Diaspora* describes itself as a "privacy-aware, personally-controlled" social network to rival Facebook and will be launched on 15th September. The open-source project made headlines earlier this year when Facebook was forced to simplify its privacy settings, after they were criticised for being overly complex and confusing.

"We have Diaspora* working, we like it, and it will be open-sourced on September 15th," the team wrote on their blog. The team said they had spent the summer "building clear, contextual sharing".

"That means an intuitive way for users to decide, and not notice deciding, what content goes to their co-workers and what goes to their drinking buddies. We know that's a hard [user interface] problem and we take it seriously."

The project was started by three computer scientists and one mathematician from New York. Their idea of building it gained momentum earlier this year during an intense period of criticism of Facebook, the world's largest social network. "We want to put users back in control of what they share," Max Salzberg, one of the founders, told BBC News at the time.

The team turned to the fundraising site Kickstarter to raise the $10,000 they thought they would need to build the network. In the end the team raised $200,642 from nearly 6,500 people. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, reportedly donated to the project.

The initial release on 15 September will be to "open-source" Diaspora*, meaning that the team will make the underlying code available for anyone to see and modify.

I can't wait to get my hands on this and give it a try - If it is as good as I think it will be Facebook should be really worried about the Boys from Diaspora*!

The world's biggest chip maker, Intel, has agreed to buy the security technology firm, McAfee for $7.68bn (£5bn) in cash. Under the terms of the deal, Intel said it would pay $48 per share in cash for McAfee, almost 60% higher than its closing price on Wednesday.

Through buying McAfee, a leading security technology firm, Intel intends to build security features into its microprocessors which go into products such as laptops and phones.

The announcement, which took many analysts by surprise, sent McAfee's shares 58% higher to 47.21 US cents, close to the proposed purchase price. Intel shares though fell by almost 4% to 18.84 US cents.

An Intel company statement said that the acquisition reflected that security was now a fundamental component of online computing. It added that today's security approach did not fully address the billions of new internet-ready devices, including mobile and wireless devices, TVs, cars, medical devices and cash machines.