EC yet to accept iTV case against Pita

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Poll body received complaint late and has been busy reviewing vote results and related issues

Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat (centre), joins Pheu Thai leader Cholnan Srikaew (left), Prachachart Party leader Wan Muhammad Nor Matha (right) and other key members of the eight coalition parties as they arrive for a meeting at Pheu Thai headquarters in Bangkok on Wednesday. (Photo: Viruth Hiranyatheb)
Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat (centre), joins Pheu Thai leader Cholnan Srikaew (left), Prachachart Party leader Wan Muhammad Nor Matha (right) and other key members of the eight coalition parties as they arrive for a meeting at Pheu Thai headquarters in Bangkok on Wednesday. (Photo: Viruth Hiranyatheb)

The Election Commission (EC) says it is still considering whether to accept a complaint filed against Move Forward Party (MFP) leader Pita Limjaroenrat over his shareholding in a media company.

Chairman Ittiporn Boonpracong said on Wednesday that the commission had not yet decided whether there are grounds for the allegation and whether an inquiry panel should be set up.

On May 10, political activist Ruangkrai Leekitwattana petitioned the poll agency to investigate Mr Pita over 42,000 shares he held in iTV, an independent broadcaster founded in the 1990s that went off the air in 2007.

Mr Ruangkrai is a prolific petitioner, best known for bringing a complaint against then-prime minister Samak Sundaravej in 2008 for conflict of interest because he accepted a small sum for hosting a TV cooking show. The Constitutional Court agreed and Samak had to leave office.

Under the current constitution, an election candidate is barred from running for office if he or she owns shares in a media company.

Mr Pita said on Wednesday that he was waiting for details from the EC, and he did not think there would be any political accident undermining his bid to become the next prime minister.

A source at the EC said that under the election law, any complaint regarding a lack of qualifications for office should be filed within seven days after the EC announces the list of registered candidates.

The complaint against Mr Pita was filed just four days before the election, so the EC had no time to investigate as it was busy organising the polls, the source said.

The investigation will start after the poll results are endorsed, the source said, adding that if the EC finds sufficient grounds to the allegation, it will forward the case to the Constitutional Court.

Mr Ittiporn said on the weekend that 95% of the MPs-elect would be endorsed well ahead of the 60-day deadline in mid-July.

Mr Pita said on Tuesday that he had recently transferred the iTV shares, held in the estate of his late father who died in 2006, to his relatives to ensure he could be the next prime minister amid attempts to block him from taking office.

Pita sees a plot

In a Facebook post he said that attempts were being made to revive iTV as a “mass media” organisation in a bid to attack him.

He said that in its 2018-19 financial statement, iTV was defined as a holding company, but in the two following financial statements, it was labelled a TV organisation.

iTV stopped broadcasting in 2007 and its licence was taken over by Thai PBS. It was delisted from the Stock Exchange of Thailand in 2014. It has not had any income from media activity for several years, beyond small sums from a subsidiary that rented out broadcasting equipment. Its business registration remains active only because litigation over its concession fees is not yet concluded.

Mr Pita noted, however, that at an iTV shareholders’ meeting on April 26, one shareholder asked if it was a media organisation. “Was the question politically motivated?” the Move Forward leader wrote on Facebook.

His family concluded he should transfer the shares in case there were “attempts to revive iTV as a media organisation”, Mr Pita wrote.

Intouch connection

The largest current shareholder of iTV is Intouch Holdings Plc, the parent company of the mobile operator Advanced Info Service, founded by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Intouch holds 638.6 million iTV shares worth 3.2 billion baht at par value.

The major shareholder of Intouch is Gulf Energy Development Plc. Gulf CEO Sarath Ratanavadi is the country’s fourth richest person with a net worth of $11.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

Mr Sarath has good relations with a number of government ministers. Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn, the caretaker Digital Economy and Society Minister, is a former executive of Gulf.

Nareuwat Noppakhun, the head of the accounting department at Intouch, prepared and submitted the financial statements of iTV to the Department of Business Development between 2015 and 2022, Isara News Agency reported.

In the 2018-19 financial year, iTV was described as taking part in “activities of a holding company that does not primarily invest in financial business”. In 2020-21, “television media” was listed in the product/service section, with the note: “currently not operating due to litigation”.

