Source: Singapore White Spaces Pilot Group

Singapore may be taking a step closer to rolling out TV White Spaces, a new wireless technology that taps on the unused spectrum in broadcast TV frequencies, with new trials now being planned in four places.

The wireless technology will provide an Internet link to Sentosa, Gardens by the Bay, HDB estates and car dealership Eurokars Group, as the country seeks to find new use for old frequencies in its increasingly crowded airwaves. …

Another day, another network upgrade by a Singapore telecom operator.

There was a time when subscribers didn’t care how a network was run, as long as they could make calls or get their e-mails on the go. Today, however, with users often upset over clogged-up 3G networks and spotty 4G coverage, telcos seem to have upped their game publicly.

The latest news comes from StarHub today. It will blanket 95 per cent of the island with its 4G signals in the next four months, joining rivals M1 and SingTel in providing nationwide coverage for the fast mobile Internet service.
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Citadel program interface

A Trojan horse program specifically targeting banks has been taken out this year, with more than 1,000 botnets that it used being taken offline through efforts by Microsoft, the FBI and members of the financial services industry.

The program, known as Citadel, is a full “crime-ware” kit that has been around since 2011, and is often sold through underground Russian forums at about US$3,000, according to a report by Symantec this week. …

Step into the PC Show this weekend, and you’d find fibre broadband prices that may make you wonder why you’ve been paying so much previously. The packages are not bad too, with various new TV options now being bundled together.

This is a huge change from just a few years ago, before fibre broadband was introduced. Then, only SingTel and StarHub played the field, with each competing on the freebies they gave out rather than on lower prices to attract users.

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eBay, the world’s largest online marketplace, revealed a series of fresh new features and enhancements to its Singapore website yesterday.

The revamped site claims to give customers better savings and greater access to global inventories, allowing Singaporeans to buy items from local listings as well as over 40 million global listings. …

Spammers are now targeting popular social media site Tumblr, according to a Symantec media alert released last week.

The spam campaign utilises Tumblr’s Ask feature, which works similarly to sites like Formspring. Followers, and even anonymous users, are able to ask questions on the Tumblr blog depending on the settings of the blog and if the Ask feature is enabled.

The spam campaign posts comments in the Ask section, with the poster claiming that he or she has lost weight using the Official Tumblr Diet and suggesting that the owner of the blog check it out as well. …

StarHub’s post-paid mobile subscribers can now pay the same rate for data roaming when they surf on the phone in 20 overseas destinations, including the United States, Britain, Japan and Australia.

The telecom operator today unveiled a “single-rate” data roaming service that promises one price for the various countries that are included in the plan.

Users pay S$10 daily for each 50MB block of data, which may be enough for several e-mails, Facebook uploads and other small Internet transfers. …

M1 has become the latest service provider in Singapore to give home broadband users IPv6 Internet addresses, as part of a long-term plan to ensure that they can connect to websites moving to a new addressing system in future.

The IPv6 system allows trillions of computers, sensors and other Internet devices to each have an unique ID, enabling them to be more easily connected to one another.
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Phone users in Singapore can finally say no to annoying spam SMSes or phone calls by adding their phone numbers to a much-awaited do-not-call registry from January 2, 2014.

When it swings into action, telemarketing companies will have to check against the registry to ensure that they do not call, SMS or fax people who have opted out of marketing messages.
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There’s a rather unhelpful argument going on right now in Singapore, and it seems to be between new and old media.

On one side are professional journalists whose credibility depends on the stories they deliver daily. On the other, social commentators who run independent blogs, watching over the mainstream media for mistakes and highlighting them whenever one is spotted.

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