Sky News political editor David Speers talks to News Corporation chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch about paywalls, politics, and more.

From today, Nimbuzz users on Symbian can enjoy integration with the world’s fastest-growing social network, as Nimbuzz incorporates a feature-rich Twitter client that includes Timelines, Direct Messaging, Searches, Trends and Profiles, and outperforms standalone Twitter applications.

A groundbreaking world first for Symbian handsets is the introduction of pop-up notifications, notifying users of incoming chats and events, while the application runs in the background.

Further significant additions to the Symbian update include kinetic scrolling for 5th edition touch screen phones, new chat screen and contact list layout, chat history, plus a direct link to the NimbuzzOut rate calculator for international calls have also been added.

Available as a free download from Symbian app stores, such as Nokia’s Ovi Store, and from www.nimbuzz.com, the new Nimbuzz for Symbian is unique in offering a centralised messaging client with the most comprehensive all-in one feature set – VoIP calls, Instant Messaging and file-sharing with the world’s most popular social networks, plus presence, profiles, location and now Twitter – making it the ‘must have’ application for Symbian users.

The Symbian release comes at a time of phenomenal growth for Nimbuzz; having passed the 13 million registration milestone last month, Nimbuzz now enjoys a current growth rate of over a million new registrations each month (that’s a new Nimbuzz user every 3 seconds!), an active user base of over 30% and an international user footprint of 220 countries, covering every corner of the globe.

Evert-Jaap Lugt, founder & CEO of Nimbuzz commented: “We are delighted to announce the integration of Twitter with our new Symbian client. Nimbuzz for Symbian is by far our most sophisticated client and the only product available to offer users such a comprehensive range of features and such a complete communications experience on one.”

Integr8 IT CEO Rob Sussman received several accolades at ForgeAhead’s annual African ICT Achievers Awards, held on Saturday, in Johannesburg.

Sussman won the overall individual winner award, and also scooped the Top CIO of Africa and Top ICT Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards. He was also noted as one of the top ICT businessmen on the continent.

“It is an honour to be acknowledged by the industry for the business and social impact that Integr8 IT continues to make on the African continent,” Sussman said.

He added that he was excited about the impact Integr8 has made on the market, but even more excited about where the company is going. “We have spent nine years building our proven operational delivery model, and this is just the beginning. We are now ready to take our running into a sprint.”

He noted that Integr8 is “a true South African success story”; a story “from bedroom to boardroom”.

Founded by ICT research and consulting house ForgeAhead, the African ICT Achievers Awards is an Africa-wide ICT recognition and reward programme that has been in existence for 11 years. The theme of this year’s award was “Making the African Century a Reality”.

The programme recognises those who have proven they are globally competitive, and have made a difference in the lives of others less fortunate by helping them overcome the challenges Africa faces in leveraging ICT for development.

By Jacob Nthoiwa

Visit the Integr8IT website here

20Fourlabs (together with Blueworld Communities) walked away with the top honours last night in the Nokia Africa Calling All Innovators app competition. Their entry, Afridoctor, won the $85 000 first prize beating 125 other entries from developers all over Africa.

Afridoctor has enjoyed huge success since its official launch into the Nokia OVI app store – after 3 weeks of being available in the app store Afridoctor has been downloaded over 5500 times from users around the world.

The application fills a void that currently exists in many African countries where there is a huge demand for basic health related information yet this information is not very reliable or easily accessible.

“Thanks to all those within 20fourlabs/BWCOM for your help in designing and building the product. Thanks also go to Danie Pauw and the Health24 team for partnering with us on this project and supplying key content. It is a great honor for us to win the Nokia application competition and that is testament to our ability to innovate and rapidly execute brilliant ideas in limited time frames.” says Bradley Voges, Business Development Manager for BWCOM.

There are already serious discussions underway to expand Afridoctor and ensure the application reaches those who need it most – development has already begun to port Afridoctor to all capable Nokia handsets to ensure mass adoption.

What is Afridoctor?

