Author: Cyrus

Franfurt Motorshow is coming up in September and before then, you might look for a technology to show off. Renault is revealing an innovative way to drive. That is the Renault Frendzy. The car comes fitted with Research In Motion’s Blackberry Playbook turning the car into an innovative office on wheels. The integration with Blackberry Playbook also makes the car to perfectly doubling up as a commercial vehicle and a comfortable passenger car, ideal for both business and pleasure. For business users on the road, the ultra-portable BlackBerry PlayBook simply plugs into the dashboard, delivers advanced performance, uncompromised web browsing,…

Huawei has announced the availability of the Huawei IDEOS™ S7 Slim tablet in the Kenyan market. This comes  months after the introduction of its first tablet Huawei IDEOS™ S7 tablet. The company promised at the MWC in Barcelona to sell the tablet at below $300 globally though it is being sold in Kenya at Ksh 39,000 (approximately: $447). The tablet boasts; 7″ Capacitive Touchscreen 3G + Wi-Fi 8GB Internal storage but SD slot can handle up to 32GB memory. Front Facing 1.3 Megapixel camera and rear facing 5 megapixel camera 450g in weight. Huawei says that they are aiming to…

LG Electronics has unveiled its LG Optimus 3D smartphone featuring second generation dual core technology and an advanced “Tri-Dual” architecture. The phone was first unveiled at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in February, the LG Optimus 3D offers a full 3D experience recording, viewing, sharing in a Smartphone form factor. The LG Optimus 3D takes the Smartphone experience into new territory with its Tri-Dual configuration – dual-core, dual-channel and dual-memory – which allows for improved performance when multi-tasking, enjoying a movie or playing graphics-intensive games. According to George Mudhune, Regional Marketing, LG Electronics, East and Central Africa, the LG…

Omar Khan was the evangelist behind the Samsung Galaxy brand has resigned from Samsung. Omar is moving to Citibank to handledigital banking. As the CTO, Omar was responsible for selling the Galaxy smartphones and tablets. He will be replaced by Nick Dicarlo and Gavin Kim in “product and service spokesperson responsibilities for Samsung Mobile.” The resignation of Omar will definitely be a blow to Samsung who is fighting the smartphone competition from HTC and Motorola but also lawsuits with Apple. Samsung has lately been forced to hand over pre-release hardware information of Galaxy Tab 8.9 so that Apple might look…

The Network coverage and quality of service are some of the advantages mobile phone users in emerging markets such as Kenya look for  in a provider. Another 41% of mobile phone users said they would continue using networks with better voice quality, network , messaging and internet experience. These findings are contained in a Nokia Siemens Network (NSN) driven Research titled Acquisition & Retention Study. And despite having lower average incomes, which makes us assume that they would be cost-conscious, these users still prefer quality service. They consider operator charges at a marginally close second at 40 percent. “Mobile phone users are…

At the recent Social Media day event at Fairmont Norfolk Nairobi, we met with a Kenyan Administration Policeman, Gitahi Kanyeki. Gitahi is no ordinary policeman. He is in almost all social media networks and is doing alot to make the society a better place. He amazed everyone with his optimism and also the fact that he could easily find a way of using gadgets like iPads and cool smartphones without much exposure. Gitahi also confessed that it was his first time entering a Five-Star hotel. Surprise Surprise, Gitahi confessed that he has even taken a bribe before but he is…

Essar Kenya has launched a free all day on-net calls promotions. The company has announced that the offer will run for a period of time which they were not ready to stay though promising to up the game further. The move might either be a smart way of enticing numbers into the network for eventual sale or simply a move to maintain more on net calls. The free calls in the network will run from 6am to 6pm everyday and it is not clear how long the promotion will last. The company also launched a new Yellowish “refreshed look” with…

