Parents' Day

Dear 6AB1 students,

I know you're all under stress today. I've done my best to convey the message to your parents. You may not be happy with what I've said, but I think those messages are important for you and for your parents. No matter whether you are happy or not, I really hope all of you can reflect on your problems and do better next time.

Regards,
Mr. Fu

Edison leaves HK after police investigations

A week after apologising for his role in the celebrity sex-photos scandal, Edison Chen Koon-hei left Hong Kong yesterday as police ended their inquiries with him.

A statement from his lawyer said Chen wished to inform members of the media that he had given full and helpful co-operation to the police in the past few days since returning to the city to explain his role in the controversy.

"The Hong Kong police have informed Mr Chen, through his legal counsel, that the request from the police for Mr Chen's assistance has concluded ... and that no further assistance is required of him in the immediate future," the statement added.

There had been media speculation that Chen would face a criminal investigation for his role in the scandal, and suggestions that the case involved more than pictures being stolen from his computer.

Last night, police said they had obtained the information they needed at this stage. "Police need time to follow up the information. The case is still being investigated," a police spokesman said.

Chen's management company confirmed he had left Hong Kong but declined to reveal his whereabouts.

The beleaguered star returned from the United States last Thursday, weeks after the scandal broke. He admitted he had taken the pictures of female celebrities engaging in sex acts with him that had been circulated on the internet around the world.

He apologised to Hongkongers and the women involved and announced he would quit the local entertainment scene indefinitely.

He has not spoken in public since then and had been staying at the Four Seasons Hotel in Central and giving statements at police headquarters in Wan Chai, accompanied by privately hired and police bodyguards.

Lawyer and lawmaker James To Kun-sun said Chen was "cleared from the case for the moment only".

"The police state he is now a witness in the case, based on the information they have so far. It does not mean 100 per cent that he is totally free. And Chen may be required to come back to Hong Kong for more investigations or to testify in court later," Mr To said.

Two men linked to the scandal are still on bail. Kwok Chun-wai, a 24-year-old clerk, is alleged to have posted two internet hyperlinks to a website from which people could download 100 explicit photographs.

Sze Ho-chun, 23, a computer technician, is accused of dishonestly accessing a computer. The prosecution has asked for more time as police work on the case.

SCMP. Feb 29, 2008

More teenagers ignoring CDs, report says

SAN FRANCISCO — Going to the mall to buy music may no longer be a rite of passage for adolescents.

For the first time last year, nearly half of all teenagers bought no compact discs, a dramatic increase from 2006, when 38% of teens shunned such purchases, according to a new report released Tuesday.

The illegal sharing of music online continued to soar in 2007, but there was one sign of hope that legal downloading was picking up steam. In the last year, Apple Inc.'s iTunes store, which sells only digital downloads, jumped ahead of Best Buy Co. to become the No. 2 U.S. music seller, trailing Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

That could be hopeful news for the music industry, which has been scrambling in recent years to replace its rapidly disappearing CD sales with music sold online. The number of CDs sold in the U.S. fell 19% in 2007 from the previous year while sales of digital songs jumped 45%, Nielsen SoundScan said.

The number of people buying music legally from online music stores jumped 21% to 29 million last year from 24 million in 2006, according to the study by NPD Group, a market research firm in Port Washington, N.Y.

NPD declined to release figures on individual retailers' sales or their market shares, so it is impossible to know how close iTunes sales are to Wal-Mart's. The NPD market ranking of music retailers is based on a study of the music habits of Americans 13 and older over the last week.

The report, which involved 5,000 people who answered questions online, highlighted a generational split. The increase in legal online sales was driven by people 36 to 50, the report said, giving the music industry an opportunity to target these customers by tapping into its older catalogs.

That's not to say iTunes is not popular with the younger set. Mallory Portillo, 24, an executive assistant in Santa Monica, said she hadn't bought a CD in five years, but typically spent more than $100 a month buying music online. She will turn to illegal music sharing sites only if she can't find new releases or more obscure music on iTunes, she said.

