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
Browsing: Larry Page
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
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
Stafford Masie, just 37, has had a highly eventful career, having been the first SA country manager for Google and working for multinational corporations like Novell. He’s now dabbling in numerous start-ups and technology businesses. TechCentral’s Craig Wilson
Google has been eager to succeed at social media, both because it appeals to its ethos and because it’s losing valuable consumer eyeballs to Facebook. Google+ is without doubt the search giant’s most successful social venture so far, but are people actually using it after they sign
No one saw this coming. Google on Monday said it would buy Motorola Mobility for US$40/share, or $12,5bn, a premium of 63% to the share’s closing price on Friday. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies. In a blog post
Google is not used to being last in line. For over a decade it has been the darling of both the tech world and the stock markets, raking in both users and profits in record quantities. But in the last five years the gravity of the online market