Wazzup Pilipinas News and Events

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Microsoft’s Nokia 230 Dual SIM Now Available in the Philippines

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Designed to capture all of life’s special moments day and night, Microsoft’s Nokia 230 Dual SIM are now available in the Philippines for only PHP 2,790. Featuring a 2MP front-facing camera with LED flash, it’s easier than ever to capture and the perfect selfie and share it with friends and family in social media like Facebook and Twitter.[1]

The affordable Nokia 230 Dual SIM are premium quality internet-enabled feature phones that empower more people to do great things with large 2.8” screens and great battery life, making them the perfect first mobile phones and great companion devices for smartphone and tablet users.

· Capture and share the perfect selfie with 2MP front-facing camera with LED flash and internet-enabled features
· See more with a large 2.8” screen that makes viewing pictures, playing videos and gaming even more enjoyable
· Access popular web content with the Opera Mini Browser, Bing Search, and MSN Weather1
· For entertainment and music, choose between a built in FM Radio, or MP3 and video player, and enjoy them wirelessly with Bluetooth audio support for headsets
· Store all your music, photos and videos in one place with up to 32GB in memory card support[2]
· Stay connected with outstanding battery life that keeps you going for longer, with up to up to 23 hours of talk time

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Start your March with Discovery Channel’s fresh lineup that is guaranteed to thrill!

Men, Women, Wild is a 6-part series that features three couples placed in three of the harshest environments in the world – the high desert mountains of Morocco, the frozen snow-covered fjords of Norway, and the thick, unforgiving jungle of southern Mexico. For three weeks they will have to live off of the land, navigate the vast, unknown terrain and find their way back to civilization - but only if they can survive the wild and each other. Throughout each journey, the couples will share their experience and lead viewers through their triumphs and setbacks as they attempt to survive. In the process, they will be faced with the same tough question: Do they truly have each other’s back, and when the going gets tough, are they stronger together or better off apart?

The new series Men, Women, Wild premieres March 8, airing Tuesdays, 9PM.

Killing Fields is a true-crime documentary series following homicide detectives as they reopen the case of a young woman found in the Louisiana swamplands, a body dumpsite, where the forces of nature often erase evidence of a crime. Tormented by an unfulfilled promise to solve the 1997 homicide investigation, Detective Rodie Sanchez comes out of retirement to rework the case that has haunted him for the past 18 years. Armed with cutting- edge investigative technologies, and a new team of driven detectives, the Iberville Parish Sheriff's Office is determined to finally close their department's most infamous cold case.

Find out what clues they’ll uncover on the new series Killing Fields, premieres March 17, airing Thursdays at 10PM.

Friday, March 4, 2016

Telco Data Center Gets ISO 27001:2013 Certification

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Globe Telecom’s Data Center has added another feather to its cap as it has been recently assessed and certified in accordance to new requirements of the latest version of Information Security Management System. This forms part of the telco’s strengthened approach in managing sensitive enterprise information for a fully-digital and fully-secure enterprise community in the country.

Globe received an ISO 27001:2013 for Information Security Management System (ISMS) from AJA Registrars Inc. An ISMS is a systematic approach to managing sensitive company information so that it remains secure. It includes people, processes and IT systems by applying a risk management process.

“We underscore the utmost importance of information security in our operations, fully aware that our service is most crucial during the occurrence of security breaches. It is an honor to receive a re-certification for our ongoing efforts in information security which attests to the maintenance of our current mode of operation, preparedness and readiness toward a risk-based business,” said Globe Senior Advisor for Enterprise and IT Enabled Services Group Mike Frausing.

“Globe Telecom’s consistent and effective implementation of its ISMS and how it has addressed the additional requirements of the 2013 version has allowed them to earn their certification to ISO 27001:2013", attested AJA Registrars Inc., Vice President Paul Bagatsing.

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Two-time United Football League (UFL) Champion GLOBAL FC sent a powerful message to its opponent Ceres FC last Thursday night at Rizal Memorial Stadium, that they are out for glory. Defending Champion Ceres FC was undefeated until their GLOBAL FC match.

GLOBAL FC won 2-1 against Ceres in a match where everyone was on the edge of their seats. GLOBAL FC players Milan Nikolic and Matthew Hartmann scored 1 goal each.

Coach Leigh Manson predicted it right when he said after the Loyola win that, “In a game wherein Azkals play against other Azkals, nobody wants to lose that game.”

