So there was a NATO summit ongoing in Chicago over the weekend – which naturally attracts a couple of protest groups, members from the “Occupy” movement among them. It also attracted police and Homeland Security, who proceeded to handcuff protesters, detain them at gunpoint, and ram into a crowd of them with a van.
Because apparently having your own talk show for starting a thing on the internet isn’t enough, recent polling of Australia’s Labor Party suggests that the Wikileaks founder is reasonably likely to get elected to the Australian senate, should he choose to go ahead with plans to run.
Over 150 competition winners representing 22 countries arrived in Cape Town over the weekend to experience the Heineken Star Final. The Star Final is a competition held annually, where winners are flown off to watch the Champions League Final in an awesome city. Previous cities have included Hong Kong and Rio de Janeiro. Cape Town [...]
I know, today was supposed to be Facebook’s special moment, but when a sovereign state threatens to sue a corporation like Google, it’s sort of a thing. Especially when a sovereign state sues a corporation because of a disagreement over how a map should be labelled. Seriously.
So Google’s trying to change things, again. For those of you who decide that this is the last straw and that you’re going Bing, farewell and good luck finding anything. For those of you wanting to find out what exactly Knowledge Graph is and why it isn’t as terrible as G+, click on through.
Science! Technology! In a worldwide medical first, researchers have successfully implanted a computer-mind interface into the motor cortex of a 58-year-old, quadriplegic woman which allowed her to control a robotic limb using only the power of her mind. The future is now.
Branding! It’s good for you. Jump Studios, a London-based architecture firm, recently finished up the interior on a submarine for Guinness’ deep-sea bar, which plunged to the depths of the Baltic on its maiden voyage. The sub was commissioned to celebrate Guinness’ 250th anniversary. Take a look at the thing after the jump.
It looks like new Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig just made his first big move. The company has just announced that it will slash prepaid call rates by more than 34% with a plan called “99 Cents for Real”. More details inside.
NASA will start training a team astronauts to land on an asteroid in the next month, in preparation for a mission that will take humans farther from Earth than ever before. They’ll be collecting mineral samples and determining how to destroy an asteroid in the event that it might collide with the Earth. Seriously.
Redfoo: “I’m sexy and I know it.” There, it’s done. Whether you’re a fan of the song or not, LMFAO’s chart-topping hit is now on infinite repeat in your head. It’s one of those typical, infectious beats that seems to worm its way into your mind, even after just reading the title. Well, YouTube sensation “Noah” is about to change that, for the better. Click through for his awesome cover.
Yesterday, 2oceansvibe enlisted the brave men of Butlers in a diplomatic and humanitarian mission: the delivery of hot pizza to the stricken crew and salvage officers of the Eihatsu Maru trawler, currently beached on Clifton 1st. The captain’s dog got a bone. In case you haven’t caught the video and pictures of the successful mission [...]
The 65th Cannes Film Festival officially begins today, and the South African delegation is making a pretty strong showing there. They’ve got 130 South African filmmakers attending, the largest SA delegation ever to go to Cannes, showcasing 12 feature films and eight documentaries – including Otelo Burning, by the guys who did Surfing Soweto.
Because nothing happens in Merrie England without Banksy offering some sort of comment on it, a new piece has been spotted near Poundland showing a child laborer at work sewing Union Jacks. Apparently this has something to do with Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. Take a look! It’ll be a postcard soon.
When Queen’s drummer, Roger Taylor, was asked if he’d want a hologram Freddie Mercury a la Tupac – he declined, saying “I don’t want to appear with a hologram of my dear friend.” Which is unfortunately ambiguous wording, because they’ve decided to conjure up a Mercury hologram at tonight’s 10th anniversary We Will Rock You musical.
Facebook lately been experimenting with a small group of users by offering them the opportunity to promote their own status messages by paying for them. If the “Highlight” feature is more widely adopted, people will soon be able to pay to make sure their cutesy status updates are at the top of everyone’s news feed.
Hey there, science fiction. Defence contractor, Pegasus Global Holdings is building a replica of Rock Hill, a South Carolina city, in the middle of the New Mexico desert as a testing ground for futuristic infrastructures – self-driving cars, green buildings and next-generation Wi-Fi. It’ll be an uninhabited laboratory – they’re calling it “an amusement park for scientists.”
Suddenly Obama’s declaration that people of the same sex should be allowed to marry seems a little stale. Argentina has just approved a gender rights bill that will allow all adult citizens to change their legal sex at will — without undergoing surgery or hormone replacement therapy.
Venture capitalist, Peter Theil’s dream of an artificial island utopia for tech start-ups is inching closer to reality off the coast of San Francisco. Riding a wave of investment capital from Thiel, the project has a name – “Blueseed” – and a website, as well as a lengthy lineup of tech companies that want to get on board.
SONY Corporation has declared an annual loss of 457 billion yen ($5,7 billion) in 2011, its fourth straight year of hemorrhaging money, and the worst in its 66-year corporate history. In spite of which, the company – which appointed a new president, Kazuo Hirai last month – is predicting return to profit by the end of 2012.
In a slightly surprising move, given the extent to which Google and Facebook have been compliant in handing data over to government enquiry, Twitter filed a motion (PDF) yesterday to block a subpoena that would force the company to turn over the data of one of its users, an arrested Occupy Wall Street protestor.
Fancy embossed invitations to attend a preview of The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film, are being sent around Washington D.C. – ostensibly from “President Robert Mugabe and the Ministry of Education, Sport, Art, and Culture.” Zimbabwe’s art ministry has assured reporters that it hasn’t come from them.
Flashmobs are normally pretty lame. Dancing hipsters, smirking along, and then leaving – only after having disrupted your day. Not this. The Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra took to the Metro to promote a new classical radio station, by performing Grieg’s “Peer Gynt.” The result? Epicness. Full video after the jump.
COMPETITION CLOSED: NO SUBSEQUENT ENTRIES WILL BE CONSIDERED. CONGRATULATIONS TO BRANDON LUDLOW! HIS COMMENT WAS RANDOMLY SELECTED AS THE WINNING ENTRY. Did you know that Mother’s Day is around the corner? It’s this coming Sunday. The woman who bore you – the one who transported you into the world – the person who you owe [...]
People over at MIT have developed a piece of open-source software that lets you drag files from your phone to your computer or tablet or whatever with a swipe of a finger. It’s simple and clever and looks like the future – and it works. They’re calling it Swÿp. Take a look at the demo after the jump.