Author: Cyrus

As we reported earlier, Nation Media Group has now corrected the errors on their new Beta website called Africa Review. The website runs on the same script Daily Nation, The East African and Business Daily is running on. The website domain was created in February 2009 so its something which Nation planned for a long time. Apparently Nation owns also 20 other domains which they might be using to launch other products. The website seems to be hosted at Network Solutions as opposed to Daily Nation which is hosted at UUNET and 365 Digital Primedia servers in South Africa have…

East and Central Africa Media power house, Nation Media Group has launched a new website called Africa Review. I have not even seen what is in the website since after the alert, I have been getting a 503 error. Anybody send us a snapshot on tech@techmtaa.com

The Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) in partnership with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and corporate organisations, have launched the Haiti Disaster Fund to raise funds towards a humanitarian appeal to assist millions of people affected by an earthquake that hit Haiti, claiming more than 50,000 lives and living millions of others homeless.

In what might be considered to be a milestone in South Africa, Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx says that South African internet users reached the 5 million mark in 2009. He also projects the number to reach 6 million by December 2010. In a research conducted by South African analyst house World Wide Worx, in conjunction with Cisco, shows that local Internet penetration has increased to 10%. Speaking to ITWeb this morning, research lead and World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck said this figure is a significant milestone in SA’s Internet space.

Huawei, a leader in providing next-generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world, has announced that its UMTS900 solution has been successfully deployed in the MTN Ghana network. This represents the first time in Africa continent that UMTS has been successfully conducted for voice, video and data in the 900 MHz frequency band. The network are based on Huawei’s 4th-generation 3900-Series Node B, which combines advanced technology with high efficiency to boost operators’ productivity. The system supports a bandwidth of just 4.2 MHz to provide UMTS service while working seamlessly with the existing GSM network. Together with HUAWEI, MTN…

Zuku seems to be the lesser evil in a POLL we carried between Zuku Broadband and Orange Broadband Nyumbani. Majority, more than 70% of our readers think that Zuku offers better service and delivers better customer care. Thats a big wake up call to Orange which has been there long enough and has bigger financial muscle to compete effectively in the market.

Netbooks are gaining ground in the IT consumer market in Kenya. When HP East Africa introduced a few laptops including the Vivienne Tam and Acer followed later with others, we didn’t take it seriously. Infact we thought that the laptop will fade out the way the PDAs went down. We were wrong, The Netbooks are here to stay and are increasing in variety. Most of them are running the Atom processor (1.6Ghz) and most boast of 10.2″ screen size apart from the few with 13″ and 8.9″. Kenya Data Networks just unveiled another brand, MSi U100 which they advertise as…

Finally the USA Consumer Electronics show 2010 is over. I can now say what I read. Remember I am in Nairobi and the event occured thousands of miles away. But it seems I was there. What with the greap photos from Engadget, Gizmodo and PCMag. What with the blog posts from Techcrunch and Mashable. I got all the breaking news thanks to Snaptu for the wonderful application in my so old Nokia E50 (I cant just let the phone go). But for East Africa, I think we can draw many lessons from the event. Do we even have a Consumer…

Watching her makes you be wowed with simple expertise she does it and the way she is defying old age is simply out of this world. Thats the story of the Granny who won the Spanish Talents show. She has been nicknamed the Salsa Granny and the video is gaining popularity in youtube and the internet.

By Shem Ochuodho Media freedom is one of the most fundamental rights any civil state must uphold. However, rights have also to come with responsibility. Before making substantive comment on this matter, my contribution would better be informed by reading the statute itself, not by media reports. As a major stakeholder in this, the media will report in a slanted matter. I have to confess as an ICT Professional I don’t have much respect for the PS, and I rarely agree with his points of view. However, this is one of the rare instances when I seem to agree with…

I doubted the media when they wrote the article about Kalahari in Standard and Nation. I read another article on Star today and decided to get hold of David Aoll who is the Country Director of Kalahari.co.ke and he is representing the part of Nasper’s Group of companies which includes Technology, Online Companies, TV and newspapers and Magazines. The company owns Nimbuzz in Netherlands, Irdeto, Multichoice, Allegro, Mweb and Paarmedia among others.

Rwanda’s leading communication company by market share, MTN, has deployed a technology called Aradial Authentication, Authorization, Accounting (AAA) that will provide wireless services in Kigali. MTN entered a deal with Aradial to provide Internet Protocol services and others including Wi-Fi, WiMAX, VoIP, IPTV and mobile data. MTN’s Senior Marketing Executive, Yvonne Makolo, revealed that the operator has rolled out Wi-Fi services in Kigali but have not yet commercially launched but is still doing the final tests. The technology solution integrates with access controllers to manage Wi-Fi base stations. Aradial’s deployment operates with Ericsson’s intelligent network over MTN’s provisioning infrastructure to…

Safaricom and Zain transferred a whopping Sh318.4 billion through their mobile money transfer services in 12 months up to June last year, according to the Central Bank of Kenya. The bank says Safaricom and Zain transferred the money, which translates to about Sh1 billion per day, between June 30, 2008 and June 30, 2009 through their M-Pesa and Zap services respectively.

They have just done what I was thinking of doing, tearing down my Nexus when I get it into pieces. Now I wont need to do that since I have now seen the Ifixit guys bring it down here. DONT TRY THIS AT HOME should be a very big sign on the images and videos. The Nexus One is looking sexy even inside and you dont need to get worried if your friend sees you with its parts. Its unlike those NOKIA and SMSUNG from China which when you open, will make you not want to have anyone near you.

Today I walked into Zain Koinange and to have the dashboard software for my Huawei E220 Modem replaced. I found a very disturbing scenario in the shops. First the lady I met there who I was reffered to by a Zain employee and was said to be the pro, didnt have much info on how to operate the modem. I wanted to flash the modem so that I can have it work with Ubuntu 9.10. I was taken round round and round until I got tired. I called the friend working with Zain for help and he called the Koinange…