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Where more of the world population joins the digitally Facebooking-Tweeting-Instagraming-OnlineBanking world, so naturally the criminals not far behind. In fact, the criminals are actually already stalking the online world and just waiting for victims to fall into their net. Crime relating to online activities such as banking phishing attacks, cloned accounts and fictitious transactions are on the increase as the 2012 Norton Cybercrime Report outlines that  cybercrime was affects 556-million victims every year.

In an effort to combat fraud you need to establish a method to know for a fact that the person or company you are transacting with is infact the people or company that they claim they are.

You need a method to establish trust.

In a surprising move, the “trust challenge” has been taken up by the South African Post Office (SAPO) who have developed and launched The Trust Centre which will provide  a South African developed digital certificate service. These Digital Certificates are electronic files securely linking an individual to encryption keys and identification data. This certificate belongs to a server or person and secures communication between parties by encrypting and signing the communications and transactions, protecting them from being intercepted by any unauthorised third party.

The Trust Centre technology, a first South African-developed PKI platform, has been accredited by the South African Accreditation Authority (SAAA), in terms of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 and is a highly secure environment that holds the public key infrastructure (PKI) and Certificate Authorities (CAs) which provide user authentication through the use of Trust Centre digital certificates.

Through its PKI, the Trust Centre will:

• Authenticate and ensure the user is who they say they are;
• Validate the transaction to ensure non-repudiation;
• Protect messages from tampering;
• Encrypt messages to protect the message from unauthorised access;
• Digitally sign transactions and communications to authenticate code, data messages and documents.

The Trust Centre will also offer Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates which provides strong authentication of servers and websites. These certificates are crucial when surfing the web as many websites cannot be trusted, and SSL certificates provide that trust.

SAPO maintains that operating within a South African-based PKI is beneficial as it means that all processes, encryption and content of transactions and communications are kept within the country, including face-to-face maintenance and support. A local PKI will also provide rand-based costing and a local understanding of the challenges and opportunities in the South African market.

SAPO aims to launch other solutions as they transform and embrace the digital future. Christopher Hlekane, group CEO at SAPO says, “With digital capabilities being a prerequisite rather than a luxury for contemporary businesses in SA, it is important that, going forward, we create a digital environment that has trust and a clear legal status and where customers have the comfort of knowing that their communications and transactions are secure,”

The Post Office Future

The SAPO is planning to roll out other solutions as the SA Post Office transforms itself into a technology player “delivering more relevant, customer-focused solutions.”  Hlekane adds.

Furthermore, SAPO contends that the Trust Centre benefits not only businesses and consumers but the country as a whole. “It is important for South Africa to showcase its capability and expertise to develop intellectual property in the technology space,” says Hlekane. “This represents a giant step forward for the country and if all goes well we will be able to export this technology, proving to the world that we are more than capable.”

For more info: https://trustcentre.co.za//

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Following a successful Data campaign, MTN SA has decided to extended its mobile data sale until 30 September 2013.

So if you are an MTN customers, here are some of the benefits you can enjoy for the next three month :

For contract customers: 

Package	Was Monthly	Now Monthly
1GB price plan	R99	R79
1GB TopUp	R129	R99
2GB price plan	R139	R119
2GB TopUp	R189	R149
500MB		R49

 

For Add-on Internet Bundles:

Package	Was	Now
300MB Internet bundle	R149	R79
500MB Internet bundle	R119	R99
1GB Internet bundle	R289	R149
2GB Internet bundle	R389	R245
500MB of data	R119	R99

 

You can also get:

• 10MB free when purchase a 10MB Internet bundle for only R10
• 25MB free when you purchase a 75MB Internet bundle for only R29

To load an MTN bundle customers can simply dial *141*2# or download the myMTNza App from their app store.

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If you own the iPhone5 and feel that the phone is slow compared to your friend’s Samsung Galaxy S4 – you are not wrong. In fact the iPhone5 is twice as slow as the Galaxy S4 according to a recent “speed test” conducted by a Which?, a UK Research company.

The phone’s speed is usually something visual that we experience. How long it takes for applications to open or how long it takes the phone to respond when you push a button. However this can be very subjective. So in order to test the overall performance of the phone, techies need to look under the hood and ignore all the fuzzy stuff such as preference for a brand or software features that the device has vs. another or the size of the phone etc. The only way to test a phone compared to another phone is by using a benchmarking software.

Benchmarking software conducts very specific battery of tests on the phone. Each test looks at specific element of the device and gives it a score. The scores are totalled and the device is ranked compared to other devices that have had the exact same set of tests using the same testing software. This is creates a leaderboard. The benchmarking software is a scientific test and has no biased for or against the device and no user input is required that can skew the results. Each device is tested in the identical manor and for the same elements.

