qualcomm and Intel have also been ordered to do so due to US law and regulation and it doesn't look good for Huawei at all. However, there is still a slim chance of hope, as of recently, not everyone is on the same page with the US Government.

If you want my honest opinion, this trade war stuff is like watching at little children fighting over who should be friends with who. Anyway, let's go to this week's NewsBytes.

Now that we are entering the second half of the year, TIME dotCom Berhad is proud to announce that they have a Group revenue of RM262.5 million for the quarter ended 31 March 2019. The 13.8% year-on-year growth can be attributed to higher sales recorded from all core product segments. The data and data centre businesses led growth by 15.2% and 8.9%, respectively.

With this, the Group also recorded a 3.5% (pre-MFRS 16) increase in pre-tax profit to RM68.3 million. The increase is mainly due to higher revenue growth across core product segments and customer groups, and a higher share of profit from investment in associates. Also, they were the first telco in Malaysia and second in the world to achieve the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) 3.0 certification.

That's right, KFC across the nation is now eligible for TNG eWallet. So in celebration of the partnership and in conjunction with Ramadan, Malaysians can look forward to enjoying *20% discount on the 5-pc KFC Bucket Kongsi, valid from 16 May 2019 until 17 June 2019. In addition, first time Touch ‘n Go eWallet users can collect RM10 complimentary TNG Reload PIN at selected KFC restaurants.

Syahrunizam Samsudin, CEO of TNG Digital Sdn Bhd (2nd from left); Dato’ Seri Mohamed Azahari Mohamed Kamil, Managing Director of QSR Brands (M) Holdings Bhd; and Merrill Christopher Pereyra, CEO (Restaurants Division) of QSR Brands (M) Holdings Bhd at the partnership launch between the Touch 'n Go eWallet and KFC Malaysia.

Deep in the remote area of Kg. Chengal in Keterah, Kelantan, a total of 40 volunteers took part in a special digital training workshop organised by Maxis on 17 May as part of its Raya festive charity. The purpose was to teach the community there on how to use social media, content creation, photography and basic accounting. This also includes setting up a business Facebook page!

Obviously, this is just another part of Maxis' eKelas workshop that has been running since 2017. There was also a motivation session where Maxis employees shared their life stories and experiences to inspire the students. Maxis also presented food boxes to 20 underprivileged families and ended with Buka Puasa with the community.

Wow, DOOGEE is still alive. For those who don't know, they are another smartphone manufacturer from China trying to make it big in Malaysia for about 3-4 years now but has not made any breakthrough yet. Anyway, they are introducing the S90 Pro which is said to combine all the S70 and S80 features which fits the "One Phone, Four Uses" tagline.

The S90 Pro features a Helio P70 chipset (not bad), 24W Super Flash Charging (oh..nice), 5050mAh battery pack (ohhhhh) and even has a game module. Besides that, it features a 6.18-inch display, 6GB + 128GB memory capacity, 16MP + 8MP dual rear camera, IP68 rating and more.

Despite this, they didn't bother to announce the price but I guess it's just hyping up the product. We will see if it makes it here in Malaysia.

Who is HID Global and what is the new door fingerprint reader? Apparently, they are one of the "leading trusted identity solutions" and they have announced a new fingerprint reader for your door knowns as the iCLASS SE RB25F fingerprint reader. Yeah, that's basically it.

Nothing too exciting, but it's said that it can unlock the door under a second. It also has an IP67 and anti-vandal IK09 rating, meaning it can be read quickly and reliably in cold, dry, dirty, wet and other challenging environmental conditions, as well as supporting a multi-layered authentication between the reader and credentials with HID’s Seos technology.

If you're curious about it, you can check out more information right over here.

Meanwhile, OYO Hotels and Homes, one of the fastest-growing chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes & living spaces from China has just announced a new OYO Lite app. If you're a frequent traveller and a fan of OYO, you might like this.

The new Lite app incorporates all the functionalities of the OYO app and has been designed to work in low connectivity areas or low networks to enhance the user experience. With a size of less than 800 KB, OYO Lite app consumes less space while offering an optimized user interaction time and a seamless experience no matter how connected the user is. With this launch, OYO reiterates its commitment to providing quality living spaces to travellers.

In other words, your lesser version of the original OYO app. OYO Lite is currently live and available to consumers across the globe on Android.

That's all about this week's NewsBytes, stay tuned for more at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes 2019 #11 - Wiko Watch and Win, realme & Acer winning, Netflix with Kids, Guardians of the Interwebz and Boost Super Shake

So a lot of things happened this week. First, there was Computex 2019 with ASUS showing a wide range of products - a new ZenFone 6 Edition 30, ZenBook Edition 30 laptop and a Prime X299 Edition 30 motherboard for its 30th Anniversary, a ZenBook Pro Duo with two functioning 4K touchscreens, new VivoBook S14 and S15 with a 5.65-inch ScreenPad 2.0 display, two new portable monitors (ZenScreen Touch and ROG Strix XG17), ROG Swift gaming monitor, a new Glacier Blue skin for ROG gaming laptops in the near future, and many more.

The Trade War between the USA and China still going on, the chain effect has hit across the nation. Our Prime Minister voiced out on the matter, saying Malaysia will still use Huawei technology; Huawei has also prepared to file a lawsuit against the US Government for bullying, a number of Malaysian restaurants are showing support for Huawei smartphone users, and for some reason, the Mate 20 Pro is back on the Android Q beta program.

And on other news, Apple Malaysia has just announced a new iPod touch with AR capability coming soon to Malaysia from RM899, Pokemon Masters is also set to be released on our mobile devices this year, and finally, OPPO Reno 10X Zoom was announced for RM3399 (which to be honest, is kinda expensive comparing with the Xiaomi Mi 9 for having similar tech specs minus the 60x zoom feature for just RM1699, now you tell me which one makes more sense).

Now onto this week's NewsBytes that nobody really reads.

Who doesn't love a lucky contest? Well, if you're in luck, you opt to try this Wiki Watch and Win contest. It has already kicked off since 27 May until 9 June 2019 where you can join the contest and get a chance to win a brand new Wiko View 3 smartphone. All you have to do is:

Also on their store in Lazada, there are other Wiko last minute Raya shopping hot deals too such as getting a phone as low as RM161, discounts up to 50%, free bundles and more. So check it out, maybe?

In the upcoming Raya festive season, realme Malaysia is proud to announce that they have garnered the top spot by selling the most units from 21 May to 24 May 2019 on Shopee, during the Raya campaign peak days. The Raya promotion was also held in conjunction with the brand’s first exclusive launch of realme C2, which took place on 21 May.

“We are confident in our products and delighted that Malaysians gave us a huge support. The unbelievable sales results on Shopee speaks volumes,” said Tiffany Teh, Brand Manager, realme Malaysia.

Most impressive, realme Malaysia. Keep it up!

Another winner to mention is Acer as the company has been honoured with 7 2019 Computex d&i awards in recognition for design excellence, in the categories of Gaming Hardware, Information and Communication Hardware, AR, VR and Content, and IoT categories. Among them, the Predator Thronos has won the Computex d&i Gold award, and the Smart Parking Meter System has won the Computex d&i Specialty award.

Other award winners include the Predator Triton 900 gaming notebook, the ConceptD 500 high-end desktop, the thin-and-light Swift 7, the Acer OJO 500 Windows Mixed Reality Headset, and the aiSage edge computing device. A total of 222 entries from 90 companies were assessed by a 20-person jury of multi-disciplines, including academia, venture capital, industrial design, media, and more. You can read the full story right over here.

You heard of Netflix and Chill, but have you ever heard of Netflix with Kids? Yeah...so Netflix is gearing towards more family friendly so with this, the brand is committed to offering a wide selection of stories, for all ages, cultures, sensibilities and moods, ensuring a safe viewing environment for the kids.

