it's what i'm into

Terhitung sepekan sejak ponsel ini diluncurkan, operator yang menjadi distributor perangkat ini di negara itu, China Unicom, hanya mampu menjual 5 ribu unit iPhone saja.

Ternyata ponsel pintar beroperasikan sentuhan jari besutan Apple, iPhone, tidak mendapat sambutan yang hangat, di China.

Terhitung sepekan sejak ponsel ini diluncurkan, operator yang menjadi distributor perangkat ini di negara itu, China Unicom, hanya mampu menjual 5 ribu unit iPhone saja.

Padahal, sebelumnya operator kedua terbesar di China itu begitu girang meluncurkan iPhone, dan berharap penjualan iPhone mampu mendongkrak keuntungannya pada laporan perusahaan di kuartal keempat tahun ini.

Tak hanya China Unicom yang memiliki pengharapan tinggi atas penjualan di China. Menurut Apple Insider, Apple juga berharap bisa menjual sebanyak 460 ribu unit iPhone setiap tahun melalui Unicom.

Dikutip dari Silicon Alley Insider, biang kerok tak lakunya iPhone terletak pada absennya koneksi WiFi pada perangkat iPhone yang dijual di China.

Pemerintah China memang melarang koneksi WiFi pada iPhone yang dijual di negaranya, karena setiap handset harus mendukung protokol keamanan nirkabel yang dikembangkan secara lokal.

Dengan berbagai pembatasan itu, di China, iPhone dijual dengan harga yang sangat premium. Versi 32 GB iPhone dibanderol antara US$ 730 (sekitar Rp 7 juta) hingga US$ 1.025 (sekitar Rp 10 juta).

Padahal, di pasar gelap China, iPhone bisa dibeli seharga US$ 835 (sekitar Rp 8 juta). Menurut operator China Mobile, di samping iPhone yang dijual oleh China Unicom, kini sudah beredar antara 1,5 juta-2 juta unit iPhone unlock di China.

Padahal, sebelumnya operator kedua terbesar di China itu begitu girang meluncurkan iPhone, dan berharap penjualan iPhone mampu mendongkrak keuntungannya pada laporan perusahaan di kuartal keempat tahun ini.

Tak hanya China Unicom yang memiliki pengharapan tinggi atas penjualan di China. Menurut Apple Insider, Apple juga berharap bisa menjual sebanyak 460 ribu unit iPhone setiap tahun melalui Unicom.

Dikutip dari Silicon Alley Insider, biang kerok tak lakunya iPhone terletak pada absennya koneksi WiFi pada perangkat iPhone yang dijual di China.

Pemerintah China memang melarang koneksi WiFi pada iPhone yang dijual di negaranya, karena setiap handset harus mendukung protokol keamanan nirkabel yang dikembangkan secara lokal.

Dengan berbagai pembatasan itu, di China, iPhone dijual dengan harga yang sangat premium. Versi 32 GB iPhone dibanderol antara US$ 730 (sekitar Rp 7 juta) hingga US$ 1.025 (sekitar Rp 10 juta).

Padahal, di pasar gelap China, iPhone bisa dibeli seharga US$ 835 (sekitar Rp 8 juta). Menurut operator China Mobile, di samping iPhone yang dijual oleh China Unicom, kini sudah beredar antara 1,5 juta-2 juta unit iPhone unlock di China.

Merapi claims more lives and its guardian

Blanketed: Rescue workers evacuate the people from Kinahrejo village, Sleman, Yogyakarta, on Wednesday. Volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Merapi blanketed the village. At least 31 people were killed in Tuesday’s deadly eruption. JP/Indra Harsaputra

Rescuers combed the slopes of Mount Merapi on Wednesday, one day after the country’s most active volcano was rocked by an eruption that spewed hot clouds, killing 31 people, including a man known as the volcano’s guardian.

Hot clouds — known as wedhus gembel, a Javanese expression for sheep-shaped pyroclastic clouds — were expelled from the mountain at an estimated speed of 300 kilometers per hour at a temperature of 600 degree Celsius.

On Wednesday, the stench of sulfur and dead livestock was in the air with thick ash covering flattened houses, turning the area eerie white.

Most fatalities came from Kinahrejo hamlet in Cangkringan district, Sleman regency, Yogyakarta, or the home of the volcano’s spiritual keeper Ki Surakso Hargo, better known as Mbah Maridjan. The 85-year-old’s body was found at his home in the hamlet, located 5 kilometers from the mountain’s raging crater. The burnt and prostrated body, presumed to be in prayer, was identified by relatives and this image was instantly circulated through mobile phones.

The disaster also killed vivanews.com journalist Yuniawan Nugroho and two volunteers, Tutur Priyono from Bantul Red Cross and Slamet Ngatiran from Tagana (Taruna Siaga Bencana) Yogyakarta.

Rescuers only managed to evacuate 12 of 15 bodies from Maridjan’s house Tuesday night due to bad weather, hot cloud and ash. The rest were evacuated early Wednesday.

Yogyakarta Police Disaster Victim Identification Unit spokesman Comr. Agung Hadi Wijanarko said identification of the victims was expected to be completed late Wednesday.

“We hope the identification will have finished for the scheduled mass funeral tomorrow at 10 a.m.,” Agung said at Yogyakarta’s Dr. Sardjito General Hospital Wednesday.

