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Showing posts from January, 2013

Am still attached to physical media

As a smartphone user, your blogger belong to the digital class of generation Y. However, I think I have been left behind in terms of embracing the true potential of mobile connected devices because am still attached to physical media. In my possession is large existing, Long Plays, Magazines some dating back to 1954, old newspapers dating back to 1960s, Compact Discs, Films and Videogame collections despite the facts that smartphones and tablets are exploding in popularity which are driving digital media sales, whether it be music and video downloads and paid up content subscriptions. I must admit I do belong to the category of consumers who do online shopping and am a daily mobile Internet user and a subscriber of online TV channels. Am still more attached to physical media, and up to now am much slower to commit to new channels of content delivery because of what I can amateur content. Digital phenomenon has had a dramatic impact on how I consume music, publishing and ne

Nokia revival dependent on Windows 8 phones

Nokia is pinning its hopes on its new mass-market Windows Phone 8 handset pipeline to revive its smartphone market share in sub Sahara Africa. The Finnish mobile maker has selected Africa as one of the region in which it will focus on the smartphone segment thanks to the proliferation of internet-connected devices in the country. The introduction of the new mass phone model, the Lumia brand, is Nokia’s latest bid to regain market share in Africa's booming smartphone market.  Both Nokia and BlackBerry will have one last chance to come back into the markets in Africa that has lately been dominated by LG and Samsung brands and iPhone. Research in Motion's BlackBerry plans to launch its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones in Africa by April. Samsung is also preparing to roll out its first Windows phone, the Ativ S, in the African market in the next month or so. Nokia will this year focus on mid-tier smartphones priced between $200 and $700, a high growth area for the com

Facebook Unveils Graph Search

With more than 240 billion photos, Graph Search will now make it easier to find public photos after Facebook announced a major addition to its social network. The feature allows users to make searches of content shared by Facebook friends. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg revealed that it was not a web search, and it is not a direct challenge to search giant Google. "We look at Facebook as a big social database," said Mr Zuckerberg, adding that social search was Facebook's "third pillar" and stood beside the news feed and timeline as the foundational elements of the social network. Zuckerberg said Graph Search was integrating Microsoft's Bing search engine for situations when graph search itself could not find answers. The official YouTube video of the much-hyped event, Zuckerberg claims he did not expect people to start flocking to Facebook to do Web Search as that is not the primary intent of the new product. He added that graph search would la

Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz dies at 26

Reddit co founder Aaron Swartz, one of the best Internet genius in our generation has been pronounced dead at the age of 26. I learned about his sudden death when I saw his name trending on Twitter with some posts stating he committed suicide. I will remember him because he helped deliver new Web content to users through co development of Reddit and RSS before he become a digital activist. At the time of his death, Swartz, who had gone on to press for free public access to Web content, was few weeks away from facing trial on accusations of millions of scientific and literary journal articles theft from the subscription only JSTOR service and faced a lengthy jail term in prison and $1 million in hefty fines if he would have been convicted.  Apparently, one of the tweets posted said that Swartz's family and friends placed part of the blame for his suicide on prosecutors and the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Swartz made the JSTOR download u

Africans scramble to adapt to smartphones

In the world we live today, there are desktop PCs, notebooks that are now facing extinction, smartphones, Tablets and other types of devices are either business centric or consumer-centric in nature. Among the business community in Africa, there are people who are increasingly using mobile devices in their daily operations to do transactions like payments and communication. The growing smartphone base in Africa combined with huge sales of media tablets like iPad and the popular Galaxy Tab is forcing a reassessment of best practices in IT to support the business community. This comes as no surprise to me that businessmen and women in Africa are dropping their comparatively bulky laptops for devices that are sleek and swift irrespective of their gender and age.  In 2013, I anticipate that we shall see mobile technology seeping into business data and applications in most developed African economies like Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Angola among others. When it come