To ensure the safety of their children online as they are able to limit or restrict access to specific content that they deem inappropriate, this is where parental control features come in which can be accessed via the website on any desktop that helps parents adjust and personalise the selection of content that is made available for the whole family. Below are the list of features:

Head of Communications and Public Affairs for Google Malaysia, Zeffri Yusof (Second from left) and the Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Creative Industries, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College Dearna Kee (Third from left), along with attendees wrapping up the Google Cafe: Guardians of the Interwebz workshop

In the other corner, Google Malaysia held a workshop in Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (TAR UC) KL main campus to highlight Internet safety tips based on the following core themes: 1. Security, 2. Privacy, 3. Family Safety and 4. Misinformation.

During the workshop, Google taught them how to take charge of their data by running through data control settings related to their Google accounts, how to avoid phishing attempts, and shared best practices such as not to overshare personally identifiable information online. The students will be working to build the Guardians of the Interwebz campaign from the ground up as they learn to effectively research, plan, create content and manage online engagements.

Ahmad Sanusi Husain (far right) the first Super Shake Grand Prize winner with his family receiving the Proton X70 Proton X70

Meanwhile, another lucky participant just got himself a brand new Proton X70 car from Boost's Super Shake contest. Previously, Lelong.my also held one with the car as the grand prize but Boost has put it a step further, as there were eight Proton X70s to be won fortnightly.

The first lucky winner of Super Shake was none other than Ahmad Sanusi Husain, a 54-year-old Group Agency Manager for PMB Investment from Kajang. He has been an active Boost user for the past four months, where he uses it to pay his Celcom and Unifi bills, grocery shopping, restaurants and making donations, and also getting cashback in return.

Boost’s Super Shake kicked off on 29 April and is a four-month long campaign that goes on until 18 August 2019. To win, all users have to do is spend with Boost to earn tokens and participate in the weekly lucky draw within the Boost app.

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes 2019 #12 - realme Msia wins again, Fitbit Father's Day Gift Guide and Celcom doing CSR stuff

How have your Hari Raya holidays been? Hope you not only spent quality time with your friends and family but also plenty of rest before next week. That said, there was some news here and there but nothing too special. At most, it was only the Apple WWDC 2019 event that took place on 4 June 2019 introducing a new iOS 13 which will have a dark mode (cool) as well as an entirely new iPadOS for their iPad tablet lineup.

Also, it's not uncommon for the internet to respond to Apple with funny memes on their overpriced gadgets. One of them is the Pro Stand for the Pro Display XDR which cost $999. Oh-my-goodness, that's like ~RM4155 and granted, it's pretty flexible to move the monitor effortlessly according to your preference, but that's way too expensive and only the rich bastards will buy just because they have the money. JUST NUH-UH! ✋

Just like its other online store in Shopee and winning the top-selling smartphone, realme Malaysia is proud to announce that they have come out on top once again during Lazada May Clearance sales during 29-31 May 2019. The smartphone that stole the spotlight was the realme C1, along with other phones that were on sale too like the realme 3 Pro, realme 2 Pro, and realme 3.

In other news, the company also grabbed the opportunity by having a Grand Bazaar Ramadhan Raya in Bukit Jalil that ran from 18 May - 4 June at 3pm - 12 am (weekday) and 11am - 12 am (weekend & public holidays). The event was honoured to have YB Syed Saddiq, Minister of Youth and Sports Malaysia present on one of the days, as well as YB Datuk Dr Shahruddin bin Md Salleh, Deputy Minister of Wilayah Persekutuan to give his blessings.

Yup, Father's Day is just around the corner and if you've been wanting to get a fitness smartwatch for your dad, Fitbit has prepared a bunch of wearables list on a limited time offer. Check them out below!

RM200 discount for the following devices• Fitbit Alta HR at RM 498 (normal retail price at RM 698)• Fitbit Alta HR Special Edition at RM 608 (normal retail price at RM 808)• Fitbit Charge 2 at RM 508 (normal retail price at RM 708)• Fitbit Charge 2 Special Edition at RM 608 (normal retail price at RM 808)• Fitbit Ionic at RM 1098 (normal retail price at RM 1298)• Fitbit Ionic Adidas at RM 1198 (normal retail price at RM 1398)

RM150 discount for the following devices• Fitbit Versa at RM 848 (normal retail price at RM 998)• Fitbit Versa Special Edition at RM 978 (normal retail price at RM 1128)• Fitbit Ace at RM 248 (normal retail price at RM 398)

RM100 discount for the following devices• Fitbit Charge 3 at RM 628 (normal retail price at RM 728)• Fitbit Charge 3 Special Edition at RM 738 (normal retail price at RM 838)

If you would like to know more of the tech specs and features. You can head over to their webpage right here.

Next, Celcom Axiata Berhad was recognised by the Asia Responsible Enterprise Award, Green Leadership category for their efforts to empower underserved communities and ensuring environmental sustainability. The company's sustainability programme implementation was done at Tasik Chini, Pahang.

The winners of AREA 2019 were announced during the International CSR Summit, held in Taipei, Taiwan, on 24 May 2019. Celcom won the award based on 4 key pillars, namely the Environment, Fair Practices, the Community and its People. In fulfilling the urgent need to address the issues of deforestation which has severely impacted the environment surrounding the area, a total of 1000 trees were replanted, and tagged with QR codes, for digital information recording. This is part of Celcom’s efforts to help Tasik Chini retains its status as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, which was granted in 2009.

Celcom was not alone in this, as they established a partnership with National University of Malaysia (UKM), to come up with a sustainable framework for Tasik Chini’s environment and community, particularly in the area of digital inclusivity, data collection and e-entrepreneurship.

For more information on Celcom’s sustainability programme at Tasik Chini, you can read all about over here.

What, Celcom again? Yup, this time in the festive season of Raya, a few Celcom volunteers have shared "Buka Puasa" at Pusat Jagaan Warga Emas Zakat Selangor, Bait Al-Mawaddah with the home’s senior citizens. The occupants of Bait Al-Mawaddah were also delighted to receive their bags of goodies which included much needed personal care items and snacks.

Then on another occasion, the company also did their own Buka Puasa in Celcom HQ (@celcom) with 95 children from two orphanages namely, Pusat Jagaan Rumah Kesayangan (RUKESA), Rumah Amal Permata Hatiku, and also from a Tahfiz school, Maahad Tahfiz al-Falahiyyah. The children enjoyed the office’s play areas and were also treated with ‘duit Raya’ from Celcom senior leaders, including Idham Nawawi, Chief Executive Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad.

Welp, that's all the NewsBytes for this week. Stay tuned for more at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes 2019 #13 - Astro Go & Samsung no.1, new Spotify Library update, TikTok Photo Templates, Lenovo CSR, car-AI, AMD in E3 and more

And just like that, the Raya holiday is over and a bunch of news just burst through our doors. Father's Day is just around the corner so check out what Shopee has in store for you, you get to trade-in old OPPO phones for the latest Reno series which is nice, ASUS Malaysia finally launched new lightweight VivoBook Ultra series from RM2699 and...oh, Huawei going boldly by saying their HongMeng OS is 60% faster than Android, requesting trademark approval on HongMeng OS in several countries, as well as inviting developers to publish their apps on AppGallery.

But this week's highlights go to E3 2019 which our girl, Natasha is there now covering the event. She got pretty close to see Keanu Reeves but was denied access to CD Projekt's conference (LOL), anyway, I'm sure most of you gamers have got the big news from online. There are so many of them but our biggest story will be Todak Gaming making its appearance at E3 show floor showcasing their game, ToGather: Island that plays similarly to Minecraft (not that I'm complaining). It's a big deal and a huge step for Malaysia!

Also, we are trying really hard to add in more contents into our website with gaming stuff. We are working on a roadmap to play games via livestream, review games (without any restrictions!...hopefully), delivering you the latest gaming news and many more. Kasih like, k?

