US President Obama holds Kenya dear, says official

Kenya’s omission from President Obama’s Africa itinerary does not signify a downgrading of Washington’s relationship with Nairobi, a White House official said on Friday.

President Obama is due to visit Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania next week in an Africa tour that will bypass Kenya, his ancestral homeland.

“The Kenyan people just hold a very special place in the president’s heart,” declared Ben Rhodes, spokesman for the US National Security Council.

How to hide your data from Internet snoops Like NSA

Let's face it: Most of us don't e-mail, tweet, text or post anything worthy of clandestine scrutiny.

But having concerns about NSA cybersnooping doesn't mean we must surrender all privacy -- what's left of it -- in our day-to-day online activities.

It's easy to forget that we're volunteering basic information about ourselves in return for free e-mail, social networking and other digital services. And let's remember that third parties -- from government agencies to cybercriminals -- can get their hands on even more personal stuff if they're actively trying.

So, whether it's due to a vague fear of Big Brother or a more specific desire to keep your bank information out of the hands of thieves, you might be considering ways to keep your communication more secure.

NSA Scandal

America’s largest Internet companies are tripping over themselves to bolster their public image following blockbuster disclosures about their role in the U.S. government’s controversial data-gathering program. Ever since news reports suggested that major tech firms — including Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo — provide the National Security Agency (NSA) with unfettered or “direct” access to their servers, the companies have been waging an aggressive campaign to demonstrate that they’re not government stooges.

Now, several of the top Silicon Valley firms are engaged in a game of one-upmanship to show that they are the most transparent Internet company on the block.

13,000 government requests for data from Yahoo

Yahoo has received between 12,000 and 13,000 requests for user data from U.S. law enforcement agencies over the last six months.

The Web portal company followed other major tech companies in revealing the extent of its involvement in the government's web surveillance program. Its report indicates it has had more requests than Facebook (FB), Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500)or Apple(AAPL, Fortune 500).

As with other companies reporting data requests, Yahoo said most of the orders concerned criminal investigations.

China supercomputer world's fastest

A Chinese supercomputer is the fastest in the world, according to survey results announced Monday, comfortably overtaking a US machine which now ranks second.

Tianhe-2, a supercomputer developed by China's National University of Defense Technology, achieved processing speeds of 33.86 petaflops (1000 trillion calculations) per second on a benchmarking test, earning it the number one spot in the Top 500 survey of supercomputers.

The tests show the machine is by far the fastest computer ever constructed. Its main rival, the US-designed Titan, had achieved a performance of 17.59 petaflops per second, the survey's website said.

Five of the world's 10 fastest computers are installed in the US, the survey said, with the two in China, two in Germany and one in Japan.

Mysterious Facebook event sparks online buzz

A mysterious Facebook event set for Thursday has sparked buzz that the leading social network could be adding video to Instagram smartphone picture-sharing service.

The leading social network invited the media to its headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park where "a small team has been working on a big idea," but remained hush about what will be unveiled.

Online speculation at technology news website TechCrunch and elsewhere has included the possibility that Instagram will start letting people share video snippets in a style similar to a hit Vine app launched by Twitter in January.

Google to launch Wi-Fi balloon experiment

Google is preparing to conquer a new dimension: the stratosphere. The Internet giant is releasing 30 high-tech balloons in a trial of technology designed to bring the Internet to places where people are not yet connected.

The balloons are being sent up into the sky from New Zealand's South Island this month in the first trial of a pioneering system dubbed Project Loon.

According to Google, "Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters."

Google estimates that two-thirds of the global population is without fast, affordable Internet access. So while it sounds like something from the realms of science fiction, if successful, the project could make a difference to many people around the world.

The testers are from Christchurch and parts of Canterbury, New Zealand, and the test balloons will fly around the 40th parallel south, Google says.

Imagine a future in which planes run on a mixture of batteries, body heat and cow manure.

Or perhaps noise pollution would cease to exist (thanks to a shape-shifting engine, that is). Luggage could arrive at the baggage carousel quicker, because it would float on and off aircraft like pucks on an air hockey table.

White House cancels Obama safari in Tanzania

The WhiteHouse has cancelled a safari that US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were due to take in Tanzania over budgetary concerns, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The newspaper, citing a Secret Service planning document, said the excursion scheduled during a tour of Africa that Obama will undertake later this month would have required agents protecting him to take extraordinary precautions.

The safari "would have required the president's special counterassault team to carry sniper rifles with high-calibre rounds that could neutralise cheetahs, lions or other animals if they became a threat," the paper reported.

Outlining the vast security preparations made for Obama's trip to Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa, the document was provided to the Post by a person "concerned about the amount of resources necessary for the trip."

It did not provide cost information.

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000086009&story_title=secrets-of-mps-sh1-2-million-pay-deal

Secrets of Members of Parliament pay deal

# Tags on Facebook

 Hashtags are coming to Facebook to help users better surface conversations.

Support for the all-but-ubiquitous topic organization system wasrumored in March and will roll out to a small percentage of users Wednesday. Facebook will roll out hashtags to more users in the coming weeks.

The social network wants to make it easier for users to find content already on Facebook, and functional hashtags are the first step.According to Facebook, many users already post hashtags anyway, so why not make them work? Hashtags will be both clickable and searchable, so, for example, topics like #NSALeaks or #NBAFinals will now exist.

courtesy of CNN