Vittorio Hernandez

Although the last Doomsday prediction that the world would end on Dec 21, 2012 was an epic failure, red-faced Mayans would not prevent other apocalyptic forecasters from prophesying end times.

Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and South China Sea Institute of Oceanology researchers blamed China's economic boom for the shrinkage by at least 80 per cent of coral reefs in the region over the past three decades.

Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) reactivated its plan to boost its production target of iron ore to 155 million tonnes a year due to improved prices of the commodity in global markets.

Mac and iPad uses their internal hard drives for both running and storing data. The best way to avoid piling up data inside these devices is by using an external hard drives and transfer them if not usually used. The internal hard drive, like any other smartphones or computers, records traces of programs, applications and other tasks and stores cache memory for faster access the next time a user accesses it.

Samsung has finally announced the upcoming update for the Samsung Galaxy Note N7000 with the Android Jellybean Premium Suite.

Apps are very important to any smartphones, and without it, the device appears like the old technology mobile phones sold before. Tablet computers have the same needs for new apps to maximise its use as well as make it an enjoyable experience for iPad owners.

Trent Martin, an Australian research analyst, was indicted on Wednesday in the U.S. over alleged insider trading linked to International Business Machines' (IBM) purchase of SPSS for $1.2 billion. SPSS is an analytics software company.

South Korean YouTube mega sensation Psy continues to be on a roll. After his Gangnam Style video hit officially exceeded one billion views on the video sharing site (latest count is 1,065,599,218 views), reports said that the dance that he popularised was among the new words in 2012 that made it to Collins Dictionary.

After two days of rest, investors cautiously returned to their computers to place trades. It was around four times quieter than a typical session, as expected. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) still rose by 0.3 per cent or 15.8 pts to 4661.4 making it the 11th session of gains in 13 trading days.

The Australian share market has resumed trade following the two day Christmas break on a subdued note. US markets closed in the red overnight as concerns over the looming "Fiscal Cliff" deadline again dominated, while weaker than expected holiday sales figures prompted selling in retail stocks.

Santori, the largest livestock importer in Indonesia is moving its operations to China. The move was prompted by Jakarta's restriction on live cattle importation following Canberra's own live export ban in 2011.

Users of iOS devices such as iPad and Mac are mostly joyful once they get their hands on these Apple-made gadgets. Most of the users who have switched from Windows or Android to iOS come to that realisation with a pleasant surprise from the new experience.

New Year 2013 will begin with a bang for all users of Android and iOS as they all wait for the upcoming new releases in May and March, respectively. Android will likely release the new version of its open-source OS platform called Key Lime Pie and iOS is rumored to have a new iPad device.

There are hundreds of thousands of apps available for the iPhone that are considered secure and very useful. Although awesome to download, some of these apps are for purchase with corresponding price tags.

Obviously, the world didn't end on Dec 21, 2012. After recovering from all the media frenzy the non-event generated, the question in many people's mind is what's next until the next cuckoo predicts another Doomsday and candles, shelters and miniature Noah's ark become bestsellers again?

As expected, Australian shoppers filled up shopping malls on Wednesday, Boxing Day, for reduced prices of items which saved buyers an estimated $600 million across the country.

Imitation is said to be the best form of flattery, and it certainly worked for several artists who made parodies of Psy's Gangnam Style MTV which had reached 1 billion views on YouTube on Dec 21. Based on latest YouTube data, here are the top five parodies of 2012's monster hit dance and MTV.

As Psy's Gangnam style hit one billion views over the Internet, it was not only young people who were seen hopping and swaying to the dance craze. Even politicians and other non-showbiz celebrities were spotted dancing Gangnam Style ala-Psy.

The Australian sharemarket continued on its strong run to improve for the 10th time in 12 sessions and is still trading around 18-month highs. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) edged higher by 0.2 per cent or 10.4 pts to 4645.6. All sectors managed to rise modestly, with the utilities the biggest improvers in percentage terms. The local market will be closed on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Australian share market is tracking higher in the early session, on a shortened day's trade ahead of the Christmas break. The ASX will close at 2.10pm AEDT this afternoon and will remain closed until Thursday, 27th December.

The Mayan Calendar may have renewed a cycle but its predicted date of doomsday has faded away. However, the future of Android lies ahead and the predictions about it apparently happening every day in this age of technology.

In 2011, Ice Cream Sandwich was on high demand by various users with flagship smartphones because of its cool features and performance improvements. Brand manufacturers are coping with demands for requests of updates up to the version 4.0.3.

Android is never going to stop on its onset revolution in the mobile OS platform battle. For 2012, Google released Android 4.1 and 4.2 Jellybean as their latest firmware version and next year, Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie will set foot before Jellybean could ever complete one cycle.

If in the run-up to Dec 21, media had a field day reporting the possible apocalyptic scenarios should the Mayan prediction come to pass, the failure of the forecast, in turn, is a field day for netizens to poke fun at the event in the form of jokes and memes. Just minutes after the clock struck 12 midnight, Facebook and Twitter started to show posts making light of the failed Doomsday prediction.

With the four overnight cash rate cuts made by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in 2012, Australian borrowers saved more than $21 billion in extra interest payments, data from Treasury said.

With the end-of-the-world scenario now over, Australians would likely be able to concentrate on the Christmas and New Year celebrations, which would mean a lot of food preparations. It also means a lot of wasted food. Throughout the year, Aussies waste $8 billion worth of food, said a study by Do Something!, released on Sunday. Based on an estimated volume of four million tonnes of food thrown away yearly, Do Something! founder John Dee reckoned the value of per capita wastage at $1,036.

With all the End-of-the-World parties that happened in different parts of the world on Dec 21, 2012, millions of partygoers surely suffered hangovers as a result of imbibing alcohol to celebrate being alive.

Despite the sun not flaring, planets not aligning and asteroids not hitting Earth, no mass suicides occurred on Friday as feared by national authorities. Credit goes to local and national leaders for taking steps to prevent the feared mass suicides.

The world prepared, but the Mayan prediction that the world would end on Dec 21, 2012 did not come to pass. With the global buzz that accompanied the run-up to the Doomsday, the date would definitely be added to the list of end-of-the-world predictions that fizzled out.