“F*** Earth!” Elon Musk said, laughing. “Who cares about Earth?” Musk was laughing because he was joking: he cares a great deal about Earth. When he is not at SpaceX, he is running an electric car company. Elon Musk argues that we must put a million people on Mars if we are to ensure that humanity has a future. Read more…
Hulu finally packs heat for its gunfight with Netflix, Amazon
Enlisting JJ Abrams, steward of the Star Wars franchise, to executive produce what looks to be the streaming service’s first original series with capital-A auspices behind it in 11/22/63, is a sign that Hulu is at long last aiming to elevate its game. Read more…
SAM wants to make coding connected objects super simple
Meet SAM, a wireless electronics kit that’s aiming to make it easier for kids or indeed anyone with an idea for a connected project to get building — using a series of Bluetooth connected pieces and a drag and drop software interface for linking the hardware together. Read more…
Bitcoin in Africa: the success story of a Tunisian entrepreneur
Bitcoin is an excellent entry gate to financial services, crowdfunding and e-commerce for people who live in countries where the banking infrastructure is, at best, outdated. Now there is a Tunisian entrepreneur who successfully launched a Bitcoin marketplace for website themes. Read more…
The science behind why Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza team rule works
Once at an Amazon off-site, managers had the reasonable sounding suggestion that employees should be increasing communication with each other. To their surprise, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos stood up and announced, “No, communication is terrible!” This stance explains his famous two-pizza team rule, that teams shouldn’t be larger than what two pizzas can feed. Read more…
Five facts about time that will hurt your brain
The Steve Miller Band’s 1976 hit Fly Like an Eagle begins with the lyrical loop, “Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping … into the future.”
It’s catchy — you’re humming it to yourself right now. Admit it! And, hey, it’s also true. Or is it? Turns out, there’s a lot more to time than a slow march forward. Read more…
Four South African companies taking on the world
Four South African companies feature in Boston Consulting Group’s list of 100 “global challengers”. To be selected, they need to be of a certain size, with credible aspirations to build truly global footprints. Global challengers are also growing faster than their peers. Read more…
Gates talks Apple Pay, Bitcoin, Nadella and how Office needs to be dramatically better
There’s no denying the fact that Bill Gates is a very smart man and that he has a passion not only for technology but also for helping the poor through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He sat down with Erik Schatzker of Bloomberg TV to discuss many different topics, ranging from banking for the poor to how Satya Nadella is doing at Microsoft to whether he’s going to spend time courtside watching the Clippers with his friend, Steve Ballmer. Read more…
Digital dark matter: the unseen forces that influence innovation
Around 150AD, the Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy compiled a model of the universe that accurately predicted the movements of the sun, moon, planets and stars. It was a remarkable achievement, diminished only by the fact that it happened to be entirely wrong. Read more…
The unpatchable malware that infects USBs is now on the loose
It’s been just two months since researcher Karsten Nohl demonstrated an attack he called BadUSB to a standing-room-only crowd at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, showing that it’s possible to corrupt any USB device with insidious, undetectable malware. Given the severity of that security problem — and the lack of any easy patch — Nohl has held back on releasing the code he used to pull off the attack. But at least two of Nohl’s fellow researchers aren’t waiting any longer. Read more…