In the war between online pirates and content producers, it’s pretty obvious which side of the fence Microsoft stands on. The Redmond-based software-giant has started blocking all links to The Pirate Bay in Microsoft Messenger.According to The Verge, anyone who attempts to send through a link to the renowned file-sharing site is met with a reply saying: "the link you tried to send was blocked because it was reported as unsafe."The error message reportedly appears in Microsoft’s native clients ...

Is there a mystery UK launch planned for the Galaxy S III? According to some candid snaps of an Oxford-based retail store, something is “coming soon” from Samsung.The store: Phones 4U. A retail outlet which was the first store to sell the Galaxy Nexus when it initially launched and in our opinion, it would be a waste of time and money to promote a random Samsung phone such as the Pocket or a new Tab.Come 30 March, Oxford may be ...

Moments ago LaunchCapeTown announced the winners of the Cape Town Entrepreneurial Competition for 2012.Congratulations to the following teams.Track 1 -- Idea Stage1st place: Zoe-X 2nd place: Ching 3rd place: Home BugTrack 2 -- Growth Stage1st place: Snapplify 2nd place: Triggerfish 3rd place: Umuntu MediaEarlier today all ten finalists received a second round of coaching and delivered their final pitches in front of the judges, mentors and other finalists.The awards ceremony concludes CTEC 2012, but the three Growth stage winners will receive additional coaching ...

Memeburn was in the house for day one of the Cape Town Entrepreneurial Competition (CTEC), part of LaunchCapeTown, the event that brings together startups, entrepreneurs, and digital tastemakers.The morning started off with an opening address by Belinda Walker from the City of Cape Town. In her spirited talk, ten teams waiting to deliver their opening pitches listened intently as Walker stressed the the importance of entrepreneurship in job creation.She called Cape Town “a city of contrasts” and highlighted the 28% ...

Last night, at LaunchCapeTown's TechBash opening ceremony, the ten finalists for the Cape Town Entrepreneurial Competition (CTEC) were announced. LaunchCapeTown is a five day event that brings together startups, entrepreneurs, and digital tastemakers.Five finalists were announced for two groups. The "idea stage" group -- businesses that are not trading yet -- and the "growth stage" group -- businesses that have been trading for less than two years or that have been trading for more than two years, with a new ...

Pinterest has updated its terms and conditions as well as its privacy policy. So what? People change their terms and conditions all the time right? What’s so special about a few more lines of text at the bottom of page?Here’s the thing, Pinterest’s new policies lean a lot more toward Google’s motto of “Do no evil” than the internet giant's own recent privacy policy updates do.The social network says the changes were made to be “easier to understand and ...

“My name is Floris Kaayk I’m actually a filmmaker and animator. I’ve been working on an experiment about online media for 8 months...” Now that the Dutch artist Floris Kaayk, also known as Jarno Smeets, the man behind one of the most elaborate internet hoaxes of recent times has come clean, how do you feel?You’re a dreamer and for a moment Kaayk’s project inspired you, you defended it to the hilt. You’re disappointed.You’re a skeptic and you gasped as ...

I have learnt a great many things from movies. Every time I read a book, a comic or a graphic novel, I imagine what it would look like as a movie. The action packed sequences, emotional transitions and character development. I love seeing how a director's eye interprets the written word. Sometimes they win... sometimes they lose.I believe 2012 will cater for all geeks movie-wise. Hollywood is bringing its A game and tinseltown clearly has all you geeky movie fanatics ...

"Too many digital agencies are focused wholly on driving traffic to their clients’ sites without providing any insight into what to do with it," says Michèle Macnab, head of the Pay Per Click team at digital marketing agency World Wide Creative. We chatted a bit and she gave me five tips for managers wanting to oversee a profitable PPC campaign.Macnab has widespread experience, both in the United Kingdom and in South Africa, working on a large variety of Pay-per-click (PPC) ...

I’ve come to the conclusion that online privacy is pretty much dead. Remember the early days of the internet, where everyone used fake names or nicknames and didn't enter their real location because there were creepy people out there in cyberspace that you were supposed to hide from?Then along came Facebook, which wasn’t interested in your pseudonym: it wanted your real name and birthdate, please. Twitter defaults to public profiles and Google has now gone and shared pretty much everything ...