It’s not Facebook, it’s you, BlackBerry Darling of the instant messaging world, WhatsApp, recently announced it will stop supporting older mobile operating systems like Nokia’s Symbian and early versions of Android, along with more recent ones like BlackBerry 10, and the rest of the BlackBerry ecosystem at the end of 2016. Ouch. Now Facebook’s announced it’s following suit. As Facebook owns WhatsApp it’ll likely give the same reason: namely that globally BB accounts for about 0.5% of handsets, which just isn’t worth the trouble anymore. Double ouch. Source: Engadget Who blocks the blockers? The French, that’s who Look, ads suck, but…
Author: CraigWilson
Intel legend Andy Grove has died Andy Grove, the man behind “Intel Inside” and the original tech idol for tech idols like Steve Jobs, has died at age 79. Grove was Intel’s CEO when it released the 386 and Pentium chips, each of which inspired many a teenage tech enthusiast to break open their proverbial piggybanks. Grove was born in Budapest in Hungary in 1936, managed to dodge the worst of the Nazi occupation with his family as a child, and eventually fled the Hungarian Revolution of the late ’50s, heading first to Austria and then to the US. Like Jobs’…
Cell C’s been rolling out infrastructure in South Africa’s major cities with puppy-like exuberance in an effort to put to bed complaints about the quality of its service (especially on the data front) that dogged the service a few years back. And now it wants to show off its hard work and, you know, sell all that extra capacity. To this end, it’s cutting the cost of its LTE services, which it bills as an alternative to high-speed fixed-line services like fibre. And, speaking of fibre, the company is also offering free fibre connectivity to those lucky folk who’ve had their…
When Facebook threw bags of crisp dollar bills at Instagram in exchange for its users (and soul) we knew things were eventually going to change. At first it seemed like a perfect match, a Britney and Justin dressed head to toe in denim, if you will. We got new apps like Hyperlapse, Layout and Boomerang. We got new filters. We even, eventually, got support for multiple accounts. Life was good. But then came the ads. And now, well now Facebook’s hand has closed around Instagram’s stubble-covered, peace-sign-on-a-string-of-leather clad neck good and proper. See, most Instagram users have to close the…
If the state of the rand isn’t sufficient motivation for your foreign friends to consider a visit to South Africa you can now apply additional pressure with the help of Google’s Street View service. Called Mzansi Experience, anyone with an internet connection can now explore 360-degree imagery and virtual tours of some of South Africa’s most iconic and beautiful spots. Understandably, given how downright pretty it is, much of the focus of the Discover South Africa collection is focused on the Western Cape. Attractions include the Table Mountain National Park, Lion’s Head, Signal Hill, Hout Bay and beaches including Clifton,…
Tinkerers, makers and fans of baked goods rejoice! Okay, only the first two, really. The third version of the massively popular Raspberry Pi microcomputer is now available locally. RS Components, the same company that’s brought in earlier versions of the device, now has stock of the new unit and is selling them for R732 (once you add the R89 VAT to the R642 base price) a pop. That’s a small price to pay for a media player, or a remote controlled couch, or whatever else it is you plan to build with the diminutive Pi 3. So, what’s changed? Well, the…
“You get a reaction and you get a reaction and you get a reaction!” shouted Oprah in the almost inevitable meme that’ll be generated by Facebook’s announcement that it’s rolling out the Reactions feature it’s been testing in half a dozen countries since last year to all of its users. The announcement came earlier today in a post to Facebook’s newsroom by product manager at the social network, Sammi Krug. Now, instead of merely offering a “Like” for a post — which can be pretty awkward if the post in question is, say, announcing the demise of a beloved family…
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage at MWC yesterday for the second time (the first being with Samsung on Sunday) to talk about getting the internetless online using a combination of laser transmissions, pilotless aircraft and pubic Wi-Fi hotspots, why we should (and shouldn’t) stop fixating on high-speed mobile internet and how great VR is. But let’s start from the top. A few weeks back India surprised Facebook by blocking its Free Basics programme, which the regulator decided contravened the country’s stance on net neutrality. The Indian authorities have decided that if a company wants to provide free connectivity…
Social media is awash with the announcements coming out of this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, including everything LG unveiled a few hours before rival Samsung took the wraps off its new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones and its 360 VR camera. Which is why we thought we’d trim the fat and give you the nuts and bolts of what’s beginning to sound like a very strange mixed metaphor sandwich, indeed. These are the seven things you need to know before deciding whether either of Samsung’s new flagship phones is the one for you. Same res displays,…
Sony kept its MWC presentation short and sweet, but still managed to pack in three new smartphones — The Xperia X, XA, and X Performance. All three handsets feature a 5in/12.7cm display and Sony’s instantly recognisable square, minimal Omnibalance design of which we’ve grown rather fond over the years, and prioritise camera performance and battery life — traditionally two of Sony’s strong suits. The standard Xperia X offers a 1080p display, alongside a 23MP camera with a dedicated shutter button and the promise of a 0.6 second startup time. Sony’s pushing the camera’s Predictive Hybrid Autofocus, which is able to detect the…