The recent launch of online money management system 22seven has raised a fair amount of controversy around allowing third-party applications to access user banking details. The innovative startup is the brainchild of Twenty20 founder Christo Davel, and is billed as an "intelligent money-saving tool" that plugs directly and securely into users' personal bank accounts and then delivers analysis on spending habits. It’s one of the sexiest start-ups to launch on the African continent, with VC from multiple investors. The ...

It’s the invite-only social network that has already attracted more than 10-million registered users. The virtual pin board has many technology writers lauding the site as the next big thing in social media and web design -- it even made Time’s list of 50 best websites in 2011. But who actually uses Pinterest, how is it used, and just how "social" is it exactly? What is Pinterest? Pinterest is a visual online pinboard, where the "pins" are images and videos collected from ...

You may believe tech creates jobs, you may believe it destroys jobs. Whatever the case, we know that in the tech world we are seeing entrepreneurial activity like never before. It’s not surprising that there is so much written about venture capital and startups in the tech world, and that there are so many incubators popping up Enter AngelHub. Launched in September of last year, AngelHub connects early stage investors with capital seekers. The funds, expertise and networks of its group ...

Think online privacy issues are restricted to iOS apps? Think again. An exposé in The Wall Street Journal suggests that Google and other advertisers have been tracking the browser habits of Safari users. According to the Journal, the companies "used special computer code that tricks Apple's Safari Web-browsing software into letting them monitor many users". This is reportedly in direct contravention of mechanisms built into the Apple web browser, which are meant to block this kind of tracking by default. ...

The most successful Kickstarter pledge is under way -- happening right now folks. And what a pledge it is -- the promise of an original adventure game, a fringe genre by today’s standards -- backed by you and me, the fans. Could this be a new direction for gaming publishing forever? Probably not, but it does send a message to big publishers -- that there are alternatives to getting funded and distributed, so what are you gonna do about it? And ...

User numbers reported by Facebook, Twitter, Google, and many other sites are closely watched. They reveal trends in adoption and they are one of the few public metrics available to analysts trying to assign value to companies preparing an initial public offering. But how accurate are these numbers? In some anecdotal cases, the number of users, active and actual, could be as small as one-third. And nearly one-half of user accounts could be fake or contain no user profiles. No user profiles means ...

If you’ve been checking out the OS X Mountain Lion developer preview, you might be craving that beautiful new desktop background. Instead of purple, Apple loosened up a bit and opted for a blue galaxy-themed backdrop to show off the 10.8 preview. If you like staring at a massive, predominantly blue, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants as much I do, download the high resolution -- 2.3MB -- image right now. Bandwidth courtesy of Cult of Mac. ...

Twitter adverts have, to date, been the preserve of established brands. And it’s been good for them. Now the social network will be making them available to small businesses. The social network claims that small business users will now be able to purchase ads through an automated system, much like Google’s. According to Twitter, "the system makes it simple for companies of any size to grow their businesses using our Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts products". According to the LA Times ...

The topic in the latest Apple patent war is the slide-to-unlock feature on some of Motorola Mobility’s Android devices. A Munich court ruled in favour of Apple, who patented the feature in 2010, and placed an injunction on the sale of Motorola devices with the technology in Germany. It’s unclear how long the court-ordered ban will last, as Motorola has already indicated it plans to appeal the judgement. The slide-to-unlock feature (which allows users to unlock their phone by swiping their ...

Chinese search giant Baidu wants to dominate the country's exploding mobile market in 2012. That’s according to CEO Robin Li, who was speaking during a fourth quarter earnings conference call. During the call, Li explained why the company needed to push its mobile monetary focus, an area he admitted it had neglected in the past: "We do think mobile will become a very important channel to distribute our products and that has increasingly become true over the past quarter. And ...