Items tagged with Africa
Facebook has a billion users, but its sights are set squarely on the next billion--or several billion--in developing nations. Sure, some of that drive represents a desire for profits, but Mark Zuckerberg also appears to genuinely believe that Internet access is a human right. In any case, he wants everyone to have Internet access, and he wants everyone to use Facebook, and the company has streamlined its product to work better in nations where Internet speeds are relatively slow. Facebook sent a team to Africa to test out the mobile Facebook experience, and their findings prompted them to action. “We purchased several different Android handsets to test the latest version of the Facebook...
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Emerging markets are called that for a reason, and Google has certainly had a hand in bringing a lot of said markets to the spotlight over the years. As the Internet expands into becoming a full-fledged force across the globe, Google realizes that it may need to lend a hand in developing some of the infrastructure. In places like the U.S., there's no need. But in some nations, the Internet isn't going to arrive without a bit of outside aid. According to a new Wall Street Journal report, Google is already "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." In recent years, Google...
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A British surgeon volunteering in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa used text messaging to help him perform an unfamiliar surgical procedure, saving a teenager's life. David Nott was volunteering for the French medical charity Medicin Sans Frontierescame (A.K.A. Doctors Without Borders) and when he first saw J he knew he was dying, and needed an operation quickly. J's arm had been nearly shot off in a battle between the Congolese army and rebels. This would require a difficult procedure: a forequarter amputation, which Nott was not familiar with. However, his collegaue, Meirion Thomas, is one of only a handful of U.K. surgeons who is. Nott sent him an SMS, and Thomas replied, with step-by-step...
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