Take a moment to digest this news: Ashton Kutcher, he of That ’70s Show,Dude Where’s My Car?, and now Two and a Half Men fame, is reportedly attached to play the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in an upcoming biopic. The indie film will simply be titled Jobs, according to Variety’s Jeff Sneider. Shortly after

Former MTN Group CEO Phuthuma Nhleko has distanced himself from a controversial mobile operating licence in Iran that put together a package of bribes, trading opportunities in sophisticated weaponry, capital investment and diplomatic influence that the Islamic Republic could not resist. “I can state quite categorically that during

JSE-listed Jasco Electronics has acquired Arc Telecoms, a telecommunications company founded by former iBurst executives. As part of the deal, Arc CEO Steve Briggs will step down as head of the company. Jasco says the acquisition — the value of which has not been disclosed — will “bolster” the company’s

Linux, the free operating system that brought professional-grade computing to the lowly PC, has come a long way since doing something as simple as switching off meant performing secret handshakes or offering arcane prayers to the computer gods such as computername ~ # shutdown -h now. Today, practically all Linux distributions

Is it possible to run an ethical supply chain? After the publication on 29 March 2012 of the first independent audit of the factories Apple uses in China, the iconic consumer electronics giant has definitely become the test case for whether multinationals can put an end to labour abuses. According to the long-awaited report, which is considered one

Groupon was forced to restate fourth quarter earnings, sending its stock down 6% in after-hours trading on Friday. This surprised me as much as my US$2 investment in the Mega Millions jackpot not paying off. The reasons for Groupon’s restatement were higher refund reserves and weakness in internal controls. These are issues I’ve repeatedly

Arthur Goldstuck, Ben Kelly and Brett Haggard are your resident geeks this week. They discuss Alan Knott-Craig’s Cell C aspirations for a 25% market share, spectrum running out in the US, what regulators in SA should be doing, Neotel hitting 100 000 retail customers, Apple’s nano Sim debacle and much more

Telkom has agreed to cut the cost of IP Connect, the product Internet service providers have to purchase to get access to Telkom’s fixed-line broadband network, by 30% from Sunday, 1 April, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) said on Friday. ISPs have long complained about the high cost of IP Connect, saying it is one of the

Telkom’s start-up mobile unit continues to bleed red ink across the telecommunications group’s income statement. The unit, which operates under the 8ta branding in the consumer market,will turn in a R2,2bn loss before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the year to end-March 2012. The operator expects basic earnings

Taiwan is home to a constellation of companies most people have never have heard of, making electronic gadgets and components for others with household names. The runaway success of one of these names, Apple, has made one of those Taiwanese suppliers, Hon Hai Precision Industry, the assembler of every iPad and most iPhones, less unfamiliar