If you donт€™t go overseas, your competitors will. And by the time you make up your mind, the market abroad would already be saturated with their products and branding...

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation has signed a deal with Amazon to sell its low-cost laptops under a Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) programme starting this month.

How many water spouts are there in the fountain in front of Vivocity shopping mall? Folks on a bright Saturday afternoon were surprised to see groups of young people counting the spouts and keying the answer on their cell phones.

The tech world can look forward to Barack Obama becoming the first "tech president" of the United States when he takes office in January. And Obama has said he plans to appoint a chief technical officer, т€œto make certain we incorporate technology into every decision we make".

Starting up a Windows-based PC requires the patience of Job, what with so many desktop applets to activate. Traditionally, the real time-hogger is the security software that ensures all is well and safe before you start computing and surfing.

Google's G1 phone, on sale in the US from this month, combines an Apple iPhone touch screen with a Blackberry keypad. Made by Taiwanese HTC, it is cheaper than the iPhone, and is expected to offer far more applications, most of which will be free. Some critics are even calling it an Apple iPhone killer.

Malaysia is set to launch an ambitious programme of high-speed broadband services across the country, to be operated by the state-owned Telekom Malaysia. The scheme to serve 2.2 million premises, is estimated at 15.2 billion ringgit (US$4.46 billion) over 10 years, according to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak last month.

Singaporeт€™s prospects look favourable but things could go wrong suddenly because of an unexpected turn of events, says Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew at a forum with students in Nanyang Technological University this month.

HUNGARY and Poland are two European countries where opportunities abound for Singapore infocomm companies.

The best thing governments can do on the Web is get out of the way. Save the citizen time by making basic government tasks fast and easy.