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.
Reports claiming 5FM DJ Euphonik assaulted his media personality ex-girlfriend, Bonang Matheba, last week, went largely unnoticed in the press. But we can now reveal that one of 5FM’s top-rated DJ’s has handed himself over to the police, following three criminal charges that have been laid against him by Matheba.
Ha! Model Melissa Stetten found herself getting hit on by vaguely-famous actor Brian Presley on a flight out of Los Angeles. Using this new thing called ‘the internet,’ she identified Presley as a married, outspoken Christian with a five-year-old kid. So she livetweeted his ridiculously awkward attempt at hooking up with her. Watch it unfold below.
Less than a week ago Nando’s launched their popular #Diversity campaign, which celebrates SA’s rich cultural heritage. Shortly afterward, local channels banned the television ad, which they claimed “trivialises xenophobia” and “could be deemed offensive”. Nando’s are not having it.
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.
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.
This weekend we brought you news of Sportswriter Mark Keohane’s alleged sexual harassment and drug abuse scandal. While many claims have yet to be verified, the web is abuzz with conflicting views – some even suggesting that it may finally be Karma catching up with him.
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.”
More than R40 million worth of rhino horn, as well as elephant tusks and leopard skins were seized in two operations in Gauteng last week. Both operations are linked to a 40-year-old KwaZulu-Natal man, who was arrested, along with six foreigners, during the operations.
Okes – you think you’ve seen all the entertainment Rivonia has to offer, right? Wrong! There’s cool and then there is Avastar cool! Mike Basson is the owner of this exciting new night club in Joburg. This guy has managed to successfully fuse the world of nightclubs with…the world of Avatar (the movie with the blue people). Check out his promo video after the jump.
Nando’s are at it again, and this time they’re tackling diversity, and they’re not taking any prisoners. Their new campaign forces us to face the reality we live in, and just get over it. Click through for the brilliant video.
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.
Generations recently caught the attention of some of our friends across the drink who were fascinated, and somewhat bewildered, not only by the riveting story-line, but also by the plethora of languages used simultaneously without any warning.
If you thought things were tight in Greece, they certainly don’t look too much better in Spain. In the first three months of this year, nearly €100 billion in capital has left the country. Put differently: about 10% of the country’s GDP.
As Bloomberg pointed out the other day, South Africa’s credit rating may come under pressure as growth in Africa’s biggest economy slows and the government faces the prospect of bailing out the state-owned road agency. That prospect became more of a reality today when deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe said government is looking into a special appropriations bill to give Sanral a cash injection to allow it to service its R20 billion debt.
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.
Well this is awfully troubling. Robert Mugabe, and his buddy, and political ally, Zambian president Michael Sata, have been honoured as “leaders for tourism” by the UN’s World Tourism Organisation. They join the likes of Drew Barrymore, David Beckham, Orlando Bloom, and Ricky Martin.
Owing to what is arguably one of the more bizarre printing faux pas in cartoon history, Donald Duck has found himself embroiled in a Nazi-related scandal after an old comic book story was republished in Germany, featuring the word ‘Holocaust’ instead of ‘Congratulations’.
The 64-year-old warlord-turned-president is the first former head of state to be convicted by an international war crimes court since the Second World War. He was found guilty last month of 11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes, and crimes against humanity by supporting rebels between 1996 and 2002 in return for conflict diamonds.
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 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.
Sepp Blatter is at it again. The FIFA president said today that penalty shoot-outs are “a tragedy”. He challenged Franz Beckenbauer, honorary president of Bayern Munich, and head of the Football Task Force 2014 – a panel that will recommend rule changes to football – to come up with an alternative.
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.
An alleged ancient religious text, which was confiscated in 2000 by Turkish authorities, has since resurfaced following a request by the Vatican to view it. An Iranian report claims that the book’s contents will “trigger Christianity’s downfall by proving that Islam is the final and righteous religion.”
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.