A 37-year-old Pakistani national is due to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court later this week on charges of contravening the telecommunications act. He was apprehended while seated and looking shady in his car, following an anonymous tip-off. He had 4 000 Pre-Rica’d SIM cards in the car, and police found thousands more after searching his home.
An asteroid the length of four rugby fields will be speeding through Earth’s solar system tomorrow, at a closer proximity to us than the moon. Nothing of this magnitude has come nearly as close to colliding with our planet for 30 years. But rest assured the asteroid is not going to hit us. Not yet, anyway.
This is an absolute must-see! This guy deliberately creates fake profiles of underage girls online. He then enters chat rooms and look for pedophiles and invite them to meet in person. When they show up, he confronts them dressed as Batman. He also films the incident and puts the video up on the internet. Check out his first four “victims” inside.
A report released by U.S. intelligence agencies claims that Chinese and Russian hackers, hired by their governments, have been stealing classified data from American government organizations. Assumptions like this have been made before, but this is the first time such a report to Congress has pointed the finger squarely at China and Russia.
Commercial space travel is now literally months away, and it appears that a mission to Mars is not too far off either. Six men that have been locked in large steel piped tubes for 520 days emerged from isolation earlier today after a bid to simulate a mission to Mars. This is taking Survivor to the next level.
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.
Okay, this might seem like it belongs in the same dark vault of impossible philosophical conundrums as “How much wood would a wood chuck chuck” but hear the hot IT nerd out:
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.
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.
You guys remember Alpha Dog, the terrifying robot dog that Boston Dynamics built for the US military? Well they’re over terrifying robot dogs, and have moved on to terrifying robot people. Hence ‘PETMAN,’ their awful test dummy for demonstrating how chemical protection suits might affect soldiers trying to run, do push-ups or kill all humans.
A new laser is to be built that is as powerful as “concentrating the rays of the sun for the entire earth onto the tip of a pen”. Scientists claim it could allow them boil the very fabric of space, AKA the vacuum. Because that’s a fantastic idea. It is official, mankind has a death-wish.
Is this the beginning of the end for BlackBerry? Manufacturer, Research In Motion lost nearly two thirds of the US smartphone market share, year on year for the same period. HTC has taken a clear lead in the US smartphone market, and it’s been closely followed by Samsung, who just last week, surpassed Apple in total worldwide smartphone shipments.
In response to demand, the creators of Grindr have created a similar app that is aimed at straight people, called Blendr. However, besides the difference in target market, will there be a fundamental difference in how the two apps are used? I’ll let the Taiwanese news animators explain their not so subtle take on it:
The machine, devised by a company called the Gitanjali Group, was launched at a central Mumbai shopping mall for the annual Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, on Wednesday. Prices range anywhere from R400 to R5 000, just in case you have that lying around for some last minute gifts.
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.
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.
It’s just been revealed that Sony has bought out its Swedish partner, Ericsson, for $1,5 billion. Ericsson had a 50 per cent stake in mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson, but will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony now. Sony is rather excited about the move because now it can integrate its smartphones with its consumer electronics devices.
If you’re still searching for a costume, in the hopes that you’ll win that bartab for best dressed this Halloween, you’d better hope this guy doesn’t rock up to the same party. Not only does it look like a DSLR, it’s fully functional as well. It actually snaps a photo, accompanied by a flash, and displays the image at the back.
There are other products on the market that deliver short bursts of energy, but for those that really like their coffee; there is a new way for you to ingest it, without the hassle. Harvard biomedical engineering professor, David Edwards, has invented AeroShot: caffeine delivered to your body faster than coffee. Cue the coffee inhaler.
Congratulations Cape Town! Cape Town has been named World Design Capital for the year 2014, ahead of fellow short-listed cities, Dublin and Bilbao. The sought-after accolade was awarded to the Mother City this morning at the International Design Alliance (IDA) Congress in Taipei. Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille, accepted the award on […]
When reversing genetics in an attempt to create a real, live, man-eating dinosaur, it pays to know what the consequences may be. In this case, being the paleontologist who advised Steven Spielberg on the making of four Jurassic Park movies and decades of children’s nightmares about killer lizards should just about cover it.
It turns out publishing classified diplomatic files online isn’t all that lucrative! Whistle blowing site, WikiLeaks has announced that they’re pausing their publishing process to concentrate on raising funds. Julian Assange claims that the financial “blockade” mounted by Visa, MasterCard and other companies, has forced Wikileaks to “temporarily suspend its publishing operations and aggressively fundraise.”
Microsoft has been on a fancy-user-interface-technology kick this week, between the fancy touch-screen projectors and electronic fabric announcements – but the Holodesk sort of wins at the moment, at least for those of us who think 3D environments you can manipulate with your hands are cool.
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.
Breast cancer is a big deal. But recent studies show that many young women aren’t checking their breasts regularly. That is why the people behind the Rethink Breast Cancer campaign have launched a new iPhone App called “Your Man Reminder”. It gives woman regular reminders by a hot guy to check their breasts. And this advert they’ve made to promote it is an absolute must-see.
It looks like Google is getting ready to reveal a new, more polished interface for Gmail, if only to distract us from the embarrassing quietness we’re seeing on Google+; it remains to be seen whether the overhaul is part of their wider Google+ initiative or not, but visually the interfaces have a lot in common.
In what is undoubtedly the tweet of the week, here’s new MXit mogul, Alan Knott-Craig, kicking back with a pizza and a draught at Stellenbosch eatery, Ginos, having just purchased South African social media megalith, MXit. The dream. Living it. Indeed.
Okay, not quite X-Ray specs, but definitely a leap forward in covert surveillance technology. Watch these hot science geeks show off a new type of radar they’ve cooked up that can detect objects moving through 20 cm thick concrete walls.
Extravagant is a word that comes to mind when you think about this residence. Not everyone has three helipads, six floors of parking and numerous floating gardens as features built into a home they don’t even live in. Approximately valued at $1 billion, and considered one of the most expensive private residences in the world, what’s wrong with it?
When Apple released the statement announcing Steve Jobs’ death, it also set up a public email address, rememberingsteve@apple.com, where people could vent their memories and thoughts about Jobs. These have all been uploaded to Apple.com’s “Remembering Steve” page, a crowdsourced memorial to the company’s founder.