Webplanet - english digest

Military men want to hold LTE-range for themselves

translator — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:29:23 +0400

Russian Ministry of Defense wants to become the civil 4G-provider reported "Vedomosti". To do this, the department tries to defend 2,5-2,7 GHz frequencies for "Osnova Telecom”.

"Osnova Telecom” was established June 3, 2010, a blocking share (25%) belongs to" Voentelekom" (which is established by the Ministry of Defense). According to "Vedomosti", Defense Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to support "Osnova Telecom” in the frequency issue, in order to create a mobile broadband federal network across the country.

At the moment these frequencies belong to the Defense Ministry. The office has already had to agree with the Ministry of Communications on their release. However, State Commission for Radio Frequencies meeting, which was scheduled for June 1, was "postponed for an indefinite period, due to disagreement between the Ministry of Communications and the Defense Ministry”, said the publication.

The “Big Three” operators, as well as a Swedish company Tele 2, also claim these frequencies. Tele 2 declared their plans to develop LTE in Russia a year ago. MTS and Vimpelcom representatives hope,
that the distribution of frequencies will be transparent. Nevertheless, the Defense Ministry chances to obtain the frequencies are very high. Therefore, Megafon has already announced that they are ready to cooperate with the military department, if necessary.

Yet it looks like Russian law enforcement agencies are to become an "alternative IT-industry". A year ago "Voentelekom" probed the possibility of WiMAX networks deploying for internal use. Perhaps, someone advised the Defense Industry on LTE which can replace WiMAX.

Yandex search ads help to collect debts from billionaires

translator — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:16:13 +0400

Renova holding (run by Viktor Vekselberg) owes several million rubles to its subcontractors. According to a business newspaper "Marker", collectors ventured into the "information attack" and placed an adverse publicity in "Yandex".

Billionaire Viktor Vekselberg is known not only as a Faberge eggs buyer, but also as a Skolkovo fund co-chairman. His capital is estimated at 10.7 billion dollars, so Renova StroyGroup seems to have no financial problems. However, Renova StroyGroup is not in a hurry to pay small debts to its contractors. According to Moscow Arbitration Court website data, its total debt is only 32 million rubles.

Now collectors are trying to unite all Renova StroyGroup creditors, and bring the problem to media attention. It was decided to place contextual advertising on Yandex, and to file a claim for bankruptcy against the company.

Searching for Renova on the Internet, you will be linked to one of the blog notes, called "Collector Development Centre", which outlines the steps being taken to recover the debt.

PayPal to find “new pals” in Russia

translator — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:01:02 +0400

PayPal wants to find partners to go into Russian market, reports "Vedomosti". The company representatives came to Moscow and met with members of local market payment systems, Yandex.Money and Webmoney.

PayPal wants to strengthen its position on the Russian market by acquiring a local company or entering into agreements with existing players. Company needs “its pals” in Russia, for now is the time when rules to regulate the market are being developed. Yandex.Money General Director, Eugenia Zavalishina, suggested that PayPal might agree with the Russians on the establishment of a gateway for the currencies exchange of different payment systems (like those, that Yandex.Money and Webmoney run). This will allow to use PayPal even if you have no credit card.

Last spring, online auction eBay came out on the Russian market, and got a status of a "World Trade Center”. The Russian version, however, did not give Russian users a feature to sell products. Same happens with PayPal, people from Russia can only spend money, but they can not receive or withdraw if from the system. So now PayPal is used only to make purchases in western online stores.

MoneyNews editor-in-chief, Sergei Stetsenko, told Vedomosti that PayPal’s willingness to enter Russian market is associated with the Visa Click service emergence (services and goods payment by credit card, without entering card details at every purchase), which may cancel all intermediaries, like PayPal, in the future, for they no longer will be needed.

"Russian spies" scandal made up for Medvedev's visit?

translator — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 00:02:37 +0400

FBI accused 11 people of illegal actions as another state agents (i.e. Russia), as well as committing money laundering. Anna Chapman, an entrepreneur from Moscow, who created "the very first vertical search engine for real estate" domdot.ru, was among the “spies”.

The arrested were not charged with espionage. According to court documents, investigation included the use of video surveillance, hidden microphones and secret searches, and even affected U.S. Secretary of the State administration. At the present time additional searches are to be made in different parts of the country.

