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Airtel’s Rise & Surf VS Mtn’s 1 minute: who wakes us up better?

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

In this knockout edition we take a look at MTN Uganda’s and Airtel’s recently launched promotions that targeted to the early risers.

MTN started with its One Minute promotion that gives customers a free minute minute from 6 to 9pm. Airtel on the other hand later launched a ‘Rise & Surf’ package that gives subscribers 100Mb valid between 6am and 8pm.

So to find out which promotion is the best we shall group this knockout into rounds.

First punch;
We will credit MTN for being the pioneer in this fight. It threw the first punch by launching its Good Morning Uganda campaign. We will have to find out if the first punch hurt the most.

The Motormouth;
Here we will look at who promoted their promotion the most. MTN took to print, TV, and its amazing radio AD with the rasta voice.
On the otherside airtel sent out Texts and their were minimal print ads and Advertising was done mainly through texts but trust me the way the message was spread was really fast. Ask campusers you will see.

Practicality;
Seriously a minute is not that important unless your house went on fire at 6am. You might end up using more airtime thinking your minute of free talk and besides who do you call at such an hour, chances of ruining their final dreams.
Buy think about how sweet it is to catch up with the latest news, visit GURU8 and notifications from your data hungry smartphone as you wake up. Remember 100Mb will last the entire 2 hours and just in case you are or posses those teenage habits of looking and using your smartphone begore you get out of bed this is the real deal. This is the time to get all those Whatsapp messages you missed when your data bundle ran out.
Yeah an download, use or update those big apps free of charge.
Airtel nailed this one.

Swaggerific;
Much as you will enjoy rise & surf you might get disses based on the last seen feature on some apps like Whatsapp that show (last seen 8:00am) but you will have enjoyed the mbs.
On the other hand a minute is so lame imagine it got over while vibing that chic you have a crush on, Lame! But the MTN ads says it all, we like the Radio ad is seems to have the swag. (Mi ren awayy!)

Blood in the ring;
The collateral damage caused by these promotions include using more MTN airtime when your free minute ends.
On the other hand checking you data balance in the middle of the day on Airtel and seeing 125mb might mislead your consumption thinking you have a lot of Mbs yet the 100 only applies to rise and surf.

Referees’ Decision;
Airtel knocked wins the match by Knockout in terms of practicality and usability.
So Rise and surf woke us up better.

Lenovo just bought Motorola Mobility

By
Joel Mwanja
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0

Lenovo the fastest growing PC manufacturer of the year 2013 and famous for it’s ThinkPad® line of computers has talked an enterprise step to acquire Motorola Mobility from Google.

The $2.9 billion sale doesn’t include patents and Google will keep over 17,000 patents and 7,500 pending patent applications, according to its announcement.
The tech giant Google will also retain Advanced Technology and Projects group led by former DARPA director Regina Dugan .

This loss of about $9.6 billion might not be as big as it looks since the patents Google keeps might be worth about $5.6 billion. This comes after Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012.

Terms of the acquisition include Lenovo paying Google $660 million in cash and $750 million in stock, while the remaining $1.5 billion will be paid out over three years. The sale has to be approved by the US and China government, a process that could take up to a year.

What this means for Motorola?
Lenovo will keep the Motorola brand just as Lenovo kept the ThinkPad brand after it bought it from IBM. Lenovo might use Motorola for Mobile enterprise growth after failed talks to purchase BlackBerry since Motorola was an International brand, Lenovo’s Mobile department will definitely grow.

Source: Engadget

Watch out Cybercrime just hit a high in Uganda.

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

In a country where conmen have firmly established their roots, crime seems to be diverted from iron bar or crow bar burglary to rather more sophisticated methods of theft using the Internet including a few things we thought only existed in the movies.

It doesn’t take the best brains that conduct such schemes y rather some loopholes and a bit of IT backwardness of some people. So even the ‘script kiddie’ will pull a prank so big it makes him money in a day.

So then what do these cyber criminals do?
It took me a while to come up with these examples which i have fallen victim too, a few friends and some sources that could get guys fired.

