Posted inArtificial Intelligence
Posted inConnectivity
Facebook access without the web. Orange follows FMNA, Gemalto
The one thing clear about telecoms in Africa is that basic phones still rule. There’s another thing too clear to ignore; it is that people on the continent love Facebook. Facebook is so popular, for many Africans Facebook’s the first point of contact with the Internet. Orange has woken up to this fact. The mobile operator will be launching Facebook via USSD in Africa.
Posted inConnectivity
Project Brandify will build you a website for, wait for it… free
Just a few days ago a colleague here at Techzim wrote an article in which he discussed the changing web development landscape in Zimbabwe and the region. In the article he said how it’s not surprising these days to see website developers advertising the development of a ‘complete’ website for as little as US $50. A local web design company says $50 is too much, especially if you’re going to be paying for domain registration, hosting and other little things that come with having a website. They’re proposing a figure way lower than that.
Posted inConnectivity
Mobile manufacturers woot, Internet companies groan
The number of mobile devices will exceed world’s population by 2012. Big deal. It means more and more people are on smartphones and tablets. Nothing interesting or world changing here: or at least that’s what you think, because you’re only a consumer and it’s still Facebook whether it’s on a phone or a laptop.
Posted inConnectivity Startups
Dhiri suspends daily deals service to ‘regroup’
Zimbabwe’s daily deals startup dhiri.co.zw suspended sending out daily deals last Friday, apparently so they can ‘regroup’ and come back stronger. The startup sent out a tweet and a Facebook update on Friday advising it’s followers they were taking a short break that will last a couple of weeks.
Posted inConnectivity
The Herald website hacked, used to propagate pornography
We received several tips this morning from readers alerting us that the Herald website, www.herald.co.zw, had been compromised. We checked. It was. The hack was silent with links to pornography sites inconspicuously placed on every page on the site. Both the Herald and the company that developed & host the website, Webdev, were alerted and the issue has since been resolved.
Posted inConnectivity
The ICT for Education Summit presentations (downloads)
With almost 3 weeks after the ended 'Southern African ICT for Education Summit 2012' that took place in Victoria Falls, we take time to review a few of the 'hot concerns' raised. However for your perusal, all presentations held are available for download from the African Brains site The event saw 12 ministers along with delegates, educators and interested people from around Africa, (though mostly were from Southern Africa) come and discuss issues pertaining to ICT's for education.
Posted inConnectivity Startups
The FinX website and email service go down
If you are a FinX subscriber and you somehow didn’t get your usual email news updates this morning, you’re not alone. The service is having problems today. We just got notified this morning by the FinX managing director, Nyaradzai Chigwida, that the service is down and that the FinX team is working to restore things.
Posted inConnectivity
MATHs startup, Gikko, launches mobile content services with Telecel
We just received a press release from Gikko, the till roll ads and bulk sms startup that we last wrote about in September last year. The release announces the launch of local mobile content services on the Telecel Zimbabwe network.
Posted inConnectivity Startups
Perspective: Africa’s top 20 startups as ranked by Forbes
The February edition of Forbes Africa has a feature profiling the top 20 startups from the African continent. As expected, mobile played a dominant role with Mxit coming up tops as the most promising startup. In the truest sense of the word startup, Mxit might not qualify as it went through institutional investors and is more than seven years old. Definitions and valuations aside, the geographical origins of the startups profiled serves as yet another call to action for those of us in Zimbabwe.
Posted inConnectivity
Econet’s Valentine’s promo: A $100 Android smartphone
This is the lowest an Android smartphone has been sold yet in Zimbabwe. For Valentine’s month, Econet has slashed the price of the Huawei U8100 smartphone by 50% to just US $100. The U8100 is Android powered and one of Huawei’s entry level smartphones. If you read the Huawei Ideos review we did last, you have an idea what kind of phone we’re taking about. They are cousins.
Posted inConnectivity
Telecel goes red for Valentine’s
It appears Telecel has no intention of stopping it’s rapid release of new Value Added Services, just recently they launched their Emergency Credit[link to article] facility and now they have something for couples to enjoy over Valentine’s. By sending an sms to 33511(charged at 10c) you’ll receive a love quote. Let’s admit it, not all of us are Shakespeareans and the card has too much white space when it’s time to scribble something on it.
Posted inConnectivity
JumpStart Intellectual Property presentation in Harare this Friday
On Friday this week, the JumpStart community will hold its second event. This event covers a topic that concerns many a would-be entrepreneur in Zimbabwe; that of Intellectual Property (IP), specifically, the answer to the question; “How is my IP protected?”, or a more direct variation of the question; “What if big company X steals my idea?”
Posted inConnectivity
Two H-Metro Facebook Pages. The more popular one is fake.
Zimbabwe’s popular H-Metro tabloid newspaper H-Metro has two Facebook Pages. The bad news (for H-Metro) is that the most popular one, and the most recently updated one at that, is the fake one. The fake H-Metro Facebook Page has 11,379 likes, while the real one has just 3,854 likes.
Posted inConnectivity
The changing face of the web development industry
It’s almost safe to say that history is repeating itself. A few years, specifically prior to the year 2008 companies such as Cyberplex were known to rule the roost and getting a website for a company was a comparatively sizable investment. There was the initial cost of getting the site developed, and the fixed monthlies/update fees. The process involved repetitive cycles between the marketing team and the web designers until the two parties agreed on a design concept.
Posted inBroadband Connectivity
Econet’s new concept cyber cafe (pictures)
Last week, launched it's much awaited concept Cyber Cafe in Harare (Montagu centre). We had an opportunity to go there and take a few photos of the place. We won't say that we loved it! You just need to see the pictures below. We also hope you'll get a chance to visit it if you happen to be in Harare.
Posted inConnectivity
All set for Mobile Web East Africa 2012
The East Africa edition of the All Amber organised mobile technology conferences, Mobile Web East Africa 2012, is set to take place in Nairobi on the 22nd and 23rd of this month. The conference is supported by Kenya’s *iHub and m:lab East Africa. The conference is organized by UK based company All Amber and focuses on facilitating the growth of the mobile ecosystem in the region through interaction and relationship building.
Posted inConnectivity
Are your children safe on the internet? What should you do?
One of the issues that’s not brought up as often as it should, as Zimbabwe and similar countries are starting to get online at a more accelerated pace, is the issue of the protection of minors. We are all somehow consumed in the liberation of information that the internet brings and seem to want to ignore its obvious double-edged-sword nature.
Posted inConnectivity
Techzim Interviews: ZOL CEO David Behr on acquisition by Liquid
We had the opportunity to speak to ZOL CEO, David Behr on his company’s recent acquisition by the Liquid Telecommunications Group. In the interview he talks about why they sold to Liquid, what this means for ZOL going forward in terms of independence of the ISP and service delivery to customers. Below is a transcript of the interview.
Posted inConnectivity
Zimbabwe finance ministry website taken down after hacking
According to Consumerizim, a local consumer e-activism website, the Zimbabwe ministry of finance website www.zimtreasury.org was hacked yesterday. The website was apparently hacked by a group of hackers calling themselves Abs0lution. The site has since been taken down.
