Brilliant By Samsung

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Samsung Galaxy S II

Amazing how Samsung is way up there in the race to be the best.

Real Madrid Pip Barcelona To Win Copa Del Rey….And Then Some…

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Barcelona, Copa del rey, Real Madrid

Brilliant moments for Real Madrid, until some really excited player (Sergio Ramos) decides to let go.

The Real defender accidentally dropped the cup, 18 years after a Real Madrid player last had his hands on it, as he waved to fans who had gathered in Madrid to greet the team on their return from Valencia.

“The cup fell, it fell,” Ramos said according to Europa Press agency. “But the cup is OK.”

It was recovered by members of Spanish police who returned it to the driver.

Just A Quick Press – A Heads-Up!

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Android, Dial-up, IPad, IPad 2, PlayBook, PS1, Windows Vista

Many industry notable voices have been quick to update us all on what’s new in the tech market in terms of gadgets. Notably so is the clear indication that Tablets are getting most of the shine. But let’s try and know and understand what it is that’s out there before jumping on the bandwagon.

What’s Old and soon to be Out:

[1]        The iPad (1)

Though still an efficient tablet in it’s own sense and also neat toy, it’s old news and getting one is like going to the shops and buying half a dozen packets of milk that are due to expire the following day.

[2]        Any phone or tablet that runs on Android 2.2

Android 3.0 is here as well as Android Honeycomb! This is where style meets quality.

[3]        Symbian

It’s dead! Long live Symbian…now let’s move on.

[4]        Core 2 Duo chip driven laptops/desktops

Like really? I mean you would actually walk past an i7, i5, or an i3 chip to get a core 2 duo? Think about it and get back to me….take your time!

[5]        A yahoo mail account

Hahahahahahahaha

[6]        Windows Vista

The biggest mistake Microsoft ever made! This OS went against Microsoft’s original mantra of “A computer on every desk in every home”. How? Well at the time of it’s release in 2005, most PC users had a minimum of 512MB of RAM in their machines, whereas Vista came with a minimum requirement of 1GB for the Home Basic. My view, any OS that forces you to change your hardware just to get it going is CRAP!!

[7]        PS1

Move on! The only cool old thing coming back is Nintendo.

[8]        VHS

WOW! Like slap me twice and call me Rufus, do people still have these in their living rooms?

[9]        Dial-up

What century are you in? Even worse when you tell me it’s a 512kb line.

[10]       CRT Monitors

………………………………. nuff said!

Basically what I’m saying is that you need to actually know and not just believe what you read about a product…even if it’s the in-thing at the moment. Everything has it’s own flaws yes, like the iPad 2 doesn’t support flash but the BB PlayBook does, thus grasping the edge when it comes to certain applications. As cool as the iPad 2 is it also requires proprietary peripherals, whereas the BB PlayBook doesn’t. These are just the few notables that you need to know about before committing R6 – 8 grand on a gadget that you might find not so useful in a year’s time. Think ahead, research and get the best buy.

Tablet Wars – Will The Tablet Boom Be Short Lived?

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BlackBerry PlayBook, Gigabyte, HP TouchPad, IPad, IPad 2, Motorola Xoom, Samsung GalaxyTab, Tablet PCs

The 21st Century! This is an era where everything ‘mobile’ in the tech world will only succeed if out of the box innovation is applied as well as some ruthless marketing and advertising.

I love gadgets and everything tech, but with the bar that Apple has set we are starting to see more and more mobile companies coming up with tablets that could promise to offer better functionality than Apple itself. This has caused an irrational flood of new gadgets debuting our stores at a faster rate than the cellphone industry (which has been around longer), thus raising fears that the need to compete at the highest level and maintain a client following might dwindle fast.

We have already seen Apple release IPad 2 (March 2011) just 1 year after the original IPad was released (April 2010). Samsung’s GalaxyTab has also experienced a facelift to the 10.1 Honeycomb version that keeps it in the running to compete side by side with the IPad 2. And that’s not it, BlackBerry has introduced the Playbook, HP not to be left behind has introduced the TouchPad, Motorola has also graced the scene with the Xoom, and Gigabyte has also joined the fray and plans to attract the market with a Dual-Boot (Android and Windows 7) tablet. And this is just to mention a few (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_tablet_PCs#Slate).

