There was a fair amount of coverage about the apparent arrest of “Amina Arraf”, the pseudonym of openly gay Syrian blogger behind ‘Gay Girl In Damascus,’ which did a lot for getting word out about human rights issues in Syria. Except it turns out that Amina was invented by 40-year-old Tom McMaster, from Georgia.
Sounds pretty remarkable, doesn’t it? You see, it all started when I was cruising around Schipol Airport and noticed that they were selling the iPad 2 for MORE than what you can buy one from at Digicape. Digicape are selling the iPad 2 with 32Gb and 3G for R6,599 – no spice. Can you believe […]
Two young PETA activists in Montreal, Canada have served up a whole bunch of vegetarian sausages to fans at Thursday’s Grand Prix testing. They say it’s better than any sex drug. Nom nom nom.
This footage of the Space Shuttle Endeavour docked to the International Space Station is breathtaking, not only for the sheer beauty of the sight, but because it will be the first and last time you’ll have the opportunity to see it.
A study done by some reputable people has found the average video gamer to be around 37. Quick question: who do you picture when you think about a 37 year-old gamer? Does it involve someone who has yet to lose his virginity, or someone who can actually speak Klingon? You’d be wrong. The study cites more parents playing games with their children as main reason.
Tech site cnet is having an important Reporters’ Roundtable discussion on a topic that affects us all: Why are end user license agreements and terms of service so incredible long and virtually indecipherable? Academy Award winner, Richard Dreyfus, helps to illustrate this point, by performing the iTunes EULA.
Yay, science. The guys over at Continuum fashion have made the world’s first ready-to-wear, completely 3D printed bikini. It’s called the N12, and it’s pretty cool. Above and beyond it being a sexy-looking bikini, the whole thing is made up of 3D printed pieces that snap together like lego.
The campaign against the current tabulated form of the proposed Protection of Information Bill peaked at the end of last week. The ANC finally realised how silly it might look in the long-run and joined the united push for a postponement on its signing. Desmond Tutu is now rallying us all to get behind our freedom too.
Jet-packs are a big deal for us. We’ve talked about “the jet-pack issue” before, and you should bend your ears to listen. The term “jet-pack issue” could easily be substituted for a term like “the freedom issue”, or “the liberation from the constraints of our bodies issue”. The latest development is that a feasible jet-pack […]
A man who suffered from both Leukaemia and HIV seems to have been cured of HIV, after he received a unique type of bone marrow transplant.
Seriously. Check it out…
With Digicape taking care of the vibe since 2008, it’s a given that the 2oceansvibe Media compound is Mac ‘verskrik.’ It is for that very reason, and the fact that the world agrees with us (Apple is now worth more than Microsoft and Intel combined) that we wish to give you this video and full […]
I know this isn’t the worst thing to happen to French civil liberties by a long shot, but still; the interpretation of a law prohibiting ‘commercial advertising’ – which, in effect, will mean that newsreaders may no longer mention Facebook or Twitter, unless the story is about Facebook or Twitter – makes total social media sense. Total.
For once, news that seems to be too good to be true, actually is true. The ANC has done a little back-peddle today and called for an extension to the June 24 deadline to complete the drafting of the Protection of Information Bill. Jimmy Manyi must be beside himself at the moment.
Google announced on Tuesday that they’d been they target of a phishing scam originating in Jinan, China, aimed at the accounts of Chinese activists and senior officials in the U.S. Victims were sent fake emails with links to a fake Gmail site, which harvested the usernames and passwords of anyone trying to log in.
Cisco have just come out with their annual Visual Networking Index, which is a pretty reliable source of internet traffic reporting. Global traffic will quadruple, by 2015, with Asia’s traffic generation overtaking North America. Which is cool, but less cool than the stuff they say about traffic in South Africa, which is after the jump.
