History

This year has been a momentous one for the Facebook founder. Having been portrayed in an award-winning movie, satirized in a graphic novel and on SNL, in addition to being named Time's Person of the Year, he's entered a stratosphere most CEOs twice his age haven't been able to achieve. So it's no surprise, that President Obama might want to consider sitting down with the wunderkind to discuss tech innovation and potential job creation.

A Russian simulation of a manned mission to Mars has 'landed'.

In the year that led up to the production of the movie 'The Social Network,' it was reported widely that Zuckerberg was outraged that an unauthorized portrayal of his life was making its way to the big screen. However, if he was so inclined, defamation of character suits are difficult cases to win in a court of law. Unless 'malice' is shown as intent, most of these suits never succeed. Product placement on the other is another story entirely.

The Sahara Forest Project is a plan to produce fresh water, food and renewable energy in hot deserts. A demonstration center is being developed in Jordan.

The story behind the success of TERRA Chips is truly inspirational for any entrepreneur interested in bringing a new food product to market. 

Here’s their story…

As much as been written about Google lacking the social networking gene, it's ironic that one of Google's executives used social media as his weapon of choice in rallying demonstrators on the streets of Cairo. While Google's "Don't' Be Evil" stance on oppressive countries offered up their Speak2Tweet voice messaging service, their Middle East manager Wael Ghonim became so vocal on Twitter and Facebook that he was actually detained by Egyptian authorities for 12 days in captivity

IssueMap is an easy to use, free map making tool that allows you to map your data quickly and professionally.

Have you ever wondered what the Ancient Greek marble statue called the Venus de Milo would look like in her original, complete form? The creative types at the Japanese Internet forum 2channel decided to arm the iconic statue, literally, and the results may (or may not) surprise you.

With social media going dark in Egypt and with proposed legislature before the U.S. Congress to institute a similar "Kill Switch," is it any wonder that when Hosni Mubarak decided to turn off the Internet, that not only would 'all hell would break loose,' but that his country would incur a major economic hit.

Who needs to pay bloggers anymore, when semantic algorithms can accomplish the same task with quicker results and with more thorough research? As quickly as bloggers surfaced with the evolution of the Web 2.0, the semantic technology content of the emerging Web 3.0 era is beginning to emerge to take its place. Transforming minefields of data into high-quality editorial, at scale, and without human authoring or editing is ready to revolutionize the future of publishing.

Since founding her company, Sara Blakely has donated more than $10 million dollars, employs 100+ people, has been on Oprah, was featured in a reality show with Sir Richard Branson, and met former President Nelson Mandela!

How did Sara Blakely reach such success? The story goes like this…

Two years ago, the world wondered how a newly-elected president like Barack Obama could qualify and win the Nobel Peace Prize. Even the president questioned the honor. This year, that same president might also question why WikiLeaks is now a candidate for that same distinction. Moreover, in a year that couldn't get enough of Facebook, could that honor go to a dark horse, like the world's largest social network?

Ever since WikiLeaks came under global scrutiny, whistleblowing has taken a somewhat negative turn. Daniel Domscheit-Berg who had a falling out with its founder, Julian Assange believes its due to whistleblowers not having control over the secrets they want to spill. To remedy the situation, he and his team are building OpenLeaks, a new platform that will allow sources to choose specifically who they want to submit documents to anonymously.

Unfortunately the news coming out of Egypt is all too familiar to countries like the U.S. that have watched other totalitarian governments censor social media, particularly during country-wide protests. However, during the 2009 Iranian Election protests, citizens were still able to access their hand-held devices and connect to global social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. This is not the case in Egypt where mobile phone texting, Blackberry messaging and the Internet were silenced by the government.

When Mark Zuckerberg first launched his Open Graph API at the last Facebook F8 Conference in 2010, it was clear that a paradigm shift was set in motion- one that would revolutionize advertising - but more importantly one that would transform monetary transactions across the Web.  But could it possibly replace the dollar, euro or yuan?

More than fifty years after the current Australian flag was adopted, many prominent Australians, including a dozen former Australians of the Year, are saying its time for a new one - a flag that does not pay homage to Great Britain by including the Union Jack.  Here are some of the proposed designs....

With Facebook friends scaling past a quarter-million and a YouTube account that has attracted over 15,000 views since January 21, the Iranian TV show, Parazit is using social media channels to promote its answer to Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. Co-created by Iranian ex-pats Kambiz Hosseini and Saman Arbabi, the popular Voice of America's Persian-language program is produced in Washington, DC, where the founders can lampoon their parent country, without fear of reprisal.

Who releases a major privacy change to its social network on a Friday evening prior to a holiday weekend? Well, if you're the social network that has rebuffed privacy issues in the past, and believes that online privacy is no longer a "social media norm," I guess it's your world to dictate, and we are still the "dumb f*cks" you so aptly named some six years ago.

Hungry for some hot arcade game action? You're 30 years too late on the latter but Japan's Circle K Sunkus convenience stores have got a little something to satisfy the former.

Much has been written in an attempt to make some sense out of the shootings involving U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona and the subsequent deaths of her aid, a judge and four others. Suspected shooter Jared Lee Loughner's social media footprints are being examined for clues as to his motives. But perhaps we are following the wrong trail of evidence. Political extremists who are effective in radicalizing certain segments of society are also using social networks to rally support for their causes.