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FACEBOOK’S AIM TO connect the world has taken one of its biggest step forward after it launched its free mobile internet service in India.
Internet.org, CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s project to get the world connected, launched its app to a country which has a population of 1.2 billion. Roughly a billion people in India don’t have access to the internet and Facebook plans to change that.
In a post announcing the news, Zuckerberg said that while it aims to change that, it has a long way to go before it achieves this aim.
Today’s announcement is just one step towards changing that. People on the Reliance network in the states of Tamil Nadu, Mahararashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and Telangana will now have free data access to more than three dozen services. We have a long way to go to connect India. But I’m optimistic that by getting free basic services into people’s hands, more change can follow pretty rapidly.
Of the 150 million people across Africa and Latin America using internet.org, 6 million hadn’t a connection before it arrived.
India has become a significant market for some of the biggest companies in the world. Last year, Google launched Android One, its way of getting cheap smartphones into the hands of billions of users, while Facebook recently launched a scaled-down version of its mobile app called Facebook Lite, which is only 286k in size.
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Personally I read that as some council lads still want to be able to do favours for people by cranking planning while insisting on a strictly insane rules that force people to have tiny windows or that don’t let new buildings be new as in a new design rather than the big standard. Without the power sure they are no better than the rest of us, where’s the fun in that like.
@Peter: Maybe, but on the other side of the coin we have developers dictating planning decisions, and that can’t be good for anyone. There has to be a regulated middle ground.
@Boyne Sharky: don’t get me wrong, I think the whole process needs to be cleaned up and made simple and consistent all over the country. I have heard of people being told the house planned should be double the size while others only a mile away told to make it smaller. Currently the whole thing is based on what the planning officer likes basically which is completely insane.
How many councillors is this country can honestly say they have any expertise in urban/rural planning? Travel around any part of Ireland and you will see the consequences of this.Taclky throughfares in every city and developer led housing monstrosities everywhere to extract the greatest profit.
And they were doing such a grand job ……… !
Less brown envelopes for them. Disgusting
Farewell to Parish-Pump politics, and good riddance!
Clueless Councillors now worried they won’t be able to sort out their local friends and relatives by green-lighting dodgy developments or by blocking necessary planning permissions. No more boring white bungalows with awful columns blighting the countryside.
People seem to be jumping on the councilors side of things here. Probably correctly so. But do we really want developers to be able to build what they want where they want it?
They sold their souls 20 years ago, for more money and increased pension benifits, Cant have it both ways, Whole system needs major overhaul, not what you know, But Who ??.
have your say