Author: Cyrus

UK’s Captive Media has today launched the world’s first urine powered video game. The game allows bar patrons in south London to compete for high scores every time they spend a penny. The gaming consoles are installed above urinals at the Exhibit bar in Balham. The two brains behind this idea is Gordon MacSween and Mark Melford, the owners Captive Media (a gamed development company). Speaking to thinq_, Gordon and Mark say that the idea was inspired by an “apocryphal story they’d heard about cleaning costs being reduced at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport after owners etched a tiny image of a fly…

Senator Joe Lieberman  is one funny man. I don’t know if he is a simple extremist or just plain stupid. The guy once called for the internet to have a “Kill Switch” where the US government can switch of the internet and disconnect the US economy from the WWW in case some rogue state decided to engage in cyber warfare. The senator is at it again. He has decided to write to Google asking that Google’s Blogger platform should have a “terrorist flagging button” feature. Senator Lieberman decided to make this recommendation because of  Jose Pimental who was suspected of…

Orange Money has reached the threshold of 3 million customers in the eight countries where it is now offered, thus becoming one of the most powerful electronic money services in Africa. Orange say that their Orange Money service “has tripled its customer base in the past year. The service recently launched in two other countries in Africa: in Botswana in partnership with the Standard Chartered Bank, and in Cameroon in partnership with the BICEC. The service which is exclusive to Orange network, allows mobile phone customers to open an Orange Money account whether or not they have a bank account. The…

Africa seems to be getting all the right attention from the ICT infrastructure developers. Another undersea fiber-optic cable is set to connect Africa with South America, North America and Europe. The WASACE cable will be one of the few cable systems to use the next-generation “100G” technology bringing in ten times the capacity of the previous systems. The cable is to be funded by a consortium including the international private equity firm VIP Must, the African Development Bank and a host of Brazilian and other investors. The project lead is WASACE Cable Company Worldwide Holding, a multinational development company represented…

Safaricom is set to announce the tender for a company which will build for it its own fiber network by early 2012. Safaricom has reached this decision as it grapples with problems of capacity as it controls a massive 95% of the Kenyan data market. Safaricom’s 3 year exclusive fiber capacity contract with Jamii Telecoms (JTL) – sister company to Kass FM- is expiring late 2012. Rumour has it that Safaricom tried more than 3 times to bed JTL without much success. Safaricom is reported to had been sending feelers to JTL that it was able to fork out Ksh…

Just as we initially thought, Moses Kemibaro is not leaving Dealfish a happy man. The guy is angry and in most instances now if you ask him anything to do with Dealfish, though he has not officially left, the guy will show you the middle finger. The incumbent Dealfish Regional Manager is set to leave the company for InMobi (which is also struggling) after having various disagreements with the Naspers senior managers over the whole Dealfish regional operations. First, lets face it. Moses was not that great manager who Dealfish could not do without. The guy was being paid US…

Original source of article YouTube is currently testing a new layout for their landing page that is rolling out in stages. If you are impatient and want to try it for yourself now, you are in luck as there is a way to force the new homepage should you happen to use Firefox or Chrome. To access the new layout, first navigate to YouTube.com using either Firefox or Chrome. Once there, you need to open your browser’s web console. Here’s how: In Firefox: press Ctrl + Shift + K In Chrome: press Ctrl + Shift + J Once you have opened the console, copy…

Opera is reporting that eleven new countries including Kenya and Egypt have each surpassed one million monthly Opera Mini users this year. So now there are 22 countries in total with more than one million active Opera Mini users each month. Kenya achieved the fete in June 2011, Egypt in March 2011 while SA achieved the fete in June 2009. Nigeria reached the one million monthly usage in January 2010. On its periodic State of the Mobile Web, Opera is also reporting that more than 140 million people used Opera Mini last month, with usage growing 83 percent in the last year. As of October 2011 OperaMini…

Kenya Data Networks Limited (KDN) and Soliton Telmec Limited (Soliton) have settled their disputes regarding outstanding accounts and verification of work done outside court. According to agreement, Soliton Telmec will withdraw the Winding-up petition filed against KDN in the High Court of Kenya. Both parties have also agreed to withdraw the various applications and appeals arising from the Petition. According to the new KDN CEO, Mr. Shahab Meshki, the dispute is now amicably resolved. Both parties are also looking to continue their mutual business relationship. “We sat down with the Soliton Management, and all disputes relating to payment and verification…

  It is time for consumer internet to rise. 2000 – 2010 was the decade of enterprise tech and cellphone providers (e.g Safaricom, Access Kenya, Craft Silicon and Seven Seas) 2010 – 2020 is the decade of the consumer internet. The time has come for websites and web apps which face the common mwananchi. Critical mass is approaching, and the competition for infrastructure means that pricing of phones and net subscriptions can only go down. I have a strong conviction that by 2020, there will be at least 4 leading consumer internet companies, the so-called ‘Big Four’ as it were.…

Black Friday is almost here. This is the day after Thanksgiving day when retailers open extremely early, as early as 4am, and offer promotional sales to kick-off the Christmas Holiday shopping season. It is exclusive to USA but with some smart minds, you can easily enjoy the deals from outside the USA. If you are outside the USA and specifically based in East Africa, try reading this guide to easily shopping and shipping from USA. After reading the above post, you can download these speciality apps which will make it easy for you to spot deals from all over USA.…

DSTV Mobile is expected to officially announce a BlackBerry mobile app for their Drifta device sometime today. But we have just realised that the DSTV Mobile Decoder app is already live for download on BlackBerry App world. Though still on beta, the app will work on the following BlackBerry phones. Bold 9000 Bold 9700 Curve 8520 Curve 8900 Curve 9300 The app can only be used with a Drifta dongle and you must be on a DVB-H coverage area. You might get bugs while using the app as it is the case with most Beta apps. But you will be…

It seems that this blog post really irked some wannabes when we did this blog post. A subject of this news item who Tech Mtaa contacted to talk to was very angry that he could not stomach even a greeting from me. I am ok with that. I am not in the business of looking for popularity from those who would rather hear no evil nor see any. But that is not the story for today. One of the said bloggers has been managing Dealfish regionally( Kenya, Uganda and the impending launch in Tanzania). I was on Wednesday alerted to…

South Africa’s Praekelt Foundation has been named the first South African winner of the Social Impact category of the 2011Mobile Marketing Awards for Innovation, Creativity and Leadership. The award announced at a ceremony in Los Angeles, USA, saw Praekelt Foundation honoured with the Global Award and EMEA Regional Award for its YoungAfricaLive project. YoungAfricaAlive project helps the youth tackle HIV-AIDS, sex and relationships challenges through social media. The project is hosted on Vodafone Live and available free to Vodacom users in South Africa “We’re really thrilled at the recognition given to YoungAfricaLive by this award,” said Praekelt Foundation’s Creative Director, Jonathan MacKay who was in LA to accept…

Paypal is teaming up with the world’s largest web payment solutions provider, Paypal, allowing Facebook friends to send each other real money using the “Send Money” application. Through the app, users will have the option to send money using an eCard or just a money without the card. While there are several ways to use Paypal to send payment via Facebook (like Payvment), “send money” is the first peer-to-peer payments system enabled for Facebook and PayPal. Since it is a peer-to-peer transaction, there will be no transaction fee International fees and payment limits which are regular in Paypal will apply though. “Sending…