-
Tech/Sci
-
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.
-
“Steve Jobs Day” Set For 14 October
06 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
News of Steve Jobs’ death resonated around the world this morning. A sad day for many, but Steve’s death has put tremendous momentum behind the move to have 14 October named as “Steve Jobs Day”.
-
Britain: Illegal Immigrant Spared Deportation Partly Because Of Pet Cat
06 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
British politics is theatrical at the best of times. They’re dealing with cat-gate at the moment, so it just became even more theatrical. A judge has actually ruled that an illegal immigrant could avoid deportation partly because the judge feared separating him from his pet cat and partner risked “serious emotional consequences”.
-
In Memorium: The Advert That Introduced Apple Mac To The World
06 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
This was the world’s first taste of Steve Jobs’ genius. RIP. Click through for the advertisement.
-
Steve Jobs, Apple Co-Founder, Dies – Age 56
06 Oct 2011 by Seth Rotherham / No Comments
Steve Jobs, the man who changed all of our lives forever, has died. As the news hit in the US while the whole of South Africa was sleeping, many a South African will be waking up to the the news of his premature death at age 56. This, from CNN: Steve Jobs, the visionary in […]
-
India Has Launched The Cheapest Tablet Device In The World
05 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Can’t afford an iPad? Still confused about whether RIM is or isn’t discontinuing the BlackBerry tablet (er, or as a technology company generally)? You may be interested in the Aakash. It means ‘sky’ in Hindi – and it’s been launched today in India under the tagline “the cheapest tablet computer in the world”.
-
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.
-
Studying Klingon Helps People Cope With Dyslexia
05 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Klingon is a fictional language spoken by an alien warrior race in the Star Trek series – those guys that look like they have six-packs on their foreheads. But, according to Jonathan Brown from the UK, it also has some other uses. Although getting laid is not one of them, he does claim it can help people suffering from dyslexia.
-
How To Escape The Next Tsunami: The Noah Disaster Shelter
04 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The Japanese have proved that they are some of the most resilient people on earth. With the earthquake and tsunami that struck earlier this year, numerous acts of heroism emerged. Now they’ve invented the Noah Disaster Shelter as a very probable device for protection when particular natural disasters strike.
-
Naspers Buys Russian Gumtree
04 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The South African media giant, Naspers, has bought the Russian version of Gumtree: Slando, for an undisclosed amount. The original founders of Gumtree, Michael Pennington and Simon Crookall, confirmed the deal overnight. The site has 11 million users, and has sold items including Stalin’s clothing, a slew of diamonds, a MIG 21 aircraft and one whole oil refinery.
-
MTN Flirts With Summer
03 Oct 2011 by Seth Rotherham / No Comments
2oceansvibe has long been the authority on when summer truly starts, with our annual “opening of summer” declaration (past declarations here and here) usually appearing in late September or early October. It hasn’t happened yet this year, but I can feel it coming soon. MTN, on the other hand, has begun flirting with the madness that […]
-
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.
-
NASA Is Going to Harpoon An Asteroid [VIDEO]
30 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
NASA wants to put somebody on an asteroid by 2025 because they don’t know how else to get people’s attention. And to succeed in this entirely worthwhile endeavour, they’ve designed a mechanism by which to harpoon asteroids, so that vehicles can land on the thing despite the weakened gravity. Call me Ishmael.
-
Scientists Win Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize For Wasabi Fire Alarm
30 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
How do you wake a deaf person, especially if the building that they are in is on fire? You squirt a puff of wasabi at them, obviously. Seven Japanese researchers were awarded the Ig Nobel prize for chemistry in the 21st annual Ig Nobel awards, a spoof of the real Nobel awards, at Harvard University last night for their invention.
-
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.
-
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.
-
China Space Shuttle Prepped For Launch For Tonight
29 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The unmanned spacecraft, Tiangong-1, which translates awesomely to Heavenly Palace, is set to blast off tonight from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gansu province, marking the start of China’s first rendezvous and docking mission. That guy is set to take off between 13h16 and 13h31 GMT.
-
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.
-
Controversial Android App Helps Mothers Figure Out If Their Sons Are Gay
28 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
As a mother, there is nothing more frightening than living with the suspicion that your son might be one of those gays. Luckily help has arrived in the form of a new Android app, called “Is My Son Gay?” Over the course of 20 questions, it claims it can determine whether the survey-taker’s offspring is a homosexual, or not. Example: “Does he like to dress up nicely?”
-
UK Labour Party Wants To Introduce “Journalism Licenses”
27 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Well hey, that sounds at least a little familiar. Ivan Lewis, shadow culture secretary is presently proposing a licensing scheme for journalists at the Labour party conference in Liverpool, which would have the power to prohibit people from doing any sort of journalism – which would have to include tweeting, blogging, and uploading pictures of stuff.
-
SA Aerospace Reveals Awesome New Multipurpose Aircraft
27 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The Ahrlac (Advanced High Performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft) will have a number of uses, including border patrol and surveillance. But, just in case, they’ve also equipped it with a 20mm canon. At a cool R79,59 million each, these badboys aren’t exactly recession friendly. But who cares? Who needs money when you have guns?
-
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.
-
Famous Dead Sea Scrolls Now Online
27 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Google and Israel’s national museum, the Israel Museum, have come together to place a number of the world-famous Dead Sea Scrolls online for the first time. The project is the first of many hoping to showcase some of the manuscripts that make up what many consider the most important archaeological find of the 20th century.
-
Proposed Dangerous Weapons Bill Being Publicly Shot Down
26 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The Draft Dangerous Weapons Bill, published recently in the government gazette, has been taking heavy criticism this morning. With a bit of luck, the badly worded document, which seeks to ban things like toy guns, will have statements like this removed: “…any object that can cause injury or have the ability to take a person temporarily ‘out of action.'”
-
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 […]
-
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?
-
The Sleepbox: Arriving At Airports Soon
23 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The occasional airport comes kitted with sleeping lounges, but not everyone can get into those lounges. So, that’s what Sleepbox is for. Sleepbox is a temporary bedroom for the average traveler, that can be rented for periods of time while you’re tired and hanging around at the airport.
-
Scientists Can Reconstruct The Pictures In Our Heads Now [VIDEO]
23 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
It’s always nice when the world catches up with 80’s sci-fi films. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have succeeded in reconstructing people’s visual experiences using MRI and image libraries. Which means that if you click on the link you can see somebody’s brain try to replicate the Pink Panther film trailer.
-
Duck! Derelict NASA Satellite Headed Back To Earth, Destination: Anywhere [VIDEO]
23 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
NASA have meekly announced that their 6.5 tonne Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), which shut down in 2005 due to its batteries dying, will come crashing down to earth sometime today, somewhere.
-
Robot Nominated As Torchbearer For 2012 Olympics
22 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
This is just the start. Soon we’ll be giving them the vote. A three-foot-tall robot called the iCub has been nominated to participate in the Olympic Torch Relay for the 2012 London Games, partially to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing’s birth, and partially to creep people out with three-foot-tall, fire-wielding robots.
-
-
-
2oceansvibe Partners
-
-
