Joe Belfiore

Pocketnow.com has learned new details about the new Windows Phone 8 that include a number of features and themes that were accidentally revealed by senior vice president and Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore in a video intended only for partners at Nokia. The Windows Phone 8 codenamed “Apollo”, is the next version of Microsoft’s mobile operating system that is scheduled for launch after the upcoming Tango update.

According to Belfiore, the overall theme of the Windows Phone 8 hardware ecosystem will be scale and choice in order to address one of the platform’s shortcomings in competing with Android and iPhone based devices’ specifications. More specifically, Windows Phone 8 will have support for multi-core processors and microSD card support will also be added.

NFC (Near Field Communication) will also be supported, with emphasis placed on the phone’s push into contactless payments. The “wallet experience,” as he calls it, will have the capability to be carrier-branded and controlled, either by a secure element on the SIM card or utilizing hardware. In addition, NFC will  allow desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones to share content.

Rather than just share a UI with the next generation desktop and tablet OS, Windows Phone 8 will use many of the same components as Windows 8, allowing developers to re-use most of the code when porting an app from a desktop to the phone. Belfiore specifically mentions that areas of heavy overlap include the kernel, networking stacks, security and multimedia support.

The Xbox Companion app, currently found on Windows Phones, will see a partner client on Windows 8 with Skydrive support promising seamless sharing of data between devices.

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As part of its ongoing commitment to cutting-edge software development for the MXit platform, Maxxor recently conducted an indepth survey of its core users. The research exercise was funded by Microsoft South Africa and the results provided some valuable insight into the preferences of MXit users and what apps they want to see available on the social network.

Kethan Parbhoo, Equivalent Programme Lead at Microsoft South Africa said, “We funded the research to help Maxxor understand its customers even better. The results will help Maxxor prepare a roadmap for future product development.”

Maxxor, a software development company, has been developing games for the MXit platform for more than two years and they’ve entertained well in excess of one-million MXit users with at least one of their apps to date. As Adrian Frielinghaus, Head of Online Games at Maxxor, explains, “One of the things we’re asking ourselves is, ‘What apps, besides games, do MXit users want?’ We ran a survey amongst our players and received an overwhelming response – almost 30,000 people completed a 30-question survey. That must be some kind of world record for mobile research, and the results offered us some unique insights.”

As it turns out, MXit users don’t care too much for news headlines.What they do care about is hooking up, having fun, and finding out what their favourite celebrity got up to last night. Therefore in order to appeal to this unique market, MXit app developers need to continually create content that amuses, entertains and connects its users.

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An image has surfaced that seems to be a design of the rumoured upcoming BlackBerry London prototype, a new class of device which RIM is calling a ‘Superphone’. From the image below, the new device appears very similar to the disappointing and poorly reviewed BlackBerry PlayBook, only a scaled down version, and is reportedly run on the new BlackBerry 10OS.

The device would be the first to run BlackBerry’s new OS, based on QNX, which RIM is hoping will revive the weakening BlackBerry line with a device that is ‘Hardware and platform, fused into one polished exerience.’ As for the hardware, while everything is purely speculation at this point, Texas Instruments’ OMAP5 and Qualcomm 1.5GHz dual-core chips are said to be being tested in the new Superphone.

This device is likely to launch only after two other models code named Laguna and Lisbon, which would arrive in the US, while the London would naturally head to the UK.

Read BandwidthBlog’s review of the BlackBerry Curve 9360. 

Source: The Next Web

YoungAfricaLive (YAL), developed by Praekelt Foundation and hosted by Vodafone, has launched in Kenya and is a substantial addition to the award-winning mobile community portal’s presence in East Africa which commenced when YAL Tanzania launched on 1 December 2011.

Launched by Praekelt Foundation in 2009 in South Africa, YoungAfricaLive started out as a way of providing young South Africans with free access to information on love, sex and relationships in a time of prevalent HIV/AIDS in Africa, through their mobile device. It has now developed into a community of young adults who engage with another to gain reliable information, discuss issues, have fun and gain the support and input from their peers.

A 2005 study showed that 60% of Kenya’s unemployed are under 30, and where UNICEF statistics reveal 20% of the population live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day. In addition, research published by the World Bank indicates that 6.3% of Kenya’s population of 40.5 million is HIV positive, many of whom are young adults. These results indicate a strong need for support and engagement for and among the youth population of Kenya around HIV/AIDS and unemployment.

In bringing the vibrant mobile community to Kenya, Praekelt Foundation has partnered with leading integrated communications firm, Safaricom which now allows young Kenyans to share and discuss the issues they confront daily, via their mobile phone. Safaricom has invested heavily in bringing Internet access to the Kenyan people. According to government data, nine out of every 10 Kenyans who access the Internet regularly do so through the Safaricom network.

