BlackBerry Messenger Vs WhatsApp, Bagus Mana?

http://tekno.kompas.com/read/2013/09/20/1418347/BlackBerry.Messenger.Vs.WhatsApp.Bagus.Mana.?utm_source=WP&utm_medium=box&utm_campaign=Kpopwp
Oik Yusuf



KOMPAS.com — BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) akan resmi memasuki toko aplikasi Google Play Android dan App Store iOS pada Sabtu (21/9/2013) dan Minggu (22/9/2013) mendatang.

Selagi aplikasi tersebut "terjebak" di platform Blackberry yang terus terjerembab di tengah persaingan industri mobile, para pesaing seperti Line, KakaoTalk, dan kawan-kawan terus berkembang di iOS dan Android.

Aplikasi pesan instan terbesar di antara semuanya adalah WhatsApp yang hingga kini diklaim telah memiliki 300 juta pengguna. Dibanding angka tersebut, jumlah pengguna BlackBerry sebesar 60 juta terlihat kecil.

Namun, itu sebelum BBM bermigrasi ke Android dan iOS. Bisakah layanan andalan BlackBerry ini menarik minat pengguna dua platform tersebut? 

Dibanding aplikasi-aplikasi sejenis di pasaran, BBM sebenarnya masih memiliki sejumlah keunggulan yang berpotensi membuatnya lebih menarik dibandingkan para pesaingnya, termasuk WhatsApp. 

Nah, apa saja kelebihan dan kekurangan masing-masing aplikasi chatting populer tersebut? Berikut ini daftar singkatnya yang ditelaah menurut sejumlah aspek sebagaimana dikutip Kompas Tekno dariFirstPost dan CrackBerry.

1. Pengiriman pesan. Pengguna BBM tentu akrab dengan notifikasi berbentuk huruf kecil "D" yang menunjukkan bahwa pesan telah terkirim ke perangkat tujuan dan "R" yang berarti pesan telah dibaca oleh pengguna tertuju.

Lantas, bukankah WhatsApp memiliki mekanisme serupa berupa tanda centang? Tidak juga. Tanda centang satu kali pada WhatsApp semata-mata menerangkan bahwa pesan telah terkirim ke server. Sementara tanda centang dua kali menyatakan bahwa pesan telah terkirim ke perangkat tujuan, bukan sudah dibaca oleh penerima.

Informasi mengenai hal tersebut diterangkan dengan gamblang oleh WhatsApp sendiri di situs resminya. Jadi, BBM masih memiliki kelebihan dalam hal kejelasan status pesan terkirim.

2. Privasi dan cara "mengundang". Disinilah letak salah satu perbedaan mendasar antara WhatsApp dan BBM.

Mekanisme invitation berdasarkan nomor telepon pada WhatsApp sangat mudah digunakan karena pengguna bisa langsung mengirim pesan ke pengguna lain di daftar kontak yang sama-sama menggunakan WhatsApp, tanpa perlu repot mengirim "undangan" dan menunggu persetujuan.

Di sisi lain, kelebihan tersebut sekaligus menjadi kelemahan WhatsApp karena nomor telepon pengguna jadi tersebar ke mana-mana. Siapa pun yang memiliki nomor tersebut bisa mengirim pesan dan mengundang pengguna ke dalam grup tanpa butuh izin.

Pengguna memang bisa memblokir kontak yang tidak diinginkan, tetapi hal ini bisa menimbulkan situasi tidak mengenakkan antar-kedua orang.

BBM—termasuk versi Android dan iPhone—menggunakan mekanisme berbasis PIN dan membutuhkan pengiriman undangan dan otorisasi sebelum pengguna bisa mengirim pesan ke perangkat tujuan.

Hal ini memang membantu melindungi privasi, tapi sayangnya agak merepotkan karena pengguna tak bisa langsung menggunakan nomor telepon yang sudah ada di daftar kontak, tetapi harus mengirim undangan terlebih dahulu.

3. Berbagi "file". Baik BBM maupun WhatsApp mampu mengirim informasi kontak, lokasi, berikut gambar dan voice note.

Tak seperti WhatsApp, grup dalam BBM hanya bisa mengirim gambar, meski bisa ditambahi captiondan komentar. Tetapi, para anggota BBM Group bisa berbagi jadwal event dan kalendar.

BBM mendukung hingga 30 anggota dalam sebuah grup, sementara batas yang diberlakukan WhatsApp lebih longgar, mencapai 50 kontak.

Salah satu fitur BBM yang belum ada di versi iPhone dan Android adalah BBM Channel yang memungkinkan pengguna menjadi pengikut sebuah channel yang menyiarkan segala macam konten.

Mekanisme tersebut mirip dengan Twitter, tetapi memiliki perbedaan dalam hal privasi karena pengguna tidak bisa melihat channel mana yang diikuti oleh pengguna lain. Fitur ini rencananya bakal ditambahkan di BBM untuk iPhone dan Android di kemudian waktu, bersama dengan fungsivoice dan video chat.

4. "Emoticons" dan personalisasi. BBM menyediakan pilihan emoticon standar sebanyak 90 buah, sementara WhatsApp jauh lebih bervariasi dengan 189 emoticon yang bisa dipilih.

BBM memang menyediakan sekitar 600 "emoticon tersembunyi" yang bisa diakses menggunakan kode tertentu, tetapi hal ini merepotkan harena harus dihafal atau dikelola oleh aplikasi lain.

