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Tag: apps

  • Smartphone owners use an average of 10 apps daily

    Smartphone owners use an average of 10 apps daily

    Time spent in apps has surged to nearly 1.7 billion hours during the first quarter, largely a result of an exploding global user base, according to App Annie’s latest Consumer App Usage report.

    The report reveals that despite each operating system having a separate top trending app category, there is actually no one size fits all app category.

    People now manage their lives with apps as an average of 10 apps are used each day. On average, only 25% to 50% of the apps downloaded are used regularly each month.

    Apps from the Utility and Tools category are most used due to them being pre-installed. This is followed by Social Networking, Communication and Social apps – these make up the largest category by average apps used.

    Android users have over 30% more games than iPhone users, however iOS still leads in gaming revenue due to their higher average revenue per user.

    Singaporeans use an average of 40 apps per month, with around 99 apps downloaded onto their phones. This brings the average daily usage to 12 apps per day – higher than the global average.

    Dating and Productivity apps saw the highest average sessions per day with around four minutes, while Finance and Productivity apps were used for less than one minute per session.

    App usage jumped 10% in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same quarter of 2016, to reach an average of 192 minutes were spent on apps.

    On global average, over 80% of time spent in apps were spent outside of the country’s top app.

    Key learnings for publishers include, first, there is no one size fits all due to the huge variability across categories in user behaviours.

    Second, brands have to define their KPIs based on the app’s specific use by aligning their engagement strategy with their target users.

    Third, consumers prefer to manage their lives through apps and are increasingly becoming a must-have component for many companies across several industries.

    And fourth, Social Network and Communication apps have heavy influence over users, and underscores the continued importance for marketing efforts for all types of apps.

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  • Connected pallets are next greenfield IoT apps

    Connected pallets are next greenfield IoT apps

    Connected pallets are the most promising greenfield application enabled by the new wave of cellular and non-cellular LPWA technologies, according to Berg Insight.

    The research firm said in a new report the global installed base of pallets used for transportation is estimated at around 10 billion units.

    “With an average sales price of $10 per unit for regular pallets, the cost of adding connectivity can be justified by increasing efficiency in many logistics operations,” said Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst at Berg Insight.

    “The ability to track pallets can also contribute to extending their lifespan which is currently around two years,” said Ryberg.

    He added that several large industry players are evaluating connected pallets right now and they could proceed with large-scale deployments in the very near future.

    Smart cities and smart agriculture are other potential mass-volume market segments where LPWA technologies will be a key enabler. Berg Insight however believes that there are significant barriers that must be overcome before they can scale.

    Moving from today’s limited smart cities demonstration projects to city-wide deployments will be costly, complex and time-consuming. Smart agriculture is in an even earlier stage of development where the initial focus lies on proof-of-concept and application prototyping.

    “Today’s top IoT devices – the connected car and the smart meter – needed more than a decade to mature”, said Ryberg. “The smart city and the intelligent farm will need at least that much time to grow from vision to reality.”

  • Mobile app usage growth shows signs of slowing

    Mobile app usage growth shows signs of slowing

    The mobile apps industry managed to achieve growth throughout last year, but signs suggest that usage growth is slowing down, according to Yahoo unit Flurry.

    Over the last year, the Flurry footprint grew to track more than 940,000 applications, across 2.1 billion devices, in 3.2 trillion sessions. In this context, app usage is defined as a user opening an app and recording what Flurry calls a “session”, as well as the amount of time spent in the application.

    Compared to the year prior, overall app usage grew by 11% and time-spent in apps grew by 69%. In previous years, all app categories had grown in tandem. However, this year the story is different.

    Mobile apps started eating their own, with session and time-spent growth in some app categories occurring at the expense of others. While Messaging and Social applications drove year-over-year session grow at 44%, the Personalization category gave up a staggering 46% in session usage. This steep decline in usage can be attributed to diminishing value for users of these products.

    In 2016, time spent in Social and Messaging apps grew by a strong 394% over the previous year, proving to be the driver that helped mobile achieve its year-over-year time-spent growth of 69%.

