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DotConnectAfrica’s Sophia Bekele Named One of 50 African Trailblazers by NewAfrican Magazine, UK

May 30, 2013May 31, 2013 Staff Writer

March 20, 2013, Mauritius, Port-Louis, Sophia Bekele, Executive Director of DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA Trust), has been named as one of the ’50 African Trailblazers under 50‘, by the influential New African magazine UK, a member of the IC Publications group. New African is a well known publication that is in the vanguard of contemporary Pan-Africanist projection and thinking. www.newafricanmagazine.com The special “Collector’s Edition” of New African for May 2013 has been put together by the editors of the magazine to coincide with the 50th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the…

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Kaspersky plans source code reveal to avoid Huawei’s fate

May 30, 2013May 30, 2013 Staff Writer

By Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor • Get more from this author Posted in Security, 30th May 2013 05:56 GMT Free whitepaper – European migration survey Eugene Kaspersky thinks Huawei’s products contain “some doors, they are not back doors, but somewhere in-between”, but that overall “there is nothing really wrong with Huawei”. Th Russian security supremo is nonetheless taking steps to ensure his company doesn’t experience the same less-than-welcoming reception Huawei has found in the US market. Kaspersky offered his opinion to Vulture South yesterday. Kaspersky breezes into Australia most years and…

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IT Suffers From Obama Admin’s Jekyll & Hyde Approach to Privacy Rights

May 30, 2013May 30, 2013 Staff Writer

Recently, the Obama administration has been of two minds where privacy rights are concerned. On one hand, you have an administration that vowed to veto CISPA and mandated open data for government websites. On the other hand, you have an increasingly out-of-control Department of Justice on a fishing expedition at AP and demanding legislation to let the FBI wiretap private, encrypted communications and levy fines if a company fails to comply. To paraphrase Eminem, will the real Barack Obama, please stand up, please stand up. As it turned out, we…

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The danger of blindly trusting the technocrats

May 28, 2013 Staff Writer

We are living in the age of the technocrats. In business, Big Data, and the Big Brains who can parse it, rule. In government, the technocrats are on top, too. From Washington to Frankfurt to Rome, technocrats have stepped in where politicians feared to tread, rescuing economies, or at least propping them up, in the process Technocrats are in vogue within the intelligentsia, too. It is well nigh impossible to pick up a book about any social or political issue nowadays (including, I hasten to acknowledge, my own) without coming…

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Google to Fund, Develop Wireless Networks in Emerging Markets

May 27, 2013 Staff Writer

Google Inc. GOOG -1.07% is deep into a multipronged effort to build and help run wireless networks in emerging markets as part of a plan to connect a billion or more new people to the Internet. These wireless networks would serve areas such as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia to dwellers outside of major cities where wired Internet connections aren’t available, said people familiar with the strategy. The networks also could be used to improve Internet speeds in urban centers, these people said Adapted from online.wsj.com

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DotConnectAfrica Trust Responds to ICANN GAC Objection Advice on its .Africa application

May 22, 2013May 22, 2013 Staff Writer

In its response to the ICANN Board, DCA Trust disagreed with the GAC Objection Advice. PRLog (Press Release) – May 16, 2013 – DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA Trust), the contending applicant that submitted an independent bid for the .Africa new generic Top-Level Domain name, recently submitted another fulsome response to the ICANN Board of Directors to defend the GAC Objection Advice that was issued against its .Africa new gTLD application by the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) body within ICANN. It may be recalled that DCA Trust previously submitted a response to…

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ICANN on Africa’s Internet Market and Hub Offices: Interview with Brad White, ICANN’s Director of Global Media Affairs

May 20, 2013May 20, 2013 Staff Writer

Africa is increasingly becoming a key player in global business and essential resources like the internet will definitely be forming a critical part of this growth. At the end of 2012, Africa’s internet penetration rate was quoted as heading to 16%. While this is quite low compared to global rates, the continent has witnessed a sharp rise in internet usage in recent years and analysts say the increase is now poised to rise at tremendous rates as thousands of Africans come online by the day. Adapted From bizrika.com

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Africa: The one place mobile technology sector cant ingore

May 14, 2013May 14, 2013 Staff Writer

Tech investors know that it takes more than a great product to bring in great returns. Tapping the right market at the right time is almost as important as creating the most innovative product. That’s why the latest numbers from the International Telecoms Union, or ITU, are so important. The data show mobile subscriptions are on the rise, but not all markets are growing, and companies that don’t head the trends could miss out on big gains. Searching for non-saturation According to the ITU, by the end of 2014 there…

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Twitter Hate Speech Map Pinpoints Racist, Homophobic Hotspots Across U.S.

May 14, 2013 Staff Writer

he most hateful tweeters in the United States tend to live in the eastern half of the country, according to a new map that pinpoints hate speech from Twitter across country. The map, created by geography students at Humboldt State University in California, looks at more than 150,000 geocoded tweets (tweets that say where the user is located) between June 2012 and April 2013, sorting for those that contained a racist, homophobic or anti-disability word. The researchers then decided whether or not the tweet was using the word in a…

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