Nigeria's Online Blog

Cisco unveiled a new Internet technology Tuesday that it says will provide the ultra-fast data speeds necessary to stay ahead of users' rapidly growing online video demands.

The new technology, known as "CRS-3," is a network routing system that will be able to offer downloads of up to 322 Terabits per second, according to the company.

Translation: Well in Cisco terms, the router will be able to provide download speeds of 1 Gigabit per second for everyone in San Francisco, download the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in 1 second and stream every movie ever created in less than 4 minutes.

Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers acknowledged that many skeptics will say that those speeds and network capacity are not necessary, but he argued that the fast-growing media usage on mobile phones will ultimately demand it.

"I know this is not that exciting to the average consumer right now, but it is the foundation for future speeds," Chambers said in a Web cast Tuesday. "When it comes to mobile devices, I want to get any video, anytime and be able to share that on any device in your living room. The foundation of that is the CRS-3."

Wireless providers have reported a sharp increase in data downloads as more consumers buy smartphones, and they are quickly scrambling to update their networks to increase capacity for growing data traffic. AT&T (T, Fortune 500), which saw its network traffic grow 40% in 2009, said Tuesday that it has run a successful test of the CRS-3 under a partnership deal with Cisco.

It's not just mobile that's growing. Streaming video services like YouTube are now offering high-definition video, and broadcast networks and cable companies continue to put more of their content on the Internet.

0:00 /3:05Cisco's vision of the future
"Cisco has set a new bar for network performance," said Zeus Kerravala, research fellow at Yankee Group. "Many may think we'll never need that much bandwidth, but the enterprise future of mobile TV, streaming media, YouTube, telepresence and 3-D HD TV surely demands it."

Cisco said the CRS-3 will triple the speed of its predecessor, the CRS-1, and it will offer speeds of up to 12-times faster than the next fastest product on the market. The company invested $1.6 billion in the technology and will begin selling the routers at $90,000. The networking company said it expects the CRS-3 will be available in the fall.

The announcement comes a week after Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) announced it would test a super-fast broadband network in a U.S. city, and it is a week before the FCC will reveal its plan to increase broadband speeds and access for Americans.

Shares of Cisco (CSCO, Fortune 500), which were up 4% on Monday ahead of Tuesday's announcement, fell about 1% in midday trading. Shares fell sharply immediately following the announcement in a "sell on the news" move, but managed to recover some lost ground.

Beginning next month, Facebook may start telling its users not only what their friends are doing, but also where they're doing it.

The New York Times' Bits Blog says the popular online social network will announce this "location-based" feature at its upcoming conference, called f8. The conference takes place April 21-22 in San Francisco.

Site users, according to the post, will be able to add their locations to status updates on Facebook.

Similar location services are an emerging trend with online social networks. Some Web sites, like foursquare and Gowalla, are dedicated largely to telling your online friends where you are at any given moment. This is seen by some as a helpful way for friends to find each other and meet up in real life. It's also regarded as an advertising opportunity for businesses that can convince customers to post about their store visits on the Internet.

Other Web sites, potentially including Facebook, are starting to incorporate information about where people are into their existing set-up.

The Times' blog cites interviews with "several people briefed on the project," but the news of Facebook's location-based service has not been confirmed. A Facebook spokeswoman, Meredith Chin, told writer Nick Bilton: “We’re constantly experimenting with new things around here, but we don’t have any details to share right now."

On the tech blog Mashable, Adam Ostrow writes that location services are becoming an important part of the Internet at large:

With Facebook entering the space though, the other players will need to look to create value in ways beyond check-ins and knowing where your friends are located at any given point in time. That’s why Foursquare seems to be so focused on partnerships and gaming, while Gowalla is making moves (as recently as last night) in virtual goods.

In any event, location remains the huge trend so far in 2010, and literally each day seems to bring new indications of which way it will all play out.

The LA Times technology blog says the Facebook news doesn't come as much of shock:

Not much of a surprise that Facebook is pushing into this space. It has more than 100 million mobile users. It hinted it would start a location service when it updated its privacy policy.

What kind of location service is open to interpretation. A big draw: geographically targeted advertising.

Assuming this report is true, do you like the idea of location-based features on Facebook?

Program Note: Five years ago we reported on gang violence in the Los Angeles community of Hollenbeck. This week, all week, we follow up on the neighborhood. Through the eyes of cops, criminals and crusaders, we witness the corrosive effects of violence and what's being done to prevent it. We take you inside the investigations of homicides as they unfold in a community where 30 percent of all killings remain unsolved.

