Students may get to see marked public exam papers

The exams authority is considering the unorthodox move of allowing students to view their own question papers once they have been marked, the board's outgoing secretary-general has revealed.

Peter Hill, who retired yesterday, said the introduction of on-screen marking for all subjects in the first round of the new diploma in 2012 would mean the authority would have the capacity for the first time to give students access to digital versions of marked scripts.

"We are looking at introducing this for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education," Dr Hill said, referring to the new set of exams due to be sat by students in Form Two.

But he also had a warning: "People might go to a professor and say, `Mark my paper. Did I get an A?' " he said. "You know that some of that is going to happen, but we need to have confidence that our markers are well-trained: they are following marking guides that external people don't have access to; they are being monitored on a regular basis; and the reliability of marking is very high."

However, he said there was no question of giving candidates hard copies or allowing them to access the files online.

"It would be in a designated place at designated times," he said, adding the authority would probably allow students to view the papers at one of the new regional on-screen marking centres, accompanied by an adult.

Christmas assignments

Dear 6ab1 fellow students,

I know you're still having fun during your first long holidays at NMC. Still, I have to remind you all that you have your homework to finish. I've heard from Andria that you have M&S homework to do, and I want to remind you all that you have to finish your Combined (the orange textbook) Set 1 Section E. We will check the answers together next Thursday.

Finish your homework first and enjoy the rest of the Christmas holidays.

Best regards,
Mr. Fu

TIME's Person of the Year: Putin

Putin was chosen as the TIME's Person of the Year. There were other runners-up including Al Gore, J.K Rowling and Hu Jintao. Go and take a look at the stories.

Link to the site.

The world's fastest clapper - 721 times in 1 min.

Touch cube points to future toys

Thousands of people will be unwrapping their shiny new gadgets at Christmas but one British artist and engineer is hoping his creation will find its way under trees in time for the next festive period.

Andrew Fentem has worked on innovative human computer interfaces for some time, after beginning his career in military research and development, specifically missiles.

His work today is part-art, part hobby, part business venture.

His latest creation, the Fentix Cube, is generating a lot of interest from toy manufacturers and buzz on the internet, based on a few clips he put on YouTube.

Link to the story.

Here's the demonstration video.

Christmas Greetings

Dear 6AB1 students,

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Sincerely thank you for all the support you have given me. I wish you all a spectacular 2008.

Yours,
Mr. Fu

Are they empty cans? Or are they high-tech devices?

Tin "cantenna"

In Peebles Valley, a small rural community in eastern South Africa, they demonstrate how tin cans could link the people of this community with each other, and the wider world.

To prove the point Click visited an Aids clinic where 2,000 patients receive treatment. The clinic has long had a satellite dish to access its online database, but until recently the idea of making contact just over the hill was a different story.

Clinic manager Harry Munnings said: "The biggest problem was the communication between the clinic and the community hospice; the doctors are at the clinic and the nursing team is at the hospice, and if they ever wanted to call the doctors it could get quite complicated."

No landline or mobile signal, and two places several kilometres apart who needed to talk to each other.

Cabling an area like this is too expensive, so some kind of wireless link would seem to make sense.

However, a conventional wi-fi network setup does not have the range. A regular wi-fi aerial ripples the beam out in every direction, which limits how far it can travel. And that is where tin cans combined with antennas come in - the so-called "cantenna".

Stick the antenna inside the can and the can's shape and characteristics focus all the energy of the beam in one direction.

It is astonishing to think a cantenna can push a signal across such a distance, but there are some drawbacks. Over time, they rust, which means they need to be replaced.

More significantly, cantennas need a direct line of sight to each other, or they will not work at all.

That is a problem in this hilly terrain. So the answer is to connect the clinic to the hospice indirectly, using other cantennas dotted around the hills in a so-called mesh network, which seamlessly passes the signal from one point to another.

The benefits are huge. The hospice has got online and is connected directly to the clinic. Nurses use voice-over-internet calls back to the clinic, and they have access to the online database of patients too.

And what is really cool is that everybody else involved whose cantenna links to the network gets on the network too.

This means they get internet access, can send instant messages, e-mails and make net phone calls.

HK vs Singapore: not just a numbers game

After his visit to Singapore last month for the Asean summit, Premier Wen Jiabao told Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen that Hong Kong "is facing very strong competition from Singapore" and that "the situation is pressing".

His observation is supported by the fact that Hong Kong was ranked below Singapore in 11 of 16 well-regarded surveys comparing the merits of cities around the world, the Sunday Morning Post has found.

In general, Hong Kong fared well in surveys measuring economic freedom, corporate governance and general well-being, but it fell behind Singapore in the quality of its business environment.

The Hong Kong government accords high priority to such rankings, at least when the city does well.

On January 16, the government issued a press release drawing attention to the city's top ranking in the Heritage Foundation's economic freedom index for the 13th consecutive year.

No press release was issued by the government when the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report saw Hong Kong slide from 10th to 12th place last month. At the same time, Singapore rose one place to seventh in the report.

The director of the Centre for Economic Development at the University of Science and Technology, Francis Lui Ting-ming, said Singapore was better than Hong Kong at attracting talent, but rankings did not necessarily paint the whole picture.

"Singapore does very good PR for overseas media, and their policies are aimed at attracting foreign companies, which is perhaps why they score higher in these rankings," Professor Lui said.

"But does Singapore have a Li Ka-shing or a Sun Hung Kai? Can you imagine them producing a Jimmy Lai Chee-ying?" he said.

In the other direction, Hong Kong swapped places with Singapore in CLSA's Asian corporate governance ranking, toppling the Lion City from top spot this year based on its willingness to pursue further reforms.

"Many of [Singapore's] disclosure standards are higher than those of Hong Kong," the report said, but its analysts felt Singapore had become complacent and deemed it had already reached acceptable standards.

"Hong Kong may not be attacking its problems with vigour or urgency, but at least it continues to progress," the report said. It also said Hong Kong remained ahead of Singapore in terms of shareholder rights, private enforcement and media freedom.

The most recent rankings, released by the Asian Development Bank on December 10, also showed Hong Kong's gross domestic product per capita as ranking below both Singapore and new economic powerhouse Macau. Hong Kong generates HK$202,941 in GDP per person a year, Macau generates HK$211,907 and Singapore HK$235,923.

However, Hong Kong's appetite for household consumption, at an average of HK$125,303 a year, makes it the best for household living standards in Asia.

All the ADB rankings were based on figures for 2005 and surveyed Asian countries only.

Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, an executive councillor and professor in the department of public and social administration at City University, said it was "dangerous to compare the performances of Hong Kong and Singapore simplistically".

"We are talking about two different governance traditions and two different political contexts," he said. "Hong Kong has always cherished minimum government intervention and Singapore a state-led developmental model."