Soal personalisasi, pengguna WhatsApp bisa menggunakan wallpaper berbeda untuk tiap window chat. Kemampuan ini tak disediakan oleh BBM.

Keterangan status di BBM bisa diatur agar menampilkan status custom dan musik yang sedang didengarkan, serta tersambung dengan sejumlah aplikasi, seperti Foursquare sehingga dapat turut memasukkan update informasi dari aplikasi yang bersangkutan.

5. Notifikasi. Baik BBM maupun WhatsApp bisa memberi notifikasi pesan masuk lewat kedipan lampu perangkat, getaran, dan suara. BBM memiliki action "Ping" yang khas untuk mengingatkan penerima agar membaca pesan.

Lalu, mana yang terbaik di antara kedua aplikasi chatting populer ini? Keduanya sama-sama memiliki kekurangan dan kelebihan seperti dijabarkan di atas. BBM unggul soal privasi dan sejumlah hal lain seperti notifikasi status pesan.

Sementara WhatsApp mengandalkan kemudahan pakai dan jumlah pengguna yang sudah jauh lebih banyak dibandingkan BBM. Belum bisa diketahui mana di antara kedua pilihan ini yang lebih unggul dan mampu menarik pengguna.

Yang pasti, dengan hadirnya BBM di Android dan iOS, kini pengguna kedua platform tersebut pun bisa menggunakan aplikasi itu dalam satu smartphone bersama dengan WhatsApp tanpa perlu memilih atau berpindah perangkat.

Start schooling later than age five, say experts

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10302249/Start-schooling-later-than-age-five-say-experts.html
Graeme Paton, Education Editor
Formal schooling should be delayed until the age of six or seven because early education is causing “profound damage” to children, an influential lobby of almost 130 experts warns.


The Save Childhood Movement is campaigning for a major overhaul of early education, including a possible delay to the formal school starting age.

Traditional lessons should be put on hold for up to two years amid fears that successive governments have promoted a “too much, too soon” culture in schools and nurseries, it is claimed.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, the group of academics, teachers, authors and charity leaders call for a fundamental reassessment of national policies on early education.

It is claimed that the current system robs infants of the ability to play and puts too much emphasis on formal learning in areas such as the three Rs at a young age. The letter warns that the Coalition is now ratcheting up the requirements with policies that prioritise “school readiness” over free play.

This includes the possible introduction of a new baseline test for five-year-olds in England and qualifications for child care staff that make little reference to learning through play, they say.

The letter – signed by 127 senior figures including Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the former Children’s Commissioner for England, Lord Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics, Dr David Whitebread, senior lecturer in psychology of education at Cambridge University, and Catherine Prisk, director of Play England – suggests that children should actually be allowed to start formal education later to give them more time to develop.

A spokesman for Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said the signatories were “misguided”, suggesting they advocated dumbing down.

“These people represent the powerful and badly misguided lobby who are responsible for the devaluation of exams and the culture of low expectations in state schools,” the spokesman said.

“We need a system that aims to prepare pupils to solve hard problems in calculus or be a poet or engineer — a system freed from the grip of those who bleat bogus pop-psychology about 'self image’, which is an excuse for not teaching poor children how to add up.”

By law, children must be in school by the age of five, although the vast majority are enrolled in reception classes aged four.

Today’s letter says that children who “enter school at six or seven” – in line with Scandinavian education systems – “consistently achieve better educational results as well as higher levels of wellbeing”. It would mean putting off the start of formal schooling for up to two years for most children, with experts suggesting that they should instead undertake play-based activities with no formal literacy and numeracy requirements.

“The continued focus on an early start to formal learning is likely to cause profound damage to the self-image and learning dispositions of a generation of children,” the letter says.

The letter is circulated by the Save Childhood Movement, which is launching the “Too Much, Too Soon” campaign tomorrow.

It will push for a series of reforms, including a new “developmentally appropriate”, play-based early years framework for nurseries and schools, covering children between the age of three and seven.

Wendy Ellyatt, the founding director of the movement, said: “Despite the fact that 90 per cent of countries in the world prioritise social and emotional learning and start formal schooling at six or seven, in England we seem grimly determined to cling on to the erroneous belief that starting sooner means better results later.

“There is nothing wrong with seeking high educational standards and accountability, but there is surely something very wrong indeed if this comes at the cost of natural development.”

At the moment, most English children start school in nursery or reception classes at the age of three or four and are taught using the Early Years Foundation Stage — a compulsory “nappy curriculum”.

They are assessed against targets set out in the EYFS, which covers areas such as personal and social development, communication and early numeracy, before moving on to formal lessons in the first full year of school aged five.

Children are then subjected to further assessments in the three Rs at the age of seven.

The Government is now consulting on moving these later assessments in the three Rs forward to the “early weeks of a child’s career at school”.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, said that the best nurseries and primary schools had a “systematic, rigorous and consistent approach to assessment right from the very start”.

The Government has also pledged to drive up standards of child care, including a requirement for staff to hold A-level style qualifications by 2014.

But the Save Childhood Movement claims that the threat of more rigorous assessments for four- or five-year-olds would undermine children’s natural development.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Sir Al, who was the first Children’s Commissioner and is also emeritus professor of child health at University College London, said: “If you look at a country like Finland, children don’t start formal, full-scale education until they are seven.

