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World
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RIM Offers Free Apps To Apologize For That Whole BlackBerry Crash Thing
17 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
While Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM, has already publicly apologized for last week’s three-day BlackBerry outage, the PR guys figured that that probably wasn’t enough. Which is why they’ve announced that they’re offering BlackBerry customers a bunch of free “premium apps,” in the hopes of winning back some love. Check the app list after the jump.
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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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Greece To Come To A Standstill Ahead Of Crucial Vote
17 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
It promises to be one of the largest strikes since the resurgence of the catastrophic violence two years ago, and will touch virtually every industry of the deeply troubled state. At least half of the four million-strong workforce is expected to partake as parliamentarians vote on a package of austerity measures demanded by international lenders.
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YouTube Video Of Smoking Baby Sparks Custody Dispute
14 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Elena Ursu from Romania is one awesome mother! After being awarded sole custody of her child after getting divorced, she taught her two-year-old to smoke and to drink coffee. She then uploaded a video of her daughter smoking onto YouTube in an attempt to “get back” at the father of the child.
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Broadway Standoff Ends In Wall Street Protesters’ Favour
14 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Brookfield Properties, owners of the Zuccotti Park at the OWS protestors are demonstrating in, had called up the NYPD for “ assistance during their cleaning operation”. There were concerns that this would bring the protest to an abrupt end. This was prevented by a last minute statement from Deputy May Holloway, insisting that the “cleaning” operation be postponed.
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Hot Shots: Part Deux – Iceland’s Other Volcano Is Getting Antsy
14 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Just when you thought Mother Earth was through spanking us all thoroughly with natural disasters, seismologists in Iceland have nervously let us all know that Katla, the bigger, nastier sister of Eyjafjallajökull (the volcano that gave Europe an ash wedgie earlier this year), is getting antsy.
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Royal Navy Finds 61 Bombs At Nudist Beach
14 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
After 26 bombs – including six mortar bombs and two submarine depth charges – washed up on Kent’s nudist colony at Leysdown Beach, the Royal Navy was called in to perform a two-day bomb sweep, uncovering another 61 explosives, some dating back to the late 19th century. Miraculously, no uncomfortable puns about nudity and bombs were involved.
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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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Virgin Atlantic Wants to Circle the World on Second-Hand Carbon
13 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Virgin Atlantic announced that their planes will soon be able to fly from London to Hong Kong on fuel that produces half the carbon of regular jet fuel – which is sort of huge news, given that flying is one of our most carbon-intensive activities, enough to offset any good otherwise done by unplugging unused appliances or whatever.
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SA Tightens The Reins On Foreign Adoption
13 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
If you thought Madonna had a hard time adopting a Malawian child and getting through the forest of red tape that process entailed, it’s also going to be a much tougher task for foreigners to adopt a South African baby in the near future. Foreign parents hoping for adoption from South Africa are now required to prove their commitment to living here.
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Italy: The Next European Accident Waiting To Happen
13 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The Italian debt crisis has the potential to make the Greek crisis seem small. It must be reiterated that Italian debt makes Greek debt look laughable. It currently stands at some €1,8 trillion. That’s excluding the purported €175 billion the Italians need to keep their country running until the end of the year.
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Apple’s Siri: The Greatest Comebacks So Far
13 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Those blessed with early access to the iPhone 4S have spent most of their time talking about Siri, the voice-activated feature that can answer questions like “What’s the time?”, and “What does prawn mean?” They’ve also found that it has a pretty decent cache of responses for people who ask their phone stupid questions.
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Harry Potter Actor Accused Of Rioting And Growing Cannabis
12 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The actor who plays Vincent Crabbe in the Harry Potter films is now officially the most high-profile suspect to be arrested for rioting in London. CCTV footage shows him destroying public property, carrying a petrol bomb, and stealing a bottle of champagne. Police also found 15 mature cannabis plants in his bedroom when they went to arrest him.
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UNICEF Releases Report: MXit 1, Homework 0
12 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
A recent study by UNICEF has brought to light some interesting (though not very surprising) stats regarding usage of MXit, one of south Africa’s most popular mobile social platforms.
