Venture capitalists from Silicon Valley to New York all have the same question about Indonesia's come-from-nowhere tech frenzy: Are the young entrepreneurs that have piqued their interest smart bets or just surfing a hype that will soon burn out.
A few years ago, Internet connections were so slow in Indonesia that trying to download a clip off YouTube could take 20 minutes on a good day.

The Chinese craze for micro-blogging has reached such dizzying heights that companies are now offering to help people boost their following and stand out from the crowd -- for a price.
"Why use our services?" one company called Yangcheng Media asks on its website. "Who would you follow? Somebody with 2,000 followers or 20,000 followers? The answer is easy: most people have a herd mentality."

Hackers are out to stymie your smartphone.
Last week, security researchers uncovered yet another strain of malicious software aimed at smartphones that run Google's popular Android operating system. The application not only logs details about incoming and outgoing phone calls, it also records those calls.

Taiwan's main opposition party said Tuesday its headquarters has been the target of a sustained hacking attack from China and one instance of hacking from the government in Taipei.
Deputy Director Alex Huang of the Democratic Progressive Party's Policy Research Committee linked the computer attacks to Taiwan's quadrennial presidential and legislative elections, scheduled for January.

Japan's Sony and Panasonic and South Korea's Samsung Electronics said Tuesday they will jointly develop new standards for glasses used to watch 3D images on television, computer and movie screens.
The three Asian consumer electronics giants, working with European technology firm X6D Limited, said their collaboration will cover a technology called "3D active glasses,” according to their joint statement.

Nine-year-old Anna focused intently as she screwed a circuit board into place in a first-ever "DefCon Kids village" created to tutor children in the ways of hacking.
Her 10-year-old brother, Jake, was working on a similar task and beginning to suspect that the screws he was using were refusing to cooperate.

Cedarcom, the alternative Broadband Wireless Data Provider in Lebanon, has unveiled on its blog the problems and solutions for a fast internet access with fair prices.
In an article posted on its blog, Cedarcom suggested a way for having fast internet in Lebanon by upholding “fair competition among operators while promoting investment in the telecom sector leading to sustainable innovation.”

Hackers bent on derailing Anonymous clashed with members of the notorious group at a DefCon gathering in Las Vegas late Saturday.
"Hubris" and "Asherah" of startup Backtrace Security condemned Anonymous for "bully behavior" and argued that the group was trying to pass of reckless opportunism as Internet-age activism.

A hacker group on Saturday claimed it has "defaced and destroyed" websites at scores of U.S. police agencies in retaliation for the arrest of suspected peers accused of hacking into the CIA, British crime agency SOCA, and Sony.
The group called AntiSec -- in reference to "anti-security" -- said in an online post that it is backing its claim by releasing information it looted during cyber attacks on more than 70 local police agencies.

Tech heavyweights Microsoft and Google are acting like a couple of feuding starlets in a public online spat over — wait for it — patents.
It's not the first time Microsoft and Google have gone at each other's throats, nor is it likely the last.
