Weekly Round Up Podcast #79: Blackberry, Motorola, Ventureburn’s Pitching Den & Twitter

I am of the opinion that Samsung and Apple should hug it out and it seems the judge presiding over the case agrees. It's a bit of a tiresome dance really, Apple is claiming that Samsung copied its mobile products (specifically the iPhone and iPad) and Samsung is countering with the defense that it didn't. According to a Reuters report U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh told the two companies to talk about a settlement over the phone "at least once" this weekend, before the case reaches the jury next week. "It's time for peace," said the judge during...

If you're the kind of person who spends their nights out at restaurants taking finding the perfect filter for your food photos, the new version of Instagram will have you jumping out of your skinny jeans with excitement. You see Instagram 3.0 allows you to display all your geotagged photos on a map. So you can now let people know exactly where you ate the Malaysian-style scallops on a bed of Hawaiian sea grass, or where you saw that cute piece of park bench graffiti. Of course, if you'd rather not gift people a the kind of surveillance...

This may be the most ridiculously geektastic thing we've ever seen. The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman is raising funds to save a historic landmark used by history's greatest geek Nikola Tesla. Wardencliffe Tower -- built in Long Island, New York -- was intended an early wireless transmission tower designed by Tesla and intended for commercial trans-Atlantic wireless telephony, broadcasting, and to demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wires. Yep that's right uninitiated Tesla fans, the man wanted to wirelessly transmit power nearly a century ago. Unfortunately when funding for the project ran dry in 1917, the tower was knocked...

With mobile and internet access increasing dramatically over the past decade, most prominently in Africa and other emerging markets, it is without a doubt an after effect of engineers and entrepreneurs to adapt to their potential markets. The digital divide that exists in developing countries, together with weak educational systems, is what the future of these countries rests on. In recent years though initiatives focusing on producing cheap tablet computers and providing learning platforms have been risen up with at least four such interesting and inspiring releases in Africa. Read more on Gearburn. var vglnk={key:"cc324b6567a9637aa0ff15bc9564b2a5"};!function(e,a){var t=e.createElement(a);t.type="text/javascript",t.async=!0,t.src="//cdn.viglink.com/api/vglnk.js";var n=e.getElementsByTagName(a);n.parentNode.insertBefore(t,n)}(document,"script");

It's no secret that Chinese social media superpower Tencent sees gaming as a big part of its future. So it shouldn't be all that surprising that it was willing to spend US$27-million for a 49% stake in Singapore gaming company Level Up. According to TechNode, the deal was confirmed in Tencent's semi-annual report, after first being penned back in January. The acquisition adds to the company's arsenal of gaming properties, which includes a minority stake in Epic Games, the studio behind titles including Gears of War and Infinity Blade, for instance. Its own mobile gaming platform Mobile QQ Game Hall...

Nowadays, everyone's trying to sell something, even if it’s only ourselves. That also means we all fall into that dirtiest of categories "marketer". Very few us have traditional training in the field though, so it pays to get all the help we can. Enter the fourth Integrated Marketing Communications Conference (IMC). The conference, set to take place on 15-16 October, will be headlined by international speaker Joshua-Michéle Ross of Fleishman Hillard Europe. The ad man currently runs the global digital account for Philips on behalf of OneVoice (a joint partnership between Ketchum Pleon and Fleishman Hillard) and is Director of...

Ouch. You do not want to be the person in charge of Reuters' online security right now. The renowned news agency's blogging platform has been hacked for the second time in two weeks. This time the hack saw a fake story about the Saudi foreign minister dying posted on the platform. Apparently on high alert after its 3 August attack, the agency pulled the post fairly soon after it went up. "Reuters did not report the false story and the post was immediately deleted. We are working to address the problem," Barb Burg, director of global communications at Reuters...

You many have noticed a fair few players trying to get in the mobile money game recently. There's a very good reason for that. The field is about to explode. According to tech analysis company Juniper Research, transactions made using mobile payment services are set to be worth US$1.3-trillion by 2017, growing nearly fourfold in the next five years. The research company reckons that these transactions -- which will account for 54% of the total value of mobile payments by 2017 -- have already been bolstered by stimuli such as the widespread rollout of NFC support infrastructure and the...