“These extra few years, in my view, provide a crucial opportunity, when supported by well trained, well paid and highly educated staff, for children to be children”

Can you smell the perfect partner?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/sep/08/can-you-smell-perfect-partner
Is Tim Dowling married to the right woman? A new book suggests that we unconsciously select the perfect partner by sniffing out their 'compatibility genes'. He talks to the author about MHC genetics and alleles – then nervously asks his wife to take a DNA test


Tim Dowling

At first, I'm not even sure how best to frame the question in order to secure my wife's participation.

"Would you mind taking a quick DNA test," I say, "to determine our genetic compatibility?"

"Am I going to be told I have a fatal disease?" she asks.

"No," I say. "It's just to find out whether or not we were meant to be together."

"Oh," she says. "Fine. Whatever."

On the day we each spit into separate test tubes, I don't yet understand how a DNA test can offer evidence of compatibility, because I am only on page eight of Daniel M Davis's book The Compatibility Gene. But here's the gist of the idea: there are a small number of human genes – a tiny section of the short arm of chromosome six – that may play a role in determining how attractive you are to a potential mate. Suitable partners can literally sniff each other out, finding an optimal genetic other half using their noses.

The basis for this notion is the so-called smelly T-shirt experiment, first performed by a Swiss zoologist called Claus Wedekind in 1994. He analysed a particular bit of the DNA of a group of students, looking specifically at the major histocompatibility genes (MHC). The students were then split into 49 females and 44 males. The men were asked to wear plain cotton T-shirts for two nights while avoiding anything – alcohol, cologne etc – that might alter their natural odour. After two days the shirts were placed in cardboard boxes with holes in them, and the women were asked to rank the boxes by smell using three criteria: intensity, pleasantness and sexiness.

Wedekind's results appeared to show that the women preferred the T-shirts worn by men with different compatibility genes from themselves, raising the possibility that we unconsciously select mates who would put our offspring at some genetic advantage. The experiment was controversial, but it did alter scientific thinking about compatibility genes. And while the mechanism behind this phenomenon is poorly understood, that hasn't stopped dating agencies from employing MHC typing as a matchmaking tool. One lab offering such testing to online agencies (you can't smell potential partners over the internet; not yet), a Swiss company called GenePartner, claims: "With genetically compatible people we feel that rare sensation of perfect chemistry."

As I walk to the postbox with my two test tubes of spit in an envelope, the idea of testing my genetic affinity with my wife suddenly strikes me as foolhardy. Twenty years of marriage should be the very definition of compatibility, but what if the results tell a different story? I don't want to discover that on a cold winter's night two decades ago, my wife took one sniff of me and fell in love with my deodorant. I don't think they even make that kind any more.

Davis also tested his marital compatibility for the book and, while he may be a director of the University of Manchester's Collaborative Centre of Inflammation Research, he admits to similar, not wholly rational, misgivings.

"It was definitely more weird than I thought," he told me, adding that his wife was "unexpectedly nervous about what they might find." He needn't have worried – they were pronounced perfectly compatible.

They aren't called your compatibility genes because they help you find a compatible partner; they're called that because they govern the acceptance and rejection of transplanted organs. And that's not their intended role, either. As Professor Steven Marsh – deputy director of research at the Anthony Nolan Histocompatibility Laboratories, where I sent my spit – puts it: "The molecules that give you your tissue type, they're not there just to make transplantation difficult. Their job is to fight infection." They are, in short, your immune system.

Davis's book tells the story of the search for these compatibility genes, from the early days of blood transfusion to the cutting-edge science that has yet to appear in the textbooks. "I kind of wanted to step back and take in the big picture," he says. "You can quite easily have a successful career in science without knowing how you got where you are." As a journalist and a layman I am normally happy to summarise decades of tireless research with the words, "It's complicated", but some further explanation is warranted.

Your immune cells don't know a virus from a transplanted kidney; they work by distinguishing between "self" and "non-self". The "self" is expressed at the molecular level, by your MHC genes; they provide the signature that gives your tissue its identity. Actually, your body also produces immune cells that would attack your own tissue, but they are killed off by your thymus in a process known as "thymic education". The T in T-cell denotes an immune cell that has survived this screening.

Your MHC genes also encode the instructions to produce HLA molecules – human leukocyte antigens – that display proteins from inside your cell on its surface. "If you have a virus," says Marsh, "these are the molecules that are taking little bits of the virus [protein segments called peptides], showing it to other cells in the body, and saying: 'What is this? Is this me, or is it foreign?'" HLA molecules possess a groove into which peptides fit, but there are lots of different types of HLA molecules, and some are a better fit for certain peptides than others. The range of HLA types you possess – effectively your genetic "self" – comprises your ability to fight off certain diseases, and your susceptibility to others. They are distributed among us in a way that protects the population as a whole – so an epidemic can't kill us all – but at the personal level a healthy diversity of HLA types is an obvious benefit. When someone smells attractive to you, so the notion goes, you're smelling HLA types you don't have.

It is not completely understood how all this works at the molecular level, but it is at this forefront that Davis toils. "My research is in developing microscopes that look with better resolution at immune cells and how they interact with other cells," he says. This interaction is "reminiscent of the way neurons communicate" in the brain, raising the possibility that your compatibility genes are responsible for more than just fighting infection, and could even influence how your brain functions. I confess to Davis that I don't really understand this part. "None of us do," he says. "I just happened to write a book about it."