Afridoctor is Africa’s first personal mobile health clinic, turning your device into a powerful first aid information kit, a doctor-location service, and an emergency distress notifier. Its revolutionary “SnapDiagnosis” system allows users to submit photos of their ailments and remotely receive advice from a panel of professionals. Afridoctor’s mapping feature enables users to find doctors, clinics and all health industry related services within their proximity. Read the rest of this entry »

Vodacom’s the Grid, South Africa’s first location-based mobile social network available to everyone who has a WAP-enabled cellphone, has mapped out close to 11,000 HIV-related support services covering prevention, treatment and support across South Africa.

By utilising the Grid’s location-aware technology, South Africans are not only able to see on their cellphones which HIV support service is closest to them, but they can also obtain the centre’s contact details and get directions to it.

This initiative sees the Grid partnering with the HIV-911 programme – a comprehensive guide of HIV and AIDS related support services in South Africa. The main objective of the programme is to ensure that information about HIV support services are accessible to all South Africans. HIV-911 is funded by United States Agency for International Development / President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief through the Foundation for Professional Development.

Says Shameel Joosub, Managing Director, Vodacom South Africa: “By utilising the broad reach of cellphones in South Africa and tapping into the large user base on the Grid, we are able to make crucial HIV and AIDS support information readily available to all South Africans. This is a great initiative to communicate the value of getting tested to a younger target audience in a social networking environment. It’s just another example of how mobile technology can help create a better life for ordinary South Africans.”

All the HIV-911 information is available in the Grid’s latest application release to coincide with this year’s World Aids Day. To access the Grid SMS ‘GRID’ to 33313 (50c/SMS) or visit http://onthegrid.mobi/

In South Africa, the credit for the development of the certain new services on the mobile platform goes to ordinary people in the lower income brackets who have led the way by adopting, even instigating new ideas to turn the cellphone into a powerful transacting tool.

Compared to a low eight percent fixed internet penetration, South Africa has cellular penetration of a 114 percent. It is clear from the statistics that South Africans have leapfrogged fixed-line telephony and internet in favor of mobile telephony and have called for an increasing array of data services to be delivered to this platform.

This is patently true when it comes to banking and transacting using the mobile phone. To the surprise of the airtime providers, the African continent has witnessed the use of multinational pre-loaded airtime (most notably MTN airtime vouchers) as a type of cross-border grassroots currency, swapped and bartered via sms, and a way to send “money” quickly back to family in other African countries. The informal airtime-economy is an excellent example of the organic development of technology by ordinary people to meet their transactional needs in contexts where credit cards and banking facilities are lacking.

Meet MiMoney

mimoney works essentially like preloaded airtime, or, in other words, converts cash into an electronic currency that can be used to make purchases in a secure and controllable manner. The currency is free to buy, free to get and free to keep, so a R100 note converts into exactly R100 mimoney to be used online, with no leakage or transaction fees incurred. Read the rest of this entry »

2009 has been a year of change in South Africa and Google has shown that people having been using Google Search to keep abreast of the most interesting news and trends as well as their favourite websites. As part of its year-end Zeitgeist trends results, which monitors search trends around the world, Google has released results of what South Africans have been searching for this year in the categories of politics, sport, celebrities and recession related queries.

In the political arena, some of the most popular searches included firebrand ANC Youth League President, Julius Malema, who pipped Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance and Mvume Dandala of COPE as the third most searched for politician. Despite having a high volume of searches to his name, the Youth League president had to make way for his seniors, Jacob Zuma and Nelson Mandela who demonstrated their staying power by leading the rankings.

Former Springbok Joost van de Westhuizen had us all scrambling for our keyboards and heading for the Google search box when he released his biography. Joost’s relatively late entry into the gossip columns meant he was no match for perennial celebrity, DJ Sbu from youth radio station YFM who led the ‘most for searched for celebrity’ category. He was followed by socialite Khanyisile Mbau. Benoni-girl done good, Charlize Theron, was not to be outdone coming a close third in the rankings. Read the rest of this entry »