Tag: newsflash1

Facebook & Google Move Up On Social Network Creep Index

Staff Writer

Google and Facebook gave the anti-social networking crowd new ammunition as they made moves that kicked them up a notch on the social media creep index. Let’s put it this way: If you were looking for an excuse to give up on these companies, these recent announcements certainly don’t give you good reasons to reconsider staying. As I define it, the creep index is like the Defcon Warning System of social media. Instead of defining how close we are to nuclear war, it measures just how intrusive and creepy our…

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IT Security is critically underfinanced by business

Staff Writer

53% of South African based IT decision makers feel that not enough time or money is available to develop IT security policies. As a result, barely half of the companies feel that they have highly-organised, systematic processes to deal with threats. These findings emerged from the recent Global Corporate IT Security Risks 2013 survey conducted by B2B International for Kaspersky Lab in 2013 among business representatives around the world. The situation is especially poor in the global educational industry, where only 28% of organisations are confident that they have sufficient investment in…

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Online music piracy in the UK drops by a third

Staff Writer

In the last year, us Brits downloaded a third fewer pirated music tracks than the year before. According to figures from Ofcom, the number of such songs we snaffled fell from 301 million in March 2012 to 199 million in March this year, the Guardian reports. So maybe we’re less a bunch of Fun Lovin’ Criminals than before. The music industry is said to be on the road to recovery, with total revenues increasing for the first time this year since 1999, although they only went up by 0.3 per…

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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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Internet Society Funds 11 Community-Based Projects that Enhance Internet Environments in Underserved Regions

Staff Writer

nternet Society Funds 11 Community-Based Projects that Enhance Internet Environments in Underserved Regions The Internet Society today announced funding for 11 community-based Internet projects that will enhance the Internet ecosystem in underserved communities around the world. The Community Grants are awarded twice each year to Internet Society Chapters and Members. Recipients receive up to US$10,000 to implement their projects. The 11 projects funded in this round of grants will: •Enable teachers and students in the Sultanate of Oman to produce and share video presentations that meet Omani curriculum standards and…

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Government IT Can’t Pass The Buck On Open Data

Staff Writer

Without automated open data, some delay is inevitable, because every record request is treated as a unique event, requiring assessment, redaction of non-public data, double-checking, etc. Automation and providing for self-service not only connect the spirit of the law to the letter of it, but they also save staff time and, over the long haul, keep costs down. Yes, open data can get political when city staffers release data sets without a plan. My advice: Focus on pragmatics: Where’s the biggest bang for your efforts? Where will you save a…

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The danger of blindly trusting the technocrats

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

Staff Writer
Google

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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‘Blackout’: Syria cut off from internet

Staff Writer

Syria has “largely disappeared” from the internet for the second time since the uprising began in 2011, according to the U.S. State Department and tech firms monitoring web traffic. There was “zero outgoing traffic” from the country Tuesday night, according to Google Transparency Report. “Syria is currently experiencing an internet blackout as of this [Tuesday] afternoon,” the State Department tweeted. Adapted from english.alarabiya.net

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IPv6 Adoption Critical for the Preservation and Growth of the Internet

Staff Writer

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The number of available Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses is declining rapidly and will soon leave businesses and individuals worldwide who have not yet adopted the new IPv6 protocol with limited options for connecting new devices to the global Internet. To help ensure this does not happen, the Internet Society Colorado Chapter and the Rocky Mountain Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) Task Force (RMv6TF) have joined forces to advance deployment of IPv6. On April 17, 2013, the Internet Society-organized INET Denver will co-locate with the 2013 North American…

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