Checking social networks is a morning ritual for many, and when that routine is disrupted — as it was this week when Facebook’s servers went down — its absence can come as a surprise. But what also becomes apparent is that when the world’s most popular social
Browsing: Twitter
British Prime Minister David Cameron has stated that the UK government will look at “switching off” some forms of encryption in order to make society safer from terror attacks. This might make a grand statement
Stafford Masie, the South African technology entrepreneur behind the Payment Pebble, introduced earlier this year by Absa, will on Monday takes the wraps off a radical new design of the mobile point-of-sale (M-POS) system. Instead of merchants
The national treasury on Monday warned of a fake Twitter account claiming to be that of newly appointed finance minister Nhlanhla Nene. “Minister Nene does not have a Twitter account,” spokesman Zwikhodo Netshituni said in a statement. “The Twitter account with a handle @NhlanhlaNeneZA is counterfeit.” The account, with
Yookos, a newish social networking site aimed at people across Africa, has signed up 10m users in the three years since its commercial launch and appears set for further strong growth. The network, which began in Nigeria as a Christian-focused site, is now headquartered in Johannesburg and is targeting a broader audience interested in what its founders
Judge Thokozile Masipa went “too far” by restricting the media from tweeting post-mortem evidence in Oscar Pistorius’s murder trial, a media law expert said in a television interview on Tuesday. “Unfortunately in my view that was a decision that, with respect, went slightly too far because it misunderstood the nature
Nineteen billion dollars. Two hundred and ten billion rand. Nearly R500/user. That’s how much Facebook has agreed to pony up for WhatsApp, the fast-growing but still very much loss-making cross-platform mobile instant messaging platform. It’s a daring – perhaps insane – bet by Facebook’s
The year has not started well for advocates of net neutrality, the idea that all data on the Internet should be treated equally, without discrimination. A US federal court struck down a key part of the Open Internet Order, a set of Federal Communications Commission regulations
Eight leading American technology companies have joined forces to demand changes be made to US surveillance laws, calling for current laws and practices to be reformed in light of revelations of mass surveillance of Internet users’ activities by the National Security Agency. In a letter
When Roy Amara was president of The Institute for the Future, he famously remarked: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” Looking at the current crop of start-ups now hitting their stride, it’s safe to say online