According to the Astro FT Confidential Research survey, it has been announced that Astro GO is the most popular paid-for streaming video service in Malaysia, ahead of Netflix, Google Play and Unifi TV. It has recorded 2.2 million registered users with an average viewing time of 149 minutes per week.

Sounds mind blogging? Well, considering Astro has been around for a long time, it kinda makes sense as Astro GO is available to all Astro customers allowing them to access content available as per their subscription. Also, the library has tons of titles from Hollywood, Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, premium Sports, blockbuster movies, kids and popular local vernacular programmes, including HBO GO. That's a lot of content.

Moving to Spotify, premium users will be delighted to know that "Your Library" has a new version for a more personalised experience from picking their favourite content faster. In addition, it also comes with separate tabs for Music and Podcast which you can switch around with a simple swipe or tap, as well as accessing favourite playlists, the artists you follow, the albums you’ve saved, and manage Episodes, Downloads and Shows at the Podcast tab.

To learn about this new feature, you can head over to For The Record to check it out.

In case you didn't know, TikTok's new Photo Templates has been launched since 8 June which allows users to select photos on their camera roll and upload them into a pre-made video template with background music. To encourage Malaysians to participate in this new feature, they can just select their food and travel photos and upload them into one of the unique templates such as TikTok Travel, Count Down, Solo and many others, with the hashtag #goodtimes.

Local pop icons, influencers and creators, including the likes of Ai Wahida and Mark O’dea who have joined the #goodtimes challenge to create their own videos using the new feature. To check out the challenge, you can do so on their website here.

And for 8 years in a row, Samsung Electronics has been named the best brand in Asia in 2019. This is according to results from ‘Asia’s Top 1000 Brands’ annual online survey by Campaign Asia-Pacific in collaboration with Nielsen. The ranking – which aggregates views from across 15 major product categories including automotive, retail, F&B and consumer electronics – is based on consumer insights and offers a clear measure of the most highly regarded brand names today.

Additionally, Samsung became number one across six categories, including the most mobile-friendly brand, the strongest local brand, and the brand with the values that best align with those of respondents. You can read all about it at their Newsroom here.

In another CSR event, Lenovo Malaysia has recently organized its first in a series of coding and robotics workshop with Budimas Foundation – a non-governmental and non-profit organization that aims to provide guidance and funding in support of underprivileged children’s welfare in Malaysia.

There were about 100 children ranging from 6 to 17 years old in Budimas Orion Home, Senawang who attended the workshop that was conducted by Lenovo’s technical experts with Micro:bit Educational Center which provides handheld, programmable micro-computer for Internet Of Things (IoT), Robotics and Electronics project, the workshops provide a fun and approachable digital learning experience to the children on coding and robotic technology.

Volunteers from Lenovo Malaysia conducted a coding and robotics workshop for the children from Budimas Orion Home together with Cytron Technologies and Micro:bit Educational Center

At the end of the day, Lenovo also donated 10 units of computers to the Budimas Foundation Orion Home’s computer lab to provide the children with the opportunity to continue their learning experience of their newly learned skills and develop their talent in the technology field. Oh, how lovely.

AI is finally making its way to cars. In fact, owners of Audis, Renaults and Hondas in China will soon be able to “ask” their cars for everything from restaurant suggestions to movie tickets thanks to speech-recognition technology from Alibaba’s artificial-intelligence unit, the company said Tuesday during the CES Asia conference in Shanghai.

Called as Tmall Genie Auto, it's designed from Alibaba A.I. Labs into select models of internet cars, including Volvo and BMW which has signed on to integrate it into some of their internet-enabled vehicles. Tmall also announced a tie-up with Renault on an electric car that features the Tmall iconic cat logo on the vehicle’s exterior design. The Renault City K-ZE Tmall Genie Edition, which will include Tmall Genie Auto, will be on sale in China later this year.

As mentioned, Tmall Genie Auto will allow consumers to check on their cars from home, such as ensuring that all windows were closed and doors were locked. In the future, they will add car-to-home services, such as monitoring and controlling Tmall Genie-compatible smart appliances, such as lights, air conditioners and heaters, from their vehicles. There are also options for in-car entertainment and shopping.

For more info, you can log on to this full story page for more information.

The AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su unveiled the company’s next-generation PC gaming platform at the “Next Horizon Gaming” at E3 2019, introducing the world’s first 16 core mainstream desktop processor - the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 3950X, as well as the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT & RX 5700 graphics cards.

With 16 cores and 32 threads running up to 4.7GHz, the Ryzen 9 3950X processor now holds the crown in two important categories: highest performance for any 16-core processor and highest performance in a mainstream CPU socket. The 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen 9 3950X processor is expected to be available in September 2019 at $749 from leading e-tailers/retailers.

As for the new graphics cards, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT & RX 5700 can deliver up to 1.25X higher performance-per-clock and up to 1.5X higher performance-per-watt compared to the previous-generation GCN. The new product family also includes the 50th Anniversary Edition AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card, offering higher clocks and a luxurious gold accented shroud with Dr Lisa Su’s signature.

For the support of next-generation PCI Express 4.0 interface, there will be a new 3DMark PCI Express feature test, which will be coming to 3DMark this summer. This new feature test will be the standard interface that provides high-bandwidth communication between devices in a computer, while the new PCI Express 4.0 interfaces provide up to twice the bandwidth of PCI Express 3.0. With more bandwidth, games can transfer more data, reduce loading times, and support more complex scenes. It will be available as a free update for 3DMark Advanced Edition and for 3DMark Professional Edition customers with a valid annual license.

(L-R) Haidong Chen, Chief Executive Officer, Insight Technology Co., Ltd.; Takonkiet Viravan, Chief Executive Officer, One 31 Co., Ltd.; Kaichen Li, Director, Overseas Business, Tencent Video; Jeff Han, Senior Vice President, Tencent Penguin Pictures; Krittee Manoleehagul, Managing Director, Tencent Thailand; Kanokporn Prachayaset, Head of Business Development and Marketing, WeTV; Jina Osothsilp, Chief Executive Officer, GDH Co., Ltd

Finally, Tencent has made the move to expand WeTV video streaming in Thailand. This is the first time that they have gone international and they have been previewing for Thai consumers since November 2018. Boasting over 89 million subscribers (as of Q1 2019), WeTV has a wide range of genres including drama, variety shows, animations and more that is relevant to the Thai audience.

Not only does it even with localize Chinese shows with Thai dubbing, the network also has Korean content which is widely popular in Thailand, and work closely with local partners to develop original Thai content.

That's all, folks. Now go hug your daddy and stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes 2019 #14 - Digi, Maxis & Samsung aiding the needy, Razer Edition 2019 Proton Iriz, Refer A Friend w/ Setel and more

After a swarm of events and PR news from the post-Hari Raya holidays, tech news was calm again this week and there isn't much going on. The biggest one was probably the Xiaomi Mi 9T, also known as the K20 is launched in Malaysia from RM1199 which is dirt cheap, Shopee 7.7 Orange Madness campaign is back with awesome RM1 items, RM0.77 Shocking Sale, Shopee24 Express Delivery and more, 11street died and revived as PrestoMall, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is now available in Malaysia and the Huawei Nova 5 series got unveiled.

Speaking of the Huawei Nova 5 series, this will be the company's third Nova series within 9 months and they just can't keep it down. Worst still, the tech specs are super similar to the HONOR 20 which just got launched on 21 June 2019. Seriously, all they did was just changing the skin and add minimal features. That's why they can pump out devices like rabbits.

It's hard to say if the Nova 5 series will make its way to Malaysia, given with the Google service issue. Guess we will just have to wait and see. Now onto the NewsBytes.

As what the title says, Digi has an offer for the persons with disabilities (PWD) community for discounts and they can potentially pay from as low as RM28 monthly for 6GB of data. As long as they have a valid Persons with Disabilities (OKU) card, they can enjoy a lifetime RM10 discount when they sign up for any Digi Postpaid plan. All plans come with unlimited calls to all networks and have been made available to PWD customers since 2012.

