Zafar Anjum

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) has slashed the retail price of some of its smartphone models in India by up to 27 percent, according to a report by Reuters.

Prices have been slashed on four of its smartphone models, including the entry-level Curve 8520. The four models accounted for about 60 percent of the company's sales in India.

Professional social networking company LinkedIn which started its Singapore office about 7 months ago is set to double its staff strength in the country in 2012.

LinkedIn currently has 8 people in leadership positions in Singapore. These are key people who are responsible for growing the company's business in the Asia Pacific region.

The global mobile phone sector will reach revenues of US$1 trillion in 2015, a year later than anticipated, according to research firm Ovum.

This is a sign that the market is maturing rapidly, Ovum says in a new report, "Global mobile market outlook: 2010-15."

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams will be tweeting from space once he is in orbit.

According to the US space agency NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), Williams will become the first space station commander to share his experiences using Twitter.

Asia Pacific vertical market IT spending is forecast to grow 2.9 per cent in 2009, according to IT research firm Gartner. This is way above the forecasted worldwide trend for vertical market IT spending which is 0.5 per cent.

Gartner said that the communications industry posts the highest growth forecast as countries such as India and China continue to spend on third-generation (3G) and next-generation infrastructures. The transportation industry posts the second-highest growth rate as intra-Asia demand remains. This is followed by utilities and services.

The Asia Pacific region has recorded the worst PC shipment growth since the IT advisory firm Gartner started its PC statistics research, up just 1.8 percent over the same quarter the previous year. This amounted to the volume reaching 19.5 million units.

The China and India PC markets accounted for approximately 65 percent of the market in the Asia Pacific in the fourth quarter, and these countries were affected by a slow consumer market. PC shipments in China grew an estimated 0.8 percent, and 2.2 percent in India.

Artwork: Diego AguirreOnline attacks will be dominated by smarter malware and bots targeting Web users ranging from gamers and social network users to the elderly and unsuspecting parents.

This is according to IT management software company CA, maker of the CA Internet Security Suite, which was recently updated to the Plus 2009 version.

Without proper security, the potential of social networks, virtual worlds and real-time mapping services cannot be fully exploited, according to research house Gartner.

"Improved security in virtual environments should be a joint responsibility between individuals, companies and service providers," said Gartner research director Andrew Walls told a Singapore conference. "There are some steps that users themselves must take, some things their employers can do, and some that the providers of virtual environments could do to reduce the risks."

Employees feel that 'cyberloafing' - the non-work related use of their workplace computer -- is acceptable and helps them work better.

This is according to a study by Associate Professor Vivien K.G. Lim and Don J.Q. Chen of the NUS Business School at the National University of Singapore. A total of 191 completed surveys were collected, yielding a response rate of 32 percent. Men made up 34 percent of the respondents.

While the Asia Pacific region is making accelerated progress in the telephony sector, the area in which the region really stands out is the uptake of advanced Internet technologies, especially broadband Internet access.

This is according to a report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The ITU launched its key Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Report for the Asia-Pacific region, at the ITU Telecom Asia 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand, on Sept. 1.

The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority has recently labeled a TV advertisement for Apple's iPhone 'misleading' for claiming the device provides full Internet access. But Apple is not the only offender, here," said Tony Cripps, senior analyst at Ovum.

According to him, the consultancy firm has previously voiced discomfort with other operator launches of 'mobile Internet' services that professed to offer access to the full Web. "Many of these are similarly compromised through the selective rendering, removal, or adaptation, of complex content such as Flash and Java in the network into a form consumable by the device, but not necessarily representative of the web developer's full intent," he added.

India and China are to overtake Western Europe to become the region with the largest number of broadband connections, says analyst and consulting firm Ovum.

"The fastest growth in broadband connections over the next few years will be in the China/India region, which are still adopting DSL at a rapid rate and we expect this trend to continue," said Claudio Castelli, of Ovum.