Azkals players from GLOBAL FC Misagh Bahadoran, Daisuke Sato, Dennis Villanueva, Amani Aguinaldo and Patrick Deyto went against Ceres’ Stephan Schrock, Martin Steuble, Patrick Reichelt, Manny Ott and Kevin Ingreso.

“We are continuing to have a formula and a plan that works for the team. The players know their jobs when they go out, they also know what we expect from them. You know with these last 2 games it wasn’t just about the technical abilities, it is about heart”, Coach Leigh Manson says.

Manson continues, “Our chances are good as anybody now. There’s nobody that we fear, respect yes, fear no.”

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This March, catch TLC and EVE’s latest shows that will surely keep you inspired!

An incredible lineup of celebrity chefs and the introduction of kids as contestants for the first time ever will spice up the second season of high-stakes culinary game, Food Fighters. It's the perfect recipe for the ultimate food battle when the best amateur cooks in America put their signature dishes to the test against five professional chefs, with the chance to win as much as $100,000. Television personality, author and food enthusiast Adam Richman ("Man Finds Food," "Fandemonium") hosts the series that takes culinary sparring to an exciting new level. The all-new season of Food Fighters premieres on Tuesday, March 22, 8PM and airs every Friday at 11PM on TLC.

Follow international super model Rachel Hunter as she embarks on a global odyssey to meet remarkable individuals from all walks of life who believe they hold the key to superior well-being and age-defying looks. And while the definition of feminine and masculine beauty has changed significantly, the quest for radiant, wrinkle-free skin, luxurious locks, vitality and good health into old age remains unchanged. Rachel Hunter’s Tour Of Beauty premieres on Tuesday, March 8, at 9:50PM on EVE.

DDoS Attacks Growing in Scale, Span, and Reach – IPC

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DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks continue to increase dramatically, threatening websites and businesses globally, according to a study cited by IPC, the country’s pioneer DDoS Mitigation service provider.

The study conducted by IPC’s DDoS Mitigation partner Imperva Incapsula, entitled Global DDoS Threat Landscape Q4 2015, used data from 3,997 network layer and 5,443 application layer DDoS attacks mitigated by Incapsula from October 1 to November 29, 2015.

A DDoS attack is a costly form of cyber crime where a large volume of malicious traffic is flooded into a website, causing it to crash. This is a planned and coordinated attack to disrupt the normal function of a website.

According to the study, the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan are the top 3 targeted countries. Furthermore, UK-based and Japan-based sites saw a 20.7 percent and 7.4 increase in attacks, respectively.

“DDoS is a serious online crime that cannot be ignored. It warrants a definitive course of action from highly-skilled professionals trained in this type of cyber war,” stated IPC President Rene Huergas. He added that the Incapsula report is a clear indication of how DDoS poses a formidable threat to businesses in any industry worldwide, including the Philippines.

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This summer, explore the art of dance with the Ballet Philippines Dance School in its annual 7-week intensive training program, the Summer Dance Workshop. Students from the age of 4 to pre-professional and professional levels, as well as adult beginners can take courses in Classical Ballet, Modern & Contemporary Dance, and Hip Hop.

Workshop participants may choose to focus on their preferred genre, or expand their dance vocabulary further by enrolling in the Full Course package, which places them in both classical ballet and modern dance classes for their age and skill level. Students will have the chance to learn from BP alumni such as Nonoy Froilan, Gina Katigbak-Garcia, Rhea Dumdum-Bautista, as well as current dancers Jean Marc Cordero, Gillianne Gequinto, and Erl Sorilla, just to name a few.

In keeping with the BP Dance School’s hoslistic approach to dance education, the Summer Dance Workshop also includes a weekly Lecture Series. Through these sit-down talks, students have the opportunity to interact with artists of different fields and learn how aspects of their art form can relate to and enhance one’s dancing.

The 47th CCP Summer Dance Workshop starts on April 4, 2016 at BPDS-Aura and on April 5, 2016 at BPDS-CCP. Students attend a minimum of 3 classes a week (for pre-ballet and elementary ballet students) to as much as 5 classes a week, including workshop rehearsals for its culminating performances at the Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo (CCP Main Theater) on May 21 and 22.

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PROFIL HOLIDAYS is one of the country’s leading travel and tours company in the Philippines. They are known to pioneer package tours that has never been offered by its counterparts, making PROFIL HOLIDAYS that top-of-mind choice for tour operators and travel companies when it comes to better itineraries and more exciting destinations for their customers.

