Duncan McLeod is founder and managing editor of TechCentral. With more than 30 years of experience in technology journalism, he has worked for and contributed to a range of publications, including the Financial Mail, the Sunday Times and the Financial Times.
The Flame malware that infected computers across the Middle East and North Africa is a “cyber weapon”, probably developed by a nation state for the purpose of espionage. This is the view of Vitaly Kamluk, chief malware expert at Russia’s Kaspersky Lab, the antivirus company that played an instrumental
A date has been set for the court showdown between JSE-listed Reunert and John Holdsworth and his new company, mobile virtual network operator AppChat. However, the matter will only be heard in early August, more than two months after the parties had expected they would square off in front of a
When people are asked to think of a hybrid vehicle, the first name that invariably pops into their heads is Toyota’s iconic Prius. But the Japanese carmaker is intent on making full hybrids — cars that can run solely on a battery-powered motor or a petrol engine or a combination of both — available across its range
Seacom plans to upgrade its subsea telecommunications network to newer fibre-optic switching technology later this year that will more than double the capacity on the system. CEO Mark Simpson says the company will begin tests in the next couple of months with a view to upgrading the US$600m system from
It’s not yet known how Hewlett-Packard’s plan to shed 27 000 jobs in the next two and a half years will affect the company’s SA subsidiary. The IT giant said on Wednesday that it plans to shed the jobs, or about 8% of its worldwide workforce of nearly 350 000 people, by the end of its 2014 financial year
Extraordinary events took place behind the scenes in SA’s cellphone industry in the past week. Alan Knott-Craig played his first hand as Cell C CEO, slashing prepaid voice prices, and Vodacom reacted almost immediately with new rates of its own. But then the bigger operator botched its counter attack by
When Samsung sent us its Series 7 Slate tablet PC to review a couple of weeks ago, we couldn’t resist the temptation to ditch Windows 7 from its 128GB solid-state drive and install the consumer preview of Windows 8. After all, Windows 8 is designed from the ground up as a tablet-friendly operating system
Thanks to cost-containment measures, solid demand for data and strong growth in its international businesses, Vodacom has lifted its headline earnings per share in the 2012 financial year by 8,1% to R7,09 on revenue that rose by 9,4% to R66,9bn. A 24% increase in free cash flow allowed the telecommunications group
Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is planning to dilute its shareholding in mobile virtual network operator Virgin Mobile SA by selling a portion of its shares to Dubai-based telecommunications company, the Friendi Group. At the same time, Virgin Mobile
Alan Knott-Craig, installed as Cell C’s new CEO on 1 April, is wasting no time in taking the fight to the operator’s bigger rivals, MTN and Vodacom. Just days after cutting the cost of broadband as part of new promotional offers, Cell C has now slashed the cost of
