The Hidden Beauty of Bangka Island

Bangka in Bangka Belitung Province has so much to offer, but the island still lies under the tourism radar even for local tourists.
The shorelines that face the South China Sea offer gorgeous, sparkling white sandy beaches that make them a perfect location to escape from the city's hustle and bustle. Visitors can enjoy taking pictures or being mesmerized by giant granite rocks as they stroll along the clean, shallow beaches, which mostly have calm waves.
Although the island is well known for its tin mining activities that have been ongoing since 1710, Bangka is also rich in its marine biodiversity and plantation produce like pepper and rubber.
The local administration has opened its doors to investors interested in developing marine, agriculture and historical related tourism.
An international triathlon held in Bangka serves as both a sports event and a promotional tool aimed at developing the tourism potential of Tanjung Persona Beach in Sungai Liat.
The underwater scenery in Kelapan Island is beautiful.
Seeing a farmer picks peppercorns in Pergam village.
Glowing Fuk Tet Che Confucian temple is located in the center of Pangkalpinang city.
Visitors can walk near a kaolin pit that used to be a tin mine in Air Bara village in South Bangka.

Wendra Ajistyatama
The Jakarta Post/ Jakarta

Watch Out Messi, Here Come The Soccer Players at Robocup

With steely focus, player number 3 scored a stunning opening goal in the first few minutes of the high stakes soccer match between a dominant Bordeaux and their plucky Chinese opponents.
But as the crowds cheered, the pint sized player, known as Arts, showed none of the customary swagger of triumphant strikers. In fact, robot number 3 and its teammates showed no emotion at all as they continued to exterminate their rival's hopes of victory at RoboCup 2017 in Japan.
The game, which Bordeaux won 4-0, was one of the gripping final matches in a four day event that saw about 3,000 researchers and engineering students from 40 countries displaying the prowess of their latest robotic inventions on the soccer pitch.
Ranging in design from humanoids with human faces to more skeletal contraptions, the robots were programmed to be self directed and played strategically without being given instructions.
The robots "see" using a camera installed in their heads, while installed with artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize the spacing and objects in the sight.
The annual championship, which was held in the central Japanese city of Nagoya, started 20 years ago when a computer beat the top human player in chess, "a big event which prompted computer engineers to set the next goal," said Itsuki Noda, the president of the RoboCup Federation.
"Unlike chess, soccer players have to read constantly changing situations and choose the best movements while competing against rivals," he said.
"Also, soccer requires very good teamwork, which was a completely unresearched area for computer engineers. To solve the riddle, we chose soccer for the robot's next challenge."
Technologies have since advanced so that robots canmake autonomous judgments and cooperate with others, said Noda, also the principal research manager at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.
That ability to play as a team was the "winning factor" in Bordeaux University's triumph, according to associate professor Olivier Ly, who acted as coach and positioned his team's players.
"We developed lots of features on the team play (...) The robots play together, try to do some passes," he said.
The Chinese team deployed highly mobile robots that, unafflicted by injury concerns, were quick to bounce back to their feet after falling over.
But it was not enough to match the French team.
As the match ended and the humans celebrated, the lifeless robot players were quietly packed away into suitcases.

Harumi Ozawa
Agence France Presse/ Nagoya, Japan

Lonely Hearts Seek Virtual Girlfriends at Hong Kong Fair

Virtual reality games usually promise shoot 'em up adventures but in Hong Kong Friday lovelorn tech fans donned headsets to go on imaginary dates.
The city's annual Ani Com and Games fair sees thousands queue to try out the latest consoles or buy up comic book collectibles, often dressed up as their favourite characters.
But for those who had spend too long alone in their rooms, a new VR smartphone app offered some romantic solace.
Users can choose between four female models and spend a vacation with them in either Japan or Thailand, joining them on trips to cafes, hot springs and karaoke.
They slot their phones into a plastic headset and are then immersed on a date, during which they can choose options for activities.
Promoters of the Hong Kong made app, which is known by its Cantonese name "leoi yau" or "VR travel friend," said it was to help what they called "Otakus" to practise their dating skills.
The name is a Japanese term for obsessive manga or anime fans.
"We want to allow more people to try out what it's like to date a girl because there are a lot of Otakus who don't know how to know girls," Ming said, adding that there is some flirting involved in the story arcs with the models.
Student Wong Wing young, 14, said he enjoyed trying out the app at the fair Friday as it could be hard to interact with the opposite sex in real life.
"Maybe it can help those who are shy with girls," he said.
The app is free, while the plastic headset and magazine introducing the women to date cost HK$48 (US$6).
The show at the city's harbourside convention centre is one of the biggest of its kind in Asia and was packed with teenagers, many of them in coloured wigs and costumes mimicking their favourite Japanese comic book heroes.
Die hard comic fans posed with life size ultra realistic models of Wonder Woman, Thor and the Hulk at the stall for Hot Toys, a local firm famous for its figurines.
Others posed for selfies with people dressed as Star Wars stormtroopers.

