News Hero or High-Tech
News Hero or High-Tech Terrorist? Assange pleads his innocence of releasing sensitive files By Neil Crossley Whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks did not authorise the explosive release of 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables, according to Julian Assange, the founder of the international nonprofit organisation. Assange presented the International Keynote at IFA’s Medienpolitik forums via video link from a country house outside London, where he is confined on bail pending a decision on a Swedish extradition request. Assange claimed the release of the unencrypted files was carried out by one of WikiLeaks’ media partners. He went on to castigate media organisations for delivering news content that they know is untrue. “We can immediately dispense with all the false moralising that is done by media organisations,” he said. “There are clear political, careerist and social agendas within those organisations and the clear agenda to sell more copies and make more money. When we hear media organisations saying they only deliver news, we all know that’s untrue.” Assange said that WikiLeaks’ role is to tell the public “how the world works”, and he outlined the organisation’s four principle goals: to protect sources, to publish, to publish with impact and to never censor anything. He criticised the “criminalisation” of his organisation, particularly in the US, arguing that such a response is indicative of the fallibility of governments with too much to hide from their citizens. “With our experience, we have seen how the great powers of the world respond,” he said. “But they are not so powerful that they can remain silent. Even the US is fearful of free speech at a high volume. The free speech that we falsely associate with the “WikiLeaks’ role is to tell the public how the world works” West is an expression of the inherent solidity of Western powers.” Moderator Melinda Crane, Chief Political Correspondent of Deutsche Welle TV, asked Assange what evidence he had that WikiLeaks is creating a more just society. “That’s a good question,” he said, before responding that WikiLeaks had never published anything false and that no individual had ever been caused physical harm due to WikiLeaks’ actions over the last four years. WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange: “false moralising by media organisations” 4
News Spider Makes Dumb Devices Smart IFA gets a sneak preview of Korea Telecom’s new smartphone set for a November launch currently under open Beta testing. “Our cloud offers any IT-related infrastructure option and we’re very proud of how easy it is to establish an infrastructure, which takes a matter of minutes, as opposed to days or weeks on other systems,” Lee said. According to research by Cloud Harmony, a cloud market research company, KT ranked either first or second in five previously defined performance areas among 20 major cloud services. Step 1 Kyeong-Soo Lee, Executive Vice President, Device Integration Strategy Department at KT by Gary Smith IFA first-timer Korea Telecom (KT) is exhibiting a new smartphone called the Spider, which acts as the central processing unit (CPU) for a range of devices including laptops, tablets, games consoles and as an incar device. “One of our key goals is to provide the absolute best possible service for our customers,” Kyeong- Soo Lee, Executive Vice- President, Device Integration Strategy Department at KT, said. “And of course that includes de-complicating their lives in terms of what devices they use and how those devices talk to each other. And we think our eco-system using the Spider as a central brain is a truly innovative approach to the modern world and digital lifestyles.” The Spider can be connected to a range of ‘dumb’ devices that have no OS, CPU or even memory, but the moment that the Spider is attached they come alive to replicate the functions associated with smart devices. The phone uses the Android OS and features a 4.5-inch high-resolution screen offering tablet PC and laptop-like experiences and a 1.5GHz dual-core high performance CPU that allows fast document editing, web browsing and video playback —which can also be fed through a TV set. “The Spider can surmount the small screen problems of normal smartphones, thanks to its being able to combine with so many other devices,” Lee said. “We hope and expect that the Spider ecosystem will help KT and other companies to enhance their global competitive edge based on the phone’s ability to expand the N-Screen experience. And that is, of course, the main reason why we decided to come to IFA this year. You could call it an experimental visit in that we thought that the best way to test the market was to come to Berlin and introduce our system to other companies from Korea and elsewhere — ranging from small to medium and large — so that they can see what we have done and play a part in developing the idea further.” The Spider smartphone will be launched in Korea in November. “In Korea we have established wireless hotspots offering 10Mbps connections which will mean that the Spider ecosystem will be very fast,” Lee said. “We foresee it as being useful for cars as well as all the other potential services such as healthcare, shopping and sophisticated navigation applications, and we look forward to engaging with the automotive industry in order to start the process of optimising the in-car experience of users.” KT is also presenting the ucloud storage service that the company launched for individual users in July. The service offers a VDI (virtual desktop interface) and a CDN (content delivery network) and further additions, such as a backup service, are Hall 7.2 B Stand 103 “Our ecosystem using the Spider as a central brain is a truly innovative approach to the modern world and digital lifestyles.” Step 2 Step 3 Gaming on the Spider hooked up to a TV light www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Wednesday 7 th September 2011 5
