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Communication
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Prince Philip Calls Wind Farms A “Fairy Tale”
21 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
He also called them “absolutely useless”, and he might have a point too. The Duke of Edinburgh, at age 90, rightfully points out that wind farms are heavily reliant on subsidies, and that those who claim they’re one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable energy believed in “fairy tales”.
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Pakistan Bans Hundreds Of Phrases Like “Monkey Crotch” And “Love Pistol” From Text Messages
21 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Pakistan’s telecoms watchdog, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, has decided that mobile phone operators in that country must block all text messages using offensive words. The list contains over 1 600 words and phrases including, “flogging the dolphin”. Some linguistic purists are expected to be delighted by the move that comes into force today, while George Orwell turns in his grave.
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PayPal Launches Facebook App
18 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Happy birthday Facebook wall posts just got interesting. It probably won’t be long before one starts scrolling through those birthday wall posts to see who has sent a greeting card with a little bit of a surprise attached. Tech-savvy grannies everywhere will be rejoicing.
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The Stop Online Piracy Act – What You Need To Know [VIDEO]
17 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The American Senate has officially begun holding hearings on the the ‘Internet Blacklist Bill,’ also known as the “PROTECT IP Act” or the “Stop Online Piracy Act.” It is potentially the most harmful bit of Internet censorship legislation to date, and you should know what’s going to happen if it passes.
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Nonhle Thema Calls Herself “God”
16 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 4 Comments
Nonhle Thema lost the plot again last night on Twitter. She tried to have another catfight with Bonang Matheba because Bonang had mentioned Nonhle’s name in an interview. But Nonhle ended up battling herself instead. It could also be because Bonang has more Twitter followers than Nonhle, and that Nonhle was jealous over Bonang’s new True Love cover shot.
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Indonesians Cheer For Mortal Enemies, Malaysia During Southeast Asia Games
15 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Indonesians and Malaysians don’t like each other very much. In fact, they dislike each other so much that “Hate Malaysia” and “Hate Indonesia” were even trending topics on Twitter last year after Indonesia lost a football game to their counterparts, that involved laser pointers. Now Indonesian students are being paid to support their archenemies in the Southeast Asia Games.
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James Murdoch’s Evidence Yesterday Was “Disingenuous”
11 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
As reported in morning spice earlier today, James Murdoch claimed yesterday that two of his former senior News of the World executives had failed to tell him the truth about the scale of phone hacking at the News of the World, and that they had misled parliament. They’ve both since issued statements and called his new evidence “disingenuous at best”.
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Robert Mugabe The Pop Star
11 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, has collaborated with an Afropop group, ironically called the Born Free Crew, to release a single that is getting some airplay on national television and radio stations. Keeping things in the family, the album’s executive producer is Mugabe’s Minister of Information, and of course, it’s about colonialism.
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Facebook To The Rescue [VIDEO]
04 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Other than the obvious benefits of the various social networks out there; networking, re-connecting and event-planning, amongst other things, recently they have become a serious law-enforcement tool. In the most recent case, New Jersey police used Facebook to track down suspects in a vicious assault case involving a machete wielding madman.
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Woman Burns Down Friend’s House For Defriending Her On Facebook
03 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
There have been murders and rapes associated with Facebook, but this is likely to be the first house burning as a result of someone defriending someone else on the social networking website. Jennifer Christine Harris decided it was a good idea to burn down Nikki Rasmussen’s house while Nikki and her husband, Jim, were in their beds sleeping.
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The Murdochs WERE Lying
02 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
One thing the Murdochs probably didn’t do last night, is sleep particularly well – James, especially. Documents released by the parliamentary committee investigating illegal voicemail hacking at News International reveal compelling evidence that James has been lying since at least 2008. Either that, or he is just a really shoddy businessman. Maybe both.
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China Further Tightens Its Strict Censorship Laws
28 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
China is renowned for its seemingly ridiculous stance on freedom of speech and the proliferation of unauthorised news – a stance which has seen prominent members of society detained without legitimate explanation and popular social networks such as Facebook banned. Now, it seems, actions like that were only the beginning.
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Samsung’s Solar-Powered Internet School
28 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Samsung Africa has unveiled a unique initiative they are calling the Samsung Internet Schools Programme. The initial programme will span five African countries: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. In time it will branch out into other African countries too. The school is a mobile, solar-powered, independent classroom housed in a container.
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Rupert Murdoch Is Facing The Shareholder Music Shortly
21 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Rupert Murdoch will shortly face shareholders in the News Corporation annual general meeting that’s taking place in Los Angeles today. It should prove riveting as British lawmaker Tom Watson plans to use the event to reveal new details of what he claims are hidden surveillance practices by company employees.
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YouTube To Sell Merchandise, Digital Downloads And Event Tickets
17 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
YouTube is launching something they’re calling the Merch Store. From it, the online video giant will sell all kinds of music paraphernalia like band merchandise, event tickets, digital music downloads, and even band meet-ups.
