Author: Cyrus

Toshiba has now appointed a Country Manager for its operations in Kenya. Erick Njuguna has been tapped to lead the Kenyan operations of the digital and computing solutions provider. Through an announcement this week, Toshiba revealed that Njuguna’s primary mission will be to “accelerate the sales growth and market share in Kenya in support of the country’s growing status as a hub of African ICT innovation and leadership.” Njuguna’s responsibilities will include driving and managing relationships with key corporate clients, distributors and resellers; as well as overseeing sales and marketing for the Toshiba brand and its range of products in…

Airtel Africa has today announced that it is working with the GSMA to initiate a project to provide approximately 250,000 small-holder farmers in Kenya reliable and relevant agricultural information via their mobile phones. The project, dubbed ‘Sauti ya Mkulima’ (Swahili for voice of the farmer), aims to provide farmers with access to pertinent agriculture-related information, advice and research that will help them make better decisions about their crops, increasing the productivity of their yield, as well as their potential income. It will also help create a farmer community within which peers can share experiences and exchange information about social gatherings,…

Airtel Kenya call centre operatoios have been paralysed after close to 300 employees contracted through SPANCO downed their tools. The customer care representatives have been demanding pay rise from the company with many claiming that the Ksh 15,000 pay is just not enough for them as other operators pay their workers as much as Ksh 70,000. Most of the striking call centre workers are paid between Ksh 12,000 and 15,000. The most surprising bit is that some deductions like HELB come as high as Ksh 3,000 meaning that the outsourcing company, SPANCO, might be showing a different figure as what…

Apple announced the new 15.4″ MacBook Pro with Retina display at its developer conference, WWDC, in June.  Great news is that the machine is now available in Kenya courtesy of the Apple premium resellers. The MacBook pro packs a Retina display with a 2880 x 1800 resolution (or 220ppi), and is just 0.71-inch thin and weighs only 2.02Kg. The machine’s high resolution is not the only plus but it also promises a higher contrast ratios, better viewing angles and reduced glare compared to other displays among its peers. Some other specs are; Retina display with 2880×1800 resolution 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz…

Afrinolly has revealed that it has seen over a million downloads within the last eleven months. Three weeks ago downloads of Afrinolly across platforms like Android, Blackberry, Nokia Symbian, Nokia S40 and Java crossed the One million mark. Since emerging as the winner of the Google Android Developers Challenge, Sub-Saharan Africa in the Entertainment category in September 2011, Afrinolly has seen a progressive growth rate in terms of downloads across Africa. Nigeria has the largest share of download with over 65%, Ghana, South-Africa and other African countries follow, USA, UK, Brazil and India make up majority of the rest. MTN…

Ericsson has developed a solution that bridges the connection between mobile networks and all real world objects through human body. According to Mwambu Wanendeya, Vice President and Head of Communications for Sub-Saharan Africa at Ericsson, the human body can be used to transfer information to and from a mobile device to a screen or a printer, by using capacitive transmission as discovered by Ericsson: “This is part of Ericsson’s way of re-thinking mobile broadband and communication. Ericsson has discovered that the human body can be a part of a communication network. This is a technology that holds a lot of possibilities for the…

  Kenyan Blogger Dennis Itumbi has this morning been charged with hacking into a computer system of an Airline. Dennis has been charged with ‘intercepting data in a computer system (belonging to Jetlink) without consent’. The charges stems from a blog post Dennis did sometime back titled “JETLINK: The Danger in our Skies, Revelations of leaked Emails….”. With attached emails from JetLink, Dennis detailed how JetLink flies “planes which engineers have declared unfit for our skiesa”. Dennis has been charged with the Section 83D of the Kenya Communications Amendement Act of 2009 which states; (1) No person shall – (a)…

Mobile services subscribers will not enjoy lower call rates as Kibaki is said to be blocking the lowering of the termination rates. Through a directive to CCK, President Kibaki has stopped any lowering of the call rates. The political interference in the communications sector as President Kibaki look at the interest of his business associates, has seen consumers in Kenya not enjoy lower cost of voice and data products as they should. This is the second time President Kibaki has intervened to make sure that mobile termination rates do not go further down. Even the more conservative Business Daily has…

Orange has today launched a genuine mobile handsets campaign dubbed Chagua Original through which subscribers will be able to purchase 3G-enabled devices at discounted prices of up to 60 per cent. During the campaign period subscribers purchasing smartphones or 3G devices at all Orange shops will also benefit from one month free internet access as well as free access to Wikipedia and Facebook. The devices that form part of the Chagua Original promotion range in prices from Kshs 599 (down from the earlier price of Kshs 999) for the ZTE S309 handset to the ZTE San Francisco retailing at Kshs…

Supersport is planning to launch one or two High Definition Outside Broadcasting (HD OB) vans in Kenya. The HD vans supplied by SONY will see Supersport have the capability to broadcast Kenya Premier League matches in HD in the near future. The sports broadcaster has been using the standard definition broadcast vans in Africa but started by launching the HD OB vans in Zimbabwe and Nigeria early this year. The Supersport HD OB vans can support upto 13 cameras on the field backed up by 9 camera men. Each Camera focuses on a specific aspect of a game and can be…

Huawei has announced that it has been selected to provide its advanced IP microwave solution for the next-generation LTE backhaul networks of Movicel in Angola and Mobile Telecommunications Limited (MTC) in Namibia. Movicel and MTC will be the first two operators to provide commercial LTE services in Africa. Huawei’s UMTS/LTE-ready IP microwave solution is a solution targeted at LTE backhaul deployment, which involves high bandwidth, smooth service evolution, rapid deployment, and convenient network management. The solution provides up to 2 Gb/s to each individual operator, supports a simplified clock synchronization and allows unified network management for optical transmission and wireless…

By Odhiambo T Oketch Friends, Knut is in the driving seat once more, and I do not know exactly where they are driving to. In the recent past, Kenyans have been treated to only one song from Knut; Strike. as Kenyans, we will be celebrating our 50 Years of Independence next Year on the 1st of June 2013. And on that day, we will be looking back into the last 50 years either with disdain, or with hope. Disdain because we will be having nothing to show-case the World, and with hope because we have developed the Hardware to help us…

MultiChoice Kenya subscribers are in for a treat this weekend as the pay TV holds the 2012 Open Day on Saturday August 25, 2012 at the T-Mall, Nairobi West. The annual event, which is free of charge and open to all, is hugely popular in City households by virtue of DStv offering unrivalled home entertainment options for the whole family. The MultiChoice family will be led by its General Manager, Danny Mucira and senior management drawn from DStv, GOtv, DStv Mobile, Supersport & M-Net. “We pride ourselves in always putting the subscriber first, providing superior customer service, technical support and subscriber…

Before presenting myself to the CID, I called friends who are senior government officials. The friends confirmed that I was summoned because of the altercation with Dr Mutua. The very unfortunate bit is that the CID Director, Ndegwa Muhoro was not aware of the case. So it seemed that Dr Mutua made a direct call to Nicholas Kamwende to arrest me for crimes he perceived that I had commited. The case between me and Dr Mutua should be a civil case. Mutua is using his position to prefer criminal charges on me. Anyone narrowly arguing on the basis of section…

After responding to the twats calling others trolls, let us deal with the issues and say what happened. So it has been an eventful weekend for me. I got to go through some experience which I really wish that no one will go through. Everybody is talking about it but few of those who support or oppose my ordeal know what really happened. So what happened? Apart from being a tech blogger in Kenya, I also comment on issues of social justice and governance. I am so passionately Kenyan that some of my friends whom I worked with outside the…