Satirical news publication The Onion gets a lot of laughs by crossing the line. Even some of the most devoted fans of the popular humour outlet, though, were recently left complaining that it may have gone too far.The Onion posted a cryptic update to its 3.1-million Twitter followers and 1.9-million Facebook fans:Following the posts, the Onion feed remained silent for 10 minutes. In this period, discussion was rife on both Facebook and Twitter as to whether the Onion was ...

The research team at the iHub put together some stats on mobile numbers in Kenya. A special nod to Leo Mutuku for gathering it all from so many sources, and to Patrick Munyi for creating this cool visualization of it.Explaining the infographic, they write:The arrival of the undersea fiber cables in Kenya in 2009 has revolutionized the technology and economic sectors. Kenya is one of very few countries in Africa with a comprehensive framework set up in this regard. ...

People all over the world are happiest in the morning, at least that’s what the results of one US study indicate. The results came via an analysis of hundreds of millions of messages on Twitter.The study was conducted by a team of sociologists from Cornell University who used language software to detect the presence of positive words in 509-million tweets from 2.4-million users in 84 different countries over a two-year period.According the study, mood peaks were detected early ...

Rumours that Blackberry was discontinuing its line of PlayBook tablets have been dismissed by Research in Motion (RIM). Research in Motion has assured its users that it remains committed to the production of the PlayBook.The rumours spread after analyst John Vhin stated that production on the tablets had halted.Vhin said, "We believe (RIM) has stopped production of its PlayBook and is actively considering exiting the tablet market. Additionally, our due diligence indicates that RIM has cancelled development of ...

A group of leading distillers in the US and Europe will adopt a new code of conduct aimed at limiting which websites they can market their products on.According to the guidelines, developed by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) and the European Forum for Responsible Drinking, distillers will have to limit marketing to websites in which “at least 71.6% of the audience is reasonably expected to of the legal purchase age”. In much of the US, ...

While dawdling along on the interwebs the other day, I stumbled upon a list of games released in September. And I have to say, even though I was aware of it on a subconscious level, it was really surprising to the see this list of top-tier titles coming out ahead of the Christmas crunch. Take a look at this list: Dead Island Resistance 3 Warhammer 40 000: Space Marine Driver: San Francisco Gears of War 3 FIFA 2012Though it was released in August, I am going ...

Last time around we covered everything from origami mouses to Tron-stlye duct tape races. This time we decided to give you some ideas on how you might harvest renewable energy on the table in your lounge or let your jeans break down road and industry pollutants. Or add a playful touch to gardening with a greenhouse made of Lego bricks. Step through the three-storey Timber Wave or melt away in a sculpted chair.Algae energyDesigners and scientists at Cambridge ...

Wikipedia is looking to tap into the rising popularity of Quick Response (QR) codes. The free encyclopaedia recently introduced QRPedia, a QR code creation service that lets users snap a picture of a QR code and be automatically directed to a linked mobile Wikipedia entry.The is possibly one of the most innovative ways QR codes have been used. The initiative allows users to create multilingual QR codes that link to Wikipedia articles.In a recent blog post the Wikimedia ...

China's online population, the largest in the world, has topped the half-billion mark, reports the state-run Xinhua news agency.The agency quoted Wang Chen, chief of the information office of China’s state council as saying that more than 15-million people had gone online since the release of the last figures were released in July.The continuing growth of China’s internet population and the rising use of online tools to criticise authorities has seen an increasing concern in Beijing about the ...

The massive growth in smartphones in emerging markets -- in South Africa the number has doubled in the past year -- has led to many suggesting that the market is close to "saturated".Take into account that there are between 50-million and 55-million active SIM cards in the country, and suddenly 8-million number doesn't look like such a big number any more. There are also well over 2-million “data-only” SIMs in South Africa, but you can easily assume that the majority ...