A 15 months long "e-Health & Learning" (e-HL) project was deployed in
January 2003 by Sustainable Development Networking Programme(SNDP),
which was funded by the European Commission under the Asia IT&C
programme.

The project was coordinated by the Centre for research of
applications of telematics to organisation and society (CRATOS) of
catholic university in Italy. The other partners were university of
Birmingham in UK and Bangladesh university Of engineering and
technology (BUET) in Bangladesh.

The project built two network segments using point-to-point radio
link with a bi-directional bandwidth of 2 Mbps. The first setup of
the segment was in Dhaka and it connected the SDNP node at BIDS with
the comfort nursing home, covering an air distance of about 8 km. The
second one was established from SDNP node in Mymensingh (120 km away
from Dhaka) to a community based medical college and hospital
(CBMCH), about 6 km away from Mymensingh node, creating a length of
134 km (including existing 120 km of SDNP backbone) of radio link
with 4 hops in between.

During that phase eight seminars were delivered to doctors in Dhaka
and Mymensingh in Bangladesh. Several workshops and seminars were
also held locally and internationally.

The "International Conference on e-Health in Developing Countries (e-
HDC 2004)" Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, 31 May-1 June
2004; "Telemedicine plans for developing countries" Auditorium
Fondazione di Piacenza e Vigevano, Piacenza, Italy, 2 March
2004; "Seminar Presenting EU-Asia IT&C, Asia Invest and other Grant
Programmes relevant for applicants from Bangladesh" BRAC Center,
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 26 February 2004; "Workshop on Telemedicine"
Council Building, BUET, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 9 January 2004 were among
the activities.

Real time video streaming was arranged during the workshops and later
recorded over public network and LAN. Finally those were embedded in
the web ( www.ehl-bd.org ).

As a follow up of the telemedicine initiative in Bangladesh, SDNP
Bangladesh has started telemedicine sessions from early August 2005.
The project has arranged three seminars in August with Cox's Bazar
regional node and Satkhira regional node using its own infrastructure
and manpower. Among the three, two sessions were held in between
Cox's Bazar and Dhaka head office (August 05, 2005 & August 26,
2005), and one with Satkhira and Dhaka head office (August 19, 2005)
to exchange medical information.

These sessions included real patients at the remote and with one
physician, and one medical expert was present at the head office to
provide suggestions acting as third opinion. These sessions will
continue (every Friday) for each of the regions of SDNP Bangladesh
(Cox's Bazar, Dinajpur, Mymensingh and Satkhira) throughout the rest
of 2005.



Source:Bytesforall
http://www.bytesforall.net

Taken from:
http://www.digitalopportunity.org/article/view/118039/1/1138

Springboard Research finds Bangladesh IT market puts up a brave fight
against natural and manmade disasters to march forward


CYBERMEDIA NEWS
Thursday, September 01, 2005
==================================

The Bangladesh IT market continues to overcome challenges and post
solid growth despite social and political upheavals, reveals
Springboard Research.

A recent Springboard Research study on the Bangladesh IT market found
that the domestic IT spending amounted to $235 million in 2004, an
increase of 9% over the previous year.

"Amid natural disasters, economic setbacks, political instability and
social unrest, the nascent Bangladesh IT market has managed to
continue moving forward", said Dane Anderson, VP, Springboard
Research. "The August bombings are yet another challenge for the
market to overcome, but amidst the volatility public programs, NGO
support, multinational vendor investment and a resilient business
community are generating IT market growth."

The IT market in Bangladesh is heavily dependent on hardware, which
represents more than 75% of the total IT spending. The software
market is stifled by the early state of market development and
prevalent piracy, which exceeds 90% in the consumer market.

Personal computers, which represent the largest portion of the
market, registered shipments in excess of 1,35,000 in 2004.

The PC market is led by the commercial desktop segment, which
represents over 70% of total shipments, followed by the consumer
desktop market with a 26% share.

Similar to other emerging markets, assembled PCs and small local
brands represent roughly 75% of total PC shipments in the country.
Among branded players, the market is led by HP, IBM and Dell.

The study pointed out those key challenges for the market in the next
five years will continue to be social and political uncertainties.
Furthermore, lack of IT skills in the country and poor IT education
are also growth inhibitors.


CYBERMEDIA NEWS
SINGAPORE

Taken from:
http://www.dqchannels.com/content/reselleralert/105090104.asp

Hi ict_of_bangladesh members,
my name is Nassim Belbaly a PhD visiting scholar at the Anderson
Business School at UCLA and  I  have been gathering data, from the
Silicon Valley  professional in order to
adapt my research: how a firm can reduce time to market by using more
efficiently their information systems or knowledge management
systems during the New Product Development processes.
Now I'm on my final phase, where the overall objective is to assess
what are the factors that are impacting the reduction of time to
market.
The participant of this survey will be given a detailed report of
the  results.