    This is a result of consumers using their social and messaging apps as their voice and video calling utilities, as well as the phenomenon Flurry calls Communitainment. With news and magazines sessions down 5% and Music, Media and Entertainment up only 1%, it’s safe to say that Social has absorbed the media industry.

    Business and Finance (up 43% in time-spent) and Sports (up 25% in time-spent) categories were immune to growth decay because they are intrinsically centered around mobile activities and rely on real time data.

    Gaming, the app category formerly known as “the darling of the mobile industry” saw time-spent decline by 4% year-over-year. Users are increasingly comfortable paying their way through games, with the mobile gaming industry seeing a strong increase in revenues according to Apple’s latest App Store report. Additionally, gaming remains a hit-driven industry.

    This year’s first “hit”, Pokémon Go, faded relatively fast, as consumers lost interest in the game, only returning for marquee holiday events. Another notable hit, Super Mario Run, was released too late in the year to make a difference for the overall engagement numbers.

  • Time spent on social, messaging apps grew fourfold in 2016

    Time spent on social, messaging apps grew fourfold in 2016

    Yahoo’s Flurry this week released its annual State of Mobile report, which found that social and daily habits apps dominated time spent on mobile apps in 2016.

    Specifically, the study found that the time spent in social and messaging apps grew by four times (394%) over the last year, compared to an average growth of 69% across all tracked segments.

    In its eighth year, the study offers insights on global mobile app usage and trends gleaned from over 2.1 billion smart devices and 3.2 trillion sessions. Phablets continue to dominate with 41% of market share, while small phones now account for just 1% of the market share, said the report.

    “Over the last year, the Flurry footprint grew to track more than 940,000 applications, across 2.1 billion devices, in 3.2 trillion sessions. In this context, we define app usage as a user opening an app and recording what we call a ‘session,’ as well as the amount of time spent in the application.” said Simon Khalaf, a senior VP at Yahoo. “Compared to the year prior, overall app usage grew by 11% and time-spent in apps grew by 69%.

    Khalaf noted that not all app categories grew in tandem in 2016, observing that certain categories of mobile apps have continued growing in terms of session and time-spent at the expense of others.

    For instance, a steep decline in usage is evidenced in the personalization category, which the report attributed to diminishing value for users of these products. Ultimately, the decelerating rate of growth could signal market maturity, saturation or simply the end of the app gold rush.

    “But let us put things in perspective. The gold rush in California ended in 1855. A lot of wealth has been generated since then. We are excited to see what app developers do in the next decade and which industry they chose to disrupt, again,” Khalaf said.

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  • App makers not ready for Apple’s new ATS rules

    App makers not ready for Apple’s new ATS rules

    A month before Apple is expected to enforce stricter security requirements for app communications in iOS, enterprise developers are not ready for the changes, a new study indicates.

    The study was performed by security firm Appthority on the most common 200 apps installed on iOS devices being used within enterprise environments. The researchers looked at how well these apps conform to Apple’s App Transport Security (ATS) requirements.

    The researchers found that 97% of the analyzed apps — 193 out of 200 — used exceptions and other settings that weakened the default ATS configuration.

    ATS was first introduced and was enabled by default in iOS 9. The standard forces all apps to communicate with internet servers using encrypted HTTPS (HTTP over SSL/TLS) connections and ensures that only industry-standard encryption protocols and ciphers without known weaknesses are used. For example, SSL version 3 is not allowed and neither is the RC4 stream cipher, due to known vulnerabilities.

    Before ATS, app developers implemented HTTPS using third-party frameworks, but configuring SSL/TLS properly is hard so implementation errors were common. These weakened the protection that the protocol is supposed to provide against traffic snooping and other man-in-the-middle attacks.

    Currently iOS provides a method for apps to opt out of ATS entirely or to use it only for specific connections, but Apple wants to change that. At its Worldwide Developers’ Conference in June, the company announced that it will require all apps published on the App Store to turn on ATS by the end of this year.

