Microsoft has joined a small league of companies in a bid for Yahoo!. The software giant signed a non-disclosure agreement making a deal to review the internet pioneer's financial books, reports The New York Times.According to the report Microsoft has been collaborating with private investors to raise a multi-billion-dollar offer to purchase the internet firm that spurned its initial takeover bid in 2008. (Microsoft was publicly humiliated when Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang rejected a generous bid for the company at ...

China has overtaken the US to become the world’s largest smartphone market in terms of devices sold. That’s according to a report by research firm Strategy Analytics.Although China has overtaken the US when it comes to smartphone volumes, the latter still leads when it comes revenue.According to the research firm, shipments hit 24-million units in China during the third quarter of 2011, compared to 23-million in the US."China is now at the forefront of the worldwide mobile ...

It’s everything you want in a cheap point and shoot, and more. Remember every time you took a pic, and went, “Jeez, how awesome would it be to just beam it up to the Web or Facebook!” The Samsung SH100 does this via Wi-Fi – and there’s more! It also lets you use your smartphone as a remote viewer. How awesome is that? Not very, unfortunately. Only suckers and those who don’t read Gearburn reviews buy first generation technology.The SH100 ...

Groupon's fun time, it would seem, has come to an end. Following a 15% drop in the value of Groupon's stock price on the NASDAQ, its many detractors are enjoying the schadenfraude of having "called it". There are arguments, however, that this glee may be somewhat precipitous.The day Groupon's stocks finally went live, at US$20 per share, they soared to highs of US$31.14 per share. In the weeks following, the stock fell from those highs but remained at stable or ...

Aside from being one of the internet's best procrastination tools -- OMG! Look, it’s my house! -- Google Street View is also said to be a nifty tool for something or other. It has in no way been connected with any form of art however. Well, that is, until now. Award winning artist, Aaron Hobson, has shown the beauty that can be found in a series of Google StreetView images he calls “cinemascapes”.Hobson introduces the series in true artist ...

Powertime, a South African mobile and web-based prepaid electricity vendor, is in trouble. As users in the Western Cape may or may not know, they are no longer able to purchase electricity online. This issue lies not with Powertime, but with the government of the Western Cape, or more specifically, the municipalities.Powertime launched two years ago as a bright-eyed startup project, servicing most municipalities as well as the major electricity providers such as Eskom and City Power. Based in Cape ...

Samsung has taken a jab at the cult of Apple with the latest US TV ad for its top-of-the-range Galaxy SII smartphone.The South Korean tech giant's ad features long queues of devoted iPhone fans waiting outside stores across the continental US for the latest iteration of their beloved device.As they wait, we are repeatedly told that there are only "nine hours to go" until the stores open and they can get their hands on the new device. ...

Despite international and local outcry, the controversial "Protection of State Information Bill", more commonly referred to the "secrecy bill", has taken its first steps to becoming law. Opponents of the proposed law have promised to continue fighting it tooth and nail. That fight was, once again, taken online with the Wikipedia page of the African National Congress (ANC) having been "wikibombed".Wikibombing, as the Urban Dictionary defines it, is "The act of intentionally going on Wikipedia and putting false information ...

I was recently in London for the Tech City UK Entrepreneurs Festival, as part of Britain's Global Entrepreneurship Week with over 300 tech entrepreneurs from around the globe. The experience was educational, to say the least, and gave me some insight into what any initiative aimed at developing entrepreneurship in the tech sector should be doing.Throughout the course of the week long conference, it became evident that emerging market initiatives like Silicon Cape in South Africa and the ...

The face of the music industry was irrevocably altered when the digital age dawned, changing the way people obtained, listened to and interacted with music. In this precarious new world some artists chose not to simply accept the move to a more interactive digital presence -- but have truly immersed themselves in all the facets that digital technology offers them as creative beings. Whether that means hosting fun and thought-provoking online campaigns or even releasing an entire album as an ...