The American woman and Danish man who were held hostage in Somalia were rescued this week by the same guys who killed Osama Bin Laden. They sure have been busy. *Cue fist pump from Barack Obama.*

Continue Reading

Cosatu has come out guns blazing at that DA Students’ Organisation poster that has raised a few eyebrows this week. Speaking in KwaZulu-Natal yesterday, Zet Luzipo, provincial secretary for Cosatu, and no stranger to speaking his mind, slammed the poster saying: “It entrenches white supremacy that we fought against during the liberation struggle.”

Continue Reading

“My body is a temple, and my temple needs redecorating.” Well-know American comedienne, Joan Rivers, has just undergone her 734th plastic surgery operation at the age of 78. This time she went for a to “tune-up” on her neck, and allowed a TV crew to film the process.

Continue Reading

With the news that Apple looks set to revolutionise school learning with its textbook initiative, comes another report that a Johannesburg private school is going to make iPads compulsory this year, at parents’ cost. How long until other schools follow suit?

Continue Reading

Since the advent of digital media and file-sharing on the internet there have been concerns over digital piracy, however there’s a new development on the horizon which is going to affect a lot more than just the entertainment industry. Soon it may be possible to ‘download’ just about anything.

Continue Reading

It is summer, and here in the Cape the long evenings nudge one in the direction of that most South African past time: the braai. Growing up, however, it was always beer around the braai and wine (white, nondescript, loaded with ice) in the kitchen. There was, of course, the exception in my French uncle for whom a glass of red wine is never far away. But beer was the norm. Beer dominates the braai. Is it some form of magnetic alliteration? Is beer that much better designed for smoke and charred meat? Do we still hold some outmoded idea that wine is for girls and beer is for boys? Or, possibly, is there some emasculation going on when a can is taken from the chief steak flipper and an elegant riedel glass subbed in?

Continue Reading

You may have heard recently that former Model C schools – with English as the medium of instruction – may be scrapping African languages. Naturally, Nandos had something to say about this malarky. The headline reads: “Respect your (mother) tongue” While the body copy reads: “Give it a taste of our delicious Peri-Peri, flame-grilled chicken.” […]

Continue Reading

The ability to record footage in high definition (HD) has literally changed the way we look at digital media. And when used to bring out the best of nature’s inherent beauty, the results are simply jaw-dropping.

Continue Reading

There was a lot of media coverage of the biggest solar storm in 6 years yesterday. Doomsayers were claiming the world’s electricity would be knocked out and that we’d all be burned to death by radiation. This all turned out to be a lot of hot air. What did happen though, thanks to the storm, was a spectacular display of the Northern Lights. Full gallery after the jump.

Continue Reading

Facebook’s new Timeline feature, that up until now has been an optional switch for its more than 800 million users, will very shortly become compulsory for everyone using the social networking platform. Facebook began the forced switch in some regions yesterday, and will continue to do so in the next few weeks.

Continue Reading

Ralph Fiennes, the actor who plays Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter films, recently appeared on a US talk show. The host asked him to read an extract from a piece of fan fiction, titled “Harry Squatter and the Sorcerer’s Bone”. Hilarity ensued.

Continue Reading

This is both embarrassing and a little worrying. It’s been a while since the province of Limpopo was declared bankrupt and placed under national administration, but now there isn’t even food in the hospitals. Which, when you’re dealing with very sick people, is probably not a good thing.

Continue Reading

Here’s some frightening footage that’s spent the month going viral on the interwebs. Pilots will tell you that the most statistically dangerous time during a flight is during take-off or landing, and now you can see why. Watch some goosebump inducing plane landings after the jump.

Continue Reading

Weight loss? Disease prevention? Anti-aging? Cup of tea? A very sizeable chunk of change has just been granted to researchers who are eager to show the world the plethora of health properties attached to South Africa’s favourite tea, our humble rooibos.

Continue Reading

Apple announced some massive fourth quarter sales numbers yesterday. For instance, they sold virtually as many iPhones as there are people in South Africa during that period. Apple also doubled both revenue and profit year-on-year too.

