While primarily advertised as a place where online adult entertainment could be safely hosted, the web’s answer to a red-light district -- the recently launched .xxx domain name -- is seeing a brisk trade, but not from adult entertainment companies. As the promo pitch for .xxx sites states, “perhaps you’d like to create an adult entertainment website”, however, it’s the remainder of that pitch statement, “or maybe you’re here to keep your brand from being registered as a .xxx by someone ...

Google has launched a brand new site chronicling the devastation of the earthquake and Tsunami that rocked Japan earlier this year, as seen through the lenses of its Streetview cars. The site, called "Memories for the Future", allows users to take a before and after virtual tour of some of the worst affected areas in the country. The internet giant claims that the project is part of its coming good on the promise "to digitally archive the areas of Northeastern ...

With endless shooters dominating the market, the more discerning gamer might want more from his game of the year nominees. Yes, 2011 was a great year for shooters, but what about those other pesky genres? Surely four hour campaigns and glossy graphics can’t be all that there is to this cruel gaming life? Luckily there is! And so on with our best non-shooters of 2011. Batman: Arkham City (PS3, XBOX 360, PC) Batman: Arkham Asylum was unlucky to lose out on game ...

The PlayStation Vita, Sony’s last-ditch attempt to wrangle in hand-held gamers who have migrated to the infinitely cheaper iOS and Android gaming market offers innovation via a smartphone-like UI. Hardware and software specifications have been rolling around the Internet, but until now, the Vita’s interface has not seen the light of day. Tellingly, the five-inch touchscreen navigates in a similar form to the Android OS. The display, crisp and lag-free, is built on gesture control, with a swipe navigating the animated ...

Experts from around the world will come together in January for ScaleConf, a conference aimed at addressing the "challenges and future of building and running online sites and services”. Conference organisers claim the event, taking place in Cape Town, South Africa, will “cover the culture and methodologies used to architect and develop the strong foundations that enable large-scale web companies to function smoothly, and smaller ones to grow gracefully”. It aims to do this with a speaker line-up that includes the ...

The release of WordPress 3.3, dubbed “Sonny” in honour of renowned Jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt, has generated so much online buzz that it has become a global trending topic on Twitter. According to the blogging platform’s founder Matt Mullenweg, "WordPress has had over 65-million downloads since version 3.0 was released". He claims that in the newest iteration, his organisation has "added significant polish around the new user experience, navigation, uploading, and imports". Among the new features which WordPress claims are ...

Love the Old Spice Guy? Love seeing things blow up? Well now there’s a site just for you. The site, devastatingexplosions.com, is part of Old Spice’s Manta Claus campaign, which sees Isaiah Mustafa gifting different groups of people. The "devastating explosions" site is intended as a gift for "all the people outnumbered by murderous predatory cats in their countries and also continents which start in a vowel". The website allows you to click on a large, ...

Share prices are the barometer of market sentiment about companies, but when investors complain that the market is being "unfair", one needs to look beneath the numbers. That’s one argument where in Research in Motion(RIM), Apple and Microsoft would agree. When the share price of RIM recently reached a new seven-year-low, dipping below $17 for the first time since 2004, it represented not only a massive 75% fall from its high for 2010, but also a 30% drop from the day ...

Mark Zuckerberg is everywhere: interviews on prime time US and foreign TV, features in leading newspapers and magazines -- it's one almighty PR push: Facebook is prepping for an IPO. The reason for the publicity blitz is that once Facebook files for an IPO, it enters a quiet period during which it can't make any public statements that could be construed as marketing the company's stock. But why now? That's also carefully managed. Facebook doesn't want to leave too much money on ...

Google recently launched its redesigned search app for the iPad. It features a smart, innovative design and could, with just a few extra features like bookmarks, easily become the best browser alternative to Safari on iOS. The reality, though, is that while Apple allows browser apps like the Dolphin Browser that use iOS’s built-in WebKit framework or Opera, which renders all the content on its own servers to get around Apple’s rules, none of these can be used as the ...