In Singapore for Echelon 2012? Check out these cool events happening in the same week

It is less than two weeks to Asia’s leading tech event of the year, Echelon 2012. Over here at e27, our team is busy making some final touches to make this event an awesome one. If you are specially flying in for the event, we’ve compiled a list of other events that is happening during the Echelon week to make your stay in Singapore an even more fulfilling one.

Pycon Asia Pacific (7- 9 June 2012)

PyCon Asia Pacific 2012 represents the third edition of the premier conference dedicated to the Python programming language in the Asia Pacific region. It is an independent, community-run, community-controlled and not-for-profit conference, serving as a perfect platform for Python enthusiast throughout Asia-Pacific countries to come together to meet with fellow Python users.

Photo: Irish Feminist Network

EduCamp Singapore- EduCampSG4 (15 June 2012)

Educamps are informal meetups where people interested in various aspects of learning and education come and share their projects, ideas and findings. There are no invited speakers or pre-scheduled topics. The topics are decided via participant’s votes at the venue. The idea is to learn from each other’s experiences.

Educamp Singapore is organized by local teachers and education professionals from local schools and organisations. The event is free-of-charge.

iOS Dev Scout : Hackathon 2012 (16- 17 June 2012)

iOS Dev Scout Hackthon 2012 is a non-­profit developer event for iOS developers, encouraging development using native iOS SDK. The event format is “unconference” or Barcamp-­?style, featuring content from the participants themselves.

This will be a 24 hours event (overnight Hackathon) whereby participant will pitch their ideas, form team and build a working prototype or application. There will be rapid-start session at the beginning of the sessions to help developers get started with few tools and frameworks. The Hackathon will start on Saturday morning and end on Sunday morning with final demonstrations.

Time: 9am, 16 June 2012- 10.30am, 17 June 2012

Venue: Plug-In@Blk71. 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent, #02-18 Singapore 139951

Be sure to mark these dates on your calendar!

“Men want women to be in tech, women want to be in tech,” says Firodia, MD of Girls in Tech SG

Sucheta Firodia, MD of GIT Singapore Photo: Sucheta

Girls in Tech (GIT) Singapore recently held its inaugural D+D (Design and Development) day, a one day workshop and keynote event that saw a great turnout of over 140 attendees. What surprised me  most was the overwhelming male attendance (close to 50%) at the event.

At the event, I interviewed the newly elected Managing Director of Girls in Tech Singapore, Sucheta Firodia, to find out more about their plans ahead.

On GIT Singapore’s upcoming plans

Sucheta commented that GIT Singapore will not only be a platform for enablers, but also the doers. With a greater emphasis on being more hands-on, more interactive workshops, networking events and meetups are in the working. The team is looking at making their events to one that is more interactive and where attendees can apply what they learn.

She further adds on that these days, everybody is involved in the technology scene and information are exchanging at rate that is too fast to keep up with.

“The tech scene is no longer just for software developers. Everybody needs to know how things work and apply it.”

This spells great opportunity for GIT Singapore as this gives them a chance to do different events. Some events to expect in 2012 include gaming workshops and startup bootcamp, a three months intensive entrepreneurship program for young, aspiring women entrepreneurs to learn how to design, validate, and develop their business ideas.

The Girls in Tech Singapore team Photo: Sucheta

Outside collaborations with Girls in Tech Singapore

Sucheta mentioned that there has been a few companies that have approached GIT to look for people (e.g. women engineers) to recruit. GIT might be tying up with some of these companies to do a recruiting cum informative event to learn more about companies in the industry.

They are also hoping to tap on and get more involved in the tech community in Singapore. There has been interest from quite a few organisations. These companies from the cloud computing, networking, semi-conductors,  interesting startups and incubators space want to see more women entrepreneurs.

Are events open to females only?

“I hope that just because Girls in Tech is organising, there will be more women who will come and be part of it. There is a motivation. Some will be just for women, most of it will be open to all.  After all, men want women to be in tech. Women want to be in tech. It’s a win-win situation”

Most events are open to all. Sucheta adds on that both guys and girls in tech need to help each other.

Is it difficult to get guys to join an event that is organized by females?

Sucheta does not  think this matters to the guys. In fact, they are actually happy to have a channel to discuss their passion. Making reference to Sheryl Sandberg’s recent commencement speech at Havard University, there should be a time when there are enough women,  50% working in tech and 50% helping out at home. This balances out what men and women do .

More about the new Managing Director

Sucheta has a working experience of more than 15 years in the tech scene, in New York, Silicon Valley, Israel, Bangalore and Singapore. She currently does executive coaching at Inner edge and business mentoring at Singapore Management University (SMU). No longer coding for work, this tech and geek girl now leaves that for her hobbies.

