Anyone can lie about his or her age on the Internet, but Anna Stoehr actually had to, if she were to join her friends and family on Facebook. Stoehr is the oldest living person in Minnesota, USA, and celebrated her 114th birthday last Sunday. She recently befriended a Verizon sales representative who sold an iPhone to her 85-year-old son. The sales rep was so impressed with Anna that he made the 2-hour drive to teach her how to email, search for things on Google, use Apple’s FaceTime video chat and join Facebook.
Joining Facebook didn’t prove easy for Stoehr, though she can blame Zuckerberg and co. for that. Facebook doesn’t let you choose a date of birth before 1905, and Stoehr was born in 1900. So she did what many people do on the Internet, and lied about her age, choosing 99.
Stoehr, with a little help from Ramireza (the sales representative), wrote a letter to Facebook to tell her tale.
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Paul Allan donates US$75 million to fight spread of Ebola
The international effort to contain the spread of the lethal Ebola virus has gone quite poorly so far, with over 4,000 deaths attributed to the disease so far and new transmissions reported in recent days in the US and Europe. As health care workers battle the outbreak on the front lines in various countries, a public outcry has sprung up surrounding the lack of funding available for research and treatment. But more money for the Ebola fight has just been contributed by a surprising source. Zuckerberg announced on his Facebook page earlier today that he and his wife Priscilla Chan, a physician, have made a $25 million donation to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn’t spread further and become a long term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio,” Zuckerberg wrote, explaining his motivation for the unexpected donation. The money is only a fraction of the $1 billion that the World Health Organization says is necessary to halt the further spread of the disease, but is still a significant amount of money to come from individual donors. Zuckerberg and Chan’s donation follows other large donations made by tech magnates, including a $50 million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a $9 million donation from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. See our techies do care…

SKYPE UNVEIL’S VIDEO MESSAGING APP
Microsoft-owned Skype on Tuesday unveiled a new app enabling users to send short video messages to stay “connected between calls.
The smartphone app, called Skype Qik, allows users to create and send videos up to 42 seconds long. The new service seeks to help Microsoft catch up to rivals in the fast-growing mobile messaging space.
It takes some features from Twitter’s Vine-which allows six-second videos and the ephemeral messaging service Snapchat. With Qik, the messages disappear in two weeks, while Snapchats are gone after being viewed.
Skype Qik makes video conversations more spontaneous and fun so you don’t have to wait until your next call to connect with your favorite people.
The Qik app is available for phones using Apple’s iOS, the Google Android platform and Microsoft’s own Windows Phone.
Qik brings Microsoft into the red-hot segment of mobile messaging, following Facebook’s multibillion-dollar acquisition of WhatsApp. Other popular messaging services include Asia-based Line and Viber -which was bought this year by Japan’s Rakuten for US$900 million.

GET READY FOR ANDROID LOLLIPOP
The newest candy on the block
Google released version 5.0 of its Android operating system, codenamed Lollipop, last Friday.
The company describes the update as a “quantum leap forward”, thanks to its revamped design and new features.
Android already has an 84.7% share of global smartphone shipments, according to research company IDC. Notifications now appear at the top of the screen rather than covering a game’s playing area.
Google calls its new paradigm “material design”, and it places fresh emphasis on graphical animations and colour changes in response to the device owner’s actions.
Google has maintained its sweet-themed naming system with Android Lollipop The animations and ripples and things like that are eye candy, but at the same time there’s a purpose to them. Notifications adopt a card-like appearance on the lock screen, and the design is also used to deliver Google Search results and to switch from one app to another when multitasking. Notifications take on a card-like appearance on the lock screen
Another change with notifications is that device owners can customise which types should rise to the top of the list presented to the user or conversely be prevented from appearing on the lock screen, to help device owners prevent information overload.
Furthermore, new notifications now appear at the top of a device’s screen rather than covering its centre to avoid the interruption of other activities such as playing a video game. Android Lollipop also introduces a new feature called “smart lock”.
This allows users to set a location – such as their home, car or office desk – or Bluetooth device – such as a smart watch or work keyboard – as a trigger to disable the need to type in a password
Other manufacturers and networks will have to test the software before they release it alongside updates of their own software for their machines. We shall wait and see what this new sweet has to offer.