The selection of outbound tour packages of PROFIL HOLIDAYS concentrate on top and unique tourist destinations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Mexico, South America, New Zealand, Europe, and South Africa.

Over the years, PROFIL HOLIDAYS was able to create a reputation based on credibility and integrity to become the most noteworthy company that goes the extra mile for its partners.

Now celebrating their 25th year in the travel and leisure business, PROFIL HOLIDAYS aims to re-establish connections and strengthen relationships between Tac Tours and the travel agencies, travel agents, and tour operators, who, in spite of the growing trends and the changing landscape in the business, continue to keep the loyalty and patronage of their partners.

In addition, PROFIL HOLIDAYS shall look forward to a committed journey for excellence with more destinations to offer, and the expansion of industry partners it will serve. And these can only be achieved through the four most important credo that the company has kept since its inception 25 years ago.

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A lot of businesses have eagerly opened but quickly closed down, disappeared or kept changing their business models because they couldn’t gain enough customers to sustain their operations. Those who have the perseverance to survive remained small even though they have been around for years. Some have just continued to run their businesses which were passed down to them as the next generation of the family but never really gained any considerable revenue. However, a great number of businesses have eventually died because their market reach eventually dwindled down to almost zero.

Running a successful business is mostly about generating acceptable revenue through solid marketing and stellar customer service. Though we all know that it sometimes take “being at the right place, at the right time,“ and knowing the right people to get lucky breaks and astounding deals, those instances don't really happen every day if we don’t exert extra effort in achieving our business goals.

Many promising businesses often fail because they lacked the much-needed branding and identity that would set them apart or make them a level higher from the others. It has always been evident that businesses need to make their presence strongly felt and make a significant influence to the market they are trying to reach. These efforts of reaching out to our target market must now include the use of technology, the Internet and social media.
If we really mean business, make sure we reach our full potential by incorporating online presence and digital influence or market reach. We can do all of these by having well-organized, perfectly-timed and strategic methods that could mean more active engagement and collaboration opportunities for our businesses.

Telcos Challenge Government to Help Improve Broadband Service

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The recent Broadband Policy study released by USAID and the Foreign Chambers of Commerce said that tower sharing could be a solution to increase broadband speed and make it more affordable. The telco industry has indicated that even with tower sharing, this will not help address the issue of speed and affordability since the cell site towers of both telcos are similarly located.

“What we need is to increase cell site density by building more cell sites,” said Globe General Counsel Froilan Castelo. Based on the study made by TowerXchange in February 2016, the number of unique physical cell sites in the Philippines is one of the lowest in Asia with a combined 15,000 cell sites. China has the highest number with 1.18 million cell sites, followed by India with 450,000, Indonesia with 76,477 cell sites while Vietnam has 55,000, Thailand with 52,483, Pakistan with 28,000, Bangladesh with 27,000 and Malaysia with 22,000 sites.

The Philippines ranks between Malaysia and Cambodia with 15,000 physical cell sites.

The Philippines with 15,000 cell sites is only higher than Cambodia and Australia, both with 9,000, Myanmar with 7,620 and Sri Lanka with 7,000. By comparison, the United States has a total of 205,000 cell towers in place.

Castelo said that mobile data explosion amid growing access to internet connectivity, requires more bandwidth than traditional voice and text messaging services. Thus, it demands the establishment of more cell sites for telecommunication operators to deliver mobile data services especially indoors.

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Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA Philippines 2016 presented by Alaska continues its search for skillful ballers aged 10-14 in Cebu on March 5-6 at Don Bosco Technology Center from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. This is the third Regional Selection Camp (RSC) of the NBA’s youth development program this year.

The two-day camp will be run by Jr. NBA Coach Craig Brown together with other Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA coaches from presenting partner Alaska.

Boys and girls born from 2002 to 2006 are encouraged to take advantage of the NBA’s international youth development program where they can learn proper basketball skills and the Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA S.T.A.R values of Sportsmanship, Teamwork, a positive Attitude and Respect.

Registration and participation are free. On the first day, participants undergo vitals tests and skills challenges where their scores in vitals tests and individual skills challenges will determine if they will return the following day to undergo more basketball drills and team exercises. On the second day, the remaining participants undergo team drills and get to show off their team and individual skills in the final scrimmages. The top performers in the camp will be selected to represent Visayas in the National Training Camp that will be held in Manila on April 22 to 24. The fourth and last Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA Regional Selection Camp will be held in Manila on April 9 and 10.