Russian Foreign Ministry has already managed to respond to the fuss, surrounding the "Russian spies" arrest.

"From our point of view, such actions are baseless and have improper purposes” - is reported on Foreign Ministry's website. - "We do not understand the reasons that led the U.S. Department of Justice to make a public statement in the spirit of "Cold War espionage”. It’s worth mentioning, that this kind of thing occurred more than once in the past, when our relations were on the rise. In any case, the situation is to our deep regret, especially when the U.S. administration itself declared a “restart” in Russian-American relations".

Only a blind man could not see the fact that the spy scandal broke out immediately after the visit of President Dmitry Medvedev in the U.S. Some Russian experts have already expressed the view that the scandal struck on the agreements, reached during the visit by the presidents of both countries.

However, Webplanet.ru experts are confident that any spy scandal, inflated by opponents of rapprochement between Moscow and Washington, will be unable to shoot down Russian intention to establish a local Silicon Valley, where American companies are expected.

On the other hand, there will be problems with Anna Chapman’s plans to organize a Venture Fund in New York, which would invest American dollars into Russian start-ups and promote them to the international market. She, like dozens of other "spies", won’t be released soon, and she is unlikely to be able to continue her work in the U.S.

“Sberbank” wants its own Facebook

translator — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 23:48:26 +0400

“Sberbank” is going to establish its own social network, reports Cnews. Bank specialists’ attempts to communicate with Facebook audience prompted this kind of thoughts.

Earlier, the head of “Sberbank” German Gref said his bank would gradually turn into a technology company (today it is very fashionable and relevant in the context of state policy). In 2010 "Sberbank" is planning to start building the largest (among the European commercial companies) data center, and the bank’s IT-department employs 1400 people. The company intends to develop in the Internet services field, interact with virtual mobile operators, and enter the market of mobile payments. In addition, the bank is developing in the field of biometrics. We do not know, if it helps to get rid of the long queues at “Sberbank” offices and the periodic system break downs, but the bank seems to be determined.

Moreover, “Sberbank” wants to experience itself in the field of social resources. “Sberbank” senior vice-president on information system development, Victor Orlovsky, told Cnews about the possible establishment of a social resource. Nevertheless, the bank doesn’t have particular ideas yet, although they understand the need to aggressively move on the Internet.

"We need to invent those services, that do not exist at the intersection of technology areas yet. Such areas are: telecommunications, the Internet, social networks," said Orlovsky. None of the banks has got their own social networks now, though many use large networks ("Vkontakte", "Live Journal”, Facebook, etc.) to communicate with their actual and potential customers. According to Artenom Consulting, 19% of the largest banks in Russia have official resources in social networks.

At the moment, "Sberbank" is represented only in one social network - Facebook. Meanwhile, in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan in 2009 was launched a resource for staff - "Bank of Ideas". For 6 months of work the “Bank of Ideas” received 7,000 proposals, three thousand of them were approved. It should be noted that one thing is to open network for employees (which are motivated by salary, bonuses, etc.), and another is for customers. First, it is unclear why we need another social network, secondly, how to attract people there, and thirdly, what are they going to communicate about (it’s hard to believe that someone will be able to talk about banking services daily)?

Medvedev is to bring MIT and Cisco in Skolkovo

translator — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:04:57 +0400

During his visit to the United States last week, President Dmitry Medvedev signed an agreement on the participation of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Skolkovo project where the Center of Innovations is planned.

The agreement between MIT and Skolkovo Foundation provides the parties to determine before the end of this year the exact way of the institute collaboration with universities and research institutes in Russia. MIT also considers joining the fund as a partner. According to one of the negotiators, MIT will establish a research laboratories network all over Russia, and also open a university right in Skolkovo.

During his US trip Russian President also signed agreements with Boeing and Cisco.

300 developers, engineers and scientists will work on Boeing civil aircraft projects in Skolkovo. Engineering company “Progresstech” and IT-company “Luxoft” will participate on the Russian side. Moscow State University and Russian State Aviation Technology University are also likely to become Boeing partners. According to some reports, Boeing research centers, which are now stationed in Moscow, will also be moved to the Russian "Silicon Valley”.