Don’t get me wrong when I say that there’s a fear that this tablet revolution will be short lived for this doesn’t mean that they will fade away and we’ll move back to solely using PCs and Notebooks. Tablets have been around longer than the IPad (April 2010), though if you ask generation X when they first saw and used one it would be the IPad. Apple merely made it look fancy, built some killa apps on it, and voila! The point I’m trying to push across here is that at the fast pace that tablets are being released, we might just see blunders made like with Apple’s IPhone 4 in the name of being the market leader. The younger generation constitutes the majority percentage of mobile users and as we all know a teenager’s loyalty is hard won and easily lost. A couple of rush design and production mistakes might just see client loyalty ditched and merely transfered to the next best thing.

The Mobile Empire

Do you seriously want to become rich? Here’s the secret — and it’s got nothing to do with building an online social network, or even getting the government to bail out your bank. To paraphrase Mr. McGuire from The Graduate, I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Mobile.

Like, duh, yeah, you knew that mobile phones were the next big thing, what, a dozen years ago? And in between playing Angry Birds and tweeting from the Apple Store, you didn’t need reminding that apps were going to make us all millionaires.

Except … there’s a far more fundamental business opportunity facing you right at this moment, and most people are unaware of the vast economic possibilities right in front of them. Quite simply, the mobile internet is undergoing such unprecedented growth today that anyone with a smart, relevant idea has a head start in building a profitable mobile business.

The money won’t be in smartphone apps. It’s in reaching the billions who simply want to be connected, whether by SMS or old-fashioned services such as WAP.

In Kenya, where a 4-year-old business called M-Pesa lets you send and receive cash through your cellphone, it’s proved so popular — replacing the banks in ordinary citizens’ lives — that a quarter of the entire Kenyan GDP now passes through it. That’s behavior change on a massive scale.

So what does all this mean for you? This, says Finnish mobile-industry consultantTomi Ahonen, is just the start — because mobile is going to get much, much bigger. “It is the fastest-growing giant industry of the economic history of mankind,” Ahonen says, “and it’s barely begun.” Because, though it’s worth $1.1 trillion now — 10 times as big as radio — over the next two decades that value will rise to $5 trillion. And who wouldn’t want a piece?

Ahonen has just written an extraordinary 24,000-word blog post on where he sees the opportunities. The internet, he points out, did not change everything, as has often been claimed: Sure, it reaches 1.7 billion people, but that’s nothing on the 5 billion with a mobile.

Very few industries can serve us, and make money out of us, from early childhood to old age, he says — and even reach us in our sleep, thanks to our habit of keeping our phone close to the pillow with the ringer on. So this magical technology will inevitably transform “retail, banking, insurance, travel, entertainment, education, health, government, farming, fishing, forestry — everything!”

Where do you start, then? According to Ahonen, the money won’t be in smartphone apps. iPhones reach just 2 percent of the planet — and apps generate tiny revenue compared with more traditional text-messaging and multimedia-messaging services. Last year, we sent something like 6,100,000,000,000 text messages — that’s 200,000 every second. With 4.2 billion active SMS users, think of a service that can persuade just a million or two of them to pay you a few pennies. You can deliver everything from horoscopes to airline tickets to cash with SMS. Old-school, but proven.

Nor is the money in location-based niche services such as Foursquare, Ahonen says, or in glitzy browser-based video. It’s in reaching the billions who simply want to be connected, whether by SMS or old-fashioned services such as WAP. And they’ll spend if you offer them a service.

After all, the world’s richest man is no longer Bill Gates. It’s Carlos Slim — who, remember, made his fortune in the mobile industry. And he won’t be the last.

Life in Nairobi, as seen from the windows of its minibuses – By Brendan Bannon

The 14-seat minibuses that fill Nairobi’s streets are the quintessential and chaotic way for most Kenyans to get around the burgeoning capital city.

