In yet another case of online security being breached, US computer security firm Symantec has said that Facebook accidentally left a door open for advertisers to access profiles, pictures, chat and other private data from the social network.The California based social-network said that there was no evidence anyone stepped through that door and swiped any information from the accounts of its more than 500 million members.Symantec discovered that certain Facebook applications leaked tokens that essentially act as "spare keys" ...

Beyond being something that constantly comes up on my Twitter feed, which I used to view as irritating, location based services (Foursquare in particular) were something to be forgotten and vaguely risky. However for both myself, and many others across the web, that opinion regarding these services is slowly changing.It is to be expected that, although Foursquare is the location service buzzword, Facebook Locations dwarfs it; or that privacy concerns are stalling the adoption of these services. However, beyond those ...

Private clouds built on the right foundations can help IT organisations meet their companies’ demands for more agile services – and allow them to carry forward current investments as they adopt public cloud computing.That was one of the big takeaways from the first day of the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS), which is being held in Johannesburg for the first time this week. The event, which drew some 400 IT professionals from South African businesses and other technology companies like Intel, ...

Herman Chinery-Hesse, commonly known as "The Bill Gates of Africa", is to speak at the upcoming Tech4Africa conference in Johannesburg later this year. He will join a world-class line-up of international and African technologists that will present at the conference in October 2011.The conference will features speakers from leading international tech companies that include Amazon, Mozilla, SimpleGeo, Clearleft and a number of African speakers from SOFTtribe, SwiftRiver, the African Institution of Technology, Motribe, and Ultinet Systems.The two-day conference runs ...

With very little fanfare, the office of the South African Presidency, in a fitting move -- not via a press-conference or a press release but via a tweet - announced that Jacob Zuma had joined Twitter. His first, and at the time of writing, only tweet was:His "lack of activity" since then has not slowed his rapidly growing follower count however - after being live for just four hours, his follower count stood at close on 4000.Presidential spokesperson, Zizi Kodwa ...

LinkedIn announced on Monday that it plans to offer 7.84 million shares priced at between $32 and $35, as it becomes the first landmark US social network to go public.The California-based social network for professionals is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange within the next month and will use the symbol "LNKD."LinkedIn, which has more than 100 million members in over 200 countries and territories, is seeking to raise as much as $274.4 million from the ...

A week has barely passed since news broke that internet telephony company Skype was potentially up for sale. Today those rumours were bolstered with the news that Microsoft is vying for the keys to the Skype offices.The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft, the oldest of all the tech giants is planning to buy Skype for a staggering US$7 to US$8 billion.The Wall Street Journal states – but cautions against believing - and other reports confirm that not only is ...

Food and wine bloggers are springing up almost every day. To ensure that your blog doesn’t get lost in the crowd of daily posts on Twitter and Facebook, here are some social networks that allow you to share recipes and tips, meet new people and generate traffic to your blog.The key to using these social networks is to become a real user, avoid spamming by providing links to quality, relevant sites (including your occasional blog post). Make the effort ...

In a bid to woo viewers away from television and bolster their already booming Internet service Netflix, YouTube is beefing up its roster of movies for "rent" online in the United States."You're spending just 15 minutes a day on YouTube, and spending five hours a day watching TV", YouTube head Salar Kamangar said. "As the lines between online and offline continue to blur, we think that's going to change", he continued.In addition to expanding its online movie roster, YouTube is ...

One of the biggest jibes from those who scoff at social-networking is the inherent narcissism within it. It may seem unfair but no user can truly deny that there isn't a grain of truth to it. In that vein, with millions of people trying to carve out their niche and make a splash, dust-ups and controversies are a dime a dozen on social-networks.However, it’s somewhat surprising when those outside of social-networks are dragged in, or rather, join into those ruckuses, ...