Browsing: Amazon

As the UK’s largest gaming festival, Insomnia, wrapped up its latest event on 25 August, I watched a short piece of BBC Breakfast news reporting from the festival. The reporter and some of the interviewees appeared baffled at the huge popularity of “videogame livestreaming”, otherwise

Publishing books seems like a noble and romantic business. You might imagine publishers in waistcoats, discovering new authors, delivering knowledge and enjoyment to the world, and wearing little glasses at the ends of their noses. Alas, there is nothing noble or romantic about Hachette’s dispute with Amazon. For more than six months Hachette

Amazon is not a consumer electronics company. Yes, the e-commerce giant has sold tens of millions of its own devices to customers. And yes, it has just launched a smart phone, but measuring Amazon by Samsung’s or Apple’s standards overlooks the most important thing about its business. When Amazon

As Internet access spread across the globe, a handful of giant American corporations ended up dominating industries. Google in search, Amazon in online shopping and Facebook in social networking. The one market that has proved consistently immune to these titans is China. Now, one of China’s homegrown Internet giants

TechCentral’s recent interview with Herman Singh, Commerce is mobile’s fourth wave, is interesting coming in the same week that his employer, Vodacom, was part of a court action to preserve its unreasonably high mobile termination rights arrangement. Vodacom, along with MTN, threw everything it had into

As is customary at this time of the year, TechCentral is pleased to present its lists of who it considers the biggest technology newsmakers over the past 12 months, both internationally and in South Africa. We kick it off, as always, with the five people the publication’s editors believe

It’s not much to look at — sleek, black and about the size of two decks of cards – but this little box may represent the greatest threat the television industry has faced. A large part of this threat is explained by the logo embossed discreetly on the top of the box – a stylised apple missing a single bite

I used to be one of those people. You know the type. Every time people mentioned how great their digital reader was, I would go on some long rambling explanation about how I don’t get e-readers and prefer the tangible experience of holding a book in my hands. I am no longer that person

South Africa’s e-reader market received a shake-up this month when Pick n Pay announced that it was bringing the Kobo Touch e-reader to SA for R995. By comparison, the Kindle Touch 3G, which was recently launched in South Africa, retails at R2 699. Obviously

E-readers have been a bit of niche product in the South African market and, until recently, usually made their way into the country by special order from online retailers or in jet-setting friends’ suitcases. Canada’s Kobo wants to change that, and its first foray into the market, the Kobo Touch