Phone number spoofing,
Here a victim’s number is used to place malicious calls without the knowledge of the user. The hacker uses a VoIP application to make phone calls and makes the victim’s number as the caller. So you will pick up the phone and think your friend, boss or someone you know is calling yet its a scamburg making a voip call, he will probably ask you to send money or give maybe property to his friend to pick up because he is busy. This trick is difficult to avoid because the number is your friend’s and the voice too sometimes. You will be shocked when your friend’s number calls yet you are with your friends and he and his phone are right next to you and the number is similar. Then you realise you have been played.

Mobile Money,
Theft here is done through many ways, its either backend hackers within telecoms that transfer large sums of money to their accounts, or SMS trickery where the self proclaimed sharp guy sends SMS using bulk sms and changes the sender ID to something like M-money or, MTN mobile money or AirtelMoney and you think the message is legitimate until you check your balance.

ATM theft,
Much as the police and several banks have done a lot to stop this vice, some tricksters still use cameras and modified card slots to steal ATM card details which are used to steal user’s money through online transactions or card replication.

Piracy,
I must apologize to content and software creators but through the eyes of many Ugandans, piracy doesn’t seem to be wrong, a thing that is quite absurd. Just in case you doubt? Look around technology shops and one of the commonest words is ‘Crack’ or check for students with valid Windows activations. Movies are worse. It has become so common to see a “Windows is not genuine” message on a laptop. The problem is partly due to price of some of this software, and some people just don’t like paying.

Many other crimes take place including Facebook phisphing, Hacks on websites, Forgery of documents and more.

The police?
Well they have tried a little, sometimes they help and they have made several arrests such as the Bulgarian ATM thieves , and many more.
However, the Police & solving IT related crime takes forever, tracking a lost phone takes forever even worse the official sometimes doesn’t understand what you are trying to tell him. Besides ‘buying people breakfast’ as you fill a claim isn’t something i find friendly.

The way Forward?
Get a security question in case of call spoofing and hide your phone number on Facebook, Google + and if you must switch the privacy to friends only and don’t accept anonymous friend requests.
We all want to get rich quick but remember get rich schemes are usually scams so before you reply an email or send money to an orphan in Nigeria so that you receive an inheritance, think twice in fact just stop thinking and block the sender.

Yes we need to report to the Police since you can’t make an arrest without a claim or statement at police.

Firefighter writes Google Glass apps to make saving life easier

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

Patrick Jackson of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, a firefighter is writing code to help rescue teams save time—and lives. He has ported his apps to Google glass.

He has written apps that do things such as his incident notifications app that routes incoming emergency calls to his Google Glass, and provides an address, map, and notes from the 911 emergency center. The app also gives him turn-by-turn navigation to get to the scene of the emergency.

His “find a hydrant” app shows
the closest fire hydrants to where
emergency call was made.

Micheal has been using his limited free time in a career that is filled with uncertain and emergency calls to take some hours off and code to make saving life easier. He is also working on some rather powerful apps that once finished should provide building blueprints and building plans in case of a fire to firefighters so that they make a proper entry strategy.
The other provides schematics for a vehicle to show how to enter while using fire fighting tools.

He wrote the apps using the Google Glass mirror API without a headset but now Google has given him Google Glass and the development kit should aid his development.

These apps are some of the most productive we have heard being made for Glass because the headset also features a lot of rather useless apps.

Firefighters using Google Glass would be very helpful, imagine the video and image footage during fires that could be used for investigations.

France slaps Google with a €150,000 fine

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

Google has had several issues operating in France ever since the country developed strict policies in regards to content on French websites and Google had to review the way it indexes French content or news and some content has been de-indexed.

Previously the search engine has had been fined by France’s privacy regulator, the National Commission on Computing and Freedom (CNIL) fined Google  €150,000 which is about $204,000 for breaking the law with its unified privacy policy.

Much as this is a reduction from what the CNIL had threatened in September ie. €300,000 but the regulator has requested Google to display a notice on its Google.fr homepage for two days explaining the decision.

This is one of the many privacy-related investigations against Google in Europe as 6 European countries have launched probes into Google’s privacy policies, with Spain fining the company €900,000 ($1.2 million) just last month.

Google has kept silent on the matter in regards to its privacy policies but as lawsuits and fines increase the company might be forced to amend its policies.

