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Apple Music has raised over 11 million users already

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

Apple Music was launched on 30th July this year and yesterday Apple Executives shared numbers with USA Today.

Apple Music which is running a three month trial music trial which costs up to $9.99 in the US and $4.99 in other markets has been able to lock in 11 million subscribers within a period of 30 days.

“We’re thrilled with the numbers so far,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services, adding that of that sum 2 million have opted for the more lucrative family plan at $14.99 a month for up to six people.

This is a major leap for Apple Music considering that Spotify has been able to gather 20 million premium and 70 million trial subscribers within 8 years.

But I don’t think we should judge these numbers just yet considering that some users just love free things and we shall be waiting for a time when the trial period for majority of the users has expired.

Credit: USA Today

Hellofood Uganda Expands Operations to Entebbe

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

Hellofood, the world’s leading online food delivery marketplace, has expanded its operations to Entebbe municipal council. This move is great for Entebbe restaurants, because now they can grow their delivery business by tapping into the growing e-commerce and internet penetration. Many restaurants worldwide have not even scratched the surface of the potential of their delivery part of their business.

Ron Kawamara, Managing Director HelloFood Uganda, said, “This move to Entebbe is a big milestone for Hellofood Uganda because it is our first expansion since launching in Kampala, and it is also great for the customers and food lovers in Entebbe because they can now order food online from restaurants across Entebbe from the convenience of their homes or offices, plus be able to pay the same price they would at the restaurant.”

The expansion to Entebbe has not been an easy one, getting restaurants on board that have never heard of Hellofood is a challenge. Setting up delivery operations is difficult and building the right platform to serve Entebbe is expensive. But thanks to a dedicated and talented Hellofood team we have managed to launch here in a short period, added Ron.

Kayanja Vincent De paul, Mayor Entebbe Municipal Council, said, “Entebbe’s food gap or missing link has been a company like Hellofood, to provide better service delivery of food and that Hellofood is going to create comfort and quality in the new generation of service delivery and he also thanked Hellofood for creating employment for the Entebbe people.”

For those that would like to take advantage of this New expansion, or to see what else HelloFood has to offer, orders can be placed online at www.hellofood.ug  or through the app, which is available for Android, iOS, Blackberry, and Windows Phone devices.

Arduino supports Ewerdima, a Ugandan startup working on a disaster management project

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

Arduino Srl which is known for their open source hardware products such as the Arduino Uno is a micro-controller board based and Arduino Yun for DIY (Do it Yourself) projects will be supporting/ partnering with a Ugandan startup called EWERDIMA which is currently incubating at Outbox Hub.

EWERDIMA which stands for Early Warning Early Response Disaster Management is a startup by ILICIT Africa that is working on a project to redefine methods in which individuals, friends, families members communicate and respond in critical and emergency times like disasters.

Arduino will providing hardware for the mesh network project that Ewerdima will use to avoid single points of failure when disaster happen such as telecom/cable outages which have been a previous hindrance to communication during emergencies.

This mesh network will run on the EWERDIMA Unit which is an Arduino powered wireless electronic device that uses solar power and automatically creates a disaster mesh network enhancing communication between various users during natural disasters, when communications systems don’t work anymore, as it often happens during and after earthquakes, flooding, avalanches, tsunamis and the like.

I managed to talk to Daniel Nanghaka the project leader about the support from Arduino and his happiness about how the hardware would help the Ewerdima team build prototypes that will have buttons that are connected to robust GSM and GPRS networks along with their own mesh network that reports back to the Ewerdima dashboard. Daniel was not hesitant to share that the startup had already started building the prototype but still need additional funding.

The EWERDIMA dashboard will be used to monitor different units and notifications sent during emergencies which improves communication during emergencies. Currently, Ewerdima released and android app which is in public beta testing that enables users send emergency alerts to their contacts which you can download from the Google Play Store.

ewerdimaApp

It is nice to a Ugandan startup get support to solve a real global problem such as communication during disasters and emergencies which has been a big problem to the entire planet.

Antivirus Company BitDefender hacked and stored passwords were unencrypted

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

We are at a time and age where hacking is rather common for websites, corporations, governments, agencies and many more but it is more embarrassing when a security company like BitDefender gets hacked.

