The Bangladesh Consultation on 2nd World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) Asia Pacific Conference (Bangalore, India) will be held at LGED Meeting Room, Level – 4, Sher- e – Bangla Nagor, Dhaka on 13 February 2010 at 10: 00 AM -1:30 PM. The focus of the consultation is the progress of Community Radio in Bangladesh.

Honorable Secretary for Ministry of Information Dr. Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury has kindly consented to be present as Chief Guest in the Bangladesh Consultation on 2nd World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) Asia Pacific Conference.

The 2nd World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters – Asia Pacific (AMARC-AP) Conference: Community radio for Sustainable Development and Good Governance will bring together community radio broadcasters, activists, academics, policy makers, and representatives of the donor community and governments to review the development of the community broadcasting in the Asia Pacific region in the last 4 years.

It will take a careful look at thematic areas of development such as the empowerment of women within the CR sector, the role of community broadcasting in peace building, it’s role in the face of global climate change and at times of natural disasters as well as for poverty eradication. The regional conference will address practical issues such as capacity building in areas of management, technology, community participation, monitoring and evaluation, media convergence, and networking and the conference will recommend steps that will ensure the way forward for the CR sector in the region.

The overall theme of the Bangladesh Pre Consultation will be the progress of community radio in Bangladesh. There are both challenges and opportunities to establish community radio in Bangladesh. Lots of initiatives are under processing and hopes are there to have community broadcasting soon.

This consultation will create an enabling environment for initiators, advocates, academicians, practitioners, development partners and researchers to interact with policy makers and implementers. This intended coalition will generate idea and working partnership for better and effective community broadcasting system in the country. Broadly MDG and our own development roadmap will be focused as well to address in the said broadcasting system.

The Pre Consultation is organized by Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) and Center for e-Parliament Research and supported by UNICEF Bangladesh. Distinguished Member of Parliament (MP), Policy–Makers and Representatives from Government, Media, Academia, CSOs, and Corporate Sector are expected to join the Bangladesh Pre Consultation.

In this pre consultation, we would be honored to have your participation. We strongly believe, your participation in this effort will add a new and positive dimension towards building the knowledge based society and Digital Bangladesh. In this context, we humbly request for your kind participation to the Bangladesh Pre Consultation and encourage the spirits of the consultation.

Lower costs, greater flexibility and access to resources on demand: it’s no wonder cloud computing is attracting attention. Oracle’s Country Director-Technology Business Pakistan & Afghanistan, Oracle Corporation, Farhan Ibrahim Chaudhry, discusses the ways in which organizations can take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing while mitigating risks around security, compliance and quality of service.

Cloud computing has gained traction with an increasing number of organizations in the past few years. The ability to access a shared pool of computing resources on demand is proving highly attractive to cash-strapped IT departments that are under pressure to deliver better services at lower cost.

The appeal of cloud computing is its promise to deliver agility and real cost savings. It allows organizations to rapidly access computing resources when they are needed, often in a self-service and pay-per-use model. These computing resources can expand and contract with the natural ebb and flow of the business cycle, eliminating the need to over-invest in excess capacity.

The building blocks of cloud computing are rooted in hardware and software architectures that enable resource sharing, such as clustering, virtualization and dynamic provisioning.  Cloud is the evolution of several proven and mature technologies: grid computing, virtualization, shared services and management systems. Many data centers already deploy these capabilities, and are extending them to the cloud model by adding self-service, auto-scaling and chargeback.

Oracle offers the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of grid computing technologies from applications to disk, that can help corporate data centers evolve to become private cloud service providers, delivering secure, high-quality IT services that can be easily scaled and which comply with organizational and regulatory policies.

Public, private and hybrid clouds

Cloud computing is typically divided into three levels of service offerings: Software as a Service, where complete applications are delivered as services to end users; Platform as a Service, where application development and the deployment platform are delivered as a service; and Infrastructure as a Service, where server, storage and network hardware and associated operating system and virtualization software are delivered as a service.