Which? used Geekbench 2 which is a similar benchmarking software and here are their results when they looked at the top brands of phones:

Rank	Device	Score
1	Samsung Galaxy S4	3188
2	HTC One	2798
3	Sony Xperia Z	2173
4	Google Nexus 4	2134
5	Samsung Galaxy Note 2	1950
6	BlackBerry Z10	1698
7	Apple iPhone 5 16GB	1664

So what does this mean ?

Before you shoot the messenger – Benchmarking is a technical test of the device hardware and software. It does not mean that one phone is better or worse as this test does not take into account ease of use, device size, features the phone has or doesn’t have.

In the mobile race of companies trying to outdo each other, the phone performances are continuously improving. Whilst the iPhone5 came out in last place here, I am sure that the next iPhone device will come out with an even better processor and then the ranking will change again.

We are used to “instant gratifications” and we are expecting our phones to do more than they ever before an so we now need to ask about the phone’s performance as part of our growing list of questions when we evaluate which phone to buy.

As if it wasn’t hard enough already….

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A friend wanted to purchase a tablet and asked about the Samsung Note 10.1 which I had written about. I explained the ins and outs of that device and especially the stylus which really makes a nice add-on. After he purchased his tablet he asked me to help set it up and I then discovered that he in fact bought the the Galaxy Tab2 10.1 and not the Galaxy Note 10.1. When he asked about the stylus the sales person sold him an aftermarket “stylus pen”.

Could it be that Samsung just makes too many Galaxy devices ?

It seems like Samsung has taken an approach:  Many tablets and many phones at every size with every feature at many price points. Whilst this is great for the techie people it can lead to consumers feeling overwhelmed not knowing which device to choose.

To make matters worse, in my experience, sales staff at the cellular shops are not clued up about the various devices – especially when the device specifications  are so evenly matched. This means that they are not able to advise consumers on the differences between devices (and these differences can be subtle) and typically sell the first device that comes to mind or that was requested by the client.

Its no wonder that there is confusion. Which? ,a UK research company, had published this very telling Infographic showing the 26 Samsung devices of varying sizes. This puts the Samsung range into perspective:

So how do you choose a Samsung device ?

Whenever I am asked Which phone should I get ?  I always counter with my made-up acronym SARS. No, not the South African Revenue Service but my SARS stands for the following:

Size: The first advise is to work out what size you are looking for in your phone or tablet. Decide if you are looking for a nice large screen or you would prefer something smaller and more portable ? This instantly narrows down the list.

Application: What will you use it for ? What is your application for the device? which absolute-must-have features do you need? Is the stylus simply superb or a nice idea? Do you need to be able to split the screen into two for email and web browsing at the same time or are you ok with having one application open on your screen at any one time ? head over to http://www.gsmarena.com/ and use their compare option to bring up the individual tablets/ phone side by side so you can see which devices has what.

Review: Go online an look for hands-on reviews of the devices you have narrowed down. Most reviewers will have pros and cons and you can decide if the cons are signifiacnt enough to pressuade you not to buy.

Service: each brand has their own service centres. Samsung has set up Customer Smart Care Centers and Branded Stores. If you are looking for a Samsung device, these are the people who will know best about their own devices. So pop into one and now armed with your research you are able to ask the right questions and get the right advise.

So here is my Intagram vs. Vine shootout:

“If a picture paints a thousand words, then video paints a thousand pictures” this is going through my head as I start to play with the recently launched instant video sharing facility from Instagram. Video and sound really do  add substance to the “wish you were here” moments.

Sharing video clips is not new. We have been doing it via YouTube and via Facebook, however these can be cumbersome and usually require high-bandwidth to upload and render those massive files.

Sometime we want to share a quick clip with out family and friend. This is best done via a mobile such as Vine. An app that is optimised and geared for exactly that.

Both Vine and Intagram are great apps and have appeal to both both individuals and companies. It is just a matter of time before we see quick 15 second commercials shot and shared by brands.

As I being to explored the Intagram Video I cant help but notice how it is similar in some ways to Vine and in other ways it is vastly different.

