The future popularity of tablet computers was predicted more than ten years ago, but it took the genius of Apple to bring it to the mainstream. It's the same trend we’ve seen many times before: Apple makes a groundbreaking innovation and within a fairly short space of time it becomes the norm, as we are now seeing with the iPad and tablet computing – a trend which looks to be far more important than the "flash in the pan" of ...

If there was more proof needed that the internet is becoming more and more mobile, YouTube has announced that it is serving up more than 200-million videos daily to smartphones and other internet-linked mobile devices.News of the milestone came as the Google-owned video-sharing service began routing Vevo music videos from artists such as Lady Gaga and U2 onto smartphones powered by newer versions of Google-backed Android software."As the world goes mobile and more people watch videos on their smart phones, ...

Microsoft Windows Embedded Automotive is the infotainment OS of choice for today's powerhouse car manufacturers such as Ford, Kia, Fiat and Nissan. If you’ve never heard of Microsoft WEA before, it’s probably because each manufacturer brands the system under a different name. Ford calls it MyFord, Nissan has Connect , and Kia has UVO.You can think of WEA as the Android of the car world, with each manufacturer "skinning" the user interface using Silverlight, but essentially offering all the ...

Fifteen years ago two young computer science students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, hypothesised that there was a better way to find information on the web. After heavy research and various tests they built a search engine that literally changed the way people found information online -- Google.Ideas and inventions as profound as this can go unnoticed if people don’t have the right forum for their talents to be discovered. To help make budding scientists, in partnership with CERN, ...

The barriers of language are coming down, as Google focuses its considerable computing power on its mobile Android platform. On Wednesday, the California internet-giant began turning Android-powered smartphones into real-time interpreters with experimental software that lets the handsets translate conversations taking place in two different languages.An in-the-works version of "Conversation Mode" was made available for public testing as the California-based internet giant updated a text translation feature it added to Android smartphones a year ago."In conversation mode, simply press the ...

We are all familiar with the more common “green” lifestyle changes we can make to combat climate change and be environmentally friendly, thanks to the frequent calls to action from the media. Unfortunately, we are also familiar with the justifications for why these changes are not implemented – hectic schedules, the inconvenience of altering routines, the inability to break life-long habits.But there are several measures which can be easily integrated into your usual routine to negate or, at the ...

Google has taken a neutral approach to HTML5 video since it was first suggested, but now it seems like it has chosen a side -- its own. It has decided to remove the patent-encumbered H.264 codec from the Google Chrome browser, which now only supports its in-house developed WebM format.Google bought video codec company On2 Technologies in February 2010 in order to acquire the rights to what was the top performing video codec on the market at the time, VP8. ...

News Corp. and Apple are to unveil The Daily next week, a digital newspaper for the iPad, the tablet computer Rupert Murdoch hopes may emerge as the saviour of the struggling news industry.A source familiar with News Corp.'s plans said The Daily, which has been the object of months of top secret development at News Corp., will be introduced at an event in San Francisco on January 19.According to News Corp.-owned Dow Jones, Murdoch, News Corp.'s chairman and chief executive, ...

A German company is poised to launch software allowing users to have photos uploaded to websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Flickr erased automatically after a certain time, its head said Wednesday.The software should prevent the increasingly frequent occurrence of someone being refused a job or running into other embarrassing difficulties after posting a photo that maybe should have been kept private.Before the user posts the photo, he or she drags it into the programme which assigns it an electronic ...

FireID, a Stellenbosch-based startup specialising in mobile authentication, will probably be forced to close its doors or dramatically downscale after news that its main investor has pulled its funding.The main source of funding was via the Luxembourg-based Reinet Fund S.C.A., run by billionaire Johann Rupert, who invested in the company through Cape Town VC 4DiCapital. The company employs just under 40 people.Justin Stanford, who runs 4DiCapital, told Memeburn on Wednesday night that Reinet's refusal to renew the funding "came as ...