Buying online saves her the step of having to load a CD onto her laptop so that she can then transfer the files to her iPod.

Her most recent purchase came two days ago, when she spent $19.99 on iTunes for Michael Jackson's 25th anniversary edition of "Thriller."

"Hopefully it doesn't come back to haunt me one day that my 'Thriller' CD is on my computer and therefore not a collector's item," she said.

The increase in online spending didn't offset the revenue lost from the drop in CD sales and from illegal downloading. Last year, about 1 million consumers stopped buying CDs, according to NPD.

Continue reading at LA Times

Sony announces US$499 (HK$3,892) Metal Gear Solid PS3 bundle, God of War PSP pack

It's no surprise that Sony has had some sort of new PS3 SKU in the works, but the company has now finally gotten official with it, and thrown in another surprise to boot. On that former front, Sony's announced the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3 Bundle, which includes said game, an 80GB PS3 and a DualShock 3 wireless controller (also available separately), all for the usual $500 price tag. Look for it to coincide with the launch of MGS4 in the second quarter of this year. As if that wasn't enough, Sony's also taken the wraps off its new God of War PSP Entertainment Pack, which includes a spiffy red Kratos-approved PSP, the God of War: Chains of Olympus game, Superbad on UMD, and a voucher to download Syphon Filter: Combat Ops for free. $200 and it's yours this June.

Engadget.

Youtube outage connected to PCCW

Pakistan's attempts to block access to YouTube have been blamed for a near global blackout of the site on Sunday.
Google, the owner of YouTube, blamed the outage on "erroneous internet protocols", sourced in Pakistan

BBC News has learned that the nearly two-hour long blackout was almost certainly connected to Pakistan Telecom and internet service provider PCCW.

The country ordered ISPs to block the video-sharing website because of content deemed offensive to Islam.

The BBC News website's technology editor, Darren Waters, says that to block Pakistan's citizens from accessing YouTube it is believed Pakistan Telecom "hijacked" the web server address of the popular video site.

Those details were then passed on to the country's internet service providers so that anyone in Pakistan attempting to go to YouTube was instead re-directed to a different address.
But the details of the "hijack" were leaked out into the wider internet from PCCW and as a result YouTube was mistakenly blocked by internet service providers around the world.

The block on the servers was lifted once PCCW had been told of the issue by engineers at YouTube.

A statement from Google said that the problems lasted for "about two hours".

"Traffic to YouTube was routed according to erroneous internet protocols, and many users around the world could not access our site," it said.

"We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan. We are investigating and working with others in the internet community to prevent this from happening again."

PCCW said it was aware of the occurrence and was "reviewing the event with the appropriate internal and external parties."

A leading net professional told BBC News: "This was probably a simple mistake by an engineer at Pakistan Telecom. There's nothing to suggest this was malicious."

IP hijacking involves taking over a web site's unique address by corrupting the internet's routing tables, which direct the flow of data around the world.

Cause of ban

Reports said Pakistan made the move because YouTube content included Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have outraged many.

But one report said a trailer for a forthcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, which portrays Islam in a negative light, was behind the ban.

HAVE YOUR SAY Using religious beliefs as a reason to block websites is completely unacceptable John, UK

"They [Pakistan's telecommunications authority] asked us to ban it immediately... and the order says the ban will continue until further notice," said Wahaj-us-Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers.

The government decision has caused uproar in Pakistan, according to Wahaj-us-Siraj:

"Users are quite upset. They're screaming at ISPs which can't do anything.

"The government has valid reason for that, but they have to find a better way of doing it. If we continue blocking popular websites, people will stop using the internet."

Other countries that have temporarily blocked access to YouTube include Turkey and Thailand.

BBC News

Nude awakening

Dear 6AB1 students,

This is a piece of good article about different issues of the whole scandal.