Cisco intends to invest $ 1 billion in Skolkovo, but what exactly this money will be spent on, is not clear yet. An official press release says, that 100 million of them will go into venture capital, and another 175,000 - to award innovators.

Cisco plans to play a "leading role" in Skolkovo design. Bangalore is taken for a sample, where Cisco has got its Cisco Globalization Center East. With Cisco, technopolis will have "intelligent" buildings, "intelligent" power grid, "intelligent" property and transportation, connected to the
Internet, clarifies "Vedomosti".

Talking about Cisco, we recall the situation, when a few years ago the company was caught supplying routers and network switches for the "Golden Shield", better known as "China's great firewall". The fact itself would not be special, if one of the company presentations did not mentioned that the equipment would be used to deal with hostile elements. In other words, Cisco consciously earned money supplying equipment for the Internet censorship organization. Some RuNet specialists have already expressed concern that Cisco arrival at Skolkovo "Silicon Valley" could mean another "technological breakthrough" in the censorship field.

Russian Authors Society wants to charge online broadcasting

translator — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:44:59 +0400

Russian Authors' Society (RAS) promises to expand its copyright war to the Internet. Now RAS together with the All-Russian Intellectual Property Organization (RIPO) calculate the size of royalties that online resources will have to pay for streaming audio and video broadcasts, reports Marker.ru. The owners of broadcasting Internet resources may be required to sign an agreement with RAS followed by financial deductions, starting form July.

RAS believes TV and radio Internet broadcasting should be equal to ordinary broadcasting, where royalties have been paid since 2008. This idea was supported in the Russian Federal Service for Compliance with the Law in Mass Communications.

The exact amount of money to be paid is still unknown, but it seems that even non-profit resources will not get away from RAS. However, for those who do not benefit from broadcasting, the law provides a fixed sum payment instead of regular payments.

According to RAS Board of Directors deputy chairman, Igor Basilevsky, leading media holdings have already received notices from RAS, saying that they will share the profits, obtained from the online broadcasting (advertising). He believes it will be easy to agree with resources, owned by these companies.

The president of “Prof-Media” Broadcasting Corporation, Yuri Kostin, denies this point of view, saying: "I'm not sure that we will quickly come to a compromise. There are almost no precedents in the world, when the Internet parallel station broadcasting royalties were paid".

Other experts say RAS and RIPO actions would force online broadcasters whether to refuse from direct broadcasting services (“Echo of Moscow” CEO, Yuri Fedutinov), or take their servers outside of ussia ("2.0 Station” owner, Sergey Pimenov). However, there have also been those, who expressed a willingness to work in a "civilized" way.

Federal Supervision Agency punishes sites for readers’ comments

translator — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:34:26 +0400

Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications (FSAITC) issued the first warning to the online edition for readers' comments. The Agency was acting upon the recent clarification of “Mass Media” law provisions, made by the Supreme Court (SC). Political News Agency (APN.ru) was the first to be caught.

As reported at FSAITC web site, they found some comments on APN sites were aggressive in nature, comprising a threat and incitement to violence or containing signs of incitement to terrorist activities and crimes implementation.

FSAITC wrote an email addressed to the APN editor-in-chief Konstantin Krylov on June 21, requesting to remove or edit objectionable comments, as required by law. A day later, when no reaction followed, FSAITC introduced a written warning about the law observance, and demanded the removal of the comments from the site.

If we go to the APN web site now, we can see, that there are no comments to any of the articles of the edition. Moreover, now you can’t leave any comments at all.

According to Krylov, he saw the letter only on June 22, when he opened his mail. Accordingly, he had not been able to edit or delete the bad comments before FSAITC decided to make the warning.

"FSAITC did not tried to contact me any other way or appeal to my colleagues, - assures PNA editor-in-chief. - One-day period sets me thinking about the legality of this warning”.

FSAITC Manager assistant, Mikhail Vorobiev, confessed to “Kommersant” that the rules defining FSAITC actions in such cases are still being developed. Despite this, FSAITC found it possible to act without any regulation, self-defining methods of communication with online media, as well as dates for the next steps.

"We believe that one day was enough to remove the comments" - Vorobiev said. He also explained that the requirement to remove comments was sent by email, so that the editor-in-chief could promptly
responded to it.

