Google is continuing to tailor its search engine and other online tools for the SA market, on Friday announcing its mobile voice search facility is now also available in Zulu and Afrikaans, in addition to English. The service, available immediately, allows users
Browsing: Apple
When Apple announced the iPad tablet computer earlier this year, some analysts wondered if that spelt the end for Amazon.com’s Kindle e-reader. On the contrary, the next-generation Kindle is flying out of Amazon’s warehouses.
One of the most curious and unintended side effects of rapid innovation is on language. Rather than making words up, we prefer to frame things in analogy and reference. That’s why we still talk about “opening a window” on a computer, and why we “cut and paste” text and save “bookmarks”
Telkom’s new mobile arm, 8ta, is in talks with Apple about bringing the US company’s popular iPhone 4 handset to SA. If the two parties reach agreement, 8ta, which Telkom launched on Thursday night, will be the third operator in the country to offer the hot-selling product.
Predictions are a tricky thing. Fifteen years ago, when the Internet was first flexing its gobal wings, futurists were predicting the end of all “traditional” media, particularly television. And while the dot-com bust deflated a lot of expectations, some of those predictions finally seem to be coming true. Time spent on everything from newspapers to cinema has been falling while Internet usage has been climbing inexorably higher.
Once upon a time, about five years ago, consumers were obsessed about the size of their cellphones. The smaller the phone, the better. But that was before the advent of smartphones.
BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion has finally shown its hand in the tablet computer market, taking aim at Apple’s iPad with the PlayBook, a device with a 7-inch touch screen running the new BlackBerry Tablet OS. Aimed squarely at the corporate market – and thereby differentiating itself somewhat from the iPad – the PlayBook weighs 400g, has a screen resolution of 1024×600, sports a 1GHz dual-core processor, and supports true symmetric multiprocessing.
Android, Google’s mobile operating system, is set to contest the top spot in market share from Symbian within the next four years, says international technology research firm Gartner. Android was launched in late 2007 and has climbed steadily towards being the most popular operating system since.
Nokia is replacing its CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, with a top Microsoft executive, Stephen Elop, as the Finnish handset manufacturer seeks to make up for ground it has lost in recent years to rivals such as iPhone-maker Apple and BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion. But already a senior Gartner analyst is questioning the move. “I’m in two minds about this,” says Gartner vice-president Nick Jones.
Vodacom has lost its exclusivity over Apple’s iPhone in SA: MTN will launch the product in the country within weeks. The cellular network operator will announce late on Thursday afternoon that it will begin selling the iPhone device through its channels. TechCentral has learnt that MTN will issue a press statement later on Thursday confirming what many had already expected: that it has secured a distribution agreement with Apple.