Sir John Major has been giving testimony at the Leveson inquiry into British press ethics today. Some of his testimony appears to directly conflict that of Murdoch’s, who in April claimed: “I have never asked a prime minister for anything.” Major becomes the first ex-Prime Minister to claim Murdoch tried to get him to change government policy.
Jonathan Shapiro, more commonly known as Zapiro, has been named the 2012 recipient of the International Publishers Association (IPA) award for Freedom to Publish. He’ll receive it for his exemplary courage in upholding the freedom to publish whatever he wants, basically.
Apple opened its annual WWDC conference in Cupertino last night, and to no-one’s surprise has revealed the brand new line of MacBook Pros, as well as a update to the very popular line of MacBook Airs. See the full, drool-worthy specs inside.
British Prime Minister, David Cameron, left his eldest daughter, Nancy, at a pub following a Sunday lunch. It happened after a mix-up with his wife Samantha, Downing Street has admitted. The couple only realised their daughter was missing when they got home.
In recent years we have seen reality television sink from the lows of Big Brother down through teen pregnancy, to the dregs of Jersey Shore. Earth, it would seem has little left to offer in terms of reality TV. Enter Dutch team, Mars One, who are looking to raise an initial $6 billion to send a team to mars by 2023, and make a reality show out of it.
Cell C’s Alan Knott-Craig Senior says he’s not surprised by the Cabinet’s decision to turn its nose up at a proposal from Korea Telecom to buy a 20% stake in Telkom. Why: because in the past, foreign companies have let South Africa down. He says governments, especially in developing countries, have to be involved in telecommunications penetration.
A very stimulating new book has just launched: Do Ideas. The book, curated by Don Packett, features contributions from some of South Africa’s brightest minds. They want you to embrace your ideas: “don’t be afraid”, they say. The best bit? It’s free, and online. Go on, you want to have a look.
You might have picked up in the Morning Spice headlines that the Nasdaq stock exchange said it “owe[d] the industry an apology”. It’s gone a little further now, and says it will set aside $40 million to reimburse investors that suffered losses due to technical problems on Facebook’s first day of trading.
In news that you want desperately to be surprised by, but just can’t, the creators of the Tupac-ogram have announced that they’re working on an Elvis Presley hologram, for making film and television appearances – and, depending on how unsettling they can get the reincarnated star to look, on tour.
Following the announcement that Cell C had drastically dropped their prepaid cell rates, Alan Knott-Craig Senior has seemingly checkmated the competition yet again. Cell C announced today that they would also be reducing their contract rates with the launch of six “Straight Up” packages for postpaid and Top-Up customers on 22 June 2012. This is big.
Right now, you could be using the new Internet, and you probably didn’t know. Essentially, the Internet got too small, and we’d have run out of addresses if they didn’t do something about it. But, we’ll let Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist, guide us through the jargon.
South Africa’s elite police unit, the Hawks, have opened an investigation into allegations of corruption at MTN. This follows news reports yesterday of a senior former MTN Group executive admitting to bribing South Africa’s former ambassador to Iran following a successful license purchase.
YouTube user, Baracksdubs, is back with yet another great mashup featuring Barack Obama. Only this time, he’s singing his version of viral parody sensation “Call Me Maybe”, by Carly Rae Jepsen.
A low-cost Singaporean airline has begun offering passengers iPads as an alternative to traditional in-flight entertainment. The bold move has allowed the airline to slash costs while improving passengers’ experience while on board.
Sony shareholders looked on as they watched the electronics and entertainment giant’s shares fall below 1 000 yen for the first time since 1980 yesterday. The Tokyo stock market took a dive early Monday after a dismal performance from Wall Street, bad US job data, and amid other global economic concerns.
On the back of the release of new and depressing US job data, Barack Obama has timed an attack on Mitt Romney to perfection. Obama wants Americans to pay attention to Romney Economics, and “remember, we’ve seen it all before.”
Throughout his life, Steve Jobs imparted many inspiring words of wisdom, many of which were caught on video during his onstage appearances at Apple events and during interviews. Yesterday a host of these were made available, for free, on iTunes. Click through for the details.
By definition, lucid dreaming refers to any occasion when a sleeping person is aware that they are dreaming. But, it’s also used to describe the idea of being able to control those dreams. Think: Inception. Today, lucid dreaming has evolved into an industry worthy of a discussion.
American tech companies are increasingly wary of a growing movement to hand control of the Internet over to the United Nations, led by China, Russia and Arab states. They are worried that this could empower foreign governments to restrict free speech and civil rights, not to mention negatively affecting the bottom line for Silicon Valley giants including Google and Microsoft.
A mother caused chaos yesterday when she called the 1Time call centre to tell them there was a bomb on one of their aircrafts. The valiant woman didn’t want her daughter to board a flight from Jozi to George, but alas, it was too late, and the aircraft was already in the air by the time the threat was received.
He may be worth $20 billion, but when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took his new wife, Priscilla Chan to lunch during their honeymoon in Rome he spent 32 Euros – and elected not to leave a tip. The cash-flush couple’s bill came to 32 euros after a lunch of deep-fried artichokes, fried pumpkin flowers, and […]
More details are emerging about Buffy, apparently the codename for Facebook’s HTC smartphone which may run with Android, all the Facebook trimmings and an Opera browser. Or will it? We try sort the facts from the fiction as excitement mounts over the phone that might topple Apple.
Vodacom announced a short while ago that their Century City office would from August boast the largest array of solar panels on a single building in Africa. Nearly 2 000 mono crystalline solar panels will cover the 3 600m² roof of the building, it said.
It’s taken months of research and some of America’s brightest minds to figure it out, but now it seems the end of tomato sauce frustration is nigh. A new bottle coating developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doctoral candidate Dave Smith, together with a team of mechanical engineers and nanotechnology researchers, has ketchup flowing like milk.
It’s not often Juju gets good press. In fact, we couldn’t really remember the last time it happened. But, we’re going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wrote this all himself now that he is well into his BA degree in communications through Unisa. Yesterday, Malema touched on some very important notions in a column for the City Press; notions that Nelson Mandela raised as critical 18 years ago.
This will surprise you. On Friday and Saturday, German solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of energy – the equivalent output of 20 nuclear plants running at full capacity. The country is already a world-leader in solar power, and hopes to be free of nuclear energy by 2022. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, Germany decided to abandon nuclear power, and immediately closed eight plants.
Fat people take up a lot of space on the plane. I mean, how many times have you had to fold your arms so they can merely fit into their space, and yours. For a long time, we’ve all wanted them to have their own fat seats when they fly. Finally! This is a reality. Thank you, Airbus.
On Saturday, the EU Cookie Directive goes into effect. It’s a European Union law governing the opting in and out of website cookies. The law was ratified in the name of privacy, but, the impact on the digital industry will be immense and, possibly, damaging.
All of the major search engines are experimenting with new formats intended to make it easier for users to find information without clicking through to page after page of results. It’s Yahoo’s turn, and they’ve decided on a new browser enhancement they call “Axis.” It alters browsers made by other companies to display search results in a more convenient and visual format.
As the number of series and TV shows we watch grows, so do the ways in which we do so. The good old days of sitting down in front of your TV to enjoy an episode Friends are steadily on their way out as we make room for the next upgrade in mobile technology – streaming recorded footage straight to your iOS device.