International Telecommunication Union, ITU, has launched an application challenge centered around IPTV. Participants have been invited from all over the award to develop applications running over the ITU-T IPTV standards. You have two months, July 15th to September 16th, to make an entry into the competition. Participants are encouraged to be more creative and an idea of focus areas are suggested as; linear (channel service) broadcast TV, Electronic Program Guide and Video on Demand games e-government, e-publishing, e-commerce, e-learning and e-health services photo albums user-generated content Fixed Mobile Convergence There are two categories of awards: Best App – Individual/SME is…

Essar Kenya would want to win some loyalty. Though there is no major move to convince the market that the company is here for the long term, it would want the market to forget the leaks about its impending exit from the Kenyan market. Through an invite, the company has indicated that it is launching a new refreshed look and also “an offer which is the first of its kind in the market”. Also Read: yuMobile Subscribers Now Fully Migrated into Airtel Kenya’s Network These moves might be more geared towards reassuring the many suppliers, distributors and clients that the company…

Tech4Africa, the web and emerging technology conference, has launched Ignite, an initiative that will provide leading African startups with the opportunity to pitch their products to a carefully curated panel of Angel investors, mentors and business leaders. Startups selected to partake in the Tech4africa Ignite pitches will be given five minutes to showcase their products, with the opportunity to gain not only potential investors but also invaluable exposure to the wider Tech4Africa audience of thought leaders, decision makers, journalists, influencers and potential recruits. “Twitter, FourSquare and Gowalla ‘broke’ in the US market, through their pitch stand demonstrations at SxSw,” says Gareth Knight, MD ofTech4Africa.”Our DNA…

Orange Uganda has pulled a first one in the region. The GSM operator has launched high definition (HD) voice calls in the country. The company is looking to use its national 3G network to deliver the news service. HD calls have noise-reduction technology that reduces the hisses and crackles of normal mobile calls. The HD Voice Calls system runs on a technology known as Adaptive Multi Rate Wideband (AMR-WB). It has been adopted as an international standard for 3G mobile networks. The service was first tested in Moldova in 2009 and launched in united Kingdom in August 2010 by the…

  President Kibaki has today launched the Kenya Open Data portal. The portal which is hostel and runs on the Socrata’s cloud solution can either be accessed through www.opendata.go.ke or kenya.socrata.com. This is the first initiative by a government in Africa to release its formerly hard to get data to the public. In his speech at the launch event, President Kibaki said “the website we are launching will for the first time make large quantities of Government data available to the public in a digital electronic format. This includes information ranging from the recent census to the Government budgets and…

Tanzania’s first UN conference happened yesterday in Dar-es-salaam’s Kilimanjaro Kempiski hotel. We were impressed by what we were seeing through the Twitter stream and the Livestream link. The likes of Luca of Bongo5, Kate, Gillsaint, Sajjo, Maxence De Melo of JF, Issa Michuzi and the guys behind Mikocheni report kept the interesting tweets coming through.You should also check out the team behind the event here. We wish we were there but in Kenya we also had the AITEC Broadcast and Film Conference, Telkom Kenya’s big press conference after the board meeting and also the press conference on the Open data…

Eddy Njoroge has today been appointed the chairman of Telkom Kenya, Orange, board. Eddy is the incumbent Managing Director of Kengen (the country’s electricity generating company) as well as the chairman of Nairobi Stock Exchange. I asked Eddy what he thought he was bringing to the Telkom Kenya board considering the problems we have at NSE and in the electricity generation in the country. He talked of his experience at the boards of other companies including Kengen, his strategic and corporate management and many other things. At this point I don’t think we should doubt Eddy’s abilities. I know that…

The Kenyan government led by President Kibaki and the Ministry of Information and Communication is expected to launch and initiative to avail public data which has so far remained private, public. The whole process supported by World Bank will kick off at KICC at around 10am. The move to avail such data has been welcomed by the youth and researchers who have struggled to get the data out of the government vaults. Questions are though being raised on the manner in which the process is being undertaken and the camaraderie involved in giving out contracts to those working on the data.…