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Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC), a world leader in storage solutions, today announced the expansion of its award-winning portfolio of performance storage solutions with 8TB capacity drives for NAS, video surveillance and desktop external applications. Increasingly centralized, rich-content, which continues to grow in popularity among enterprises, small business and consumers alike, is driving demand for greater storage capacities.

Launching throughout the first half of 2016, My Cloud® personal storage devices (My Cloud, My Cloud Mirror, My Cloud EX2 Ultra), My Book® external hard drives (My Book, My Book for Mac, My Book Duo and My Book Pro), WD Red®, WD Red Pro and WD Purple™ hard drives will all be designed with the new high-capacity configuration. Each storage solution offers purpose-driven engineering and HelioSeal™ helium-technology with the new 8TB drives for maximum and efficient performance in the applications for which each model is designed.

“We are committed to integrating high-performance, high-capacity and high-quality drives into all of our solutions,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing, Western Digital Corporation. “No matter what market or application, we have a solution - whether it’s for small businesses, channel partners, enterprises or end-users. Our goal is to deliver the best and most competitive solutions on the market.”

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The AIDA production of Polytechnic University of the Philippines, will be conducting a seminar workshop entitled “CALL FOR HEALTH: Debunking of the Virals” the event will be held on March 16, 2016 at Benavidez corner Trasierra Streets, Legaspi Village, Makati City, 1pm-6pm.

This event is co-presented by ZALORA, with participation of WhenInManila, WazzupPilipinas.com and Boracay Beach Radio as our Media Sponsors.

Aim: The event aims to inform different employees, with designation of HR Managers, Team Leaders, etc, from different business process outsourcing companies across the metro with regards to health concepts of their employees.

This event will also deliver speeches that will inspire and motivate the audience that will surely improve their knowledge of about the rising health issues in the business process outsourcing companies.

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They say behind every great design is an even bigger story. The design is actually the silent ambassador of our brands. The cooler the design, the more it engages our customers.

Huawei recently launched their latest flagship smartphone alongside two other models at the Huawei Mate 8 on the second day of March 2016 at an event held at the Solaire Grand Ballroom in Pasay city.

With hashtags #TheNewChoice, #NewBusinessStyle #HuaweiMate8 for the day, the brand also introduced 8 ambassadors representing the business elites who challenge status quo, act with passion and persistence, and find new solutions as they define and flaunt the new style of business.

The new breed of business elites are Rajo Laurel, Apples Aberin, Victor Consunji, Sid Maderazo, Jessica Kienle, Gaby dela Merced, Rosebud Benitez and Kelley Mangahas. They were all given a few minutes to share on stage why they switched to the new Huawei smartphones for their kind of lifestyle. I will be releasing a video soon featuring the highlights of the event so watch for it soon here or at our YouTube channel at http://www.YouTube.com/user/wazzuppilipinas.

Charles Wu, Huawei Country Managing Director, welcomed everyone at the event and began with the success of Leonardo di Caprio at the Oscars. He also announced that Huawei now ranked on 3rd place globally next to Samsung and the Apple iPhone. Their brand awareness reached new heights at 78%. Huawei ranks at number 88 as an international brand. More about his talk soon on our video presentation.

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"The Shell Eco-marathon Asia 2016 is one innovative event I love sharing experiences with my husband with. Find my husband as he sparks ideas at the tech arena and find me amping energy at the fun zone from March 3-6, 2016 at Rizal Park, Manila for ‪#‎SEM2016‬.

BTW, bring your kids! My son's going to build cars and race them using salt water, dance to generate energy, route for student-teams all over Asia-Pacific racing their eco-mobiles.... there's a whole lot of fun activities for the whole family!." - Jana Estrevillo Tupas

More than just the fun activities, the Shell Eco-Marathon Asia 2016 also offers developments on new technologies gearing towards the production of better mobility and safety on the roads - an ideal that Michelin fully supports as the company is very well inclined to use the safest and most convenient technology that would definitely change the way we look in driving.

The tires are indeed among the most crucial part of our vehicles that we need to significantly consider as highly important for our safety. We should never take it for granted.

Whenever we go out of town, recognizing the long hours of driving, we always make sure that our tires are in good condition and we replace them all whenever we feel it's risky to drive old tires on unforeseen terrains and weather conditions.