If you think that you can contribute please feel free to :
http://www.benbel.com/npd
Thanks in advance

  PS1: Your responses will be completely anonymous. Your name or the
name of
your
company will not be associated with your responses.
PS2: If you can forward this survey to your colleagues, please don't
hesitate

  Nassim
  Principal researcher
  UCLA Anderson School of Management
  110 Westwood Plaza, CA 90095-1481
  U.S.A.
  Phone: +310/948-0030
  Email: nassim.belbaly@...

Opera Software is giving away registration codes to its $39 Opera 8
browser for 24 hours on Tuesday, August 30, as part of the Norwegian
company's 10th year anniversary celebration.

Although Opera can be downloaded for free, the unregistered version
displays advertisements on each page. Filling out the simple form on
the Opera site ( http://my.opera.com/community/party/reg.dml )
provides both onscreen and in-e-mail registration codes for the
Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris, and FreeBSD editions of the Web
browser, and removes the ads.

The free offer expires at 9 a.m. EDT Wednesday, August 31.

Other activities at the company's Party site (
http://my.opera.com/community/party )include online chats with Opera
workers and free downloads of tunes written and played by employees.

"On this day we celebrate our users," said Jon von Tetzchner, Opera's
chief executive, in a statement. "From the very beginning, we've
consistently worked closely with our community to make sure we
deliver the best Internet experience. In short, we would never have
been where we are today without all the people who have volunteered
their time and energy to Opera."

Opera lags far behind other alternatives to Microsoft's popular
Internet Explorer browser. According to a recent survey by
NetApplications, Opera's share of the market is a slim 0.49 percent,
putting it behind IE (87.2 percent), Firefox (8.07), Safari (2.13),
Netscape (1.5), and Mozilla (0.52).

Microsoft released an early test version of WinFS, a Windows file
system designed to make it easier for applications to share data.


A year after Microsoft scaled back Windows Vista by removing a key
technology from its development plan, the company released an early
test version of its next-generation Windows file system, code-named
WinFS.
Microsoft on Monday released a beta 1 edition of WinFS, a relational
file system that can store documents, E-mail messages, photos and
multimedia files, and structured data from applications in a common
way. Using WinFS, software programs could make use of each other's
data more easily. Microsoft made WinFS available to subscribers to
its Microsoft Developer Network technical Web site; attendees at the
company's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles Sept. 13-
16 will receive the software as well. The final version of WinFS will
be available sometime after the arrival of Windows Vista, the desktop
operating system due late next year.

Using WinFS, programmers will be able to write apps that draw on
common lists of contacts and other data stored in Windows, says
Quentin Clark, Microsoft's WinFS program management director. For
example, a sales rep could create a list of high-value customers,
then filter his E-mail to show only messages from those people. An
online shopper could fill out an order form for a gift that lets her
choose a contact from her E-mail program's address book to ship the
item to. "End users will get this experience of not having to enter
the same information over and over again," Clark says.

WinFS was once a big selling point for Windows Vista. Microsoft once
described WinFS as enabling Vista to let users visually manage their
files, photos, and contacts, and introducing common commands for
searching across different software programs. Last August, Microsoft
said it would ship the new file system sometime after Vista arrives.
Microsoft plans to release a second beta version of WinFS next year,
Clark says. WinFS won't come packaged with Vista, but many PC users
might not even notice. "The average end user will just start to see
richer apps appear," he says.

Even though WinFS and the APIs to its functions are designed for the
Vista client, developers won't be able to run the WinFS beta on the
beta version of Vista, which Microsoft released last month. WinFS
Beta 1 will only run on Windows XP machines. But the final version
appears bound only for Vista PCs. Microsoft plans to make two other
technologies it's developing for Vista--the Avalon graphics system
and Indigo communications stack--available to Windows XP and Windows
Server 2003 users as well. That may not be the case with
WinFS. "We're not committing to it being available on XP," Clark
says. "Which operating systems we support over the long term depend
on the market landscape and on whether there are any technical
dependencies."

Over time, Microsoft plans to migrate the databases inside its own
applications, such as Outlook, to WinFS. "Long term, we believe apps
that contain their own data silos will be retooled for WinFS," Clark
says. "Beta 1 is really the first step."

Source:http://www.informationweek.com

Despite getting license for reopening the Ekushey Television (ETV)
five months back, the BTRC is yet to allocate frequency to the
private channel delaying its re-launch.

Abdus Salam, chairman of the ETV, said this at a meeting with the
editors of different national dailies marking the third anniversary
of its shutdown at a local hotel yesterday (Monday).

