Facebook Swahili version launched

Swahili is the second African language after Afrikaans to be on Facebook

The social-networking website Facebook has launched in Swahili, targeting more than 110m speakers of the language.

A group of Swahili scholars launched the new version with the permission of the California-based internet firm.

Facebook use has spread over the past five years in East and Central Africa, where most Swahili-speakers live.

Analysts say a Hausa version could be launched next in West Africa and in Zulu in southern Africa. Facebook already exists in Afrikaans.

Symon Wanda, one of the project's initiators, said they wanted to launch a Swahili version to safeguard the future of the language.

"The youth, the future generation, if you look at the biggest percentage of users on Facebook, they are the youth," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

"They can easily navigate through when it's maybe a language they understand, which makes it easier to use the Swahili than to use the English."

The BBC's Ruth Nesoba, in Nairobi, says more than 60% of Facebook users in East Africa are already using the Swahili version.

The bulk of Swahili-speakers live in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, parts of the Horn of Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and the Indian Ocean islands.

Facebook already exists in some 50 language versions.

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BBC licence fee 'could be shared'

Lord Carter began work on the Digital Britain report last October

The BBC could be made to share part of the television licence fee with commercial rivals under government plans to be announced later.

The Digital Britain report will suggest ways to help companies like Channel 4 cope with the impact of the internet.

It is also expected to include plans to tackle illegal file-sharing and to bring broadband to the whole country.

Gordon Brown said fast internet was now "an essential service, as indispensable as electricity, gas and water".

In October 2008, Minister for Communications Lord Carter began work on a plan aimed at securing the UK's place at the head of the new media age.

Among 22 specific actions announced in his interim report in January was a commitment to establishing a universal broadband service for every home and business by 2012.

Writing in the Times newspaper on Tuesday, the prime minister reaffirmed his commitment to that "transformation".

We also need to help Channel 4 to secure its future Prime Minister Gordon Brown At a glance: Digital Britain

"Digital Britain cannot be a two-tier Britain - with those who can take full advantage of being online and those who can't," he said.

'No monopoly'

As well as looking at opportunities, the Digital Britain report will also try to tackle threats presented by new technology.

Local newspapers and television stations have both suffered significant losses in revenue thanks to the internet, but Mr Brown insisted their journalism must be protected.

"We cannot allow a monopoly to take root," he wrote.

"We also need to help Channel 4 to secure its future... it now requires long-term stability to develop as a truly global player."

The BBC's media correspondent Torin Douglas said Lord Carter believed the licence fee could be a possible answer to the woes of commercial broadcasters.

At present, more than £100m a year is earmarked to help the elderly switch to digital TV and any left over could help pay for wider broadband access or local news on ITV, our correspondent added.

But the BBC Trust has said that if any money is left over from the digital switchover, it might be better returned to licence-payers.

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US PC makers in 'stolen code' row

By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Computer makers that don't install Green Dam face possible penalties

A California company is considering legal action to prevent computers being shipped to China with what it says is stolen internet blocking software.

Solid Oak said it found pieces of its CyberSitter programme in China's Green Dam Youth Escort screening software.

China has mandated that all new PCs contain filters to protect children from offensive material on the net.

The Chinese firm that made Green Dam, Jinhui Computer System Engineering Inc, denies any wrongdoing.

But Solid Oak's Brian Milburn said "We're contacting Dell, HP and others to stop compromised material being shipped."

"If China had gotten hold of free pirated copies of Microsoft's Windows and told Dell and HP to put this on all computers you ship, you would hear a loud outcry. China has a very loose interpretation of what is intellectual property," said Mr Milburn.

He told the BBC that as far as he was aware, the compromised software containing code from CyberSitter has already been installed on 9 million computers in China.

The Chinese government has required that all new computers made or shipped by 1 July have Green Dam pre-installed.

The government's controls over what its citizens can see online is often referred to as the "Great Firewall of China."

Review

Mr Millburn, whose company is based in Santa Barbara, said US computer manufacturers were being put in the middle of a row not of their making.

The system reportedly blocks legitimate as well as banned content

"It's not their fault and I don't want to sound like that. They are stuck in the middle. I want to do the right thing and maybe it will give them an opportunity to get out of distributing machines with this software."

Critics say the software will be used to prevent China's 250 million internet users from searching for politically sensitive information. Green Dam filters words and images as well as web addresses.

"While the justification may be pitched as protecting children and mostly concerning pornography, once the architecture is set up it can be used for broader purposes, such as the filtering of political ideas," Professor Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard's Berkman Centre told the BBC last week.

A report by the OpenNet Initiative has found that Green Dam can monitor activities outside of web browsing and can terminate applications.

Dell, the world's second biggest PC seller, said no machines had been shipped containing Green Dam.

"We are aware of the policy from China and along with the rest of the industry are reviewing it," said spokesman David Frink.

It has been estimated that in the next two years China's PC market will be the world's largest with 50 million units shipped annually by 2012.

"Honest mistake"

Solid Oak's founder Mr Milburn said he was first alerted there was a problem on Friday when he received an email from someone claiming to be from the Chinese Communist Party.

Cybersitter is aimed at helping parents control what their children see online

"At first I thought it was a prank and didn't pay much attention to it," Mr Milburn told the BBC.

