Dhaka, Sep 13 (UNB) – Posts, Telecommunications and IT Minister Mustafa Jabbar today said country’s all unions would be brought under high speed internet connectivity by 2019 through fiber optic cable lines.

“Excepting 772 unions of remote areas all unions of the country will come under high speed internet connectivity by December this year and the rest will be by 2019,” he told a concluding function of Top –Up IT and ITES Foundation Skills Training Programme organized by a project of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) under ICT Division.

Jabbar called upon the young generation to be skilled on emerging technology as the skills you have earned through the training will be obsolete in future.

“Time-befitting training is imperative at the moment as technology is changing very fast,” he said adding that the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is aware about this technological development and Bangladesh under her visionary leadership will lead Digital revolution in the days to come.  

Chaired by Information and Communication Technology Secretary Zuena Aziz the function was also addressed among others by Executive Director of BCC Partapratim Deb, Additional Secretary of ICT Division Rashadul Islam, LICT Project Director Md. Rezaul Karim and LICT Component Team Leader Sami Ahmed and Project Director, Ernst & Young Kamal Mansharamani.

The programme was organized to mark the competition of training to build 30,000 skilled human resources under the World Bank financed Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance (LICT) Project of BCC of ICT Division. 

The UK based Ernst and Young (EY) conducted the training for the last three and half years to the meet the demand for skilled human resources of the ICT sector to some extent.

Of the total 30,000 trained human resources 10,000 received Top-Up IT training and 20,000 Foundation Skilled training. Of the 10,000 Top-Up IT trained manpower 4,059 were placed in the IT and IT Enabled Service (IT-ITES) sector till July 2018.  
Earlier while presenting a demo on sustainability of the training programme at BCC conference room Operation Manager of EY Suman Saha said the EY maintained quality of the training as a trainer’s pool was created by internationally reputed trainers.

The pre-assessment and post-assessment of trainees are conducted by National Association of Software Services Companies (NASSCOM) and the content was certified by the George Washington University, USA, he said adding the Training of Trainers (ToT) pool, course curriculum and monitoring tool developed under the training programme would be very useful for the future training programme.

Eminent educationist and Professor of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, Executive Director BCC Parthapratim Deb, LICT Project Director Md. Rezaul Karim and Director Training of BCC Engineer Enamul Kabir spoke at the function.  
 

Dhaka, Sep 13 (UNB) - Banglalink has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Le Méridien Dhaka, a concern of Mariott International.

Under the MoU, officials of Le Méridien Dhaka will use Banglalink’s connections and digital services.

Erik Aas, CEO, Banglalink, and Constantinos S. Gavriel, General Manager of Le Méridien Dhaka signed the Mou on behalf of their respective organisations.

Choukri Berghout, Chief B2B Officer, Banglalink, Anwar Hossain, Director of Sales and Marketing, Le Méridien Dhaka, H M Ziaur Rahman, Manager Information Technology, Le Méridien Dhaka and other officials from Banglalink were also present at the occasion.

The signing ceremony was followed by a discussion on Banglalink’s 4G Network, telecom solutions, digital services and other related issues.

Choukri Berghout, Chief B2B Officer, Banglalink said, “We are delighted to sign the MoU with Le Méridien Dhaka. Currently, Banglalink is the highest spectrum per customer providing private operator in the country with enhanced network capacity.

We firmly believe that Le Méridien Dhaka officials will benefit from our quality digital services.”

New York, Sep 11 (AP/UNB) — The resignation of longtime CBS chief Les Moonves won't likely lead to drastic changes in network programs, but a related deal could make the company ripe for a takeover as traditional media companies compete with upstarts such as Netflix and Amazon.

Moonves was ousted Sunday, just hours after the New Yorker detailed more sexual misconduct allegations against him. A dozen women have alleged mistreatment, including forced oral sex, groping and retaliation if they resisted him. CBS is on the hook for $120 million in severance if its investigation, being conducted by two outside law firms, finds no evidence of wrongdoing. Moonves has denied wrongdoing.