Continue Reading

It is weird to think that there are still people in this world who forget to turn their cell phones off during concerts. This happened during a recent performance by Slovakian violist Lukas Kmit, when a concertgoer’s Nokia ringtone suddenly interrupted the show. But the violinist responded by cleverly incorporating it into his performance, and the video has since gone viral. See it after the jump.

Continue Reading

Whoops. Looks like somewhere between Eric Schmidt and Larry Page, Google forgot their ‘don’t be evil’ rule and turned into the creepy uncle of the internet. Well, the other creepy uncle of the internet. It now follows users’ activities across YouTube, Gmail, Google Plus and Google Search, among others. Everybody, clear your history.

Continue Reading

One person who won’t be visiting TripAdvisor’s number one world destination this year is controversial Kiwi rugby ref, Bryce Lawrence, who has been left out of any South African matches for this year’s Super 15 fixtures.

Continue Reading

We’ve got the full list of this year’s Oscars nominees hot off the press from the early morning announcement at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences HQ in Hollywood, after the jump!

Continue Reading

So! The shutdown MegaUpload and charging of founders with piracy ostensibly started with a copyright scuffle between the filesharing site and the Universal Music Group. Except the shut-down was also timed to scupper MegaBox, a venture to sell artist’s work directly to consumers while letting artists keep 90 percent of earnings. Raised eyebrows all around.

Continue Reading

Cluttered with memes, celeb scandals and regrettable pics on social networks it’s easy to get caught up in the daily flood of online activity, missing all those “important” posts. Thankfully, all of 2011’s most important online events have been captured in one amazing artwork.

Continue Reading

Tertiary education is turning into a very dangerous pursuit indeed. Following on the heels of the incident at the University of Johannesburg not too long ago, similar chaos is currently underway at the Vaal University of Technology. Students have been queuing since Monday to get registered for classes, but have been faced with heavy, and some would say aggressive, security.

Continue Reading

Greeks are amongst the most notorious tax dodgers in the world. Currently, Greece has about 60 billion Euros in unpaid taxes outstanding – a figure equivalent to about a quarter of its total economy. Athens decided to release a list on Sunday that published the names of some of the 4 000 known dodgers.

Continue Reading

As if they haven’t scared us enough with the release of their latest album cover and music video for its first single, “Fok julle naaiers”, check out what Die Antwoord is up to next. They’ve just released a very graphic teaser trailer for Ten$ion, which is set to release in February. Check it out after the jump.

Continue Reading

Members of “hacktivist” group Anonymous have denied that they’re planning an attack on Facebook, in spite of a video claiming to speak for the group that has declared that the social network will be brought down on January 28th. This would be the second fake Anonymous threat in some months.

Continue Reading

The “birther” movement is back in the news, trying to prove US President Barack Obama is not an American citizen by birth. He’s been ordered to court in Georgia on Thursday to hear yet another charge that he’s not who he says he is.

Continue Reading

Bryanston school kids and their parents may still be recovering from the drama on show this morning outside Bryanston Parallel Medium Primary. The school was the scene of a police shoot-out at around 07h20.

Continue Reading

A rather sexy poster, featuring a naked interracial couple sparked debates across social platforms yesterday. Created by the DA Student Organisation, it shows a white man embracing a black woman with the tagline: “DASO: In our future you wouldn’t look twice.”

Continue Reading

Start your Tuesday the way your forefathers did, with an amazing time-lapse video of the International Space Station passing over a storm-struck African continent with the Milky Way popping in to say hello in the background. Also visible is Comet Lovejoy, two weeks after its near-fatal sunburn. Please, go look. You’ll feel better about being up.

Continue Reading

This is little Juliet. She’s eight years old, and she and her mummy recently posted a video to Youtube where she sings about her pet dog Robert, whom she loves, and her stinky fish tank. All set to thrash metal. Odd doesn’t quite cover it, but who can argue with 12 million hits on YouTube. Take a look.

Continue Reading