BitDefender has been among the leading antivirus firms and this data breach is more embarrassing not because they failed to secure sensitive user data but the failure of BitDefender to encrypt user data such as usernames and passwords. One would expect a security based company like BitDefender to encrypt their data in the  event of a breach but no they didn’t in fact the login details were in a pure unencrypted format.

The hacker who goes by the alias DetoxRansome was able to breakinto a BitDefender server which hosted the cloud-based management dashboard for small and medium sized business clients which had the usernames and passwords that belonged to them.

DetoxRansome-bitdefender-hack

The hacker has demanded a $15,000 ransom otherwise he will publically release the credentials of its customers after he exposed a list over 250 BitDefender Accounts as proof. However BitDefender which admits that the system was breached and said the hacker didn’t penetrate the server but a security hole which could have been an SQL injection.

BitDefender is currently working with law enforcement agencies to investigate the issue and they claim that the issue was immediately resolved no other servers or services were impacted.

Much as this breach only affects less than 1% of its customers, it is still disappointing to read a headline about an anti-virus company getting hacked.

 

14 million devices are already running Windows 10 in 24 hours

By
Boses Muhinda
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1

Following the official global release of Windows 10 yesterday, many users who had reserved their upgrade earlier were able to upgrade to the latest version of Windows and Microsoft shared a blog post about the first 24 hours of Windows 10.

 stated that over 14 million devices are currently running Windows 10 and they expect more to upgrade considering that not all who reserved the upgrade have already received the upgrade. Microsoft expects Windows 10 to run on over a billion year to come and all we have to do is wait and see.

But 14 million in the first 24 hours is a pretty huge leap but we must remember that some windows insiders (testers) were already running a prelease version of Windows 10.

 

The iPod 6th Generation is here.

By
Remmy Bisimbeko
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0

This is For all the music lovers.
Apple has really taken long to revamp their iPod line.  The 6G has finally come after a period of 3 years. As you would expect, this moves with the latest functionality that is packed in the iPhone, iPad and Apple watch.

ipod-touch-2015
ipod-touch-2015

This beast of a music player has Apple music streaming straight out of the box. Primary and front facing camera.  The front facing camera is able to take burst shots and 120 FPS slow-mo filming, people are really taking selfies seriously of late.  The 6G has more gaming ability.  Where the 5G spends minutes to push through a given number of pixels, the 6G cuts through them like a hot knife in butter. This is all powered by the A8 processor it is rocking compared to the 5G’s A5. All current Apple devices are running on A8 processor with exceptions of the Apple TV. The RAM has gotten bigger from 512MB to 1GB. This will enable iOS 9 and 10 compatibility for the next 3 years at most. The Audio quality through headphones will be similar to all the other Apple devices since the audio chip-set is the same.

ipod-touch-avalable colors
ipod-touch-avalable colors

The 6G having more processing going on will rock a slightly bigger 1043 mAh battery than the 5G’s 1030 mAh but having the same battery endurance.
The iPod 6G will be available in 6 colors; silver, space grey, gold, red, a deeper shade of blue and pink.

Almost unnoticeable in the pocket it comes in a 6.1mm thick and only 88grams. The 4 inch screen gives it a one handed-operation. Despite the screen being an 1136 x 640, Apple stubbornly chooses retina 360 pixel display over HD. This means the images are sharper with more detail but not at the iPhone Level. The A8 in the iPod Touch is under-clocked to 1.1 GHz, that allows for an increased yield on the A8 manufacturing, again lowering Apple’s bill of materials on the device. The biggest feature for me is the family group in iClould where an app or song can be bought once and made available to all other members of the group at no extra cost.

ipod-touch-on hand-opartion
ipod-touch-one hand-opartion

The cons here are that the back thingy for attaching a strap is no more, then design-wise, the 6G and 5G look no much different.  The iPod 6G does not have an auto brightness sensor as the iPhone so it’s best you keep the Brightness at a higher level so as to cope with indoor and outdoor light or just get used to working with the slider in the quick settings panel already. GPS was also tweaked out although the functionality of wi-fi compensates for that. The vibration motor is also not present.
The fingerprint sensor is also not available which means no TouchID which rules out Apple pay and authorizing downloads from iTunes using fingerprint.

ipod-touch-colors
ipod-touch-colors

These beauties are already on market so you can already get an upgrade in your music wardrobe from trusted Apple resellers around town. It’s also not a crime to import one or buy one online.

