Cellphones with serious bling

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It seems there is a market for ­people willing to pay between R50 000 and R159 000 for a phone from luxury brand Vertu. This is a trend that is expected to grow. A case in point is the R69 000 offered on Bidorbuy, no less, for Vertu’s relatively cheap Ascent Red phone. Vertu employee Antonio Ambrosio

Eskom battles forces of darkness

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The country’s electricity reserve margin slid to a perilously low 63MW, or 0,2%, early last week, heightening concerns that South Africa is a hair’s breadth from experiencing rolling power cuts. Despite the heightened risk, Eskom has several options to manage the very tight power system, said its spokesman, Hilary Joffe

Telkom may sell assets – report

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Potential job cuts and the disposal of money-losing assets is looming at Telkom, Business Report said on Tuesday. The restructuring came at a time when the telecommunications company ramped up its bid to cut costs and position itself to compete in a cut-throat market. According

Where are SA’s next mavericks?

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Mark Shuttleworth certainly isn’t afraid of taking the proverbial bull by the horns. After selling his South African Internet security business Thawte for US$575m at the height of the dot-com bubble, spending $20m and a year in training to become the first South African in space, and launching an operating system

How the SA gov’t spies on you

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Americans are shocked and ­outraged at ­revelations that their government is vacuuming up information about their phone conversations and internet browsing habits but, compared to South Africans, they have little to worry about. According to ­exposés by the Guardian and

ZATS: Ep 262 – ‘An Apple a day’

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Brett Haggard, Steven Ambrose and Andy Hadfield can seemingly only talk about one thing when it comes to the show this week. They give their views on Apple Mac OS X 10.9 “Mavericks”, the updated Mac Pro, the updated MacBook Air, early impressions of iOS 7, the launch of iTunes Radio

Balloons: Google’s plan to connect the world

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First it was self-driving cars, then Google Glass, and now with Project Loon, Google is turning its attention to … balloons. The company has begun a pilot project in New Zealand using high-pressure balloons in the stratosphere to provide Internet connectivity “at 3G speeds” and, if it goes well, Google wants to encircle

Telkom in sweeping antitrust settlement

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Telkom has agreed to pay a R200m penalty, to functionally separate its retail and wholesale divisions, to adhere to pricing commitments for the next five years, and to allow its future conduct to be monitored. This all forms part of a settlement with the Competition Commission over anticompetitive abuses