SpaceX reveals interplanetary rocket, spaceship

The South African arm of Microsoft recently held a Windows 10 Anniversary event to order to highlight the new update. While the software came packed with a range of changes and upgrade, the numbers behind it were far more interesting. The Anniversary update According to Anthony Doherty, the Windows and Surface Business Group Lead at Microsoft SA, the Windows Anniversary Update went through 28 pre-builds before its official launch. The Anniversary Update for Windows 10 Mobile had less of those, coming in at 20 pre-releases before its own launch. During the testing phase, Microsoft received over 5000 feature requests from standard home and in-depth...

In hopes to compete with YouTube and Instagram, Twitter will now share advertising revenue with those who upload videos to the service. This is part of the company's Amplify advertising programme. Before you get excited, this isn't to say that the company's now dishing out its earnings to its users, but rather advertising revenue garnered from videos that make an impact. For instance, if you were to upload a video to the company's platform, 70% of the advertising revenue accrued from said video will be returned to you. This model is only valid for US citizens for now, but it clearly...

Gene Wilder, perhaps most famous to Millennials as the face of the Condescending Wonka meme, has died age 83. Wilder, who succumbed to complications surrounding his struggle with Alzheimer's, starred in a slew of movies from 1967 through to 1991, which his most famous roles include Frankenstein in the 70s, and Willy Wonka in 1971's Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. His most recent appearance on screen was in season five of Will & Grace back in 2002. 'The suspense is terrible... I hope it'll last' - Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka Soon after news of Gene Wilder's passing broke last night South...

Update #4, 30 August, 10.55am: After the trending hashtags, the media coverage and social commentary, the Pretoria High School for Girls petition has garnered over 24 000 signatures. The school's governing body also issued a statement after meeting with Gauteng MEC of education, Panyaza Lesufi. "The School Governing Body has held a successful meeting with the MEC for Education in Gauteng, Mr Panyaza Lesufi, with regard to recent events," the statement reads. "He has called for calm and the resumption of normal teaching and learning at the school." "The School Governing Body will be working closely with the Gauteng Department of Education in...

Google Crowdsource is the company's latest app that harnesses the power of the people. It aims to leverage user input to test, and improve, various Google services. The app sneakily appeared on the Google Play Store this week without much fanfare, and allows users to effectively become unofficial Google employees. The app provides users with tasks, which includes image transcription, handwriting recognition, translations and validation of said translations, and Maps. Google Crowdsource is a new app that turns you into an unofficial employee These tasks last anything from five to ten minutes. This is not the first time that Google has ventured into...

The big blue social media giant is changing the way its Facebook Trending feature works. Again. And while that doesn't mean much to those who don't get their news from Facebook, it does signal the resurgence of the algorithm. What am I talking about? Well, Facebook is now using number-crunching computers to "scale Trending to cover more topics and make it available to more people globally over time". Previously, Facebook relied on human hand-pick trending articles and write descriptions for each. Speaking of those human hands, Facebook has fired between 15 to 18 staff members working on its Trending platform, according...

From X-Men Apocalypse to Suicide Squad to "Sad Man vs Super Sad Man", 2016's comic book movies have left a lot to be desired. That's the cry of John Oliver and much of Memeburn's staffers at least, but what can be done to inject some life into the dreary DC and Marvel cinematic universes? Perhaps feeling a tad bored this week, John Oliver took to Last Week Tonight's YouTube channel to unveil his intricate new plan to save comic book movies from their current rot. Johnny Strong, also known as John Olivier, is an unconventional fifth-grade super hero clad in a...

Although Game of Thrones and Last Week Tonight are two enormously popular TV shows, that isn't all HBO is known for. The American cable channel has been churning out some great watches recently, including Silicon Valley, and True Detective. But it's latest series, Westworld, might be its best yet. Starring the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Thandie Newton and Evan Rachel Wood, the series is based on a Michael Crichton novel of the same name. Most of the characters are inhabitants of a futuristic Western-themed amusement park, but they aren't exactly people living normal lives. As you can imagine, Anthony...

News moves at the speed of social media in today’s world, and that’s especially the case on the weekend. Take a look at the world news you might’ve missed this weekend through the 140-character lens of Twitter. Welcome to the Weekend News on Twitter (26 August – 28 August). South African pilot Michel Leusch was killed Saturday when he lost control of a stunt plane at a Chinese airshow. Durban born, Leusch was performing at the 1st Silk Road International General Aviation Convention in the city of Zhangye, in China's Gansu province. He was 33. South Africa pilot dead in plane crash...

NASA's Juno space craft has succeeded in making the first of 36 orbital flybys of Jupiter. The first flyby, which is also the closest Juno will come to Jupiter, took place on Saturday -- the probe passed by at an altitude of just 4200km. "Early post-flyby telemetry indicates that everything worked as planned and Juno is firing on all cylinders," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, according to the space agency. The flyby marked the first time that the probe had all its scientific instruments enabled. NASA's Juno is in an orbit nobody has ever been in before The probe's JunoCam also took...

Car hailing services Uber and Careem have temporarily suspended operations in Abu Dhabi, UAE after the country's police arrested around 50 drivers. According to UAE's The National, over 70 cars impounded this weekend, but no one quite understands why the drivers were arrested or cars impounded. "There’s a lot of confusion as to why they were arrested. We haven’t been able to see them or speak to them yet," an operations manager told The National. "One of our drivers was put in jail at the weekend and it’s happened with loads of drivers from other limousine companies as well." Uber and Careem drivers...

NASA's Juno space probe has only recently gone into orbit around Jupiter, but the space agency is preparing for a major milestone this weekend. The probe will make its closest scheduled pass of Jupiter at 5.51am PDT on Saturday (2.51pm SAST), being just 4200km above the gas giant. "There are 35 more close flybys of Jupiter scheduled during its prime mission (scheduled to end in February of 2018). The August 27 flyby will be the first time Juno will have its entire suite of science instruments activated and looking at the giant planet as the spacecraft zooms past," the space agency explained. This...

Welcome to Weekly Round Up, our podcast discussing the latest tech trends, innovation, and news from the last few days. This week, Hadlee Simons plays host and talks to Matthew Alexander and Andy Walker. The team discusses this week's Leslie Jones' website hack, the launch of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, as well as FNB's own ConeXis smartphone range. We also talk about a startup that's letting people order drinks on demand, Bottles, and we touch on the imminent release of the movie Sausage Party. What on earth is Sausage Party? What are we watching, reading, playing: Matt has given up on No...

We've already seen Instagram copy Snapchat by implementing Instagram Stories (a take on Snapchat Stories), while Line's developer released a Snapchat-like platform of its own. The next company to get on the ephemeral photo/video bandwagon? Well, it could be Apple... According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, the Cupertino company is working on a video sharing and editing application for its iOS devices. Bloomberg adds that the new app will let users record video clips and add drawings and filters to them -- sound familiar? From here, they can either be sent to contacts or to your timeline on existing social media platforms. Apple's Snapchat clone will...

WhatsApp has announced a change of terms of service that will allow it to share your personal information with Facebook. It's the first change in terms since it was bought by Facebook in 2014, and for one, it's a pretty big one. The app will now share information -- like your phone number -- with Facebook, allowing its parent company to better find your contacts on the social network, and allow brands and companies to contact you through the service's messaging system. WhatsApp gives an example of banks contacting you about "a potentially fraudulent transaction, or airlines sending a notification "about...