Perish the thought | Bangkok Post: tech

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The alleged "plan" by Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij to change the current yuppiephone concession contracts - and incidentally mortally wound Shin Corp and its No 1 network Advanced Info Service although that's not the purpose, perish the thought - has thrown business, government, regulators and even the Senate into a tizzy; the kindest people said Mr Korn had good intentions, lousy planning; others were not so charitable; they noted that his plan to issue AIS, Dtac of Norway and True Move of Thailand with 15-year licences was highly questionable in legal terms, and almost impossible to regulate; Anant Vorathitipong, vice-chairman of the Senate subcommittee on communications technology, warned that the minister could land the government in lawsuits up to taxpayers' necks.

An inventive man with a smidgen of programming experience presents ifitwasmyhome.com, a mashup of the latest spread of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico over a Google map of anywhere on Earth. This was Day 86, the day after the oil flow was turned off.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva proved to the nation the truth of the old saying that "the Internet routes around censorship"; when the censorship board banned Khor Thod Prathet Thai (Thailand, We Apologise), the prime minister did what hundreds of thousands of other law-breaking Thais did: he went online, found the video there, and viewed it anyhow. In order to thoroughly confuse the nation and regain his status as a politician able to remain on both sides of an issue, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva noted that state officials have to "take action" (as he put it) against certain Internet sites with inappropriate content; he said he sees a future with new laws on computers, IT technology and contempt, a future where the government magnanimously doles out time on government media, and the whole of the electronic media will contain fully appropriate material.

Juti Krairiksh, minister of Internet Censorship in Thailand (MICT), told the Bangkok Post his top priority apart from sniffing out dodgy websites is to get high-speed Internet to the up-country masses, via what he has cutely dubbed "the Wireless Road project"; Mr Juti said he hoped to finish the five-year programme in two years, and spread web access to remote Border Patrol Police schools and community libraries via satellite; he will also contract universities such as Naresuan and Prince of Songkla to churn out IT experts, and the Rajabhat universities to graduate scads of IT teachers; Mr Juti bragged that one of his greatest achievements was the arrest of three people who posted information critical of the monarchy.

What the country needs, said DSI deputy-director Pol Col Yanaphon Youngyuen, is a bunch of "cyberwarriors" to catch all that online tax cheating that is going on; the Department of Special Investigation believes traders are doing business on the Net to avoid taxes, and the Revenue Department is fully empowered to go after them; Pol Col Yanaphon, by coincidence, is chairman of the Thailand Webmaster Association. Statistic of the week, courtesy of deputy DSI sleuth and webmaster extraordinaire Pol Col Yanaphon Youngyuen: the Pattaya post office does so much business in shipping stuff in and out of the country, to and from eBay and the like, that it is the second biggest post office money maker after the main PO on Charoen Krung Road in Bang Rank district of Bangkok.

The company formerly known as Shin Satellite does not have a choice about whether to launch a new satellite, opined Sue Lor-uthai, chairman of a committee to investigate the monopoly concession of Thaicom - it must launch a new bird to replace the failed Thaicom 3; Mr Sue, who by coincidence is also the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Internet Censorship in Thailand (MICT), noted that nine other committees are investigating this and other concessions linked back to companies founded by the world's only fugitive ex-PM.

Driver Kittiwong Kaewbumrung and his Team ATE won the Shell Eco-Marathon Asia by designing a car that ran 1,521.9 kilometres on a litre of petrol; Japanese and Chinese teams came second and third in the 10-nation, 80-team competition, 13 of them Thai; Team ATE spent three months practising out to drain every last metre out of the fuel available. Alicia Ann Laisuthruklai beat 11 competitors from six countries to win the Smartest FuelSaver award at the Shell Eco-Marathon Asia; Ms Alicia drop 15.648km with a litre of the sponsor's petrol, almost a kilometre past the second-place Malaysian; here prize was a new Toyota.

Sanjay Sachdev, president for vice at marketing services firm Experian, told the media that business analytics can actually change their marketing to make it more relevant; he said the Thai marketing industry is still in infancy and needs help to upgrade its immature, non-targeted messages to specific audiences; by coincidence, Experian can do this if you hire them.

Iomega of America launched sales of their relatively cheap Wireless Data Station; the hub has no storage itself, but allows four simultaneous USB connections.