Even before the latest New Yorker article came out, Moonves was already facing pressure to leave. His departure was brokered as part of broader talks with CBS' parent company, National Amusements, over the network's future. Under settlement terms with CBS, National Amusements chief Shari Redstone conceded not to push for combining CBS with sibling company Viacom for at least two years, a merger that Moonves had opposed. National Amusements also agreed to a board shake-up that increased the power of independent directors.

The network was struggling when Moonves took over as entertainment chief in 1995. He quickly turned things around and churned out shows appealing to the older, more tradition-bound CBS audience — broad-appeal sitcoms such as "Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory" and procedural dramas such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "NCIS." ''Survivor" was an early reality show hit, and continues to this day. Moonves became CEO of CBS Television in 1998 and CEO of the newly created CBS Corp. in 2006 after it split from Viacom.

Moonves' temporary replacement, Chief Operating Officer Joseph Ianniello, has steered top projects such as stand-alone streaming services for CBS and the Showtime cable channel. But he doesn't have a creative or sales background, which might make him an awkward long-term leader for the company.

For now, Ianniello is unlikely to make drastic changes in programming, particularly since CBS' formula has been working. Programming changes could be more substantial if CBS chooses someone outside the company as a permanent replacement.

B. Riley FBR analyst Barton Crockett said CBS could remain successful without Moonves. He noted the continued success of other networks that have lost top executives to sexual misconduct claims, including Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly at Fox News and Matt Lauer at NBC News.

"Strong performance can continue even when a vaunted, tainted star departs," Crockett said. "These groups have deep talent pools."

A broader question is whether CBS will remain a standalone company at all.

To better compete with tech companies such as Netflix, companies that have traditionally distributed TV shows and movies have been buying the producers of such programs. The producers, themselves, have been consolidating as well. AT&T bought Time Warner for $85 billion in June, while Disney is in the process of acquiring the entertainment assets of Fox for $71.3 billion.

That makes CBS a hot commodity. With the shake-up of its board, there are 11 independent directors and two affiliated with National Amusements, down from three. One of the new directors, Candace Beinecke, is a lawyer with expertise in mergers and acquisitions. National Amusements agreed to give "good faith consideration" to any offer the new board deems good for shareholders.

Crockett said possible suitors include AT&T "doubling down" and attempting to buy CBS to complement its recent Time Warner acquisition. Or Verizon, which was rumored to be a suitor in the past, could make an offer as a way to "deepen its content presence and close a content gap with AT&T," he said.

Offers from Amazon, Apple or Google might be possible as well, if those companies wanted to expand their sports offerings and "vault into a leadership position in production of top tier TV content," Crockett said.

BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield said CBS might even entertain a merger with Viacom now that chief opponent Moonves is out. Even though National Amusements agreed not to push for it, that doesn't preclude CBS itself from doing so. If other offers do not materialize, Greenfield said a combination with Viacom might be necessary as size and scale are "becoming increasingly critical in the media industry."

The settlement is the latest in a long-running saga between CBS, Viacom and National Amusements, media mogul Sumner Redstone's holding company. CBS split from Viacom in 2006, but both remained controlled by National Amusements. Redstone's daughter, Shari, now runs the holding company.

In 2016, Shari Redstone prevailed in a bitter battle against Viacom CEO Phillippe Dauman, whom she pushed out in favor of current CEO Bob Bakish.

Since then, she has pushed to reunite CBS and Viacom. Under Moonves, CBS was against the idea and tried to issue a dividend to dilute National Amusements' voting power. That led to the lawsuit settled Sunday.

Dhaka, Sep 9 (UNB) – Robi’s gaming platform, My Play, has recently organized the grand finale for the game hub campaign. 

Eight out of 16 participants won exciting prizes based on their ranking at the end of the finale, said a press release on Sunday.