APN editor-in-chief said that he has not decided yet, whether to sue FSAITC.

Google has found Ukraine

translator — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:02:01 +0400

Google has officially announced the Ukrainian office opening. According to the Ukanian company business administration manager, Dmitry Sholomko, this means that Google accepted the Ukrainian Internet market to be mature, reports LigaBusinessInform.

The office opening was announced at a press briefing, June 22. Eric Schmidt sent a video greeting, saying that the office opening shows how important the Ukrainian market is for the entire Internet development. He also said that the company employees have currently begun working on the Ukrainian version of its products, the work is being carried out by professional teams, located in Dublin (Ireland), Zurich (Switzerland), but not in Ukraine.

So far, the entire Ukrainian office consists of two people, and one of them is Sholomko. He assured that the Ukrainian office is about to grow one-half, and by the end of the year will substantially increase.

The main tasks facing the newly established office, is not only the all core product localization, but also mapping services data filling, cooperation with partners, which includes partnership programs for Google Chrome. "This is the moment when a number of factors “ have come together”,
explained Sholomko. Among the factors are: the number and activity of users, the Ukrainian Internet audience growth, and the Internet Business structure.

Indirectly, this point of view is confirmed by one of the Google vice-presidents, Nelson Mattos, who announced company’s plans to increase investments in the Ukrainian region.

Yota WiMAX is bloсked in business centers

translator — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:56:08 +0400

Big Russian WiMAX provider "Yota" is being blocked in the business centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg, in favor of the local operators (WiMAX-networks), reports DP.ru.

According to the publication, network blocking is being carried out by means of special jammers, which, incidentally, are easy to buy online. Three types of jamming with different power are sold on the Web, the cost ranges from 20 to 40 thousand rubles ($645 to $1290). According to Mobile Research Group, at least 2,000 devices of this kind have been sold within the past 3 months. It is a very high number for Russia, considering the fact, that Yota networks function only in 5 cities. Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications note that even government institutions are not allowed to use WiMAX jammers, not to mention business corporations.

First users’ complaints about the access quality to Yota in business centers appeared last autumn. Some people also say Yota is blocked in cafes where you need to pay for local Wi-Fi (in one case, it's a cafe in the heart of Moscow, at Pushkin Square).

Ukrainian IT-business to flee to Georgia or Russia?

translator — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:17:03 +0400

Ukrainian users of Internet has been vigorously discussing the new Tax Code draft, which has recently been proposed by the Ukrainian Government, and adopted by Verkhovna Rada in the first reading. Ukrainian freelance IT-specialists are morally prepared to flee to Georgia.

Experts have criticized the Tax Code in many ways. The most unpleasant, for small companies involved in IT-sphere, is a list of activities not covered by simplified taxation. The list has got 21 points, among them are wholesale and retail trade via the Internet, Internet providers services and information activities.

Some experts predict, that the measure would lead to entrepreneurs to withdraw into the shadows, and some to shut down or sell their business.

One of project online discussions has already put an idea to flee to Georgia, where they have had a draft law that provides minimum taxes for foreign companies involved in IT. As an alternative to Georgia, Ukrainian IT-specialists can be offered Russian "Silicon valley" in Skolkovo.

President Dmitry Medvedev wants to make Russia a second home for non-Russians. "Russia should become an attractive destination for people from all over the world, willing to accomplish their particular dreams, searching for better opportunities for success and self-realization, that Russia will be able to give everyone, willing to accept this challenge and to love Russia as a new or second home. Those are our modernization goals", he said last Friday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Dmitry Medvedev goes to invite Google to Skolkovo

translator — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:21:30 +0400

The President of Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev is going met with the executive director of Google, Eric Schmidt, during his visit to the United States. Medvedev is going to spend a day in the Silicon Valley before meeting with the US president Barack Obama which is scheduled for June 24.

According to presidential aide, Arkady Dvorkovich, this choice is not accidental, and corresponds to the priorities set by the President earlier. "All the experts call the Silicon Valley and Stanford University, the most successful centers of innovation and high-tech researches. The President decided that he must see it with his own eyes," - said the presidential aide.