    The requirement won’t be enforced at the OS level, but through the App Store review process. Using some of the ATS exceptions will still be possible, but developers will have to provide a “reasonable justification” for using them if they want their apps to be approved.

    “Among the top 200 iOS apps that we analyzed, 166 apps (83%) bypass at least some ATS requirements by setting ‘NSAllowsArbitraryLoads’ attribute to ‘true’ in their Info.plist files,” the Appthority researchers said in their report.

    “However, not all of them bypass ATS requirements for all network connections. For instance, a company can still support ATS requirements for network connections with its domain, while allowing ATS to bypass all other connections.”

    Apps that didn’t use HTTPS for all of their connections include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, Fox News, CNN, BBC, Netflix, ESPN, Hulu, Pandora, Amazon Cloud Player, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, but also utility apps like Flashlight, QR code readers and games.

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  • Meitu’s Hong Kong IPO to value China photo app maker at up to $4.5 billion

    Meitu’s Hong Kong IPO to value China photo app maker at up to $4.5 billion

    Chinese photo app and mobile phone maker Meitu Inc is set to launch an up to $735 million initial public offering in Hong Kong, IFR reported on Monday, citing people close to the deal. Meitu, better known for its apps that let users retouch and beautify selfies and other photos, is offering shares in an indicative range of HK$8.50 to HK$9.60 ($1.10-$1.24) each, added IFR, a Thomson Reuters publication. The IPO is slated to be priced on Dec 8.

    Meitu did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment on the IPO terms. The deal will value Meitu, which counts venture capital investors Qiming Venture Partners, IDG-Accel China and Tiger Global among its backers, at up to $4.5 billion, IFR said.

    The IPO will be a rare technology sector IPO in Hong Kong. Between one-quarter to one-third of the shares will be sold to cornerstone investors, IFR said. That would be much lower than some of the large new listings in the city, including the $7.6 billion IPO of Postal Savings Bank of China (PSBC) in September that had 77 percent of its deal bought by cornerstones.

    Large investments by cornerstone investors hurt liquidity for IPOs once the shares start trading, as the stock is locked up for a minimum of six months. The cornerstone money can also pressure the stock as the expiration of the lock-up period nears. China Merchants Securities, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley were hired as sponsors of the IPO.

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  • Stores in China using apps to increase foot traffic

    Stores in China using apps to increase foot traffic

    A growing number of retail stores in China are using specially designed apps to track shoppers’ behavior in a bid to boost sales.

    Yo-ren, an information technology startup, has developed an app to collect information about members enrolled in reward programs offered by stores. Convenience store operator Lawson has introduced the app at select locations in China.

    The Chinese government has desire to make consumption the primary driver of growth. But spreading online shopping will bring the detriment on brick-and-mortar shops.

    Incentive programs

    In 2015, the Shanghai-based Yo-ren, which provides digital marketing services in China, began supplying Lawson stores in Shanghai with an app to manage the convenience store’s reward points program. Since the beginning of this year, the companies have expanded use of the app to other cities, including Beijing, Dalian and Wuhan.

    The app is designed to provide product information and discount coupons while giving customers reward points based on their purchases.

    Under the current plan, members earn 10 points for each yuan they spend, exchangeable for store coupons, at the rate of 1,000 points for 1 yuan (15 cents).

    Since the service was rolled out, the number of members in Shanghai increased to 350,000. About 15% of them use the app at least once a week. These active users visit Lawson stores three times per week on average.

    Lawson has invested around $900,000 in Yo-ren, which is now using the money to enhance the app’s features.

    Tailored services

    Lawson plans to analyze information collected through the app, such as customer profiles and purchase records, for consumer preferences and trends. Findings will then be used to boost traffic during slow business hours, such as by offering coupons for free cups of coffee between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. at locations close to members’ workplaces.

    Chinese consumers are flocking to internet shopping services provided by Alibaba Group Holding and other e-commerce players. Soaring online purchases are denting earnings at brick-and-mortar retailers, especially department stores.

    Convenience stores have proved less vulnerable to the trend, but Yo-ren CEO Osamu Kaneda said there is still a lot of room for them to boost their ability to attract consumers.