Agence France Pressed
Hong Kong, China

Ancient Statue Unearthed at Cambodia's Angkor Complex

Archaeologists have unearthed a large, centuries old statue that is believed to have once stood guard over an ancient hospital at Cambodia's world famous Angkor temple complex.
The nearly two metre tall artwork, which is thought to date from the late 12th to the early 13th century, was discovered during a dig on Saturday, said Long Kodak, a spokesman for Apsara Authority - the state agency charged with managing the complex.
The new find is the most significant statue discovery at Angkor since two giant Buddha carvings were unearthed in 2011, he added.
The Angkor archeological Park, a world heritage site, contains the remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, dating from the 9th to the 15th centuries, and is Cambodia's most popular tourist destination.
At the height of its power the city and its hundreds of temples boasted more than a million inhabitants, making it one of the world's most populous pre industrial centres.
Huge swathes of the park have been excavated over the decades, creating a walkable archaeological wonder that attracts more than two million visitors a year.
But the complex continues to yield new finds.
Cambodian archaeologist and experts from Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies found the statue buried 40 centimeters underground during an excavation of an Angkor era hospital built during the reign of King Jayavarman VII.
The Apsara agency said the sandstone statue's arms and legs had broken off but the carving on the body and head remain beautiful despite the passage of time.
They said the statue was likely to have been a symbolic guardian of the hospital.
Visitors to the Angkor complex encounter a dizzying array of temples, the earlier ones from when Hinduism was the dominant religion of the Khmer Empire and later ones after Buddhism had taken hold.
Archaeologist every year discover fresh data on the remarkable site. New recent research based on aerial laser scans has confirmed the existence of Mahendraparvata, an ancient temple city near Angkor Wat that has barely been excavated.
Updated scans published last year have uncovered iron smelting sites and complex waterways as well as temple foundations that are still to be explored.
The same year archaeologists also uncovered the remains of a 42 foot long boat from the Angkor era which had been carved from a single tree trunk.
Archaeologists are particularly excited by the discovery of Mahendraparvata because they believe much of what remains of the jungle covered ancient city has not been looted.
During French colonial rule and the brutal Khmer Rouge regime (1975 to 1979) many of Cambodia's most priceless statues and archaeological treasures were looted, including those from Angkor.
The Cambodian government has spent years trying to trace the missing items, some of which have since been returned from museums in Europe and the United States.

Absence France Presse
Phnom Penh

Female CEOs Show Better Performance

Scandinavia's biggest bank has studied almost 11,000 publicly traded companies across the globe and the results are crystal clear: firms with a woman running the show perform far better than the market.
These are "solid result," Robert Naess, the manager of US$42 billion in stocks at Nordea Bank AB who designed the study, said by phone Monday.
The Nordea analysis shows that firms that at the end of the calendar year were run by women (either as a chief executive officer or as head of the board of directors) went on to beat the benchmark index over the next 12 months.
More specifically, companies led by women have returned 25 percent a year since 2009, which is more than double the 11 percent the MSCI World Index has delivered, based on equal weightings.
As to why female CEOs deliver better results, the study is less clear. Naess suggests that women tend to be more conservative in their predictions, leaving more room for positive surprises.