These services can be provided via public, private or hybrid clouds.  In a public cloud, multiple customers share computing resources provided by a service provider. Customers are able to access those resources very rapidly and pay for only the resources used as an operating expense. This model offers elastic scaling, so resources can be ratcheted up when needed and scaled back down when they are no longer required. Although public clouds provide compelling advantages, there are concerns about security, compliance and quality of service.  Since data is hosted by a third party, customers are trusting the service provider to keep the data safe from loss or improper access, to comply with regulations for storage and locality of data, and to deliver low latency, highly available service over the network.

In a private cloud, the computing resources are for the exclusive use of a single organization and are controlled by the enterprise. Private clouds are typically implemented in the organization’s data center and managed by internal resources, but they may also be managed by a service provider, in which case they are known as virtual private clouds. The main benefit of this model is the organization remains in control of security, compliance and quality of service.

A hybrid cloud is one that spans both public and private clouds for a single application. It requires interoperability across clouds and the ability to manage across both in a unified way. It allows the enterprise to run the steady state workload in a private cloud and “cloudburst” to a public cloud for peaks, then return that capacity back to the public pool when it is no longer needed.

Evolving to the cloud

There are several things to bear in mind when moving to a cloud model, including the characteristics of specific clouds and the organizational and cultural issues that might become obstacles to the adoption of future architectures.

An enterprise architecture framework is valuable to evaluate and design a cloud infrastructure that delivers on current and future business goals. Such a framework will help architects define the architectural vision, analyze the systems and technical architecture designs and incorporate migration planning, governance, and change management into the overall plan.

At Oracle, we provide technology to help customers build private clouds as well as run Oracle in public clouds. We also offer several applications, such as Oracle CRM On Demand, as SaaS services, and provide Oracle technology to enable other cloud service providers.

Seven Summits Strategic Investments’ PriceWatch Alerts are available at http://www.iotogo.com/s/020110A (Note: You may have to copy this link into your browser then press the [ENTER] key.)

Today’s PriceWatch Alerts cover the following stocks: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE: ABX), SanDisk Corp. (Nasdaq: SNDK), Whirlpool Corp. (NYSE: WHR), and Tesoro Corporation ( TSO). read more

Livegaan.com

Introduction

The livegaan team is collectiong all the rare audio archive of the history and culture of Bangladesh and make them accessible worldwide through the site, with a vision to spread Bangla Language, Bangla Culture, Bangladesh to ourselves and to the world.

For the last few years we have been collecting all types of Bangla songs, Music, audio archives, Kobita and many more with an aim to

• Create a website (www.livegaan.com) for spreading Bangla gaan, Bangla culture all over the world
• Promote listening music online, instead of download.
• Build up the biggest Archive of Bangla Audio.
• Accumulate rare collections of our local musics (Folk songs, Classical songs, Regional songs such as Sylheti Gaan, Puthi pat, Pala gaan, Gombhira, Pahari gaan, etc) with the help of the users. We follow the same method used by youtube, but concentrated on Bangla Songs and Archives only.
• Create a platform for the new artists to show their work to the people.

Having these visions in mind, we started the work, and launched the site for testing on 3rd December. The response we got was very encouraging and tempted us to launch the site officially on 16th December by uploading some rare collection of Chorom potro, 1971 and some rare Regional songs later. We started with 16000+ songs on 16 December; plan to reach 21000+ on 21 February and 26000+ on 26th March…… so on.

Copyright issue

To deal with the music copyright issue, we have considered the followings:

1. We will not be providing or encouraging any commercial activities through our site using the contents.

2. The content of our site will be uploaded by the users following the same policy as followed by youtube. The contents will be solely uploaded by users and users only.

3. We will only promote listening music online and not download. If someone likes to own any song, he or she should buy it from the market.

