United against spam

       The three biggest mobile phone networks agreed to work together on a common goal - to reduce,and then to remove entirely the estimated nine million SMS spam messages sent to yuppiephone owners every day out of the total of 270 million texts;luckily for subscribers, almost all the spam they get is from the mobile phone companies, so this campaign should be a raging success within minutes;operators AIS of Shingapore,DTAC ofNorway and True Move of Thailand promised to spend 30 million baht on anti-spam software for the systems, and to try to block unsolicited messages across networks; special phone lines have been set up so subscribers can call the three companies whenever they want to block a certain spam.
       The decidedly discourteous Nawanit Noichana,31, posted a message on Sanook.com forums suggesting that men might want to call a certain Ms Som for free sex, and provided her actual number; Ms Som in fact was totally unavailable and never knew about the message until she started getting nasty messages, courtesy of her old "friend";the judge was quite understanding about it all, and sentenced Nawanit to 12 hours of community service under threat of a one-year suspended jail sentence.
       CEO Adisak Sukumvitaya of Jay Mart predicted his firm would quadruple its market share with a new marketing emphasis on its JFone house brand,from 8.5 percent in March to 40 percent by year's end; he claimed that JFones match the leading brands in functionality including 3G compatibility. Electronics manufacturer Stars Microelectronics (Thailand), prospering thanks to global sales of its keypads, announced plans to launch an IPO on the Stock Exchange of Thailand before the end of September.
       World No 1 yuppiephone firm Nokia of Finland warned of "rampant counterfeiting" which might confuse consumers into buying a non-Nokia phone.
       Whoa, dood, where's my recession?The Software Industry Promotion Agency reported that the Thai software industry looks likely to grow by six percent this year, outperforming virtually every economic sector; the big reason,said SIPA president Rungruang Limchoopatipa, is heavy demand from neighbouring countries for quality software, digital content and video animation sectors.
       Manager Radio , the audio version of ASTV and voice of the yellow shirts and their People's Alliance for Democracy, stuck a sharp stick in the eye of the National Telecommunications Commission; there is no way, said the station's director Kongkiat Buddhalikit,that Manager Radio will pre-register as a community station as the NTC has demanded of every information radio service in the country; Mr Kongkiat told the media that Manager Radio is not a community station according to the NTC's own definition, and will not submit to the commission's authority; according to official figures, Manager was among an estimated 1,000 radio stations holding out on the registration demand,while more than 4,000 stations had succumbed to the demand to register, in return for a temporary one-year broadcast licence; under the licence terms,the NTC can suggest programming to radio stations.
       GMM Grammy and RShave found recently that community radio is a great new channel for promoting their music;Soopachai Nillawan, managing director of the RS subsidiary Rsiam, said community radio is especially effective at promoting Luk Thung music, as local disk jockeys become influential with listeners; luckily there is absolutely no chance that any segment of the recording industry would stoop to paying DJs to play their music over that of rivals.
       The government announced billions in subsidies to encourage Thais to drive more, and to use more electricity. The government tried to press ahead with promotion of so-called flex-fuel vehicles able to use 85-percent ethanol, but reviving automakers and oil companies said it was far too early to promote alternative energy, since there are almost no vehicles able to use it; Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul asked for lower import duties so that Thais can bring in foreign-made cars instead of buying locally made autos. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand said the government still owes 20 billion baht it has given in fuel subsidies, but Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his cabinet went ahead with new subsidies which will further add to the Egat debt by decreasing the cost of fuel tariffs (Ft)on the monthly electricity bills.