Last year Airtel teased us with banners asking us wether we would love free access to WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter. This caused a bit of excitement on social networks, and some of us were in doubt considering internet bundles had been hiked.
However, slowly over the weekend Airtel introduced a new Internet bundle called WTF Social pack.
This bundle lets you use 100mb in WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook apps and Facebook and Twitter in your browser at 500/-.
Considering these are the probably the most used apps and an 100mb data bundle goes for 2,000/-.
This is definitely a bargain though we shall beg for more
Too bad customers will want more and would prefer unlimited access since the rate at which the Android Facebook app consumes data is high and tests we have carried out on data saving browsers like Opera mini could not access Facebook when we loaded the social pack bundle only and only your default browser might work.
How will this help you
Just in case all you do is Facebook, WhatsApp and Tweet you only need pay 500 shillings and in case you want to browse more websites you might load a smaller bundle hence saving.
How to load the bundle?
Dail *175# then select 7 which is ‘WTF social pack’
Apple today launched its new service called “CarPlay” as it previously rumored to launch this week as iOS in the car.
CarPlay let’s you use CarPlay Siri voice control for driving scenarios and CarPlay lets you use your car’s controls, knobs, buttons, and if the car maker included a touchscreen you will be able to use it. Some cars will let you activate Siri by using a button on your steeeing wheel.
Apple brags thay they have specially made for the car and they won’t distract you and you will keep your eyes where they should be.
That should be true considering your texts will be read out loud for you and you can dictate texts, recieve calls and get turn by turn directions from Apple Maps without touching your iPhone.
The Best iPhone experience on four wheels – Apple
Don’t expect this in your Vitz though, CarPlay will be available to Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo for now and it will soon be available in cars by Nissan, Jaguar, General Motors, Peugeot , and BMW soon.
More to that, CarPlay comes as an iOS 7 update which unfortunately only supports iPhones with lightning connectivity such as the 5, 5S and 5C for now.
Besides a Siri button that lets you interact with your car and iPhone, Apple has added support for some apps like Beats Radio, Spotify, iHeartBeat, Stiticher and Podcasts.
There you have it, iOS in the car. We’ll have to wait to see how it rivals Google’s projected.
During the Oscar awards last night celebrity talk show Host Ellen DeGeneres pulled out her Samsung Galaxy along with Hollywood big names like Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Jared Leto, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Brad Pitt and award winners like Lupita Nyong’o to take a ‘selfie’.
There were lots of applications at the COCIS Open Day unfortunately they were too many to list, and these were the app we find worth mentioning. These are the apps were loved and felt that they were relevant to you in no particular order.
WinSenga
This is a diagnosis app for pregnant mothers that can measure the bitrate of pregnant mothers and enhances the functionality of the pinnard horn used in hospitals
RimaVend
Is an automated vending machine that gets you commodities after inserting coins in the denominations of 100, 200, and 500 Ugx. RimaVend - automated vending machine
The machine will automatically detect the coin inserted and will tell you the balance required to make the full purchase. We had a chance to demo the machine which dropped a PK when we inserted 500 shillings.
Matibabu
This app diagnoses malaria without the use of injections and costly Malaria test and their application uses a Windows phone together with ‘a scanner like’ device where you place your finger and through use of light and template matching returns malaria results.
Tech 4 Farmers
This is a web application that connects farmers by showing the prices of agricultural produce and provides market for their produce
e-Agriculture
This solution is an intergration of hardware and software and it automatically detects the heat in a chicken or poultry house and will turn off the lights according to the conditions.
You will see the traditional laboratory circuit board with chips and a box as a demo house for now but with some good funding you will get full scale agricultural technology that will make a difference. It also alerts farmers using a modem that sends a message once water for feeding runa out and when the heat of poulty is low.
JustGO Bus service
Much as it’s a prototype and isn’t on the Windows Phone Store, the app lets users register and book for bus tickets using mobile money. The app requires a user to feed in his or her particulars and connect with their mobile money accounts so as to pay for a bus ticket. This would be very helpful in the future.
Plerola
This is a web based IT education service that tracks your child’s education and will tell you which school the child has been posted to based on your grades, it also tracks performance based on gender.
Sight 4 Ever (E-liiso)
This a health app that diagonises sight and will help you find out where you are color blind, visually impaired through a series of tests similar to those at your opticians clinic. This application is already on the Google Play store and you can test your sight. Phew! Thanks to the developers I know eyes are Ok.
Easy Park
In a busy city with tonnes of taxis, motorcycles, cars and narrow roads you definitely need to find parking. Considering that the number of cars is and will increase, finding parking spots in Kampala will be a little hard and this app helps you find appropriate parking spots in the city
There are lots of applications and IT based solutions, unfortunately we didn’t find any games at the time we made a survey. Now before you blah blah about how solution apps are relevant to Africa remember that Flappy birds used to make $50,000 a day and the most downloaded app made in Uganda is a game ‘Matatu’.