    Yo-ren’s app allows stores to track members in real time. Its features enable stores to analyze customer preferences and then develop new revenue streams from makers through targeted advertising. The app will also help stores tailor their services to match customers’ needs.

    China is in the midst of an economic evolution in which consumer spending is replacing investment and exports as the main driver of economic growth. The service sector is an important link in this shift because it employs large numbers of people.

    But the decline of brick-and-mortar sales will inhibit consumption due to slower job creation in the service sector and lower wages for those jobs.

    To make consumer spending the new engine of economic growth, China needs to engineer a balance between online shopping and sales at traditional retail stores.

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  • Lenovo launches transit app in China

    Lenovo launches transit app in China

    Lenovo has commercially launched its transit application in China with the electronic payment and settlement service provider BMAC (Beijing Municipal Administration and Communications Card).

    The service is supported  on Lenovo X3 smartphones driven by the eSE PEARL by OT (Oberthur Technologies).

    Thanks to OT’s NFC embedded Secure Element, end-users can now use their Lenovo X3 smartphone to install the Beijing Municipal Administration Traffic Card in their Lenovo Transit application and commute simply by waving their phone in front of contactless transit terminals.

    PEARL by OT is described as  the most advanced embedded Secure Element on the market, offering a yet unattained level of security and the largest memory on the market. It allows easy deployment of secure mobile contactless payment, transit, governmental and automotive applications, as well as secure access to online services for enterprise and consumer markets.

    In addition to its eSE, OT provides its Key Management System to Lenovo to manage security domains on the eSE in which partners can securely load, install and run their applications.

    Via its China Secure Hub, a platform used to connect handset makers and their partners in different cities in China, OT also securely ensures the connectivity between Lenovo and BMAC’s TSM provider, Beijing eNFC science and technology.

    “China is often at the forefront of new technologies and we are happy to offer Lenovo users with a convenient, secure and easy-to-use way of commuting with the BMAC application” said Viken Gazarian, deputy managing director of the connected device makers business at OT.

    “PEARL by OT is the best eSE on the market to address the fragmented market of transport systems throughout the world and is the sole component to support international as well as Chinese transit technologies,” said Gazarian.

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  • Renault, Nissan buy French tech firm to develop mobility apps

    Renault, Nissan buy French tech firm to develop mobility apps

    Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co announced on Tuesday they would buy French software development company Sylpheo as they compete with global automakers and tech firms to develop new services including ride hailing and car sharing.

    The French and Japanese automakers said that the acquisition, under which they would absorb Sylpheo’s 40 engineers and consultants, would boost their software development and cloud engineering expertise.

    “The Sylpheo team of software developers and cloud engineers joining the Alliance will have a unique opportunity to work on our next generation of connected cars and other advanced technologies,” said Ogi Redzic, Renault-Nissan’s senior vice president of Connected Vehicles and Mobility Services.

    “They will be playing a critical role in this new era of tremendous change for the global auto industry.”

    Automakers from Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) to General Motors (GM.N) have been investing in software firms and mobility start-ups to position themselves for the rise of autonomous driving, ride-sharing and other connected services which threaten the traditional vehicle ownership model that has dominated the past century.

    Sylpheo will develop the applications for the alliance’s connected car service platform, a Renault spokeswoman said. She said the acquisition was part of the alliance’s recruitment push to hire 300 technology experts to better compete in the fast-growing mobility services sector.

    These services will be integrated with autonomous driving technologies. In July, Nissan launched a suite of semi-autonomous driving functions in one of its Japanese minivan models which enables the vehicle to drive on single lane motorways and navigate congestion.

    The two companies plan to launch more than 10 vehicles with autonomous drive technology by 2020. Nissan is aiming to develop autonomous multiple-lane driving functions, including lane changes, by 2018, and functions for full urban driving, including intersection turns, by 2020.