:: Kawangware, Nairobi, Kenya ::

It’s already past 7:15 a.m. and Catherine, a 32-year-old civil servant, knows she’ll be late for work.

It’s less than 2.5 miles from the Petro gas station, the start of the Route 46 bus near her home in Kawangware, to her Upper Hill office just west of the city centre.

But that will take Catherine at least an hour this morning, as steady sheets of dawn rain fell and traffic crawled along the slum’s choked streets.

IN PICTURES: Get on the bus

“The rain, it always delays everyone, the jams will be bad today,” she says, flapping her umbrella dry as she squeezes into our 14-seater Nissan minibus with a black interior and a roof lined in checker-board linoleum. She flips open her Motorola cell to hook to the internet to pass the time.

Up front, at the wheel and in charge of getting Catherine to work as quickly as possible, rain or no rain, is Emmanuel Sinzole. For ten years, he’s been driving matatus, as these buses are called in Kenya’s Kiswahili language.

“When there’s too much traffic you don’t make money, sometimes you work the whole day and go home with nothing,” he says, nudging the Nissan forward a foot.

“But I like it. I like the challenge, I like to be happy as we drive so the passengers are happy.”

7:48 a.m.

The matatu, its hood branded Classic Reebok, its trunk bearing the puzzling epithet No Man Should Eat Man Society, has edged barely a mile down Gitanga Road.

We’re out of Kawangware now, leaving behind its muddy lanes and rusting tin roofs, its streetside carpenters and hole-in-the-wall tea shacks.

Here, through the fogged windows, another gas station, but with a pizzeria and ice cream parlor. Beside it, a luxury car dealer whose yard is stocked with rain-polished Mercedes, Jeeps, BMWs and Japanese SUVs.

Ahead, a line of traffic climbs a hill. Seeing his chance, Emmanuel swerves out and speeds up the opposite lane, jumping a dozen cars before the flashing headlights of an oncoming bus force him back in.

“You have to be faster, to get people to work, to get yourself some money,” he smiles. “That’s why you see us being a bit rough, obstructing, maybe bending rules.”

The maneuver, which draws ire from other drivers, prompts a giggle from Catherine.

“This is why we are better off in the matatus, we get to work quicker than them,” she says, looking out at a shining late-model Toyota sedan we leave behind as Emmanuel lurches us forward another half-dozen spaces.

I ask Catherine how things are changing in her city. She gestures to a new-built three-storey block of apartments.

“Construction, everywhere,” she says. “All of these plots were just small houses before, now they are so many apartments selling for $150,000, $200,000. How can anyone afford something like that?”

Despite her salaried job at Kenya’s Energy Regulatory Commission, the bank loans flowing to the country’s mushrooming middle class are – for now – beyond her reach.

There’s no bitterness or envy, however, as she talks of wanting to upgrade from the home she shares with her two children in Kawangware.

“Obviously it’s not satisfactory, but there are others who are languishing in poverty, some people have jobs, some have no jobs,” she says.

“We can’t live a standard life, we are living various lives, some are rich, some are poor, it depends. Things are not so bad for me,” she says.

8:07 a.m.

A mile closer to town. Solomon Waithaka, the matatu’s conductor, is as sanguine as Catherine. Sliding open the door for alighting passengers in Hurlingham, opposite the Russian-run casino, he states: “I like my job, yes.”

There’s a pause. “But you know it’s just for money. Let me tell you, if I get another job, a good one, I will leave this one,” he says. He’s been riding the matatus, taking fares, touting for passengers, for 15 years.

No other good job has come his way, yet.

8:11 a.m.

Three more gas stations: gas at $4.36 a gallon, diesel $3.93 a gallon. A billboard for Kenya’s Tusker beer, boasting “100% African inspiration”.

The traffic thins. Solomon smiles as Emmanuel speeds up. Catherine packs away her Motorola, counts change for her fare.

