Author: Staff Writer

Cyber Crime a big cost for small businesses

Staff Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s not just big businesses like JPMorgan Chase, Target and Home Depot that get hacked. Small companies suffer from intrusions into their computer systems, too. The costs associated with computer and website attacks can run well into the thousands and even millions of dollars for a small company. Many small businesses have been attacked — 44%, according to a 2013 survey by the National Small Business Association, an advocacy group. Those companies had costs averaging $8,700. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) said the attack on its computer servers…

Share this
Read More

Our biggest search competitor is Amazon says Google Boss Eric Schmidt

Staff Writer
Privacy

BERLIN: Google boss Eric Schmidt said on Monday his company’s biggest competition as a search engine came from e-commerce giant Amazon, not from its traditional rivals. In remarks prepared for delivery in Berlin, Schmidt hit back at accusations that Google as the world’s biggest search engine enjoyed unchallenged market dominance, saying that the sector was targeting the company on several fronts. “Many people think our main competition is Bing or Yahoo. But, really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon,” he said. “People don’t think of Amazon as search, but if…

Share this
Read More

US President Obama Reiterates His Support for Net Neutrality

Staff Writer
Liquid Telecom

President Obama said late Thursday that he was “unequivocally committed” to net neutrality and firmly opposed to any proposal that would let companies buy an Internet fast lane to deliver their content more quickly to consumers. The statements, at a town-hall meeting in Santa Monica, Calif., on innovation, gave a strong signal to Mr. Obama’s Democratic appointees on the Federal Communications Commission that he wants them to heed the overwhelming public sentiment expressed in 3.7 million comments sent to the commission in recent months concerning a set of rules proposed…

Share this
Read More

Apple and Google brands worth $100bn each

Staff Writer

PARIS: The US Apple and Google brands which have become household names around the globe are worth more than $100 billion each, and top a ranking of the world’s biggest brands, consultancy Interbrand said. In number one place, computer brand Apple has risen 21 percent in value this year to worth an estimated $118.9 billion (93.0 billion euros). In second place, the brand value of Internet search engine Google has increased by 15 percent to $107.43 billion. “The fact that Apple and Google have exceeded $100 billion is proof of…

Share this
Read More

Twitter sues US government over Transparency Report restrictions

Staff Writer

Twitter has been publishing what bits of info it’s allowed to concerning national security requests for some time now, but the social media feed wants the ability to publish the whole thing. Today, the outfit filed a lawsuit aiming to get approval to post its entire transparency report. In a blog post, VP of Legal Ben Lee says that the company is asking a California District Court “to declare these restrictions on our ability to speak about government surveillance as unconstitutional under the First Amendment.” As is stands, Twitter and…

Share this
Read More

Apple vs. Google: New privacy battle looms

Staff Writer

A new battle is brewing over privacy for mobile devices, after moves by Google and Apple to toughen the encryption of their mobile devices sparked complaints from law enforcement Washington (AFP) – A new battle is brewing over privacy for mobile devices, after moves by Google and Apple to toughen the encryption of their mobile devices sparked complaints from law enforcement. The issue is part of a long-running debate over whether tech gadgets should have privacy-protecting encryption which makes it difficult for law enforcement to access in time-sensitive investigations. FBI…

Share this
Read More

Kenya: Safaricom, Seven Seas Technologies in joint bid for county ICT tenders

Staff Writer

Safaricom has partnered with Kenyan based ICT multinational Seven Seas Technology in an initiative aimed at harnessing the use of technology to offer integrated communications solutions to Safaricom enterprise and mobile consumer segments. In Summary Under the partnership signed Tuesday, the two firms will market education, health and agriculture IT management solutions to the counties. The Safaricom and Seven Seas partnership comes at a time when most county governments are adopting automated systems to get rid of ghost workers and streamline their financial platforms to seal revenue leakages through corruption.…

Share this
Read More

Alibaba IPO Pours Shares Into Shrinking Pool of Stock

Staff Writer

Alibaba Group’s (BABA) initial public offering was a success by any measure. At $25 billion, it was the largest in history. Investors were so eager to add the Chinese e-commerce giant to their portfolios that the shares soared 38 percent on their debut, the biggest first-day jump for an IPO of at least $10 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. When trading ended on Sept. 19, the company had a market value of $231 billion, more than Amazon.com’s (AMZN) and EBay’s (EBAY) combined. Some investors warned that the clamor for Alibaba shares could trigger a…

Share this
Read More

Disrupting mobile banking in Kenya; Equity Bank joins the list

Staff Writer

EQUITY Bank, whose micro-loans offerings have helped increase the number of Kenyans using formal financial services, is looking to break into Kenya’s booming mobile telecoms market. The bank says it will use the Mobile Virtual Network Operator licence it was granted in April to make financial services even more accessible and affordable. Kenyans transacted more than US$20 billion through their mobile phones in 2013, and Kenya leads the world in its adoption of mobile payments. Equity is looking to tap into this booming market by employing innovative Taiwanese-made ultra-slim “subscriber…

Share this
Read More

African Mobile Money platform Mpesa adopted in Europe

Staff Writer

Vodafone brings Africa’s M-Pesa mobile money to Europe * Launch targets 7 mln in Romania who mainly use cash * M-Pesa has 16.8 mln active customers in emerging markets * Mobile payments expected to grow rapidly in coming years By Kate Holton LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) – Vodafone brought the mobile money service that has revolutionised banking in Africa to Romania on Monday, offering M-Pesa text-message transactions to millions of customers in its first push into Europe. Vodafone said it had chosen Romania to target the seven million people there…

Share this
Read More