Author: Cyrus

Swedish telecommunications giant, Ericsson, this week demonstrated a technology which is ten times faster than the commercial 4G technology. It is called LTE advanced and it was set up in a base cell site with a mobile van. The impressive bit is that all the equipment is based on readily available commercial equipment that is 3GPP Release 10 global standard compliant. The test was done on a test frequency provided by the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) which enabled Ericsson to demonstrate functionalities such as carrier aggregation of 3 x 20MHz (60MHz aggregated) over the air in a mobile…

CNET is reporting that Google has agreed that they are thinking of giving developers access to its Facebook killer, Google+, API. Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of social for Google is reported telling CNET’s Rafe Needleman, “I’m a developer guy at the core. It is inconceivable I would build something without a platform.” Google is first looking to roll-out integration with other services like Google apps and is avoiding a clash. It is also likely that some of the apps which might be built by the developers already exists as layers in Google services and so that must be sorted before…

LG Electronics (LG) yesterday announced the release of its CINEMA 3D TV of model LW5700 equipped with LG’s next generation CINEMA 3D technology. The new LG  TV claims to offer the first “flicker free” certified 3D picture. We loved donning the comfortable, lightweight glasses while testing it out at Laico Regency. It also features a brighter picture, Flexible Viewing Positions and Wide Viewing Angle best for watching 3D with groups of family or friends. LG CINEMA 3D’s outstanding 3D features begins with a picture that is virtually crosstalk and flicker free. Via a polarized film on the screen, the set…

yuCash, the mobile money transfer service brand of Essar Telecom Kenya Limited,  says that it is ready to participate in the recent recommendation by a Government taskforce calling on mobile service providers to develop a common system for facilitating mobile money transfers across networks. There was a task force set up by the Prime Minister’s office to look into the contentious issues in the telecommunications sector. One of its proposal was that that mobile firms should work towards creating a seamless mobile money transfer system regulated by Central Bank of Kenya as a way of increasing the usage of the…

We have got to taste what Google+ is like. We have seen what it can do and what our analysis tells us is that Orkut is way much better than Google+. Google should have just tweaked Orkut and changed the look to make it more enticing than build a Facebook clone. Google+ now look like a Facebook cemetery without the dead bodies. The only thing which might scare Facebook is that nifty notification thing which turns red whenever any of your circles does something. Another different bit with Facebook is the “hangout” feature which lets you have group video chat.…

The Government through the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation in partnership with HP East Africa and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) today launched a project that will enable health workers in the field detect and manage disease outbreaks through smart phones. HP enabled this by donating 250 HP Palm Pre-Smart Phones, the first of their kind in the continent, to facilitate early detection and response to communicable public health threats in the country through mobile health monitoring technology. The phones are just a part of KES 91 million worth of technological support that HP will be extending to the Government through the Integrated Disease Surveillance…

The Pope used an iPad to send a tweet from the Vatican News Twitter account and the first tweet was all in praise of Jesus Christ. The Vatican announced that the Pope used his own fingers to tweet while launching the new.va portal. The pope has more than 12,822 followers on Twitter and had never tweeted before. A Twitter user, rjgrace, poked some fun on the Pope’s Tweet; The Pope’s first tweet… and he did it from an iPad! #HolyApple What do you think about this?

According to Korea Herald, a Chinese teenage lady revealed on Weibo (a Chinese micro-blogging site) that she was willing to sell her virginity to anyone willing to buy her iPhone 4. The lady even went ahead and posted her photos encouraging offers of iPhones against her virginity. She tweeted…..oh weibod that  it is her “dream to own a iPhone4 but her father won’t let her get one.” The reaction on Weibo have been majorly negative though a good number of the respondents thought that she could have preserved her virginity for iPhone 5. Others also thought that she might have been…

Airtel Kenya has today unveiled an ambitious soccer talent search programme that will focus on identifying and nurturing budding soccer talent from the grassroots onto the national stage. The program dubbed – Airtel Rising Stars – was launched in conjunction with  Manchester United, yes…. Manchester United.  The Airtel Rising Stars is an Africa-wide program that will provide a platform for upcoming soccer talent under the age of 17 years to showcase their skills to leading scouts, coaches and have an opportunity to further their football skills. In Kenya, the initiative targets boys and girls in secondary schools across the country. The…

Facebook seems to have hired the SONY playstation hacker, George Hotz. Apparently the teen has been at Facebook since May 9th, the iPhone Download Blog reports. Hotz gained the hotness through hacking the Apple’s carrier-locking scheme. He was the first one to crack the Apple’s iPhone network lock and share it online. In 2008, he released the first jailbreak for iPhone 3GS. He recently documented to the public how to install third party apps onto the Playstation 3 or even emulate Playstation 2 on the newer model. SONY immediately announced an intention of firmware upgrade and Hotz responded by announcing his intention to…

In May 2010 we told you about the Encipher tablet (later renamed INYE) from Nigeria. And in May 2011 the Encipher group launched INYE 2. Today, another African company, VMK Congo, has announced that it is developing a Gingerbread tablet to be released in September. VMK even went ahead and showed some photos of the back …. yes the back, of the tablet because the front of the tablet has some unique designs which are yet to be patented. Apart from the fact that the tablet will run on Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread0, not much is known about the specs of…

At the 50th anniversary celebrations by Nation Media Group, African journalists and media moguls were calling on the continents media to start telling the story of Africa. It is an irony where the call was coming from. You will easily get African media trust Reuters, Xinhua, AP, BBC, CNN, AFP and other foreign media outlets and agencies more than Africa’s own. Even in Kenya you will get Nation, The Star or The Standard pick up a story about Orange Kenya which happened locally from China’s Xinhua and Reuters while ignoring the many freelance journalists submissions. CNN has been holding Africa Journalist…

Apple is set to unveil a mid-range smartphone (iPhone 4S) in September together with iPhone 5, according to Chris Whitmore analyst Deutsche Bank. This might confirm rumours which have been doing rounds with confusion on how many phones Apple might unveil in September. Chirs believes that Apple will offer a lower-end iPhone priced between $300 and $500 paired with a pre-paid voice offering. In a note to investors, Chris says that two-thirds of the addressable market of 1.5 billion mobile customers worldwide are pre-paid users. NYT is one of the news outlets which speculated on the cheaper iPhone from Apple in February. Business…

After secretly recruiting distributors and retailers, Zedd Mobile is good to go. The American registered company with Chinese roots is not leaving anything to chance. The company has strategic distributors all over the country with an aggressive marketing campaign expected to commence soon. In the last few months Tecno and TechCom have all launched in Kenya giving the established brands like Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Huawei a run for their money.

Last September, reports came out that GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar, was looking for a buyer. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that three private equity firms are at advanced stages of pulling a deal on the firm. KKR & Co., Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures are named as some of the possible buyers with reports coming out the deal might be announced by next week. The CEO and Founder Bob Parsons is controversial both in marketing the company and also his actions in a private capacity. He recently made headlines when reports surfaced in US blogs that…