Africa will soon be awash with bandwidth
Take a look at the thickness of the lines. The thin black line is the SAT3 undersea cable that South Africa has been reliant on for years. See how it’s dwarfed by the capacity of the new cables. Nice, nice, nice.
I have always maintained, that there are 3 things in life that there’s never enough of (or said another way - you’ll use all you get): money, parmesan cheese and bandwidth.
The WACS cable makes the funky new Seacom cable look skinny! Bring it on.
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South Africa
bandwidth
charts
tech
articles
My 10 Crazy Apple iSlate Predictions (Take 2)
A few weeks ago I published my 10 Crazy Apple iSlate Predictions
Well, 12 hours ago it launched. This is how I faired:
1. It actually exists.
Yes, bingo.
2. It runs both Mac apps and iPhone apps.
Well… does iWork count as half a point? OK, no.
3. It’s waterproof. Yep, reading in the bath is a reality.
OK, I was out on a limb here. However, I bet you some accessory manufacurer will ship a waterproof cover before the year is out.
4. You can download and read any e-zine in full colour, unlike the Kindle, etc. (Think the whole Apple ecosytem strategy here, folks. Remember, iPod plus iTunes, iPhone plus apps. Now it’ll be iSlate plus books, movies, magazines, presentations.)
Yes, bingo.
5. It does voice calls, like a phone.
OK, Apple is not all together clear on this. The 3G version has a SIM card, plus the device has speakers and a microphone, so I am guessing calls are a go… but they don’t explicitely say so. Let’s be safe and say it’s data only. So it’s a no then. Second thoughts - if you use the Skype app or Google Voice you can score a yes ;-)
6. It’s also a TV.
Well, kinda. Using the adapter accessory or H.264. Half a point.
7. It can run with or without a SIM card.
Yes, bingo.
8. You can connect it to an external monitor or data projector.
Yes, bingo.
9. It has awesome sound quality for watching movies.
Yes, bingo.
10. It will be seen as both a business tool and a tool for students (think iTunesU).
Yes, bingo.
11. Bonus point: It’s not actually called the iSlate.
Yes, bingo. iPad it is.
Oh, and off course all the obvious things like wifi, 3G+, multi-touch, OLED screens, etc, etc.
Bingo, bingo, bingo.
My list of predictions is not based on science, research or even insider knowledge (of which I have none). It’s based on some wild imaginings I have been having about this mystical device.
I wonder what my prediction score will be, out of 11?
I tally 7 and a half out of 11, if you count my half point.
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Apple
iPad
tech
articles
My 10 Crazy Apple iSlate Predictions
My 10 Crazy Apple iSlate Predictions
1. It actually exists.
2. It runs both Mac apps and iPhone apps.
3. It’s waterproof. Yep, reading in the bath is a reality.
4. You can download and read any e-zine in full colour, unlike the Kindle, etc. (Think the whole Apple ecosytem strategy here, folks. Remember, iPod plus iTunes, iPhone plus apps. Now it’ll be iSlate plus books, movies, magazines, presentations.)
5. It does voice calls, like a phone.
6. It’s also a TV.
7. It can run with or without a SIM card.
8. You can connect it to an external monitor or data projector.
9. It has awesome sound quality for watching movies.
10. It will be seen as both a business tool and a tool for students (think iTunesU).
11. Bonus point: It’s not actually called the iSlate.
Oh, and off course all the obvious things like wifi, 3G+, multi-touch, OLED screens, etc, etc.
My list of predictions is not based on science, research or even insider knowledge (of which I have none). It’s based on some wild imaginings I have been having about this mystical device.
I wonder what my prediction score will be, out of 11?
Tags:
Apple
iPhone
iPod
iSlate
iTunes
tech
articles
Deal in Microsoft-EU browser war
“Microsoft reaches agreement with European Union anti-trust regulators to allow European users a choice of browsers.” So says this BBC article.
OK, guys, enough already! Honestly, does it really matter who wins any more? Browser wars, shmowser wars. It’s not like you can’t download any browser you want. Usually for free too - except Opera! Ironic how they are one of the challengers in this case.
On the Windows platform there must be a dozen browsers to choose from. On Mac maybe 3, on Linux maybe 3 or 4. Yeah I know Microsoft was a bit of a bully 10 years ago about all this, but now browser democracy has meant people pick the one they want. It’s over folks, nothing to see here, move along mow.
By the way, did you hear about some EU policy-maker who insisted Microsoft ship Windows 7 without Internet Explorer at all? Picture the scene: Fritz buys Windows 7, rushes home to install it. He can’t wait to hop on the net to download his preferred browser of choice, so he fires up the browser… er… wait, there isn’t one. Tricky, huh?!
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Internet Explorer
Microsoft
browser
tech
web
art
articles
Cool iPhone Accessory
Whilst buying a new iPod the other day at an Apple dealership**, I discovered a cool iPhone stand. Griffin’s website describes it as: an “Acoustic Amplifier for iPhone”
Actually, I was looking for a dock for easy drop-in-yank-out charging. But the AirCurve won me over - not only is it a beautifully designed stand, it has a surprising function: an acoustic amplifier. It never needs batteries or adapters.