To enjoy this lifetime offer on Digi Postpaid, customers need only sign-up at any Digi Store with their original identity card (NRIC) and original OKU card. Third party registrations by family members or legal guardians can also be done by presenting the original NRIC or birth certificate and original OKU card of the differently-abled customer, and proof of legal guardianship of the person registering.

Speaking of contests, Razer Fintech, a financial technology arm of Razer has announced a Razer Edition 2019 Proton Iriz giveaway during the MyFintech Week 2019. The giveaway is pretty simple, all you have to do is keep using RazerPay and you the more you use it, the higher chance you have to win that badass green and black toned car. By the way, the giveaway campaign ends on 30th June 2019 so there's still time if you're crazy enough to purchase as many items as you can.

In case you've never heard of Setel, it's a mobile app that does fuel payment without ever leaving your car and has been around for quite a while now in Malaysia since last July 2018. Anyway, Setel now has a new feature - Refer A Friend and it offers more rewarding stuff when existing users share the app.

For instance, a new user that was referred by his or her Setel friend, the first and second referral will get RM5 and RM6 respectively, and then RM7 for the third referral onwards. The referred user will also get RM5. That's pretty neat, I'd say. You can get Setel for free on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Sony Malaysia has also released its latest Glass Sound Speaker, the LSPX-S2 for a hefty RM2599. Like its previous predecessor, it can produce Hi-Res Audio Sound around the area via 360-degrees and it's able to connect to Spotify Connect, even its light illumination can be controlled to match the mood. You can find it in every Sony Stores KLCC & The Curve and selected authorized dealers in Malaysia, as well as find more information on the official website here.

Following Samsung's CSR initiative for school projects, they have launched a ‘My School, My Home’ at SK Rambungan, where students can have access to a better-equipped resource centre easier and hostel facilities to accommodate teachers and students since many of them live far away.

‘My School’ fully equipped with Samsung Galaxy tablets as well as a smart TV, was built for the students and teachers at the school to facilitate the teaching and learning process. For teachers and parents travelling from afar, “My Home” was erected, complete with air conditioning, home appliances and TVs for entertainment generously provided by Samsung. The existing children’s hostel facilities like the laundry areas were also upgraded, with the instalment of proper washing stations and new washing machines.

That's very sweet of Samsung, you can read the full story here at its Newsroom.

Another education CSR initiative is none other than Maxis. Using their trademark eKelas program, the telco is now embarking a new video series of original videos for Science, Maths and English with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and have signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with them on 17 June 2019.

Through the agreement, Maxis and UKM will co-create digital learning video content for eKelas subjects of Science, Maths and English, in line with the Malaysian education syllabus. There will be three workshops with 20-30 participants per session, with a target to produce up to 10 videos per workshop. Participating faculties from UKM are the Faculty of Education, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Faculty of Science & Technology, and Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI).

Representing UKM was Vice-Chancellor, YBhg Prof. Ir. Dr. Mohd Hamdi Abd Shukor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Industry & Community Partnership, YBhg Profesor Dato' Dr. Imran Ho Abdullah, while the Maxis team was led by its Chairman, YM Raja Tan Sri Dato' Seri Arshad Bin Raja Tun Uda; CEO, Gokhan Ogut; Chief Enterprise Business Officer, Paul McManus; and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Mariam Bevi Batcha.

You can read the full story at its Newsroom right here.

So what's this new documentary about eSports? Well, it's an hour-long program that was produced by Discovery and co-branding partnership, MSI (for using the PS63 Modern laptop), showing how gaming has rapidly evolved from a pastime into top-tier sports. Global eSports organizations and tournaments, game publishers and popular games, eSport teams and fans worldwide, as well as the design and manufacture of top gaming gear, which all play major roles in propelling the eSports industry forward.

Discovery’s VP and GM for Greater China and Korea Tony Qiu says, “Discovery is more than a channel. We are the world's #1 IP content provider who has delved deep into vertical content in hopes of engaging the audience and powering their passions. With eSports surging in popularity, we have seen its potential and launched Discovery Games Studios to create games inspired by various TV shows from Discovery’s properties. We also recognized MSI’s vast potential in the meanwhile. With MSI gaming laptops' high prevalence worldwide, there is no doubt MSI is one of the major forces behind the success of eSports.”

Unfortunately, the program won't premiere in Malaysia at all, as it will first launch in Taiwan, followed by the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Maybe we can get a piece of it on YouTube one day, hopefully.

Achieving a new milestone, Yoodo became the first telco to officially sponsor the Malaysia Premier Futsal League (MPFL). The initiative is part of Yoodo's mission to provide platforms that will develop local talents, this also includes other areas such as eSports for PUBG Mobile by sponsoring Yoodo Gank, a local progaming team, as well as in the music industry through ‘Yoodo Presents’ as an interactive online concert series.

The MPFL, which gets started this Saturday – 22 June 2019, will be split into Male and Female categories for this league. The men’s league comprises of 9 teams with a total of 16 matches to be played between June and September and the women’s league has 4 teams with 12 matches scheduled between July and September.

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


ASUS announces Android 13 beta programme for the Zenfone 9

ASUS has recently announced that it is opening up an Android 13 beta programme for the ASUS Zenfone 9. The first smartphone within ASUS’ lineup to start testing the latest Android OS, the Zenfone 9 was released in late July and officially runs on Android 12.

For owners of the Zenfone 9, you can easily enrol for the beta programme by going to your device’s settings. According to a post on ASUS ZenTalk, all you have to do is go to Settings, select System and then System Update. Afterwards, click the gear icon on the top-right corner and select ‘Enroll in the Beta Test Programme”.

After that, agree to the terms and conditions, sign up for the ASUS member account (if you’re not a member yet) and fill in the beta test application before submitting. ASUS will then notify you via email should your request be accepted and enjoy testing Android 13 on your device!

Of course, it goes without saying that the beta version may have bugs and could affect your experience using your beloved Zenfone 9. Well, that’s the price to pay to be one of the few non-Google Pixel users to use Android 13 before everyone else I suppose.

What do you guys think? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below and stay tuned to TechNave for more trending tech news.


NewsBytes 2019 #15 - Nokia 2.2 in Android 1, #HLBDigitalDay, Bitmoji Tennis, and multiple new partnerships

Can you believe that it's already July? We are now entering the second half of 2019 and...there isn't a lot going on except for many 7.7 sales, especially on Shopee's platform. Aside from that, another worthy sale promotion that's going on is Huawei's Online IT Fair which is offering a 2-year warranty and up to RM400 discount on its mobile phones now, Samsung is also teaming up with MBO offering Malaysians a Buy 1 Free 1 promo for movie fans, and the Galaxy Note 10 will officially be UNPACKED on 7 August 2019.

So....yeah I think I'm talking here. Told you there isn't much going on haha. Anyway, the most exciting part is probably looking out for sales on Shopee's 7.7 Orange Madness campaign so do standby if you're planning to buy anything. Anyway, onto this week's NewsBytes.

As of 26 June 2019, Nokia 2.2 is now part of the Android One Programme and it will offer users the latest full Android experience. Shipping with Android 9 Pie, Nokia 2.2 is will receive two years of OS upgrades and three years of monthly security updates, ensuring access to all the latest innovations from Android. The Nokia 2.2 will be available at all Nokia authorised dealers nationwide at a recommended retail price of RM399 starting on Friday, 28 June 2019.

Like, anywhere in the world? How does that work? Well, you can still use Grab as they and Splyt already allow international travellers to book Grab rides across 336 cities in 8 Southeast Asian countries through their preferred apps. As for payment, Ctrip and AliPay customers visiting Southeast Asia can already take Grab rides through their own apps, via a solution powered and enabled by Splyt. Splyt is also working with Booking Holdings to integrate ride-booking into their OTA platforms. Booking.com consumers will be able to book Grab rides through the Booking.com app by Q3 2019.

