Internet users to exceed 2 billion this year Reuters
The number of Internet users will surpass two billion this year, approaching a third of the world population, but developing countries need to step up access to the vital tool for economic growth, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday. Users have doubled in the past five years, and compare with an estimated global population of 6.9 billion, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said. Of 226 million new Internet users this year, 162 million will be from developing countries where growth rates are now higher, the ITU said in a report. However, by the end of 2010, 71 percent of the population in developed countries will be online compared with 21 percent of people in developing countries.

Assange denied Swedish residence permit The Local
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been denied a residence permit to stay in Sweden, according to the National Migration Board (Migrationsverket). Assange, an Australian citizen, had applied for a residence and work permit in Sweden in August 18th in order to gain status as the legally responsible publisher of the whistle-blower website, The whistle-blower website has a number of servers based in Sweden and the move would have afforded better protection for WikiLeaks’ sources under Sweden’s press freedom laws. However, in order to secure legal responsibility as publisher in Sweden, a person must have a residence permit.

Bloc MP Seeking Canadian Hearings on ACTA Michael Geist
Bloc MP Carole Lavallée has sent a notion of motion to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage calling for hearings on Canada’s role at the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations. The motion states: That pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) the Committee on Canadian Heritage invite the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of International Trade, or their representatives, and any other relevant witness(es), to appear before the Committee and inform it of the position defended by the Canadian negotiators in the negotiations on the signature of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and that the Committee report to the House accordingly.

Piracy Lawsuit Could Ground CIA’s Deadly Predator Drones FastCompany
Al Qaeda and the Taliban haven’t been able to bring down the CIA’s Predator drones. But a new lawsuit alleging parts of their targeting software are pirated (and faulty) could. On December 7, 2010, Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Margaret Hinkle is expected to issue a decision on a complicated contract and intellectual property-related lawsuit that could ground the CIA’s Predator drones. Intelligent Integration Systems (IISi), a small Boston-based software development firm, alleges that their Geospatial Toolkit and Extended SQL Toolkit were pirated by Massachusetts-based Netezza for use by a government client. Subsequent evidence and court proceedings revealed that the ‘government client’ seeking assistance with Predator drones was none other than the Central Intelligence Agency. [Also see CIA 'pirated' flawed software for killer drones]

Halfords unveils analogue radio in-car conversion kit Telegraph
Car owners will soon be able to access digital radio without installing a new stereo after Halfords launched the first-ever analogue radio conversion kit. The kit, which goes on sale Nov 8 and costs £90, will enable people to listen to digital radio stations in their in their vehicles. The Government has yet to set a precise digital switchover date for radio, citing 2015 as a target for at least 50 per cent of consumers’ radio listening to be conducted digitally and for DAB coverage to match that of FM’s.

Microsoft software head Ray Ozzie resigns BBC
Ray Ozzie, chief software architect of Microsoft and proponent of cloud computing, has resigned unexpectedly. Mr Ozzie was a top member of the company’s management, having taken over the software role from Bill Gates. Chief executive Steve Ballmer announced his colleague’s departure in an email to company staff. He said Mr Ozzie would remain with Microsoft during a transitional period, and that the company was not looking for anyone to replace him.

Follow p2pnet on Twitter.

October, 2010

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It`s really easy!

---

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

---

Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 19th, 2010 at 3:32 pm and is filed under P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

HOME

Viewed 2005 times