United Nations to launch its first space mission

Viral sensations Die Antwoord have dropped the latest video from their album Ten$ion. The video for "Baby's on Fire" swaps the gritty black and white scenes of "I Fink U Freeky" for the bright neon of white trash, working class suburbia. In the video, Ninja plays Yolandi's overprotective brother who is constantly outwitted by her collection of lovers. Oh and each of them has some insane skill in one form of vehicle or another. Looks like a return to classic Die Antwoord then. Die Antwoord shot to fame, at least in part, by using social media to...

Twitter's growing up. At least that seems to be the message coming from the social network as it announced changes to its design. For a start, the bubbled typeface and lower case "t" are being chucked out, because there's "no longer a need" for them. Twitter you cold, cruel bastard. Throwing innocent typefaces out onto the street like that. You should be ashamed. From now on, the social network will only be one "universally recognisable" symbol: that little blue bird. As Twitter says: "the bird is everywhere, constantly associated with Twitter the service, and Twitter the company". Clearly it's been...

Google Maps is cool, but it does have its limits, as anyone who's ever travelled anywhere even vaguely remote will tell you. Now the internet giant looks to make the Android version of its popular navigation tool available offline. Huzzah! Users will however be required to have a modicum of forethought and planning, as they'll need to download the map, to use offline later. If you want to do so, simply click on "My Places" tab and you'll be given the option to download an offline map. The feature has reportedly been available from Google Labs for some time...

Hey, remember playing Sim City as a kid? Chances are you were playing it on a computer that would now function better as a museum piece. Well the city building simulator is back and now you can play it on Facebook. According to the game's owner Electronic Arts, SimCity Social has no linear paths and cities evolve as a direct result of player-driven choice allowing for more creative freedom: As mayor, players will deal with unforeseen issues like fires, crime and pollution, and will make crucial decisions that will help them discover how their cities take shape. Social interactions...

Before you start reading this post take a moment and watch the beach scene from Chariots of Fire. If that doesn't get you in the Olympic spirit then nothing will. If you're all hyped up but afraid that you'll be missing out on the action because you're at work at all day, don't worry, YouTube's got your back. The video-sharing platform says that it will be broadcasting the Summer Games to 64 territories in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa on the International Olympic Committee (IOC)'s official YouTube channel. YouTube claims that the channel will offer fans in these countries...

If the headlines from a couple of months ago were anything to go by, Facebook commerce was as good as dead. Major US players were shuttering their storefronts and in the words of one commentator, "the entire ecosystem was painted a very ugly colour". Thing is, we probably shouldn't be so quick to hammer the last nail into Fcommerce's coffin. A number of the stores that failed said their people simply preferred shopping on their websites to their Facebook storefronts. According to the co-founder of customer experience specialist Consology, Kevin Meltzer that might be because some product offerings are...

We are at the dawn of a new online era, but you probably won't notice. Than again, that's sort of the point. Today marks the day that participating websites, Internet Service Providers (ISP), and network hardware manufacturers switch on IPv6 permanently in parallel with IPv4. Say what now? Well, here's the thing, in order to connect to the internet, each device has to have an IP address -- a numerical label which identifies every computer, phone, tablet, ebook reader, etc. IP addresses allow machines to find and communicate with each other online–without them you couldn't check your email, visit...

China's online video advertising market is now worth US$330-million, up nearly 25% from the last few months of 2011. More impressively, it represents 218% year-on-year growth. According to Chinese online research company Analysys International, the sudden spike came in the wake of slow growth in the latter parts of 2011. The company says that ad revenue grew spiked after the "Spring Festival", more familiar to Westerners as Chinese New Year. It also says that websites are finding new ways of creating ad revenue with online video. One example of this innovation is the...

Microsoft is set to give a select group of early stage startups free access to its cloud offering. Under the initiative, which is part of its global BizSpark Plus accelerator programme, the software giant says it will be giving away US$60 000 of free software to South African startups over 10 years. According to Clifford de Wit, developer and platform lead at Microsoft SA, the initiative is aimed at building a vibrant local software development community in South Africa: “We really want to give small software developers the incentive they need to not only develop local software, but also...

Looks like the acquisitions team at Google has been given free reign over the company cheque book. Just one day after the internet giant bought out social and sharing outfit Meebo, it announced the acquisition of Quickoffice. In an official press blog post, Google said that it was "happy to announce" that we had acquired the "leader in office productivity solutions". It also made it pretty clear what its intentions for the company were: Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device. Quickoffice has an established track record of...

Over 100 000 apps have now been published on the Windows Phone store at a rate of 313 a day, with nearly 10 000 added in the last month. That's according to All About Windows Phone (AAWP) -- a site dedicated to well, everything Windows Phone. It should be noted however that those numbers come with a bit of a caveat. One hundred thousand plus apps might have been published, but just under 90 000 are currently available for download. According to AAWP, the 10 000 or so missing apps have either been removed by Microsoft or unpublished by their...