On top of that, Grab also plans to add features such as in-app travel tips, restaurant reviews and attraction recommendations, to offer an even richer travel experience to its users. To learn more information, you visit the Splyt website right here.

Speaking of going global, you probably heard about U Mobile's latest GoPayz and GoBiz digital service, U Mobile has successfully signed an agreement with UnionPay International. This will allow GoPayz e-wallet users to perform local and cross-border payments close to 10 million UnionPay QR code merchants in 29 countries including Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand and the USA. Cool! For more information, visit www.gopayz.com.my!

In another cashless promotion, Hong Leong Bank is hosting a 7-Day Bye-Bye Cash Frenzy and The #HLBDigitalDay Cashless Sale in conjunction with its third annual Digital Day. It will start from 7 July 2019 onwards which includes Cashless Promos across Credit Card and Debit Card products; Deals both online and ion the branches at the Bank; special promotions for SMEs that include Digital Business Solutions, guidance and support in establishing Official WeChat accounts, and All-In-One Merchant Terminals. Key promotions at the roadshow also include:

Perform any eligible cashless transaction (minimum RM7) using HLB services and stand to get cash back, every hour of every day for seven (7) days beginning July 7, 2019. 150 x winners an hour / 24 Hours a day / 7 straight days! / RM 7 per winner. This is in partnership with Mastercard, VISA, MyDebit and WeChat Pay.

Partnering with a host of brands and services both online and at retail stores to offer consumers benefits, discounts and more. Brands include Expedia, DirectD, Zalora, Guardian, Shoppee, TaoBao, Baskin Robbins, Krispy Kreme, Harvey Norman, Jaya Grocer, Giant, dahmakan.

Grab exclusive one-day online banking offers including eFixed Deposit/ at 4.07% p.a. for 3 months with a minimum placement of RM10,000; Enjoy a flat interest/profit rate of 3.70% p.a. when you apply for a Personal Loan/Financing on Connect Online Banking; or apply for a Hong Leong credit card online and enjoy 50% cash back up to RM700 on your weekend retail spend!

Charles Sik (left), Managing Director of Personal Financial Services and Domenic Fuda (right), Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Hong Leong Bank Berhad

For more information about Hong Leong Bank’s Digital Day 2019 promotions, kindly go to our website at www.hlb.com.my/DigitalDay.

Wookay...so Snapchat just made a new mini-game called Bitmoji Tennis and it's exclusive on Snap games. In there, you can challenge other Snapchat players in a real-time multiplayer mode that is found within Chat. To give the game a try, you can follow the steps below:

In another CSR initiative, Lazada eLogistics (LeL) joined hands with French company Nomads Surfing to instil good waste-management and other environmentally-friendly habits among its employees. The partnership is the first in series of green initiatives for Lazada Malaysia’s own end-to-end logistics arm with plans to extend greener eCommerce options to consumers.

L-R: Alexandre Sorel, Member of the Sea Blue Sunday Organization; Thomas Cervetti, Co-Founder of Nomads Surfing; and French Ambassador to Malaysia, Mr. Frédéric Laplanche

“We need to change the way we produce and consume, and it is great to see top eCommerce platform Lazada Malaysia making a conscious effort to affect change within their organization and in their business operations. When people develop an appreciation for the environment and start to practice sustainable actions, they will, in turn, pass this knowledge on to their colleagues, friends and family eventually creating greater awareness across communities,” said Thomas Cervetti, Co-Founder of Nomads Surfing.

Several activities have been lined up for the rest of the year in which LeL employees will participate, enabled by EcoKnights, an environmental NGO dedicated to building bridges towards achieving sustainable development for communities and companies.

The Partnership kicked off with Sea Blue Sunday on 16 June 2019, a public fund-raising event held in Pisco Bar organized by Nomads Surfing, supported by LeL to drive awareness on living an eco-friendly lifestyle and the importance of actively practising greener habits. The event was graced by the presence of French Ambassador to Malaysia, Mr Frédéric Laplanche and saw approximately 300 adults and kids participating in all activities and workshops held.

Visitors were enlightened with talks on ‘living a zero-waste lifestyle” and given the chance to create plastic tiles repurposed from plastic waste with specialised machines. Green thumbs were enticed with a workshop that educated them on how to make self-watering planters as a way to reuse plastic bottles. The event saw RM10,000 collected in donations from participants by the end of the day. Great effort, bro.

Finally, Celcom just threw a Hari Raya party with 100 underprivileged children, and its corporate partners at the end of June. It was held at Hilton Kuala Lumpur, where the children and the caretakers from Rumah Penyayang Darul Ilmi, Gombak were celebrated by the management team and employees of Celcom Axiata at the event. They all got duit Raya from Celcom too.

Other than them, corporate clients, business partners, media, stakeholders, as well as Yang Berhormat Datuk Seri Rina Harun, Minister of Rural Development and many other renowned leaders from both corporate and government were at the celebration. Cool story, bro.

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes 2019 #16 - Lazada Mid-Year Festival results, new OPPO R&D centre, Acer wins awards and more

What's up, my TechNavers? It has been quite a quiet week but that's only because the mid-year sales were going on and boy, there was a lot of sales. But other than that, there was some news that happened. First, the #AgeChallenge from FaceApp got some controversy with our private data being safe or not, HONOR Malaysia has just confirmed that the HONOR 20 Pro is coming to Malaysia (like, finally), Realme Malaysia announced the Realme 3 Pro went down to RM999 permanently, and finally, OPPO Malaysia also announced a new Limited OPPO Reno FC Barcelona Edition which looks very, very cool.

At the point of writing this, there's nothing much that I want to say. So let's just get straight to this week's NewsBytes, shall we?

So here's some fun news about the recent Mid-Year Festival, Lazada Malaysia has gathered some information about our buyers and there are some bizarre findings. We made a list for you so check it out below:

Meanwhile, OPPO has announced at a ground-breaking ceremony that it will establish a new research and development centre at Chang’an Town, Dongguan, Guangdong province, China. OPPO’s new R&D centre in Chang’an is also one of Dongguan’s major initiatives to drive the development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and it is expected to employ 5,000 R&D personnel upon completion.

OPPO will spend RMB 10 billion (~RM5,980,300,000.00) on R&D this year. As a global R&D centre for the company, OPPO’s new R&D centre in Chang’an will be responsible for the research and development, design and testing for a range of smart devices, including smartphones and IoT products. The R&D centre will support OPPO’s mission of providing cutting-edge smart devices and services for the era of intelligent connectivity.

In another OPPO related news, two OPPO-sponsored events - the International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup 2019 and The Championships, Wimbledon 2019 – have reached their conclusion. Obviously, for spreading their name through sports, this is what Derek Sun, Marketing Director of OPPO International Business said:

“It’s a great honor to be a part of the nurturing of emerging tennis stars from all over the world in partnership with Wimbledon. OPPO embodies the spirit of breakthroughs and innovation, creating smartphones that can capture extraordinary shots and perfect moments. We hope to promote this spirit, inspiring younger generations to pursue their dreams as we help to capture their success and help to record both the rich history and exciting future of tennis.”

Back to our local scene, Acer Malaysia was once again recognized for its brand-building efforts by The BrandLaureate. The company has been awarded as the Most Favourite Brand in IT – Computer Solution 2018-2019 for the second consecutive year, as previously, they were named the Best Choice Prominent Brand in IT – Personal Computer Solutions in 2018. The BrandLaureate Awards was organized by the Asia Pacific Brands Foundation (APBF).

Recently Acer achieved no. 1 and no. 2 rank for gaming laptops and desktops respectively in 24 countries around the world. According to IDC Worldwide Quarterly PCD Tracker, Q1 2019 also saw Acer captured the no. 1 shipment position in total gaming laptops and desktops in Malaysia for 2H 2018.