Participants, who scored the highest points in each of the four weeks long game competition, were selected to take part in the grand finale. Each of the 16 participants were given three minutes to play the subway surfers game, based on the participants’ score playing the game, the final ranking was prepared. 

Md. Asif Mahmud won a Huawei Mate 10 Pro for securing the first position. Coming second in the competition, Rahimul Hasan Sakib, won a Huawei P10, and the third place winner, Zakiul Hasan Arefin, won a Huawei Nova 3e handset. 

The participants securing the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and the eighth position, each received an Aarong gift voucher worth Tk 7,000. The grand finale took place at the Huawei customer experience centre in Gulshan.

Robi’s Vice President, Market Operations, Mahbubul Alam Bhuiyan, and Huawei’s Key Account Director, Stephen Wang, along with their team members welcomed the participants to the colourful event. They also encouraged the participants, as each of them took to play the subway surfers game. 

The game hub campaign involved participants playing: Teen Patti Golden, AE 3d Motor, Battle Ludo, and Real Cricket 14, in each of the four weeks that the campaign ran for. 

The participating gamers were required to post their score on Huawei’s Facebook page and/or send the score into the same page’s inbox. Based on the set benchmark scores, the winning gamers received Tk 1000, 500, and 100 worth rewards in each of the four weeks.
 

Dhaka, Sept 9 (UNB) - Samsung Electronics Bangladesh on Sunday launched its latest 'N series' television of five different categories. 

The latest lineup of QLED (Quantum Dot LED) TVs from Samsung was launched at a press conference in presence of journalists, top officials of distributors, dealers and other stakeholders at Pan Pacific Hotel Sonargaon in the city. 

Managing Director of Samsung Bangladesh Seungwon Youn in his opening remarks said these new series of products are packed with the latest innovation. 

"With cutting-edge technology and customer-centric innovations, we are confident that the N series will take the viewing experience to the next level", he added. 

The series consists of Joy Concert TV, Smart Concert TV, Premium UHD TV along with the latest innovation of Samsung, QLED TV. 

Samsung brought 100 percent color volume for the first time through this series using Nano Crystal Technology, said Shahriar Bin Lutfor, head of business, Consumer Electronics. 

The QLED TV features include ambient which turns black TV screen on standby to a transparent glass, information center or a wallpaper, smart hub and mobile app to connect and control TV and other smart home appliances with the phone and the price starts from Tk 5,90,900. 

Concert Series TVs include four channel 40 watt concert sound system, Bluetooth 2 way mirroring which allows the tv to work as a Bluetooth speaker. The concert series come in both smart and non-smart versions, said Salman A Khan, TV Product Manager of Samsung Electronics Bangladesh. 

Joy Concert TV starts from Tk 29,900 while Smart Concert TV starts from Tk 36,900. 

All of the NU series of TVs for 2018 use ‘standard’ LED technologies rather than the Samsung’s metal-clad Quantum Dots found in the QLED models. This means they can’t deliver such extreme levels of brightness and color. It’s worth noting, too, that unlike the Q9FN and (US) Q8FN models, none of the NU models use contrast-friendly direct LED lighting, where the LEDs sit behind the screen. They’re all edge-lit. The pay-off with the NU models, of course, is that they’re significantly cheaper than Samsung’s QLED models.

Easily control all connected devices and content with just One Remote Control. It also has an auto detection feature, which automatically connects and labels all connected devices. “Easy to find, easy to use. Just one remote control.”

Apart from the latest TV series, the company also showcased refrigerators, microwave ovens, air conditioners, washing machines and vacuum cleaners of which many are to be launched soon. 

Among others, Saad Bin Hasan, Head of Sales and Partner Management, Khandaker Ashik Iqbal, Head of Marketing Communications, the product managers, high officials of the channel partners and dealers of Samsung Electronics Bangladesh were also present at the unveiling ceremony. 

The new 'N Series' TVs will be available in all authorized showroom of Samsung Bangladesh and its national distributors across the country.