Medvedev also plans to meet with the head of Google, Eric Schmidt, who has already agreed to join the Foundation Board of “Skolkovo”. We wonder how hard it would be for Medvedev to please Google CEO: three years ago Google wanted to buy Russian advertising company "Begun" but the Russian government blocked the deal for anti-monopoly reasons.

Deputy head of the Russian Presidential Administration, Vladislav Surkov, said that Skolkovo will resemble Bangalore (India) rather than the Silicon Valley, for they focuses not only on information technologies in Bangalore.

A conversation with Cisco Systems top management is also on the President’s agenda. The company plans to "significantly" increase investments in the Russian economy.

Aleksey Andreev, the editor-in-chief of Webplanet.Ru, in his inteview for "Russia Today" noted that Russia boasts massive intellectual resources which could be interesting for US partners:

“Russia can help the US in terms of technologists, because it still has a pretty good mathematical school and technological school,” Andreev told RT. “And after the fall of the Soviet Union, most Russian specialists lost their jobs, some went abroad, others turned to criminal activities. Everyone knows that the best viruses are written in Russia.”

Watch the interview with Aleksey Andreev (in English)

Ministry of Telecom to ban children from surfing the Internet

translator — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:49:28 +0400

Last week Ministrer of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation Igor Schegolev said the Ministry will "work on" the idea to ban access to the Internet for children under 10 years of age.

This idea was proposed by Alexey Andreyev, editor-in-chief of Webplanet.Ru, at IT-conference "Safe Tomorrow of RuNet” opened on June 17, in Uryupinsk. The event was hosted by Kaspersky Lab. Among the attendants were the Internet security experts, representatives of the Federal government and the some prominent Russian bloggers.

At first, Igor Schegolev said the telecom companies already have the solution for the children safety on the Web - providers can filter the content with "white list" system of good sites updated with parents' feedback. But Alexey Andreyev argued this solution won't work well because the main goal of telecom companies is to get more customers (and children among them). At the same time, there is lots of research showing Internet gives more distraction than knowledge to youngsters. So in would be better to ban the Web access for children under 10 years of age - the same way kids are banned from driving cars untill the proper age.

The Minister of Telecom supported the idea, saying that "the suggestion is good, and we should consider it". The educational function of the Internet, according to Schegolev, is not as great as it seems at first sight. The Minister believes that the World Wide Web contains a lot of threats to children.

According to the last year research, which was conducted in Ukraine, only 11 percent of parents monitor the online activity of their offspring. As a result, 14 percent of children send messages to pay bonuses in online games, without thinking about the cost; 22 percent regularly surf adult websites, while 28 percent easily agree to send photos to network friends; 17 percent of Ukrainian children easily give out information about their families, including home address and work schedule of parents; 11 percent try to get drugs on the web.

Experience shows that children's access restriction to some websites is a technically feasible task. Let’s say, a British provider Tibboh has recently been offering a wireless 3G-access with the ability to block certain content, depending on the user’s age. For instance, it will not let children under 12 years of age visit some social networks.

Search Engines not to be liable for bad links

translator — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:58:54 +0400

Search Engines will be released from liability for the content they find for users, reports RBC Daily. The decision was made at a Minkomsvyazi work group meeting, which is preparing the draft law "On amendments to some legislative acts regarding regulation of relations when using information and telecommunication network of the Internet."

Under the proposed amendments, search engines activities will not be considered a violation of intellectual property rights, if, for instance, the search results will show users links to counterfeit content (whether it is music, video, books and so on). State Duma still must approve the amendments.

Search engines have always faced copyright holders claims, simply because they did their job. For example, Delta company sued Yandex search engine claiming to refute defaming the honor of the company information that appeared in search results (it is referred to feedbacks, that popped up in the first page).

In March 2010 the Moscow Arbitration Court dismissed the third claim of Delta stating that the search engine is not responsible for the content that users post, for it creates no information, but opportunities to find it.

Russian mobile providers to sell their own 'iPads'

translator — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 23:29:36 +0400

Having had unpleasant experience of long negotiations and not very profitable cooperation with Apple, Russian "Big 3" operators are going to create their own Tablet PCs. MTS is already negotiating with Taiwanese factories, reports Kommersant.

