Is it just a lot of hot air?

Google aims to help wire the world by bringing the Internet to a billion or more new people, including small villages and cities outside of major urban areas in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa -- using special balloons to broadcast the wireless connection.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google plans to team up with local telecommunications firms and equipment providers in the emerging markets to develop the networks, as well as create business models to support them, people familiar with the project said. The networks also could be used to improve Internet speeds in urban centers, the paper reported.

To speed the spread of the Internet in these areas, the company has worked on special blimps, called high-altitude platforms, to broadcast a signal over hundreds of square miles.

Google has also considered helping to create a satellite-based network.

"There's not going to be one technology that will be the silver bullet," meaning that each market will require a unique solution, said one person familiar with Google's plans.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323975004578503350402434918.html

http://www.punchng.com/i-punch/phcn-twitter-account-functioned-only-24-hours-in-2-years/

The official Twitter handle of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, Eko Distribution Zone, @PHCNEkoZone has only been active for 24 hours since it was created.

An investigation by our correspondent showed that the company’s Twitter account, which was opened on November 3, 2010, became dormant the day after.

Before then, the company had tweeted only one message announcing that it could be followed on Twitter. “We are now on Twitter,” it said.

Nothing has been posted on the handle, which boasts a following of about 73 people, ever since that time.

Another handle credited to the PHCN on the social service, @PHCNnigeria, which was opened on April 10, 2011, was active for two days. Afterwards, it became dormant.

When some Nigerians from various geopolitical zones took to the social media on Friday and Saturday to lament what they called a “near total blackout” in the country, they were disappointed when their tweets to the PHCN account were not replied.

Apparently, the PHCN authorities did not deem it fit to engage the citizenry via its social media channels. But it did not deter the people from starting a buzz around the subjects on a popular online forum known as nairaland.com, with the title: “Nationwide blackout? 24 hours and counting”.

Thus, the two words, “#phcn” and “nepa”, went trending on the social media just as a member of the forum with the name, Digigamage, who resides in Abuja, opened a discussion on the subject at about 6.31am on Saturday.

Digigamage said he decided to open the thread when his friends in Kano, Port-Harcourt and Jos, with whom he had a conversation on telephone, complained of experiencing an unusual power outage in their various areas.

He said, “I stay in Abuja and for the past 24 hours, there has been no power supply. The soup wey I cook won spoil. I called three friends in Kano, Port-Harcourt and Jos, respectively and they reported the same situation. Is this really happening nationwide?”

No sooner had he posted the comments than the forum was bombarded with similar complaints.

On sighting the thread, a resident of Lagos, called Ochuka, said he had been powering his generators for two days before he heard the news that it was not the usual outage.

“No light here in my part of Lasgidi. Thought it was the usual outage. I have been burning fuel since Thursday evening. Word from the grapevine says it’s a system collapse,” he said.

A resident of Enugu, Nora Jones, reported the same situation on the forum, adding that she had depended on her “I beta pass my neighbour” referring to a 1.5kv generator, for a while.

“Here in Enugu, we haven’t had electricity since Wednesday evening. It was restored at about 6.30 am on Saturday and an hour later, we were back to square one. Na I-pass-my neighbour levels we all dey o,” she said.

Another member of the forum, who lives in Calabar and is known as Skinny, said on Saturday that the power situation was biting hard, as public water supply to his area had been affected

“No light at Calabar for a while now and what makes it worse is that there is no water as well. It is like the water board is dependent on PHCN. This makes it look like a living hell,” he said.

Some affected electricity consumers tweeted messages to the Twitter handle of the Special Assistant to the President on New Media, Reno Omokri, to register their complaints. Later, they heaved a sigh of relief after power was restored on Saturday to many parts of the country where power outage had hitherto been reported.

Many of the consumers went back to the social media shouting “Up NEPA.”

Also, a Nigerian with the name Babajide Fadoju, who had earlier tweeted a message to Omokri; Presidential Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, and Presidential Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said his 79-year-old grandmother shouted “Up NEPA” at 3.45am when power was restored.

Explaining the power situation in his area, he tweeted, “You know it has gone terribly bad when my old grandma screams ‘Up NEPA’ at 3.45 am and shouts ‘go and pump water.’”

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After last week’s exclusive story on Nigeria’s foremost hacking group, NaijaCyberHactivists, ARUKAINO UMUKORO completes the series with a story on schools where hacking is taught in Lagos State

The flyer was too good to ignore as it promised a 100 per cent job placement on completion of the course.