Recording Video

Vine	Intagram
The recording screen is simple – it shows the rear-facing camera. To record a video simply hold anywhere on the video screen and as long as your finger is pressed it will record.	screen shows the rear facing-camera and to record a video you need to tap and hold the camera button. Tapping anywhere on the screen will refocus the picture and adjust the light and exposure too.
Recording Time: 6 second	Recording Time: 15 seconds
If you made a mistake, you can not go back to that section an rerecord from there. You have to start again.	If you made a mistake, you can go back to the last recorded section and delete just that part and then start shooting again.
No ability to use the front facing camera	Can choose to use the front facing camera

Processing Clip

Vine	Instagram
When you are done shooting your clip, the application beings a quick rendering process	When you are done shooting your clip, Instagram open up a Filter Screen with 13 different filters to apply to your video clip. As you tap on the filter it applies to the preview screen so you can instantly see what the effect looks like.
No ability to choose a cover shot	You can choose a cover shot for your video clip and it doesn’t have to be the first frame but can be any shot from anywhere in the 15 second clip.
Vine takes you to the sharing screen where you enter a caption and the ability to post to Vine ,Twitter and Facebook	Instagram takes you a sharing screen where you can add a caption, a Photo Map and the ability to share with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare

Timeline Feed

Vine	Instagram
Vine timeline has only got video clips	When you scroll through the timeline you now see both static and video Intagrams. The video clips have the universal Play triangle on the top right.
When you tap on the clip you can pause it and another tap starts it again. You can not restart the clip from the beginning	When you tap on the play button the clip start and you can pause the clip at any point. You can not restart it from the begging.
As you scroll down the next clip just starts to play when you hover over it for a bit	As you scroll down you have to press play on the button as clips do not start automatically.
Clips load quickly and instantly begin to play	Clips can take a bit of time to load before they begin to play. The icon starts out initially as a video camera pics and only when it is downloaded does it change to the Play button.
Clips automatically loop	Clips stop when they are done

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I often browse through the BlackBerry World to see what is new and funky and I noticed a message for Skype. When I tapped on it, I saw a wonderful hidden present for all BlackBerry 10 users:

To celebrate the arrival of Skype on BlackBerry® 10, BlackBerry is giving away a stack of 3-month Skype Unlimited World subscriptions !

To get your Skype subscription activated:

1. Head over to www.Blackberry.com/skype – I suggest doing this from your computer.

2. You will need to complete the registration form part of which required you to enter your PIN and IMEI number which you can get from your phone by:

• To get the PIN simply launch any application where you can type and then type the following: mypin and hit the space bar. Your PIN will be revealed to you.
• To get the IMEI, tap on Setting, About, and select Hardware from the categories.

3. Once you complete the registration, you will see a voucher number on the screen.

4. You will need to log into Skype.com and click on Redeem Voucher on the left to enter this voucher number.

Within a couple of minutes your Skype account is topped up and you can make unlimited Skype calls to both landlines and mobile in these countries: Canada, Guam, Hong Kong S.A.R., Puerto Rico, Singapore, Thailand, and United States.

You can also make landline only calls to these countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg only), Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and Venezuela.

As always there are some T&C such as: Excludes service, special, premium, and non-geographic numbers. A fair usage policy applies.

Go grab this amazing deal before they run out of vouchers !

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Despite what the Social Media Gurus tell you, having access to Email is the one feature that we must have on our mobile phones. Whenever we get a new phone, Email is still the first application that we set up and make sure that it works before we breath a sigh of relief and then go on to tinker with the other apps.

Nokia has recognised this fact and has announced that they will provide every South African Nokia Asha user with the Mail for Exchange app from the Nokia Store. The new app, which is compatible with the Nokia Asha 311, 310, 309 and 308, allows users to sync their email, calendar and contacts data with Microsoft Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010 Servers and Microsoft Office 365 Mobility Online Service.

Nokia has also introduced further apps, Editori text and sheet, which allow users to view and edit Microsoft Word and Excel documents on the go. This is expected to add huge flexibility for mobile phones to modify, save and share documents or spreadsheets for quick review right from your Nokia Asha phone.

Mail for Exchange is yet another communication channel that Nokia is offering its users and follows closely on last month’s introduction of the LINE messaging app.  Users with LINE app are able to send instant messages to friends or groups, and send photos and stickers to each other for free. It also enables users to send messages to friends from a PC to a mobile phone.

“Nokia is committed to enhancing the user experience by delivering more capabilities on the Asha smartphone range” concludes Patrick Henchie, Senior Manager of Product Marketing: South & East Africa

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A couple of month ago I was introduced to the Minuum Project – a project that claimed to revolutionize the keyboard on smart phones and tablets.

Whirlscape, the creators of Minuum had asked a simple question: “why do we put up with the way the current virtual keyboards are as they are based entirely on the historical and out-dated typewriter keys that are large and spread wide apart to avoid typing mistakes.  You wouldn’t be happy with a keyboard blocking half your desktop screen so why do you put up with that on your smart phone”

The Minuum Project has taken the concept of the traditional keyboard and has totally reinvented it to produce this:

A new keyboard that not only speeds up your typing speeds and accuracy but is also flexible enough to be moved anywhere on the device so it is out of the way and placed in a more comfortable position for you to type.

