US authorities have shut down dozens of websites offering counterfeit goods and pirated music, five months after a crackdown on sites offering movie downloads.Cori Bassett, a spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, said ICE had "executed court ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names".The ICE spokesperson declined to provide further details, citing an "ongoing investigation," but Torrent Freak, a website about the popular BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, published a list ...

After the exhaustive stranglehold that comedian Trevor Noah and mobile operator Cell C have had on the South African media landscape, it appears that Nando's is ready to reclaim the attention it feels it rightly deserves.The South African peri-peri chicken giant's commercial features comedian Kagiso Lediga parodying Trevor Noah and his Customer Experience Officer (CEO) advertising campaign, and includes the line "I'm watching you Nandos. Like a chicken".The other CEO of Cell C, Lars Reichelt, is taking the ...

A Swedish appeals court Friday shortened the prison terms of two founders and a financier of Swedish filesharing site The Pirate Bay, but increased the damages to be paid to movie and music firms."The Appeals Court, like the district court, finds that The Pirate Bay service makes possibly illegal filesharing in a way that entails a punishable offense for those who run the service," the court said in its ruling.Three founders of the site Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij, both ...

It is often claimed that Cape Town’s Table Mountain contains a greater number of plant species than the entire British Isles. So what is it, exactly, that causes certain environments to flourish with biodiversity and rapid evolutionary specialisation, while others lag behind?Steven Johnson’s latest book, Where Good Ideas Come From, offers several theories. What’s more, it argues that the majority of technological innovations exhibit the same patterns that are successful in natural ecosystems.Traditionally, any discussion about what is “natural” in ...

Email marketing is one of the most powerful weapons in the online marketer's arsenal, provided it is used in a personalised and engaging manner that takes into account the ways that social networking has changed online interaction and communication over the past five years.Ironically, the rise of social networking sites and social media have caused email volumes to soar rather than decline. What's more, industry research shows that many internet users check their email before they do anything else ...

The Philippine senate has begun streaming sessions live on the internet, in keeping with President Benigno Aquino's pledge of government transparency, officials said.The online broadcasts, which began this week, are also part of the five month-old government's aggressive use of the internet and social networking media to engage the public and help it fight corruption.Senator Francis Pangilinan, who convinced the upper house of parliament to stream its proceedings online, said the webcasts would allow the public to monitor public hearings ...

Giant, monolithic corporations have never been ones for the “sharing is caring” motto. Sometimes they have valid reasons for being against the open source society we are headed towards, but most times they don’t. In fact, it normally comes together around a single issue: the bottom line.For years the powerhouses of the IT industry have been battling against the so-called "abuse" of their endeavours, but have we reached a turning point?Microsoft recently released their Kinect for the Xbox. The ...

Online clothes shopping has evolved from traditional mail-order catalogues plonked onto a website into a multi-billion dollar industry that gives anyone the chance to own the world’s top designers and brands – if they can afford it of course. Now Google has entered the fray with Boutiques.com, a concept that’s unlike any other, yet quintessentially Google.Back in 2001, Net-A-Porter.com broke the online shopping mould with its exclusive magazine-style site and unprecedented access to luxury clothing. Women simply ‘page’ through the ...

ZANews is one of the most innovative and ground-breaking media properties to have come out of South Africa for many years. The satirical, political puppet show is the brainchild of producer Thierry Cassuto and cartoonist Zapiro. After the show was denied a national TV platform by the SABC, the producers were forced to innovate and adapt to life on the web.ZANews latest satirical offerings features President Jacob Zuma as “Old Spin Guy”, spoofing the "Old Spice Guy" viral sensation, ...

British tycoon Richard Branson on Tuesday will unveil a digital magazine tailored for viewing on Apple's popular iPad tablet computers, according to press conference invitations.Word of Branson's plans to publish "Project" for delivery on iPads came shortly after Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch hinted that his News Corp. empire will soon publish a digital newspaper for the hot Apple gadgets.News Corp. has been tight-lipped about the project but the 79-year-old Murdoch acknowledged in an interview last week that "The Daily" ...