The iPad prototype, with MTS brand on it, will be presented at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum on June 19. It is equipped with a 7-inch touch screen (about 17.78 cm), supports 3G and Wi-Fi wireless protocols, and will be sold with preinstalled navigation services of the operator. The tablets will not be able to work with other operator SIM-cards.

For now, the mobile operator is negotiating with producers, including Foxconn, where Apple goods are being produced. The first set of gadgets will be on sale as early as the fourth quarter of 2010, and amount to 10 thousand copies. It is planned to sell 100 thousand copies for the first year. Eldar Murtazin, an expert, believes that the real sales figures will be much smaller, and the operator will sell no more than 15,000 devices for the first year. In his opinion, the wholesale price of gadgets will exceed 10 thousand rubles ($ 335).

Other “Big 3” operators, Megafon and Vimpelcom, are also thinking about selling tablets under their own brands.

United Russia to be armed with iPads

translator — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:53:54 +0400

Yesterday's meeting of the United Russia (Yedinaya Rossiya) General Council was held under the slogan of modernization. During the meeting, there was a call to use the Internet more, in order to consolidate the political leadership.

"The party has traditionally had great opportunities and experience in traditional sphere of political communication (...). However, this means that opposition will always aim to overplay United Russia by the means of other political communication channels, the Internet and “street politics” are among essential ones. Thereby, United Russia should intensify its work in new political environments, especially on the Internet, as the most modern mean of communication with the most active voters and public opinion producers," - said secretary of the General Council presidium, Vyacheslav Volodin.

Another top manager of United Russia - Dmitry Polikanov, told in the interview, that the goal of "modernization" is not only about real technological improvements of the party, but also about changing the style of its external attributes.

"Change of style has an impacts on the way of thinking as well. It is one thing - to make a report, reading paper, the other – to make it, holding iPad. These are two different people with different philosophies. Therefore, the form must also be changed, in order to have content effect,” he said.

6 billion rubles to be invested in GLONASS

translator — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:51:01 +0400

6 billion rubles ($200 million) will be invested in the development of GLONASS navigation system, reports Comnews, with reference to the statement of General Director of Navigation and Information Systems (NIS), Alexander Gurko. The money will be spent on the creation of technologies and business solutions based on the system.

Besides, within the Technology Partnership, INS is to invest in the acquisition of software companies in Russia and abroad. First, the company will create a GLONASS commercial market in Russia, and then come into the world market - in the CIS, India, Middle East, South and Central America.

"Nowadays, there is a great demand for the navigation system, an alternative system to GPS, as the second global navigation system. GLONASS is currently the only system of this sort", said Gurko.

6 billion rubles will be collected from own company funds, borrowed funds and enterprise shareholders' money. We remind that NIS was founded by JSFC “Sistema” and “Rostelecom” in 2009, so in some ways, we are talking about public money.

Currently, navigation market in Russia (it is mostly GPS) reaches a total of 550 million dollars. By 2016 it is planned to bring the market up to the mark of $ 1 billion, at GLONASS’ cost. And in 2012-2013 there will be launched an emergency response program, called "GLONASS Era”.

Meanwhile, the GLONASS satellites continue to fail. Today, GLONASS system has 23 satellites. Only 19 of them function, 2 are immobilized, and 2 are temporarily withdrawn from the system.

Russian sci-fi writers to describe Mars for Google

translator — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:52:15 +0400

An experiment of creating a science-fiction novel about people travelling to Mars, began on June 15, 2010. This project is a kind of contribution of Russian science fiction writers in support of the “Mars-500” experiment, which has a full simulation of a long flight to the Red Planet.

12 science fiction writers from Russia, Ukraine and Israel will take part in the project “The Road to Mars”. They are: Pavel Amnuel, Jaroslav Verov, Eugeny Garkushev, Alexander Gromov, Alexander Zorich, Alexey Kalugin, Dmitry Kolodan Sergei Lukyanenko, Igor Minakov, Anton Pervushin, Nikolai Romanov and Sergei Slusarenko. Vladimir Bondar will provide illustrations for the project.

The first fragment of the novel was published the day the project began. Its author is Pervushin. It is assumed that the writers will publish one fragment every week for 16 months, and nobody knows what kind of novel it will be at the end of this period.

