Internet & technology
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2012-01-31, Issue 568
Google Kenya country manager Olga Arara-Kimani has left the firm days after the Internet giant said it had taken action against employees implicated in a recent data poaching scandal. Arara-Kimani, who had been at the helm of the firm’s Kenyan operat...
Zambia: Lap Green Networks sues Zambian government
2012-02-06, Issue 568
Libya's Lap Green Networks has dragged the Zambian government to court over its decision to take over telecoms and Internet service provider Zamtel. The Libyan government says the takeover is illegal, as the company was genuinely acquired and rightly...
Africa: Orange to provide Wikipedia free in Middle East and Africa
2012-01-24, Issue 567
Mobile phone company Orange has struck a deal with Wikipedia to make its digital encyclopaedia available free of data charges to millions of mobile phone users across the Middle East and Africa. The free service will be launched in 20 markets across ...
Africa: WikiLeaks cable on Chinese ICT agenda
2012-01-25, Issue 567
The latest US cable released by Wikileaks accuses Chinese ICT companies doing business in Kenya of 're-colonising Africa' with 'good and cheap' equipment. The US embassy cable, from Nairobi to Washington, says Chinese firms selling into Kenya’s ICT s...
Global: Is a Google and World Bank partnership empowering cartographers?
2012-01-26, Issue 567
World Bank Managing Director Caroline Anstey recently announced a new partnership with Google that will apparently empower citizen cartographers in 150 countries worldwide. This has provoked some concern among open source enthusiasts. The worry is, s...
Africa: New research shows how Africa tweets
2012-01-26, Issue 567
Young people Tweeting from mobile devices are driving the growth of Twitter in Africa, according to How Africa Tweets, new research launched in Nairobi. In the first ever attempt to comprehensively map the use of Twitter in Africa, Portland Communica...
South Africa: Beware the 'false knowledge' kindled by Twitter, says Mbeki
2012-01-17, Issue 566
Former president Thabo Mbeki has said he was sceptical about Twitter being a great conveyor of reliable knowledge. 'If you want to discuss knowledge which has got to do with the betterment of society I don't think it is appropriate ... Even the inter...
Global: New report on internet and democracy is dedicated to the Arab revolutions
2012-01-17, Issue 566
The Global Information Society Watch 2011 report investigates how governments and internet and mobile phone companies are trying to restrict freedom online - and how citizens are responding to this using the very same technologies. 'Written by intern...
South Africa: Remembering the social costs of digital transition
2012-01-18, Issue 566
Digital migration offers many benefits. However, it should be understood that these benefits will not be uniformly distributed without government intervention and civil society participation in the process. 'The challenges of the digital transition a...
Kenya: Google apologies for data scraping
2012-01-18, Issue 566
Stefan Magdalinski, the CEO of Mocality, in an update on his blog, has indicated that the company is currently not considering filing formal charges against Google. Mocality, a Kenyan Business Listing Directory, broke into international limelight aft...
Nigeria: New search engine focuses on Nigeria
2011-12-14, Issue 563
Search Nigeria is a new Search Engine designed to consolidate and improve the availability of information about Nigeria....
Somalia: Al Shabaab vs Kenya, the Twitter war
2011-12-14, Issue 563
The ragtag though powerful Islamist terror group, Al Shabaab, is taking on the Kenyan army on the battlefields of...Twitter, writes Simon Allison in this Daily Maverick article. And they're winning....
Global: How to make clever tech choices
2011-12-20, Issue 563
Given the limited resources available to transparency and accountability practitioners, making smart choices about which tech trends (Mobile, Mapping, Social Media, Video etc.) to follow and which to ignore is more important than ever, says this arti...
Global: Panel identifies crucial link between online safety and social activism
2011-11-27, Issue 559
How many times have enthusiasm and activism sidelined questions about online safety? The opportunities for participation offered by the Internet can be easily used to identify, monitor, control and harass opponents because of their political or relig...
South Africa: Social media growing strong
2011-11-08, Issue 557
Social media has gone mainstream in South Africa, with both individuals and businesses embracing the available platforms and the average age of users steadily increasing as more people become connected and networks mature. These and other findings we...