The chairman also sought supports from all quarters so that they
could reopen the channel as soon as possible.

Rahat Khan of the Ittefaq, Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury of the Observer,
Golam Sarwar of the Samakal, Matiur Rahman Chowdhury of the
Manabjamin and Rashed Chowdhury of the BDNEWS, and executive editor
of Sangbad Manjurul Ahsan Bulbul took part the meeting.

Besides, Atiqul Haq, programme director of ETV, Mikail Huda and Sagar
Dipa Guha Ray took part on behalf of the ETV.

Earlier, the tiny journalists of Mukta Khabar of ETV submitted a
memorandum to the Prime Minster Begum Khaleda Zia urging her to take
necessary steps to allocate frequency for the channel.

In the memo the journalists extended their thanks to the PM for
issuing license for the channel and said that now it needs frequency
for resuming its transmission.

After getting licence on April 11 this year, the channel cannot
resume its transmission for not getting allocation of the frequency.

Sultan Mahmud of the PM office received the memo.

In the afternoon, Mukta Khabar journalists brought out a procession
in the city from Central Public Library to the Shaheed Minar.


Published:
The Independent
Tuesday August 30 2005

Telecommunications experts in an international workshop in Dhaka
Tuesday urged the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission
(BTRC) to allow interconnectivity facilities for smooth flow of
traffic between the telecom networks, reports UNB.

They also called upon the BTRC to be prepared for extending the
submarine cable line from Cox's Bazar to Dhaka to link the capital
city into the information superhighway from the very beginning.

The pleas were made at a session on `telecommunication sector' in the
two-day international workshop titled "Infrastructure Financing in
Bangladesh" held at a city hotel.

Bangladesh Bank and Board of Investment jointly organized the
workshop.

BTRC chairman Mohammad Omar Faruk chaired the session where four
keynote paperes were presented by Marcel Ivison of Standard Chartered
Bank of Singapore, Tofail Chowdhury of Global Telecom IBM, Quamrul
Islam Siddique of Dhaka Telephone Company Limited and KK Gunawardana
of a Sri Lanka-based telecom company.

Quamrul Islam Siddique in his paper said that a section of people
have set up "illegal call termination facilities" using VoIP (Voice
over Internet Protocol) technology, thereby depriving the Bangladesh
Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) and other PSTN (public switching
telephone network) and mobile operators of huge revenue in foreign
exchange.

He suggested that the BTRC should immediately legalize the use of
VoIP technology for providing telephone service and allow all
operators to use this technology freely.

"This will not only eliminate all illegal call termination centers,
but will also extend the benefit to people in general at reduced
international call charges," Siddique said.

In his paper, KK Gunawardana emphasised on active and productive
participation of the private sector for the speedy development of the
telecom sector.

"Incentive and productivity norms are essential to motivate
participation of the private sector to achieve the sector's
development target," he said.

Participants at the workshop observed that the BTRC is working as a
government wing, merely tasked to earn revenue.

They stressed the need for capacity building of BTRC to work as a
facilitating institution.

BTRC chairman Mohammad Omar Faruk said Bangladesh has been
contributing significantly and enormously to the international and
multinational telecom companies. "We're not a rich country, but can
make the rich countries richer," he said assuring of his all-out
support to the telecom companies.



Taken from:
Bangladesh Observer
Wednesday August 31 2005

The country's science and ICT organisations can come forward with
their innovative products for showcasing in the 13th BCS Computer
Show-2005 to be held on September 22-27.

Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS) president SM Iqbal disclosed this to
the newsmen on Sunday saying that the nation should be informed about
the local works and innovations.

Organisers have been requested to communicate with BCS Fair
authorities within the month to ensure their pavilions in the 6-day
fair at Exhibition Centre of Bashundhara City.

BCS President, while sharing ideas and views with the newsmen at its
office, said that the objective of the yearly fair also to let
viewers meet the latest ICT products and information.

This is the first time, BCS authorities chose the largest show area
of around 90,000 square feet at a single floor (level-7) of the
Bashundhara city to make the fair more spontaneous and successful
than before.

More than 20 lakh people are expected to visit the fair this time,
organisers hoped.

The fair convenor, Abdul Fattah also hoped that some foreign
companies under the Singapore infocomm Technology Federation, ASOCIO
members would participate in the fair.

A large number of ICT firms would showcase the latest IT products,
mainly system units, hardware, accessories, networking products,
Internet services, IT training, IT publications and few software
products in the fair comprising at least 180 stalls and 22 pavilions.

The name of the chief guest, number of local companies and entry fees
in the fair are yet to be finalised, sources said, adding that the
show would remain open from 10 am to 8 pm.



