Microsoft unveiled increased privacy options on Tuesday for the upcoming version of its popular Web browser Internet Explorer 9 including the ability to prevent tracking by third-party websites.The US software giant said that the new feature, "Tracking Protection," is designed to "help consumers be in control of potential online tracking as they move around the Web.""Tracking Protection is the new privacy feature in Internet Explorer 9 designed to help keep third-party websites from tracking your Web behavior," Microsoft said in ...

India's hunger for new technology is as sharp in its countless small villages as in its shiny office towers or shopping malls -- and businesses are waking up to an area of massive potential growth.Specific designs being aimed at Indian villagers include a mobile phone cash-transfer system, similar to that of the lauded M-Pesa mobile currency in Kenya. Other innovations targeted at India's rural communities include robust low-energy refrigerators and a clever twist on the humble kitchen stove.Household cook Shivnath ...

Philanthropic investment firm The Omidyar Network, owned by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, on Tuesday announced a US$825 000 injection into a South African mobile-focused technology company, the Praekelt Foundation.The cash injection was made in the name of supporting "pioneering use of mobile technology to drive positive social change".The Omidyar Network is an active investor and, to date, has committed more than US$383-million world-wide to for-profit companies and non-profit organisations. The investment is aimed at companies that "foster economic advancement ...

As with life, the only constant you can expect from Facebook is change. Starting from yesterday, the global social network will be rolling out a new design for its most important building block - the personal profile page.It’s a mark of the influence of the site that founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the new design on 60 Minutes, still one of the USA’s most respected current affairs shows. Then again, when you have an audience of nearly 600 million people, CBS’s ...

Guerilla advertising is one of my favourite mediums of all time. It all started with staged conversations and fights in cinemas (I can't quite remember the brands involved), then extended to flash mobs, sponsored treasure hunts and various other staged advertising.It was how we got interactive before the internet came along. And I miss it!There was quite a nifty viral-esque response from Nando's to Cell C's R160-million Trevor Noah-gate that hit the airwaves recently. And I bet it didn't ...

Smartphones will trump smart TVs, but will closed video ecologies overcome open systems? "Smartization" might be a new term in English, but it’s already well-entrenched in the Korean and Mandarin languages, judging by what I heard at a recent conference in Beijing.The occasion was the 8th Asian Media Forum, convened by the Communications University of China in Beijing, and it left this particular delegate with a less than smart feeling.South Korean experience was at the centre of attention, ...

It is a captivating story, isn’t it? Julian Assange, the face of WikiLeaks, is now an enemy of some of the most powerful people in the world. This Australian born ex-hacker, questionably accused of sex crimes, is now on the run from Interpol and hiding out in Europe. The recent leak has spread like wildfire over news sources, while its web origin is under constant DDOS attack, at least in part by a hacker known as “The Jester” (@Th3J35t3r). It’s ...

Popular blogging platform Tumblr on Monday was getting back on its feet after a database tumble that left it out of service for nearly 24 hours.The New York City-based startup apologised for the system crash that had it offline from late on Sunday until mid-day on Monday.Tumblr said in Twitter messages that it had a "major issue in one of its database clusters.""The recovering database cluster is online and healthy," Tumblr said Monday afternoon in a Twitter message. "We're incrementally ...

Google has opened its long-awaited electronic bookstore in what is being billed as a heavyweight entry into a booming market long dominated by Amazon.comGoogle eBookstore was being rolled out in the United States featuring the Mountain View, California-based company's massive library of digitised works online at books.google.com."We believe it will be the world's largest e-books library," said Google spokesperson Jeannie Hornung. "Including the free books, there are more than three million."Hundreds of thousands of digital books will be for sale ...

Google has unveiled its second branded smartphone, the "Nexus S", made by South Korea's Samsung.Google said the Nexus S, which comes nearly a year after the Nexus One, which was a critical success if not a huge commercial hit, is powered by the latest version of Google's Android mobile operating system, Gingerbread.Google vice president of engineering Andy Rubin said the Nexus S would be the first Android device to ship with the new version of the Android platform, used by ...