Windows 8 Release Preview now available from Microsoft

Image: Wikipedia

Today, on the Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft announced the availability of the Windows 8 Release Preview in 14 languages. Windows 8 is entering the final stages of development and is on the road to general availability.

Notable improvements include:

o    Improvements to Mail, Photos and People apps since Consumer Preview;

o    Increased personalization options for the Start screen;

o    Improved multi-monitor support;

o    Refinements to the way people find and download apps through the Windows Store;

o    New Family Safety features and enriched privacy and security controls when browsing online, including Do Not Track capabilities being turned on by default with Internet Explorer 10; and

o    Enriched support for touch with Internet Explorer 10, including a new capability with Release Preview called “flip ahead” that allows users the option to flip between pages with the swipe of a finger, as well as a touch-friendly  Adobe Flash Player now fully integrated into IE10; IE10 is also the first browser to enable Do Not Track “on” by default, giving customers more choice and control over their privacy

o    New Bing apps, including ones for Travel, News and Sports

Beginning June 2, 2012, Microsoft will also roll out the Windows Upgrade Offer program in 131 markets, meaning those who can’t wait to get their hands on the newest hardware can still be confident they can get Windows 8 when the time comes. Consumers who buy new eligible Windows 7 PCs can purchase an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for estimated retail value of S$17.99 (inclusive of GST).

The Release Preview is available for download here http://preview.windows.com, and more information can be found in the:

·         B8 blog http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/31/delivering-the-windows-8-release-preview.aspx,

·         Press release http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2012/May12/05-31Windows8RPPR.aspx

·         And the video available on the Windows 8 Release Preview site http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/release-preview

Creative Mixer 3.0, the event that aims to redefine what creativity is, happens on 7 June

Creative Mixer brings together the best of creatives, entrepreneurs and hackers into a single space to redefine what creativity is.

Into their third edition, the funky people at Relay Room are back withe Creative Mixer 3.0 that will be happening on 7 June, next Thursday. The aim of Creative Mixer is to encourage collaboration between entrepreneurs, developers and creatives in design, photography, film, architecture, animation/illustration and writing.

The speakers for this session of Creative Mixer are:

Andreas Schlegel, Coordinator of Media Lab at Lasalle College of the Arts

Andy Croll, CTO at ImpulseFlyer

Lim Si Ping, Illustrator at Pixelpastry.com and Artistic Director at Tribal DDB

Mike Ng, Penhaligons Singapore Creativity in Luxury

Tan Suehli, Type Designer, Kuala Lumpur

Cherry Thian, Asian Civilisations Museum Augmented Reality

Jasper Yu, Fine Art Photographer

Wee Li Lin, Filmmaker (Gone Shopping, Forever)

Event Details:

Date: 7 June, 2012 (Thursday)

Time: 7.00pm – 10.00pm (with free Museum tours starting at 6pm)

Venue: Asian Civilisations Museum Auditorium

Register here. Regular tickets priced at S$25, use discount code “CM15” to grab yours at a special price of S$15.

Agenda:

6.00pm –  6:30pm        Patterns of Trade Exhibition Tour

7:00pm – 7:15om       Welcome & Registration

7:15pm – 8:15pm       Dinner & Networking

8:15pm – 9:00pm      Sharing Sessions

9:00pm – 10:00pm    Mix the night awaay!

For more information, email the Creative Mixer Team at hello@creativemixer.co. Head over here to register.

Darker Internet days for Malaysians as government amends Evidence Act, shifts burden of proof to website owners

Are darker days for online freedom of expression coming to Malaysia with the amendments passed on the Evidence Act (Section 114A)?

The law usually works under the presumption of innocence, where someone is innocent until proven guilty, and has roots which can be traced back to the sixth century. It is also the underlying principle for the common law, which is followed by all Commonwealth countries, like Singapore and Malaysia. Today, Malaysia decided to change that.

According to The Sun Daily, the Malaysian Government recently passed an amendment to its Evidence Act effective today onwards, where a person who is traditionally presumed innocent until proven guilty, now the burden is on him to prove his innocence. This applies to all the contents of his website contents, publications, as well as the contents of devices owned. Here’s the exact amendments passed to the Evidence Act (Section 114A):

– A person whose name, photograph or pseudonym appears on any publication depicting himself as the owner, host, administrator, editor or sub-editor, or who in any manner facilitates to publish or re-publish the publication is presumed to have published or re-published the contents of the publication unless the contrary is proved.