Source:
The Independent

Its a great dicision for CCC to contribute in telecom
sector. CCC have prove their effeciancy. Its a only
one city of Bangladesh where people feel citizen. They
are successful in local health & education sector.
Telephone is also very essensial service. I think it
can be a great business deal for Rankstel or whatever
eny company but it should also be service of any city
corporation. it will develop ctg's local business,
emplyeed lots of young guys. We should not worry about
it. We should remember that CCC is giving this
vservice because BTTB have failed to provide it.

regards,

Fahud khan




--- syed mahmud <syed12777@...> wrote:

> RangsTel is a private company and it got license
> from BTRC for land phone/PSTN.
>
> Chittagong City Corporation(CCC)’s job is to run the
> Chittagong city and should not involve with any
> commercial business on the sake of public interest.
>
> If the RangsTel’s Chittagong distributor is a
> private company then there will be more jobs created
> in that new company and the total economy will be
> benefited. People don’t have any good experience
> with government phone company BTTB (also known as
> T&T), so it will be the same thing with CCC.
>
> It is really a bad decision by RangsTel to connect
> with CCC since all the private business should be
> independent and run by them in order to make sure
> People’s best interest. CCC has no experience in
> Telecom sector and it is a NOT commercial
> organization of Bangladesh government.
>
> What is next? Dhaka City Corporation(DCC) selling
> mangoes on the street of Dhaka? Or, Pizza Hut opened
> Gas station in Dhaka? Give me a break!!!
>
> "Moderator: ICT of Bangladesh Yahoo Group"
> <ict_of_bangladesh@...> wrote:
> Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) was appointed as a
> distributor for
> marketing the landphone of the Rangs Tel in the
> city. The phone will
> be named "City Telecom," says a CCC press release.
>
> In this connection, an agreement was signed in the
> office of the CCC
> Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury recently.
>
> Rangs Tel Chairman and Chief Executive Abdur Rouf
> Chowdhury, senior
> officials of CCC and Rangs Tel were present on the
> occasion. It may
> be mentioned, price of each set of Rangs Tel is Tk
> 8000/- but the
> City Telecom would be distributed by the CCC at a
> rate of Tk 6900/-
> (including connection fee) per set up to the
> September 15 next.
>
> Executive Engineer, Electrical Branch of Chittagong
> City Corporation
> may be contacted for buying the Telecom set
> including its connection,
> CCC sources said.
>
> With the launching of `City Telecom' service in
> Chittagong city area
> would undoubtedly fulfill the demands of landphone
> service for the
> city dwellers to a great extent. It would also
> lessen the pressure on
> T&T phone.
>
> Moreover, as the terms and conditions set for
> providing City Telecom
> landphone service is not so complicated, people of
> the port city
> would be able to avail the telecommunication service
> more
> conveniently than earlier.
>
> Total expenditure required for buying newly
> connected City Telecom
> set including its connection, is more or less within
> buying capacity
> of the subscribers.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ultimate Resource of Mobile Phone:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mobilebangladesh
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
>
>
>     Visit your group "ict_of_bangladesh" on the web.
>
>     To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
> to:
>  ict_of_bangladesh-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>     Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the
> Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
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> http://mail.yahoo.com


__________________________________________________
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The government has banned telecasting of all advertisements of the
GrameenPhone’s special packages, Djuice and Flexiload, for using ‘indecent’
words and gesture. The ministry of information in a letter to all the three
local satellite television channels on August 23 directed them not air any
commercial of the Djuice and Flexiload packages, saying the words and gestures
used in their publicity would encourage the young generation to resort to
immoral activities.

A top official of the ministry said before issuing the letter, several meetings
were held at the highest level of the government. The letter said the languages
and gestures used in the commercials were not in consistent with the culture and
values of the country. A senior official of the ministry said the government was
also planning to ban similar advertisements of GP on billboards and newspapers.

A GP official said the company had invested about Tk 10 crore in Djuice
television commercials, which were produced by the Bitopi Advertising Agency.
The marketing department of all the three satellite television channels, NTV,
Channel i and ATN Bangla, admitted that they have received the letter from the
ministry, but refused to give further details. ‘This type of advertisements is
harmful for the national and religious values and that the ministry was forced
to issue the letter,’ a high official of the ministry told the news agency.

—BDNews

The country's science and ICT organisations will showcase their
innovative products in the 13th BCS Computer Show-2005 to be held
from September 22 to 27 in Dhaka.

Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS) President SM Iqbal announced the
schedule of the fair last Sunday saying the nation should be apprised
of the local works and innovations.

Organisers have been requested to communicate with BCS Fair
authorities within the month to allocate their pavilions at the six-
day fair at exhibition centre of Bashundhara City shopping mall in
the capital.