4 Our sites terms and conditions will be clearly written and showed to the user, before they use the site (You can see those in our home page)

5. If anyone request for any content removal with proper authority we would do that right away.

6. We will have our law consultant who will deal with these issues.

Here is the links of the copyright laws that we are following

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

http://www.copyrightofficebd.com/copyright_act.php

http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_notice

Exclusive Collections

Our team is ready to accumulate any types of quality work in audio media of any format. Here we enlist some of our already made collections (we consider as exclusive):

1. 1971 Chorom Potro (1^st part), Radio Drama (such as ‘Jollader Dorbar’)

2. 110 Bongo Bondhur Bhashon from 1070 -1975

3. More than 3000 Robindro Shongeet

4. Regional song as Pahari gaan (Chakma), Sylheti gaan, Hoakhali gaan, Vhayaiyya Gaan (Rangpur), Ghomvirra (Rajshahi), Pala Gaan (Manik Gong), etc

5. All the songs from Bangaldeshi movies since 1970

6. Very rare Baul Gaan in the original format

7. Instrumentals from the masters of different Bangladeshi musical instruments

8. Classical songs, Bangla Quawali

9. Nazrul geeti since 1950 till today.

more coming ….

Functionality

We have the following functionality in the website

1. Efficient search option:

In this search area, anyone can search for any song in the whole drive using the song title or the artist’s name. The search function is very fast and smart. Users can also search by letters, or by music type/genre

2. Live Rating of Songs

From the site, anyone can know, the current ratings on any song, or the most popular songs of the months, years by ‘What’s hot’ option

3. Upload

Any user can upload any song that he or she thinks should be in this site. After filtering it would be accessible from the site from the corresponding folder.

4. Bulletin

To give any notice from the admin

5. Shout Box

For the users to give comment or any request.

6. Playlist

Anyone can make playlist as wish and share it with others.

7. Use song as a link

Anyone can use any song here as a link and can use it as a gift in mails or in any posts. While playing any song or album this link comes at the top of the window.

Our Team (Not to disclose, only to let you know, as you asked)

For the time being, we are four persons actively working for this project. This project is done under the authorization of company ‘Fashion Trinity’ registered in Germany. We operate mainly from Europe with our Branch in Canada, USA & Australia

LiveGaan Brance office:

13/A, Résidence Puebla

Rue de Puebla, 71200 Le Creusot

France

Tel: +33-629746489

News Link:

Livegaan.com at ‘Somewherein’ blogpage

http://www.somewhereinblog.net/blog/rizvirahmanblog/29079274

Livegaan.com at ‘JAy JAY DIN’

http://www.jaijaidin.com/details.php?nid=170796

Dresses, Books, furniture, household goods, and now even computers can be ordered by mail. A few years ago what seemed an unlikely proposition, is now gaining popularity. People are now buying PCs through mail without even bothering to look at them.

More and more computers are being sold by the direct-mail. About 30 per cent of the 9 million PCs sold in the US were purchased through direct marketing. Dell Computers, the leader of the direct-marketing movement saw about 63 per cent increase in its sales last year.

Mail -ordered PCs come not only cheaper but even faster than those sold through regular outlets. A Digital Equipment Corp., (DEC)’s PCs can be mail ordered at half the cost of what they are available otherwise. Customers can directly contact their call-our-24-hour support line facility and avail the on-site after sales support service. A year-long warranty, money back guarantees and replacement of defective components are other incentives of the luring mail orders.

At a time when recession, cut-throat competition and price cutting is forcing companies to replan and device new strategies to score over their rivals, direct marketing is perhaps a better alternative to tide over the lean phase. Companies offering mail order facilities do noted to pile up an inventory, but can plan production according to demand. With many of them now taking to servicing their own products, they can reduce dealer dependence, trim dealer profits and overheads on dealer channelizing.

Encouraged by the booming mail-order sales, many computer manufacturers are gearing up to join the thriving $4.6 billion US mail-order computer market. IBM is already selling through catalogues in Europe and is negotiating to buy Northgate Computer Systems, which sells IBM compatible PCs by mail-order.

Others expected to follow suit include Compaq Computer Corp., and even Apple Computer Inc. But there are some like Wang Laboratories who have reverted back to traditional selling through dealers, when they found the catalogue sales making indents in their regular profits.

First it was the OS/2 2.0 Now it’s SVR4.2. These two powerful desktop operating systems are threatening to push Windows from its lofty position. Are the two systems real threats and can Windows withstanding the onslaught?

