Cape Town’s dam levels drop as water consumption spikes

As the executive chairman of one of the biggest tech companies on the planet, Eric Schmidt seems well-placed to do some crystal ball gazing. So what does he think will be major trends in the future? Self-driving cars, Google Glass and mobile operating systems named after desserts? Not quite. In the run up to the launch of his new book 'The New Digital Age', co-authored by Google Ideas director Jared Cohen, the two Googlers gave CNN a few predictions about what would be big news in the world of tech for years to come. They stressed that the technology...

Jaron Lanier, an early internet pioneer, recently spoke with FT Business about the new digital economies, and why free information is not a good idea. Lanier says he was one of the first in advocating digitizing the music industry and he used to argue that free music would enable artists to make money from live shows and merchandising. He now says that this did not turn out well and that information should not be available for free because it doesn't create the basis for sustainable wealth creation. If people and governments, paid for information as they once used to pay, it...

Right around the time Omidyar Network released its Accelerating Entrepreneurship in Africa report, we had an opportunity to talk to Malik Fal, managing director of Omidyar Network Africa. Fal has a finger on the pulse of entrepreneurship in Africa. He leads Omidyar Network’s investment strategy and operations on the continent, and for the last 15 years has been involved with social entrepreneurship, business, and development, primarily in the African context. In this monster one hour interview Fal tells is why he is naturally skeptical about co-creation as a model for innovation in Africa, which country is most likely to become Africa's...

Apple's Q2 results contain something few would have thought likely a year ago: the company's first profit drop in a decade. Make no mistake, they're still solid results. The Cupertino-based giant posted US$9.5-billion profit on quarterly revenue of US$43.6-billion. Sure that's down on net profit of US$11.6-billion on US$39.2-billion a year ago, but most companies would still kill for that kind of money. It's flagship products are still growing too. The company sold 37.4-million iPhones in the quarter, compared to 35.1 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 19.5-million iPads during the quarter, compared to 11.8-million in...

I have always unlocked, rooted and tired out custom software on my devices. That all changed when I got my Nexus 4 though. This has had quite an effect on the apps I use, have installed and purchased in the past. Root enabled apps are no longer required and I’m undertaking a mini quest of sorts, to use only holo themed apps. Root Explorer has been my file manager of choice, basically since I can remember. But when I had no need for a root enabled file manager anymore, and its design had stayed the same for as long as...

The internet is awash with videos of cool gadgets and art projects made using Arduino. But what is Arduino, and how do you learn how to make things using it? Basically, an Arduino is a little computer you can program to do things with other pieces of hardware, like sensors, lights and motors. It can be used to build anything from quadcopters to a coffee pot that warms up when you tweet at it. Best of all, it’s completely open source, which has allowed a community of tinkerers, inventors and artists all over the world to build off of each...

Last week, FNB launched its new banking app for Android, iOS, Windows 8 and BlackBerry tablets. With its tablet and smartphone app, as well as its new dotFNB stores, FNB is now in the enviable position of launching itself as a "lifestyle banking" experience, if it wants to. The app is fairly unique in South Africa (according to FNB anyway), as it lets non-FNB customers create a banking account in “minutes”. FNB stated that it has over 450 000 active users of its smartphone app, yet 26% of those customers were accessing the app on tablets -- using the...

If you hadn't already realised that Elon Musk's Space X is going to be a major player in the future of space exploration, check this video out. It shows the company's Grasshopper rocket, which is capable of taking off and landing again. The reason that's important is because it means that at some point in the near future we'll have reusable rockets, presenting massive savings on current launches. The rocket has taken off before, although this video shows it more than tripling its previous best effort of 263 feet (about 80 metres). This time around Grasshopper managed to reach...

Google Street View is now live in 50 countries after taking the product live in Lesotho and Hungary today. That's not bad going for a product that started out in a handful of US cities back in 2007. Today it covers over five-million miles (just over eight-million kilometres) and includes photos of cities, great wildernesses, parks and mountain tops. According to Google, this is also the largest single update of Street View imagery it's ever pushed, including new and updated imagery for nearly 350 000 miles of roads across 14 countries. It's refreshed and expanded existing Street View coverage...

Blogging popped up in the late nineties, around the time free web publishing tools started becoming available to the general public (who remembers Geocities?). It was a way to post thoughts, ideas, knowledge, pictures…. Pretty much anything you wanted on the internet. The term 'blog' is broad and what a blog encompasses is rather broad as well. From photo journals, to online diaries to commentary pieces on superheroes and the existence of aliens -- if you want to find a thought or photo there is likely someone on the internet who has blogged about it. Towards the end of 2012,...

“Will anyone with information please come forward”. It's a refrain we always hear police echo in crime-dramas. People are too afraid to come forward though for lack of trust in the official authorities or fear of gangs. That's especially in poverty-stricken, gang-ridden areas. You can easily imagine the classic scene: New York cops at a ghetto crime scene with apartment residents hiding behind their curtains. Then again, we are constantly documenting massive amounts of potential evidence each time we post a photo via Instagram, a video via Vine or even a report by sending out an ‘eyewitness tweet.’ How...

Running your own business is hard work, especially when that business has been named Digital Agency of the Year six years running. Gloo, founded in 2005, is not what one would typically call a startup, as it's a service-based business rather than a product driven one. The company is one of the most successful advertising agencies in South Africa and was recognised as such last year when it was named overall "Ad Agency of the Year" by AdReview Awards. Read more on Ventureburn. var vglnk={key:"cc324b6567a9637aa0ff15bc9564b2a5"};!function(e,a){var t=e.createElement(a);t.type="text/javascript",t.async=!0,t.src="//cdn.viglink.com/api/vglnk.js";var n=e.getElementsByTagName(a);n.parentNode.insertBefore(t,n)}(document,"script");

If there are two things I love, it's games and stories. Luckily for me, these two aren’t that far apart. Most games feature narratives that admirably compete with my favourite books and movies. Most of the popular games (Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Silent Hill) have already been made into films, but here are ten games that actually deserve to be made into feature films. And has anyone noticed that most of the game-to-film abortions have been horror-focused? Why is Hollywood so intent on creating a spooky narrative from a non-linear narrative? Enjoy the list. Read more on Gearburn. var vglnk={key:"cc324b6567a9637aa0ff15bc9564b2a5"};!function(e,a){var t=e.createElement(a);t.type="text/javascript",t.async=!0,t.src="//cdn.viglink.com/api/vglnk.js";var...

It seems Psy is not quite finished with his quest to break YouTube. While anything that followed 'Gangnam Style' -- the first YouTube video to amass 1-billion views -- was bound to get some attention, the South Korean popstar's latest video for 'Gentleman' is racking up some records of its own. Analytics services have been speculating about the success of Psy's new video for a while, with some suggesting it holds a joint first place with footage of the Russian meteor landing for the title of 'fastest video to hit 100-million views on YouTube', hitting the milestone in just...

A hedge fund executive has revealed that his company owns a US$2-billion stake in Microsoft and that he reckons other investors don't appreciate the value of the tech giant's businesses. Speaking at an investor conference, ValueAct Capital Management LP founder Jeffrey W Ubben disclosed the stake and how much it was worth. While he did not reveal exactly how many shares his company has in Microsoft, their value suggests that it amounts to less than one percent of Microsoft's total shares outstanding. According to the Wall Street Journal, Ubben's disclosure helped push Microsoft stocks up 3.6% to US$30.83...