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  • Telstra ramps up mobile offers as streaming go small screen

    Telstra ramps up mobile offers as streaming go small screen

    New research reveals mobile video streaming is growing at more than 30% a year and on-demand TV, sports and music is changing when and where Australians watch their favorite entertainment, according to Telstra.

    To help customers make the most of the mobile streaming revolution, Telstra has included a three-month subscription to all three leading streaming video providers Netflix, Stan and Presto on selected mobile plans.

    Also, Telstra mobile plan customers can now enjoy Apple Music with data-free music streaming which means listening to all your favorite songs, albums and playlists without tapping into their data allowance.

    Further, Telstra launched a new app that makes it easy to discover all the sports and entertainment content included in Telstra mobile plans.

    “Telstra mobile customers can now get Netflix, Stan and Presto, unmetered Apple Music and free access to live NRL or AFL, Netball and Basketball, providing an unmatched mobile entertainment experience,” said Michele Garra, Telstra’s executive director for media.

    She said Australians have embraced streaming video services like Netflix in their lounge rooms and that appetite is now seen translated to phones and tablets outside the home.

    “Network traffic surges during the morning and afternoon commute, suggesting two new prime-time periods are emerging, as people discover how easy it to continue watching their favorite shows on the go,” said Garra.

    Garra said to make it easier for customers to discover the full range of entertainment options available to them as part of their plan Telstra is introducing the Telstra TV+ app for mobiles.

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  • More than 1 in 4 cloud apps are high risk

    More than 1 in 4 cloud apps are high risk

    More than a quarter (27%) of third-party apps can be classified as high risk, according to research from CloudLock Cyberlab.

    Analysis conducted across 10 million users, 1 billion files, and nearly 160,000 unique applications found that cybercriminals can exploit weaknesses in high-risk apps to gain programmatic access to corporate platforms impersonating end users. 

    The shadow IT dilemma is meanwhile only becoming more challenging as usage is increasing exponentially year over year, the company said.

    The past three years saw nearly a 30 times increase in the number of apps detected, from 5,500 to nearly 160,000. Each application instance represents a backdoor through which hackers can infiltrate and externalize sensitive corporate assets.

    CloudLock Cyberlab said an organization may embrace its employees’ “shadow” exploration of innovative technology solutions and sanction a subset of these apps as Productivity IT, but it’s essential to closely monitor the connected third-party apps and identify cloud native malware in real time.

    Security conscious enterprises recognize the high risk associated with connected third-party apps and take immediate action. While apps can be banned for any number of reasons, including concerns around productivity, a clear majority are banned because of the security vulnerabilities they introduce. 

    The key recommendation is to reduce cloud app risk by establishing an acceptable use policy, with which organizations can significantly reduce the application risk level organization-wide. Automating whitelisting or banning of potentially risky applications is an effective strategy. 

    “The shift to the cloud creates a new, virtual security perimeter that includes third-party apps granted access to corporate systems,” said Ayse Kaya Firat, CloudLock director of customer insights and analytics.

    “Today, most employees leverage a wide variety of apps to get their jobs done efficiently, unwittingly exposing corporate data and systems to malware and the possibility of data theft.”

  • Asia Pacific Premium OTT Market Will Experience Exponential Growth Despite Challenges

    Asia Pacific Premium OTT Market Will Experience Exponential Growth Despite Challenges

    Vindicia, the leader in enterprise-class subscription billing, and Ooyala, a leading video, analytics, and advertising technology provider, today announced key findings from a study that explores the Asia Pacific (APAC) market opportunity for premium over-the-top (OTT) services. Conducted by top research and strategy consultancy, MTM, the findings reveal significant challenges to expansion due to broadband infrastructure and content localization, revenues are expected to grow strongly between now and 2019.

    The report explores the evolution of premium OTT in APAC, focusing on three key territories: Australia, Indonesia and Thailand. Over 80 participants, including a broad range of senior industry professionals, provided their perspectives on current and future market trends and developments.

    The study’s central finding was that despite challenges, APAC’s premium OTT market will undergo rapid growth by 2019: from around $85M in 2015 to $230M in Australia; from $7M to $40M in Indonesia; and from $8M to $45M in Thailand. Local service providers will own a significant portion of the market and will dominate in Indonesia and Thailand, while Netflix will be the dominant player in Australia.

