Following a recent viral expose by blogger Jonathan Corbett on the potentially serious weaknesses in the TSA’s airport body scanners, multiple journalists have reported receiving emails from the TSA “strongly cautioning” them against covering the story. Corbett is encouraging media outlets to cover the story anyway.
A few hours ago, Reuters blogger, Felix Salmon, recorded an exclusive interview in which it was revealed that CNN will buy social media website, Mashable, for more than $200 million dollars. The announcement is due to be confirmed as early as tomorrow, according to Salmon.
Last week, director James Cameron found the one spot where people wouldn’t ask him about the Avatar sequel – 8km beneath the ocean, off the coast of Papua New Guinea, in a specially designed submarine. He’ll be repeating the trick later this month at the ocean’s deepest point to shoot footage for a couple of documentaries.
What’s hot on TV in China’s Henan Province these days? Just a little show where death row inmates are interviewed moments before they are killed for their crimes. The show is called “Interview Before Execution” and it has China riveted to the tune of nearly 40 million viewers every week.
In a particularly bad case of trigger happiness, an American soldier went on a killing frenzy yesterday. The man opened fire on a group of Afghani civilians, killing a total of 16 people – including nine children. Full details inside.
It’s that time of the year again when thousands of lycra-clad cyclists descend on the Mother City for the Cape Argus Pick ‘n Pay Cycle Tour. Capetonians, your road closures begin tomorrow, so here is what you need to be aware of.
As the #StopKONY juggernaut continues rampaging across the interwebs and social networks, some reporters have turned to Kony’s fellow Ugandans for comment on the video, and the Invisible Children organisation’s project to bring Joseph Kony to justice. Their opinions? Not positive.
Hey Doomsdayers, guess what? The world isn’t going to end in 2012, or any time soon for that matter. At least that’s according to a NASA astrophysicist, who I’d assume has a library that smells of rich mahogany and is filled with many leather-bound books, and also a degree in astrophysics.
For the first time ever, you’ll be able to watch every single Olympic event live, for free, without having to pirate it through some dodgy online stream. In fact, it’s actually a clever marketing ploy on the behalf of NBC, but still, it’s better than nothing.
That house where Macaulay Culkin got stranded over Christmas in that one movie back in 1990 was sold yesterday, according to real estate agency Coldwell Banker. Which means the buyers – a family new to Winnekta, Illinois – are already having to deal with tourists showing up daily and posing for photos with both hands clapped to their face.
Riaan Cruywagen will release an autobiography at the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival this year. It will be available in stores from April 2. The man who knows the news before the news happens, has enjoyed a prosperous 47 years in broadcasting, of which 37 were spent as an Afrikaans newsreader.
To mark International Women’s Day today, SlutWalk Founder Sonya Barnett has designed the Nude Revolutionary Calendar. Featuring topless Iranian woman, this move is both a middle finger to political Islam, as well as a fundraiser towards “supporting women’s rights and free expression.” This promotional video has just been released online.
Yesterday, the internet was all about Invisible Children’s #stopKONY campaign and video, but while Americans get themselves into a froth about a country they don’t even know the location of, and a man they only know through rumours, we take a closer look at the organisation behind the hype. And as a number of commentators look closer, the cracks in Invisible Children’s premise, promises and their presentation become anything but invisible.
English heavy metal band Motörhead has launched a line of bottled alcoholic beverages, because that’s just what you do when you’re a band of a certain age. There’s Motörhead Vodka which, sure, heavy metal, makes sense, and they’ve also released Motörhead Shiraz. Because I guess that’s heavy metal too.
Iron Sky, a long-awaited science fiction spoof about Nazis invading Earth from their secret moon base is about to be released in Europe and internationally. While it has gained much support online and even some plaudits at festivals, some critics are wondering if Germans are ready for such rampant fun to be made of one of the darkest periods of their recent history.
“Probably not,” is the answer. It seems as if things have returned to normal on the Facebook servers around parts of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The outage earlier affected facebook.com, as well as apps for mobile phones and tablets. Facebook has thus far put the incident down to “technical difficulties.”
Formula One race cars are intended for many things – being awesome, making loud noises, giving Germans something to do. Driving on snow is not one of them. In spite of that, Andy Gülden equipped one with snow tires and drove it around the snow-covered race tracks of the famously challenging Nürburgring in Germany. Madness.
This really does look like a scene from a horrific, science-fiction film in which spiders take over the world. Unfortunately for arachnaphobes, and most of Wagga Wagga’s population, it’s very real, and is the result of spiders escaping floodwaters.
This might turn out to be the most inspiring documentary you will watch all year. A serious campaign is underway to bring down Joseph Kony, the infamous leader of the Ugandan guerrilla group: the Lord’s Resistance Army. The LRA is responsible for an unquantifiable number of atrocities across Uganda. Human trafficking, brutal rape, and child soldier deployment are commonplace. This is KONY 2102.
Another alternative to Apple’s iCloud popped up this week, with Google has announcing that it will be combining the Android Market, Google Music and the Google eBookstore into a new cloud-based service called Google Play, allowing users to access all of their media across all of their Android devices.
Oh, good, more things from the future to terrify me. Boston Dynamics, a Pentagon contractor, has broken the speed record for legged robots, with a new four-legged creation – the Cheetah, which can run at 29 kilometres an hour, far outpacing the 20 km/h record set by MIT in 1989.
It would appear that authorities are finally starting to make serious inroads into the rhino horn trafficking underworld. A suspected kingpin, and former Mpumalanga police officer, was arrested on Friday in Hazyview. He was found with four rhino horns, and over R60 000 in his possession.
It’s less than a week to go until the iPad 3 is unveiled, so everybody and their grandma is throwing out thoughts about what the new toy can do. Concrete stats are emerging though – Apple employees have been browsing the web with their personal iPad 3’s, turning up details about the new tablet on website server logs.
Everyone has, at one time or another, wished desperately for a real life mute button. Whether it’s a nagging partner or an annoying boss, sometimes life would just be easier if you could simply hit a button and make it all go away. Now, thanks to some clever Japanese researchers, you can!
A suicidal woman who was about to jump off a bridge in Beijing whilst clutching on to her baby, was pulled back at the last moment by a police officer. Passersby also rushed in and snatched the child from her arms. Footage of this harrowing scene captured by surveillance cameras has been released, and can be seen after the jump.
Tricycles are pretty lame, and Tokyo Drift was a terrible movie, so it makes sense that bringing the two concepts together produces something unbelievably awesome. Click through to watch a montage of grown men drifting through the streets of New Zealand on customized trikes.
Kathryne Fuller, 29, will be returning home to South Africa. She was charged with possession of cocaine in Uganda after she took the contaminated substance with Amazing Race producer, Jeff Rice, last month. Rice died, and Fuller was left paralysed on the right side of her body. She pleaded guilty to the charge, and paid a $420 fine to avoid imprisonment.
Greek police released pictures yesterday of a bomb left on a subway train by left-wing extremists. The explosive was made out of two small gas canisters with about one and a half litres of petrol, a timer, wires and batteries. A terror group known as the Urban Guerrillas took responsibility.
Google’s new privacy policy – the one allowing the company to combine data from all of its sites into a single profile – officially takes effect today. The new policy collapses 70 separate policy documents from various Google services into a single unit – which also happens to make it easier for Google to know things about you.
That’s right, dying just got even easier, if you live in the Netherlands. The Levenseindekliniek, or Life-end clinic, has launched the country’s first mobile euthanasia unit that will come to you if you have been given approval to die.