ICT Horizon

Faruq Faisel, Regional Director, ARTICLE 19, Bangladesh and South Asia, has stated: “ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned about this blanket restriction on communication imposed by the Indian Government in Jammu and Kashmir. The shutdown is a clear violation of international freedom of expression standards in the country. “It is deeply alarming that in a period that sees us entering what ... Read More »

Dhaka, Aug 13 – Dhaka Metropolitan Police on Tuesday imposed ban on flying of unauthorised drone in the c capital city to maintain public safety. A DMP press release said, flying drone without permission from the authority is a punishable offense as it may hamper public safety and create panic among the people. So, everybody concerned is requested not to ... Read More »

San Francisco, Aug 9 (AP/UNB) — Facebook is reportedly in talks with news publishers to offer “millions of dollars” for the rights to publish their material on its site. The move follows years of criticism over its growing monopolization of online advertising to the detriment of the struggling news industry. Read More »

Dhaka, Aug 7 – The government Wednesday approved a proposal to purchase a Vehicle Mounted Data Interceptor for the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC) through Direct Purchase Method (DPM) for the sake of national security, official news agency BSS reported on Wednesday. Read More »

State Minister for Information and Communication technology (ICT) Zunaid Ahmed Palak yesterday said the government has taken a project to construct a software technology park in Sherpur. The software technology park, named after Sheikh Kamal, Bangabandhu’s eldest son, would be constructed at a cost of Taka 40 crore, he said. Palak said this in a views exchange meeting of Info ... Read More »

Faridpur, July 26 (UNB) – Police in a drive arrested a person for making a post on Facebook demeaning Islam and Kaaba Sharif from Kamar village in Boalmari upazila on Thursday night. The arrestee was identified as Dilip Roy, 42, of the village. Locals said Dilip made the post recently which hurt religious sentiment of Muslims. Following a complaint lodged ... Read More »

Facebook’s planned global digital coin Libra has run into a wall of opposition in Washington that could prevent its launch as envisioned, but analysts say cryptocurrencies are likely to make gains around the world nonetheless. The plan by Facebook and its partners has generated skepticism from US lawmakers and G7 finance ministers as well as from central banks and regulators ... Read More »

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram Sydney and Kuala Lumpur, Jul 16 2019 (IPS) – On 17 June, a Facebook white paper proposed a new global digital currency it plans to launch in the first half of 2020. The Libra will be managed by a ‘not for profit’ Swiss-based Facebook-led consortium of ‘for-profit corporations’, with Uber, eBay, Lyft, Mastercard ... Read More »

Geneva, 11 Jul (Kanaga Raja) – Large technology companies have penetrated many aspects of people’s lifestyles, with such digital platforms providing many benefits, but also gaining significant control of consumer data, which confers market power, raising not only competition-related concerns, but also concerns related to consumer protection and privacy. Read More »

Avon, Jul 16 (AP/UNB) — Over six weeks, the vandals kept coming, knocking the school system’s network offline several times a day. There was no breach of sensitive data files, but the attacks in which somebody deliberately overwhelmed the Avon Public Schools system in Connecticut still proved costly. Classroom lesson plans built around access to the internet had come to ... Read More »

Dhaka, Jul 13 (AP/UNB) – The FTC has voted to approve a fine of about $5 billion for Facebook over privacy violations, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The report cited an unnamed person familiar with the matter. Read More »

Dhaka, July 12 – The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested four people in connection for ‘spreading the rumour on social media over Padma Bridge construction’. The arrest was made three days after the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges urged the people not to pay heed to the rumour about the need for human sacrifice for the Padma Bridge ... Read More »

San Francisco, Jul 12 (AP/UNB) — “Miss us?” Twitter tweeted from its official account as the Great Twitter Outage wound down. We did, apparently. For nearly an hour Thursday, the service we use to keep up with everything and nothing appeared inaccessible for people around the world, regardless of celebrity status or follower count. We reloaded and reloaded. Some turned ... Read More »

Dhaka, July 11 (UNB) – Twitter went down on Thursday across major parts of the world including the US and the UK as users reported being unable to access the platform on web and mobile devices. The site began experiencing major issues at 2:46pm EST, with problems being reported from users attempting to access Twitter through its website, iPhone or ... Read More »

Dhaka, July 12 (UNB)–Even as mobile phone users continue to complain about regular call drops and poor internet services, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission(BTRC)is yet to take anyinitiative to address the growing menaces. Some users say they face call dropproblem five to six times a day and that they often have to wait for a long time to get through. Users ... Read More »

Dhaka, Jul 10 (UNB) – A security firm says deepfaked audio is being used to steal millions of pounds, reports the BBC. Symantec said it had seen three cases of seemingly deepfaked audio of different chief executives used to trick senior financial controllers into transferring cash. Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to create convincing fake footage. The AI system could be ... Read More »