Mr. Fu

Amid the public furore over the posting of intimate photographs of celebrities on the internet, some fundamental issues have been overlooked

Sex sells, and celebrity sells. So combine the two and Hong Kong's recent drama over nude pictures of intimate moments allegedly involving Canto-pop star Edison Chen Koon-hei and a host of other celebrities has all the elements of a gripping public scandal.
It has been difficult to avoid the drama that has unfolded on news-stands in the past three weeks over images reportedly of Chen and Canto-pop singer Gillian Chung Yan-tung, Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi, former actress Bobo Chan Man-woon, model-actress Rachel Ngan Wing-sze and others.

"I think Hong Kong is now hostile towards them collectively," Chan Shun-hing, assistant professor of the department of cultural studies at Lingnan University said.

"People looked at these nude pictures and criticised the people in the pictures in different ways. The fact is that these pictures are stolen, but no one talks about this.

"The reality is some people are accessing these nude pictures happily. They comment on these people and become excited about the issue. It shows that society is sick."

The level of interest in the issue has overshadowed what some experts see as fundamental issues in the matter - that of privacy and the hypocrisy of a society being at the same time fascinated and outraged by the images. To most people, sexual affairs between two adults is a personal matter. Yet that belief seems to have been overlooked amid the media hype.

"The pictures themselves do not leave too much room for discussion, but the amount of interest generated has fuelled a fiery debate," said Lui Tai-lok, a sociology professor at Chinese University.

"These pictures are supposed to be kept within the private sphere and are not for discussion in the public forum. However, this point has not been taken seriously. My observation is that people are not very certain about key points in the debate."

Although there is so far one man and seven women in the pictures circulating on the internet, Chen and Chung are at the centre of the storm. It has been widely suggested that the images were sourced from a computer which Chen was having repaired.

Chung, the only celebrity to have shown up in public since the scandal broke, has attracted the most interest.

As part of the singing duo Twins, 27-year-old Chung began to make a name for herself in 2001. She and her Twins partner, Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin, have won many awards and Chung received a best actress nomination at the 2004 Golden Bauhinia awards for her role in Beyond our Ken.

Chung's first taste of adverse publicity was on August 22, 2006, when Easy Finder magazine published revealing photos of her in a changing room after a Twins concert in Malaysia. Following the incident she cried at a press conference and won much public sympathy.

At her first public appearance after the latest scandal broke, Chung described herself as silly and naive - without directly admitting the pictures were of her. Although she was praised for being brave enough to face the public, she was also criticised for being "too happy" and "insincere" - as she did not cry at the press conference.

The tide of public opinion appears to have turned against her in some quarters after more than 2,000 complaints were received this week following Chung's appearance on a Sunday night charity programme. Some people complained to TVB that Chung should be banned from future shows. On internet chat sites she has been described as a "lustful woman", and there have been calls for her to quit the entertainment business immediately.

One parent was reported to have told the media: "Gillian is an angel, she shouldn't be like that."

But Professor Lui said: "Who says Gillian is an angel? It is the media's construction. The type of discussion that has taken place on the issue reflects the hypocrisy of society."

Dr Chan added: "This reflects how suppressed our society is in regards to sex. Gillian's image is created by the entertainment business as an immature girl who is desexualised. While some parents consider sex is harmful, they now judge Gillian as immoral. She is consumed by society as an image rather than as a woman.

"Therefore, although Gillian Chung is 27 years old, when the adult side of Gillian is exposed, her image as a `good girl' is tarnished. Then she becomes the target of a witch-hunt."

The public profile of the main player in the scandal, Edison Chen, has suffered badly in the three weeks since the pictures surfaced. Despite showing remorse in a video statement, Chen seems to have won little compassion from the public. In one video on the internet he was portrayed as Osama bin Laden, and other critics have labelled him "sick" for allegedly having the pictures stored on his computer.

Chen's boss, Peter Lam Kin-ngok, said Chen should take responsibility and return to Hong Kong to explain the affair to the public.

"Our society expects a man to not have too many sex partners, seeing it as immoral ... However, his situation is already better than other female actresses. This also reflects that the moral judgments made of a man and a woman are different nowadays." Dr Chan said.

