Author: Cyrus

The Ugandan government is now offering free land to investors with innovative information and communication technology business initiatives, as a way of encouraging investment in the ICT sector in Uganda. This is encouraging and follows the step US government giving special Visas to innovators. The senior investment executive at Uganda Investments Authority (UIA), Mr John Musajjakawa, urged experts in the mobile communication industry  experts and academia who dream of setting up businesses in the sector to ask UIA for the land on offer.

Safaricom’s Unlimited internet offer which used to go for Ksh 999 for a period of 7 days, has ended but there is no word from Safaricom on that. This are the acts which amounts to conmanship to me. After contacting Safaricom CEO this morning, his answer was “There was an ending date as far as I know”.

Its not the story you get to hear much online or anywhere but when you get to hear it, its always about wars, famine and the leaders extending the begging bowl all over. That is changing as two very energetic TED Fellows from Africa. Africa Story are changing that narrative. Sheila Ochugboju and Joshua Wanyama have started a Photo Blog which get to tell the Africa story through the powerful Camera Lens. The blog has varied stories like Sacred stories, Stories of Our Challenges, Nightmares, Triumphs and laughter. That’s the story which should be told about Africa. That’s our story…

Kenya’s  Education minister, Sam Ongeri, on Tuesday releases the results of 330,000 candidates who sat 2009’s Form Four exams. Its that time when candidates who went through the KCSE exams will be able to check their exams through mobile phones and computers. The Kenya National Examinations Council plans to use an innovative system to make it easier, faster and cheaper for candidates to get their results. The service was unveiled last week and if it works as promised, will help relieve some of the anxiety of getting the results in the traditional way.

The popular Zain Africa Challenge has made a come back to screens across the continent of Africa. The first ever televised international academic competition among students at African Universities from the leading universities in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia competed in the preliminary national tournaments to qualify to represent their countries and win a share in the US$ 1 million worth of prizes. The current season is shot at Uganda’s Imperial Royale Hotel. Thirty two teams from the 8 African countries advanced to the International Championship Festival, held in Uganda. They then entered playoff games…

Obama’s election as the first African-American (or is it black American. Whoopi Goldberg refuses the African-American title saying she is fully American) has now inspired a new wave. It happened in Ukraine, Israel (yes that’s one of the places Obama has least support) and now in Kenya. New youthful politicians who would like to have a shot at the race to Presidency have now started copying Obama’s talking, tech savyness and even Obama’s own campaign colors and websites.

Now this is a very good story to those who are on Orange network and bought the Iphone and are supposed to be paying the Ksh 3,000 monthly fees. I talked to 3 clients who say that Orange Kenya is actually not interested in billing the clients and even if they dont pay, the service is never cut off. Now this is the part which should make Orange Kenya act. Apparently now the defaulters who have pending bills of as many as 6 months have now decided to unlock the Iphones and use other networks if at all Orange will…

According to Wall-street Journal, Twitter is expected to launch an Adwords like advertising service which will target searches in Twitter. The ads are also said to going to be 140 character long and will also be deployed in API based applications like Twitterfeed, Refollow and Seesmic. The revenue generated from such partnership will be shared between the application owners and Twitter. The post say that Twitter plan to try to work with the agencies in the arrangement but will most likely go “solo” like Google Adwords. The ads service will most likely be availeable by June.

Do you know when you really are desperate for a search engine to refine your searches to those relevant to you? Like when you are in Nairobi and you start searching for Pizza Joints and they show you those in New York? Now Google has simplified it for you. The blog post from Google reads: Starting today, we’ve added the ability to refine your searches with the “Nearby” tool in the Search Options panel. One of the really helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don’t have to worry about…

This morning, MTN would neither confirm nor deny speculation that its group function plans to abandon SA in favour of Dubai, a location closer to its higher revenue earners. ITWeb is reporting that it has learned from several independent sources that the company plans to move its group operations out of the country and eventually delist from the Johannesburg Securities Exchange, leaving the local business as a subsidiary of the company, or even up for sale.

Google have today launched Google Maps domains in 30 African countries. Unfortunately the Google Maps for Africa blog hasn’t announced which 30 African countries have been given their own domains. http://maps.google.com.na/ Nambia http://maps.google.com.ng/ Nigeria http://maps.google.com.et/ Ethiopia http://maps.google.com.sl/ Sierra Leone http://maps.google.cg/ Congo, Republic of, http://maps.google.ci/ Côte d’Ivoire http://maps.google.dj/ Djibouti http://maps.google.ga/ Gabon http://maps.google.gm/ The Gambia http://maps.google.com.gh/ Ghana http://maps.google.mw/ Malawi http://maps.google.sn/ Senegal

Telecommunications solutions provider Telkom Kenya has moved to further stir the local residential fixed voice and data market with the launch of a new offer dubbed Surf & Talk. Styled as a bundled offering on internet and voice, the Surf & Talk offer will be available on Telkom Kenya’s Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) platform which enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than conventional voice band modems. Speaking when she confirmed the launch of the Surf &Talk offer, Telkom Kenya Head of Corporate Communications Angela Ng’ang’a-Mumo confirmed the firm’s plans to enhance its residential data delivery solutions as…

The GSMA, which represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry, presented Mr. Samuel Poghisio, Minister for Information and Communications for  Kenya, with the mobile industry’s prestigious annual Government Leadership Award. The Award recognises the leadership role played by Kenya in extending the benefits of mobile technology to more consumers by cutting tax on mobile phones and information communication technology (ICT) equipment and promoting the early roll-out of mobile broadband. During 2009, Kenya eliminated both import duty and sales taxes on mobile phones and other ICT equipment, making access for consumers more affordable. The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK)…

Huawei today unveiled its latest innovation in mobile broadband terminal devices, the E398 modem, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The E398 is the world’s first triple-mode LTE modem compatible with all three major network standards: LTE, UMTS, and GSM. The triple-mode modem, based on Qualcomm’s MDM9200TM chipset, will enable end-users to surf with high speed provided by LTE technology while seamlessly switching to other standards (UMTS or GSM). The modem also supports multiple mainstream LTE frequencies. –”Qualcomm is pleased to be working with Huawei to bring new products based on our industry-leading multi-mode 3G/LTE chipset to market,” said…

We have seen them all including several 15-button mouse (both for work and play), hemispherical mice, and Apple’s Magic Mouse. Of all,  G-Point mouse stands out. Whatever else others think,  only the G-Point  which is designed by Andy Kurovets, is both a superior experience and a penetrating lesson on female body. No, your eyes have not deceived you. This is a mouse designed to look exactly like the naughty bits of the fairer sex. Once more, a top-down view reveals the reason behind the “G-Point” moniker. Pressing “the spot” automatically navigates the user to a preselected favorite destination or runs…