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Rio de Janeiro Has Set Up The World’s Largest Urban Surveillance System
17 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
In preparation for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro has established a huge state-of-the-art surveillance space, boasting 80 interchangeable digital panels, 450 cameras, 80 square metres of surveillance screen space, and an awesome Batcave-esque name: the Control Room. I don’t know how they paid for it either.
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Major British Banks Downgraded Amid Deepening EU Crisis
13 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Just before lunchtime, a rumour began to do the rounds, courtesy of Sky News, that credit ratings agency Fitch was going to bring more bad news for Britain’s banks. A credit rating downgrade of major banks was possible later in the day. Sky changed their tune and withdrew the statement on TV, but the blog post remained, and now the downgrade has happened.
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Murdoch And Sons Might Be Voted Off The NewsCorp Board Of Directors
11 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
There is a shareholder advisory campaign calling for the removal of Rupert Murdoch, his two sons, James and Lachlan, and 10 other directors from the board of directors at the next NewsCorp shareholder meeting on 21 October. The radical shakeup would see 13 of the company’s 15 directors removed after the shocking events that took place at NewsCorp.
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BlackBerry Services Collapse Worldwide
10 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 4 Comments
Millions of BlackBerry users from all over Europe, Asia and Africa have been without online services such as email and BlackBerry Messenger for the last few hours. A spokesperson for RIM has not yet passed comment, but we do know a major fault at the RIM data centre in Slough is responsible.
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Archbishop Of Canterbury Lambastes Mugabe In Powerful Sermon To 15 000 Zimbabweans
10 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Dr Rowan Williams, otherwise known as the Archbishop of Canterbury, delivered what some of his aides are calling the “sermon of his career” when he addressed more than 15 000 Anglicans during his controversial visit to Zimbabwe yesterday. He told them that Mugabe’s tyrannical rule was no better than the colonial rule it had replaced.
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The Occupy Revolution Has Hit South Africa
07 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 8 Comments
It looks like the tides that swept up the Occupy Wall Street protest campaign – ongoing after three weeks – have broken national boundaries; ‘Operation Ubuntu’ has been set up to launch a simultaneous protests on the 15th of October in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Grahamstown, as part of the global Occupy Revolution campaign.
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Here’s How You Can Wish Desmond Tutu Happy Birthday
05 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
The majority of the furore surrounding the Dalai Lama not coming to South Africa is beginning to blow over, so let’s take a moment to remember what this was all about to begin with – the Arch’s 80th. You want to wish him, don’t you? Have you ever met him? How has he impacted your life? Well, wish him happy birthday, and you could be on CNN for your efforts.
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Is The Kindle Fire Worse Than Facebook And Google When It Comes To Privacy?
30 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Terms and conditions: we never read them, but we know we know should. Here’s what you should know about Amazon’s Fire and the new Silk browser it comes with: they make it clear that the company is entitled to retain your tablet’s unique ID, plus the URL’s of pages you have visited, for up to 30 days.
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What Today’s Biggest Websites Looked Like Back Then
29 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and Amazon have become synonymous with what we perceive as “cool” on the internet today. But these vintage screen caps of some of the world’s most-loved sites suggest one thing: if the net was high school back then, none of these websites would have had any friends.
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Facebook Admits It Was Constantly Tracking Users, Calls It “Inadvertent” Error
29 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Facebook has finally admitted that it has been watching the web pages its 750 million members visit. The huge privacy breach was simply a mistake, it says. Software that automatically downloaded to users’ computers when they logged in to Facebook “inadvertently” sent information to the company, whether you were logged in or not.
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Vietnam And South Africa Sign Rhino Horn Memorandum
28 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The South African and Vietnamese governments have come together and agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding that will seek ways to stop rhino poaching. Ironically, the Vietnamese officials asked that a domestic medical research institute verify that rhino horn had no medicinal properties, and to make this information public.
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Eyewitness News Newsreader Goes Rogue, Drops Multiple F-Bombs During His Bulletin [AUDIO]
27 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 21 Comments
Eyewitness News radio bulletins will never be the same again after one newsreader lost it last night and f-bombed all kinds of philosophies to anyone that was listening to the 01h00 news. Anarchist and environmentalist, Mark Esterhuysen, probably won’t be reading the news anymore. NSFW, obviously.
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A Note To All The Companies Using Private Numbers
26 Sep 2011 by Seth Rotherham / 7 Comments
I don’t answer private numbers. Nor do a lot of people I know. But a lot of them haven’t reached my elite level. The “elite communicator” level is where you find yourself when you have absolutely zero curiosity as to who might be calling. You’re over it. You’re so far gone, that you only answer […]
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Facebook Is Watching You Very Closely, Even After You Logout
26 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that an Australian technologist, Nik Cubrilovic, has discovered that Facebook is tracking the websites its users visit even when they have logged out of the social networking site. Reactions have been mixed, but is this something we should be that surprised about?
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The Guardian Doesn’t Have To Reveal Phone-Hacking Sources, Yet
21 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
In an abrupt turnaround, the Metropolitan police have dropped their attempt to order the Guardian to reveal confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal. They’d hoped to force reporters to reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing information about the murdered teenager, Milly Dowler, whose phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World.
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