You can’t say the Singapore government is not tuned in to the latest technology trends, like Big Data.

This morning, Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said it would be releasing more data to the public, such as population data by regions, to spur “social innovation” and create greater “public value”.

Essentially, the government is crowd-sourcing the capabilities available in the open market by giving the raw materials – statistics – that it has in its data banks, he said, at an e-government meeting that kick-starts a week of large-scale infocomm events in Singapore.

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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. …

Taiwan’s yearly Computex show often brings the best PCs and mobile gadgets from major manufacturers such as Asus and Acer, and this year was no different.

From a low-cost tablet from Asus to top-end hybrids that are starting to sport sharp 2,560 x 1,440 screens, there is much to look out for as gadget fans.

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Busy parents who are clueless about what sort of assessment books to get their primary school kids may now get some help in the form of a printer app.

HP is working with education publisher Singapore Asia Publishers (SAP) and Primary Math programme brand owners onSponge to deliver educational worksheets through print apps on compatible HP printers. They enable users to can print worksheets at a scheduled day and time of the week or on demand, free of charge. …

Like it or not, Adobe’s Creative Cloud is here to stay. And for folks still chewing their nails over whether an on-going subscription provides enough value to jump in, teachers and students in Singapore will be happy to hear that the much-awaited education discount is now available in Singapore.

From now till 25 June, the Creative Cloud Student Teacher Edition can be purchased from the Adobe online store and will go for S$26 per month for eligible buyers. Here’s the catch: you’ll have to commit to an entire year of subscription at one go. …

One of the things that has been said about the new Xbox One’s launch earlier this week was that it wasn’t “next gen” enough, that it was just more of the same.

Another charge was that Microsoft was slapping a PC into a nice box and branding it a game console. Both the Xbox One and the rival Sony PS4 unveiled earlier will use AMD x86-based chips similar to PC processors.

All this begs the question, why not get a PC in the living room instead?

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Nimbuzz may not think much of television commercials at the moment, but it seems to be getting WeChat a fair bit of traction here in Singapore and the region.

A month after the China-based instant messaging app made its debut on local television, showing off its functionality through Taiwanese celebrities Show Luo and Rainie Yang, WeChat is now topping the charts on iTunes, Google Play, and the Windows Phone Store. …

(Photo credit: Standard Chartered Bank)

Don’t you just hate it when you climb to the peak of Mount Everest and find yourself unable to engage in mobile banking activities?

Yes, the financial world keeps moving and pays no heed to your momentous achievement of scaling the highest mountain on Earth. If you foresee yourself getting into a tangle like this, you may at least rest easy knowing that two mountaineers are currently on their way up to the peak of Mount Everest just to prove that it’s possible.

Sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank, Horacio Galanti and Horacio Cunietti will attempt to trade stocks and transfer funds at the peak through the bank’s Breeze mobile banking apps. …

It was the device that Android geeks had been dreaming of. A phone stuffed with all the best hardware, run on a clean, fast interface that does away with any bloatware.

When Google unveiled plans to sell a version of Samsung’s popular Galaxy S4 with its stock Android interface on Wednesday, many Android fans must have got their credit cards out ready to spend. The bigger question, though, is whether this is the start of a trend – a good one.

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Millions of messages fly above our heads every second, each one akin to a grenade lobbed into an instant messaging (IM) competitor’s camp. Although WhatsApp remains the most popular mobile IM client in Singapore, other up-and-rising stars, such as LINE, WeChat, and KakaoTalk, are starting to make their aggressive moves in Southeast Asia.

In this impending war for your messages, one lesser known app is slowly making its move in Southeast Asia. Nimbuzz, which just hit 150 million users worldwide in March, started out as an aggregator of various chat services, such as Google Talk and Skype, and is now also setting its sights on the lucrative Southeast Asian market.

Techgoondu recently sat down with Joby Babu, chief of operations at Nimbuzz (pictured above), to find out more about the company and the state of mobile instant messaging in general. …