Most low cost iPhones have all the functionality this media player has. The only question is whether you really need an iPod since Apple knows its market pretty well.
That’s it guys Keep subscribed to Guru8 for more exciting stories taking rounds in the Tech arena.

SOURCES: APPLE

Samsung’s new monitor has a wireless mobile charger

By
Boses Muhinda
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1

Samsung has unveiled the SE370 monitor which comes with a wireless mobile charger for charging your Qi wireless charging enabled phone like the Samsung Galaxy S6, LG G3, Nexus 6 and a few more. The wireless mobile charger is located at the dock of the monitor stand which has a rather flat surface to enable you phone ‘rest’ flat as it accumulates some juice. This functionality will be quite helpful to the office, and desktop workers who will have fewer cables on their desks.

The Samsung S3370 monitor will be available with options for a 23.6 inch or 27 inch display which have a 178 degree viewing angle and AMD’s anti flicking game technology.

https://youtu.be/D_uNw-ueAZM

DStv BoxOffice Partners with HelloFood in BoxOffice Bites Promo

By
GURU8 Staff
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0

Multichoice Uganda, through its BoxOffice application, a service offered to all Explora subscribers has announced a partnership with HelloFood in an exciting promotion that will see subscribers who rent three movies between today and 30th August 2015 instantly win themselves meal vouchers with HelloFood dubbed BoxOffice Bites.

Charles Hamya the General Manager MultiChoice Uganda said, “Since we launched the BoxOffice application two months ago we have seen an incredible uptake in the rentals by our active Explora subscribers. The rationale for this campaign was to reward subscribers with prizes that resonate with movie viewing and we saw no better partner than HelloFood for this campaign’.

Explora subscribers can easily rent latest blockbuster movies and keep rented movies for up to 48 hours, at a minimum cost of Shs6, 600 per movie for the whole family to enjoy. The service will give subscribers access to a wide variety of movies ranging from comedy, drama and family movies, to horror, fantasy and a whole lot more. BoxOffice is available to all premium, compact plus and compact subscribers.

“The campaign is open for a limited time only and we urge our Explora subscribers to participate and win instantly. BoxOffice is part of Multichoice Uganda’s commitment to provide subscribers with cutting edge technology innovations and the most convenient and best television viewing experience.  At MultiChoice we have taken on demand video to a completely new level with our Explora decoder to ensure we offer our subscribers the most customer centric services that mimic the Internet on a decoder, without the high data bills meaning, our customers can enjoy the much celebrated blockbuster movies before they are even available on television,” concluded Hamya.

The campaign concludes on 31st August 2015 and winners will redeem their prizes on a weekly basis at Multichoice Head Office.

 

BoxOffice on Explora

With up to 20 movies at any one time, the DStv Explora is packaged with a brand new, stylish HD user interface, which makes finding favourite movies on BoxOffice so much easier.

Content is displayed using HD poster-art – just like an Internet video service.  In addition, the Explora has powerful search features that help subscribers find movies quicker and easier as it searches across the Electronic Entire Programme Guide. Explora’s remote control further enhances the experience with dedicated shortcut buttons to BoxOffice and other viewing options. You can also watch a trailer of the movie before renting. The QR Code feature makes renting movies simpler and convenient!

3D Cinema Magic App Review: Cinema life just got sweeter!

By
Boses Muhinda
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2

Uganda’s first 3D cinema, 3D Cinema Magic at Metroplex Naalya recently launched an app for its customers and anyone who loves watching movies. I got a chance to play around with it an let it sink into my life for a reasonable period of time and here is my review of the App.

The first impression you get is the beauty and simplicity of this app which defies odds of many Ugandan designed Android apps. The app shows a rather nice blend of purple on its splashscreen and menu to match the brand colours of the 3D Cinema Magic.

