Philips commemorates breast cancer awareness month

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With the use of medical expertise and innovative technology to offer information, education and free testing to women, helping them manage their health and well-being. That can change the world when it comes to early diagnoses, treatment and prevention.

Every year, approximately 1.4 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer. The cure lies in innovation.

In terms of breast cancer incidence, the Philippines ranks the highest in Asia. According to research, one in every 13 Filipino women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. 

For its part, Philips has always been committed to improving the healthcare landscape of the country—including providing solutions to help women care for themselves better.

In line with this, Philips Avent and Philips Healthcare are set to cap breast cancer awareness month with an event geared to raise awareness about this deadly disease.

Last September 24, 2014, Philips held a tour of the mammography facility at Capitol Medical Center, Quezon City.

Luckily, I am one of the media people invited to join a event to see the reseach and innovation as part of the campaign to raise awareness. I had my mammography and thankfully for what result it would be. 

Breast cancer continues to be the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women in the United States, regardless of race or ethnicity. Nearly all breast cancers can be treated successfully if found early. When breast cancer is found in its earliest stage, the five-year survival rate is 98 percent.

In 2013 we continue to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month through a global, multi-year campaign. As part of the campaign we raise awareness through eye-catching pink illuminations of landmarks, we help fund international research, and we offer women free testing and education in various locations around the world.

For years Philips have been supporting Breast Cancer Awarenss by using our innovative colored LEDs to illuminate global landmarks and literally putting a pink spotlight on the importance of early breast cancer detection.

In 2013 we go a step further: rolling out a global relay of eye-catching pink illuminations, travelling around the world throughout the month of October.

Every year, approximately 1.4 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer. The cure lies in innovation. Ground-breaking research and technological development can change the world when it comes to early diagnoses, treatment and prevention.

That is why as part of the campaign; Philips and Philips employees donate money to renowned research institutes in North America, Europe and Asia.

We also use our medical expertise and innovative technology to offer information, education and free testing to women, helping them manage their health and well-being.

“At Philips, we believe that innovation should be personal, relevant and impactful. This is why our solutions are focused on the needs and expectations of our customers around the world, many of whom are women,” says Frans van Houten, Philips Chief Executive Officer, “Through our support of Breast Cancer Awareness, we want to emphasize the importance of early detection. We also strongly believe that research and innovation can change the world when it comes to early diagnosis, treatment and prevention.”

Amsterdam, the Netherlands – As a technology company that cares about people, Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is pleased to continue its support of Breast Cancer Awareness on a global scale. As part of its commitment, Philips aims to offer 10,000 women free mammography testing and highlight the importance of early detection by illuminating an estimated 100 landmarks around the world pink throughout the month of October.

2013 marks the second year of the company’s multi-year global Breast Cancer Awareness program. Philips hopes to add meaningful value to the cause in the fight against breast cancer by building on the technology, expertise and passion across its three sectors.

“At Philips, we believe that innovation should be personal, relevant and impactful. This is why our solutions are focused on the needs and expectations of our customers around the world, many of whom are women,” says Frans van Houten, Philips Chief Executive Officer, “Through our support of Breast Cancer Awareness, we want to emphasize the importance of early detection. We also strongly believe that research and innovation can change the world when it comes to early diagnosis, treatment and prevention.”

Philips will build on its expertise in Healthcare to educate men and women within and outside the organization on the importance of early detection and ways of (self) examination. Philips also aspires to galvanize its employee base of 115,000 employees to raise funds for ground-breaking innovation, by supporting international research in three renowned institutes based across Europe, Asia and North America*.

More information on the Philips’ Breast Cancer Awareness program

Photos : Here .

DepEd supports preparedness efforts of Albay LGU, ensures continued delivery of educ needs in affected schools

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In its mission to ensure the safety of students and school personnel, the Department of Education (DepEd)—in close coordination with the local government unit (LGU) of Albay—has implemented preventive measures such as organizing a skeletal force and safeguarding records and equipment in schools within the permanent danger zone (PDZ) and extended danger zone (EDZ), and preparing evacuation centers ahead of actual evacuation in areas affected by the Mayon volcano disturbance.

