Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says that all the "interesting applications" of the future are going to be a combination of social, local and mobile. "All the best engineering is going into mobile apps," he said at the LeWeb conference in Paris. The fundamentals of social, mobile and local have been a fundamental truth for human beings for years and we're now using technology, specifically internet-connected phones, to enhance that. The social part is what we do as human beings -- we speak ...

Facebook's partnership with Spotify alerted the world to the growing popularity of music streaming services. A new global wave is coming to this dynamic space. French music streaming service, Deezer, has challenged Spotify by announcing that its service will now be open to the world, with a 200-country launch. Deezer is a web‐based online music streaming service that gives users instant access to music without the hassle of downloading an app. Users are able to listen to music on their ...

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt threw down the gauntlet to the rest of the world, saying "Silicon Valley needs a competitor". "Competition is good. Get your act together," he said at the LeWeb 2011 conference in Paris. Schmidt said that Silicon Valley had shown the world a "model of innovation" and that there are a number of cities in the world that could be a tech hub to rival that in San Francisco. There are developing tech hubs in Paris, London, Berlin and ...

Here are six mobile apps that are making waves right now -- some are really well known and have been around for a while, others are brand new and hot. At the LeWeb conference in Paris, fast-becoming one of the hottest web tickets outside the US, we got a bit more insight into them: 1. Uber - your private driver Uber is the taxi of the future, all governed via slick iPhone and Android apps. It's a company that has received US$32-million ...

Online video-sharing titan YouTube has launched a dedicated localised site for Nigeria. The announcement comes just days after a similar launch in Uganda. According to YouTube, the new site will "promote content that is most relevant to Nigerians". "Content uploaded by Nigerian users will show up as “browse pages” on the YouTube Nigeria site, creating a new virtual space for the national community and giving Nigerians the opportunity to increase their exposure online,” it claims. One Nigerian channel already making waves ...

If there's one thing scamsters love, it's a new way to hawk their tawdry wares. While it’s not nearly as ancient and powerful as black magic and voodoo, the internet has a powerful juju. And Google AdWords. Welcome to online witchdocters. If you live in a developing country (and who knows, maybe even in some neighbourhoods in the developed world) you occasionally find flyers stuffed under your windscreen wipers offering the services of "traditional healers", witchdoctors and suchlike. They’re normally cheesy ...

Status updates are at the very heart of the Facebook experience. They’re how its 800-million strong community shares thoughts, emotions and ideas. Now the world’s largest social network has taken those updates and collated them into a list of top trending topics for 2011. According to an official blog post, Facebook calls the method it's used to collate the topics "Memology". It claims to take "the pulse of this global community by comparing this year's status updates to last ...

Google's vice president of engineering for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, Nelson Mattos, commands god-like respect among googlers. He is, after all, the man responsible for engineering and product development. Mattos, the brain behind analytics products such as Google Trends and Google Instant, believes that Africa is in a unique position to change the way we experience the web via mobile devices. This is why Google is paying particular attention to the continent. Mattos spoke to Memeburn about the ...

The internet is practically heaving with top-quality “webisodes”. As such, selecting the best from a seemingly infinite bunch could be something of a Herculean task. Luckily, we have done the hard work for you and mined the funniest, weirdest and most uplifting web episodes from across the digital highway. Ask a Ninja Ask a Ninja launched in 2005 with its first episode Ninja Mart-Store. Since its debut, the series has released 117 episodes. The star of the show -- the Ninja -- ...

A record low for RIM stock, drunken rowdiness aboard an Air Canada Flight, a disappointing update to RIM’s fiscal Q3 guidance, and yet, there's hope. It's just another typical week for RIM. Drama RIM announced during an update to its fiscal Q3 guidance, that it no longer expects to meet its full year adjusted diluted earnings per share target of $5.25-6.00. RIM shares have lost more than 70% of their value this fiscal year and ended on a record low of US$16 ...