Author: CraigWilson

Popular, and at times controversial, private-car service Uber has disrupted the taxi industry in hundreds of cities with its app-based service that connects would-be passengers with vetted drivers using a smartphone application. Now the company is eyeing businesses for further growth opportunities by offering business travellers the ability to create and use a company Uber account in all of the 45 of the regions in which the company operates. “Uber for Business is a dedicated platform that enables small and mid-sized companies to set up an Uber account with a centralised billing system and maintain a travel dashboard that business…

A UK-based startup called PaperLater has taken the idea of read-it-later services like Instapaper, Pocket and Readability and added a unique twist: the ability to read the saved content in a physical, printed publication. Like read-it-later applications, PaperLater lets users save content using a web browser plug-in. This content is then packaged into a personalised newspaper and mailed to the user. Users need to fill a minimum of eight pages (or a maximum of 24) before they can request that a paper be printed and sent to them. PaperLater uses 55gsm newsprint for its papers, which is slightly thicker than…

South African-born technology entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth has won an appeal at the Supreme Court against the South African Reserve Bank that will see the bank pay him more than R250 million (plus interest). In 2009 Shuttleworth moved R2,5 billion from South Africa to the Isle of Man and was hit with a R250m levy from the Reserve Bank. Shuttleworth contested the levy and took the matter to court in an effort to have the entire South African exchange control system declared unconstitutional. He didn’t manage this, but did get parts of the county’s exchange control regulations declared unconstitutional. Now he…

South Africa’s fixed-line giant Telkom has announced that it plans to roll out support for LTE Advanced (LTE-A) in more than 50 suburbs across the country before the end of this year. Why should you care? Because LTE-A is fast, really fast. LTE-A can potentially offer speeds of up to 3Gbps, though users will see speeds closer to 200Mbps at first. Telkom says it hopes to ramp up toward the top end of LTE-A’s limits in due course. Telkom chief operating officer Brian Armstrong says LTE-A is “an integral part of Telkom’s high speed broadband strategy” and that the company…

Mobile operator Vodacom is testing high-speed 4G connectivity that promises speeds more than four times those of the network’s LTE speeds today. In a recent test using carrier aggregation technology and a mobile handset, the operator achieved download speeds of 270Mbit/s. What does that mean for end users? It means the ability to download content faster than ever before and would make HD video streaming effortless – assuming of course you could afford the requisite data. Andries Delport, Vodacom’s chief technology officer, says the test shows “how far mobile technology has evolved” in South Africa. Delpost says the trial also…

Multichoice, the digital and broadcast media division of JSE-listed company Naspers, has announced plans to sell off the business portions of its Internet service provider (ISP) Mweb to Internet Solutions, which is a division of Dimension Data, the South African IT company acquired by Japan’s Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (NTT) in late 2010. If the deal passes muster with the Competition Tribunal, Internet Solutions will acquire Mweb Business and Optinet (the company that supplies connectivity to Nasper’s various businesses). It will also see the creation of a new company called WirelessCo that will have both Multichoice and Internet Solutions as…

Cross-border remittances are very popular in South Africa, largely thanks to the number of migrant workers our country attracts. In its latest update to its transactional banking app, South Africa’s FNB has now included the ability to send money from South Africa to Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The bank’s Zimbabwe Money Transfer service was first introduced on Cellphone Banking in April last year and allows qualifying FNB customers in South Africa to send money to residents in Zimbabwe. Last November the bank added the capability to send money to Zimbabwe to its online banking platform, and the ability to send money to…

Vodacom Business announced on Thursday that it is launching fibre-to-the-business (FTTB) services in South Africa, starting with selected business parks in Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal and offering broadband connectivity of up to 100Mbit/s. Vuyani Jarana, chief officer for Vodacom Business, says the operator has spent more than R2 billion on fibre infrastructure since 2008 to connect more than 10 000 cellular base stations. It’s this network that forms the backbone of its new FTTB service. “Most people don’t realise it, but underneath every mobile network is a high-speed fixed network connecting the base stations. We’ve invested billions of rand…

We love a free operating system update as much as the next techie, but sadly Apple doesn’t exactly consider the developing world (and its crummy and costly Internet connectivity) when it rolls out new updates. To combat this, South Africa’s iStore’s, are offering to update consumers’ devices to iOS 8 for free. Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 8 came out this week and is available for most recent models of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. A more potent, flexible and intuitive OS than its predecessor – at least, according to Apple – iOS 8 has a number of features…

Not content with being one of the largest resellers of smartphones, tablet computers and laptops in South Africa, FNB is now also offering its customers to chance to pre-order Microsoft’s new Xbox One console and pay it off over two years. Customers can choose between one of two packages. The first offers just the console (the 500GB model), a wireless controller and a copy of Forza Motorsport 5 (Game-of-the-year edition) at R299/month and will be available from 23 September. This means a total cost of R7 176 over the 24 months. The second includes the console (also 500GB), a wireless controller,…