United Nations to launch its first space mission

Twitter's mobile presence just got a careful restyle to make it easier to spot important updates and trends in the endless stream of random tweets you probably see daily. The updates to the Android and iOS apps, as well as the mobi site, allow you to see all the information you're looking for in a single continuous stream. The social network said the update is designed to make it easier to find what's "important to you when you’re on the go". To this end, they've tweaked the search functionality so it displays a unified stream of relevant people, and links,...

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has a new project. Unlike the social network, or Blogger or Medium however, this one isn't an online tool meant to "revolutionise" the way we use the web. It's a film. The film, called Evermore, is part of Canon's Project Imaginat10n and used 10 user-generated photos to create the movie. Project Imaginat10n is organised by Canon and renowned Hollywood director Ron Howard. Members of the public submit their photos to the project site. After a judging panel selects the finalists, Ron Howard and and the public determine the 91 winners. From there celebrity directors choose...

It seems Marissa Mayer just can't leave her Googler days behind her. The company announced this week that it is teaming up with Google to bring contextual advertising to its millions of users. According to the blog post by Yahoo! the agreement isn't exclusive and allows the company to partner with other ad networks. "We’re excited to announce that we recently signed a global, non-exclusive agreement with Google to display ads on various Yahoo! properties and certain co-branded sites using Google’s AdSense for Content and Google’s AdMob services." According to Yahoo!, users will not see any noticeable differences in how or...

Google's advertising arm is beefing up its Adwords service to optimise for all screens. The company has announced that it will be rolling out "enhanced campaigns". According to the internet advertising heavyweight, this is the "first step to help you more simply and smartly manage your ad campaigns in today’s multi-device world." Google spokesperson Guillaume Bacuvier says that the company understands the importance of multiple devices and how they have proliferated our world. This new AdWords update, he says, will help advertisers track and measure their campaigns better. Bacuvier explains that smartphones and tablet devices present something of a challenge...

Controversial domain company GoDaddy is at it again. Its recent Super Bowl commercial with super model Bar Rafaeli kissing "nerd" Jesse Heiman seems to have banked the company some serious change. The ad, which raised some eyebrows over its stereotypical depictions of nerddom, turned out to be the right strategy as GoDaddy managed to break its current sales record. According Mashable, the company experienced its biggest ever sales day after the ad flighted. GoDaddy reports that: Hosting sales jumped 45%. Dot-com domain sales rose 40%. New mobile customers increased by 35%. The company added 10 000 customers in total. GoDaddy’s campaign slogan is “smart...

A recent UN conference held in Dubai has ratified efforts by certain players against an open and free internet. According to Bloomberg, a joint hearing by three US House committees discussed the conference and accompanying treaty yesterday. There Robert McDowell, member of the US Federal Communications, stated that “the internet is quite simply under assault”. He is quite right. Eighty-nine countries have signed the pact, according to a House Energy and Commerce Committee memorandum, led by none other than Russia and China. The treaty’s regulations were updated by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in a hope to get...

It's so nice to see once-bought companies branch out on their own. Personal online identity hosting service about.me has announced its independence from parent company AOL. About.me, which was launched in 2009, allows users to a simple platform from which to link multiple online identities by connecting webpages and social profiles such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus in a single page. The company sold to the internet and media juggernaut for US$1.3-million in 2010 four days after going public. It seems things are changing for the company. In an email to users, the service announced that it has...

A couple of episodes of Top Gear season 19 have already aired in the UK. But when the season's first episode airs in South Africa tonight, the BBC will be rewarding its fans for using Twitter during the show. More precisely, the "Beeb" -- in consultation with digital agency Retroviral -- will try to increase engagement by leveraging off the trend of IPP (in-programme pointers) hashtags. During each episode of the new series, a new question will appear and viewers will have the opportunity to answer using the hashtag #TopGearSA, on Twitter. After the series has concluded,...

I’m really not a fan of the phrase: “you have a problem in social media”. It’s a phrase the online industry uses to describe companies who are having a rough time in the social space and, while it’s superficially accurate, it’s entirely misleading in its simplicity. The phrase is misleading because it speaks to the social media outcome and not the business issue that caused the problem. This ascribes the blame to the wrong party and the ensuing remedies are then applied in the wrong areas. It’s not a new phenomenon, treating the symptom instead of the cause, yet...

PandoDaily's Hamish McKenzie recently attended a memorial for Aaron Swartz, the young activist who committed suicide while being prosecuted for downloading millions of academic papers. He writes: Berin Szoka, the president of the group TechFreedom, offered some words that were uncomfortable for some. Speaking of the Internet activist’s alleged crime of downloading millions of academic articles, Szoka stepped out of the night’s orthodoxy of holding Swartz up as a hero. “I cannot condone what Aaron did,” Szoka started, about to launch into an argument about how Internet freedom should not be a partisan issue. He was cut off before he could go...

When you are pitching to a venture capitalist or angel investor, it's like venturing into a dragon's lair and attempting to convince the fire-breathing monster to give you one of its golden eggs. It's a no-nonsense matter and one bad move could end your entrepreneurial ambitions. Startups often think that once they have an idea, chances are it is rock star worthy and any self-respecting VC will be bonkers not to fork over piles of money to back their venture. Not so. Yes, some people get lucky, most need to work really hard at it. Read more on Ventureburn....

If you were one of the procrastinators Chrome users who enjoyed playing with virtual Lego pieces in your browser, you'll appreciate Google's latest experiment. Built in partnership with Disney and production company Unit 9 ahead of the release of Oz: The Great and Powerful, the Find your way to Oz site uses the browser's abilities to transport you into the world of green witches and munchkins. Stage by stage, you can use your mouse to navigate through a circus ground and carnival tent and ultimately steer a hot air balloon through a dark and twisty tornado. If you make...

Part of being an employee means that you're expected to show up on time, dress neatly and use your skills and abilities to make a meaningful contribution to the company that pays your salary, which in turn, allows you to lead the life that you do everyday and not end up on the street. To increase the quality of that life (and your distance from the street), you need to constantly be learning, developing efficiencies that allow you to do more in less time, so that you can take on more responsibility and get paid more by your employer....

Twitter's recently released video-sharing app Vine now comes with a 17+ age restriction. It's a bit like the internet in microcosm really. You build an amazing tool that can be used for news-gathering and all sorts of other cool things and people use it for porn. The new setting forces you to confirm that you're older than 17 to install the app, and comes as part of an update which also included minor bug fixes and the ability to share to Facebook and Twitter after a video has been posted. Prior to the update, Vine was available to users older...

You know a social network is really kicking ass when its valuation is in the region of billions. Pinterest, the online scrapbooking social network, seems to be ready to raise some more money after three years of service, that will raise its value significantly. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the company is getting serious about revenue and is looking for potential advertising systems. "A lot of last year was keeping up with growth the big change with touch-screen devices," said founder and CEO Ben Silbermann to the Journal. This year, "we're building foundations to monetize." Launched in 2010,...