"One of our employees researched it and came back to me and said I might want to look at it more closely. We then found actual proprietary code from CyberSitter within the Green Dam programme that is only available in an encrypted format.

"I spent a good deal of the weekend with another engineer trying to find if it was an honest mistake. But someone made a 100% conscious effort to do this. This is not some accident," stated Mr Milburn.

A report by the University of Michigan has also accused the Chinese vendor of using material from Solid Oak Software's product.

Added to that the study found serious vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to hijack PCs running the Chinese software.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has ordered the problem be fixed.

Legal action

The Chinese company that made the filtering software told China Daily that it has been wrongly accused.

Every new computer in China will have the software installed

"That's impossible. We didn't steal their programming code, " said Bryan Zhang of Jinhui Computer System Engineering Inc.

Mr Milburn said even though legal action against the Chinese developer is one thing he is looking at, he is not sure it will be worth the effort.

"We are just a little company and trying to take on China is an impossible task. We don't want to turn into a litigation company."

Mr Milburn said Solid Oak will also file a complaint with the FBI's Computer Crime Task Force.

Online surveys conducted by some of China's most popular web portals like sina.com and shou.com showed that four out of five netizens will not use the Green Dam software or have it installed.

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Creating & Customising Keyboard Shortcuts in Microsoft Word

Is there no keyboard shortcut for a particular action in Word, or is the current keyboard shortcut convoluted and difficult to remember? Recent versions of Word actually allow you to assign your own keyboard shortcuts to all sorts of commands and hidden features. You can also assign keyboard shortcuts to your own Macro scripts, a very powerful way of making Word more accessible.

The following example shows how to make a keyboard shortcut that changes the font colour to red. You can currently accomplish this through the keyboard in two manners but both of these are rather long-winded:

1. Press ALT to access the File menu
2. Press CTRL + TAB until the formatting toolbar is highlighted
3. Press the right arrow until the font colour dialog is highlighted
4. Press the down arrow to open up the colour selection box
5. Use the arrow keys to highlight red
6. Press Enter to select

Alternatively:

1. Press ALT + O to open the Format menu
2. Press Enter to open the Font dialog
3. Press ALT + C to open up the colour selection box
4. Use the arrow keys to highlight red
5. Press Enter to select
6. Press CTRL + TAB to move the focus towards the OK button
7. Press Enter to close the dialog

Either of these routes take quite a long time so if you're going to change font to any given colour more than a few times it might be worth adding your own shortcut. You only need to do this the once and It doesn't take long and here's how to accomplish it:

Open the Customize dialog box by selecting Customize from the Tools menu

ALT, T, C

Select the Commands tab at the top of the dialog

CTRL + TAB

Press the Keyboard button

ALT + K

Up pops the Customize Keyboard dialog.

Using the Categories and Commands lists you can select any command available in Microsoft Word. Select the Format Category and then the 'Color:' command.

F , TAB, C (until 'Color:' is highlighted)

Now go to the Color list and select Red.

ALT + SHIFT + : , R

Now it's time to select a suitable keyboard shortcut. This can actually be a little tricky as Word has already taken most of the good ones. Fortunately Word does let you know when a keyboard shortcut is already assigned to another command . Also you can replace existing shortcuts if you feel you can live without them. In this example I want to assign CTRL+ALT+R to change the font colour to Red (it's easy enough to remember).Unfortunately this shortcut has already been taken by the Registered Trademark symbol, but I feel I can live without this shortcut.

Click inside the New shortcut key box and press CTRL+ALT+R. You'll see that this is already taken but if you don't mind replacing the current command simply click the Assign button. Click Close on both dialogs and try it out!

ALT + N , ( CTRL + ALT + R )

TAB , ALT + A , ESC , ESC

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Intel Investment Preps Japan for July WiMAX Launch - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

by Mark Hachman

Intel has invested $43 million into UQ Communications, part of the initial deployment of WiMAX throughout Japan.

Toshiba, Panasonic, and Onkyo also said they would begin shipping PCs for the Japanese market that contains Intel's Centrino technology and WiMAX receiver module. Dell has done the same in the United States, although the technology is an option.

Although Clearwire has struggled to roll out WiMAX within the United States, the technology is slowly being deployed elsewhere in the world. By the end of 2012, UQ estimated, over 90 percent of Japan will be covered by the technology.

The UQ service will formally launch on July 1, the companies said.

"We are glad to welcome this major milestone," said Takashi Tanaka, president of UQ Communications, in a statement. "Working with Intel, we are on the road to full mobile broadband access, and, remarkably, in just 18 months since UQ Communications obtained a Mobile WiMAX license. A feature of Mobile WiMAX is that its infrastructure is open, both to people who want to use WiMAX, and to businesses that want to enter the WiMAX market. In collaboration with PC makers, MVNOs, and various other industries, we will enable true mobile broadband access, with UQ constructing a high-speed, advanced WiMAX network, while Intel enables WiMAX modules to be built into all kinds of devices."

According to Intel, WiMAX will serve 800 million people by 2010, Intel said in February.

Intel also said Tuesday that Beceem, GCT Semiconductor, Sequans and UQ will enter the Open Patent Alliance as associate members,, a patent-sharing consortium around WiMAX, joining current OPA members Acer, Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Cisco, Clearwire, Huawei Technologies, Intel, and Samsung Electronics.

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