But how does the smelling thing work – if it works? It has been shown that mice can, and do, detect compatibility genes by smell, and that stickleback fish also choose mates by their odour, but in humans, Davis admits, the jury is out. "How it works on the olfactory level is basically not understood at all," he says.

Marsh points out that your HLA genes share a neighbourhood on the genome with certain olfactory receptors, and that these are inherited together. "The fact that these genes are right next door to your HLA genes suggest they may have some role in mate selection," he says. "But this might be a bit of pre-history. It may have been important when you were a mouse."

Two weeks after posting our samples, following a car journey that does little to enhance our compatibility, my wife and I finally locate the histocompatibility laboratories. As we are ushered into a boardroom, I prepare myself for revelations I may not like, or even comprehend.

The labs do not analyse HLA types in order to facilitate dating. They do rather more important work, matching tissue types for bone marrow transplants and saving lives. Sharing HLA types with a donor reduces the risk that a stem cell graft will be seen as non-self, and rejected. There are 500,000 potential donors on Anthony Nolan's register, and they have access to a further 750,000 from other UK registers, plus a worldwide database with 22 million names on it. They also spend a lot of time educating the public about stem-cell donation, which is not the invasive surgical procedure it once was.

"It's actually very straightforward," says Ellen Marshall, Anthony Nolan's communications manager. "Ninety per cent of people donate by a method called peripheral blood stem cell collection, which is similar in nature to giving blood." Basically, they take blood out of one arm, harvest stem cells from it, and return it to the other arm. You only donate in the event that you're matched with a recipient, and to join the register all you have to do is send them your spit, as I did.

I can't make much sense of the test results without first getting a bit of education from Marsh. We are primarily concerned, he tells me, with the five major histocompatibility genes: HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C, HLA-DR and HLA-DQ. You inherit these in a block and you end up with two sets, one from each parent. Each set is known as a haplotype; each specific version of a gene is called an allele. Without further testing it is not possible to know for sure which alleles came from which parent, but because certain ones are commonly found together, they can make a statistical best guess about your haplotypes.

"We'll do you first," says Marsh, handing me a sheet of paper with some numbers on it. "That's your tissue type." I nod, because it seems like the right thing to do.

My HLA-A allele on one haplotype, he explains, goes by the name HLA-A*32:01:01. Lots of people have it, apparently. The HLA-B*53:01:01 on the other haplotype, however, is rare among Caucasians, but commonly found in west Africa. He produces two maps showing the geographical spread of my sort of haplotypes. One is most frequently found in Ireland; the other in Russia.

This makes sense. Although I was born in America, I am about as genetically Irish as it is possible to be, the only potential exception being my father's mother, who was adopted. My father once told me she was a Chechen, but he actually has no idea, and tends to change his story depending on which interesting nationalities happen to be in the news. According to my DNA, however, he may have been right.

Statistically speaking, I possess the 39th most common haplotype among European caucasians, alongside the 125th.

"So they're not quite the commonest ones," says Marsh.

"Let's face it," says my wife. "They're pretty common."

"It's a different sort of common," I say. "This is science."

Marsh produces my wife's report. I immediately spot that we share one allele – the aforementioned HLA-A*32:01:01. But this bit of matching type does not mean we aren't one another's type.

"That's the only one you share," says Marsh. "You're quite different, so if the whole sniffing-your-mate-out is to be believed, then you've managed to sniff out a good mate."

It's not a terribly romantic revelation, but it's a relief. As he explains to my wife that her haplotypes are rarer than mine – "much, much rarer," she says – Marsh can barely conceal his excitement. You don't need to be a scientist to see that he is withholding some information that pleases him.

"Interestingly, there's also a B*27 knocking around there," he says. I know from reading Davis's book that having a B*27 gene increases your risk of contracting ankylosing spondylitis, but I'm pretty sure my wife hasn't got ankylosing spondylitis.

"Occasionally we come across people with types we've never seen before," says Marsh. Oh God, I think. Not her.

"You have a new B*27 allele that we've never seen before in the world," he says. "We'll be sequencing you properly, your sequence will go in the database, and we'll give it a new number." My wife beams.

"I feel like I've won a rosette!" she says. She instantly forgets why we've come – to test our compatibility. She is no longer interested in that little piece of good news. On the car ride home she is insufferable.

"I can't wait to tell everyone I've got an unknown – what have I got?"

"An allele," I say.

"A brand new allele," she says. "Yours are all common, whereas mine is unique, like me."

"That's great," I say. "Good luck finding a match for your next bone marrow transplant."

Later I feel bad about saying this, because she's my wife, and she is unique. I smelled her out of thousands.

Syria Islamist rebels take control of historic Christian town of Maaloula

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/08/world/meast/syria-civil-war/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Hamdi Alkhshali and Nic Robertson, CNN



(CNN) -- An al Qaeda-linked rebel group has wrested control of the historic Christian town of Maaloula from regime forces, opposition groups said Sunday.

Videos posted on YouTube in recent days showed fighting between rebels and government forces in the tiny sleepy town, an hour's drive from the capital Damascus.

"We cleansed Maaloula from all the Assad dogs and all his thugs," a rebel commander shouts at the camera in a video posted online over the weekend.

What the capture will mean for the Christian residents waits to be seen.

As the 18-month-long Syrian conflict festers, the government and the opposition welcome and need Christian support.

