United Nations to launch its first space mission

You might recall that we weren't exactly enamored with Google's doodle on the opening day of the Olympic Games. It wasn't bad or anything, just really boring. Today's effort though is a very definite return to form. The doodle plays out as a fairly straightforward mini-game, with you as a hurdler. The controls are about as basic as you can get: Press the right and left arrow keys in rapid succession to run and space bar to jump. Once you've run the track, Google will give you a time that you can share on Google+, or just carry...

Most people know Mark Zuckerberg as founder of Facebook. A lot fewer people know that one of his first projects prior to Facebook was a service called FaceMash. A new generation of Chinese hackers though, are much more interested in copying it than the 955-million strong social network. The site crudely pitted photos of Harvard's female student populace against each other and, just occasionally, farm animals. In order to get at those photos, his hoodiedness had to hack into the university student database -- an important part of what would become Facebook. According to Chinese site TechRice...

When the Curiosity Rover landed on Mars earlier today, it represented humanity at its best. The mission, designed to see if Mars ever supported microbial life, pushes to the technological boundaries of what is possible. So naturally when Curiosity touched down on the planet's surface, anyone in the know celebrated. And then Twitter got involved. Sure most of the tweets were appropriately celebratory, but as is the case with most celebrations there were a few jokers in the pack. Some were a bit lame, but there were a good few pearlers out there. Memeburn picked out some some of...

The internet, and specifically the recent meteoric rise of social media platforms like Twitter, has irreversibly disrupted the status quo with regards to journalism. Gone are the days of desks cluttered with coffee-stained research material, the "man on the beat", "the old hack" with a byline you could trust to produce the goods. Or have they? Milo Yapiannopoulos raises some telling points in his article deriding the role social media has played in journalism, the major one being that the anticipation is gone. The fact that breaking news can be “broken” within five minutes thanks to Twitter means that newspapers...

TED (the Technology Entertainment and Design conference) has expanded its brand across the globe over the past two years, with hundreds of local TEDx conferences, and more recently, with its own books imprint, TED Books. TED organisers always choose their speakers well and there is rarely a dud among them. It is excellent curation under the aegis of "Ideas Worth Spreading." But choosing which authors to publish under the TED Books brand appears to be more challenging than booking a speaker for a 17 minute talk. Evgeny Morozov, writing in The New Republic, tears TED Books a new binding with his...

We decided to delve into the World Bank's Economy Rankings for 2012, released earlier this year, to see which sub-Saharan African countries have economies that are the most conducive to startup growth. We also identified some aspects of economies in Africa that make it really hard for entrepreneurs to prosper. First let's take a look at the countries in the region that have aspects that are likely to attract startups. Be sure to have a look at the full detailed report for complete rankings and methodology. Read more on Ventureburn.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");

When it comes to reviewing laptops I prefer to stay away because they’re basically all the same, with a few exceptions. So when it came time to replace my ageing Acer Aspire with Core i5, I had a long hard look at the options. I wanted Full HD display, the latest Quad Core processor, good graphics, Blu-ray and no plastic in sight. Then HP updated its Envy range and, since I work with these things, I had a few happy clients praising the notebook. So I jumped. 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");

Three now former employees of Chinese search giant Baidu have been arrested for accepting bribes to delete posts from the company's TieBa forum service. According to Global Times, the three are suspected of colluding with people outside the company to delete the posts. A fourth employee was also fired by Baidu but has not been arrested after also attempting to delete posts for cash. "Baidu has fired the four. If we discover such cases, we will severely punish staff. Baidu will close the loopholes by strengthening management to maintain order in our communication platform," Baidu spokesperson Li Guoxun...

The day has come. The masses who have switched from paper to an E Ink display are starting to influence Amazon's sales so significantly that the retail giant now sells more Kindle ebooks than 'real' printed books in the United Kingdom. According to The Guardian, the company has confirmed that it now sells more ebooks than paperback and hardcover books combined, just two years after launching in the UK. They hit the same landmark in the United States four years after the Kindle was introduced in the country. Amazon said that from the start of this year, for every...

Take a moment to reflect on what I'm about to tell you. Just 30 minutes after it landed, the Mars Curiosity Rover sent back its first images from the Martian surface. Thirty minutes? That's how long it takes some of us to eat our breakfast cereal in the morning. The NASA mission is designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes. The exploratory vehicle today landed inside the Gale Crater and was sending pictures back to Earth within minutes. The craft's first image from the Red Planet has already been...

Google's Glass Project made a spectacular debut last month by skydiving from a helicopter and joining the press on stage while documenting the whole event live with their ‘Google headsets’ (no official name has been given to the product.) It does make you wonder though; what would the hype have been without such a dare-devilish stunt? Instead of just dominating the digital realm, the Google Glass Project is one of Google’s next steps into entering the physical realm. Other examples of where Google has begun to make headway are with its new Google Nexus 7 tablet and, of course, its...

Sometimes we go about our daily business online, blissfully oblivious to the many services that make our lives easier. Services that make us realise that there are many aspects of our real lives that we don’t have similar innovations to help us with. Here are a few of the things that we take for granted online and that would really enrich our lives offline. Inventors of technology, I hope you’re reading this. We need all of the ideas below implemented as soon as possible. The world is depending on you. Make it happen! 1. Real Life Reputation Management Online Reputation Management...