This is the first time, BCS authorities chose the largest show area
of around 90,000 square feet on a single floor (level-7) of the
Bashundhara City to make the fair more spontaneous and successful
than before.

More than 20 lakh people are expected to visit the fair this time,
organisers hoped.

Abdul Fattah, convenor of the fair, hoped that some foreign companies
would also participate in the fair.

A large number of ICT firms would showcase the latest IT products,
mainly system units, hardware, accessories, networking products,
internet services, IT publications and few software products at the
fair, which will have at least 180 stalls and 22 pavilions.

The name of the chief guest, number of local companies and entry fee
at the fair are yet to be finalised, sources said adding that the
show would remain open from 10am to 8pm.

At night, 22-year-old Indian mathematics research student Gurpreet
Singh logs on to the Internet to teach students sitting thousands of
kilometres away in the United States.

Using an electronic pen, his colleague Varinder Kumar highlights
areas on his interactive computer screen where US students are making
simple mistakes and suggests solutions real time.

India's outsourcing industry, which usually covers services such as
software programmes, customer management and accounting for companies
abroad and at home, has discovered a new market for its talents.

Employing part-timers and staff tutors, outsourcing firms believe
they have tapped a potential goldmine in what they call 'e-tutoring'
or 'e-mentoring'.

Educomp Datamatics Ltd, where Singh and Kumar work, is one of a small
clutch of players in the market and its staff teach mathematics to
around 800 students in the United States.

'Six months ago, we thought we would launch a pilot project and see
the response,' said Shantanu Prakash, chief of Educomp Datamatics, a
firm which provides technology solutions such as digital content for
the education sector.

'To our surprise, the response was phenomenal. Now we're stretched to
capacity and instead of an earlier estimate of having 1,000 students
by year-end, we're on course to touch 2,000,' Prakash said.

Singh, who has been working with the company since it started e-
tutorials six months ago, said he liked the work so much, 'I might
even take it up as a full-time career.'

The company has three outlets giving instruction to US students and
is the largest player in the country's nascent Internet tutoring
industry. So far at least half a dozen companies in India offer such
tuition, said Prakash.

The firm has 20 math tutors, who work at night to bridge the 12-hour
time gap between India and the United States, teaching students
ranging from the sixth to 12th grades.

Educomp charges 20 dollars to 40 dollars an hour, according to the
grade taught.

'India, which invented the numerical zero, has enough qualified
teachers. Indians pick up mathematics pretty fast while in the US the
kids are very weak,' official Prakash said.

'Statistics show 40 per cent of students in grade seven in the US
fail mathematics every year. In India, the failure rate is five to 10
percent,' he said. 'To add to the problem there's an acute shortage
of teachers in the US.



Source: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Bangalore

Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) was appointed as a distributor for
marketing the landphone of the Rangs Tel in the city. The phone will
be named "City Telecom," says a CCC press release.

In this connection, an agreement was signed in the office of the CCC
Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury recently.

Rangs Tel Chairman and Chief Executive Abdur Rouf Chowdhury, senior
officials of CCC and Rangs Tel were present on the occasion. It may
be mentioned, price of each set of Rangs Tel is Tk 8000/- but the
City Telecom would be distributed by the CCC at a rate of Tk 6900/-
(including connection fee) per set up to the September 15 next.

Executive Engineer, Electrical Branch of Chittagong City Corporation
may be contacted for buying the Telecom set including its connection,
CCC sources said.

With the launching of `City Telecom' service in Chittagong city area
would undoubtedly fulfill the demands of landphone service for the
city dwellers to a great extent. It would also lessen the pressure on
T&T phone.

Moreover, as the terms and conditions set for providing City Telecom
landphone service is not so complicated, people of the port city
would be able to avail the telecommunication service more
conveniently than earlier.

Total expenditure required for buying newly connected City Telecom
set including its connection, is more or less within buying capacity
of the subscribers.

Sun Microsystems and Oracle are joining forces to create database
infrastructure packages designed for smaller organizations.

The offering, dubbed Database Packs, unites Oracle Database 10g
software with Sun's Fire x64 servers and StorEdge 3310 arrays.

Driven by the latest AMD Opteron processors, the Database Packs are
designed to run either on Solaris 10 or standard Linux operating
systems.

Cost Conscious

According to Paul Milo, senior product manager at Sun, these
preconfigured Database Packs can facilitate enterprise-class database
deployments with configurations that deliver high performance and
reliability at an entry-level price. The Database Packs are aimed at
fulfilling the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses.

"The two companies have worked together for 20 years, and have
established a joint reseller channel. Now we have products designed
for that channel," he said. "Oracle's new 10g technology fits in well
with our hardware."