Of the 724 schools in the province, 76 have been identified as affected. These affected schools are those within the PDZ and EDZ. Of these, 28 have already resumed classes as of September 23. To date, 676 out of 724 schools have regular classes in the province despite Alert Level 3.

DepEd has implemented interventions to foster a sense of normalcy among learners. The Department has worked together with the local government of Albay and UNICEF for the deployment of 155 tents for the 38 schools used as evacuation centers in five towns and two cities in the province. These evacuation centers are closely monitored and co-managed by DepEd school personnel.

These 38 schools used as evacuation centers are also accommodating the student enrolment of displaced schools to ensure the continued delivery of education needs. For instance, San Jose Elementary School in Malilipot, Albay has taken in Calbayog ES pupils. On September 23, some 1,200 students are expected to report, to be accounted for, while 18 tents are being set up to provide for their needs. School personnel are likewise tasked to do daily tracking of all students by grade level.

Together with the Albay provincial government, DepEd continues to work toward class resumption in affected schools in Albay, Legaspi, Tabaco, and Ligao.

ATAT Motorcycle Club turns 12! 1st official long ride of ATAT on September 26-28

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Highly passionate individuals who loves to ride motorcycles on the street and on the race track and aims on promoting Philippine Motorsports through racing and having organized riding events throughout the country - ATAT, Any Time All The Time.

ATAT Motorcycle Club (ATAT, as formally registered in the SEC, stands for Any Time All the Time) will have its 1st official long ride for 2014 to Baguio as it commemorates the new set of officers for the year 2014-2015 with President Charlie Carlos Ride.

The 1st official long ride of ATAT (2014-2015) to Baguio, will be on this weekend, September 26-28, 2014.

ATAT was founded on friendship in 2002 when three long-time friends Kiko Bernardo, Teddy Lim and Elton Ong decided to get together after realizing their passion for motorbikes. From there, the group of three started to grow and had many impromptu rides —at any given time, at a moment’s notice, with a “drop what you are doing and let’s ride!” kind of attitude.

Together with another long time friend Alberto Matias the group decided to name the group ATAT — which, in the vernacular, describes someone all too eager and impatient to do something. Together with Benjie Ladra, Myke Torres, Kevin Chua, and Jimmy Chan pioneers in ATAT, the group started to grow in numbers. Reaching a high of 45 members at its peak. 

Now on to its 12th year, ATAT Motorcycle Club has established itself as one of the premier motorcycle clubs in the country. At present, the club has 24 members and despite their busy schedules, their friendship has evolved into a deep sense of camaraderie and a brotherhood of passionate riders.

The members consists of : Elton Ong, Benjie Ladra, Abet Matias, Marc de Joya, Charlie Carlos, Raymond Hallare, Vince Mercado, Felix Luakian, Mervin Pullon,Francis Varela, Paolo Vialu, Rei Lagamia, Mayie Capinpin , Oliver Jimeno, JC Villanueva, AJ Maralit, Aaron Macalinao, Jevis Aguila Marketing Manager at Granstar Motors, the local distributor of Aprilia and Lawrence Macalinao “We have been riding for a long time, and unlike other sport-bike riders, ATAT members really push and ride hard. We have made it our advocacy to ride hard on the track, not on the streets, to promote safe riding,” said Marc de Joya, General Manager at Ducati Phils.

Follow their ride schedule and adventures by liking https://www.facebook.com/groups/atatmc/?ref=ts&fref=ts on Facebook as ATAT Racing Team heads on to Clark International Speedway this October 4 & 5 and witness the much awaited 4th leg of the Ducati Cup 2014 and Any Time All the Time Motorcycle Club (ATAT MC).

