United Nations to launch its first space mission

Angry Birds made Rovio. The game, downloaded over a billion times, made it a household name. Now the Finnish game maker has launched what it hopes will be the next big thing in mobile gaming: Amazing Alex. The game, which is available to iOS and Android users takes gamers though 100 levels and requires them to use 35 interactive objects. Sound familiar? That's because it follows more or less the same well-worn formula that made Angry Birds such a wild success. There is however one big difference, Amazing Alex allows players to design and publish their own levels. ...

This is cool. It's a Scalextric model of British racing circuit Silverstone and you can move cars along it using just the power of a tweet. The initiative is support of Cape Speed, a student team from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), who will be competing in the Formula Student cup. The cup is Europe’s most established educational motorsport competition, and will see the team pit their formula built car against 110 teams from around the world. By sending out tweets with the hashtag #capespeed or liking the team's Facebook page, you can show your support the...

It's no secret that mobile is the medium for Africa -- millions use mobile-only social networks, young cellphone users are driving the growth of Twitter on the continent and mobile payment systems are major ecommerce players. Wondering why? It may have something to do with the fact that mobile penetration in Africa is currently around 65%, it's the second biggest mobile market in the world and smartphones are outselling traditional computers four to one. The Praekelt Foundation, a South African-based organisation which aims to use mobile to improve the lives of people living in poverty, has detailed the explosive...

The runaway success of early operator mobile money products in East Africa held out a future for mobile network operators (MNOs) eager to generate new revenue streams, beyond voice and data by boldly grabbing the public mind and private purses of previously low and UN-banked emerging market society. These services have become a much-referenced ‘gold standard’ of not only what mobile technology and financial services can achieve in emerging markets. Four years on, with over 200 mobile operator mobile money services around the world, how successful have these services been? Research by the Mobile Money Unit of the GSM association (GSMA...

About two years ago a friend of mine died. He was a kind, genial and fun-loving man, and his death at a too young age came as a shock to his vast circle of friends and family. I remember the first time I accidentally came across his Facebook profile after his death: his profile photo was still the same, and for a moment it felt like he was still alive. His wall was being used by many of his friends to express their grief and loss. In fact, his wall was a testament to the suddenness of his death:...

Recently launched RunwaySale is a new and exciting flash-sale website that brings high-end designer labels to the consumer at hugely discounted prices -- all at the click of a button. Although this concept is already entrenched in the minds of European, American and Australian fashionistas, the idea is relatively new to the South African market and RunwaySale has hit the ground running, taking the South African public by well-dressed storm. We spoke to Elmien Smit and Karl Hammerschmidt about some of the challenges they're facing in the South African market: 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");

If you're rocking an iPhone or a smartphone running Android, you might notice something a little different about Twitter after your next update. The 140-character-or-less social network has rolled out a series of changes in the latest versions of its smartphone apps, including expanded tweets. Anyone using the web version of Twitter will be familiar with the fact that you can expand tweets, allowing you to view videos and photos, or get previews from selected sites. According to Twitter you can now, for instance, view a Kickstarter project's pitch video. The expanded view is only available to accounts run...

Look, this isn't the most surprising news on Earth. Google did promise that the iPad would get its own Google+ app at its recent I/O event. And now it's here. The internet giant claims that the iPad app was "designed with the device in mind". As opposed to, you know, a completely different device. It also says that "your stream styles content based on popularity, type and orientation" and adds that it comes with a couple of unique features. These include the ability to: Pinch and expand posts in your stream to add your comments Use two fingers to drag a...

The little social network that could is continuing to surprise the critics by climbing up the list of the top social media referrers -- it generated more referral traffic than Twitter back in March, and now it seems it's sending more social media users around the web than Google, Bing and StumbleUpon too. According to the latest stats from Shareaholic (via TechCrunch), Pinterest accounts for 1.19% of visits on its network of over 200 000 publishers. Ok, so all of the social media platforms (including the largest -- Facebook) have nowhere near as much power as Google search (organic...

The retirement of South African wicket keeper Mark Boucher from international cricket has resulted in a wave of tributes from Twitter users around the world. The player made the announcement shortly after it was revealed that emergency eye surgery would keep him out of the Proteas' upcoming English tour. His name quickly became a globally trending topic on Twitter: Most lamented the way Boucher was forced to walk away from the game: Terribly sad way for Mark Boucher's career to end. A great servant for South African cricket.— Jonathan Agnew (@Aggerscricket) July 10, 2012 So sad that Mark Boucher...