    The study highlights three main challenges to premium OTT market expansion:

    • Broadband infrastructure. Industry executives believe broadband infrastructure challenges and limited access to affordable fixed-line services are significant barriers to growth. In Australia, the average connection speed is 8.2 MBps, about half that of the UK and US. Thailand has a similar average of 9.2 MBps, but only 9 percent of consumers subscribe. In Indonesia, there is only 1 percent broadband penetration with an average speed of 3.9 MBps. Participants view APAC as a mobile-first market.
    • Content localization. Despite the appeal of international content, respondents believe local-language programming is essential to the proliferation of premium OTT services in Indonesia and Thailand. Furthermore, they expect stiff competition among local pay-TV providers over licensing of existing local content libraries.
    • The Netflix Factor. While the presence of Netflix will drive OTT market expansion in general, consumers will struggle with Netflix’s one-size-fits-all offering. Because of this, there will be a period of uncertainty as consumers choose between standalone Netflix and competing offerings from local content providers, whose multiplatform and bundled packages ultimately may prove more appealing.

    “There’s no doubt that Asia Pacific is a hotbed of premium OTT service expansion that will evolve based on regional nuances, tastes and economics,” said Bryta Schulz, Vindicia senior vice president of marketing. “The next 12 to 24 months will function less as a test of whether or not premium OTT will take off, but more as a measure of how it will penetrate popular appetites. Among the creative and flexible approaches to generating reliable revenue, service providers will need platforms that can accommodate a range of content delivery and payment preferences. This is where solutions from Ooyala and Vindicia become vital.”

    “Intensifying OTT competition and major market consolidation, like what we’re seeing in Australia, are key identifiers of an industry on the crux of a massive opportunity,” said Vice President and General Manager of APAC for Ooyala, Keith Budge. “APAC OTT providers must build a rich, personalized user experience with unique content offerings that are competitively priced, and further, have a data-driven approach to understand audience behavior and preferences. Having analytics and insights will be a major differentiator to drive revenue and reduce churn as new OTT services launch into the market.”

    “The study provides a snapshot of industry perspectives about the prospects for premium OTT across the region. Local executives are positive and excited about future market prospects – and expect local players to perform strongly, especially in Thailand and Indonesia,” said Jon Watts, managing partner and co-founder at MTM. “International providers will need to find ways to partner with local pay-TV providers, telcos and ISPs to gain traction with local customers.”

  • Apple, SAP enter cloud apps partnership

    Apple, SAP enter cloud apps partnership

    Apple and SAP have teamed up to combine native apps for iPhone and iPad with the capabilities of the SAP HANA platform.

    This joint effort will also focus on developing a new iOS software development kit (SDK) and training academy.

    According to the companies, the SAP HANA Cloud Platform SDK will provide businesses, designers and developers the tools to quickly and efficiently build their own iOS apps for iPhone and iPad, based on SAP HANA Cloud Platform, SAP’s open platform as a service.

    These native apps will provide access to core data and business processes on SAP S/4HANA, while taking full advantage of iPhone and iPad features like Touch ID, Location Services and Notifications.

    A new SAP Fiori for iOS design language will advance the SAP Fiori user experience by combining it with a consumer-grade iOS experience to deliver on the robust user needs in the enterprise and enable developers to build next-generation apps.

    SAP will also develop native iOS apps for critical business operations. These apps for iPhone and iPad will be built with Swift, Apple’s modern, secure and interactive programming language, and will offer a familiar user experience with the SAP Fiori for iOS design language.

    “This partnership will transform how iPhone and iPad are used in enterprise by bringing together the innovation and security of iOS with SAP’s deep expertise in business software,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

    “Through the new SDK, we’re empowering SAP’s more than 2.5 million developers to build powerful native apps that fully leverage SAP HANA Cloud Platform and tap into the incredible capabilities that only iOS devices can deliver.”