Packages are available with Oracle's 10g Standard Edition for small
businesses, Standard Edition for medium-sized businesses and Standard
Edition with Oracle Real Application Clusters for businesses
requiring enterprise-class application availability.

Building Blocks

The long-term objective of the union is to broaden Sun's entry-level
offerings while enabling customers to use the packs in creating
database grids or clusters, said Milo.

Along those lines, the packages include the Sun N1 Service
Provisioning System, which provides systems- and application-
management features that track business services. Sun's Provisioning
System is tailored to work with Oracle Database and Oracle
Application Server.

Milo noted that both Sun and Oracle are committed to open, standards-
based computing, including the OpenSolaris and Linux platforms. "For
customers, that means greater choice and flexibility in setting up
their database systems," he said.


by: Jay Wrolstad, newsfactor.com

Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) was appointed as a distributor for
marketing the landphone of the Rangs Tel in the city. The phone will
be named "City Telecom," says a CCC press release.

In this connection, an agreement was signed in the office of the CCC
Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury recently.

Rangs Tel Chairman and Chief Executive Abdur Rouf Chowdhury, senior
officials of CCC and Rangs Tel were present on the occasion. It may
be mentioned, price of each set of Rangs Tel is Tk 8000/- but the
City Telecom would be distributed by the CCC at a rate of Tk 6900/-
(including connection fee) per set up to the September 15 next.

Executive Engineer, Electrical Branch of Chittagong City Corporation
may be contacted for buying the Telecom set including its connection,
CCC sources said.

With the launching of `City Telecom' service in Chittagong city area
would undoubtedly fulfill the demands of landphone service for the
city dwellers to a great extent. It would also lessen the pressure on
T&T phone.

Moreover, as the terms and conditions set for providing City Telecom
landphone service is not so complicated, people of the port city
would be able to avail the telecommunication service more
conveniently than earlier.

Total expenditure required for buying newly connected City Telecom
set including its connection, is more or less within buying capacity
of the subscribers.

Zakaria Ibne Hossain, a student of Bangladesh University of Science
and Technology, and Sarkar Rahat Rousseau, a student of the Rifles
Public School and College will represent Bangladesh at the World
Cyber Games 2005 to be held in November in Singapore.

The two contestants won the championships in the categories of FIFA
2005 and NFSU2 computer games respectively at the three-day
competition of Cyber Games 2005 Bangladesh on its closing day Sunday
at the Bashundhara City.

The competition that had begun on Friday was the first ever selection
round in Bangladesh for the World Cyber Games championship.

The minister of science and information and communications
technology, Abdul Moyeen Khan, handed over the prizes among the
champions and runnersup.

The minister wished that the winners in the Bangladesh championship
would bring laurels for the country by winning at the world
championship contest.

Kafil HS Muyeed, director marketing of the GrameenPhone Limited also
spoke.

The World Cyber Games is the largest cyber games competition in the
world, and Bangladesh is sending its representatives to take part in
the contest for the first time.

A huge number of young people had registered to compete in the three-
day selection round but 512 of them had been allowed to compete.

The selection round championship was sponsored by the `djuice', a
brand of the GrameenPhone Limited, and the F1 Management was the
event's strategic partner.


Source:
The New Age
Monday August 29 2005

World Cybergames 2005 Bangladesh Championship, a three-day computer-
game competition have more than 500 participants competing to win
tickets to participate in the finals due to be held in Singapore in
November this year.

The local segment of the competition organised by F1 Management Ltd
kicked off last Friday at Bashundhara City and will end today.

"The place was bustling with participants, their parents, curious
visitors, cyber game lovers, sponsors and volunteers in last two
days," said Hossain Al Tareque, a volunteer.

Around 50 volunteers and referees were appointed to ensure a healthy
competitive atmosphere for participants at various levels.

But the inaugural day did not go without complaints of delays in
starting the competitions.

"We had to wait for over two hours before the first round could
begin," said Sharjil Hassan Khan, a participant of the FIFA 2005
game.

Organisers admitted delays in setting up computers and stalls.

"Games were scheduled to inaugurate at 09.30 but we had to start the
competition at 11.00 with 50 personal computers powered by Sparkle GE
Force FX series advanced 3D graphics engine," said Irfan Hussain,
Director, Information Technology, of F1 Management Limited.

Despite the organisers' hopes of registering 500 participants for
each category -- Need For Speed Underground 2 and FIFA 2005-- the
actual numbers of participants for both games were only 50 percent.

"Lack of communication with interested participants and the
unprecedented August 17 bomb blast across the country probably
discouraged most enthusiastic participants to register for the
tournament," said Fuad Awal Chowdhury, Managing Director, F1
Management Limited.

