SA’s Internet economy contributes 2% to SA’s gross domestic product and this figure is rising by about 0,1 percentage points each year, meaning it may reach 2,5% by 2016. The total value of SA’s Internet economy in 2011 was R59bn. This is according to a report titled “Internet Matters
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Once a serious rival to search engine Google, Yahoo has slipped in popularity in recent years. Now, it’s launched its own mobile browser, called Axis, in an apparent effort to win back users and remain relevant in the mobile Internet age. Axis is designed for Apple’s iPad and iPhone, with Android and Windows Phone
On Friday, social network Facebook will list on Wall Street in the third largest initial public offering (IPO) in US history and the largest in the technology sector. The initial share price is set at US$38 and, with 421m shares being listed, the move will make
Research in Motion (RIM), maker of BlackBerry smartphones, this week unveiled, at least in early beta, its long anticipated and repeatedly delayed BlackBerry 10 operating system. The Canadian company hopes the redesigned OS will help arrest the decline in BlackBerry’s popularity
Can reality trump art? That was the question hovering over the launch on 24 April, at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, of a plan by a firm called Planetary Resources to mine metals from asteroids and bring them back to Earth. It sounds like the plot of a film by James Cameron — and, appropriately, Cameron is indeed one of the company’s backers. The team
Research in Motion (RIM), the company behind the ailing BlackBerry platform, has hired a law firm to help it with a company-wide restructuring plan aimed at making the company profitable again. The plan could include selling off resources, seeking joint ventures, or licensing its patents. After losing a significant portion of
Lorne Gladstone of Toronto is 58, but prudently pondering how to bequeath his digital property. Doing the paperwork after his parents’ death was a challenge. “When my time comes, I wonder if my children will even know what paper is,” he says. As a software developer, his virtual assets are both valuable and vital to his business. That
Larry Ellison and Larry Page, the bosses of Oracle and Google, share a name. But they clearly do not share the same view of a particular intellectual property (IP) matter. On 16 April, a jury began hearing arguments in a trial to determine whether Google’s Android operating system infringes copyrights and patents owned by Oracle. The
On Monday, Moody’s, the ratings agency, downgraded Nokia’s debt to near junk status. The share price has been in freefall in the past year, with some analysts painting a bleak future for the Finnish company. Yes, it’s bad. But Nokia is already planting the seeds of its turnaround. There’s no doubt that fortunes are made and lost
It’s like 1999 all over again. On Monday, Facebook announced it was buying photo-sharing company Instagram for US$1bn, netting the start-up’s cofounder, Kevin Systrom, a cool $400m. It’s paying over the odds, but the deal makes sense for Facebook ahead of its flotation on the stock market. At first glance and based on the