The ground is rapidly shifting from under Microsoft’s feet. Suddenly, within a spate of three months, it found that IBM and Unix System Lab (USL) had made dangerous incursions into the desktop operating system marketplace.

Just a year back, Microsoft was the envy of the industry. Its Windows operating system was a roaring success and its position as market leader in the personal computing and desktop arena seemed almost entrenched.

IBM’s earlier OS/2 releases which ran on the PS/2 platforms would never gain widespread support as it was not compatible with many of the PCs in the marketplace.

And the Unix operating systems, with the exception of SCO’s, were too massive to run on the desktop. That left Microsoft as the supreme leader, laughing all the way to the bank.

But the giants were quick to realise that the vendor who had supremacy of the desk-lopoperating arcnacould well set the direction of the client-server technology—the computing architecture of the future. And they want a piece of the pie.

“We see the Unix desktop operating system product as an effective client-server operating system. It will have an impact on the strategic corporate desktop environment of the future,” said Colin Fulton, regional general manager of Unix International Pacific Basin.

Big Blue fired the first salvo this year when it launched its OS/2 Release 2.0 two months ago.

Unlike the earlier versions, IBM this time round spent a lot of effort ensuring that the product has mass appeal.

OS/2 umbrella

First, it made sure that the product, which runs on386SX chip with 4Mb RAM, did not just have drop and drag icons but it also supports DOS and Windows applications, a popular feature for most existing users.

Second, in a marked departure from previous versions of the OS/2, it can run on 200 other PC platforms besides the PS/2.

And what is important is that IBM had ensured that the operating system is affordable to most users.

“OS/2 Version 2.0 is indeed a runaway success. Sales in Singapore had been better than anticipated,” said Edward Lim, IBM Singapore’s PS/2 marketing manager.

He added that the company was focusing its marketing efforts on two fronts— direct marketing and existing resellers.

The company is also planning to sell to OEMs and through the retail channels to ensure that the OS/2 2.0 reaches as broad a base as possible.

The target, said Lim, was not just to reach existing OS/2 users but to be the predominant desktop operating system.

“While we may eat into the Microsoft user base, we are not putting Microsoft out of business,” Lim said. “What we are trying to do is to serve the industry better and to bring out an operating system that meets users’ needs.”

He added that the two companies were still licensing each other’s source codes.

Lim added that while he was aware that USL had released SVR4.2 an operating system for the desktop, he felt that office users were still reluctant to enter that environment.

Fulton, however, disagreed.

He felt that the S VR4.2 was expected to be widely used as a PC LAN server and as a low-end database and application server, areas where the Unix systems already excelled.

Good Strategy

With the addition of emulation utilities available from several Unix software vendors, the new Unix system will also run DOS and Windows applications.

This will make the competition even stiffer for Microsoft until ships its Windows NT. The operating system is ventured by the ACE as the operating system for RISC platforms.

Peter Wong, general manager, Southeast Asia of Microsoft said, although various parties wished to eat into Microsoft’s turf, they were actually barking up the wrong tree.

‘The IBM OS/2 operating system is meant for the server side. There are not many PCs with enough memory to run these applications,” he added.

Wong said Windows 3.1 was meant for the desktop in the office and it had received a favorable response, with more than three million copies shipped in the first six weeks. This figure excludes those bundled with PCs by the manufacturers.

He added OS/2 2.0 does not support Windows 3.1, and as such could not support all the Windows features.

He said that Microsoft Windows NT, when it is released later this year or early next year, would be competing in the server arena.

Meanwhile, it is almost certain that it will not be long before standard PC specifications meet up to the OS/2 and SVR4.2 requirements.

Intel has stated categorically that it is positioning the 486 chip as the entry level chip. PCs in the future will have more power and memory to run applications.

The market for the multitasking, 32-bil operating system is certainly there. But it is too early to tell which company — USL, IBM or Microsoft — will dominate the operating system of the future. ? The battle has begun.

Jenny Chin

The belief that computers regardless of their make, can share the same programs, came one step closer to reality, when IBM, Apple, and Motorola dedicated a new design and development facility. The 80,000 sq. ft., S500 million design centre, named Somerset, will employ 300 engineers from the three companies. These scientists will endeavor to bring the Power PC single-chip reduced instruction-set computing (RISC) microprocessors to computers ranging from notebooks to sophisticated supercomputers.

