Apple’s market value exceeded the half-a-trillion-dollar mark for the first time in after-hours trading in New York on Tuesday, just 40 days after it breached the $400bn level. Apple is now by far the most valuable listed US company, with a market value at Tuesday’s close a full $87bn ahead of the next largest
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt channelled famed futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Michio Kaku in his keynote at the Mobile World Congress on Tuesday. What started as an overview of new features in Chrome for Android turned into a powerful discourse on the power of technology and what it means for the
Africa looks set to get its own generic top-level domain, .africa, in 2013 if the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) gives the go-ahead, which looks likely. The creation of the new domain could set off a gold rush and create headaches for businesses wanting to protect their brands
The value of copper theft in SA increased in January, the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) said on Tuesday. The increase coincided with an upturn in the international copper price. Sacci spokesman Nonie Makhanya said the Copper Theft Barometer registered a level of R21,9m in January
IBM is announcing on Tuesday that it has made major advances towards creating a practical, full-scale quantum computer, a fabled, theoretical machine that relies on the tiniest atomic properties to compute problems faster than any supercomputer that exists today. Scientists at IBM Research said that their
Computer maker Dell is “long longer a PC company” but an “IT solutions company”, Brad Anderson, the president of its enterprise solution group said at the launch of its enterprise solutions in London on Monday, Craig Wilson reports. Anderson says the company has made 18 acquisitions since 2008, continues
Near the beginning of the 1950s, when Singin’ in the Rain and Sunset Boulevard reflected on the transition from silent films to talkies, Hollywood was giving voice to its terror of television as much as it was lamenting the loss of the past. The Artist and other big Oscar winners this year echo the themes of wrenching technology
Terry Lundgren and Kevin Ryan know and like each other. But when it comes to the future of retailing the boss of Macy’s, an American department-store giant, and the chief executive of Gilt Groupe, an online retailer, disagree wildly. Lundgren remains a firm believer in an empire of bricks and mortar. Ryan is betting big
“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run,” observed Roy Amara, an American futurologist. This is certainly proving true of retailers and their attitude to the Internet. After a panic at the turn of the millennium about the impact on their
The application Windows Phone owners have been anticipating for eight months and counting has finally arrived, but it’s nothing to call home about yet. Skype, as expected, has finally released a beta version of its application for Windows Phone 7. The release includes support for Skype basics such as audio
