Google launched its smartphone Wallet service this week, adding long overdue impetus to the mobile payments movement. Teaser videos of George Costanza carrying an exploding, over laden wallet, landed on 16 September causing much speculation from industry analysts. Whilst some are quick to cite Google’s historical dominance in other tech areas as a reason Wallet will dominate, others are more sceptical.They point to a few telling issues surrounding the technology, saying it won't be the tour de force that ...

"We have technology that not even the wildest science fiction writers could have believed," said Adrian Gore, opening the Discovery Invest Leadership in South Africa yesterday.Al Gore's comment that the iPhone version is due for release next month generated headlines across the web, but the context of the summit contained some far bigger themes: notably the rise of technology and emerging markets.The environmental crusader and former US Vice-President (who is also on the board of Apple), joined economist Nouriel ...

SMS promotions work because they provide a one-on-one dialogue with customers. It is the most targeted and personalised means of communicating, yet also the most challenging, since it forces you to squeeze the core message of your campaign into a mere 160 characters.With SMS marketing campaigns you don’t have the luxury of leading up to anything; writing for mobile in this format means distilling down web copy even further than before. SMS demands that you get straight to the ...

Mobile phone manufacturers, operators and of course Google started a big push on Android into Africa this year.Samsung, HTC and Huawei are moving Android phones into the market. Some operators are seeing the signals and starting to subsidise Android handsets to get them to a price point that is palatable by a larger number of buyers. Google continues to push for local content, works with developers, does g-[country] events and puts on contests.While the primary phones in Africa are ...

Twitter has bought Julpan, a startup specialising in sifting relevant or important data from blogs, tweets, rss feeds and other online social content.Julpan, just a year old, is the brain-child of Israeli-born computer scientist Ori Allon, best known for his work on the widely praised "Orion" search engine.The rights to Orion were bought by Google in 2006 and incorporated into the internet titan's own technology.As part of the deal, Allon worked at Google until leaving to start Julpan ...

A feature of Facebook's much-anticipated music-based service has been revealed thanks to a tweet from a high level employee.The social network has been tight-lipped about the product since it was announced and is due to officially launch it at its F8 conference, which kicks off on Thursday.It has been known for some time that the service is on its way, but exactly what it will do remains a mystery. This now deleted tweet is one the first insights ...

Despite months of Julian Assange trying to keep it off bookstore shelves, the Wikileaks founder's autobiography will hit stores on Thursday.Assange -- known for his passion for transparency and letting all be aired to the public -- decided he no longer wanted the book published. This despite already having taken an advance said to be worth hundreds of thousands pounds from Canongate publishers. Assange had worked with a ghost writer to pen the book.According to Canongate, it would have simply ...

Facebook's latest updates have caused some backlash from its users. Users of the social network have taken to the web to complain about its brand new updates, with users across the world expressing their feelings towards the "radical" new changes.The hastag "#newfacebook" is now being used by those on Twitter who wish to complain about the revamped user interface. In response to the theory that Facebook is changing too frequently, a user wrote:Others believe that the new "Ticker" too closely ...

Google has adopted an aggressive program of stuffing its search pages with paid listings as the financial quarter draws to a close -- a risky strategy as the US Senate holds hearings on its industry dominance.Google's search pages are being flooded with paid search listings from its AdWords advertising network in the final weeks of the Q3 financial quarter, possibly to boost revenues to meet, or exceed Wall Street analyst estimates.Aaron Wall, in a post on the web site SEOBook: ...

Until October, news regarding the release of updated or new iPhone models is going to fly thick and fast. Memeburn reported yesterday that 4 October would be the launch date for the iPhone 5.Today, Brian Blair, an analyst from Wedge Partners has said that when Apple holds its special event between 28 September and 5 October it will reveal new iDevices. Apparently, only one iPhone will be released and will be an upgraded model of the iPhone 4, rumoured ...