When Soledad Brock visits the Odd Fellows cemetery in the Hollenbeck community of Los Angeles, she mourns the death of her two sons, Ronald Brock and Angel Candia. One was a U.S. Marine with no ties to gangs. The other was a gang member. Both were victims of gang violence – gunned down in the same year, in front of the house in which they grew up.

“People tell me its time to move on and forget but I don’t think anyone understands that your whole life was gone seven years ago,” said Brock.

Seven years after their deaths, five years after we first reported their stories, detectives believe they know who killed one of Brock’s sons but there is a surprise development in both cases.

Soledad Brock raised her sons, Angel and Ronald, as a single mother in the Hollenbeck community just east of downtown Los Angeles. She said she tried to keep her sons close to home and away from the lure of street gangs. “You hear of people getting shot and people getting killed and I didn’t want that for my boys,” said Brock.

Ronald managed to avoid that path but Angel joined one of Hollenbeck’s 34 street gangs. The more entrenched Angel became in the gang, the more he wanted something better for his younger brother, so he urged Ronald to enlist in the Marines, his mother said.

After boot camp training at Camp Pendleton and the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Ronald told his mother that he was about to deploy overseas. “I honestly didn't want him to go. I didn't want my son killed,” Brock said.

Before his deployment, Ronald returned home for a weekend visit with his family and girlfriend. Brock said Ronald was planning to propose to his girlfriend but when he arrived at his mother’s house, he was confronted by gang members. Moments later there were gunshots.

“I remember running outside and I was calling for him and he didn’t answer,” she said. “I think as a mother your reaction is, you’re waiting for him to be standing.” She said he was shot twice in the head, four times in the back and his hand was shot off. Ronald was just 19-years-old when he was killed. He was buried with military honors.

For seven months, Brock said she fell into a deep depression and rarely ventured outside of her house. Then, one night she was haunted a second time when her son Angel was apparently surprised by rival gang members. According to the autopsy report, more than 70 rounds were fired. One of those bullets was fatal.

Detective Dewaine Fields, supervisor of the Hollenbeck gang unit believes Ronald’s death was a terrible case of mistaken identity. “He was in his brother’s gang neighborhood where his home is,” said Fields. “He had his head shaved because he’s a United States Marine. Most of the gangsters have shaved heads, they thought he was a gang member. And there’s no evidence whatsoever to lead me to believe he was. Wrong place, the wrong time, mistaken identity.”

Detective Fields told CNN that no one has come forward with information about the case. “We’ve narrowed it down to two enemy gangs, two enemy gangs and two people in each of those enemy gangs that we’ve narrowed it down to or that we believe are probably responsible in some way or another.. but we’re hearing two different stories,” he said.

Detective Fields says he needs an eyewitness or another gang member to come forward and identify Ronald Brock’s killer.

But gangs only need to make a few examples to send a message. Take the case of Bobby Singleton, a homeless man who was murdered to prevent him from testifying against a gang member. Singleton’s body was discovered under a Los Angeles bridge. He had been shot in the head and neck five times. Police say the murder was designed to send a warning for others not to speak to police.

In the shooting death of Angel Candia, detective Fields believes he knows who killed him, but there is a dilemma. “He was approached by a couple different gang members, rival gang members, he and another fellow and, a major gunfight ensued,” said Fields.

Fields says the problem is that although he knows how many guns were involved he doesn’t know who pulled the trigger first. He said it’s even possible that Angel shot first and that he was “hit by friendly fire because he was shot in the back of the head.”

Fields went on to say that although the people involved were arrested, the District Attorney decided not to file the case because of the ambiguity. He says he thinks witnesses are hesitant to say who pulled the trigger.

Letting go in Hollenbeck is hard for Soledad Brock. Her sons now lie side by side in a cemetery.

But there is a surprise twist in Ronald Brock’s life and tragic death. Two days before he was killed, Ronald learned his girlfriend was pregnant.

His daughter, Ronnie Angeline Brock is now 7- years-old and is named after her father and uncle. “She looks like him the way she smiles the way she talks the way she walks,” Brock said. “He would have been a great father.”

Each morning Soledad Brock says a prayer for justice and a prayer for her sons Ronald and Angel and for the little girl who will grow up never knowing either of them.