Migrating from old site
Posted on June 11, 2008
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You have stumbled upon our new archive. We are migrating all our stories from the old archive. Please feel free to contact us at julianATtrinetizenDOTcom if you are looking for an old story you can’t find. Thanks for your patience.
Guy Kawasaki’s 11-point guide
Posted on June 9, 2008
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By Anita Matthews
Two weeks ago, former Apple Computer software evangelist-turned-venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki made a quick trip to Kuala Lumpur, courtesy of MDeC, to share his perspective of venture capitalists and fund-seekers in conjunction with WCIT 2008.
Kawasaki, who founded Garage Technology Ventures, regaled the audience at NetBASH for two hours with his experience as a venture capitalist and shared insights on pitches that work.
Make meaning
Innovation is driven by the desire to make meaning. Kawasaki firmly believes we should take it upon ourselves to change the world and make it a better place.
Make mantra
According to Kawasaki, there’s a high correlation between mission statements and golfing — it is too long, meaningless and forgettable. Therefore, create mantra for your innovation. Examples of simple and straightforward mantras — Nike’s Authentic Athletic Performance, Wendy’s Healthy Fast Food or Fedex’s Peace of Mind. Unless you run out of options, the Dilbert’s (satirist cartoonist) mission statement generator is not your first stop.
Jump to the next curve
Don’t copy other people’s ideas. Innovators should focus their efforts on creating the next curve instead of remaining on the same track as most companies tend to do, says Kawasaki. He shared an example of ice-making. Ice harvesters stuck to traditional methods and did not move to the next curve by building a factory. Nor did the guy who ran the ice factory invent the factory.
Off balance: Police Segways faulty, says maker
Posted on October 4, 2003
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By Julian Matthews
04 October 2003
YES, they need fixing, and someone’s on the way to do it.
Self-balancing scooter company Segway LLC is flying in technicians to fix the Singapore Police Force’s four faulty Segway Human Transporters (HTs).
The Singapore police confirmed yesterday that the machines they bought for US$20,600 ($35,500) for trials in June - and seen in Changi airport - were among the models affected by a global recall announced last week.
Said police spokesman ASP Stanley Norbert: ‘Technicians from Segway will be arriving in Singapore within a fortnight to upgrade the machines’ software.’
He added that there was no incident of officers falling off the two-wheeled, motorised machines due to low battery levels during the trials.
Vinton Cerf: Interplanetary googler
Posted on March 4, 2003
Filed Under Julian, Profile, The Star | Comments Off
By Julian Matthews
It is hard to imagine the always dapper Vinton Grey Cerf used to enjoy blowing up things.
At the age of 10, he got his first chemistry set and, together with a cohort, made match-head rockets and mixed chemicals to mimic volcanoes in his backyard in California.
“I read a book called The Boy Scientist and knew I wanted to be one,” he says.
Today, half a century later, that incendiary boy is the acknowledged “father of the Internet”. And it comes as no surprise he’s still dabbling with rocket science. Cerf is currently a visiting scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The admitted sci-fi buff is laying the specs for mankind’s first extraterrestrial contact and taking the Internet to infinity and beyond; to boldly go where no modem has been before.
In this interview, the amiable co-inventor of TCP/IP — the data transmission protocols that formed the basis for the Internet on earth 30 years ago — reveals he is partial to fine wine, channel surfs for Star Trek re-runs and personally books his wife’s hotel rooms on trips.
Vint, as he prefers to be called, also talks about the shuttle tragedy and the implications for the Interplanetary Internet project and comments on the infernal menace of spam, blogging and the dire possibility of an Internet “takedown”.
FamilyMart: A convenient success
Posted on March 1, 2003
Filed Under Anita, CNET | Comments Off
By Anita Devasahayam
FAMILYMART opened its first 24-hour convenience store in 1998 in the eastern edge of Seoul at Songpa district. Within five years, the convenience chain that competed with big players such as 7-11 and LG-25, triumphed by adding another 1499 stores across the country. It emerged on top of the pile and remains profitable. 
It can be argued that household goods and perishables are proven money-spinners for strategically placed stores as a FamilyMart typically location are populated suburbs filled with apartment blocks and housing complexes. FamilyMart remains a strong contender to other convenience store chain operators with its winning combination of wise business decisions, tech-savvy set-up and good relationship with franchisees.
FamilyMart believes that its franchise system became so successful because its owners nurtured relationships with its franchisees, says its Information Systems Department manager Sang Shin Park.
Kalpana Chawla: Destined For The Stars
Posted on February 4, 2003
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kalpana : any desire of the present or future, also refers to imagination or fantasy.