Chen, 27, joined the entertainment business in 1999. Not renowned for his acting or his singing abilities, he is perhaps best known for his supporting role in the hit movie Infernal Affairs.

However, much of his fame in recent years has been documented in Hong Kong's entertainment magazines, which have featured many stories about Chen's love affairs with actresses. The articles often portray him as young, ambitious and more than a little self-assured.

Amid the recent media hype have been many and varied reports, one that blackmail was involved in the release of the nude pictures. Rumours have also surfaced that someone had threatened to kill Chen or have his hand cut off. Some reported that Chen was having sex therapy in Canada, where his mother lived. Another report claimed he had committed suicide.

Professor Lui said the level of rumour showed a public propensity to follow gossip and allow the debate to stray from the core issues. "This shows there is no real judgment in modern society," he said. "People will ask why Edison Chen was so careless that he lost his pictures or allowed them to be stolen."

While the scandal has prompted various value judgments and criticism from the public, some internet users have praised one of the picture suppliers, "Kira", as a hero. Their comments on the internet seem supportive of Chung Yik-tin, who was charged with publishing an obscene article over the scandal after he allegedly disseminated the images. The charge was later withdrawn after the Obscene Articles Tribunal ruled the images were indecent, not obscene.

Ma Ngok, associate professor with the department of government and public administration at Chinese University, thinks such online support is understandable. "Some people are dissatisfied with the way the police have ignored human rights in past years," he said. "The way police have handled Edison Chen's case reinforces the concept that the rule of law is for rich people.

"To many internet users and youngsters, disseminating pornographic pictures - like using BitTorrent, wearing the 14K T-shirt or reading the so-called obscene article in the student paper of the Chinese University - is not morally wrong. Therefore, they cannot accept why the police have to pick someone out," Professor Ma said.

There is also another issue relating to the dashed expectations of young fans. Some Hong Kong educational groups have blamed celebrities for setting a bad example for youngsters. One religious group is trying to promote this year as "virginity year", and circulars have been distributed in some schools to advise teachers on how to stop students viewing the nude pictures.

But not all parents are fearful of the scandal and its perceived effects on their children. Elizabeth Quat of the Hong Kong Alliance of Parents Association said some parents had freely discussed the issue with their teenage children, with some asking their children to help them locate the nude images.

Professor Lui said: "Some teachers and parents are very nervous. However, throughout the whole discussion, no one has asked how the youngsters consume these pictures," he said, referring to the way they accessed and processed the content.

Doreen Weisenhaus, an expert in media law at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre, said: "This is the first such scandal in Hong Kong. It is natural for the public and the media to have paid so much attention. The public and the media in Hong Kong are showing a similar reaction to when similar scandalous cases occur in Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea. Hong Kong society has not overreacted as this controversy involves some of the bigger names in Hong Kong. It is natural to have this reaction."

Looking beyond Hong Kong, Chung is not alone in having her images besmirched by online controversy.

Vietnamese actress Hoang Thuy Linh, 19, made a tearful farewell on national television in October after her soap opera was cancelled following the appearance of a sex video on the Web. Several years ago, a sex video of US celebrity Paris Hilton and an ex-boyfriend also circulated online.

However, instead of quitting, Hilton capitalised on the incident and her career as a celebrity has blossomed.

Experts say it is partly a matter of public expectations in the country involved. "Asian countries like Vietnam are much more conservative. Paris was expected to be a party girl," Dr Weisenhaus said.

SCMP. Feb 21, 2008

Factory of the World: China

China has been famous (or infamous) for being the "Factory of the World". The foods, garments, machines or electronic gadget that you have bought were probably made in China.

I've just come across a website which amazed me a lot. Take a look at this website from a Shenzhen "Technology company". It is selling an electronic music playing device which looks very similar with Apple's iPod Nano. Here's the link.