Such a long period of time is not a coincidence: writers will spend as long time on their novel, as the last stage of “Mars-500” project lasts. Within the project, the crew of 6 people (three Russians, French, Italian and Chinese) will spend 520 days in isolated from the outside world space, which is in a special medical and technical complex.

This complex is designed for “simulating the conditions of the crew life and work as close as possible to those of real space objects”.

The Institute of Biomedical Problems RAS, organizer of the experiment, finds that in terms of development, Mars is the most promising planet of those that are in the solar system. The fact that Google Earth now has maps of the Martian surface proves, that the international community interest to the planet has increased in recent years.

Russian schools forced to buy software for certificates

translator — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:02:07 +0400

Russian Ministry of Education and Science ordered schools and other secondary education institutions to move from handwritten to machine filled certificates. By the end of the academic year school authorities found out that they needed to buy the special software from the only recommended supplier, and that they would have to several times overpay for urgency.

Last year, Ministry of Education and Science published a draft order on the transition to machine filled certificates, with possible "use of the software module” (the ministry did not mention a specific producer or program). The order has not been approved yet, but the inferior authorities begun sending a notice, saying that “ARM-register” company has already developed and sells special software, and schools should buy it from the “ARM-register” online store. The officials did not bother themselves to inform of the free alternatives of “ARM-register” products.

The cheapest version of the program in “ARM-register” online store now costs 1,000 rubles (at that price you can get distribution by e-mail, but not all schools have the Internet access). Delivery via post will cost 2,400 rubles (and 20 days standby). The most recent proposal of the supplier was a "rush order" of the program for Moscow and Moscow region educational institutions, with self-export from the warehouse, "not to wait for delivery”, at the price of 4,800 rubles.

In brief, 2008-2009 scandals, involving modernization of education ("School Web", "School Linux", "School Portal"), could be taken for beginner mistakes. By 2010, the modernization of all Russian bureaucracy branches has reached such a scale, that it can simply ruin a skeleton of the Russian state.

Russians will get state services via e-cards

translator — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:15:01 +0400

Today the State Duma will consider on the second reading the draft law "On organization of public and municipal services." The new version of the document has a number of sections, specifying state, municipal and other services to the Russians with a universal electronic card.

In 2012-1013 these cards will be issued to citizens upon the application, and in 2014 without it. Finally, only those who write an application renouncing to have the card, will not have one.

Judging by description, the universal electronic card (UEC) will look like a bank plastic card. It is proposed, that the card should have a full name and a photograph of a cardholder; number and expiry date; the number of a pension certificate.

But the main thing in this card is stored within an electronic medium. In addition to general information about a cardholder, UEC will store so-called "electronic applications". These are special codes of an authorized access to particular services.

Almost the entire set of applications is tightly controlled by the state (in particular, mandatory health and pension insurance services). Banking services are of exception: the cardholder will be offered a choice from the list of banks that have signed the contract. However, the state reserves the right to choose a bank when a citizen does not show civic consciousness and initiative; for instance, has not filed an application for a card or a rejection of it in due time.

The bill states that the issuance of cards (except duplicates) will be done free of charge. However, this does not mean that citizens do not have to bear any costs.

Unfortunately, the bill is not very clear whether the UEC somehow will be used to authenticate people on a united portal of state services, but it is quite possible, that the UEC is the electronic key to the state services, the Russian Prime told about in February. Considering the fact, that the UEC will combine pension and health care cards, there is hope that it will reduce the number of numerous documents, without which a Russian can not be considered a full-fledged citizen.

“Vkontakte” to stir up a Pirate Party

translator — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:07:28 +0400

RuNet is talking about creating the next Pirate Party. Social network "Vkontakte" became a “tongue” of the virtual movement, for the pirate community appeared on its pages - http://pirateparty.vkontakte.ru/.

Participants of the "pirate" group (at the time of writing the article - almost 4,000 people) are extensively discussing the "code of honor”, looking for activists who are ready to engage in the future party affairs and other issues. One of the issues is Alexander Аkopov’s (“Amedia” head) statement on "piracy” of Vkontakte.ru and 30 million of the social network criminal users. Akopov announced his intention to deal with the administration of the resource.

State Duma deputy Konstantin Rykov and his support team, are among the pirate team management. It is worth mentioning, that Rykov had long claimed on the harmfulness of the current struggle with the spread of counterfeit.