Power (Performance optimization with enhanced RISC) PC is the hardware component of IBM and Apple’s plan for network operability between OS/2, IBM AIX and the Apple Macintosh. PowerPC is anticipated to create a profound transformation in the way PC are used. Initial use of PowerPC-based systems is expected to be in embedded control for automotive and consumer products use, portable and desktop computers high-end fault tolerant systems, and supercomputers.

Motorola will aid in designing, manufacturing and marketing the technology, which will be available to other manufacturers besides IBM and Apple. The three companies have decided to base PowerPC on the IBM architecture because of its capabilities and the size of the installed base.

The architecture specification have been completed, development of microprocessor has already started and the first systems are expected to be available next year. It seems the day is not far off when the same program can be run on different brands of computers easily.

Shahzaman Mozumder. Bir Protik

marketing Manager, IBM World Trade Corp., Dhaka.

(Concluding part)

After reviewing the current (or traditional) sources of information, we are now in a position to look at the emerging sources of information and compare the associated advantages (or disadvantages).

1.  Electronic Data Banks

Imagine a big library where hundreds of thousands of books are stored. Now let us convert all the books from printed media (books) to electronic media (CD-ROM, Optical Disk etc.). Although the information content remains the same, we have achieved a qualitative improvement. The quality can be further enhanced by incorporating sound, video, motion and graphics. A “static” book could be converted into a dynamic information system, all the books in the library could be linked to each other based on the information content. This conversion process is very significant, maybe analogous to the beginning of writing, a similar conversion from memory to written documents must have occurred at that lime.

This media conversion will not be limited to only libraries containing books, but also to all sources of information like video, movies, timetables & schedules (air, rail etc.), shopping guides, banking facilities, insurance, reservations (movie, theater, air, rail etc.), educational facilities, including politics & personal communications.

2.  Supportive Infrastructure for information technology

Now let us imagine that in all of our homes we have a device which is a combination (also improvement) of three current technologies like TV, Telephone, and microcomputer. This device could be used for entertainment (watching TV, video, cable network, satellite, etc.), could be used for communications (talking to somebody and also viewing), and for obtaining & exchanging information. Let us call this hypothetical device a “Tele-Viewer”. Let us now examine how this device could be used to for information.

To obtain information through this device, the following three infrastructural facilities must be present:

*    High Speed telephone (communication) lines: Many of our homes are within the reach of the telephone network.  The  current  telephone network will have to be upgraded to support simultaneous transmission of voice, data, graphics, video and may be holographic messages. The future telephone network may be based on fiber optics or something comparable which can support very high data rates (by “very high” I refer to more than 100,000,000,000 Bits Per Second or 100 mbps, (the local telephone line cannot support more than 9,600 bits per second!). The reader will note that the current telephone line, after the metamorphosis is no longer a “telephone” line, because the same link will be used for other purposes.

*    The emergence of electronic service providers: The concept is rather similar to the current video library but all the cassettes are digitized and stored in computer data bases. There seems to be a potential for numerous providers of wide ranging services, depending on the information needs of the society, and

*    Affordable “Tele viewer” :    The price of the Tele Viewer must be within the reach of the common person. Similar to the current price of a TV. What would be the implications of the above infrastructure in any society?

The implications are enormous, exciting, frightening and endless. This technology has the potential to affect all aspect of our lives, culture and even our level of civilization. It will impact the way we think, work, communicate, compete, acquire knowledge, and entertain ourselves. There is hardly any sphere of our lives that will not be affected by this technology. In fact, it can even change the current level of our civilization!

To fathom the extent and power of information technology, in the following sections we would look at how it can impact the following areas of our lives :

1.  Education

We are born ignorant. As we grow, we receive education, both formal and informal. Through the education process we know about our environment and culture, about the society we live in and the social values. It also prepares us for the work we are expected to perform when we grow up.