Source: Engadget

Google to shutdown Bump & Flock on 31st January

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

You must remember Bump, the App that let us share content by literally bumping our phones together, that Google bought in September last year. Well in a blog post title ‘All good things’ Bump Technologies announced that the 2 apps will be ripped from the store after January 31st.

Aparrently they will be working on new projects with Google and what you to store all the information you have on Bump and ‘Flock’ which is a photo sharing app for friends who take photos with more that one phone.

[pull_quote_center] We are now deeply focused on our new projects within Google, and we’ve decided to discontinue Bump and Flock. On January 31, 2014, Bump and Flock will be removed from the App Store and Google Play. After this date, neither app will work, and all user data will be deleted” –  David Lieb -Bump CEO [/pull_quote_center]

They have given users close to 30 days to download their data from the two apps and users will recieve an email with detailed instructions on how to move their data from the two apps.

Straight reasons for the acquisition haven’t been given but definitely bigger projects at Google could mean anything, Could it have been away to get Bump features in a future android update, well it won’t be a surprise. We just have to wait and see what will come out of Google’s acquisition of Bump

Below is the full press release from the Bump Blog

[pull_quote_center]

Back in September, we announced that the Bump team was joining Google to continue our work of helping people share and interact with one another using mobile devices.

We are now deeply focused on our new projects within Google, and we’ve decided to discontinue Bump and Flock. On January 31, 2014, Bump and Flock will be removed from the App Store and Google Play. After this date, neither app will work, and all user data will be deleted.

We’ve taken much care to make sure that you can retain any data you have in Bump and Flock. At any point in the next 30 days, simply open either app and and follow the instructions for exporting your data. You’ll then receive an email with a link containing all of your data (photos, videos, contacts, etc) from Bump or Flock.

Over the years, we’ve been inspired and humbled by the millions of people who have used Bump and Flock. Your feedback, enthusiasm, and support has brought much meaning to our work, and we want to thank you all for that. In many ways, Bump was a revolutionary product that inspired many subsequent advances and helped push the world forward. We hope our new creations at Google will do the same.

David Lieb
CEO and cofounder
Bump

Otherwise its time to say Buy to another gone service we liked

 

Samsung’s GamePad brings extreme gaming controls to Android

By
GURU8 Staff
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0

The Samsung Galaxy Smartphone GamePad is Samsung’s new take to mobile phone gaming. Earlier this year Apple opened its SDK to external gaming hardware to iOS and the GamePad could be Samsung’s side of the Battle.

The GamePad is portable and doesn’t require cables or being physically attached to the phone, it connects through Bluetooth pairing. The Gamepad appears to support all Android devices that run Android 4.1 and above however this requires user’s to download the Mobile Console app which enable a user find or buy supported games. The Play button will only work on the Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

Well I can hide this but the GamePad resembles the Xbox console though the overall design looks nice and might be easy to carry around. (I mean it’s a console don’t compare it to a phone).  It weighs 195g and has 2 analogs, a D pad, and 4 action buttons. Too bad it’s only available in Black.

You can dock any phone that has whose screen size lie between 4 inches and 6.3 inches and it lets you connect to that big screen HDMI enabled TV or through Samsung’s AllShare Screen Mirroring.

Just in case you own a device running Android 4.3 like as Galaxy Note 3, S4, Note II, and S III, you will be able to connect using NFC and access games using the “PLAY” button.

The GamePad will offer 35 dedicated games at launch by downloading the Mobile Console app from Samsung Apps or by tapping the Gamepad’s ”PLAY” button.

Here are a few Tech Specs

Compatibility            Android OS 4.1 more (Optimized for Samsung devices with Android 4.3 more)

Connectivity               Bluetooth® v3.0, NFC (Samsung devices with Android 4.3 more)
3.0 class 2, HID

Control keys              – D-Pad (8 way)
– 2 Analog Sticks
– 4 Action buttons and 2 Trigger buttons
– Select button and Start button
– PLAY button (Samsung devices with Android 4.3 more)

Dimensions                137.78 x 86.47 x 31.80mm, 195g

Battery                          Rechargeable 160mA

Samsung Galaxy Gamepad

The GamePad is currently available in Europe only and Samsung says it will launch the device in other market in a few weeks

Image Source: Samsung

 

You are about to see Facebook video Ads on your timeline

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

The biggest social network is about to eat more of your data and space on your timeline. According to WSJ, Facebook is about to start auto playing video advertisement in your newsfeed. According to the Tuesday report by the wall street Journal Auto play videos will be appearing on mobile devices and slow show up in users’ newsfeed this Thursday.