“I pretty much had my dreams, like anybody else and I followed them. People around me fortunately always encouraged and said ‘if that’s what you want to do carry on’.” Kalpana Chawla , just prior to leaving on her last mission.
IT IS EASY to spot Kalpana Chawla in pre-flight pictures of the ill-fated Columbia shuttle mission. While her crewmates looked snug in their lumpy orange suits, Kalpana looked like hers was two sizes too large.
Her smallish frame belied the credentials of a career astronaut who, until Saturday’s tragedy, seemed destined to reach greater heights in NASA’s male-dominated hierarchy.
At 41, Kalpana held a doctorate in aerospace engineering, a commercial pilot’s licence, a flight instructor’s licence, had racked up seven years of experience at the distinguished NASA Ames Research Center and as vice president of a private research company.
On her first shuttle mission in 1997, she had logged 376 hours and 34 minutes in space, exceeding even the celebrated first American woman in space — Sally Ride.
AirAsia: Have Net will travel
Posted on January 1, 2003
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By Anita Devasahayam
The region’s first budget, no-frills airlines AirAsia is flying high, raking in an estimate RM500,000 a month (US$132,000), thanks to the Internet. Chief executive officer Tony Fernandes tells C|Level why his e-ticketing strategy works.
AIRASIA’s chief executive officer Tony Fernandes believes that anything is possible where there is a good enough deal. So when he sold 2,600 air tickets within six hours over the Internet at RM10 (US$2.60) a piece in December 2000 for his newly launched airline, he was verified.
“If the offer is good, people will find their way. The beauty of it - and I will tell this story till I the day I die - we had a family of 19 from a rubber estate, who got their brother-in-law with a credit card, find their way to the Internet and bought tickets,” he reveals.
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Levi’s Sites Caught With Pants Down
Posted on June 25, 2001
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By Julian Matthews
Crackers defaced multiple Web sites belonging to apparel-maker Levi Strauss & Co. on Friday including flagships levi.com and dockers.com.
Jeff Beckman, a spokesperson for the company, said the server was immediately shut down shortly after the intrusion happened at about 12:30 p.m. EDT.
“The global ’splash’ pages of levi.com and dockers.com were affected. Anyone trying to get into our regional sites via our global ’splash’ pages was unable to during the two to three hours downtime,” he said.
Beckman confirmed that corporate site Levistrauss.com was also affected on the same day.
The hack was claimed by “Perfect.br”, an active Internet vandal of various sites around the world, and had been reported to security mirror sites safemode.org and alldas.de.
Everyday Heroes: Tech Teacher
Posted on April 1, 2001
Filed Under Anita, Reader's Digest | Comments Off
By Anita Devasahayam
Tiong Ting Ming was waiting to catch a bus in Kuala Lumpur in February 2000 when a young man sat next to him and asked for money. When Tiong said he had none to offer, the man produced a knife. Even though the would-be thief looked desperate for cash, Tiong never felt in serious danger, so he decided to reason with him.
He explained that he was a school principal who had just travelled to Singapore to buy parts for the computers at his school. For 20 minutes, he talked about why it was important for young people to get an education. When it was clear that the young man wasn’t going to get any money, he shook his head and left.
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| High-tech dreams - Tiong Ting Ming transformed his school. Photo: © Julian Matthews. | |
Tiong wasn’t going to let a thief stand in the way of his dream of turning SMJK Dindings, a secondary school in the village of Pundut, 100 kilometers west of lpoh, into a high-tech learning centre. He had come too far and achieved too much. When he became principal in 1992, the school was a ramshackle set of wooden buildings. There were 320 students, and the number was falling. “They were dropping out to help with their families’ businesses,” he recalls. “School was not a priority.”
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‘Alien’ substance caused Dell notebook battery to ignite
Posted on October 23, 2000
Filed Under Julian, ZDNet | Comments Off
By Julian Matthews, ZDNet Asia
October 23, 2000 7:36 PM PT
KUALA LUMPUR - An ‘alien’ substance was mixed into the production process of the battery that caused a Dell customer’s notebook to burst into flames and prompted a recall last week.
“As a result of analysis, we defined the cause of the short circuit that occurred in one cell was due to mixing of an alien substance at one production process,” said Yoshiyuki Arikawa, a spokesperson of battery-supplier Soft Energy Company, a unit of Japanese consumer giant Sanyo Electric Co Ltd.
In the e-mail response to ZDNet Asia, Arikawa did not define what the ‘alien’ substance could be or how it entered the production process. Bloomberg, quoting another Sanyo spokesperson, reported Tuesday that “a piece of metal found its way into the battery.”
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