Geneva, Jul (Kinda Mohamadieh) – Women in digital trade was the subject of a workshop convened at the World Trade Organization on 1 July. The day-long workshop was co-convened by the European Union, Trinidad and Tobago and Senegal, the fifth since the release of the Joint Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Buenos ... Read More »

San Francisco, July 9 (AP/UNB) — Twitter now prohibits hate speech that targets religious groups by using dehumanizing language, a ban it says may extend to other categories like race and gender. The social network already bars hateful language directed at individual religious adherents. It also bans hate speech on the basis of someone’s race, gender and other categories. Tuesday’s ... Read More »

Dhaka, Jul 9 – Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar on Tuesday said the number of internet subscribers reached 94.4 million as of May. The minister said this in Parliament while replying to a starred question from ruling party MP M Abdul Latif. He said the number of the country’s total internet users was 60 lakh in December 2008 and ... Read More »

by Peter Bofinger Libra means ‘balance’ in Latin. But Peter Bofinger argues that Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency would be highly risky for holders and a giant enrichment programme for the company. Facebook’s idea of issuing its own cryptocurrency has met strong criticism. Katherina Pistor has called on governments to protect citizens from the Libra, while Joe Stiglitz has said they should ... Read More »

Dhaka, July 04 – The government has reduced the bandwidth capacities of two telecom operators Grameenphone (GP) and Robi as they did not pay its due amount to the government. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BRTC) instructed the country’s five International Internet Gateways (IIGs) to limit GP’s bandwidth capacity at 144gbps (gigabits per second) and Robi’s at 125gbps. 30% bandwidth ... Read More »

Dhaka, July 3 (UNB) Some Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users cannot upload photos, videos and files. A spokesman for Facebook, which owns all three apps, told BBC News: “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.” Together, the social networks have billions of users worldwide, reports BBC. In March, Facebook and Instagram suffered their longest period ... Read More »

Dhaka, July 1 (UNB) – Bangladesh will host the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) RadioAsia Conference and Radio Song Festival on October 29-31 in the city for the first time.  Bangladesh Television and Bangladesh Betar will welcome delegates to the ABU RadioAsia 2019 Conference in the capital city while Bangladesh Television will host, record and distribute the international song festival gala ... Read More »

Dhaka, Jun 30 (UNB) -Telecoms giant Nokia has disowned the comments one of its senior executives made about rival Huawei, reports the BBC. Nokia’s chief technology officer Marcus Weldon told the BBC that the UK should be wary of using the Chinese hardware. He said Huawei’s telecoms kit had vulnerabilities that meant it posed a risk to 5G networks. In ... Read More »

Immediately End Restrictions in Rakhine, Chin States Bangkok – The Myanmar government should immediately lift internet restrictions imposed on nine townships in Rakhine and Chin States, Human Rights Watch said today. The disruption to internet services since June 21, 2019 has exacerbated an information blackout and increased difficulties for humanitarian agencies and human rights groups to assist vulnerable populations in ... Read More »

San Francisco, June 27 (AP/UNB) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company is evaluating how it should handle “deepfake” videos created with artificial intelligence and high-tech tools to yield false but realistic clips. In an interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said it might make sense to treat such videos differently from other misinformation ... Read More »

Dhaka, June 24 (UNB) – The Myanmar government’s shutdown of mobile data networks in nine townships could have serious implications for human rights and humanitarian monitoring in the conflict areas of Rakhine and Chin States, a UN expert warned on Monday. “As there’s no media access and serious restrictions on humanitarian organisations in the conflict-affected area, the entire region is ... Read More »

Washington, Jun 23 (AP/UNB)  —  Officials say U.S. military cyber forces earlier this week launched a retaliatory cyber strike against Iranian computer systems amid escalating tensions between the two countries. Three U.S. officials tell The Associated Press that the operation on Thursday evening disabled Iranian computer systems that controlled Iran’s rocket and missile launchers. The officials spoke on condition of ... Read More »

Dhaka, June 16(UNB)-Ren Zhengfei, Founder and CEO of Huawei- a leading global information and communications technology solutions provider, will come on Facebook Live to discuss the contemporary crisis of Huawei on Monday. The duration of the live discussion will be more than one and a half hour where he will answer the questions of two prominent thinkers; one is author, ... Read More »

San Francisco, Jun 16 (AP/UNB) — A glitch stalled checkout lines at Target stores worldwide Saturday, exasperating shoppers and potentially eating into sales at a prime time for retailers, the day before Father’s Day. The roughly two-hour outage periodically prevented Target’s cashiers from scanning merchandise or processing transactions as long lines formed in some stores. Self-checkout registers, usually the speediest ... Read More »