Military plane crashes in northern Nigeria, killing seven

GNN - A Nigerian Air Force plane crashed into a house in the northern city of Kaduna on Saturday, killing all seven people on board, a military spokesman said.

The air force said the Dornier-228 aircraft crashed into a house shortly after taking off from Kaduna Military Airfield around 06:45 (0145 ET). Nobody on the ground was hurt. "The plane was on a daily routine flight to Abuja when it crashed within the premises of the barracks, killing the four crew members and three civilian passengers," said military spokesman Colonel Abdul Usman.

An investigation has been launched to establish the cause of the crash.

(Reporting by Isaac Abrak, additional reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by John Stonestreet, Reuters)

Nigeria says uncovers Boko Haram spy ring at Abuja airport

GNN - Nigeria has uncovered a spy cell run by militant Islamist group Boko Haram at the international airport in the capital Abuja apparently aimed at selecting targets for attack, the country's national security agency said.

In a statement late on Friday, the Department of State Services (DSS) said it discovered the ring on Monday and was working with aviation authorities to pre-empt any attack.

President Muhammadu Buhari has made halting Boko Haram's six-year-old insurgency a priority, but a Reuters tally shows the jihadist group has killed more than 700 people in Nigeria in bomb attacks and shootings since he came to office on May 29.

The DSS said it had arrested a 14-year-old boy who said he had been instructed to spy on the airport's security procedures, including passenger screening and boarding processes, and report what he had learned.

It said the man who directed the boy had not been located.

"The service, in liaison with the aviation security of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, disrupted a spying network mounted by the Boko Haram terrorists," DSS spokesman Tony Opuiyo said in the statement.

"The service is working closely with major aviation stakeholders, especially the Aviation Security Department, to forestall any possible attack and to ensure adequate security at the airports."

Boko Haram, whose insurgency mainly focuses on the northeast, has carried out some attacks in Abuja including the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in the city four years ago, which killed 23 people.

The insurgents have waged a bloody campaign to create a state adhering to strict Islamic law in the northeast of Africa's most populous state that has left thousands dead and forced around 1.5 million people to flee their homes since 2009.

Boko Haram scattered earlier this tear after an army counter-offensive ousted it from most of the territory it had gained. But the jihadists have since returned to a strategy of selective attacks in which they have bombed or fired on targets in public places such as markets and places of worship.

(Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Reuters)

Judge’s Order To Shut Down NSA Phone Surveillance Reversed By Federal Appeals Court

GNN - A federal appeals court has just ruled against a 2013 decision ordering the NSA to stop its bulk metadata collection program.

The three-judge panel issued its ruling Friday, contending that conservative privacy activist Larry Klayman had not adequately argued the likeliness that his own data had been collected as a part of the metadata collection program.

Judge Stephen Williams wrote that the plaintiffs “claim to suffer from government collection of records from their telecommunications provider relating to their calls. But plaintiffs are subscribers of Verizon Wireless, not of Verizon Business Network Services, Inc.—the sole provider that the government has acknowledged targeting for bulk data collection.”

Judge Janice Rogers Brown’s separate opinion stated that the plaintiffs had failed to show a “‘concrete and particularized’ injury” in regards to the NSA program. Brown ended her opinion quoting Daniel P. Moynihan’s book Secrecy: The American Experience. “Regulations of this sort may frustrate the inquisitive citizen but that does not make them illegal or illegitimate. Excessive secrecy limits needed criticism and debate. Effective secrecy ensures the perpetuation of our institutions.’’

This court decision’s importance really isn’t as critical as it would have been before the recent legislation passed in Congress, as today’s ruling is more procedural and doesn’t touch on the program’s constitutionality. The law passed by Congress allows bulk phone data collection to continue until the end of the year, but it severely scales back the NSA’s phone surveillance program thereafter.

FEATURED IMAGE: SAUL LOEB/GETTY IMAGES

Mobile Gaming Live-Streaming Service Mobcrush Has Raised Around $10M

GNN - We’ve heard from sources that Mobcrush, a live-streaming service centered around mobile games much in the same way Twitch is known for streaming popular eSports desktop games, has raised around $10 million in new financing, though the number could have gone beyond that.

Mobcrush’s bet is that mobile game streaming will be as big if not bigger than some of the competitive game-streaming services that already exist. The gorilla in the room, of course, is Twitch  which Amazon bought for nearly $1 billion last year and has tens of millions (if not hundreds) of monthly viewers. Mobcrush raised $4.9 million in a round that round was formally announced in May, and in July Mobcrush came out of beta.

To be sure, mobile games are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Some of the most popular games on the App Store are strategy games like Clash of Clans. And while these games are lightweight, phones are becoming more and more powerful and gaining more touch points — meaning it’s ever more likely that someone will figure out a way to replicate the complex nature of mobile games (with one new example of a new touch point being Force Touch, which is expected to end up in the next iPhone).

We heard Kleiner Perkins participated in the most recent funding round, with two sources telling us the firm led the round. We were told the round was incredibly competitive, as you might expect for a company making a bet on a mobile Twitch.

“Mobcrush does not comment on rumors or speculations about our financing,” CEO Royce Disini said. “We’re focused on our execution, excited about our growth and the big opportunity for mobile game live streaming, and have added [three] key hires from Apple, Google and Microsoft to help accelerate our growth.”

So, what does this funding round mean? It could be that investors are salivating over the potential of a next-generation Twitch that’s geared entirely toward mobile. On Twitch, games like Starcraft, League of Legends and Hearthstone are insanely popular. It’s not clear if mobile games are going to hit that sort of trajectory, but already there are lots of competitive games on mobile devices (including Hearthstone). Given the success of Twitch, there’s a good chance that investors believe there’s a huge market for streaming mobile games alongside more complex online games.

The counter argument to all this is that there isn’t a set of games like Starcraft that will eventually end up on mobile. Given the lightweight nature of mobile games, it’s possible that there just won’t be a market for hardcore games like League of Legends, even though several well-funded companies like Super Evil Megacorp are going after the space with games like Vainglory.

And, to be fair, Twitch could build something similar and crush Mobcrush (no pun intended). It already has a huge presence on mobile devices and has broadcasts of Vainglory. Twitch is not unfamiliar with finding its way to new markets, pivoting originally from a live-streaming site to focus on video games and creating a $1 billion company in the process.

Mobile’s Starcraft moment hasn’t happened just yet. However, all roads do lead to mobile — and it seems more and more likely, especially with the arrival of Hearthstone (which is of course on PC) on smartphones, that it’s possible companies will find a way to build a hit game that will be popular among the esports crowd.

FEATURED IMAGE: MOBCRUSH WEBSITE