The people of South Africa recently united to watch a turning point in their country’s democratic history -- the passing of the Protection of Information Bill by Parliament -- perhaps the gravest offence the democracy has seen in all its seventeen years. Those of us opposing the bill dubbed it "Black Tuesday", wearing black in protest and encouraging others to join us in the hopes that the MPs would wake up to the fact that their duty was to vote ...

While accepting a Walkley Award for “Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism” on behalf Wikileaks, Julian Assange launched into a tirade aimed at Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gulliard. A somewhat dishevelled Assange, in a message recorded in the UK where he continues to fight extradition to Sweden where is wanted to face questioning regarding charges of sexual assault , accepted the award described as Australia’s version of the Pulitzer. He began the speech with the expected thank you for the award. That he ...

While most retail businesses this year are pushing to get a bigger slice of the online shopping spend, eBay Inc. has turned the tables on its more-traditional competitors by opening up physical "pop-up" stores in New York, San Francisco and London. Open for only five days (from 1 – 5 December) these stores will allow consumers to touch-and-feel products and purchase the product on the spot by using QR codes and scanning it in with their mobile phones. Traditional shoppers who are ...

Virtual Reality-only lifeforms will be a reality by 2025, the importance of self-driving vehicles will outweigh their novelty by 2019, and petabytes of storage will become standard by 2024. That’s according to a set of predictions collated by Michael Zappa and first posted on his site Envisioning Technology. Zappa backs up the predictions, released in the form of an infographic, saying: “Understanding where technology is heading is more than guesswork. Looking at emerging trends and research, one can ...

It's slinky, it's skinny, it'll fit in any room... and a wireless link for your rear surround speakers saves the spaghetti cable runs. Samsung's D6750 all-in-one is a Blu-ray player with a home theatre AV receiver and amplifier built in, feeding some high-tech, ultra-slim column speakers. One box convenience, even the latest and greatest in 3D technology, but with a lot of compromises when it comes to flexibility and audio quality. Gearburn takes a look in this video review. ...

Want to add the latest Batman game to your collection? Gearburn.com is there for you. Yep, we're giving away Arkham City for Xbox 360 to one lucky winner. Batman stalks the night and the streets of Gotham once more in the sequel to one of the best selling Xbox games of 2009. Batman: Arkham City is the free-roaming follow-up which hands you the reigns to the world's greatest detective. Fight Joker, Two Face, defeat Riddler's puzzles and battle Bane in this ...

In a widely condemned ruling, five activists from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been jailed for periods of up to three years on a number of charges including publicly insulting the country's rulers, and disrupting public order. Of the five, four of them (Nasser bin Ghaith, Fahad Salim Dalk, Hassan Ali al-Khamis and Ahmed Abdul Khaleq) were imprisoned for two years for criminal defamation. Ahmed Mansoor - the most prominent of the group according to news reports - was sentenced ...

Durex has issued a hasty apology over an offensive, misogynist tweet apparently sent out by their public relations company on Friday. The tweet, via the company's South African Twitter account @DurexSA, has caused an outcry amongst tweeters, bloggers and mainstream media. In what is a case study on how companies should not use social media to further their brand, the offensive tweet in question read: Facing a backlash, the Durex Twitter account then initially tried to defend itself in a rather poorly-worded tweet: ...

It's easy to imagine that some day, in the not too distant future, paper distribution of news will become obsolete. It seems that in most concept videos about consumer electronics in the future, a person is featured sitting at a kitchen table, coffee in hand, swiping through the morning's news on a transparent, flexible display. Prompted by the iPad revolution, I’m sure many people have already traded paper and ink, for glass and pixels to consume the news. About a year ...

We love to hate things. Taxi drivers, for example. Cellphone providers. But mostly we like to hate our banks. Bank hatred is a national sport, especially on a platform that lends itself to venting so well: Social media. So when a bank starts to come across as likeable, you pay attention. First National Bank (FNB) is one such bank, gaining considerable kudos for its social media policies. So, what is FNB doing right in social media -- and what can others ...