We do not know how long these videos will last but this will definitely leave Facebook smiling all the way to the bank because video ads will definitely have to cost more than the usual ads Facebook has been serving. WSJ reports that Lion’s Gate will be among the pioneer advertisers using Facebook’s new feature.

This AutoPlay video feature was supposed to be launched earlier this year but due to rumored engineering problems and the possibility that the users might not react nicely to it. The test video ads by auto playing the videos without sound and a user had to click to let the sound play. Starting Thursday you get both Video and sound auto playing.

I bet most Users are not going to like it. However we haven’t liked some changes on Facebook and we didn’t have a choice. A few elite users might make publishers of AD blocking software happy.

What does this mean to Africa?

Well, Bandwidth, Internet speeds and high internet prices are the cries and woes of most Techies and People in Africa. And if it means using my small data bundle to play a video of brand that’s not relevant to me or an AD I have seen over and over again am going to get pissed and probably turn to an AD blocker. Because the shouts of user, call it feedback aren’t always listened to.

Social Networking is taking a global change and they are becoming more commercial, the difference is how Ads are commercialized. Some Ads can be tolerated other might not, remember the Google taking us away from Yahoo due to poor advertising algorithms.

WordPress 3.8 update just made publishing sweet!

By
Boses Muhinda
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0

The world’s popular Content Management System and blogging platform released a major update to its self-hosted version which comes with new features you are going to love.

The ‘Parker’ dubbed version of WordPress comes with a metro-like look and feel which is similar to the wordpress.com but it doesn’t end there. Automatic has made the backend responsive for mobile devices. The look is clean and give you 4 contrast shades to choose from with black and blue as the default theme.  The way the tiles switch from one another is really smooth and gives publishers the same premium front end theme feel to the backend.

wpdashboard

Much as revamped wordpress’ mobile apps were good, this is better because you can control features that were only possible in the desktop version on your smartphone. Previously entering extra setting besides on a post was so hard on a mobile phone, now the dashboard just scales done and publishing becomes easy.

A Responsive backend just took mobile publishing and website control out of earth!

Every Administrative User can set their particular color profile for their dashboard, and their responsive nature will make the Dashboard/backend look like it on a fashion couture once accessed using a mobile device of the same color.

Admin colours in the Mobile wordpress

The new theme switcher lets you use arrows to choose from one theme to another and the dragging process of the widget got a butter jean, very smooth. And to none developers and those who don’t want to spend alot on premium themes, WordPress has given you a magazine like Twenty Fourteen theme.

I agree with Automatic, this is the most beautiful update ever. Get it now!

Microsoft 4Afrika is offering students Internship Opportunities

By
GURU8 Staff
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1

Microsoft is offering Internships and world class training to students as it expands its 4Afrika program to more African countries. The program will offer 100 students an opportunity to undergo a 12 month Internship from which they will gain acquire intense training and mentorship in sales, marketing, retail operations, IT and business development fields.

Microsoft 4Afrika Internships will be available to students in the these areas; Johannesburg, Lagos, Windhoek, Gaborone, Nairobi, Abijan, Dakar, Yaounde, Addis Ababa, Port Louis, Dar es Salaam and Harare.

Applicants are required to possess a completed degree with Business, Science, Engineering, Marketing, Computer or IT related majors and less than 12 months of fulltime working experience.

Just in case you are interest in an Internship that will give you; competitive monthly pay, an all expense paid trip to 4Afrika’s office in South Africa for orientation, training and certifications, mentoring and Microsoft devices. Send you CV to Jessica O’Gorman v-jeogor@microsoft.com

Remember that successful 4Afrika graduate interns will qualify for full time jobs at Microsoft Graduate (MACH) in Africa.

The 4Afrika program will select 100 applicants per year for the Internship and the first admissions will take place between January and February 2014 and the second admissions will take place between June and July in 2014.

Applications will be closed on 15th December and successful applicants will receive confirmation emails. Failure to receive a response will deem your application unsuccessful.

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