Then for the Malaysian businesses and organizations, they will be glad to know that Red Hat Malaysia has reinforced its commitment to accelerate their digital transformation and innovation journey with a hybrid cloud strategy. During a media briefing recently, the company launched two new products - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and Red Hat OpenShift 4 just for this hybrid cloud feature.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 can support workloads and operations that stretch from enterprise data centres to multiple public clouds. Red Hat OpenShift 4, on the other hand, is the next generation of Red Hat’s trusted enterprise Kubernetes platform, reengineered to address the complex realities of container orchestration in production systems.

(L-R) Eric Quah, country manager for Red Hat Malaysia, Richard Koh, general manager for ASEAN, and Kingsley Wood, senior director, Cloud Solutions, APAC shared more about how businesses can remain competitive by innovating and moving away from traditional infrastructures

If you would like to read more about the hybrid cloud and the products, you can visit the website right over here.

That's all, man. Have a great weekend and stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes 2019 #17 - OPPO 5G Hotel, SMEs digital solutions, U Mobile signs MoU, new Realme stores, #MYLocalWira and more

So...it's August already! But things have been a bit quiet. I mean, there are some news here and there, the Vivo S1 got officially launch in public yesterday at the Vivo SuperDay Roadshow Event, then Xiaomi Malaysia also got to show its new pure stock Android Mi A3 smartphone (which nobody really seems to care for some reason), same goes to the Black Shark 2 Pro that was revealed in China (which unfortunately still loses the favour against the ROG Phone 2, according to our fans). Besides the phone news, we got a Malaysian Pokemon fan making his own Pokemon game mod based on Malaysia so that's cool.

Yeah so there's nothing much but just a heads up, here's what you can expect in this coming few weeks - many news about the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 series which will take place in New York and many, many Merdeka promo sales to come. Anyway, let's get started shall we?

What's this about? Well to sum it up - Caurousell is kicking off #MYLocalWira as a charity initiative to support Parents without Partners to help single parents in need. How? #MYLocalWira calls on Malaysians’ well-known spirit of generosity to have their preloved items on sale at their thrift store, Jumble Station.

The Malaysians that are involved in this charity include squash legend Datuk Nicol David, Malaysia’s first female ONE Championship mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter and Global Citizen Ambassador Ann Osman, international model and renowned fashion and beauty entrepreneur Amber Chia, professional motorsport athlete and Malaysia's "Drift Queen” Leona Chin, world-class diver Leong Mun Yee and national gymnast Farah Ann.

You can get the full listing of Malaysian personalities and their items for sale on my.carousell.com/ or via the Carousell app; every purchase will support Malaysians in need.

Meanwhile in Australia, OPPO actually set up the world's first travelling, 5G-powered Smart Hotel (lol). It's not some glorious five-star hotel that features 5G connectivity but it's a 40ft shipping container powered off the OPPO Reno smartphone and the 5G network with a decorated accommodation.

It won't be staying in one spot either, as it will be touring throughout Australia over the next few months, starting from the Gold Coast’s very own Home of the Arts (HOTA). According to OPPO, travellers can expect:

Just so you know, it's actually available to book from August 1st to August 30th at HOTA for AU$150 per night, with all proceeds from bookings being donated to local charities. Guests can take in a show, attend one of the many HOTA events or simply sit back and relax, taking in views of the city’s skyline.  Bookings can be made at www.OPPO5GHotel.com.

Coming back to our local shores, Realme Malaysia has opened not just another store, but two more within Klang Valley. Besides the one at Sunway Pyramid, the second realme Image Store in Metro Kajang is located at Lot 7&8 LG Floor, Plaza Metro Kajang, 43000 Kajang, Selangor; whereas the third realme Image Store, it is located at Lot SK-05, Second Floor, IOI Mall Puchong Batu 9, Jalan Puchong, Bandar Puchong Jaya 47170 Puchong.

All the Realme Image stores are open from 10AM to 10PM daily. For a list of realme dealers, please visit myrealme.my/locate-us/.

In continuing the effort for making Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) owners have an easier way of doing business digitally, Digi has introduced its business retail advisors, Digi Business Experts (DBEs) in all its 30 retail stores nationwide.

The DBEs are specially trained with information on business digitalisation and relevant products and services for SME owners, particularly in the field of digital cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics. SME owners can have a consultation walk-in at the Digi Store in Bangsar Shopping Centre where they can find out more different digital products and solutions, such as Go Digi WiFi, iFleet for GPS management system, OMNI for the virtual business telephone system and KryptoPOS; a machine-to-machine (M2M) platform.

In other news, Digi also took the streets in its Customer Obsessed Day to connect with their customers with more than 1100 employees across the nation for the 7th year in a row. COD is a symbolic reflection of the company’s on-going commitment towards placing customers first in all it does; obsessing over the experience it provides customers across its touchpoints, products and services.

For more information on Digi Business solutions, visit new.digi.com.my/business-overview.

Adobe is also helping out Small Businesses to enter the digital service by introducing Adobe Sign. In order to reduce the usage of paperwork, Adobe Sign was created to help companies digitize legacy work practices that rely on signatures, like customer onboarding, contracts and approvals, payments and invoices, and much more.

Adobe Sign has also been integrated into the Acrobat Reader desktop app, enabling hundreds of millions of people who have Acrobat Reader installed to send two documents for e-signature each month, free of charge, which can be updated or download from this page.

Oh yes, Alibaba is also in the bandwagon but for this same good course. During the first cloud summit held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Alibaba Group is proud to present Alibaba Cloud to showcase technologies and solutions for digital transformation, as well as signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad to use Big Data and AI to expedite financial inclusion.

Selina Yuan, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International said, “Since the establishment of our first local data centre in Malaysia, Alibaba Cloud has been paving the way to support local businesses to accelerate their digital transformation. As the No.1 cloud provider in Asia Pacific, we want to continue to promote inclusiveness through technology, so that customers can experience a world-class cloud system in terms of reliability, security, efficiency and interconnectivity."

Speaking of MoU, U Mobile has entered into a strategic collaboration with Tencent. Keep in mind that they aren't making some new game as what Tencent is known for, but the MoU signed by the two parties is a collaboration for big data analytics (BDA), artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and smart+ technologies, as well as digital application and services.

This collaboration will enable U Mobile to leverage Tencent’s technology in rolling out its prepaid customers’ self-registration functionality on different digital channels including the WeChat Mini Programs. With Tencent’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) technologies, customers can register their U Mobile prepaid SIM cards anytime and anywhere. This convenient self-registration service will be available to U Mobile’s prepaid customers by the end of this year.

Wong Heang Tuck, CEO of U Mobile (left) and Poshu Yeung, Vice President, International Business Group, Tencent, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore providing enterprise-focused smart technology and services that are supported by Tencent Cloud

(L-R) Alex Tan, Chief Sales Officer of U Mobile; YB Tuan Syed Saddiq bin Syed Abdul Rahman, Youth & Sports Minister of Malaysia; Ahmed Faris Amir, Acting Chief Executive Officer of Impact Malaysia

Also recently, they partnered with Impact Malaysia, an agency under the purview of Ministry of Youth & Sports for youth development and social innovation, have signed an MoU which will see U Mobile transform various youth-centric community spaces across Malaysia into vibrant art murals. The initiative, supported by the Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS), will have the unveiling of its first transformation in September at Spacerubix, a community event space and the home of Impact Malaysia, located in Puchong, Selangor.

U Mobile will also be equipping the space with free public high-speed 4G connectivity for one year. It is hoped that Spacerubix, once transformed, will become one of the best spaces in Klang Valley for youth-driven activities including, but not limited to, concerts, bazaars and workshops.