So Joshua Kaufman had his MacBook stolen in March. Which sucks – he reported the crime to the police, but they couldn’t help, due to lack of resources. Except Kaufman has the Hidden app on his MacBook, which lets him remotely stalk and photograph the thief – and put them online. Thanks, Internet.
The Pentagon is due to publically release it’s first formal cyber strategy next month, and the understanding is that it’s going to be classifying some kinds of computer sabotage as acts of war; apparently, a serious enough computer attack could be interpreted as a “use of force” that would warrant physical retaliation.
The concept for a Marlboro cigarrette-swapping smartphone app has been making the rounds – the idea being that social smokers would be able to trade digital cigarettes for real ones using bump technology, and ‘hardcore smokers’ would be able to redeem the digital smokes for real ones once they’d accumulated enough.
Twitter has been ordered to hand over confidential details of five British users in what may become a landmark case for the social networking website. It is believed to be the first time the social networking site has been forced to provide details about users in the UK.
The name Storm is gender-neutral, but it’s also listed as a synonym for controversy in some dictionaries. And at just four months old, blond-haired, blue-eyed Storm and its (sic) Canadian family have opened up a debate that is getting traditionalists and liberals understandably excited.
Google Wallet and Google Offers launched yesterday, both of which sound supremely cool – PayPal’s grumblings (and lawsuits) about commercial espionage notwithstanding. Google Wallet lets users swipe their phones in lieu of credit cards, even allowing subscription to a new prepaid Google debit card; Google Offers looks to work like a virtual loyalty card.
A European government official has claimed that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is travelling between Tripoli’s hospitals at night to elude bombing raids by NATO jets. The official has said that he is doing this because he knows that the hospitals are something that the air raids will not target.
So you thought CrackBerries were only cool in the eyes of business people addicted to their email? Think again. South Africa’s youth has voted BlackBerry the coolest brand in the country in the Sunday Times Generation Next 2011 Brand Survey Awards. That means BlackBerry trumps Apple, in spite of the latter’s beautifully designed and supposedly cooler iParaphernalia. And the reason? BBM and ‘free’ internet for the kids, obviously.
The South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) has announced that we’ll be treated to a total lunar eclipse on the 15th of June. And apparently this one is rather special huzza!
Ending a seven-year mission, NASA has decided to cut off communications with the Mars rover Spirit. Data was last received from Spirit in March 2010, and it hasn’t been heard from since – the thinking is that the rover was damaged during the martian winter when there wasn’t enough solar power for its survival heaters to run.
Cape Town traffic fine dodgers are in for a surprise, and not one of the good variety either. You may have heard about, or even gone through the rather large roadblock that spanned the Buitengracht exit from town before the N1 and N2 split on Sunday. Operation Reclaim intensifies: officers are planning a crackdown in the next few weeks.
Not only do vuvuzelas make sporting matches sound like they’re being attended by giant, angry bees, but they also emit more germ-carrying particles than regular screaming; testing the amount of bacteria-sized particles emitted by a shout and by vuvuzela,researcher Ruth McNerney found the vuvuzelas a couple of hundred times more effective.
Zimbabwe’s privately owned NewsDay newspaper has said that a magistrate in Bulawayo has set a trial date for Vikas Mavhudzi, who faces a charge of posting offensive messages on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Facebook wall, for June 10. Mavhudzi became the first person to be arrested in Zimbabwe for a Facebook post. Screenshot after the jump.
Congratulations to Michael Sachar, better known in the Twitterverse as @mbatigol, on winning a laptop courtesy of MWEB and 2oceansvibe Radio! Introducing our winner: Here’s what @mbatigol’s winning tweet looked like: You nailed it, Mike. Be sure to visit MWEB’s Facebook page regularly to keep up to date with the latest amazing offers and competitions!
With only four days left until the final climax of Manchester United’s football season and their Champions League final clash against Barcelona at Wembley this Saturday, Fergie is expected to address the matter later today. The issue poses a huge test of Giggs’s experience and Ferguson’s ability to galvanise his squad for Saturday.