But some Christians fear radical Islamists have been swelling rebel ranks.

They also fear the same fate as a number of Christians during the war in Iraq, where militants targeted them and spurred many to leave the country.

Christians make up roughly 10% of the population. Syria is ruled by a government dominated by Alawites, whose faith is an offshoot of Shiism. The regime is opposed by an opposition with a large Sunni presence.

Aid agencies say Syria's 2 million Christians are often targeted for suspected sympathies to President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Two top bishops have been kidnapped; a well-known priest is missing.

Antoinette Nassrallah, the Christian owner of a cafe in Maaloula, told CNN last year she had seen government TV images depicting radical Muslim attacks on Christians. She said she has heard about such violence in Aleppo.

"For now in our area here it's fine," she said last year. "But what I heard, in Aleppo, they are killing, destroying many of churches -- very, very old churches."

Many of Syria's Christians have fled to Lebanon where they shelter in monasteries.

On Saturday, they joined in prayers for peace promoted by Pope Francis in Rome.

Last year, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on leaders of al-Nusra while the State Department blacklisted it as a foreign terror organization linked to al Qaeda in Iraq.

Al-Nusra Front has emerged as one of the most effective groups in the Syrian resistance, drawing on foreign fighters with combat experience in Iraq and elsewhere.

But Washington accuses the group of using the Syrian conflict to advance its own ideology and ends.

Elsewhere in Syria, Russia sent a plane to pick up its citizens from the war-torn Middle East nation, state media reported Sunday.

A Bet on the Environment

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/business/energy-environment/a-firm-that-aims-to-match-environmental-values-with-financial-value.html?_r=0
 DIANE CARDWELL

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Billy Parish, with a solar array in Oakland, Calif., has harnessed capitalism in the fight for a clean earth

Just after his sophomore year at Yale in 2002, Billy Parish stood before a rapidly retreating glacier in India that feeds the Ganges River, convinced that he had come face to face with climate change and that he had to do something about it.

It did not take long. Back in the United States, he started a youth coalition that, within a few years, had mobilized thousands of people with similar environmental concerns. He never made it to his junior year at Yale.

In the years since, Mr. Parish has come to another conclusion: that capitalism is a powerful force that can be harnessed to combat global warming. Now 31, he is well into making that his next mission, building an online solar energy investment platform that could turn ordinary Americans into mini-financiers.

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times 

Dan Rosen, left, and Mr. Parish, the founder of Mosaic, on the roof of an Oakland youth center.

Called Mosaic, the company functions like a virtual renewable energy bank, soliciting investments for solar projects and making loans to be paid back, typically, over about 10 years. Mosaic collects a fee on every loan. It is similar to the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, a Web site that matches creative ventures with financial supporters. In the case of Mosaic, with a minimum of $25, investors can earn a return.

“Our goal is to build the No. 1 investment platform for clean energy,” Mr. Parish said. Mosaic, he added, allows investors “to not just be passive consumers but to be creators, to be owners, to collaborate to make things happen.”

The company is still in its infancy. About 2,000 clients in 44 states have put in more than $4 million in project financing since it began soliciting money in January, and it is open nationwide to accredited investors — a category that includes certain institutions and high-net-worth individuals — and, so far, to the general public in New York and California.

Whether Mosaic can execute its vision is an open question. But it is poised to grow, with deals in the works that would allow investors to use money from retirement accounts like 401(k)’s and I.R.A.’s.

That, along with new financial regulations that permit broader marketing of investment projects, promises to vastly expand the potential sources of money for solar projects as well as other types of renewable energy the company plans to develop.

Although it is among the first crowdfunding platforms to focus on energy, Mosaic borrowed inspiration from earlier online ventures that gave consumers more direct access to products and services. Financing clean-tech projects and start-up companies is ripe for such an approach, adherents say, because only a small coterie of investors has been able to participate, making financing harder to obtain and more expensive.

“All these platforms are called marketplaces because they bring populations together, whether it be males and females on Match.com or banks and borrowers on Lending Tree,” said Judd Hollas, the founder of EquityNet, which allows direct investment in start-up companies as a sort of venture capital platform for the masses. “It was logical to assume that the same thing could happen and should happen in private equity.”

Mosaic’s approach is seen by many as bringing together small-scale solar projects, which are by nature decentralized, and a younger generation that is comfortable with technology.

“At a time of social networking and the peer-to-peer experiences of media, of music making, of all these industries, capturing that capability — that distributed, decentralized phenomenon — and applying it to financing an energy source that is also built around a distributed architecture is a very big play,” said Danny Kennedy, a founder of the solar development company Sungevity and a member of Mosaic’s board. “That’s why the crowd makes sense. This is a distributed future.”

At the same time, many Americans have been showing an increasing interest in aligning their money with their social or political leanings, especially younger investors. Almost half of millennial-generation investors worth more than $1 million screen their investments for social values as well as value, according to a recent survey by the Spectrem Group, an investor research organization.

“If I had a mutual fund sitting alongside an investment through Mosaic,” said Stan Hazelroth, a former executive director of the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, “even if it was maybe a notch lower return, I’d still take the Mosaic investment because I’m such a firm believer in the future of renewable energy.”

The seeds of Mr. Parish’s evolution toward combining environmental issues with profit were planted early. A child of two liberal-leaning lawyers who fell in love working on a securitization deal — his father specialized in financing for electric utilities — he grew up comfortably in Manhattan, near Central Park and the Museum of Natural History.