The developers at SleekTech must have thought that movie lovers don’t like wasting time hence bringing the content right up when you open the app. The “Now Showing” tab is open and it shows a slideshow and cards with the movies that are showing on the big screens. Taping a card opens up a simple page with a movie description showing the actors, writers, ratings, movie showtimes and a button for booking. Currently you can only book by calling the number that shows up when you tap the button something that is excusable.

The 3D Cinema App also shows you movies which are coming soon and tapping the movie card shows you more details such as the release date, a brief description, the actors, writers, the ESRB Rating (parental guidance,…age….blah blah) and an option to watch the trailer which is good for driving your movie adrenaline through the roof.

You will be able to see Trailers for all the movies showing and those coming soon as chosen by the staff at the cinema. The trailer are showed within the using a youtube player that will give you the option to full screen in landscape mode and increase the quality up to 720p.

One of the simple but rather brilliant feature is a an icon that shows you whether a movies is either 2D or 3D. A rather nice reminder for those who love to watch 3D movies. Each movie has details of the different ticket pricing for example the ticket price for kids, Adults, and price of 3D tickets.

For the data usage conscious, the app doesn’t consume a lot of mobile data unless you watch the trailers. You will also get a few notifications reminding you of things link 2 for one promotions, half price tickets and when a new movie is premiering.

Swiping the right navigation menu shows you a contact Us option with details such as a map to the cinema location, an email and a number to dial for inquiries.

The Future:

I managed to get a sneek peek at the future (beta) of this app and I was amazed by the User Interface improvements (talk about more material design) and am told, booking is about to get as sweet as being able to book a particular seat.

You can download the 3D Cinema Magic App by hitting the link below or you can search for the 3D Cinema Magic App on the Google Playstore

 

 

Download th 3D Cinema Magic App

Top 5 Quirky and Gimmicky smartphone accessories

By
Remmy Bisimbeko
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3

There are a couple of smartphone accessories in circulation right now that you probably don’t need.  Today in this yet amazing post from the gurus of GURU8, we are going to focus our vision on those accessories people are buying in excitement or total ignorance.

1. Selfie stick
Yes, you don’t need that kiboko. How do you even move around with that thing, like a herdsman? This Nkoni is rather effective when it comes to increasing the shot’s angle range. Problem is, the stick gets in the way. It will always be seen in your pictures unless you have some ninja-photography skills. Some do come with a remote that means all the hands will be busy leading to no peace✌sign in the photo. You also have to be careful while using these as you can easily injure somebody.

selfie stick
Chameleone uses Selfie-stick

2.Power banks
I know you think its a trend, no it’s not. These are made for people with very weak batteries and yet want to use their phones like some sort of super computer. If you have good battery utilization skills, you can take about 6-10 hours on a single charge. But if your phone requires charging every 10 minutes, it’s wiser to invest in a new battery than a power bank. Uhmm, Iphone homies and all those guys that have phones with no removable batteries, you probably have the cash so send them back for replacement or just buy new phones 😂

power bank
power bank

3. Designer cases.
These are commonly known as covers around here. The very first thing a case must ensure is the protection of the phone then aesthetics and design follow. What’s the use of you having a Louis Vuitton case that can’t absorb all the shock when your device hits a hard surface. The ones that really get to my nerves are the Flip Cases. These make one look just like a Sugar daddy. Why would anyone who still has his sanity use a flip Case? They rather look stylish but for some unknown reason, everyone that owns one tends to take a selfie in front of a mirror.

Designer Cases
Designer Cases

4.Touch Screen gloves.
But Ugandans can mean to be wise. Are we in winter or something. Okay for the boda guys, I totally support you because you need gloves. But then again these are “gloves” which boda guy puts on gloves. KCCA and the police had to forcefully put helmets on their heads. We all love Ugandans.

touch screen gloves
touch screen gloves

5. Bluetooth headsets
Gundi, remove on us your village. What’s the purpose of you walking around all day with this thing hurting your ear and only get 5 calls. These used to be pretty cool back in the day, I won’t deny. But honestly that coolness period elapsed. Show us how cool you are by buying the Virtual Reality headsets, Holo lens, Google Glass and stuff. If not, just get Earphones already.

Alright guys, that makes it for this Top 5, be sure to check in next time for  yet an amazing list next time.

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