The annual IT Open day at Uganda’s arguably best Information Technology School is under away at the College of Computing and Information Sciences Makerere. Makerere COCIS open day is an event where students showcase their IT innovations and solutions to cater for problems in Agriculture, Health, Finance, education, IT itself and a lot more. This is made Possible through a joint venture by Makerere University, UNICEF, US Embassy, Resilient Africa Network, and ACIA.
Exhibitors showcased their apps and physical hardware for the exhibition to share their prototypes and apps to the world. I must say most of the apps weren’t production apps as most were either not on the store or still on “localhost”. The few production application apps were amazing and I must even the prototypes had a lot of potential because they solve real life problems.
I spoke to one of the supporting exhibitors who said events like these connect developers to potential investors and previous years have seen many applications actually gain funding.
Exhibitors also get ‘free’ marketing of their apps at the Open Day because the size of crowds flocking in is really large because fellow students, high school students, business men and investors flocked the crowded tents to catch a glimpse of Innovation and arguably
the closest thing to CES in Uganda.
Apps and solutions showcased were grouped in categories of target markets such as e-Agriculture, e-Mobile, e-Health, e-security, e-trade, e-climate.
You will be able to catch apps like Tech 4 Farmers, Agro-market day, Kika, namawulire, RimaVend and automated vending machine I was impressed by, Tunda Africa, Plerola a web based IT education app, Askari, EasyPark , Online Malaria Manager, Win Senga, Immunization Reminder.
You’ll also be able to interact with the developers and quiz them and get your queries answered.
The Launcher got an update from the original launcher with a few features such as a “Say Ok Google” button near the microphone that only works when you are on the homescreen.
The Google Now Launcher gives you transparent folder backgrounds and bigger icons on your homescreen reen and most importantly Google Now is a swipe to the Left away.
Since as its not available for many devices, the launcher would have been nice for other devices considering it takes away the clatter that Manufacturers like Samsung, HTC or Huawei add to the pure Android skin. Users would definitely enjoy a better Android and Google Now experience because queries can be made on the home screen.
Users can still sideload the app just as before but now that its in the store updates will come in handy.
Previously Twitter only showed Promoted Accounts besides the tweet feed on the left or within tweets in the tweet feed of the mobile app.
However, in a move to increase its monetization, Twitter will now show Promoted Accounts in the search results for an account and the promoted accounts appear first.
This will see advertisers spending to get more followers and this will definitely increase the spending by brands so as to get more reach and Twitter will definitely get a wider smile on the way to the bank.
Facebook will be shutting down its @facebook.com email service that let users create email addresses and received emails in their Facebook inbox.
To be honest, this had to rest in peace because the number of times you probably used your username@facebook.com very few time or never at all.
So effective today, any emails sent to your Facebook email will be sent to you maim email address. However there is an opt-out option that lets you tern it off.
Unfortunately it’s easy for stalkers to figure out your Facebook email address much as Facebook only shows it to your friends and this could probably fill your primary email address with junk.
Behold The 5 is here and i don’t mean the iPhone. Samsung today launched the Samsung Galaxy S5, in an event in Barcelona based on the 5 theme that unpacked this new Galaxy. The rumors and speculations got answered as Samsung unveiled its latest flagship device.
Does it come with candy?
Not exactly but its powered by Android KitKat 4.4.2 with a slightly cleaner TouchWiz UI. Its also boosts of a 5-inch full HD (1920×1080) AMOLED screen whose body is wrapped up by the “perforated” and also a “modern glam
look.” as Samsung calls it.
Samsung gave the S5 a 16MP camera whose time between shots has been reduced to a 3rd of a second and they didn’t forget 4K recording just like the S4 had plus HDR photography, a dual LED flash and UHD recording. The back of the Samsung Galaxy S5
Their is a heart rate monitor that has been integrated with the S Health app to help users maintain healthy leaving.
Am not surprised Samsung added a fingerprint scanner that lets you unlock the device and make mobile payments.
They have even made it dust resistant and Water resistant up to 1 meter for 30 minutes.
Behind the Glass & plastic
You’ll find 2GB or RAM, a quad core 2.8Ghz snapdragon 800 processor and a 2800mAH battery that has a battery saving app that will keep your phone alive for 24 hours on standby even when the battery is less than 10%.
Samsung lets you choose between 16Gb or 32Gb and the ability to expand it up to 128Gb using a Micro SD card.
The S5 has MiMo technology that literally merges your Wifi to LTE connection so as to give you faster browsing speeds.
Samsung says that it’s sold over 200 million Galaxy S phones since the line first one was sold in 2010. We only have to wait and see whether the S5 will break sales records just like its predecessors.