– A person who is registered with a network service provider as a subscriber of a network service on which any publication originates from is presumed to be the person who published or re-published the publication unless the contrary is proved.

– Any person who has in his custody or control any computer on which any publication originates from is presumed to have published or re-published the content of the publication unless the contrary is proved. (Computer here means any data processing device, including tablets, laptops and mobile phones.)

De facto law minister Nazri Abdul Aziz claims that the law was tightened because “we don’t want (anonymous or pseudonymous) people to slander or threaten others,” according to the article on The Sun Daily. It also holds internet intermediaries like forums or blogs responsible for all its contents, where they would have to remove abusive comments or those that are not politically correct. This would severely impact the freedom of online expression, and online anonymity will be heavily discouraged by forums or blogs.

Photo: International Herald Tribute

Few questions immediately comes to mind: What is the government really trying to achieve? What about the contents made prior to the amendments? Were there any public consultations to get the people’s feedback on the passing of the law? How does the government monitor all the content published onto the web (two million blog posts are published on web everyday)? And according to the Bill, it says “this Bill will not involve the Government in any extra financial expenditure”? Does the law apply only to websites registered in Malaysia?

The way I see it, not only does the Bill prevent constructive exchange of personal opinions, I think its about time the government practice what they preach. A year ago, the Prime Minister promised Malaysians that his administration would never censor the Internet. Najib noted in his speech that his government recognised that practising an open digital democracy is the way forward for Malaysia. What ever happened to that? Being a Malaysian myself, these are the things the government do which makes me slowly lose the trust I have for them.

On another related news, a blogger charged with insulting Johor royalty through a comment on his blog was acquitted yesterday because the court failed to prove that he is guilty. He just caught a huge break because 24 hours later, it would be on him to prove his innocence.

First, the Malaysian government tried to regulate computing professionals. Now, with the new law passed, Internet users are facing more risks in expressing their views online. Have the dark ages for Internt users in Malaysia arrived?

Intel Capital invests in Vietnam’s VCCorp and Singapore’s Reebonz to a tune of US$17 million

Intel Capital invests in Reebonz Singapore and Vietnam Communication Corporation to strengthen foothold in Southeast Asia.

Earlier yesterday, Intel Capital announced its investment of two companies: Reebonz Singapore and Vietnam Communication Corporation. A total of US$17 million were invested into both companies. The exact figures of both investments are not revealed.

Reebonz is an e-commerce company which lists luxury goods across Asia for sale. Vietnam Communications Corporation on the other hand, operates as an information technology and electronic communications company, with several online products such as a search engine, a classified listing platform, a flash-game hub, and a karaoke Website in Vietnam under its portfolio.

With the infusion of the foreign fund into both Singapore and Vietnam, Intel Capital is definitely getting aggressive in setting its foothold in Southeast Asia. “Southeast Asia is one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for high technology, driven by robust economic growth and a rising middle class. As a result, we’re seeing strong demand for e-commerce and cloud-based services across the region and these investments will help to accelerate that trend,” said Gregory Bryant, vice-president and general manager of Intel Asia-Pacific.

The e-commerce industry of Vietnam is expected to generate an income of $6 Billion by 2015, and in Singapore, mobile commerce grew at an exploding rate of 660 percent from 2010 to 2011, according to the latest PayPal study.

Teruhide Sato, president of Netprice, talks about the e-commerce opportunities in SEA

Teruhide Sato (President & Group CEO at Netprice)

Teruhide Sato is the President and Group CEO of Netprice.com, Ltd., a global internet and e-commerce business incubator (Tokyo Stock Exchange 3328).  He leads the company to deliver the latest experience in online shopping across Japan, US, Europe and SEA.

In 2008, the company was elected as Global Growth Companies by World Economic Forum. He was bestowed with the honor of Young Global Leaders. Teruhide is also a board of director and co-founder of Open Network Labs, a startup incubation company in Japan, with the belief in the power of entrepreneurship.

He will be touching on the subject  How is Japan Relevant to Southeast Asia as one of the panelists at Echelon 2012.

How have you seen startups in Japan mature over the past five years and what new challenges are they facing today?

Cheap evolution, agile development and lean startup methods are well spread in Japan now. Many of the startups are really keen to develop their business in a speedy manner and they try to deliver the product in a couple of months, at longest. I think this trend is good and very promising.

I actually think that the quality of startups in Japan does not differ much compared to Sillicon Valley, but quantity of startups and surrounding environment  is very much different, especially in risk taking (allowing) money supply ecosystem. There are not many venture capitals [in Japan] who can take medium risk at early stage of startups and many startups will be facing serious problems when they try to raise US$ 1-5 million for their next round. Total amount of venture capital investment in Japan is actually 1/20 of that in US and angel investment in Japan is also about 1/20 of US and that is causing the difference in terms of numbers of startups and scale and speed of the startups’ growth.