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With MTN surging to 5,7 million mobile money customers, FNB topping 3 million users, MPesa voted as one of the top five mobile inventions, and 37% of South Africans with a cell phone already using mobile banking services, mobile banking is surging ahead with rapid speed.

So now that major banks, telcos and other service providers have taken the initial steps in developing technologies, strategies and infrastructure for mobile banking, what is the next phase for mobile financial services? Customers are not just hoping for, but expecting more sophisticated services such as location-based services, corporate mobile banking, remote deposit capture and most importantly, mobile payments.

Smaller and more recent entrants into the mobile banking industry learn from bigger more established financial institutions and service providers. It also doesn’t end there: as competition increases, these newer entrants also look to gain competitive advantages by implementing more superior and advanced mobile banking services. Interoperability between all major role-players brings us to the issues of regulation. Taking a closer look at laws and regulations that govern the mobile banking industry we analyze possible issues, loopholes and inadequacies in existing regulation during the three day event.

With senior executives from across Africa addressing the conference, attending will give delegates the perfect opportunity to interact with banking professionals who are in charge of mobile banking and mobile payments. Other executives include professionals from telcos, mobile operators, emerging application developers and key industry analysts.

This year’s event with a revamped programme offers a comprehensive and multi-facetted agenda relevant to all professionals in the mobile banking industry. The conference features 28 top class speakers, 10 panelists, 2 panel discussions, streams, and an adjacent exhibition.

Event Details:

When: 13, 14 & 15 March 2012

Where: Indaba Hotel, Fourways, Johannesburg

For more information click here.

9to5 Mac has received some information from a reliable source at Foxconn Technology Group in China that the next iPhone, known as the iPhone 5, is currently being geared for production.

The source revealed that there are various sample devices around but it is impossible to tell which of them is most likely to be the final product. However, there are a few features that are common among all the devices. They include:

• 4+ inch display (made by LG on at least one of them).
• Rather than a teardrop shape, samples are all symmetrical in thickness
• None of the samples have the iPhone 4/4s form factor

What is important to note here is that iPhone 4S production did not gear up until late spring of last year.  If a pattern is followed and an approximate five month lead time is given, it would appear that Apple is back on its new iPhone launch for summer/WWDC pattern that it maintained until last year.

The source that provided this information was the same source that indicated to 9to5 Mac late last summer in the U.S. that the iPhone 5 was not about to be launched, against the prevailing tide of information, and that Apple was building the iPhone 4S model instead.

Any thoughts on all the emerging iPhone 5 details?

How do the different South African App stores compare? Apposition Consulting decided to monitor and track one of their apps called ExpenZa on the Android Market, Vodacom App Store and Samsung App Store. This is a summary of their experiences and while not necessarily applicable to all apps, does raise some interesting points.

ExpenZa is a free Android app and automates expense tracking by intercepting the expenditure SMS message sent by your bank. It uses the information contained in the SMS message to automatically populate your expense list. ExpenZa can also be used without a bank’s SMS service by manually adding expenses, for keeping track of the cash in your wallet for example. The app allows the user to create a monthly budget with different expense categories and a budget amount for each category. The total spent for each category is shown which gives the user a continuous overview of their spending throughout the month. This helps them to make adjustments necessary to keep to their budget.

All the app stores were configured to allow only downloads from South Africa. The app also went through five updates during the period under study. This was mostly to add the functionality to recognise a larger variety of sms’s, but some additional features requested by users were added (e.g. to be able to import historical sms’s from your inbox) and the un-escapable bug fixes. What is encouraging is the amount of user feedback received as well as the variety of users who forwarded sms’s not currently recognised by the app to be included. App downloads were tweeted daily from their account (@AppositionC) with hashtag #MarketDownloadChallengeZA.

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RIM CEO Thorsten Heins

After weeks of speculation (Research In Motion) RIM’s co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are resigning from their positions and will be replaced by company insider and former COO Thorsten Heins.

Heins, who also joins the company’s board, is already listed as President and CEO on RIM’s executive bios page. The change in leadership may be explained by a statement made by Lazaridis: “There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim [Balsillie] and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now.”

However, it is far from a clean break as both Balsillie and Lazaridis will stay on as directors and significant shareholders as part of the company’s board and management shuffle.

2011 saw almost a solid year of indiscretions under the leadership of Balsillie and Lazaridis. While the beginning of the year seemed to get off  to a promising and exciting start with RIM’s introduction of the Playbook tablets, the launch was unsuccessful with key features like a native e-mail client being left out. Later in the year the company announced the name for a new combined OS only to learn they didn’t have rights to that name. More recently, the company frustrated a large amount of  Blackberry users globally when they suffered through an extended service outage and were heavily criticized for not providing sufficient feedback quick enough.

The company has also steadily slipped down the ladder in smartphone market share as Android competitors and Apple have released more innovative and well-received handsets.

RIM has also recently unveiled the new Playbook OS 2.0 which does feature its own email client.

Source: Mashable