Author: Cyrus

Apple has officially started selling the a factory unlocked version of the iPhone 4S on its Web site. In the offer, you can get the 16GB factory unlocked iPhone 4S at $649, 32GB at $749, and a 64GB iPhone 4S will cost you back $849. The factory unlocked iPhoen 4S aree available in both black and white versions and will ship within one to two weeks. These factory unlocked iPhone 4S will be only available for the GSM and not CDMA versions supported on GSM networks.

Note: This post originally appeared here, They will always be looking for the next hot thing. They won’t make a move until one of their friends tells them that they should. They don’t abide by the 3 day rule for getting back to you. If you aren’t meeting their standards, they will try to sell you off to one of their friends who is looking for someone with “just your set of skills.” They expect monthly state-of-the relationship updates. They expect you to pay for them when you go out for dinner. You’ll never really know why they dumped you,…

Airtel Kenya last night sent out a notice to its data clients that it would be ending the uncapped data offerings for 1, 7, 10 and 20 days as it improves on the 3G quality and prepares to launch it officially. This means that Airtel Kenya will only have 30 days unlimited data offering which costs around Ksh 3,250. Airtel Kenya’s data connection has recently been popular as it still maintained the uncapped data oferrings it had while still running the EDGE network. Airtel is expected to launch 3G network by December 2011 or January 2012 as competition on the…

Liberia’s leading converged telecoms company, Lonestar Cell MTN, last week welcomed the landing of the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine fiber optic cable in Liberia. This is the first sub-marine cable landing in Liberia with the SAT-3/WASC having bypassed the country since when it was being deployed, Liberia was deep into civil war. The Cable Consortium of Liberia (CCL) was formed in 2010 to control and own ACE cable system through a public-private partnership. Stakeholders in the ACE cable system project include the Government of Liberia (60%), Libtelco (20%), Lonestar Cell (10%), and Cellcom (10%). ACE cable landed in…

DSTV Mobile is set to launch its second major device in as many months. The 3.- inch capable of receiving DVB-H signals “Walka Handheld TV” will go on sale in South Africa on December 1st at R649 (Ksh 7,800). Subscriptions will cost R36 (Ksh 430) for 16 channels. The Walka handheld TV device was leaked on Kalahari.com but has since been taken offline.

Bharti Airtel today announced a contract with Ericsson to upgrade an initial batch of 250 diesel powered base stations in Nigeria with E-site, a new “green” energy solution. The ‘green’ mobile initiative will improve operations and minimize baase stations’ environmental impact. The E-site solution will enable Airtel harness solar energy to power mobile base stations across Nigeria. E-site has been developed and manufactured by Flexenclosure, a specialist provider of intelligent site power management solutions for off-grid base station sites. The solution has been tested by Airtel in Kenya for close to two years and has proven to substantially reduce diesel…

Listed regional telecom giant Safaricom has is set to launch one of the biggest mass market promotion in Kenya. The promo called Furahi na Safaricom (Enjoy with Safaricom) will see one user win Ksh 1 Million every weekday, 100 users win Ksh 10,000 every weekday and 1ooo subscribers win Ksh 100 airtime every weekday The promotion will be available to both pre-paid and post paid users with every top-up of Ksh 10 earning pre-pay user 1 entry while for every use of Ksh 10 earns a post-pay user 1 entry. For every top up of Ksh 10 through M-Pesa, subscribers will…

CCK has warned that around 26 broadcasters risk losing their licenses if they don’t apply for the new regime licenses in time. CCK Director General, Francis Wangusi, indicated that out of the 100 or so broadcasters, only 74 have managed to submit applications for the new licenses and so those who will not have applied by 15th November (4 days) risk losing the authority to operate radio of broadcast stations. These changes have come about as a result of the regulatory reforms that have created various broadcastingmarket segments.  Kenyan broadcasting sector has been segmented into five service areas; Public Broadcasting…

After the launch in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana, Google has launched its classified service, Trader in Nigeria. The service is a free classifieds platform which allows users to post all kinds of adverts from their PC or mobile browser. To use Google trader, you need to have a Google account. Google has been criticised for being a net-colonialist with many African techies seeing Google’s fray on the continent being seeing at geared towards dominating the while internet ecosystem. African governments have not put in place legislation to guard against monopolistic tendencies.

Safaricom has announced its half year financial result for 2011/2012. The company’s profit after taxation decreased by 47.4% to stand at 4.0 Billion from 7.6 Billion last year. Active subscriber base grew by 8% to stand at 18.1 Million. Of the the subscribers 82.4% have M-Pesa are so are also registered as per the CCK requirement. Generally Safaricom’s revenue grew by 5.3% to stand at 49.6 Billion in the last 6 months. Of that Data revenue grew by 30.4% to stand at 14.6 Billion while M-Pesa revenue grew by a massive 49.3% to stand at 7.9 Billion. There was a…

Ericsson  in partnership with Sony Ericsson has announced its regional competition for application developers on the Android platform. The competition titled ‘Apps for Africa’ should not be confused with Apps4Africa but it will to run under the aegis of the 2012 Ericsson Application Awards (EAA 2012). The annual competition for application developers worldwide is organized by Ericsson Research. The EAA 2012 awards will be themed ‘Apps for the Networked Society’ and will run till May 2012. The competition looks to give developers exposure within the telecoms world and a chance to reach out to customers via Ericsson’s distribution channels. They will also have…

The South African online news portal, News24, has today launched a Kenyan dedicated site. The Kenyan dedicated site located at kenya.news24.com will feature, Sci/tech, sports, business and political news from Kenya. News24 is part of media 24 which is owned by South Africa’s Naspers group. The group recently closed down Kalahari Kenya and Nigeria. All has not been rosy for the South African owned entities in Kenya with the entities always running into one trouble or the other. There is a gap on online news in Kenya. Currently it is only Nation Media Group which has at-least what might be…

At the Tech4Africa, we had a chance to get our hands on Samsung Galaxy Note. Samsung was one of the sponsors of T4A and so they had a big booth at the conference. We got wowed with the 5″ Galaxy Note coming with a light powered stylus pen for quick jotting. I think that the Galaxy Note might be very handy for those who see tablets as bulky. Check the phone out; [youtube width=”620″ height=”450″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9chT8Gflnw[/youtube] Slashgear did a great review here.

This is one very important chat I had with Ndubuisi Ekekwe at the just concluded Tech4Africa. When we talked of VMK from Congo, Kaboo by a Kenyan and Encipher by a Nigerian, many of the Bachelor of Arts graduates now writing tech stories in Kenya and beyond came out guns blazing and launched attacks on the bloggers and even the said innovators trying to create “African tablets”. Some of the claims from the pundits and journalists were that the Kenyan, Nigerian or Congolese could not have launched or managed to design a tablet so soon without 2 or so years…

Samsung’s VP for consumer and enterprise services, Gavin Kim, has reportedly left the company to join Microsoft’s Windows Phone team. The move comes as a surprise as Samsung strengthens its Bada and Android involvement while cutting down on Windows Phone OS. BGR broke the news on Monday even managing to speak with Kim about his departure. Kim’s departure also comes just weeks after  Microsoft pushed Samsung sign an Android patent deal allowing Microsoft to collect about $10 from every Samsung device running on Google’s Android OS. Microsoft will receive royalties from Samsung’s mobile phones and tablets running Android. The company has…