It’s got an engineered waveguide ”horn’ that collects the sound from the iPhone’s somewhat tinny speaker, and amplifies it by about 10 decibels and projects it into the room. I wouldn’t call it hi-fi, but it’s pretty acceptable. (And looks stunning)
** Disclosure: one of our clients
Tags:
Apple
design
iPhone
iPod
tech
articles
OK, let’s Twitter your weight. Feel better?
Some tech things I just don’t get. Like this very cool bathroom scale.
It’s beautifully designed, it’s digital, has built-in wi-fi so it can send your weight to your router and upload it to a secure online weight tracking service. That all sounds perfect for geeks like me who like to track things.
But their latest new feature just has me wondering: Tweet your weight. I mean, really, who would want this? Is this just tech for tech’s sake?
Picture the scene: Woman walks into bathroom, sees the scale and avoids stepping on it in case she’s picked up weight. Scale fail. Or she steps on it because she’s feeling confident that she’s lost some and waits for the reading… eeek… she’s 1kg up… quick take the batteries out of the scale… unplug the router… unplug the internet… switch off the power… a mad scramble as the faithful device delivers the message to the whole world via Twitter.
Here’s a sample Tweet: http://twitter.com/Withings/status/5563892617
Their website: Withings - Withings - The WiFi Scale
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Twitter
design
tech
articles
The realtime web is here, now.
At just after 5pm I tweeted this tweet:
Twitter / Steve Mathew: Google Chrome OS To Launch
At 5:19pm a Google Alert (http://www.google.com/alerts) pops up in my inbox alerting me to my tweet.
No big deal? OK, get this: This means that in the 18 minutes in between, Google indexed my Twitter account (and all 79 million other Twitter feeds) found something new; indexed it into their search DB (try searching for this - it’s there!); then their Google Alerts service picked up the new entry in the Google search DB; scanned the list of alerts I and others have; found a match on “steve mathew” and fired an email message to me!
All this in less time it could take you to 
make a good cappuccino and drink it. And while it was doing this for me, it was doing it for millions of other folks too.
Did I mention, none of that cost me a cent?
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Google
Google Alerts
Twitter
realtime
tech
articles
Cafe World game hits 10 million users in just a week
Amazingly they’re up to 15 million already - the fastest growing game ever. (Confession, I haven’t yet played it, and probably wont’.) But just because I don’t play games on Facebook, doesn’t mean half the FB universe doesn’t!
Seems like these guys look set to make $200m in revenue this year. The game designer, Zynga, employ over 500 people. Yes folks, games are big business.
Zynga’s Cafe World game hits 10 million users in just a week | VentureBeat
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Facebook
games
tech
articles
Coffee, Pinotage? Coffee Pinotage!
This post may read like a product endorsement. It is.
Tonight some kind person thrust a glass of Barista Pinotage into my hand. I put up little resistance (read: begged). My first glass of the night was, red, unknown. Not bad, but blurred into the mental archives labelled: unmemorable. This 2nd glass of Pinotage though was, well, blog-worthy.
If you’ve not had the pleasure of sampling a Diemersfontein Pinotage you’ve still got some wine sampling to do. The first time I had a glass (or 3) of this much fabled “coffee” wine was a cold winter’s evening at a good friend’s house and a slab of Lindt 80%. If the thought of eating (dark) chocolate with wine doesn’t grab you, I’m not surprised. I was blown away. Those deep chocolate flavours in that Pinotage are teased out by the Lindt. The wine snobs seem to pooh-pooh the idea - and I have previously fought back (see comments)
Meanwhile, back to the Barista Pinotage I had tonight. Apparently it was hand-crafted by the same wine-maker, Bertus “Starbucks” Fourie, who cooked up the original coffee Diemersfontein Pinotage. And boy has he upped his game (IMHO). It’s a rich, strong flavourful blend with a delicious chocolate aroma and after-taste. Judging by my “Platteresque” poetic post, the alcohol levels were on the high side too. Yum.
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articles
wine
coffee
10 Reasons to love Google Wave
article by Steve Mathew
There’s so much hype over Google Wave and now some critism is also starting to surface. So a colleague (and fellow Google Wave fan) and I compiled a quick list of 10 things to be happy about Google Wave.
1. It’s actually “live”
2. It’s free
3. It’s Google
4. I have an account :-)
5. It’s html 5
6. It’s XMPP
7. It’s realtime - all info is updated to the second (character by character, as you type)
8. It works like a conversation - structured or unstructured
9. Docs can be shared - in fact almost anything can be shared
10. Works on iPhone and Android
11. Nothing to “install” - it’s in the cloud so just grab a browser wherever you are
Wait, that’s 11! OK, 1 more: potentially works offline because of Google Gears
So folks, back off, this thing is only 2 weeks old. It’s new tech and it has warts and all. Nobody promised it will be perfect on launch day. In fact, they launched it to get input on how to perfect it. See that big BETA sticker? So relax, settle down kids, no-one’s going to get hurt here.
