CISPA – the ugly cousin of other internet-crippling bills SOPA and PIPA, whether Facebook admits it or not – passed late last week in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. Worse, the bill was amended before it passed to allow even more types of private information to be tapped and shared by government agencies in the US.
Nando’s didn’t hesitate accepting the challenge that Santam had set them this week. In fact, Nando’s delivered a day early, and then bettered it, showing they definitely weren’t chicken. Some might call it a very good example of symbiotic radvertising.
Facebook is set to go public soon, and while this might be good news to Mark Zuckerberg, it kind of puts things in perspective for the rest of us. Techcrunch did a simple calculation to determine how much the average Facebook user (yes, you too!) is worth in terms of money. Be prepared to feel rather insignificant after the jump.
A new startup called Urthecast is in the process of putting together HD cameras to be fitted to the International Space Station, so that people can watch real-time video of the planet from space. Which is at once really cool, and sort of pointless. The footage is looking impressive, though – take a look.
Hey there, people who like free online storage. As expected, Google’s potential Dropbox-killer, Google Drive, has gone live – offering users 5GB of free online storage, with the potential to upgrade to 25GB for $2,50 per month. The service is available on PCs, Macs, Android phones – and is coming soon to iOS.
It’s Mount-Everest-climbing season, apparently – with the National Geographic team attempting to recreate the route used in the first American ascent of the mountain, the 1963 NG-sponsored American Mount Everest Expedition. The team is live-updating their progress online, with a live stream of photos, blog posts, and twitter updates. I think one of them’s using Instagram, too.
If you’ve been following the Kony 2012 movement, you’d remember they called for an April 20 world wide canvassing campaign. “Cover the Night” also hit Cape Town over the weekend and saw activists put up their share of posters around town. See all the “excitement” after the jump.
Martez Wright is currently serving some time in a Memphis jail. But this did not stop him from keeping his Facebook profile active via an illegal cellphone. His good run ended, however, after he uploaded a video in which he boasts about smoking weed, partying, and getting the munchies. Someone alerted the authorities and he got busted. See Martez’ on-screen antics after the jump.
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Signs suggest that Facebook is looking to have its initial public offering launch on on May 17th, assuming that the Securities & Exchange commission rubber-stamps all of the social network’s paperwork – including documents concerning Facebook’s recent billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram. Facebook is set to be initially valued at around $100 billion.
Google’s long-anticipated cloud storage service, Google Drive, is set to launch some time next week – in yet another attempt to move in on a service that other companies have been occupying for years. What’s interesting here is that Google is planning on starting everyone with 5GB of free storage, easily trumping Dropbox’s 2GB base quota.
Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder everybody keeps forgetting about except when he talks about stuff like this, has pointed to a handful of “threats to internet freedom” – Facebook, Apple, the entertainment industry, and governments that censor their citizens. By which I guess he means threats to Google.
A new bill is making its way through congress – CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which is pretty much SOPA in different shoes. It’s another attempt to give copyright enforces carte blanche to spy on internet users and censor online content without just cause. Which is sort of bad.
An unnamed Johannesburg resident was robbed, kidnapped, and stuffed into the back of car on Sunday – but managed to send a text to his girlfriend, Lynn Peters who promptly posted a plea for help on Twitter. Frantic retweeting led to a Twitter-coordinated search by private security companies, who retrieved both the car and Peters’ boyfriend.
There are two ways of taking out your competition: offer a similar, yet superior and/or cheaper product than your opponent. Or simply buy the entire rival business and start offering its service as your own. The latter happened yesterday when Mark Zuckerberg announcd that Facebook is about to buy Instagram for $1 billion.
A youth activist based in Johannesburg has apparently laid a complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission (HRC) regarding Helen Zille’s tweet of almost two weeks ago, where she referred to scholars in the Eastern Cape that come to the Western Cape for schooling as “refugees”. Read his justification while Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” gently resonates in your head, after the jump!
A new once-click payment system focused on social media is currently being tested in Belgium. Paycento enables internet users to pay to read a single article or download a piece of music without having to fill out forms or enter their credit card details on the website. More details inside.
Cue mass hysteria, Twitter has officially confirmed what many have suspected for some time, there’s a bug that causes twitter users to randomly unfollow people. It’s doubtful whether society will be able to function normally without their precious social media and in all likelihood this is the first sign of the impending apocalypse.
Alesandro Barbosa is one crazy dude! Currently serving a prison sentence relating to firearms offenses and drug trafficking, this guy also throws the best parties in jail. But prison authorities have been left red-faced after Barbosa loaded some party pics onto Facebook. They contain kegs of Heineken, boom-boxes, a flat-screen TV and prostitutes. Check out some pics after the jump!
An blog post allegedly featuring the residential address of George Zimmerman – the man who killed Trayvon Martin – has gone viral. The post went viral after it was retweeted by Spike Lee to his 250 000 followers. Unfortunately, the address actually belongs to an innocent elderly couple, who now live in fear.
The Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory has partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to launch what will arguably become the most extensive online archive of Nelson Mandela’s life. The free global access to photos, videos, letters and personal documents about his life and times will continue to expand as people across the world add their memorabilia to the archive.
A Welsh university student has been jailed for 56 days for a “racially-aggravated public order offence” after making offensive tweets about Bolton Wanderers player Fabrice Muamba, who collapsed with heart failure during a FA cup tie with Tottenham Hotspur on March 17. See the full Twitter feed, after the jump.
These are crazy times that we live in, and crazy times call for crazy people. That is possibly why Jason Russell, the filmmaker who brought us Kony 2012, the fastest growing viral video in the world ever, has been sent to a psychiatric clinic after being spotted pounding the ground with his fists on the […]
What happens to your social networking presence after you die? Who does the online you belong to? These are pressing issues being deliberated by at least two U.S. states this week as more and more pressure is being applied to social networking platforms like Facebook to allow the relatives of users that have passed away to directly access their late loved ones’ profiles.
Yesterday, 2oceansVibe ran a story about the brutal handling of an individual by a Vaalwater policeman. Instead of facing a charge of attempted murder, the officer involved is facing a lesser charge of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. He also spent time as the acting station commander of Vaalwater Police Station, after the incident occurred.
A video clip of a uniformed police officer brutally attacking and detaining an individual has been brought to our attention. The footage, allegedly filmed in Vaalwater, Limpopo, clearly incriminates a Vaalwater police van, and a uniformed police officer who appears to still be on duty. N5FW.
Nelson Mandela’s former defence lawyer, and veteran human rights lawyer, George Bizos, has written to Parliament stating that the protection of state information bill is unconstitutional on several counts.
Following a recent viral expose by blogger Jonathan Corbett on the potentially serious weaknesses in the TSA’s airport body scanners, multiple journalists have reported receiving emails from the TSA “strongly cautioning” them against covering the story. Corbett is encouraging media outlets to cover the story anyway.
A few hours ago, Reuters blogger, Felix Salmon, recorded an exclusive interview in which it was revealed that CNN will buy social media website, Mashable, for more than $200 million dollars. The announcement is due to be confirmed as early as tomorrow, according to Salmon.
As the #StopKONY juggernaut continues rampaging across the interwebs and social networks, some reporters have turned to Kony’s fellow Ugandans for comment on the video, and the Invisible Children organisation’s project to bring Joseph Kony to justice. Their opinions? Not positive.