WD introduces Cold-DATA-storage HDDs , Optimized for the modern datacenter

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Progressive-Capacity, Energy-Efficient WD Ae Drives Enable Archive Tier of Storage Optimized for Web-scale, Cold-data Infrastructures

WD®, a Western Digital company and world leader in storage deployed for modern datacenters, today announced its innovative WD Ae™ line of hard drives designed for the unique operating characteristics of the emerging archive tier within web-scale datacenters. Built on a platform to achieve optimal total cost of ownership (TCO), WD Ae hard drives utilize the lowest possible power consumption and a Progressive Capacity™ model to enable a new tier of storage for large-scale cloud infrastructures. 

“Modern datacenter customers came to us with a need for an HDD solution designed specifically for ever-expanding cold-data repositories,” said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president and general manager, storage technology, WD. “Now in our third generation with over 700 petabytes deployed, WD is bringing the WD Ae drive to the broader market, representing another vital component of WD’s capacity storage portfolio, which delivers features and product attributes optimized for the rapidly evolving storage market.”

The expanding scale of data creation and the corresponding need to retain, preserve and extract value from that data creates a new and unique challenge for large-scale datacenter entities. Reliable, long-term data management for massive-scale data storage is becoming ever more critical. The conventional tools and technologies for cost-effective storage are not effective in massive-scale datacenters, so entirely new approaches to storage architectures and associated component technology are emerging. 

“Cloud service providers have rapidly growing volumes of generally inactive data to store and manage, while at the same providing customers with access to the data at almost any time,” according to John Rydning, IDC’s vice president for hard disk drive research.

“WD’s new WD Ae line of HDDs is aimed directly at these storage use cases, and is helping to define a new, active archive enterprise storage sub-segment, thus opening new HDD storage opportunities for the HDD industry.”

Focusing on the unique attributes of cold data, WD has led the cold/archive market with multiple generations of archive storage, actively evolving a product formula to deliver the optimal combination of cost-effectiveness, power efficiency, storage density and application intensity. WD Ae drives are purpose-built archive HDDs with extreme areal density on a high volume mechanical platform that offers increased power efficiency and a Progressive Capacity model.

Part of the unique attributes of the WD Ae hard drive family includes: a dense five-platter platform, which renders an optimal mix of power, performance, capacity and cost; capacities greater than 6 TB; SATA 6 Gb/s interface; and a workload and reliability rating of 60 TB/yr workload and 500 Khrs Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF). 

WD Ae Progressive Capacity

As technology and manufacturing processes mature over time, incremental capacity increases are realized. WD’s innovative Progressive Capacity model allows distribution of these incrementally higher capacity models to take advantage of their fullest available capacity: 6.1 TB, 6.2 TB, or 6.3 TB, for instance. These more granular capacity increments result in far greater capacity attainment through the life of a product platform. At the massive scale of modern applications, the availability of incremental capacity each quarter renders exceptional value to datacenters who can realize improvements in capacity-per-drive, capacity-per-volumetric space and reduced infrastructure overhead. 

Hot vs. Cold Data Storage - the Data Storage Temperature Continuum

While approximately 20-30 percent of data on most networks is active, commonly referred to as “hot,” the majority of data, 70-80 percent is inactive or “cold,” meaning it is unchanging and infrequently accessed. Given the challenges of storing petabyte- or exabyte-scale data, public cloud and private cloud ecosystems are focused on creating entirely new tiers of storage to deal with the varying degrees of “data temperature.” The cold data tier is emerging in a manner very similar to the way the “Tier 0” emerged over the past decade to deal with critical performance requirements. Now the industry is adding a new tier on the opposite end of the data temperature spectrum, often referred to as “Tier 3” storage.

Cold storage is the practice of creating a new tier of important information not frequently accessed for long periods of time, and can include structured, unstructured, or semi-structured data that has timeless value, and of which the exact schedule of retrieval is uncertain. As a result, data retrieval times can be relaxed, compared to the speed at which hot data needs be retrieved. 

