Author: Cyrus

A Dutch court has just ruled against Samsung in the Patent infringement suit banning “the marketing of Samsung smartphones Galaxy S, S II and Galaxy Ace for violation of Apple Inc. EP 2,058,868.” The full statement from Rechtrspaark reads; The Hague, 08/24/2011 The judge of the court in The Hague today ruled in summary proceedings against Apple Samsung. The judge prohibited the marketing of Samsung smartphones Galaxy S, S II and Ace for violation of Apple Inc. EP 2,058,868. The judge points off debts based on EP 2098948, EP 1964022, designs, copyrights and slavish (style) imitation. Apple has infringed on three of its patents and…

British Airways cabin crew are using the latest iPad model to bring a new dimension to customer service in the air. The iPads enable cabin crew to have prior awareness of customer preferences and a greater understanding of each customer’s previous travel arrangements, allowing them to offer a truly bespoke, personalised service. The iPad lets crew quickly identify where each customer is seated, who they are travelling with, their Executive Club status and any special meal requests. It gives cabin crew a whole library of information at their fingertips including timetables, safety manuals and customer service updates. It also means…

A Leading Kenyan ICT solutions firm, Compulynx, has developed a local IT system for the country’s retail sector. The new system, known as Compulynx Retail (CORE), will offer retailers a single solution that covers the entire scope of business processes, from budgeting and forecasting through assortment planning, warehouse management and logistics to store operations, point of sales and sales analysis. Compulynx, CEO, Mr. Sailesh Savani, said CORE reduces the inefficient, time-intensive processes that sometimes entail entering transactional data, running reports and report analysis before they can do their jobs effectively. “Designed to deal with the basic function, CORE enables a…

Nokia has partnered with Safaricom to zero-rate the firmware over-the-air updates for its phones. The announcement was made by Nokia Kenya’s Ken Oyolla at iHub and also confirmed by an advert which is appearing in the Wednesday newspapers. This means that if you wan to update the core software of your Nokia phone and you are on Safaricom, you wont be charged a cent. The move might save Nokia clients in data bundle fees even though this might not be such an urgent issue considering that a tiny minority of users knows that their phones requires updates. So you hear…

It was a great experience at Mindspeak Kigali and the climax of it all came in engaging with the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame. I sought his opinion on one issue in social media and also the other on gender but for the sake of this post I will only dwell on ICT. President Kagame have strong belief in social media especially its power to flatten the world and allow for the common man to reach those at the top of the pyramid. Some of the key take from the Kagame are; Kagame has the opinion that democracy should be…

So today yuMobile launched  a Ksh 2 per hour data offer. I wonder who will use that but I can understand the joke these people are trying to pull. It is just not funny though. And they did that when they realised that Safaricom might be launched a more advanced data offering for its clients. We were later assured that the faster 3G services will be available in other parts of Nairobi and Mombasa within the next 3 months And so Safaricom has upgraded over 80 base stations to offer 3G data services with speeds of up to 21 Mbps.…

Libya’s top level domain registry has been hacked. The Libya’s equivalent of KENIC seems to have been hacked by hackers who believe in freeing the country from every grip of Gaddafi including on the net. It is not clear when this happened but for sometime now it still has the hackers’ signature.

yuMobile has launched an affordable data offer of Kes. 2 per hour browsing rate. The offer dubbed ‘Happy Hour’ allows customers on the network to browse the internet for as low as Kes.2 per hour all day and all night. The offer attracts NO SUBSCRIPTION CHARGES and customers can unsubscribe at anytime. To enjoy this new data offering, yu subscribers have to dial *242# and select the subscribe option to activate it. To launch the offer, yuMobile’s Country Manager Madhur Taneja said: “We believe in giving value for money to our customers all round and this is testimony to that.…

Now this is something which I did not plan. It was something which I didn’t even know of until 3 days to the actual take off. Apparently, I was on the list of the few Kenyans who were invited by Aly Khan Satchu ( he of the RICH fame) to be part of the Mindspeak Kigali. I knew that this was going to be a great experience because Mindspeak itself has never disappointed. Again I was going to meet a leader who many have loved and some have hated for various reasons which you wouldn’t expect considering the history of…

Michael Dell is the founder of Dell Computers. So when HP announced that they might quit the PC business, Michael sent out a tweet; H-P’s announcement earlier in the day that it would try to spin off its PC business, much of which it bought from Compaq Computer Corp. in 2002. Then again another; “If H-P spins off their PC business,” Mr. Dell tweeted, “Maybe they will call it Compaq?” HP’s response to Mr Dell Mr Dell has used the social media platform to repond to client issues as well as send out announcements. He has more than 21,000 followers…

AppCircus arrives to the capital and largest city of Kenya, Nairobi.  *iHub_Nairobi’s Innovation Hub for the technology community will host the travelling showcase of the most creative and innovative apps on the 10th of September. 10 developers can pitch in front of an international jury, formed by industry experts.The winner of the AppCircus will get an opportunity to be nominated for theMobile Premier Awards 2012, which are held during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The deadline to participate is the 22th of August! *iHub_Nairobi’s Innovation Hub for the technology community is an open space for the technologists, investors, tech companies and hackers in the area. This space is a tech…

By Talita Myburgh, Online Reputation Measurement Manager for NATIVE Consumer purchasing behaviour has changed dramatically since the advent of the internet, with the buying process shortening and now, critically, including re-engagement as the last step. Consumer willingness or even demand to engage with a brand provides strategic opportunities, not the least of which is to humanise the brand through relationship building, to retain customers. While the advent and success of social media applications has made building a relationship fairly simple, maintaining a good reputation online is not necessarily so. Enter online reputation measurement (ORM). ORM involves using digital tools to…

I don’t know if this game was not suppose to be called Nganya or it should just stay to be Ma3racer as Planet Rackus has aptly named it. The game is very straight forward, you start by choosing which Ma3 (Nganya) you want to drive in the streets of Nairobi. There are many obstacles like pedestrians crossings, stationery vehicles and vehicles being driven on the wrong side of the road. Your aim is to collect as much money bags as you might like. The game is one serious application because Matatu (swahili translations for many threes) culture is very unique…

So Google and Motorola have become one. The move to buy Motorola at $12.5 Billion has reportedly increased the size of Google by almost 60%. But is this move a plus for Google or what? It seems that Google is thinking very much on how to contain Apple, Microsoft and Facebook that many of the moves now are all directed to that effect. This move seems to be more at protecting patents which analysts have called the biggest threat to innovation. The smartphone hardware makers like Samsung, HTC, Huawei and LG have to be scared that their partner is now…

So IPO48 is expected to  announce the winners of the Ksh 3 Million funding in Nairobi. The business incubation has been going on since Friday and we have seen campaigns being run online for virtual pledges. m-Order now tops the list with the highest amount of pledge at Ksh 51,975,000 while others don’t even come close to that. You can view all the pledges here. But lots of questions are being raised by bloggers and the general tech community. I was not aware of many of the inside details of the IPO48 event before the Thursday press conference at iHub.…