Moving to PC components, Intel recently launched a new (and first) 10th Gen Intel Core Processors and will be integrated for future 2-in-1s and laptops. Bringing high-performance AI> to the table, it features a new Intel Iris Plus next-level graphics and enhances the best connectivity with Intel WiFi 6 (Gig+) and Thunderbolt 3.

In addition to that, it also features an Intel Deep Learning Boost that accelerates neural networks on the CPU to work on image enhancements, photo indexing and photorealistic effects. Videography will also get the same treatment with up to 1 teraflop of GPU engine, as well as an Intel Gaussian & Neural Accelerator (GNA) for voice processing and noise suppression.

The systems are expected to arrive for the holiday season from PC manufacturers. To learn more about the latest 10th Gen Intel Core Processor, you can read more right over here.

Lastly, G.SKILL has announced a new Trident Z Neo DDR4-3800 CL14-16-16-36 4x8GB/2x8GB memory kits for AMD Ryzen 3000 & X570 motherboard. This is ideally perfect for pushing the limits of memory bandwidth yet at the same time, having low-latency memory kit at DDR4-3800 CL14-16-16-36 in capacity configurations of 8GBx2 and 8GBx4. The Trident Z Neo memory kit can run at DDR4-3800 CL14-16-16-36 in 8GBx2 capacity with the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X processor and the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE motherboard, reaching a tested memory bandwidth of 58GB/s, 56GB/s, and 58GB/s for reading, write, and copy, respectively.

If you want to know more about the technicalities, you can visit the GSKILL newsroom to check it out right here.

That's all, folks. Now get out of here to enjoy your Sunday.


NewsBytes 2019 #18 - Realme C2 RM399, #KLFW2019, PrestoTravel, Digi Road Safety, Tencent Wukong AI and more

In this week's tech news recap, Samsung stole the show by unpacking the latest Samsung Galaxy Note10 and Note10+! Compared with the predecessor, it has several new features such as the S Pen Air Action, AR Doodle, PlayGalaxy Link, 3D Scanner and many more. Samsung Malaysia quickly soon announced the official local price starting from RM3699 and the series are now on pre-order which sold out quickly. Dayum son! We can't wait to get our hands on it for the review!!

Besides that, HONOR Malaysia shortly announced the HONOR 20 Pro price for RM2299 (not too shabby). If you're thinking of getting one, we just released our review so do check out the camera capabilities (#satisfied). Also, Huawei revealed its own HarmonyOS which can potentially replace Android and they should just do it anyway as a competition. Lastly, some #khabarbaik announcement by TM on new price slash for all Streamyx users at RM69/month and Unifi Air for RM79/month. Pretty cool, now onto the NewsBytes below.

Starting with the smartphones, Realme Malaysia will be selling a new Realme C2 (2GB + 32GB) on 14 August 2019 for just RM399 on its Lazada platform. Also, the same name 2GB + 16GB and 3GB + 32GB model will also be available for RM349 and RM449 with a free microSD card!

Then for HP Malaysia, they recently announced a new collaboration with top local fashion designer duo, Rizman Ruzaini, as well as three homegrown Malaysian designers, Afiq M, My Apparel Zoo and Yadotsa. In conjunction with the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week (KLFW) 2019. They will be the official notebook partner for this occasion with the world’s first leather crafted PC, the HP Spectre Folio which was released in June this year.

Besides that, fashion week attendees and consumers visiting the HP booth at Pavilion from 21- 25 August can stand a chance to win 1 x HP Spectre Folio worth RM9,999. All they have to do is:

In another local app news, Presto announced a new mini-app called PrestoTravel. As the name implies, it can be accessed through Presto app and connect travellers to enjoy holidays through travel bonuses and cashbacks, as well as Agoda where users can browse for 290,000 hotels at their fingertips.

Starting from 8 August 2019, travellers can purchase air tickets through Presto App, whether domestic or international all housed under one roof. On top of the already discounted deals from Agoda, by simply making payment with PrestoPay. The cashback Presto users can earn is limitless as it is based on the total transacted amount and it will be redeemable after they have checked out from their hotels or utilised the services. All transactions in the Presto ecosystem can be made via PrestoPay.

For more information, you can check out their blog here

Moving on, Digi continues its iFleet project on the roads with a new Digi Road Safety Programme 2019. To address rising concerns on road safety in the country, the programme uses telematics data to help commercial vehicle drivers become better, safer drivers.

The vehicle telematics has technologies of sending, receiving and storing information about vehicles and drivers, using devices connected to the internet. To improve road safety by monitoring driver behaviour, the telematics collects vehicle data such as location, speed, acceleration, braking and cornering, which helps commercial vehicle owners and drivers make more informed decisions to improve vehicle safety on the road, which is a key component of Digi’s Road Safety Programme 2019.

The Programme is open to all SMEs and will run from now until 31 December 2019. To participate in Digi’s Road Safety Programme, visit digi.my/roadsafety.

As for Maxis, the telco delivered a steady performance for the quarter ended 30 June 2019. They reported a healthy profit after tax on the back of strong EBITDA and EBITDA margin and is on track to deliver on guidance for the year. The quarter saw consistent growth in postpaid and fibre subscribers, as well as continued stabilisation in the prepaid segment. Below is the video that sums up Maxis’ Q2 2019 financial results.

Meanwhile, OPPO recently signed a patent transfer agreement with Intel involving the transfer of 58 patents in areas related to cellular mobile communications technology. Additionally, OPPO has purchased rights to over 500 patents from Ericsson, covering countries and regions including the US, Europe, China and India. Securing communications patents from Intel and Ericsson will serve to bolster OPPO’s technological development capacity as the company grows its business in global markets.

In other parts of the world, Tencent's own Wukong AI defeated pro-gamers of "Honour of Kings" World Champion Cup during the semi-finals round. The game, also known as Arena of Valor, is considered to be an excellent experimental environment for testing AI's technical capabilities. The complexity of the game is 10 ^ 200000, and players have incomplete information. Many AI researchers in the industry believe that the next AI milestone is likely to be born in a complex strategy game.

Tencent Wukong AI battled against professional human players in the highly popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game, “Honour of Kings” at the World Champion Cup (also known as KCC) in KL, Malaysia

Following the test, Tencent AI Lab technicians shared the technical details of Tencent Wukong AI. Tencent AI Lab has established an algorithm with an enhanced learning model based on “observation-action-reward”. Tencent Wukong AI plays against itself and can train at the equivalent of more than 400 years of games per day, allowing it to learn basic techniques such as how to avoid skill damage. It can also explore new strategies which differ from what one usually observes in human players.

Just in case we ever get overtaken by robots one day. You can blame Tencent for this.

From the PC component market, AMD has yet again released a new 2nd Generation of the AMD EPYC™ family of processors, the AMD EPYC 7002 series. It features up to 64 “Zen 2” cores per SOC, 2nd Gen EPYC processors deliver up to 23% more instructions per clock (IPC) per core on server workloads and up to 4X more L3 Cache compared to the previous generation. This piece of hardware is being adopted by customers like Microsoft Azure, Cray, Dell, and more.

For more information about the 2nd Generation AMD EPYC, you can visit the AMD site here or read more about the more than 60 ecosystem partners supporting AMD EPYC here and at their blog here.

In conjunction with the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Google Malaysia celebrated our own Orang Asal with Google Earth Outreach program. We mentioned this before in our NewsBytes 2019 #4 post, where they use this tool to raise awareness of their communities’ way of life and plight, as well as allowing them to monitor activities such as illegal logging, wildlife population and migration patterns, as well as document their ancestral lands. As for us, the Google Earth Voyager feature gives us access to these rich stories from around the world brought to life by video, 360-degree visuals and satellite imagery.

Mapping expert Jef Yangman of Jaringan Orang Asal SeMalaysia (JOAS) shared updates on the ongoing Google-sponsored nationwide indigenous mapping initiative, enabling these communities were able to map out land boundaries, land-use systems, resource sites, geo-historical sites and places of religion-spiritual significance. So far 50 villages have been mapped out this way. You can check out Google Earth Voyager to explore many more indigenous cultures and people from around the world.