Most victims suffered 70 to 80 percent burns to their bodies and were hardly recognizable.

Head of Dr. Sardjito’s public relation division, Heru Nugroho, said the hospital received 13 bodies until after midnight on Tuesday and received another 12 bodies the following morning. Twenty victims were men and five women. The number of fatalities may increase.

The volcano is situated in four regencies – Sleman, Magelang, Klaten and Boyolali – in Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces.

Merapi’s eruption, which took place the day it was put on top-alert status, took residents by surprise, forcing many, including those living outside the 10-kilometer danger zone, to flee to shelters.

Resident Tukirah of Pangukrejo hamlet in Cangkringan, said the disaster happened quickly. “Suddenly we heard loud roars followed by sirens,” after which everyone fled.

About 19,000 residents took refuge in seven shelters in Yogyakarta, which in all can only accommodate 12,000 evacuees. Some 30,000 others took to 39 shelters in Magelang.

Many locals from Yogyakarta who arrived in the shelters after the 5:03 p.m. eruption on Tuesday were not provided with food supplies.

“Supplies such as bottled water arrived at shelters at 1:30 a.m. [on Wednesday],” said Agusti Handayani, who took refuge with her family.

Sleman Regent Sri Purnomo expressed regret that a high number of fatalities resulted from reluctance to evacuate. “Residents should have obeyed instructions to evacuate since it was made based on scientific calculations. We can’t fight nature but we must avoid disaster.”

Mentawai tsunami death toll triples

The lucky ones: Survivors Daniel Scanlan (left) and Robert Marino walk on the pier upon their arrival at a port in Padang, West Sumatra, on Wednesday. The group of Australians said they were on the rear deck of their chartered boat, anchored in a bay, when Monday’s quake and tsunami struck. The 3-meter tsunami swept away hundreds of homes, and killed hundreds of villagers. AP/Achmad Ibrahim After a tsunami hit the Mentawai Islands on Monday, one villager struggled through 30 kilometers of forest to reach Sikakap, abandoning dozens of bodies that lay strewn in his flattened hamlet.

Brenti’s home in Muntei Baru-Waru in Batumonga village on North Pagai Island — one of Mentawai’s three main islands, was devastated by an earthquake-triggered tsunami on Monday night.

More than 300 people were killed by the tsunami and about 100 more missing, according to authorities. They said earlier that 113 had died.

Brenti said the first wave was eight meters high and engulfed half of the hamlet. But the second wave struck like a giant wall and was higher than a coconut tree. It struck harder and deeper, eventually reaching the slopes of a hill more than 800 meters inland.

“Only 40 people survived. All 73 houses were gone. The night after the disaster, we — the injured and babies — slept under the rain on a hill in the back of our hamlet,” the 40-year-old said, as quoted by Josh Kamatis, a disaster post coordinator for North and South Pagai Islands in Sikakap, who shared Brenti’s story with The Jakarta Post.

“Those who survived were those who ran to higher ground after the first wave struck, while the dead were mostly those who could not escape the second wave.”

Brenti’s wife and two children were swept away in the tsunami.

When Brenti left his ruined hamlet, dozens of bodies lay scattered on the ground and over 100 people were still missing.

He said that most residents had not felt the 7.2-magnitude quake as they were inside their homes due to rain. Residents were shocked after hearing a thundering sound that resembled loud wave breaks about 15 minutes after the earthquake.

Soon afterwards, the tsunami swept the hamlet.

“The hamlet is just a name now. No more buildings. On Wednesday, 80 dead victims were found and 102 still missing. There were only 40 survivors,” said Kamatis, adding the dead had been buried the same day.

Two days after the disaster struck, the death toll continues to rise, with the disaster post listing 282 dead and 411 missing.

The tsunami badly damaged 25,426 houses, flattened six hamlets and forced 4,500 residents to evacuate to makeshift shelters.

Rescue workers and relief supplies intended for more than a dozen villages on the islands arrived by plane and helicopter on Wednesday.

West Sumatra Disaster Mitigation Agency Operational Control Center head Ade Edward defended the agency’s decision to lift a tsunami warning that had been issued immediately after the temblor struck.

He said his office had not established a tsunami early warning system for Mentawai Islands, adding that even the most advanced equipment could not have processed warning signs fast enough to avoid disaster in the regency after the earthquake.

“The [epicenter] was very close and the tsunami arrived in just 15 minutes, so it was unnecessary,” Ade told the Post on Wednesday.

“The most sophisticated system currently available needs five minutes to process information from an earthquake before issuing a tsunami warning — and a issuing a command to respond to the field would take more than 15 minutes. It would have been too late for Mentawai.”

An early warning system would have been effective for the provincial capital, Padang, and for other areas along West Sumatra’s western coast that were more than 200 kilometers from the epicenter, he said.

When the earthquake hit on Oct. 25, Ade said his office had processed information from weather stations but did not issue an evacuation order since the sea level had not decreased. “In 15 minutes, we decided that a tsunami would not hit the west coast of Sumatra and informed the public by radio that there was no need to evacuate,” he said.

Mentawai Islands regency lawmaker Jan Winnen Sipayung said that some victims might have been asleep when the earthquake struck.

“Nearly all of the villages that were devastated by the tsunami were unconnected to the power network, so most residents went to sleep early. Some of the people likely failed to flee to safety after the quake,” he said Wednesday.