I wonder how many nay-saying commentators on the side of the field have actually shipped code that scales to millions of users?
Tags:
Google
google wave
tech
articles
“Given enough coffee, I could rule the world.”
I spotted this quote on the side of a coffee machine at a client’s office. Actually I’ve seen it often over the last few years of going there. Which got me thinking: it’s a good quote, works for the brand of coffee and even has humour. Heck, the idea even resonates with me, especially after a few strong cups!
So why was it bothering me last week when I saw it again? I think it has something to do with brand laziness.
Someone at the agency or the coffee company liked it for it’s humour and signed it off. But unlike a good timeless wise quotatation - humour, especially when you see it daily and extended over a 2 year period just isn’t funny anymore. Would it have been better to use a timeless quote, or to skip the humour, or to skip the quote altogether?
But the designer (or the client) would have insisted on “putting something” on the side of the machine. So it’s either some squiggles, or a logo, or a stock photo of a happy couple drinking coffee. Or a quote :-)
You can see how the brand laziness creeps in right from the get-go. Then it dates. And changing it is costly. And it dates some more. And if you leave it up long enough, eventually it’s like wallpaper, not noticed. Perfect, no complaints.
What would Apple put on the side of an iCoffee machine?
Yes, I thought so too.
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Apple
coffee
design
quotes
articles
What does the iPhone, Xbox, PlayStation, the Wii and the Kindle have in common?
Yes, they’re all tech products. They also hugely popular. And they’re the offspring of companies that compete fiercely. But no, that’s not the answer I was looking for.
The answer is that they are all manufactured by the SAME COMPANY. Yes, I couldn’t believe it either. They’re called Foxconn, the largest manufacturer of electronics and computer components worldwide. Based in Taiwan and going since 1974.
They produce the Mac mini, the iPod and the iPhone, the Macbook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, Intel motherboards, computers for Dell and Hewlett-Packard, the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 for Sony, the Wii for Nintendo, the Xbox 360 for Microsoft, cell phones for Motorola, the Amazon Kindle, and various Cisco products. Oh and they also produce devices for Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Palm.
Man, that’s impressive. One wonders how they manage to keep the trade secrets of the various producers, well er, secret. The mind boggles.
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articles
tech
sony
microsoft
apple
iphone
xbox
Sony
Amazon
Kindle
Nokia
Wii
Nintendo
Dell
HP
Facebook Lite… dead ‘n gone?
Was wondering today whether anyone still uses the much-trumpeted Facebook Lite?
The day it was rumoured to be launching (12 Aug) I run a search on Google at 9:15am and there were only 2,500 search results for Facebook Lite. As the day continued, and as the frenzy mounted, Google began discovering and indexing more and more mentions. By 6pm that same day there were 73,000 mentions.
Today there are 43.3 million mentions. In anyone’s books, that’s a lot.
Everyone I have spoken to about Facebook Lite, tried it once, and has never been back. I think it was a little too late and ill-conceived from the start. The only use I can see for it would be like the training wheels on kids bikes - make all new FB sign-ups use it for a limited time to “get the hang” of FB before graduating to the real deal.
After all, when last did you consume a “lite” version of a product that tasted better?
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Facebook
Facebook Lite
Google
tech
articles
Not so Del.icio.us any more!
I have become less enamoured with del.icio.us (delicious.com as it’s now named) in the last year. They have stood still in the new features dept and in user support - in fact they may even have gone backwards.
Since they sold out to Yahoo! we have seen no progress. The founder was becoming disillusioned with Yahoo! (I guess it didn’t help matters that Yahoo! was busy wrestling with their CEO, the Microsoft offer, the shareholder scuffle and so on). I guess all that took their eye off the ball - especially with the fringe offerings - such as del.icio.us.
Anyway, the founder quit, and has since joined Google (who hasn’t?!)
So, imagine my disbelief when earlier today I went to see what’s up on delicious popular… usually my first stop.
“Sorry there are no popular bookmarks at the moment.”
What!! Come on guys, be serious! You telling me “nothing” is popular on the interwebs today?
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articles
tech
delicious
yahoo
Quit Managing Your Time… and Start Managing Your Attention
I really love the ebooks from ChangeThis and have been reading them for years and years now. In fact I have downloaded pretty much 70% of them for offline consumption.
Reading this one, made me realise something I have been struggling with a little lately (OK, OK, forever…) and that is “time”. Trying to “manage it”. Yes I know you can’t - I and millions of other have discovered this the hard way.
But attention, you can manage. It’s yours after all. So, where’s your attention now? Scattered or laser-like?
Perhaps it’s time to look at my to-do list and shift some of those to the dump. It might hurt a little now in the short term, but the moment I do that, I free up energy and attention for the BIG STUFF. Or as Covey says - “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
Download the ebook here: http://changethis.com/61.03.ManageAttention
