The 65th annual Cannes Film Festival has officially kicked off with a glamorous red carpet ceremony on Wednesday featuring a bevy of starlets, including Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton and other stars. Thousands of journalists and movie executives are in the glamorous Riviera resort for nearly two weeks of hectic daily screenings, red carpets, parties and dealmaking.

Businesses across Europe expect their use of social network technology to boost their ability to collaborate, innovate and hire the smartest people, according to a Google survey. But the flagging economic performance of the most enthusiastic social-network-using nations suggests these expectations may go unmet.

Syria is losing the "information war" against the West, President Bashar al-Assad has admitted, as violence continued across the country. "They outplayed us... at the very beginning of the crisis - invented stories," he told a Russian TV channel.

Sustainability, social media strategies and cosmetics regulations are just some of the topics on the agenda at the 2012 InnoCos Europe summit that will feature presentations from companies including Avon, Sephora, Procter & Gamble and Chanel.

AppsMarketing.mobi announced that Mor Kugelmann has been appointed Vice President of Marketing in their new offices in Switzerland. In her previous role as Marketing Director of 3D location-based mobile service, Kugelmann was responsible for app publishing and distribution online shops and Cellular Network Operators' shops in the US and Europe. Kugelmann was also the key driver in all the company's press coverage including features in CNET, Yahoo! News, GEOConnexion, GPS World, Directions Magazine, GIS User, PC District and many more.

The "slumber party" the former prime minister's wife Sarah Brown hosted for guests including Wendi Deng and Rebekah Brooks was "completely bonkers", Sky News political editor Adam Boulon told the Leveson inquiry. Boulton said he was also surprised to see a succession of prime ministers and opposition leaders turn up at the News Corporation annual summer party. News Corp owns 39.1% of Sky News parent company BSkyB.

BBC Worldwide is extending its relationship with social, online TV site Viki. Through its BBC Advertising arm, the BBC will be pooling together ad inventory from its own BBC Worldwide operations with that of Viki, which is accessed in over 200 countries and offers TV shows, movies and other premium content in over 150 languages - with those translations powered by its user base. The deal will mean that BBC can add further scale to its own advertising operations to target a class of larger advertisers looking to reach that international audience on a wide scale.

The Australian advertising market is predicted to contract this year after media agency MagnaGlobal revised its figures downward based on first quarter trends. The market intelligence and research division of Media Brands predicts spending on traditional media will continue to contract, with the internet the only media posting any significant growth. Overall, MagnaGlobal predicts spending will contract by 1.3%. Magazines are expected to be the hardest hit sector, down by 10.5% compared to initial forecasts of a contraction of just 3.5%. Newspapers are expected to see a slip in advertising of 9.5%. Internet advertising was expected to lift by 19.5%, …

Russell Buckely, who many see as the 'godfather of mobile' gave a rapid fire round up of key technologies he believes will disappear as mobile technology counties it's exponential growth. Buckley, who is a former global chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association, and chief marketing officer at Eagle Eye Solutions, gave a list to an Admonsters OPS conference. He said QR codes are an intermediate technology, which will be rendered redundant by face recognition type technology.

Hungary's proposed amendments to its controversial media law are a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done, the chief of the Council of Europe said on Tuesday. "It definitely goes in the right direction, so we welcome that very much even if there is still some work to do," said Thorbjorn Jagland, the secretary general of the pan-European body.