On the first day 224 participants competed in FIFA 2005 and 300 in
the NFS U2 games.

"We received a large crowd on the first day as most family members
accompanied each participant," said Chowdhury.

He also said that some shoppers at Bashundhara City were lured into
the tournament spot because of crowds and the music.

Despite sponsors, organisers, volunteers and referees efforts to have
smooth competitions, some participants complained about the
performances of the computers.

"Most of the computers stalled from time to time and it needed to be
restarted," said Barshan Khondoker, another participant. "This gave
an advantage to some participants who were not faced with the
problem," he added.


Other participants complained about the rules and regulations of the
tournament.

"Participants are supposed to play with international teams like
Brazil, Argentina in the FIFA 2005 category," said a participant.

But the organisers opted to let participants play club level matches
in the FIFA 2005 category.

"As a result, most of us, who practiced the International level at
home, had slim chances of winning the club level matches," said the
participant.

But the organisers, however, denied the allegation.

"We can change the rules and regulations of each game to be played in
the tournament and have authority delegated by World Cyber Games
authorities in this regard," said Irfan Hussain clarifying the
allegations.

Hussain also said that five computers were kept as back-up for the 50
being used in the tournament.

"Minor glitches and power failures can always cause computers to act
otherwise. Some of these computers were either restarted or replaced
with backups within a few minutes," said Hussain.

"We will hopefully have the finals and crown the two champions
today," he said.


Djuice is the official sponsor of the event while Bashundhara Group
sponsors the venue.



Source:
Thedaily Star
28 August 05


Posted by: Sharif Abdullah

Security is critical in upgraded release

==============

By  Paul Krill
mail: paul_krill@...
August 26, 2005


Microsoft this week began offering a beta release of its Web Services
Enhancements 3.0  pack for .Net, which is focused on security.

Microsoft in June had released Community Technology Preview (CTP)
builds, which are less stable, pre-beta versions, of WSE 3.0. "This
beta represents the evolution that takes into consideration the
valuable customer feedback received so far, especially through the
MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) product feedback center,"
Microsoft said in a prepared statement on Friday afternoon.

"The core features remain unchanged from the CTP. However, this beta
release brings improved diagnostics, the ability to generate ASP. Net
proxies from Web services hosted over TCP, improved security, and the
integration of the SoapHttpRouter with declarative policy files,"
Microsoft said in its statement. "This beta release is another step
in the product cycle to enable developers to see how the product is
evolving and receive more feedback. WSE 3.0 will be released by the
end of the year."

WSE 3.0 is intended for developers using Visual Studio 2005, which
ships this November, and .Net Framework 2.0.

WSE 3.0 has "significantly simplified common security exchange
patterns," according to an overview published on Microsoft's online
Download Center. Featured are "built-in standard `turnkey' security
scenarios to easily secure messages between a client and a service,"
the overview states.

Through WSE, Web services can be signed and encrypted using X.509
certificates and binary and XML-based security tokens. Additionally,
username/password credentials can be used for authentication.

WSE 3.0 also has aligned the declarative policy model with the
imperative programming model so that policies are always used to
apply security and other assertions to a SOAP message via policies
files or in code. Policy files can be associated with a client proxy
or a service via a policy attribute.

ASP.Net Web services hosted outside of Internet Information Services
are supported in WSE 3.0. Large amounts of binary data can be sent
securely via the SOAP Message Transmission Optimization (MTOM)
specification.

Session management is improved through re-establishment of secure
conversations that had been lost. This function enables secure
conversations in Web farm scenarios.

WSE offers a foundation for building applications that are based on
the WS-* (called WS-star) Web services specifications promoted by
Microsoft, including WS-Security, WS-Trust, WS-SecureConversation,
and WS-Addressing.




Download Link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2896249a-
d107-4f19-b8e7-b01da67a5c02&displaylang=en

A three-day 'World Cyber Games Bangladesh Championship' sponsored by
Djuice, a mobile-phone brand of GrameenPhone (GP) targeted at youths,
has began at Bashundhra City Shopping Complex in the city yesterday.

Irfan Hossain, director of F-1 Management, organiser of the event,
inaugurated the competition in a ceremony, while Ghalib Ahmed Ansari,
DGM Market Communications of GP was present.

The organisers informed that this is the selection round of
Bangladeshi participants for taking part in the World Cyber Games-
2005 scheduled to be held in November this year in Singapore.

A large number of young people participated in the primary selection
process through SMS (short message service) while 512 youth of them,
on the basis of the highest correct SMS senders, have been selected
for the championship. Only two competitors will be finally selected
for the World Cyber Games.