Teruhide Sato (President & Group CEO at Netprice)

As a mentor and a board member of Open Network Lab, a seed accelerator programme in Japan, what is your one common advice to startups?

Gather a good team, especially good developer (hacker) and designer. “What” is very important. “When” is also very important. But “with whom” is the most important. Focus on developing and deliver the product fast and see how users use and adopt your service. Do not just copy the US or other countries model. It is always good to get inspired by others, but do not just copy the model as it is.

Think deeply about your market, your users’ habit, and try to match your own users in a more disruptive way. I think that is the real innovation.

Tell us more about Netprice.com and the strategy behind making it one of Japan’s largest e-commerce sites?

We started our first business from group-buying 12 years ago, much prior to the boom. We believe that the essence of the internet is the power shift to individuals. We have been leveraging individual power in each of our business models and have tried to grow up along with users. We have now over 10 E-commerce companies, including B2C, C2C, C2B2C, Cross-border and social commerce.

Teruhide Sato (President & Group CEO at Netprice)

What experience do you bring as a board member of Tokopedia and how has this helped in making them a stronger company?

I think there are some time or stage gaps between regions in terms of business model acceptability. For example, in more developed regions or countries, more sophisticated business models are already proven with well developed infrastructures but in some regions, that is not happening yet. In that sense, in Southeast Asian countries, e-commerce market is really coming up and I believe we could see the similar patterns of growth that we have seen in US, Japan and China for past 15 years. With our 15 year experience and knowledge in this industry , it will surely help Tokopedia take the right steps at right timing.

Besides, I very much think both the founders of Tokopedia have strong potential and passion to make things happen and make Indonesia e-commerce market grow. I am very proud to be in the team.

Any exciting plans for 2013?

First, more focus in Southeast Asian regions and seek for good partnership with local companies and startups. Second, more bridges to US companies and technologies and will try to bridge Asia(including Japan) and US more. Third, will be putting some of our group companies to be public listed and make our entrepreneur ecosystem larger and more global. Lastly, have a lot of fun with new innovation and technology disruption!

Teruhide Sato (President & Group CEO at Netprice)

Teruhide Sato (President & Group CEO at Netprice) is one of the awesome speakers at Echelon 2012. This tech conference is a two-day, double-track event on 11 and 12 June 2012 with over 1,100 delegates, a demo pit of up to 50 regional startups per day and various workshops. Get your tickets now!

Catch David Weekly, co-founder of Super Happy Dev House, at their second event in Singapore next week

Image: Vimeo

Remember when Supper Happy Dev House (SHDH) was brought into Singapore by Vincent Lauria (more commonly known as Vinnie by the community) late last year? If you do, Vinnie is bringing all the action back again and is hosting the next one come June 9th and 10th at The Hub, a new coworking space just outside Somerset MRT.

Take note that this time round, you not only get to hack up a fun service and show it off to the crowd, but also be treated to free food, coffee and beer! What’s more, this upcoming session will be extra special as David Weekly, co-founder of SHDH in the Silicon Valley, will make his appearance at the event to meet and mingle with the crowd.

Event details:

Date: 9th June – 10th June

Time: 2pm – 9am

Venue: The Hub, 113 Somerset Road, Singapore

RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/315466981862103/

For more details, visit http://superhappydevhouse.sg

David Weekly will also be delivering his keynote at Echelon. Other than starting Super Happy Dev House, David Weekly is currently working at Gaston Labs, and also started Hacker Dojo. You can also check out our recent coverage of David Weekly here.

Four essential Windows Phone camera apps for ‘phonetographers’

The modern smartphone coupled with the social web has changed the way we take and share photos. The Windows Phone platform, with its dedicated shutter button and several enhancements – such as Nokia’s Carl Zeiss lenses and HTC’s humongous 16-megapixel sensor – should be hugely popular with shutterbugs and even has the potential to be a point-and-shoot replacement.

But the sub-par native camera software is holding it back. Currently, the built-in camera app on the iPhone and some Android phones are undeniably better.

Fortunately, there are apps which can temporarily fill in these gaps. The selection may be more limited than the iOS or Android, but we’ve identified four apps that every shutterbug must have on their Windows Phones to get the most out of their camera.

Creative Studio (free, Nokia’s Windows Phones only)

Available only on Nokia’s Windows Phones, Creative Studio is a camera and photo-editing app rolled up in one and is the perfect complement to the Lumia 800/900’s great camera.

