Rwanda takes broadband leap

Landlocked Rwanda is weeks away from completing a link to a new fibre-optic network promising high-speed Internet for East Africa, reports the BBC.

Engineers expect the capital, Kigali, to be connected to newly-arrived undersea cables in Kenya by November.

A national fibre-optic ring is due to go online early in 2010.

A maker of hardware for computer gamers has taken its support site offline, following a report that it was surreptitiously distributing malware on its downloads section, reports The Register.

Carlsbad, California-based Razer took the precautionary move after Rik Ferguson, a senior security adviser in Europe with anti-virus firm Trend Micro, warned users could be at risk.

"A large amount of the device drivers offered for download at the Razer support site were infected with a Trojan," Ferguson wrote Monday. "It is unclear how long the problem has been ongoing, so in the meantime, if you downloaded anything from Razer recently, head over to HouseCall and run a full system scan and clean up if necessary."

Canadian police have been using business analytic software to predict crime hotspot trends and claim to have had major success, says V3.co.uk.

The police used the software to data-mine its report files for arson crimes among the force's one million population. Initial data showed a prevalence of attacks in the May to July period in certain areas and the ensuing attention cut fires dramatically.

"For us, the bottom line is to prevent crime, and business analytics reporting has helped us accomplish that,” said John Warden, BI project team lead, Edmonton Police Services.

Facebook is shutting down its much-maligned Beacon marketing programme, introduced nearly two years ago amid fanfare, only to generate a storm of privacy complaints over the tracking of user activities at partner Web sites, reports Associated Press.

Facebook agreed to end Beacon and create a foundation to promote online privacy, safety and security as part of a $9.5 million settlement in a lawsuit over the programme. A federal judge in San Jose still has to approve the terms.

Meanwhile, Facebook is teaming up with Nielsen to help advertisers grab the attention of the hordes that are spending more of their time at the Internet hangout. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is expected to unveil the new marketing programme, "Nielsen BrandLift", at an advertising conference in New York today.