The effectiveness of education depends on the learning tools at our disposal. The current or traditional learning tools are books, pencils, pens, classroom, lectures, teachers, audio & video, discussions, guided tours, expeditions & explorations, demonstrations etc. For formal education we have to enroll ourselves into schools, colleges, and universities, where most of the learning tools are concentrated.

The information technology will impact education in basically two ways. First, the tools itself would become immensely powerful by the assimilation of audio, video, text, animation, graphics and interactivity. Second, it will be accessible from every location, i.e., it will no longer be confined into specific locations like schools, colleges etc.

If we accept the premise that the quality and effectiveness of education are the basis of future well being of any particular society, then the advantages offered by information technology would not only be valued but would be the essence of the competitive edge among societies and cultures.

2. Work

As we grow into adults, we must work to earn a living. There are many types of work, like farming, animal husbandry, poultry, factory workers, office workers, working in utilities, life guards, pilots, drivers, ship captains etc. etc. We can divide the work into following categories :

* Farming & Agriculture

* Office Workers

*  Factory Workers

*  Service Industries and

*   Various fields of research and development

In order to work or render services, physical access to the work location is a prerequisite in our current level of industrial civilization.

In an information based society, physical access to the work location may not be required for the majority of office, factory, research and service workers. They would be equally or more productive by not having to shuttle between home and office, by This  is sponsored not adhering to a specified amount of time in their work locations. Information technology will allow the measurement of contribution of each, and an analogous system for compensation will evolve.

If physical access is not a mandatory for work, education or to obtain services, what would be the fate of current metropolis, cities & towns?

3. Government & Politics

In any democratic society today, we have to elect representatives because it is not practical (or possible) for all the citizens of a country to participate in all decision making process. Therefore, we must appoint (or elect) spokesman to represent our interest.

Now if information technology makes it practical for all the citizens to participate in all issues, the concept of “representation” becomes redundant. There will be no representatives or parliament in such a society, because technology enables them to self represent. Under such a scenario, what happens to the current form of government, how are they elected (if at all)? Or will the new form of government be run by professionals who will be responsible for implementing the requirements of the people, since they (the people) can now directly participate in all issues? It is difficult to predict the stable political form that will emerge at that stage, but it is certain that the political climate will undergo a radical change. Do we sec different political ideologies and interest groups? Likely, because homo sapiens will always have to face new issues, challenges and problems, but the nature and form could be inherently different.

It is also likely that the current concept of states covering a specific geographical boundary will disintegrate since this concept will no longer be productive or meaningful. The contemporary notion of physical distance will mutate and will not be as restrictive as it is today.

4. Changes in Family Structure

Let us review the evolution of the family concept and how it changed in the recorded history.

In a hunting society, the family was small and highly mobile because for survival it was necessary to follow the wild herds which was the basic source of food. The predominant social behavior must have been dominated by the need to survive, consequently, the higher needs did not have a chance to flourish.

The agricultural revolution made it practical to have an extended family because the nature of agriculture required some people to till the land and sow seeds, others to harvest and dry the crop, others to look after domestic animals, care for the young, etc., and people fall ages could share the workload, having a positive contribution on the welfare of the family. Also it was no longer necessary to be wandering in search of food, which is difficult for both the young and the elderly. Life became relatively predictable, and stable. Because of relatively non-perishable nature of agricultural produce, it was possible to save some food and other valuables for difficult times. In an agricultural society people also started enjoying some free time, and since the basic needs of food, shelter and reproduction were assured, this free time could be devoted to the fulfillment of higher needs.

The advent of industrial civilization upset the balance of the Agricultural society and the basic forces which cemented the society for so many generations, started to disintegrate. To cope with the demands of an industrial society, new standards of behavior were necessary.

The concept of extended family started to fragment due to the demands of the emerging industrial culture. Again the family needed to be mobile to move from cities to cities in search of jobs. The extended family was a hinder to such mobility. The factories demanded young and energetic workers. The very young and the elderly members of the family could not contribute in such a culture. (There are many examples that during the initial stages of industrialization, it was tried and later law had to be enacted to stop the abuse of children and the elderly). As a result, the extended family gradually transformed into its current form of nuclear family.

