All the latest technology news from South Africa and around the world.
An Irish media company has sold off its newspaper group in South Africa, including Johannesburg’s The Star, for US$227m (about R2bn) to a local firm. In a statement issued late on Sunday night, Dublin-based Independent News & Media said it sold its South African subsidiary to Sekunjalo Holdings
Telecommunications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), has been dragged to court for not disclosing the status of a service provider accused of operating without a licence. Having been sent
The SABC has been left red-faced over the loss of its planned 24-hour news channel on DStv after the well-connected Gupta family seized the gap. Few at the SABC appear to have been aware that the Gupta channel was even in the offing, although the broadcaster must have been in regular contact
Communications department director-general Rosey Sekese remains on special leave, the department said on Friday. “The matter is being handled internally. Deputy director-general Gift Buthelezi has been asked to continue acting as director general of the department,” spokesman Siya Qoza
The department of basic education plans to spend R480m on a biometric clocking-in system to ensure that teachers are at work, a newspaper report said on Wednesday. The system, which could be introduced at about 24 000 public schools, would ensure teachers arrived on time for work and spent the requisite
The BlackBerry 7 (BB7) operating system isn’t likely to disappear any time soon, and neither is the flat-rated and unlimited Internet and e-mail proposition, the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), that has made BB7-powered devices so popular in emerging markets. In fact, BlackBerry
BlackBerry hasn’t ruled out the possibility of licensing its new operating system, BlackBerry 10 (BB10), to other smartphone manufacturers if the business model and timing for such a move were right. “Licensing is part of our strategic review and we’re looking into this,” Heins tells TechCentral at BlackBerry’s Canadian
Get ready to the idea dialling mobile numbers with prefixes like “060” and “061”. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has opened up the “06” prefix for the first time as growth in mobile subscriptions propels demand from operators for additional numbers
Anyone in doubt that Android is poised to be the Windows of the smartphone era, read on. Google’s market share of operating systems on smartphones leapt to 69,7% of the total market in the fourth quarter of 2012, from 51,3% a year earlier. That represents a 33% increase. During the
The battle between WirelessG and Vodacom, which holds 26% of the specialist Wi-Fi provider, is getting uglier. On Tuesday, WirelessG CEO Carel van der Merwe said in comments e-mailed to TechCentral that Vodacom had “reached a state of total incompetence” and said the mobile