During high school, he spent a semester at the Mountain School in Vermont, where his concern for “what was happening on a planetary scale” crystallized; at Yale, he designed his own major in sustainable economic development, and then took a leave that became permanent to build the Energy Action Coalition, which describes itself as “a coalition of 50 youth-led environmental and social justice groups.”

“Young people had been at the forefront of every major social movement in history, and almost nothing was happening with young people and climate change at that point,” he said. By 21, he was managing a $5 million budget and a staff of 80 in the United States and Canada.

That work led to an advocacy effort that Mr. Parish said helped inspire President Obama’s green jobs programs, as well as a book, “Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money, and Community in a Changing World,” which he wrote with Dev Aujla, a founder of the charitable organization DreamNow.

But it was a stint working at the Black Mesa Water Coalition in Flagstaff, Ariz., starting in 2007, that brought together Mr. Parish’s entrepreneurial vision and personal network. It was there that he worked alongside his wife, Wahleah Johns, to shut down coal plants that had fouled the water supply in the Navajo Nation.

He also reconnected with Dan Rosen, now Mosaic’s chief executive, who had met Mr. Parish while trying to get a solar array for his high school in Ridgewood, N.J., and had gone to work with Black Mesa after graduating.

“That was one of the big, kind of ‘Aha!’ moments about what would become Mosaic,” Mr. Rosen said, referring to discussions about developing solar energy as part of the transition after closing the coal plants. Navajo residents, he said, “wanted to own the projects — they wanted to be owners, they wanted to participate, they wanted jobs, they wanted to invest, even.”

Based in Oakland, Calif., Mosaic is trying to capitalize on that desire, finding and vetting as many projects as its staff of 22 can handle while it raises more money so it can expand. Mosaic makes loans only to projects that already have deals to sell the electricity they will produce; it then raises money from investors, who receive a return of roughly 4 to 6 percent as a loan is paid back.

The company takes a 1 percent fee on each investment and a small-percentage origination fee on each loan, which varies from project to project.

The company’s projects have been modest so far: among others, a solar array atop a youth employment center in Oakland as well as the convention center in Wildwood, N.J., and apartments at the University of Florida in Gainesville. For its biggest project, it plans to help finance the installation of over 55,000 solar panels on more than 500 military homes at Fort Dix, N.J.

Investors say they like knowing where their money is going, in contrast to buying into a mutual fund. “There appears to be more of a story, and they’re very defined about what they’re investing in,” said Laura Deer Moore, who sits on the board of a community bank and came across Mosaic because she wanted to invest her small nest egg “conscientiously,” as she put it, and was having trouble finding ways to do that. “There’s a defined mission, and I like that about it.”

Pesta sudah usai bagi Asia Tenggara

http://kolom.kontan.co.id/news/157/Pesta-sudah-usai-bagi-Asia-Tenggara
Karim Raslan

Karim Raslan adalah seorang pengamat Asia Tenggara. Dia memiliki keahlian di bidang public affairs, pendiri sekaligus CEO KRA Group. Lulusan Cambridge University ini memiliki pengalaman lebih dari 15 tahun dalam bidang stakeholders management, dan analisis risiko sosial-politik di Asia Tenggara.

PADA 19 Agustus 2013, Indeks Harga Saham Gabungan (IHSG) turun 5,6%. Ini merupakan penurunan terbesar sejak Oktober 2011 saat investor asing menjual sahamnya sebesar US$ 169 juta. Penurunan semakin besar pada Selasa (20/8), yakni sebesar 3,2%, atau tergelincir selama empat hari sebesar 11%. 

Rupiah juga turun, diperdagangkan di Rp 10.490 per dollar AS, angka terendah sejak rupiah jatuh pada Mei 2009. Selasa (20/8), rupiah malah mencapai sekitar Rp 10.685 per dollar AS. Nilai tukar rupiah turun sebesar 8,2% tahun ini. 

Namun bukan hanya Indonesia yang sedang terguncang. Seluruh ASEAN 5 memiliki hari yang buruk di pasar saham. Bursa di Thailand, Singapura, dan Malaysia juga mengalami kerugian. Di Manila, bursa saham diliburkan karena badai hujan dan musibah banjir. 

Mengapa hal ini bisa terjadi? Nah, coba ingat apa yang saya tulis mengenai reaksi ekonomi stimulus Quantitative Easing (QE) dari US Federal Reserve . Kini, sentimen negatif investor mengenai hal tersebut terus berlanjut. 

Masih belum jelas bagaimana Federal Reserve begitu cepat menarik hot money yang membanjiri pasar-pasar negara berkembang--termasuk Asia Tenggara-- sebagai akibat dari QE. Namun, prospek ini sangat membuat investor ketakutan. 

Di sisi lain, penarikan hot money tidak baik, sebab--sebagaimana peringatan dari Moody's Analytics-- hal itu memperlambat pembelian utang jangka panjang dan akan mendongkrak pendapatan (yield) obligasi pemerintah, termasuk Eropa. Dengan kata lain, AS mendapatkan uangnya dan negara lain menyisakan utangnya. 