Officials of the event management said the participants are playing
two games namely - NFS-2 and FIFA 2005 - in the championship
competition from where two gamers will represent Bangladesh in the
Cyber Games.

They also mentioned that the games as well as all procedures of the
competition were decided upon by the Central Committee of World Cyber
Games.


The Independent
Saturday August 27 2005

The Bangalore-based personal computer manufacturer, Acer India Private
Limited will soon export PCs to Bangladesh and is exploring other
neighbouring markets for shipping IT products. `We will foray into
exports with Bangladesh initially and later on expand to other
neighbouring markets. We will also enhance production capacity at the
Pondicherry facility from 20,000 units to 22,000 if required,' the
managing director of Acer India, WS Mukund, told reporters in Mumbai.
When asked about setting up new manufacturing facility in India, he
said the parent company, Acer was having 15 such facilities in various
parts of the country, including Singapore and Dubai and the factory at
Pondicherry was capable of meeting the export and domestic demand.
Meanwhile, Acer India, in partnership with local hardware channel
partners, has opened six new exclusive Acer Malls in Mumbai, for
selling entire range of Acer desktops, notebooks and consumer
peripherals, including PCs, the TravelMate notebook series and
projectors.

— BDNews

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The Sher-e-Bangla Nagar telephone exchange under the Bangladesh
Telegraph and Telephone Board has been brought under e-governance.

The minister for posts and telecommunications, Aminul Haque, on
Monday launched the e-governance application software developed by
the Business Automation Limited.

The Business Automation also provided necessary hardware and network
and trained concerned personnel for the project implemented with the
technical and financial assistance of Support to ICT Task Force
Programme, a government project to implement e-government in
government offices.

Introduction of the system will enhance the productivity and
efficiency of the exchange through automation of its internal
processes while enable the subscribers to avail the services provide
by the exchange through internet.

Through the website http://sbn. bttb.gov.hd subscribers will now be
able to verify their subscription information, know the amounts due,
bill payment status and payment history and the applicants for new
telephone lines will be able to know the latest status of their
applications.

The subscriber will also be able to notify shifting of address and
file complaints through the website.

`The e-governance application will greatly enhance the productivity
and efficiency of the exchange through automation of its internal
processes,' said SASM Taifur, project director of the Support to ICT
Programme.

Applications for new telephone lines, subscriber complaints, update
of subscriber information, posting of bill payment will now be
handled much more efficiently than before, he told the launching
ceremony.

The telecom minister said BTTB would soon replicate the e-governance
application to its other exchanges for `transparent and efficient
services'.

The principal secretary to the Prime Minister's Office, Kamal Uddin
Siddiqui, hoped that the BTTB officials would regularly update the
website for serving latest information to the subscribers.

The chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the posts and
telecommunications ministry, GM Faziul Haque, and the BTTB chairman,
Abdul Malek Akhand, were also present.

The Bangalore-based personal computer manufacturer, Acer India Private
Limited will soon export PCs to Bangladesh and is exploring other
neighbouring markets for shipping IT products. `We will foray into
exports with Bangladesh initially and later on expand to other
neighbouring markets. We will also enhance production capacity at the
Pondicherry facility from 20,000 units to 22,000 if required,' the
managing director of Acer India, WS Mukund, told reporters in Mumbai.
When asked about setting up new manufacturing facility in India, he
said the parent company, Acer was having 15 such facilities in various
parts of the country, including Singapore and Dubai and the factory at
Pondicherry was capable of meeting the export and domestic demand.
Meanwhile, Acer India, in partnership with local hardware channel
partners, has opened six new exclusive Acer Malls in Mumbai, for
selling entire range of Acer desktops, notebooks and consumer
peripherals, including PCs, the TravelMate notebook series and
projectors.

— BDNews

Japan-Bangladesh Group (JBG) Wednesday launched Sony, Japan's contact-
less IC card technology - a single card that is soon going to be an
easy solution to multiple services like transport ticketing, employee
ID, access control and e-money for shops, restaurants and vending
machines etc., reports BDNEWS.

JBG Chairman Selim Prodhan and Tobijo Company Japan's Keizo Sasame
and Hideki Kaneko spoke on the occasion.

Selim Prodhan said that the technology is operated by the Diligence
and Indolence Management System (DAIM) - 2005 software. It combines
with mobile devices to bring new mobile tools that can be users'
cash, ticket, credit card and membership ID simultaneously.

It will also help internet shopping, content downloading and online
financial transactions where security is particularly important, he
added.

Besides, authorities can easily be informed about the payroll and
attendance situation of their organisations at anytime and from
anywhere of the world.

JBG will commercially launch the card early next year, the group
sources said.


Source:
The Financial Express
Thursday August 25 2005