In fiscal 2022, the products/services section listed “advertising media and return on investment”.

Mr Nareuwat declined to comment when contacted by Isara about how the company’s business was described in the statements.

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Apple Vision Pro: headset hype or new reality?

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In: Asia, Technology

Apple recently unveiled its Vision Pro headset at the Worldwide Developers Conference in California. With it, Apple is venturing into a market of head-mounted devices (HMDs) – which are usually just displays, but in this case is more of a complete computer attached to your head – as well as the worlds of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR).

The new Apple product will fuel the hopes of many working on these technologies that they will some day be routinely used by the public, just as the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch helped bring smartphones, tablets and wearable tech into mainstream use.

But what does the Vision Pro actually do, and how much mass appeal will it have?

VR immerses users in an entirely computer-generated world, isolating them to a large degree from their physical surroundings. AR superimposes computer-generated elements onto the real world while the latter remains visible, with the purpose of enhancing the context of our physical surroundings.

A term often used interchangeably with AR is mixed reality, referring to a set of immersive technologies including AR, that provide different “blends” of physical and virtual worlds. These three technologies are often collectively referred to as XR.

The blending of VR and AR seems to be a key part of Apple’s thinking, with the Vision Pro allowing users to adjust their level of immersion by deciding how much of the real world they can see. This transitioning between the two experiences will probably be a trend for future HMDs.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook was at the unveiling at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in California. Photo: EPA Images via The Conversation / John G Mabanglo

The physical world is “seen” through an array of 12 cameras located behind a ski-goggle-like glass fascia, acting as a lens. When the Vision Pro is in VR mode, people approaching you in the real world are automatically detected and displayed as they get close.

A feature called EyeSight also displays the wearer’s eyes through the glass lens when needed, to enable more natural interaction with people around them – a challenge for many HMDs.

In terms of technical specifications, the Vision Pro is impressive. It uses a combination of the M2 microchip and a new chip called the R1. M2 is running visionOS, which Apple calls its first spatial operating system, along with computer vision algorithms and computer graphics generation.

R1 processes information from the cameras, an array of microphones and a LiDAR scanner – which uses a laser to measure distances to different objects – in order to make the headset aware of its surroundings.

More importantly, the Vision Pro boasts an impressive display system with “more pixels than a 4K TV to each eye.” Its ability to track where the wearer’s eyes are looking allows users to interact with graphical elements just by looking at them.

The headset can receive gesture and voice commands and features a form of 360-degree sound called spatial audio. The quoted unplugged operating time is two hours.

Wearable ‘ecosystem’

Packed, in typical Apple fashion, in curved aluminum and glass, the headset has an eye-watering price of US$3,499 and represents a collection of many premium features. But Apple has a history of developing products with increasingly versatile capabilities to sense what’s going on in their real-world surroundings.

Tim Cook (L) and Apple Senior VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi speak during the conference keynote address.
Tim Cook (L) and Apple Senior VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi speak during the conference keynote address. Photo: Joe Manbanglo / EPA Images via The Conversation

Apple also focuses on making its devices interoperable – meaning they work easily with other Apple devices – forming a wearable “ecosystem.” This is what really promises to be disruptive about the Vision Pro. It is also akin to what had been promised and hoped for by pioneers in the idea of wearable computing back in the 1990s.

Combining the headset with the iPhone, which still forms the backbone of Apple’s ecosystem, and the Apple Watch could help create new uses for augmented reality. Likewise, linking the headset to many programming tools demonstrates the company’s desire to tap into an existing community of developers of augmented reality applications.

Many questions remain, however. For example, will it be able to access mixed reality applications via a web browser? What will it be like to use from an ergonomic point of view?

It’s also unclear when the Vision Pro be available outside the US or whether there will be a non-Pro version – as the “Pro” part of the title implies a more “expert”, or developer market.

The Vision Pro is a gamble, as XR is often seen as something that promises but rarely delivers. Yet, companies such as Apple and those that are probably its primary competitors in the XR domain, Meta and Microsoft, have the clout to make XR popular for the general public.

More importantly, devices such as the Vision Pro and its ecosystem, as well as its competitors could provide the foundation for developing the metaverse. This is an immersive world, facilitated by headsets, that aims for social interaction that’s more natural than with previous products.