We beat the lights and turn towards Upper Hill, home to government offices, insurance firms and banks. Nairobi’s downtown district stretches off to our left, beyond Uhuru Park and All Saints Cathedral with its imported Scottish stained-glass windows.

8:14 a.m.

Catherine’s stop. She smiles as she steps down from the matatu, shouts “nice day” over her shoulder as she hurries up the hill to her day of training. If the rain holds, she’ll be at least another hour getting home to her kids tonight.

For Emmanuel and Solomon, it’s speed that counts now, as the roads clear towards Railways, the town-side end of the Route 46.

The quicker they get to town, the quicker they can load up and head back out. Together, the pair have to pay the matatu’s owner something close to $50 a day to rent the minibus, and they must pay for gas themselves.

Anything on top is their profit. But our fare for the hour’s journey, even at peak-time premium, was less than $1. Heading the other way, it’s half that.

We splash through puddles into the terminus, by the city’s iconic Railway Station. As the last two passengers spill out, Emmanuel swings the Nissan round, hoots a good-bye, and is gone, back into the bustle, back to the hustle.

 

Small Business Owners in a Nairobi Slum Display Kenyan Resilience – By Brendan Bannon

 

Benson Omenda, 48, has been tailoring clothes for residents in Nairobi’s Kibera slum for more than 15 years. “I fear the best days are behind us, especially now that the second-hand clothes markets have arrived, meaning tailored clothes are not so longer popular.”

Brendan Bannon

 

 

:: Kibera, Nairobi  Kenya ::

A string of small shops in Kibera, a Nairobi slum, were looted and burned in the post-election violence of 2007. Today, many of those store owners are once again turning a profit.

Less than an hour after the results of Kenya’s presidential election were announced late in December 2007, the fires started in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum.

Supporters of rival political parties launched a month of attacks against their opponents in a wave of violence which eventually killed 1,300 people nationwide.

Along one of the frontlines in Kibera lay the 100-odd small shops – selling everything from bottles of Coke to cheap plastic flip-flips – lining the 500-yard road leading down to Olympic Secondary School.

All were looted then torched. Businesses built over years were lost in a day.

Today, however, cautious optimism is back, as Nairobi’s irrepressible push for profit overcomes fears of a repeat of the “clashes” as the next election looms.

Several members of the self-help Olympic Small Business Organization shared their thoughts.

Cynthia Achieng, 34, Olympic Beauty Shop

“You can’t dwell on things that are not your fault, like my burnt store or my stolen goods. If I did that, I would be lost. My kids are young, their Daddy lost his job, so what can I do? We need something on the table at the end of the day. After the violence, I decided to pick up from scratch. I started just putting down some sacks on the street, putting my wares on them. Eventually, I progressed, I built this kiosk with some help from neighbors. Today I am selling more things even than before the violence. I have expanded my business, and now you can see, I’m moving ahead. I am optimistic.

“I prefer dealing with women’s goods than men’s, it’s simpler, you know we women are vulgar spenders, we see something, we buy it even if we did not plan for it. I know well how to sweet talk people to separate from their money, that’s my profession. If I don’t sweet talk them, they will just walk away.

“Business has gone down because of post-election, and as for now the economy is very down, inflation is high, it’s too unbearable. Nowadays people only cater for food, not other expenditures. What can stop me from achieving my dreams is only the politicking in Kenya. I don’t want to tell you that our government will help us, they will not. The common man will always remain as he or she is, unless he works hard. It is up to me to rise up and do something good for myself, or for the society. That’s how we will be moving on.”

Peter Ogweno, 32, Alfa Electronics

“I was working for another guy in another electronics repair shop, but I had been keeping some small money little by little and I had some small capital. After the violence, I saw that this was the time to open my own shop. It was not enough money, I had to start small and work hard to progress.

“The first few months, the biggest challenge was getting new customers. I had some few friends they were helping me to find customers, and I brought some from the old place. Now my momentum is building up very highly. We repair radios, TVs, amplifiers, microwaves. Most things we manage, it’s only that repairing a machine from US, Europe, UK, spares are not available. Those from China, they are many and not any problems.

