• Is big brother reading your Gmail?

    Those of you who watch TV Shows and spy movies have seen it, government spooks and law enforcement agents hacking into private email accounts and computers with disturbing ease.

  • Barns, the internet, a #263chat TweeT@ble, Baba Jukwa & an election

    In October 2009, a few posts into the founding of this blog, we attended a function where media professionals and politicians were discussing “Free Expression and Freedom of the media” in Zimbabwe. We were quite surprised however that in discussing media and expression, no one mentioned the internet or mobile phones.

  • Samsung Galaxy S4 now being sold at Econet Wireless Zimbabwe

    Econet Wireless Zimbabwe has announced that it’s now selling Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, in its Harare and Bulwayo stores. So far, the price revealed is US $900 cash. Ads in the press and the company’s Facebook page say however that payment options are available in the stores.

  • Zim mobile operators on social media: Econet surpasses Telecel in popularity

    When we listed Zimbabwe’s most ‘Liked’ pages on Facebook late last year, one company was clearly conspicuous by its absence from the list of companies and brands that had the largest following on the social network; Econet. This despite that offline, the company commands one of the highest, if not the highest, customer base in…

  • Some WhatsApp alternatives for feature phones & Android

    WhatsApp is not the only WhatsApp out there. There are dozen other apps that run on smartphones and others on feature phones that achieve the same end in more or less the same way. So we thought we’d just list a few you can try and see if you like.

  • 263Chat live Twitter event: How Zimbawean politicians use social media

    Ever wondered how many Zimbabwean politicians use social media to connect to the people they are supposed to represent. Ever wondered which ones and how they use social media? How many blogs, are on Twitter, Facebook, post YouTube videos etc…

  • biNu rebuilds Android app to improve user experience

    If you’re one of the more than 100,000 people that have downloaded biNu’s Android app, you were probably only pleased with the app page load speeds, processing etc.. but likely disappointed with an un-smartphone like feel.

  • Yahoo’s US $1.1 Billion deal for Tumblr approved by board (Update: done deal!)

    Microblogging tool, Tumblr, will soon have new owners if a deal for a US $1.1 billion cash acquisition consummates. The deal was approved by the Yahoo board yesterday. Tumblr was founded in 2007 by now 26 year old entrepreneur, David Karp, who is also the CEO

  • Android & iPhone users: BBM to come to a device near you

    Apparently BlackBerry is just discovering now that if they could have looked beyond just inside their ecosystem 1for the growth of its much loved BlackBerry Messenger, they could have made it to the top messaging position WhatsApp occupies today.

  • Smartphone survey results: Zimbabwe’s most used & preferred phones

    Following last week’s intense verbal fencing we are pleased to announce that the jury is back and we have the results. Now before I start to gloat and tell you I told you so here is a summary of the results:

  • If you had unlimited broadband at unlimited speed, what would you use it for?

    Yesterday, we asked our followers on Facebook a question: If you had unlimited broadband at unlimited speeds, what would you use it for?

  • Local education startup, Brainstorm, makes service free

    When in February we published the first article about Brainstorm, a startup that brings exam revision material to students via a mobile web service, the founder of the service told us that though they were charging a cent a question for the service; they were looking into ways to make it free for any student…

  • Bitcoin, a currency and payments opportunity for Zimbabweans?

    The money system is broken, and no one knows that better than the Zimbabwean who watched helplessly as institutions – government, politicians, bankers – they trusted to look after the value of their money conspired and eroded hard earned savings to nothing over a few years.

  • Econet Wireless, vanishing airtime, POTRAZ, and transparency

    What would have happened if subscribers hadn’t taken to social media to complain? What about if this had affected just 50 people who all didn’t notice? How do we even know this was the first time? What mechanisms does POTRAZ have in place to ensure these glitches are detected when they happen? Does POTRAZ audit…

  • Broadband Forum Preview: How local content fuels broadband consumption

    The saying that content is king precedes the internet and can likely be traced as far back as the age of Papyrus. Engaging, enriching and current content is what drives the information age. Once a local flavor is brought to the table, consumption patterns grow at an exponential rate.