Africa: Mobile phone industry 'booming'
2011-11-10, Issue 557
Africa is the fastest-growing mobile market in the world, and is the biggest after Asia, an association of worldwide mobile phone operators has said. The number of subscribers on the continent has grown almost 20 per cent each year for the past five ...
Uganda: First electric car is plugged in
2011-11-02, Issue 556
'The car is ready,' exclaimed Mr Paul Isaac Musasizi, the project manager of the Vehicle Design Mission at Makerere University, which has produced Uganda’s first electric car. The Kiira EV was tested for road and drive performance, ability to climb s...
Africa: Bids open for '.africa' Internet domain name
2011-11-03, Issue 556
The international organisation that governs top-level Internet domain names is taking bids on the creation of '.africa'. Supporters say it will promote African businesses better than individual country names such as ‘dot-ke’ for Kenya or 'dot-za' for...
Africa: Making sense of mobile apps for Africa
2011-10-26, Issue 554
This report by Balancing Act analyses the nascent apps ecosystem in Africa while providing an analytical framework allowing African mobile operators or other stakeholders to decide on what strategy to adopt regarding mobile apps....
Ghana: Developers nurturing big dream for African languages
2011-10-13, Issue 552
Tucked away in Kumasi, Ghana’s second city, is a small office manned by four ambitious software engineers promoting African languages and cultures around the world through publishing downloadable phrase books for study. 'It started as a dream but thr...
Global: Do new social media create new forms of citizen action?
2011-10-17, Issue 552
Is ‘citizen action’ anything other than the struggle of people to right what they perceive as wrongs and limit the power of the cruel and the unjust? Participants at a conference in the Hague, organised by Hivos, under the title 'The Changing Face of...
Africa: No quick remedy for internet gap
2011-10-05, Issue 551
Prior to the 2010 South Africa World Cup, submarine fibre optic cabling was laid to improve the speed and reliability of broadband. Despite this, Internet World Statistics reports that only 11.4 per cent of Africans have internet access, far below th...
Global: India launches $35 computer
2011-10-05, Issue 551
India has launched what it says is the world's cheapest touch-screen tablet computer, priced at just $35 (£23). Costing a fraction of Apple's iPad, the subsidised Aakash is aimed at students. It supports web browsing and video conferencing, has a thr...
Cameroon: Google Cameroon elections 2011 page
2011-10-06, Issue 551
This Cameroon Elections 2011 page from Google displays which party leader people are searching Google for the most and which issues are most important in the election campaign....
Global: A civil rights-based framework for the Internet
2011-10-06, Issue 551
One of the striking features of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is that it is mainly being signed by Western/'developed' countries, says this post from www.techdirt.com ACTA is the last-gasp attempt of the U...
South Sudan: Google puts South Sudan on maps
2011-09-28, Issue 550
Google has updated its maps to include the newly independent nation of South Sudan. The move follows a campaign by a South Sudanese journalist, who posted an online petition calling for the new nation to be marked on web maps. He said his country was...
Global: Human rights online: New issues and threats
2011-09-29, Issue 550
This Connect your Rights! policy issue paper from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) outlines the state of human rights online and the major challenges facing activists and human rights defenders. As levels of censorship and surveil...
Kenya: Information as aid in East Africa’s famine
2011-09-20, Issue 549
In any emergency, be it natural disaster or man-made, long- or short-term, people’s lives are turned upside down. Knowing what’s happening, where to go for assistance and who to call for help is crucial to their survival and recovery. As famine is de...
Africa: Mobile technology vital in east Africa’s fight against hunger
2011-09-20, Issue 549
How can technology be used to fight food insecurity in a region as large and diverse as east Africa? Karen Peachey, the British Red Cross’ east Africa representative, gives a few ideas: 'Mobile phones are everywhere in east Africa, even in many remot...
Africa: Android invasion
2011-09-20, Issue 549
Mobile phone manufacturers, operators and Google have started a big push of the Android operating system into Africa this year. Samsung, HTC and Huawei are moving Android phones into the market and some operators are starting to subsidise Android han...
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