“What I need is a more modern and bigger shop. These ones here are temporary and we are always being told by the City Council that they will be removed. There is no way to find a loan to expand your business if there is the risk that tomorrow a bulldozer will come and pull it away with no warning.

“But I have some confidence that things can change. In five years you’ll find me here running this business, but it will be bigger. I don’t need to go to these upper class shopping centers in the city. Business is business wherever you are.”

Evalin Aoko, 38, Candy Stall

“I started this business in 2006, selling candy to the children at the school nearby here, they are my best customers, even by 6:00 a.m. they are buying. I have my stock here on this tray outside my friend’s shop. When I started, I had something like $30 as capital, it allowed me to buy the first stock. Since then I have had to take some loans to buy more stock, or pay school fees for my children, or just to put food on the table.

“What I need is simple – capital. Then I can go to the suppliers in town and buy things in cartons of many, instead of packets of few. Then the price is lower and my profit is higher. But where do I find the money for the wholesalers like that? When the sales are good I can raise $6 a day in profit, but even that’s not enough to cover the bills I have to pay. That’s why I cannot move on.

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box.net Looking Real Good.

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box.net, boxdotnet, Cloud Computing, sharepoint

Kenyan MPs Push for ICT City

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ICT, Kenya ICT, Technopolis

Kenya’s ICT Technopolis Park got a boost from the influential Parliamentary Committee on Energy, Information and Communications, when members of the committee pushed for the project to be fast-tracked as they visited the site that will house the Technopolis.

Members of the committee said the project would create many commercial opportunities, and up to 80 000 new jobs in the first four years.

The technology city, which is to be built 60km south of Nairobi, is to be modelled on similar ICT parks in India, Malaysia, China and Egypt.

“The ICT Park will be a catalyst for growth in investment and education in the East African region,” said committee chairman James Rege. “We want the project to start as soon as possible.”

However, officials from the Ministry of Information and Communications emphasised that the start date hinged on ongoing consultations between the government and the International Finance Corporation.

“We are still consulting on the best model to adopt, whether its public-private partnership or private-sector-driven venture, with the government providing the amenities and an enabling environment,” said director of administration in the ministry Bruce Madete.

Kenya’s government, which bought the 5 000-acre land from a co-operative society at a cost of Sh1 billion, is handling the Technopolis planning through the Ministry of Information and Communications.

An earlier visit to the site by the Public Accounts Committee led to the approval of the Sh800 billion ($10 billion) project. The Communications Ministry has said the master plan will be out by the end of April. Several international firms have already expressed their interest in being the master builders, with the ministry providing architectural plans, land and overall coordination.

The National Youth Service has already been contracted to provide a perimeter wall around the land to prevent encroachment by private developers.

Sub-contractors are then set to be invited to bid for the building of the technology city’s infrastructure, recouping their investment with levy service charges under the build, operate and transfer model. Other bidders will be invited to build and operate the transport system within the ICT Park, as well as a high-speed railway linking the city with Nairobi and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Once completed, the ICT Park will hold BPO centres, schools, universities, shopping malls, hotels with conference facilities, and a financial district. The ministry says government is also in the process of procuring an undersea cable to connect the city to the Mombasa-Nairobi fibre-optic cable, essentially laying the necessary IT backbone for the park.

The project is part of the government’s long-term plan of making Kenya a middle income country by 2030. Commonly known as “Vision 2030”, the ICT Park is set to become the focal point of ICT ventures and home to technology companies in the region.

The Ministry of Information and Communications has hinted that several local and multinational IT companies have expressed an interest in setting up base once the project takes off.

“Two universities have bought land near the area, with an eye on the human resource needs that will be required once the park is complete,” said Kirimi Guantai, chief economist at the Communications Ministry.

The ICT Technopolis Park will facilitate business activity within and outside the country, reinforce efficient linkages between the private and public sector, and promote the acquisition and usage of ICT in the country, says the Kenya Information and Communications Ministry.

Courtesy of ITWeb http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=42598:kenyan-mps-push-for-ict-city