An anonymous reader writes: Submarine cable operator Seacom has announced that civil construction activity was the cause of widespread outages which left large parts of Africa without internet connectivity yesterday. According to the firm, its Northern Trans-Egypt cable was damaged between Cairo and Alexandria, and the Southern Trans-Egypt route was also disrupted outside of Cairo. Adding to the interruption, Seacom’s backup route, the West Africa Cable System (WACS), was also down at the same time, leaving most African countries without connectivity. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Civil Construction Wipes Out Internet Connectivity Across Africa
astroengine writes “The family of planets circling a relatively close dwarf star has grown to six, including a potential rocky world at least seven times more massive than Earth that is properly located for liquid water to exist on its surface, a condition believed to be necessary for life. Scientists added three new planets to three discovered in 2008 orbiting an orange star called HD 40307, which is roughly three-quarters as massive as the sun and located about 42 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. Of particular interest is the outermost planet, which is believed to fly around its parent star over 320 days, a distance that places it within HD 40307’s so-called “habitable zone.”” Read more of this story at Slashdot.