Selain itu, penarikan QE juga berarti penguatan dollar AS. Ini adalah kabar buruk bagi negara dengan kondisi transaksi yang rentan, termasuk Indonesia dan India. India termasuk mengalami dampak lebih berat. Meski Bank Sentral India berusaha mempertahankan mata uangnya dan menghentikan capital outflow, pada 19 Agustus, mata uang Rupee runtuh di INR 63,13 per dollar AS. Ini menjadi kejatuhan Rupee yang terbesar sejak September 2011. Pada saat yang sama, pendapatan obligasi India telah naik ke level tertingginya dalam lima tahun terakhir. 

Ada hal penting yang menjadi poin utama yang ingin saya sampaikan, yaitu bahwa masalah dalam ekonomi jarang terjadi secara langsung. Tetapi, itu terjadi karena pertemuan berbagai faktor-faktor yang menyebabkan ekonomi jatuh. 

Penarikan QE adalah pemicu utama terjadinya turbulensi yang sedang berlangsung di perekonomian kita. Tapi, kita juga menuai buah pahit dari penolakan kita untuk mengubah model ekonomi yang digunakan. 

Krisis Keuangan Asia di 1997, seharusnya, menjadi alarm bagi perekonomian kita, baik untuk mengurai kesulitan, tapi juga perlu reformasi struktural seperti memotong pengeluaran yang tidak perlu, mengurangi ketergantungan pada ekspor, dan bergerak sesuai dengan value chain. 

Meski begitu, Asia Tenggara, termasuk Indonesia, memilih tetap terlelap, dibuai oleh lonjakan harga komoditas sejak 2000-an dan kemudian oleh hot money yang berulang-ulang hingga QE yang menghampiri kita. 

Sayangnya, uang yang mengalir keluar dan booming komoditas tampaknya lebih karena ekonomi China. Meski disebut-sebut sebagai negara super power berikutnya, kini, China menghadapi potensi krisis keuangan karena tidak terkendalinya shadow banking dan beratnya beban utang pemerintah daerah. 

Batubara yang telah menggerakkan pertumbuhan ekonomi Indonesia sejak dekade terakhir, sekarang menjadi semakin kurang diminati, karena revolusi shale gas AS telah mengubah skenario energi global mereka. Gas alam yang lebih bersih dan lebih murah menjadi pembunuh pasar batubara. 

Bukanlah kebetulan jika penambang batubara besar seperti PT Arutmin Indonesia milik Bumi Resources harus menghadapi kenyataan bahwa tambang mereka di Senakin dan Satui, Kalimantan, ditutup karena sengketa pembayaran. 

Hal ini tidak terpikirkan pada masa-masa gemilang sebelumnya, apalagi saat produsen batubara berjuang. Mungkinkah perpaduan dari kekurangan likuiditas secara tiba-tiba, penurunan harga komoditas, dan melemahnya China menjadi badai besar berikutnya yang menyerang Asia Tenggara? Seperti yang saya katakan di awal: pesta sudah usai.

Catatan Dahlan Iskan: Dari The Tarix Jabrix ke Proses Stem Cell

http://www.jpnn.com/read/2013/09/02/188820/Dari-The-Tarix-Jabrix-ke-Proses-Stem-Cell-http://www.jpnn.com/

SUTRADARA muda yang sukses dengan film trilogi The Tarix Jabrix, Iqbal Rais (29 tahun), sudah lebih setahun ini terbaring di rumah sakit. Iqbal menderita kanker leukemia yang sulit disembuhkan.

Semula dia hanya merasa lemas dan sering pusing. Lalu pergi ke dokter di Jakarta. Iqbal dicurigai terkena anemia akut. Dia pun dimasukkan ke rumah sakit. Berbagai obat pun sudah dia minum. Tapi tak kunjung sembuh.

Ketika ayahnya hendak check up ke Malaysia, Iqbal ditawari ikut serta. Sekalian diperiksa di sana. Hasilnya: Iqbal dinyatakan terkena kanker darah. Dan setelah pemeriksaan lebih detail, kankernya sudah menyebar ke sumsum.

Tentu Iqbal tidak ikut pulang ayahnya. Dia meneruskan berobat di sana: dikemo. Ditemani istrinya yang amat tabah. Tapi, hampir setahun di sana, tidak ada kemajuan. Rambutnya sudah gundul. Akhirnya dia balik ke Jakarta. Hidupnya on off antara rumah sakit dan rumah sakit. Juga tidak ada kemajuan. Dia pun mendapat info untuk berobat alternatif di Bali. Dia jalani. Juga tidak memperoleh kemajuan. Agar dekat dengan keluarga, akhirnya Iqbal berobat di Surabaya.

Saya terus memonitor keadaannya. Dia memang selalu mengontak saya setelah membaca buku saya Ganti Hati. Ke mana pun pindah berobat, dia selalu memberi tahu saya. Sebenarnya saya ingin segera mengusulkan cara baru, tapi saya tunggu dulu hasil usaha-usaha yang biasa itu.

Namun, karena tidak juga berhasil, akhirnya saya beranikan mengusulkan cara baru itu. Tapi, bersediakah dia mencoba hal yang masih baru" Akankah dia tahan menderita terus di tempat tidur di rumah sakit" Tidakkah dia berpikir usaha biasa-biasa saja hanya akan terus menjadi beban" Beban untuk dirinya, istrinya, anak tunggalnya yang baru empat tahun, dan beban untuk seluruh keluarganya"

Apalagi, bukankah pengobatan kanker yang mahal itu harus dijalaninya dalam waktu yang panjang?

