Author: Staff Writer

California Passes Smartphone Remote Kill Switch Law

Staff Writer
Mobile Apps

In a move that has me scratching my head, the California legislators have seen fit to pass a law that requires smartphones to have a remote kill switch built into them. Don’t worry for the time being as this only affects smartphones sold after July 1, 2015. Still, it leaves one wondering, what are they thinking? While the premise here is to protect people when they have their phones stolen the possibility of this being perverted by either law enforcement of criminal alike has not gone unnoticed. This reminds me…

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Reuters: Time Warner Cable suffers major outage

Staff Writer
Liquid Telecom

(Adds Time Warner’s comment) By Jim Finkle, Marina Lopes and Alina Selyukh Aug 27 (Reuters) – Time Warner Cable Inc , the No. 2 U.S. cable operator, suffered a massive network outage on Wednesday due to suspected human error that cut Internet services to some 11 million businesses and residences, prompting a New York state investigation. The outage to all of its Internet customers across 29 states began at about 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT), said company spokesman Bobby Amirshahi. Services were restored by 7.30 a.m, he said. The outage…

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CMO Asia awards Ericsson for Women Leadership in ICT Development

Staff Writer

Award recognizes Ericsson Regional VP for Marketing and Public Affairs in Southeast Asia and Oceania, Stephanie Huf, for contributions to the company’s establishment in Myanmar Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) Vice President for Marketing and Public Affairs for Southeast Asia and Oceania, Stephanie Huf, has been given the Women Leadership in ICT Development Award by CMO Asia awards in recognition of her contribution towards Ericsson’s work in Myanmar. Myanmar is one of the last remaining countries to benefit from widespread mobile telecommunications and internet access, and accordingly telecommunications infrastructure is a high…

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Ericsson chosen for money platform in Peru

Staff Writer

Asbanc, Peru’s national bank association, has chosen Ericsson to design and build what is claimed will be the country’s largest private initiative aimed at financial inclusion. The aim is to deliver the underlying infrastructure over which financial services can be pitched to the country’s mobile users, most of whom do not have access to traditional bank accounts. The platform will have a staged rollout but Asbanc wants to see services generally available in Peru during 2015. Ericsson’s platform is intended to host services from different financial institutions and other companies…

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Twitter Reviews Policies After Robin Williams ’s Daughter Zelda Abused

Staff Writer

(CNN) — Twitter is looking to revamp its user-protection policies after Zelda Williams, the daughter of comedian Robin Williams, was run off of the social site by abuse in the wake of her father’s apparent suicide. “We will not tolerate abuse of this nature on Twitter,” Del Harvey, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, said in a statement. “We have suspended a number of accounts related to this issue for violating our rules and we are in the process of evaluating how we can further improve our policies to…

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Google, five Asian telecom firms partner to build $300 million undersea cable to Japan

Staff Writer
Liquid Telecom

(Reuters) – Search engine Google Inc and five Asian telecom and communications companies have agreed to invest about $300 million to develop and operate an undersea cable trans-Pacific cable network connecting the United States to Japan. To be named “FASTER,” the cable network will have an initial capacity of 60 terabits per second and will connect Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Oregon and Seattle to Chikura and Shima in Japan. NEC Corp, which will be the system supplier for the undersea cable network, said in a statement that construction would…

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European Court of Justice to Rule If Bitcoin is VATable

Staff Writer

The European Court of Justice will rule if bitcoin transactions are subject to its value-added tax rules (VAT). If that top court decides to impose VAT regulations on member nations with bitcoin businesses, they could suffer an economic setback. Others could miss out on the opportunity to establish business initiatives associated with bitcoin. VAT is one way the EU raises tax revenues. It’s essentially a consumption tax, paid by buyers as part of the purchase price. That case before the Court is C-264/14 Skatteverket v David Hedqvist and it raises the issue:…

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Washington: US to woo Africa with billions in new funding deals

Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The US will announce nearly $1bn in business deals, increased funding for peacekeeping and commit billions of dollars to expand food and power programmes in Africa during a summit this week, US and development officials say. President Jacob Zuma will be in the front row at the August 5-6 summit in Washington to which US President Barack Obama invited 50 of Africa’s 53 heads of state or government “in good standing with the US and the African Union (AU)”. This criterion has excluded Eritrea, Sudan and Zimbabwe. US…

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NEW YORK: Target sent victims to Experian, which leaked data to criminals

Staff Writer

Companies can’t keep your data safe. It’s that simple. When Target lost data on some 110 million customers, it recommended them to credit bureau Experian for “identity theft protection,” offering to cover the cost for a year. Think you’re in better hands? Think again. Sometime before the Target (TGT) hack, Experian had its own data leak — via a subsidiary. It unknowingly sold the personal data of millions of Americans — including Social Security numbers — to a fraudster in Vietnam. That guy then sold the personal information to identity…

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BlackBerry finally cedes to Indian government monitoring its servers

Staff Writer

Blackberry appears to be losing an ongoing dispute with the Indian government over the state’s access to its data, as today an internal document from the state’s Department of Telecommunications stated “the lawful interception system for Blackberry Services is ready for use.” According to the Economic Times, after over two years of pushback, BlackBerry has finally ceded to the Indian government’s insistence that the Canadian phone maker provide the state with access to portions of data exchanged between any of its users. The company has provided a solution that allows…

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