When you fire up the app, you can either load up a photo taken previously, or take a new photo from inside the app. The first option lets users make basic adjustments such as crop and rotate, and apply effects on the photos. The number of effects is pretty limited, but a cool feature is how users can toggle a slider for a preview of the photo before and after the filters are applied.

Taking a new photo from inside the app is a little more fun. There are various effects that you can preview live on your screen before the shot is taken – think Photo Booth on the Mac OS. You can also take a panorama shot, but that works best for landscape shots, as you can re-focus the camera after the first shot is taken.

Turbo Camera (S$2.99, trial available)

The ability to take burst shots is pretty much a standard feature on all mid-range point-and-shoots and up. There’s no such built-in feature on Windows Phones, but we can turn to Turbo Camera.

Perfect for those easy-to-miss moments – such as sports, or a cat doing something cute – Turbo Camera takes consecutive shots in burst mode and is capable of up to 30 frames per second! But there’s a trade-off: the larger you want your photos to be, the slower the fps.

The app can also create GIF files from your photos, which can be immensely entertaining. There’s also a built-in timer mode for self-shots or group shots where you want everybody to be in the photo.

Turbo Camera has a trial mode, but has some limitations. For one, you can’t export the photos to take to your camera roll, and you’re only limited to three frames when creating GIF files.

Quad camera (S$1.59, trial available)

Quad camera is a simple app which does what it advertises without fuss. The app allows you to take 4 or 8 consecutive shots and then helps you stitch them together in a montage in a throwback to the vintage photo booth days.

The duration between shots can be adjusted from 0.1s to 3s, and of course, you should turn the shutter sound on so you know when to switch to the next wacky pose! Plus, you can also choose the layout of your montage according to your fancy: 2×2, 4×1, or 4×2.

To make the photos look more interesting, you can choose to apply either a grayscale or sepia effect. We wished there were more effects to choose from, as these two classics are fairly inadequate in artistic expression.

Nonetheless, the app is easy-to-use and fuss-free.

Photosynth (free)

If you thought Google Maps on the iPad was like magic, you obviously haven’t seen Photosynth yet.

Jointly developed by Microsoft Live Labs and the University of Washington, this amazing app lets you stitch any number of photos together to form impressive 360-degree panoramas, both horizontally and vertically.

The results are breathtaking. You can pan up, down, left, right, and all over to get a glimpse of every detail happening around you. Check out this photo for a great example of the fantastic panoramas Photosynth can take.

On the downside, the experience isn’t as smooth on phones without gyroscopes built-in, such as the Lumia 800. You can still use Photosynth, but some shots in the panorama may appear out of place and the stitches may come out weird.

Friday Hacks: Ruby and Erlang for the data nerd’s soul

Viki's Abishek Parolkar talks about Ruby. Photo: NUS Hackers

Student developers find out more about Ruby and Erlang from hackers Abishek Parolkar and Andy Marks at the NUS Hackers’ Friday Hacks.

This post is a first hand account from NUS Hackers on their weekly Friday Hacks, an IDA supported event to promote student developers throughout the tech startup community.

On the 6 April we had Abishek Parolkar from Viki and Andy Marks from Thoughtworks over for Friday Hacks. About 40 people were in attendance for this talk.

Abishek is responsible for data & analytics products at viki.com, and the founder of BigData.sg. He talked about using Ruby to deal with Big Data problems – an approach they were using at Viki to power their data analytics platform.

Friday Hacks welcome by NUS Hackers. Photo: NUS Hackers

The term BigData is associated to anything where scale of the data is part of the problem. Today’s internet companies (Youtube,Facebook,ViKi, etc) usually face challenges surrounding analysis and management of this data.

Andy Marks, on the other hand, is a consultant with Thoughtworks Singapore. He gave an introduction to the Erlang programming language, a production-ready concurrent programming language developed at Ericsson for use in communication systems. Andy showed us how to get started with the language, walked us through the basic syntax, and demoed a basic message-passing app.

Erlang is currently used at Github to power backend message passing, in Google chat and in Facebook for Facebook chat. For the longest time, it was the only production-ready Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP)-style concurrent language.

Student developers at Friday Hacks. Photo: NUS Hackers

About 40 people were in attendance for this talk. We also had a keyboard giveaway at the end of the session, to save a lucky programmer from repetitive stress injury. This event was supported by IDA Singapore.

NUS Hackers is a student-run organisation in the NUS dedicated in the spreading of the hacker culture and free/open-source software. To find out more who they are, what they do, head to their web page at http://nushackers.org.