  • Africom slashes device prices by as much as 71% for Zimbabwe Golf Open

    The annual Zimbabwe Golf Open is always a great time (and place) to buy Africom gadgets. See, Africom always has a booth at the tournament and they basically sell devices at giveaway.

  • Review: The Econet 3G mobile Wi-Fi device

    Close to two weeks ago, we received a test unit of the Econet Huawei mobile Wi-Fi device for review. Being a small operation ourselves, we decided to start using it as our primary office connection since then so that we speak about the reliability, stability, speed and other things from a point of actually having…

  • Experience HIFA on mobile this year: Android app now available

    A post on Facebook by local web & mobile app development company, C2 Media, just announced that an Android app for Zimbabwe’s biggest arts festival, HIFA is now live. The app is free. For many lovers of the annual festival (those on Android at least) this solves a huge information pain.

  • About moving web hosts #techzim

    To improve availability and speed of the site, we migrated Techzim to new hosts a few weeks ago. Last time we did this was about 2 years ago when we moved the site from local Zim hosts.

  • Thou shalt not form a startup

    I still remember the ZOL startup of 2010 like it was yesterday. A room filled to the with young and ambitious talent that wanted to make a difference and bring back their country from out of the cold limbo of the just past decade long crisis. Fast forward to today and many of those startups…

  • Zimbabwe’s tech mercenaries

    I watched in disbelief as my local transformer blew up in flames for what must surely be the upteenth time in little over a month. I could not fathom the cause for such incompetence as this was also the upteenth new transformer ZESA had installed. My friend however had a perfectly rational explanation as always:

  • Using apps to keep tabs on your child

    It’s happening elsewhere but given the technological challenges of the older generation as compared with their children and counterparts, child controlling apps are still to gain traction here in Zimbabwe.

  • It’s all about the PR, Buddie!

    Last night, I was taken aback by the way that Econet Wireless was handling, or rather not handling, its very serious service delivery crisis. Since Saturday evening, subscribers have been expressing frustration and anger at the strange and unexplained disappearance of their airtime. From the people I have spoken to, people who had topped up…

  • Zimbabwe Stock Exchange finally launches website; a really useful one

    We’re just from a Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) event where the local exchange was launching a web portal. The new website comes online after close to 2 years of being down. From our first impressions we almost want to say the wait was worth it, which we shouldn’t say because 2 years is a long…

  • Zimbabwe’s internet crawls as undersea fibre outage enters 4th day

    Zimbabwean internet providers relying on the onward fibre connectivity of SEACOM and EASSy, two of Africa’s major undersea cables, are facing major problems delivering internet services to customers as the the two cables have been down for close to 4 days

  • ProvLabs launches Zim provisional driving license application

    A local start-up called Provlabs has developed a solution that enables individuals looking to get a Zimbabwean learner’s drivers license to practice for the test on their PCs. The application, which we had an opportunity to check out, is a test simulator with over 650 questions, 300 diagram questions and time limit controls in much…

  • Using technology to fight corruption

    News has reached us that those we have tasked with fighting corruption are in fact themselves corrupt. This coupled with the fact that me and a couple of hundred other people were asked to contribute a dollar each, ostensibly for a ZESA team’s transport, after a transformer blew up in my area can be considered…

  • Econet introduces new solar power products

    Yesterday we attended the launch by Econet of a new solar charger/lantern/radio combo product called the Power Lantern SW015. The product is an improvement of the lantern that was on the market which, according to Econet Services CEO, Darlington Mandivenga, the company sold 400,000 of.

  • We were down this weekend

    If you visited the Techzim website on Saturday, you were probably met with an error indicating the site couldn’t load. It wasn’t just you; we were down for most of Saturday. The issue was a hosting one, and it’s the longest we’ve been offline because of hosting problems since launch. We’re sorry for this and…

  • Boundless: start up offering free textbooks online

    When I was a college student every semester was a small matter of two heads of cattle in terms of fees cost. These were the days when campus accommodation was no longer available so there was transport costs to add to that.

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