Mendengar usul saya itu, Iqbal semula agak bimbang. Dia bingung dengan rencana pengobatan baru itu. Iqbal belum banyak mendengarnya: transplantasi stem cell!

Saya terus memberinya pengertian. Juga mengenalkannya dengan tim stem cell Fakultas Kedokteran Universitas Airlangga (Unair) Surabaya dan tim stem cell RSUD dr Soetomo Surabaya. Di Unair ada lab stem cell dan bank jaringan. Ada Dr Ferdiansyah dr SpOT yang menjadi ketua regenerative medicine sebagai tim inti penggerak roda kegiatan stem cell.

Dibantu Dr Heri Suroto dr SpOT, Dr Joni Wahyuhadi dr SpBS, Dr Ugrasena dr SpA, Dr Hendy H. dr SpOG, dan Dr Dwikora dr SpOT. Total ada 50 profesor, doktor, dan dokter yang menekuni penelitian stem cell ini. Ketuanya: Prof Dr Fedik Abdul Rantam.

Saya mengenal baik para guru besar dan doktor di tim stem cell itu. Bukan saja karena saya orang Surabaya. Saya memang meminta BUMN PT Kimia Farma bekerja sama dengan Unair. Kerja sama seperti itu juga saya minta dilakukan dengan UI, Unpad, dan UGM.

Awalnya saya mengundang mereka ke Jakarta. Ternyata yang hadir lengkap. Full team. Delegasi itu dipimpin langsung oleh Rektor Unair Prof Dr Fasich Apt. Tim besar ini membeberkan semua temuan yang dihasilkan para peneliti Unair yang bisa diwujudkan secara nyata.

Salah satunya stem cell itu. Tim ini sudah melakukan stem cell kepada sekitar 40 orang dengan berbagai kasus penyakit. Ada yang karena patah tulang akibat kecelakaan, ada yang karena kelainan tulang sejak lahir, ada yang kelainan sampai jalannya membungkuk, serta ada yang karena leukemia, diabetes, stroke, dan kanker pankreas.

Iqbal saya tawari stem cell di Unair itu. Dia pun berdiskusi dengan tim. Iqbal akhirnya menerima. Pertimbangannya: toh berbagai cara sudah dilakukan dan belum berhasil. Hebatnya, Iqbal, sutradara muda berbakat ini, juga ingin mengabdikan dirinya dengan cara mendokumentasikan proses pengobatan yang nanti dijalani untuk kemajuan ilmu pengetahuan.

Minggu lalu proses awal sudah dilakukan. Penelitian atas gen dan cell-nya sudah selesai. Tim Unair sedang mencari cara agar Iqbal sedapat mungkin tidak menggunakan cell-nya sendiri. Kecuali terpaksa. Biasanya cell keluarga dekatnya cocok. Tapi, cell adik dan kakaknya ternyata tidak cocok.

"Padahal, kalau cocok 70 persen saja sudah cukup," kata Dr Purwati, sekretaris tim stem cell Unair. Dr Purwati, arek Jombang yang alumni Unair itu, mengambil gelar doktor di bidang ini. Juga di Unair. Disertasinya mengenai stem cell untuk pengobatan HIV..

Dalam hal Iqbal, kalau pemeriksaan atas cell orang tuanya nanti juga tidak membuahkan hasil, masih akan dicarikan dari bank cell di luar negeri. Kalaupun tidak bisa, baru akan diambilkan dari cell Iqbal sendiri.

Intinya, menurut Purwati, sejumlah cell imum Iqbal akan diambil. Lalu dikembangkan di laboratorium selama antara 12 sampai 14 hari. Setelah itu cell imum yang sudah dikembangkan tersebut ditransplankan ke dalam darah Iqbal. Untuk itu, proses kemonya diteruskan dulu guna mematikan kankernya. Lalu cell imum yang ditransplankan bekerja.

Saya bangga dengan Iqbal yang siap menjalani semua itu. Ini memang ilmu baru, tapi Iqbal bersedia menjalaninya. Saya akan minta kepada Dr Purwati untuk mempertemukan Iqbal dengan pasien-pasien yang sudah berhasil dengan stem cell tersebut. Untuk membesarkan hatinya.

Kerja sama Unair dengan BUMN sendiri tidak terbatas pada stem cell. Juga pada pengembangan pil KB untuk pria. Penelitinya adalah Prof Dr Bambang Prayogo. Ahli lulusan Unair ini menemukan pil KB untuk pria setelah bertugas lama di Papua.

Waktu itu Prof Bambang mengamati adat yang unik di Papua. Pria yang belum bisa menikah karena belum mampu membayar mahar berupa puluhan babi tetap bisa melakukan hubungan badan dengan kekasihnya asal tidak sampai hamil. Untuk itu, pria Papua memakan daun tertentu sebagai pil KB untuk pria.

Tanaman itulah yang terus diteliti Prof Bambang. Hasilnya nyata. Maka saya pun minta Kimia Farma menyiapkan produksinya.

Belakangan banyak orang kaya kita yang melakukan stem cell ke Eropa, Jepang, Korea, dan Tiongkok. UI (Universitas Indonesia) dan Unair sudah mampu melakukannya! Unair lagi mengarah ke stem cell untuk liver. Agar liver yang sudah sirosis pun bisa diatasi! (*)

Oleh Dahlan Iskan
Menteri BUMN