Sceptics will say that Vision Pro and EyeSight make you appear like a scuba diver in your living room. But this could finally be the time to dive into the deep waters of XR.

Panagiotis Ritsos, Senior Lecturer in Visualisation, Bangor University and Peter Butcher, Lecturer in Human Computer Interaction, Bangor University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Indonesia to deport Australian surfer after drunken assault

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BANDA ACEH: An Australian surfer detained after launching a drunken assault in Indonesia’s most conservative province will be deported, officials said Wednesday (Jun 7). Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones, 23, from Noosa in southern Queensland was facing five years in prison after attacking several people in April on the surf island ofContinue Reading

Prayut to preside over official Yellow Line opening

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Service to all 23 stations expected to begin on June 19

The Yellow Line monorail is tested on June 2 before trial runs began between the Lat Phrao and Samrong stations for commuters on the following day. It will be officially opened on June 19. (Photo: Nutthawat Wicheanbut)
The Yellow Line monorail is tested on June 2 before trial runs began between the Lat Phrao and Samrong stations for commuters on the following day. It will be officially opened on June 19. (Photo: Nutthawat Wicheanbut)

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha will officially open the Yellow Line electric train system — now offering free rides to passengers on most parts of the route — on June 19, according to a source in the Transport Ministry.

The caretaker premier is expected to head a ceremony at 10am on June 19 when the entire route — comprising 23 stations from Lat Phrao to Samrong — will be up and running.

The Yellow Line is the country’s first straddle-beam monorail. It held its soft opening last Saturday and has been providing free rides that stop at 13 of its stations, from Hua Mak to Samrong. Construction of facilities at the Lat Phrao station is still incomplete.

The line covers 30.4 kilometres, with a travel time of around 30 minutes from end to end.

Executives of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA) plan to meet on Friday with Eastern Bangkok Monorail (EBM), an affiliate of the Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc (BTSC) and the concessionaire of the Yellow Line, to evaluate the trial runs.

The free rides will run until July 3. From June 12, operating hours will be extended from between 9am and 8pm currently to between 6am and 9pm daily.

With a maximum speed of 80km/h, the monorail train has four carriages that can carry up to 568 passengers each, or about 17,000 per hour, according to BTSC.

Fares will range from 15 to 45 baht, subject to changes based on the consumer price index for the previous three months.

The Yellow Line is interlinked with the Green Line at Samrong station, the Airport Rail Link at Hua Mak station and the Blue Line at Lat Phrao station. It will soon be connected as well to the Orange Line via Yaek Lam Sali station.

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Convicts can now seek detention outside prison

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A new regulation of the Corrections Department allows jailed convicts to seek approval to serve their period of detention outside a prison.

The Royal Gazette website published the new regulation on Wednesday, effective immediately. 

The announcement states that the regulation was being adjusted to suit present circumstances.

The new regulation allows convicts to file petitions with relevant officials, prison governors, directors-general, ministers or His Majesty the King.

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Eight-party alliance brings forward timeline to form government

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Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, centre, speaks after a meeting of the eight allied parties at Pheu Thai headquarters in Bangkok on Wednesday. (Photo: Varuth Hirunyatheb)
Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, centre, speaks after a meeting of the eight allied parties at Pheu Thai headquarters in Bangkok on Wednesday. (Photo: Varuth Hirunyatheb)

An alliance of eight political parties has agreed to bring forward their timeline for forming the new government by 2-3 weeks, and set up two more working groups.

Move Forward Party (MFP) leader Pita Limjaroenrat chaired a meeting of the eight allies at the Pheu Thai headquarters on Wednesday.

Leaders and representatives of all eight parties attended, the others being Pheu Thai leader Cholnan Srikaew, Prachachat Party leader Wan Muhammad Nor Matha, Thai Sang Thai Party deputy leader Anudit Nakornthap, Pheu Thai Ruam Phalang leader Wasawat Poungponsri, Seri Ruam Thai leader Pol Gen Sereepisuth Temeeyaves, Fair leader Pitipong Temcharoen and a Palang Sangkhom Mai representative. 

After the meeting, Mr Pita said they welcomed the Election Commission’s move to speed up the endorsement of at least 95% of all MPs-elect. If the EC endorsed the poll results more quickly,  leaders of all eight parties agreed the planned formation of the next government could be moved forward by 2-3 weeks, well ahead of schedule, the MFP leader said.