On visiting the computer centre, located at Allen Avenue in Ikeja, Lagos, our correspondent learnt that the training cost about N70,000 (for a six-week course) and over N200,000 (for a six-month course) on Information Security and Certified Ethical Hacking.

When he revealed his identity, the instructor declined to speak any further with our correspondent.

Such is the secrecy that surrounds schools where hacking is taught in Lagos State. A minimum of five of such schools are located in Ikeja, a commercial hub of the state.

Most of them claim to teach ethical hacking which experts describe as attacking a system on behalf of the company that owns that system, using the same methods, techniques and tools that are used by malicious hackers, but in a controlled manner with a professional services wrapper around it.

Our correspondent however got lucky when he visited New Horizons Systems Solutions Limited, Ikeja, Lagos, another computer training centre which offers CEH.

Initially, the instructors at the centre were reluctant to talk but after repeated calls and enquiries, SUNDAY PUNCH finally got in touch with the centre’s General Manager, Mr. Sunday Ayandele, via email.

“We are authorised to run CEH by the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants,” he explained, but noted there were other “non-authorised training centres running CEH courses illegally and at ridiculous amounts.”

Although there are no background checks on students, Ayandele explained that they were made ‘to sign a form’ as a way of vetting the students who take the CEH course and ensure they do not use it for illegal purposes.

Ministry of Defence

Although the website of the Ministry of Defence, www.mod.gov.ng, is one with a quick load time, good visual resolution, and is also accessible by major web browsers, it lags behind in terms of content, as a larger percentage of its sections are empty.

A visit to the website on Thursday showed that there was no information on the history, management, vision and mission, functions as well as the general overview of the defence ministry. These sections were blank. Left empty by the website administrator(s).

In fact, the last time a news item on the activities of the defence ministry featured on the website was in April 2012. The website lacks mention of strategic plans of the military, performance appraisal of various military services nor does it contain links to important information for soldiers in foreign missions like it obtains in other countries of the world.

A visit to the website of South Africa’s Department of Defence, www.dod.mil.za, showed some level of commitment with engagement via the portal.

The South African Defence Minister, Ms. Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, not only uses the portal to connect with the rank and file of the military. He also links up with military veterans through a dedicated website for ex-service men.

The SA defence website is also used to feed the members of the South African public with the various reports on the activities of the military services to enhance military-civilian relations.

Apart from updating its website with content for varying degrees of visitors, the ministry of defence needs to also create an engagement with Nigerians by having a social media hub on the portal to make visitors to the site connect real time with the activities of the defence ministry on social media.

Ministry of Transport

After its website, www. fmt.gov.ng, suffered hacking in 2012, by a group known as NaijaCyberHacktivists,” the Federal Ministry of Transport now has a new website, www.transport.gov.ng

Although the new website has good aesthetic design and brilliant visual resolution, some of its sections have yet to be fed with contents, a development that can put visitors off the site.

For instance, a click on the ‘Resources’ tab on the portal brought up a page with the information, “There are no items to show in this view of the ‘Documents’ document library.” Also, the ‘Intermodals’ and ‘Unit’ tabs of the website were empty as at the time of filing this report.

Besides, the Facebook and Twitter plug-ins on the website seem to be there for the fun of it as they failed to respond when our correspondent clicked on the links. However, unlike the website of the defence ministry, the transport ministry appears to see a need to inform members of the public about its day-to-day activities as it recently started posting updates on its ‘News’ section.

Responding to an inquiry by our correspondent on Thursday, the Assistant Director, Press, of the ministry, Mr. Abiodun Oladunjoye said the ministry was working assiduously to get the website fully up-to-date.

“www.transport.gov.ng is on and we are trying to ‘fleshen’ it,” he said in a text message to our correspondent.

Ministry of Lands and Housing

The official website of the Federal Ministry of Lands and Hosing is www.landsandhousing.gov.ng. It contains virtually all the information one needs to know about the workings of the ministry, including its mandate, organogram, vision and mission, as well as important details one needs to know about the homes and property sector.

But the portal appears to be like a book that has been abandoned on the shelf. A search through it at the time of filing this report revealed that there were no traces of regular update of the website.

A click on the “News and Events” returned a photo page and the message, “News and Events Coming soon.” The rest of the section was with no news update.

Ministry of Information

Although the website of the Federal Ministry of Information, www. fmi.gov.ng, is not the best designed in the comity of website of federal ministries, it is a good model for its peers to take a cue from in terms of keeping a portal up-to-date.

The website managers thought it wise to include social media plug-ins on the portal with which the visitors to the website carry on with conversation and other discussions on various social networks.