The advent of the information technology will again exert its influence on the family size. Because physical proximity to work location will not be mandatory, the family will once again undergo a metamorphosis and the family size will once again grow. It will be practical & productive for a number of generations to live and work together, under the umbrella of the family, since physical proximity to the work location will steadily diminish.

5. Changes in Level of Civilization

If we focus our attention to the characteristics of the current industrial society we find that:

*   All have mass iffier their societies through mass production, mass distribution, and mass education.

*   They tend to standardize everything from lifer styles to time.

*   All synchronize activity.

*   Centralize power.

*   Concentrate capital into large organizations and their people into cities.

The characteristics of our current level of civilization can also be traced to what we teach our children. Despite the dissimilar curriculum content in our schools, we all teach— punctuality, obedience, and tolerance for repetitive work. Such an education prepares the young for useful work in the production-line factories and classical bureaucracies that arc the inevitable forms of industrialized societies.

Under the influence of information and other advanced technology, mass if citation will no longer be valued, because the consumers Instead of valuing mass produced goods and services, they will demand personalized goods and services. In the absence of mass production, mass distribution does not apply. And we have already seen how mass education is replaced by more directed and widespread education system.

Mass production requires standardization. In the absence of mass production, there will be multiple or myriad standards depending on geographical, ethnic, national, or even personal characteristics.

In an Information Society, advanced technology will alleviate the requirements of manual synchronization. The current view of synchronization will mutate to a higher plane offered by technology.

The power could still be centralized but on a different elevation. Instead of bureaucratic centralization, it could be a collective centralization of power.

Summary

The Information technology is so powerful that not only it is influencing every aspect of our lives, but it will even change the level of our current civilization. The name of the next level of civilization is the “Information Age”. Many people call the driving force as the ‘Information Revolution’.

There are many measurements to differentiate between societies like par capita income, per capita use of energy, per capita consumption etc. But we forget that consumption, use, etc. are the results of something much more deeper. We hardly look at the hidden part of the iceberg.

The basic difference between success and failure is information. The more information at the disposal of any society, the more chances it has to be successful over its competitors. The better quality and quantity of information at the disposal of the society will be manifest in advanced science and technology used for improving living standards and lifestyles, consumption, education, competition and further research and development.

Earlier in the article I mentioned that the implications are frightening. The fear stems from its awesome power and our (Bangladesh’s) competitive predicament in the global setting. Many developing countries arc cognizant of the challenge and are deploying resources not only to close the gap, but also to position themselves for the emerging opportunities.

We are now “economic” slaves and if we keep our eyes closed, we risk being “Information” slaves. Please remember, without information living beings can not even survive!

The Japanese ministry of international trade and industry (MITI) will soon embark on a project to create a large scale software and hardware development centre in the vicinity of Tokyo. The concept of the proposed se- tup is comparable to Silicon Valley in the United States.

A huge software development centre will be created by government and private firms with a total capitalization of S7.5 million. The major aim this centre is to meet the demand of software and hardware engineers. According to the government survey, there will be a massive shortage of software engineers by the year 2,000, nearly 970,000 engineers.

The actual location of the centre will be 150 kilometers from Tokyo. This massive project starling this September will include convention halls, research laboratories and hotels.

The development centre will be backed up by about 30 firms and organizations, and will start operation in 1994. Hundreds of private computer related firms have already expressed interest in participating in this project. A total of 450 firms which will participate include NEC, Fujitsu, Toshiba, IBM Japan, and Lotus.

All Investments in PCs except those in handwriting recognition, in general look good This is the observation of the venture c apiarists, who met at the investor seminar on computer industry, sponsored by two US based companies. While the seminar reports described handwriting recognition and pen based software as a niche market, they discouraged investment in handwriting recognitions saying it is likely to be a disappointment.

According to Sentry Market Research, one of the two sponsors, a record spending of 15% more than 1991, or upward of 5>34 billion, is expected on computers this year. Sentry predicts that corporate buyers, for the first time in computer industry history, will spend as much on PCs as they do on mainframes. Budgeting for corporate sites on PCs is estimated at an average of SI .67 million for each site in the coming year.