Rykov’s newspaper "Vzglyad" supported "Vkontakte", calling the statements of "Amedia" an "incorrect self-praise."

"Akopov is strongly wrong, calling the criminals 30 million users. He apparently did not understand that insulted his loyal fans. Because only the ones who love "Amedia" TV series want to have them on their pages and share them with friends. And now, if I were in the users’ shoes, I would sue "Amedia" for insult ", - said Konstantin Rykov.

Community, by the way, seems to be preparing lawsuits - though not the fact, they will dare to reach the court.

At the moment, pirate activists’ actions are limited to an endless stream of emotional messages to Twitter, communication within the "Vkontakte" group, and press statements. It is not clearly understood, what the community is protesting against, and what principles and ideas they advocate.

We remind that the Pirate Party of Russia has existed since 2006 and is the official founding member of the international movement of Pirate Parties International (PPI).

The Ministry of Internal Affairs accused of buying bloggers

translator — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:19:58 +0400

Famous Russian LiveJournal blogger "dobrokhotov" (Roman Dobrokhotov) admitted the publication of paid post, allegedly ordered under PR-campaign to create a positive image of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Dobrokhotov assures his blog readers that his direct employer was the manager of an advertising agency. He promised 2000 rubles for the first post and 1000 for every following one, and at the same time, told the details of the campaign - in particular, named highly valued personalities, which directly communicate with the Ministry of Internal Affairs (they are: journalist Natalia Radulova and professional blogger Maxim Alexandrov).

Dobrokhotov also says the police is not actually so bad, and that MIA attempts to whitewash itself in the blogosphere deserves understanding. But he personally stands for honesty.

Webplanet.ru got in touch with Maxim Alexandrov and asked him whether he had been paid by the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the "compliment". Maxim said he hadn’t received money for the posting.

Web-cinema Ivi.ru is looking for a buyer

translator — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:13:00 +0400

Video streeming service Ivi.ru (Russian analogue of Hulu.com) has been put up for sale, informs Infox.ru. The owner, Digital Access company, wants to sell its 20-% share of the project for 10-15 million dollars.

Right now the company carries on negotiations with two media market players. “Digital Access private investors are concerned about the events, that have lately taken place on the Internet legal video market. Among them are: entry of a new competitor, partnership termination between Viacom (the USA) media holding and online platform hulu.com”, - said the source close to Digital Access.

About 8 million dollars were invested in the project during the launch, 5-7 of them were spent on licenses. We remind, that Ivi.ru owns some content of Central Partnership, “Amedia”, TNT, STS and others.

The Internet-cinema Ivi.ru officially opened at the end of February 2010, and in May 2010 a competitor Zoomby.ru appeared on the Internet.

State Duma members will be chipped against absenteeism

translator — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:02:30 +0400

Deputy absenteeism will be traced with special chips, reports RBK Daily. It should encourage the members of State Duma to visit sessions properly.

Rules Committee leader Otari Arshba claimed, that chips will be built in deputies’ ID cards. It is not planned to implant them yet. Built in chips will monitor the arrival and departure time. This will solve session absenteeism problem. The problem can hardly be called “made out of thin air”, and the President Dmitry Medvedev brought to notice that.

Fast project implementation might be the result of lately shown State Duma sessions. Ren-TV channel showed a report, where 88 deputies passed a law, having voted on behalf of 449 deputies. Those, who were concerned, could watch deputies “on duty” running along the rows and voting for their absent colleagues, on Youtube.

The State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov insists that personal presence at sessions has to be strictly defined by a law. There also have to be reflected circumstances, when a voice can be handed over by attorney.

Russian state sites to be watched by Govweb.ru

translator — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:42:06 +0400

Ivan Begtin, the founder of Opengovdata.ru and Goslyudi.ru, has launched one more service about government official websites and state publicity on the Net - www.govweb.ru (“State network”)

Aim of the project is to monitor activity and publicity of State and some of its representatives on the Internet. “State network” has got a list of State bodies’ websites, and the ones designed on their request; State government bodies base, legal documents with set requirements for State bodies’ websites.

”It is just the beginning, all known areal and municipal State web-resources will be included in the list later on, likewise the websites of business entities, which are under State jurisdiction”, claims the project description.