Earlier, EC chairman Ittiporn Ittiporn Boonpracong said he was confident poll results would be endorsed more quickly than they were in 2019, and well ahead of the mid-July deadline.

Under the law, the EC has 60 days from Election Day, or until July 13, to certify at least 95% of all MPs-elect, to make the results official.  In 2019, it completed this task on May 8, or 45 days after polling day.  This year, the 45-day mark would fall on June 28.

If the government could be formed faster, budget planning could also be moved up 2-3 weeks, the MFP leader said. The alliance would meet again on June 20 at Thai Sang Thai headquarters, he added. 

The eight parties also agreed to set up two more working groups, on reform of  fishing sector and to oversee the transition of fiscal budgets.

Once the government was formed, budgets could be allocated to address the problems affecting the people, Mr Pita said. (continues below)

Leaders and representatives from the eight colaition parties arrive at the Pheu Thai headquarters in Bangkok on Wednesday. (Photo: Varuth Hirunyatheb)

On the party’s campaign cartoon featuring a hammer and sickle, the MFP leader said it represented the party’s 100 list candidates who were from the labour and agricultural sectors. He insisted there was no hidden motive.

This was in response to the EC’s questioning of the party’s campaign cartoon after a complainant asked the commission to investigate if the party was against constitutional monarchy, which would be a violation of the constitution.

The hammer and sickle is used to represent industrial and agricultural workers, the proletariat, and is also used by the communist movement. The commission asked why the MFP used the hammer and sickle, and what it meant in the campaign cartoon.

Regarding the complaint about his ownership of shares in the now-defunct iTV media firm, Mr Pita said he was waiting to hear from the EC on this matter. 

He stood firm that he was the manager of his late father’s estate. He had not received  the 42,000 shares  originally held by his father, who died in 2006.

On Tuesday, Mr Pita said he had transferred the 42,000 shares to relatives to ensure there was no barrier to him being the next prime minister, amid attempts to block him from entering government

Mr Pita wrote on Facebook on Tuesday morning that the Prime Minister’s Office terminated its contract with iTV on March 7, 2007, and iTV had not been a media organisation since then.

“But now there are attempts to revive iTV as a mass media organisation, to attack me,” Mr Pita wrote.

He said that in its 2018-2019 financial statement, iTV was defined as a holding company but in two following financial statements it was defined as a TV organisation.

Mr Pita said he did not know who was behind attempts to revive iTV.  He had heard it could be for the business interests of its executives, and also that it might be politically motivated against him taking government.

He had to manage the risk. He reiterated his belief the iTV shares case would not affect the forming of the new government. The MFP won 151 seats in the May 14 general election, earning the right to be the core party in forming a coalition administration.

In 2007, iTV stopped broadcasting and its licence was taken over by Thai PBS. The company was delisted from the Stock Exchange of Thailand in 2014. Its company registration has been kept active because it is embroiled in a dispute with the government over unpaid concession fees.

The major shareholder of iTV was Intouch Holdings Co, with 638,602,846 shares. Intouch’s major shareholder is Gulf Energy Development Plc.

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Schools take extra safety precautions as they resume overseas trips after COVID-19 suspension

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“We found out that one of the usual attractions that we used to go to had closed due to COVID, so we had to change the itinerary,” said TJC teacher Jared Wong.

“But at the same time, that also gave us a chance to find new sites to put into our itinerary that will also be meaningful sites.”

These new attractions include the Kuantan Art Street, which opened two years ago. 

There, geography students learnt about the city’s efforts to urbanise and reinvent itself.

Caves and waterfalls were also part of the four-day trip last month.

Students told CNA that they are grateful to finally be able to travel for such learning opportunities. 

GRATEFUL FOR LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD

“That really brought the textbook to life, because we don’t have any limestone caves in Singapore,” said TJC student Liv Ng. 

“Being able to go there and experience it was really majestic.”

TJC student Jovi Lai said: “We have this thing called ‘geography investigation’, where we have to go out onto the field, ask questions and conduct investigations to enhance our learning. It’s quite difficult for us to learn this online. 

“So being able to go out onto the field, and into Malaysia really helped us quite a bit.”

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