Europa: Hubble telescope spots ‘possible’ water plumes

Our entire planet now runs on an ad-supported model and it’s making me want to kill myself. It’s impossible to exist and not be subjected to advertising from companies trying to get you to buy the stuff they’re selling. There is no escape. Ever. Except death, and I’ll bet they’ll soon have ads inside coffins on the off-chance you wake up. Like drug addicts, humans have become addicted to free media -- from television and radio, to online news and social media platforms. While we rarely pay a cash price for the content, we always pay with attention. It’s called...

Social media in emerging markets is in a healthier place than ever. According to figures from Socialbakers, only two of the world's top five Facebook countries are developed. With the rise of Mexico, that number could soon be one. They're very much on the up in other words. South Africa is no different. Cheaper and faster internet access, along with a proliferation of internet-enabled mobile devices is driving people to platforms such as Facebook and Twitter faster than ever. In fact, the latest findings from tech research company World Wide Worx suggest that Facebook in...

According to a survey conducted amongst 560 people in May 2012, Emailvision reported that 50% of respondents placed a higher priority on improving their email marketing campaigns than building their social media communities. Better personalisation of emails was the highest priority for 58% of online marketers followed by 52% who considered an increased number of subscribers their main concern. Which begs the question, Where should people be investing their online marketing budget in the future? According to another survey conducted by a prominent professional services company among 717 South African businessmen in October 2011, 90% opted for a weekly email, 36%...

If you're reading Memeburn, chances are you get that social media is important. It's incredibly unlikely that you start talking about young people "always being on the Facebook" whenever it gets mentioned. You're probably also aware that the more successful a company is, the more likely it is to be using social media. But you could still be getting one vital aspect of it wrong. That one aspect is probably the most important too: it's the "social" part of social media. Most companies still don't get that social media is about collaboration rather than the technological functionality. According to...

After what can only be described as a tumultuous few years, Springbok rugby legend Joost van der Westhuizen has turned to Twitter to garner support for his new charitable foundation. In February 2009 his private life was bared open in a scandal involving affairs and drugs which translated into a very public break-up with singer-star Amor Vittone. In 2011 Joost was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (MND) which is incurable. In his fight against MND he has created a charitable foundation, the J9 Foundation. According to the foundation website, it was created “to allow people , companies and friends to support...

Remember how, back in the day (i.e. a few years ago), all you wanted was a smaller cellphone? 'Bricks' were not cool: the more anorexic and petite the phone, the better. Skip forward to 2012 and you have people drooling over giant phablets like the Samsung Galaxy Note and a fresh batch of statistics that show that more than a quarter of new smartphones sold in eight countries around the world have screens larger than 4.5 inches. Oh, and that most of them are running Android. According to a new report by telecoms researcher Kantar, the little green robot...

You most likely already have a LinkedIn profile, connected with a couple of people that you know, and joined a few groups - now what? Did you know that you can use LinkedIn as a source of leads for your business? LinkedIn is not the same as Facebook, Twitter or any of the other popular social media channels. Even though there are more than 175-million members on LinkedIn and two new members joining every second, many people are still unsure how to really use this professional network for lead generation. Like all the other social media channels, LinkedIn does require...

A taste of the world as we will know it, or a taste of the world we currently live in. TED talks are always innovative and refreshing. Here are 10 TED Talks that will make you think of the world a little differently. Ramesh Raskar: Imaging at a trillion frames per second A camera that can record at the speed of light? Who would have thought it possible? But here it is, a trillion frame a second femto camera. Watch as Ramesh Raskar displays the way this new technology shows how light actually behaves at its own speed and how it...

It looks like Chinese social networking giant Renren is about to shift its business model in a big way. The Facebook clone is now looking to take on the mobile and ecommerce spaces. It might seem like an odd move, but it could well make a lot of sense. According to The Wall Street Journal, Renren has been battling to compete with China's microblogs (known as weibos) from Tencent and Sina. It hasn't been doing particularly well when it comes to advertising either, largely because of a reluctance on the part of advertisers to spend on social networks. That's...

Presenting five of the best, and most recent, games for iPad. All titles are valid for a purchase on the US App store. Bastion -- US$4.99 Stop what you're doing and buy Bastion. We gave it a great review when it released on Xbox Live earlier this year and the far cheaper iOS version is just as good, if not better suited to the touch controls. It controls well, looks and plays like a dream and is almost a third of the price it was on Xbox Live Arcade. Think of Bastion as the love child between Zelda and a bucket...