Buts that’s not all folks.

“Minuum is designed to work on just one dimension, which means typing no longer needs any surface at all”. So essentially any new devices such as Glasses, Bracelets, Watches that need any interaction can use this new keyboard.

Fast forward to June 2013 and not only has the company raised their initial $10 000 but there has been such a demand for the keyboard that they shot past the initial target 8 times over to raise $87 000 via the indiegogo crowdsourcing platform.  To date over 1.1 million people saw the teaser video below and the keyboard software had received coverage by over 150 media outlets around the world.

 

The result is that the software is coming out of the developers workshop and is now ready for the first round of beta testers as promised.  “It’s thanks to our amazing campaign supporters that we are here with our first Minuum beta,” said Will Walmsley, CEO of Whirlscape. “We’re very excited to release the Minuum keyboard to our community, who’ve been so encouraging and enthusiastic from the very start. Keeping our promise to release in June was very important to us, so the last two months have been all about working toward today.”

After waiting not-so-patiently I received my installation instructions and within minutes I have installed the Beta version of the software on my Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet. I have been using it for a little while now and so far I can report that the Minuum keyboard is simple to setup and takes very little room on the screen which had me worried as I have “fat fingers”. After a couple of minutes of using it I can report that the keyboard is scarily accurate! You don’t have to hit the keys dead-on and yet the keyboard is able to work out what you are trying to type. Freakingly accurate even for words that I use for the first time such as TheTechieGuy.com

I have included some screen shots of what it looks like and will post more updates the more I use the device.

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I get really irritated when I install an application from the Google Play Store and then days later I start seeing notifications popping up asking me to download other applications or trying to sell me some services. These are NOT the adverts inside the app (which I fully understand and support) but these look like official system push notifications that can easily be mistaken for real notifications of updates. I was once caught like that and was scammed (read about it here) and ever since I have been really wary of these notifications.

In order to get rid of these notifications you have to identity which app is responsible for pushing these on your screen. Once you uninstall that app, these will stop. However, these app makes are crafty as the ads don’t start immediately after you install their app – this would make it simple to identify the app. These ads could start days later and by then you have installed other apps which makes identifying the offending app rather difficult.

The good news is that Google is starting to put a stop to these types of apps that make use of the sacred-notification screen to push their ads. Until they do, here are two methods that allow you to easily identify and remove the offending app:

Pre -Jelly Bean:

If you are running an Android system prior to Jelly Bean ie version 4.0 and below then download an app from the store called Air Push Detector or Lookout Ad Network Detector. These are tiny apps that scan your device for the app responsible for the notifications allowing you to uninstall that app.

Post – Jelly Bean:

If you are running an Android system that has Jelly Bean 4.1 and above, you do not need to install any app. When the notification arrives simply long-hold on the notification and a “App Info” pop-up menu appears:

When you tap on the App Info it will open the Application Information screen of the offending app. Simply uninstall the app by tapping on the Uninstall button.

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Those people living in major cities and towns are privy to having internet access via ADSL or via a mobile device using the cellular networks. But what do you do if you run a farm out in the middle of the Karoo? or if you are a game warden on the edge of the Kruger National Park?  or if you run a hotel in the middle of the Drakensburg mountains ? Typically these areas have no internet access at all resulting in internet-isolation for the inhabitants of these areas.

Google has the solution.

Typically a small number of people reside in remote areas which doesn’t make it cost effective for telecommunications companies to lay cables or provide wireless base stations to such a limited number of people. It doesn’t make economic sense. Google has looked at the problem from a different point of view. They looked at it from the sky. If these people can see the sky, then special equipment could make a direct connection to a balloon floating high above the earth…and Project Loon is born.

Project Loon consists of high-altitude balloons that will circle the earth at around 20km above the ground far above typical weather patterns and airline traffic. These balloons will act as Internet providers and will allow people with special antennas on the ground to access the internet at “3G” speeds. Each balloon can provide connectivity to a ground area about 40 km in diameter.

 

 

Christchurch in New Zealand is the first test site where 30 balloons have been launched into the atmosphere and 50 people are now able to connect to the balloons via the Loon Antennas and are able to surf the web. Some of them for the first time at decent speeds.

Whilst this project is in its experimental stage and we are far from having balloons hovering above every remote area of the world, I look forward to seeing how Google will develop and improve this system as it collects more real-world data from its New Zealand test.

For more information about this project head over to : http://www.google.com/loon