Finally, MSIG Malaysia has launched Cyber SafeGuard, an insurance product designed to protect businesses of all sizes from the growing range of cyber risks proliferating in the ASEAN region.

In addition, it also includes support for the appointment of an expert IT forensics company, the cost of a public relations consultant to assist with the management of any reputational damage, the cost of a legal firm to advise on legal obligations, restoration costs, interruption losses, liability claims, extortion loss and regulatory costs. There are also various optional enhancements that customers can choose from, to enhance their protection based upon their circumstances and needs.

For more information on MSIG’s Cyber SafeGuard insurance please visit www.msig.com.my/business-insurance/products/cyber-safeguard/ or talk to an MSIG insurance broker.

That's all, folks. Now make me a sandwich and stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.


NewsBytes 2019 #19 - HP Malaysia Challenges, Kaspersky Center in Cyberjaya, more partnership deals and more

Another week has gone by but there's nothing really much to talk about in the local tech scene in Malaysia. I mean sure, Merdeka sales here and there, and Shopee is coming up with another promo sale period leading up to 9.9. (which you stand a chance to win a Honda City car). Today is also the last day of the Samsung Galaxy Note10 and Galaxy Note10+ pre-order sales, although it's probably sold out already due to popular demand, you can still purchase them in authorized stores (see the list here).

So...yeah. Let's get on with it on the NewsBytes already.

HP Inc. Malaysia has just recently launched a “Creators of Tomorrow University Challenge” in Malaysia. In collaboration with Tealive, the campaign initiative was to "inspire entrepreneurship amongst youths by making their business dreams a reality".

The students who are aged 17 - 25 years old will have the chance to pitch their ideas to HP Inc’s Malaysia Managing Director, Fayza Mohamed Amin and Bryan Loo, founder of Tealive, where each has an opportunity to walk away RM10,000 cash prize and a 3-month mentorship with both HP Inc. and Tealive in Malaysia. The challenge is divided into 2 stages:

As part of the university challenge, HP Inc. Malaysia will be going to universities around Klang Valley to showcase the HP Pavilion x360 laptop and the latest HP Gaming PCs. Students at participating universities can sign up for the challenge on-site, participate in activities and stand to win prizes such as movie tickets, shopping vouchers and Tealive vouchers. Below is the University Roadshow Schedule:

For more universities and detailed dates, check out the official Creators of Tomorrow webpage.

On the other hand, the HP Little Makers Challenge also just happened recently and it was announced that SK Saujana Utama won the challenge and went home with RM20,000 in HP PC and print innovation. The challenge engaged 92 schools and 31 arts centres nationwide to promote immersive learning powered by HP DeskJet Ink Advantage 3700 Printer through a series of eight challenges covering arts, geography, biology, astronomy and other subjects.

The winning school was selected based on the highest number of submissions for all eight challenges. The winners were 7 – 12 years old students and their teachers from SK Saujana Utama from Sungai Buloh.

“We’re so happy to have been chosen as the winners for the HP Little Makers Challenge. As soon as the first HP Little Makers Challenge was released, the kids were hooked! The challenges allowed them to be creative with the art projects while also exploring science. The learning formats could also be easily incorporated to their syllabus.” said Cikgu Mawar Mohamad, teacher from SK Saujana Utama.

As part of the Global Transparency Initiative by Kaspersky, the company has announced that they will open its first Transparency Center in Cyberjaya! This will be Kaspersky's third cord review facility as with the partnership with CyberSecurity Malaysia, alongside key cyber-related government agencies and companies in the country.

Just like the same Transparency Center in Zurich and Madrid, the one in Cyberjaya will serve as a trusted facility for the company’s partners and government stakeholders to come and check the source code of Kaspersky’s solutions, as well as functioning as a briefing center where guests will be able to learn more about Kaspersky’s engineering and data processing practices.

On top of that, government regulators and enterprise clients of Kaspersky can also request to review the company’s solutions and services. This includes threat analysis, secure review, and the application security testing process, as well as some Kaspersky products such as Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS); Kaspersky Endpoint Security (KES), and Kaspersky Security Center (KSC).

Access to the Transparency Center is available upon request. More information on how Kaspersky Transparency Centers work is available on the website and its transparency principles here.

At the entertainment industry, Netflix has just signed a pledge to partner with the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Digital ASEAN working group to help people and governments in Southeast Asia develop creative and digital skills and capabilities for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This initiative is part of WEF’s ASEAN Digital Skills Vision 2020 programme, a private-public project involving a coalition of organisations that seeks to train up 20 million workers in digital skills by 2020.

Mr Yu-Chuang Kuek, Managing Director, Netflix Asia-Pacific, “As Netflix grows, we are partnering with Southeast Asian governments and industry players to support the development of digital creative skills needed in a fast-developing internet entertainment landscape. We believe having the necessary skills for the creative industry; being equipped for online safety and digital literacy; as well as understanding the principles for an agile governance framework will be integral to the success of initiatives like the ASEAN Connectivity Master Plan.”

As part of its pledge, Netflix will start rolling out initiatives focused on three broad areas, namely:

Netflix will work with various partners to hold workshops and training, which will initially be held throughout the next six months in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, with more under consideration in the future.

Lazada Malaysia and the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (MDTCA) announced a partnership that will see a rollout of new trade activities and training programs, to support the growth and digital acceleration of Malaysian SMEs in a further bid to thrust Malaysia to the forefront of the digital economy.

“We extremely excited about this partnership, and joining hands with MDTCA to contribute to the Government’s goal to double the rate of the e-Commerce growth to 20.8 percent by 2020. We believe that the way forward is to focus on the professional development and business growth of our current and potential sellers, who are critical players for the local eCommerce ecosystem boost, and sustainability for the future. Through WECOMMERCE 2019, we aim to nurture digital entrepreneurship amongst Malaysian SMEs by providing them with the right technology, tools and training to accelerate the growth of their businesses,” said Leo Chow, Chief Executive Officer of Lazada Malaysia.

As part of this collaboration, Lazada Malaysia will work closely with the MDTCA to implement a series of initiatives to promote and upskill local SMEs through Lazada’s platform, such as:

With a large number of Malaysian SMEs still in the early stages of digital maturity, the MDTCA and Lazada Malaysia remain steadfast in their shared mission to empower sellers by upskilling them and providing them with the right tools and training to optimize their businesses. The collaboration is also timely as Lazada is running its “Kita MerdeKawan” Merdeka month campaign, which highlights the best deals from Malaysian sellers from 7 August 2019 onwards, culminating with a mega sale on 21 August 2019.

Lazada WECOMMERCE 2019 leadership summit is a follow-up to the Lazada e-Commerce Seller Conference that was held on September 2018, where budding entrepreneurs were taught how to upskill their e-commerce knowledge and grow on Lazada. The event will take place at Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC) on 8th October 2019 in Kuala Lumpur from 8 AM to 6 PM.

Finally, Microsoft Malaysia has appointed Sheikh Manzoor as its Public Sector lead for the subsidiary. As the Public Sector lead, Sheikh Manzoor is responsible for the empowerment of the public sector (including GLCs) by innovating and accelerating digital transformation. To achieve this, he is in charge of leading a talented team of digital enablers tasked with delivering long term relationships and value whilst building on the digital transformation momentum for Microsoft’s customers and partners.

“I have always been passionate about driving business growth using technology,” said Sheikh Manzoor. “Looking at the great work Microsoft has done in Malaysia over the past few decades, I cannot help but feel excited and honored to be a part of an organization that genuinely wants to bring about technological empowerment in the public sector. I look forward to working with the team to further accelerate the Malaysian digital transformation journey.”

Stay tuned for more NewsBytes at TechNave.com.