Ultimately, with purpose-built and cost-optimized cold data storage infrastructure and devices, IT departments can deliver vastly improved time-to-archive and time-to-retrieve cold/archive data that outstrips capabilities of monolithic tape libraries, while utilizing standard hard-drive based storage solutions that are abundantly used and understood to realize optimal application value and significant storage cost savings.

Availability

WD Ae hard drives will be sold in box quantities of 20 and available to select distributors, integrators and distributed by Ubertech Technologies Inc and Iontech Techologies Inc. in the Philippines starting late 2014. WD Ae drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty.

More information about WD’s Ae datacenter hard drives can be found on the company website at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1340.

Smart's Talk 'N Text "PisoNet", subscribers to access the Internet on their mobile phones for as low as P1

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Smart recently announced that it will soon enable its subscribers to access the Internet on their mobile phones for as low as P1, dubbed “PisoNet,” Smart’s new mobile Internet offer will be initially available to Talk ’N Text (TNT) subscribers and shall allow access to all apps and websites for only P1 per 10 minutes and effectively puts the hourly rate at just P6, with the exception of video streaming sites and file-sharing activities.

Innovative platform enables telco to offer most affordable mobile data service for just P1.

A breakthrough mobile data platform developed by Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), the undisputed leader in mobile, will soon enable its subscribers to access the Internet on their mobile phones for as low as P1, the most affordable mobile Internet service to date.

Set to be rolled out this month, the service is much more affordable than the standard P5 per 15-minute charging rate for mobile Internet.

“Now, one peso is all you need to access the Internet. PisoNet thus brings the many benefits of the Internet to more Filipinos nationwide, especially those who are accessing the Internet for the first time using their phones,” said Charles A. Lim, EVP and Head of the Wireless Consumer Division at Smart.

“With this upcoming service, the user is not limited to specific sites or apps. They can thus access the mobile apps and sites that are most relevant to them at a more affordable price,” Lim added.

PisoNet is thus expected to surpass Smart’s growth momentum in mobile data, which has been growing at a 73% rate from last year’s figures, as more Filipinos gain access to the Internet via their mobile phones.

Pioneering platform

PisoNet will be delivered through a pioneering mobile internet platform which enables Smart’s mobile phone data network to efficiently manage and shape the flow of Internet data traffic. As a result, network resources are used more efficiently to deliver the internet services that people want.

“This platform unmatched by any other country in the world is a technical breakthrough that enables us to offer very affordable Internet ‘sachets’ sustainably,” Lim explained. “This means we can keep offering best-value mobile Internet products for as low as ‘piso’.”

This enables Smart to offer data services in “sachets” without sacrificing consumer experience, allowing subscribers to pay only for the Internet services that they need on an “always on” basis. 

The same platform also powers PowerApp, the telco’s suite of mobile Internet packages that allows subscribers to access Internet bundles—such as Social, Photo, Email, Chat, and individual apps—for as low as P5 per day.

‘Holy Grail’

“This is the Holy Grail for Internet advocates who want to bridge the digital divide while sustaining quality of service. And we’ve taken one big stab at it, using this groundbreaking platform targeted at one of the largest prepaid markets in the world,” explained Dennis Mendiola, co-founder of Smart subsidiary Chikka, which developed the platform.

Globally, telecommunications companies face the challenge of connecting “the next 5 billion users” who are largely prepaid mobile phone users with limited budgets for mobile internet usage.

“Telcos around the world until now just offer data packages akin to ‘eat-all-you-can’ buffets at a premium price with little regard for efficient use of data resources. Our platform allows Smart to offer data at much higher level of efficiency, thus making it possible for us to offer much more affordable prices,” added Mendiola.

PisoNet will soon be initially available to TNT subscribers, who only need to simply text PISONET to 5555 to enjoy the offer. 

PowerApp, meanwhile, offers various packages that can be availed of by Smart and TNT prepaid and postpaid subscribers. 

To know more, visit smart.com.ph/powerapp.