Blomberg/ Oslo

Sony Tops Profit Estimates, Thanks To Chips

Sony Corp.'s turnaround is right on track. The Japanese electronics and entertainment company posted quarterly profit that topped analyst estimates, thanks to demand for smartphone camera chips, a healthy music business and brisk sales of PlayStation 4 consoles and games.
Operating profit was 157.6 billion yen (US$1.4 billion) in the fiscal first quarter that ended in June, beating analyst's average projection for 133.3 billion yen. Sales rose 15 percent to 1.86 trillion yen, topping predictions.
After a tumultuous year that included an earthquake that crippled camera chip production and a $1 billion write down in films, the latest quarter is a return to stability for Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai.
The increasing number of PlayStation 4 owners is driving sales of software and online services, while smartphone makers adopt more camera chips per device and more people pay to stream music. Still, Sony appears to be playing it safe, keeping its full year profit guidance of 500 billion yen, even though it lifted its sales forecast by 3.8 percent to 8.3 trillion yen.
"Results are good," said David Daily, an analyst at Stanford C. Bernstein & Co. "But they're still lowballing their profit outlook, so I would expect to she them continue to beat con census as well as their own guidance going forward."
Chief Financial Officer Kenichiro Yoshida defended the conservative outlook, saying "for one thing, we only had three months in this fiscal year."
During the quarter, Sony finalized the sale of a Chinese subsidiary that produced camera modules, resulting in a one time profit of 27.5 billion yen. Declining insurance and recovery costs related to the April 2016 earthquake in Kumamoto also provided a one time benefit of 9.3 billion yen. Net income was 80.9 billion yen, exceeding the prediction for 66.5 billion yen.
Games, the biggest division by revenue, saw operating profit decline 60 percent to 17.7 billion yen, while sales rose 5.4 percent to 348.1 billion yen. The company blamed the sharp profit drop on inflated profits a year ago, when adventure game Uncharted 4 was released.
Despite the profit drop this quarter, Sony upgraded its games profit guidance for the full year by 5.9 percent and sales by 4.8 percent. It sold 3.3 million PlayStation 4 units during the quarter, slightly down from 3.5 million last year. The company kept its forecast to sell 18 million units this year unchanged.
"Games business was revised up because PS4 sales are still strong and Xbox One X, with its high price, is seen less of a threat," Dai said, referring to Microsoft Corp.'s recently unveiled new console.
The PlayStation 4 is heading into a late stage life cycle, usually the most profitable period for consoles as new titles are sold to an increasing installed base of owners. But this cycle is even more lucrative due to Sony's online gaming service PlayStation  Network, which charges users subscription fees to play with others and lets them download games, generating higher margins than selling physical copies.
Operating profit in chips was 55.4 billion yen, recovering from a loss a year earlier, as the company recovered from last year's earthquake and demand from phone makers increased due to the risking popularity of multiple sensor models. Sony controls about half of the market for image sensors, the chips that convert light particles into digital photos and videos. Chip division revenue rose 41 percent to 204.3 billion yen.
"Demand for Sony's imaging sensors has been rising further, principally for smartphone use in China," Deutsche Bank AG analyst Mio Shikanai wrote in a report to clients last month.
The company increased its annual profit guidance for semiconductors by 8.3 percent, but lowered its sales forecast by 2.3 percent.
In music, where operating profit grew to 25 billion yen, Sony benefited from its partnership with Sportify Ltd., which has tripled paying subscribers to 60 million in the past two years.

Yuji Nakamura and Yuki Furukawa
Bloomberg/ Tokyo

Matic and Mourinho Back Together at United

Serbian international midfielder Nemanja Matic signed for Manchester United on Monday from Premier League champions League, the buying club announced, for a reported fee of £40 million (US$52.7 million).
It is the second time United manager Jose Mourinho has invested in the 28 year old's talents having brought him back to Chelsea in 2014 after a successful spell with Benfica.
Matic signed a three year contract with United with the option to extend it by a year.
"Nemanja is a Manchester United player and a Jose Mourinho player, "Mourinho told the club website. "He represents everything we want in a footballer: loyalty, consistency, ambition, team player.
"I would like to thank him for his desire to join thank him for his desire to join us because without that, it would be impossible to have him here. I am sure our players and supporters will love him."
Matic played just 65 minutes for Chelsea in his first period at the deal that saw David Luis move to Chelsea and him move in the opposite direction to Benfica in 2011.
He said Mourinho's presence at United had made it an easy decision.
"I am delighted to have joined Manchester United. To work with Jose Mourinho once again was an opportunity I couldn't turn down," he told the club website.
"I have enjoyed my time at Chelsea and would like to thank the club and the fans for their support. I cannot wait to meet my new team mates and to start training with them.
"This is a very exciting time for the club and I am looking forward to playing my part in creating more history for this great club."
Matic's arrival takes Mourinho's spending to almost £150 million in the close season having outlaid £32 million for Swedish defender Victor Lindelof from Benfica and £75 million on Belgian international striker Romelo Lukaku from Everton - though that could rise to £90 million with add sons.
Ironically Lukaku's deal almost put a spike in Matic's transfer to United as Chelsea had ear marked the striker as their number one target and were not best pleased when he was snatched from underneath their noses.
At one point it was thought the Serbian, who had found life increasingly difficult at Stamford Bridge competing with French star N'Golo Kante for the central midfielder role, would end up at Juventus instead.
However, once United was quoted £50 million for England defensive midfielder Erik Diet by Tottenham, it switched its attentions back to Mastic and Chelsea relented.
Matic enjoyed a far happier second spell at Chelsea than his first one, winning the Premier League title twice and while never a prolific goalscorer he scored one of the goals of last season in the FA Cup semifinal win over Spurs at Wembley.
In all he scored seven times in 154 appearances for Chelsea.
"The Serbian departs Stamford Bridge having played a pivotal role in two Premier League title triumphs, as well as winning the League Cup with the Blues," said Chelsea in a long farewell statement.
"These trophies all came in his second spell at the club, after rejoining Chelsea in early 2014 to add steel and strength to the midfield.
"We thank Nemanja for his fantastic service and wish him well for the future."
Mourinho's spending my not over yet as he is known to cherish Croatian winger Ivan Periodic who is at Inter Milan but United baulked at the initial demand of £48.5 million although it hopes the Series A side might lower its price.

Whence France Pressed/ London