Author: Staff Writer

Microsoft to acquire Nokia’s device and services division

Staff Writer

Microsoft will acquire Nokia’s devices and services unit and license the company’s mapping services in a deal worth $7.2 billion in a bid to bolster the company’s position in the smartphone market. The software giant will pay $5 billion for “substantially all” of Nokia’s phone unit and another $2.2 billion to license its patents, the companies announced late Sunday. As part of the deal, Stephen Elop will step down as Nokia chief executive to become the executive vice president of the devices and services division. Elop, a former Microsoft executive,…

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Brazil moves to secure telecom, Internet systems after US spying

Staff Writer

Brazil said Wednesday it is moving to secure its communications through its own satellite and digital networks to end its dependence on the United States, which is accused of electronically spying on the region. “Brazil is in favor of greater decentralization: Internet governance must be multilateral and multisectoral with a broader participation,” Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo told a congressional panel. Tuesday, Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota warned his US counterpart John Kerry that the row over Washington’s electronic snooping could sow mistrust between the two countries. Kerry responded by conceding that…

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Facebook’s Internet.org aims to get billions online

Staff Writer

An initiative to bring internet access to the “next five billion” people has been launched by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The social network has teamed up with Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung, among others, to lower the cost of mobile data. The group said it wanted to help those in developing countries to become part of the internet community. But one expert said those nations had “other priorities” to deal with first. Mr Zuckerberg said the goal was to make “internet access available to those who cannot currently…

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U.S. Backs Private-Sector-Led Sustainable Growth – Trade Rep Froman

Staff Writer

Washington, DC — Since 2000, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which allows eligible countries to export products duty-free to the United States) has defined American trade relations with sub-Saharan Africa. The annual ministerial-level  U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum mandated under the law is taking place in Addis Ababa on August 12-13. Leading the U.S. delegation is Michael Froman, who accompanied President Obama to Africa soon after being confirmed as U.S.Trade Representative, a Cabinet-level position. Previously he served in the White House as deputy national security advisor…

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Fears over NSA surveillance revelations endanger US cloud computing industry

Staff Writer

American technology businesses fear they could lose between $21.5bn and $35bn in cloud computing contracts worldwide over the next three years, as part of the fallout from the NSA revelations. Some US companies said they have already lost business, while UK rivals said that UK and European businesses are increasingly wary of trusting their data to American organisations, which might have to turn it over secretly to the National Security Agency, its government surveillance organisation. One British executive, Simon Wardley at the Leading Edge Forum thinktank, celebrated the publication of…

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Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality

Staff Writer

In a dramatic about-face on a key internet issue yesterday, Google told the FCC that the network neutrality rules Google once championed don’t give citizens the right to run servers on their home broadband connections, and that the Google Fiber network is perfectly within its rights to prohibit customers from attaching the legal devices of their choice to its network. At issue is Google Fiber’s Terms of Service, which contains a broad prohibition against customers attaching “servers” to its ultrafast 1 Gbps network in Kansas City. Google wants to ban…

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In The World Of Internet Policy, Online Freedom Hangs In The Balance

Staff Writer

Leave it to the National Security Agency and the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court to put the “spook” back in “spooky.” In recent weeks, the general public has learned what many of us specialists have long known, which is that vast swaths of the communications of ordinary citizens have been swept into intrusive dragnets, and, the legal framework for all this snooping is itself the product of a secret body of law generated by a secret special court. Yet these revelations of how much the US government has been spying on…

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House Defeats Effort to Rein In N.S.A. Data Gathering

Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — A deeply divided House defeated legislation Wednesday that would have blocked the National Security Agency from collecting vast amounts of phone records, handing the Obama administration a hard-fought victory in the first Congressional showdown over the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities since Edward J. Snowden’s security breaches last month.  The 205-to-217 vote was far closer than expected and came after a brief but impassioned debate over citizens’ right to privacy and the steps the government must take to protect national security. It was a rare instance in which a classified…

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Comments and Questions by DCA Trust on .Africa at the ICANN-47 Public Forum, Durban SA

Staff Writer

This is a complete unabridged version of the comment/questions raised by Ms. Sophia Bekele, Executive Director and CEO of DotConnectAfrica Trust, at the ICANN-47 Public Forum Meeting in Durban, Republic of South Africa on 18th July 2013. A shorter version was read out at the ICANN Public Forum Meeting on Thursday, July 18, 2013 due to constraint of time. * * * Background DotConnectAfrica Trust’s application for the .Africa generic Top-Level Domain name (Application ID: 1-1165-42560) received a GAC Objection Advice at the ICANN-46 Beijing Meeting in April 2013. According…

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ICANN 47 in Durban: More gTLD Applicants Sign On With ICANN

Staff Writer

ICANN’s Durban Meeting Kicks Off with Signing of New Registrar and Registry Agreements If you read our update on T+B earlier today, then you already know that dotShabaka Registry was the first to announce its signing of the new gTLD registry contract. During Monday’s Welcome Ceremony, three more new gTLD contracts were signed by applicants: 游戏 (which translates from Chinese to .games) had prioritization number 40, and was applied for by Donuts, Inc., the company that submitted the largest number of gTLD applications; .сайт (prioritization number 9) and .онлайн (prioritization…

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