Unsurprisingly, the "Technology company" is also selling another electronic device called "A88" which carries the Apple Inc.'s logo and the name "iPhone". If you're not smart enough, you might think this website is an online distributor of Apple's products. Here's the link.

They are also selling a device which is really similar with the previous generation of iPod Nano. Here's the link.

Schools may get to choose which language to use

Secondary schools could be given freedom to choose whether to teach in English or Chinese, the education secretary said yesterday.

Paving the way for an apparent policy shift, Michael Suen Ming-yeung said the Education Bureau was currently considering options on how to give schools more flexibility in implementing the medium-of- instruction policy.

Mr Suen said school groups had been petitioning for a wide range of measures, including having different language streams within a school, either on a subject-by-subject basis or by splitting students into English or Chinese classes according to ability.

But he insisted that schools would not be given carte blanche; rather, the bureau would implement an "objective, transparent" mechanism to determine how schools could set their language of instruction policy.

He gave no details of what form that mechanism might take.

Mr Suen said the bureau aimed for 60 per cent of secondary school leavers to be capable of learning in English by the time the new six-year secondary curriculum was fully implemented in 2012. Now, only the top 40 per cent of Primary Six graduates is deemed able to learn in English.

There have been persistent rumours of a significant policy shift since November, when Mr Suen announced a review to "fine-tune" a new set of rules on medium of instruction due to come into effect in 2010. Those rules, set down in 2005 after an extensive consultation process, had been in favour of maintaining the rigid divide between English- and Chinese-medium secondary schools and categorically ruled out language streaming within schools.

Mr Suen's comments yesterday were broadly welcomed by the education sector - on the condition that the change would not result in a return to the situation prior to the introduction of the mother-tongue education policy in 1998.

At that time, schools had complete autonomy over their medium of instruction, with many opting to teach in English regardless of whether teachers were competent in the language or students were able to learn effectively. The mother-tongue policy banned all but 112 secondary schools from teaching in English.

Professional Teachers' Union president Cheung Man-kwong said it was important to ensure students were capable of learning in English and the labelling effect of Chinese-medium schools was minimised. "The most important thing Mr Suen said was there will be a clear mechanism for inspecting and making sure schools maintain standards."

Dominic Chu Fu-yau, former chairman of the Subsidised Secondary Schools Council, said allowing schools to choose which classes to teach in English or Chinese was better than "simply splitting schools between winners and losers".

"Frontline teachers are the optimum judge of whether their students would learn best in English or Chinese," Mr Chu said.

Michael Tien Puk-sun, chairman of the 2005 policy working group, said he did not believe the government was going to change the core findings of his team's report - that schools should only be allowed to teach in English if they could meet set criteria, including students' language ability, teacher quality and support measures within the schools.

"Initially, we had been in favour of allowing language streaming within schools, as we felt that was a more idealistic solution," Mr Tien said. "But in the end we decided there were too many practical concerns."

These included the drain on resources due to the need to inspect quality "class by class" and the increase in teacher workload from having classes in two languages. "The key is, there needs to be a system of quantifiable ways to uphold conditions to allow students to learn effectively."

Microsoft warns on Vista update

Microsoft is warning Windows Vista users that a forthcoming service pack for the operating system may stop some third-party programs working.

The software giant has released a list of programs that may be broken by the SP1 update for Vista.

Most of the software hit by the upgrade are security programs that prevent Windows users falling prey to viruses, trojans and booby-trapped webpages.

The Windows Vista update will be released to the public in mid-March.

Continue reading at: BBC News

Killer fish terrifies Britain

A SAVAGE fish more terrifying than a piranha has been caught in Britain for the first time — sparking fears of a deadly invasion.
The vicious giant snakehead EATS everything it comes across and has even been reported to KILL people.

The monster — from south-east Asia — has a mouth crammed with fearsome teeth, can “crawl” on land and survive out of water for up to four days.

News that a 2ft specimen had been hooked in an English river caused widespread panic among anglers and conservationists.

Continue reading in the Sun