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  • Apkasi to prepare online app system to ease investors

    Apkasi to prepare online app system to ease investors

    The All Indonesia District Administrations Association (Apkasi) will set up an online application system to make it easier for those seeking to invest in the countrys regions, its chairman Mardani H Maming said here on Saturday.

    “The online application system will help investors wishing to know about potential of any region,” he said, adding the system is planned to be launched in 2017.

    Mardani, who is also the district head of Tanah Bumbu, South Kalimantan province, stated that he hoped the new system would make importers able to buy commodities directly from producers.

    Also, the same system could be used as a mechanism for distributing subsidy to regions in need, he explained.

    Citing an example, he said a region that did not produce rice could obtain the produce from other regions to ensure it remained well stocked.

    Apkasi organized Investment and Trade International Summit 2016 at JIExpo Kemayoran in Central Jakarta from May 5-7 in an effort to attract investment.

    Mardani informed that a number of investment and trade related transactions were made during the event, including in plantation, animal husbandry, infrastructure and tourism sectors.

    “Memorandums of understanding have also been signed with foreign parties, including those from Japan and China,” he said.

    In the speech marking the events conclusion on Saturday, President Joko Widodo urged the regional governments in the country to develop their respective regions potential.

    He called on them to focus on a certain area for efficiency and to also ease control.

    He cited the example of a region that only provided golfing facilities and grew as a result.

    “It is not impossible for regions here to develop only sugar or fish. If they do so, these will become known as sugar or fish regions,” he said.

    He also asked the regional governments to speed up the licensing process.

    “If BKPM (capital investment coordinating board) could finish the process of giving eight licenses within an hour, the regional governments must also be able to do the same,” he stated.

    The government is continuing to make efforts to improve ease of doing business in the country, he said.

    “Several years ago, we were ranked 120th in ease of doing business index. Last year, we were at 109th out of 189 countries, far below the list topper Singapore, or Malaysia at 18th and Thailand at 49th,” he elaborated.

    He said he has ordered the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs to ensure that the country achieves the 40th rank this year, he said.

    “Breakthroughs must be made to achieve it. This is our common task. It is not impossible to achieve it, but we need to work hard. We must not be at ranks lower than 100 or so forever,” he urged.

    The president again reminded that Indonesia has now entered a competitive era, and said, “If we are unable to change ourselves, we will be run over. We must win the competition if we wish to become a victorious nation.”

  • Most consumers install apps carelessly

    Most consumers install apps carelessly

    Kaspersky Lab has has published research indicating that consumers are installing apps on their devices, without being aware of the potential consequences.

    Kaspersky Lab’s “Are you cyber savvy?” Quiz, which questioned 18,507 consumers about their online habits, found that an alarming number of consumers are leaving their privacy, and the data on their phones, exposed to cyberthreats because they are not installing apps on their devices safely.

    A “shocking” 63% of consumers neglect to read the license agreement carefully before installing a new app on their phone and one-in-five (20%) do not read messages when installing apps. They simply go through the motions of clicking “next” and “agree,” without understanding what they could be signing up to.

    When users neglect to read license agreements or messages during the app installation process, they do not know what they are agreeing to. Some apps can affect user privacy, prompt the installation of other apps, or even change the OS settings of a device completely legally, because the user has “agreed” to it during the installation process.

    The quiz also discovered that just under half (43%) of users could be at risk from the apps on their mobile device, because they are not “cyber-savvy” enough to limit app permissions when installing apps.

    Further, 15% of respondents do not limit what their apps can do on their phone at all and 17% give apps permissions when prompted, but then forget about it, while 11% think they cannot change those permissions.

    When app permissions are left unchecked, it is possible, and legal, for apps to access the personal and private data on mobile devices, from contact information, to photos and location data.

    To protect themselves, consumers should only download apps from trusted sources; select the apps you wish to install on your device wisely; read the license agreement carefully during the installation process; read the list of permissions an app is requesting carefully. Do not simply click “next” during installation, without checking what you are agreeing to; and use a cybersecurity solution that will protect your device from cyberthreats.

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