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Sony Recalls 1,6 Million Bravia’s Because Of Fire Risk
12 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Sony is to recall 1,6 million of its Bravia brand LCD TVs sold worldwide since 2007. This comes after several serious malfunctions involving parts melting, and even possibly catching fire as a result, have occurred. Japan’s trade ministry today instructed Sony to recall the TV’s as a precautionary measure to prevent further incidents.
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Hands-On Video For Siri On The iPhone 4S
12 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Apple’s Siri, the fancy voice-activated feature that was supposed to make people feel less disappointed about not getting a shiny new iPhone 5, was actually pretty cool when Phil Schiller showed it off on stage. But how well does it do in real life? See the hands-on after the jump.
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Japan Shows Off Intelligent Robot – Well Hello, Skynet
12 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Scientists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Hasegawa Group have doomed us all to inevitable destruction at the hands of our robot creations by releasing footage of an experimental robot they’ve designed that basically models its behaviour on human cognitive processes, i.e. it learns from its actions.
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Goldman Sachs’ Secret £10 Million Christmas Present
12 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
It has been revealed that good old Goldman Sachs received one rather large Christmas present in the form of unpaid interest from Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs, following a long legal battle over one of the US bank’s tax avoidance schemes.
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Libyan Fighter Plays Guitar During Gun Battle [PIC]
12 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 8 Comments
Check out this chap playing a guitar while a fierce gun battle goes down around him! At first I thought I was watching a scene from a remake of El Mariachi – set entirely in Libya. But this extraordinary image was taken during the recent battle for Sirte, the last stronghold of Gaddafi’s troops. It was captured by photographer, Aris Messinis for Getty Images.
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Adobe Made That Fictional CSI “Enhance” Tool A Reality
12 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
You know that thing in sort-of-science-fictional shows or awful police procedurals where they have a blurry photo which they zoom into indefinitely and then use television magic to ‘enhance’ it and keep it from turning into the pixelated jpeg it should be? Adobe Photoshop can do that now.
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Quadriplegic Controls Robotic Hand With Brainwaves [VIDEO]
11 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Well hey there, science. A recent breakthrough at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre has allowed a 30-year-old man who hasn’t been able to move arms, hands or legs in the past seven years to take control of a robotic hand, marking an unprecedented achievement in neuro-robotics.
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Iranian Actress Given 90 Lashes For Being In A Mildly Subversive Film
11 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
More specifically, Iranian actress Marzieh Vafamehr was sentenced to 90 lashes for starring in “My Tehran For Sale,” a movie about how Iran mistreats its actresses. The actress was arrested for being in the film – which was never officially distributed in Iran – in July, and her sentence was handed down this weekend.
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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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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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Artist To Give Birth Before Audience At Art Gallery
10 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
A pregnant American performance artist is planning to have her baby in an art gallery in front of an audience as part of a piece examining childbirth. She will also live in the gallery until the baby arrives. Her “artwork” is called “The Birth of Baby X”.
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America’s Unmanned Combat Drones Infected With Computer Virus
10 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Well this can only end well. The US Air Force’s unmanned combat drones in the “Predator” and “Reaper” class have been infected with computer viruses that they can’t get rid of, in case you weren’t sufficiently terrified of the world when you woke up this morning.
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Japan Will Offer 10 000 Free Visits To Tourists
10 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 14 Comments
If the thought of waiting until the 2015 Rugby World Cup to visit Japan is less appealing right now, consider going there sooner, and for free, courtesy of the country’s tourism agency. The Japan Tourism Agency has announced it will fund airfares for 10 000 foreign travelers in an attempt to help the country’s plummeting tourism levels recover in the face of nuclear disaster.
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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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Hillbilly Haircutters And Hell’s Granny: 2oceansVibe’s Bizarre Crime Round Up
07 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Here in South Africa, we suffer some of the worst excesses of violent crime. But don’t think for a minute that other countries are spared the onslaught of criminal masterminds.
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SABMiller Shares Climb On Takeover Report
07 Oct 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
After having recently bought Fosters, fresh rumours surfaced yesterday that SABMiller might itself face a takeover from Anheuser-Busch InBev, the biggest brewer in the world. SAB shares soared 7% to their highest gain in almost three years as a result.
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