Google Street View trikes arrived in South Africa in November last year, when they started collecting imagery of historic landmarks, heritage sites, scenic panoramas and sports venues around the country. South African Tourism compiled a list of 20 special locations on which the public voted. As a result, Google’s Street View team has been visiting the places that the South African public really wanted them to cover, everywhere from Soweto to Kruger National Park, and from Blyde River Canyon to the Kirstenbosch Gardens.

The Google trikers have been met with excitement from those they’ve crossed paths with along the way, including tourists who’ve said how useful they’ve found Street View for planning their holidays elsewhere. Street View is not always the first thing that comes to mind when seeing the Trikes though…in fact, in Kirstenbosch Gardens, a group of schoolchildren were convinced that the Trikers were actually ice-cream men!

More Google maps news

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC) today announced it will be tracking malicious activity on the Internet relating to the soccer World Cup, which starts on June 11. On its dedicated Web site, www.2010netthreat.com, Symantec will provide data, commentary, safety tips and useful links for football fans surfing the Internet for news, tickets and information on the tournament.

According to Paul Wood, senior analyst at Symantec Hosted Services, the tournament, which attracts the attention of more than 1 billion soccer fans worldwide, is becoming a theme for cybercriminals. “Historically, any large-scale sporting event has shown an increase in all kinds of cyberthreats,” said Wood. “Phishing attacks increased by 66 percent during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The fact that two undersea communications cables landed on South African shores last July will exacerbate the threat levels; history also shows that malicious activity increases in a country after new bandwidth is made available.”

Symantec has already installed additional network sensors in South Africa and southern Africa to monitor traffic and feed information to customers who are looking to take steps to secure their networks against additional threats. “As an example, two of our configured partners in Africa have submitted unique malicious files that have not been seen elsewhere by Symantec,” said Wood.

Much of the threat activity will not be new to the world of cybercrime – so-called 419 scams, spam and phishing attacks will face users in the guise of special offers for the event. “The rule is, if something looks too good to be true, then it’s likely to be a scam,” said Gordon Love, Africa regional director, Symantec. “Also, in all cases these days a cybercriminal is looking to steal a user’s personal information – identity details, bank account numbers, passwords and credit card numbers – to steal money from a user. The 2010 Net Threat site will aim to tell people how they can protect themselves against such attacks.”

Internet users must be on the alert for new varieties of scam. “Attackers are even going as far as ensuring their fake Web sites or sites they have ‘poisoned’ with malicious code appear at the top of search results,” said Love. “Users tend to assume that the sites that appear first tend to be legitimate, and may click on them without first examining the source.”

By the time the World Cup kicks off, 3.1 million tickets will have been sold. More than 400 million people worldwide will watch each match on television. The number of fans using the Internet to find tickets, accommodation, flights and ways to stay connected to this year’s most popular sporting event will amount to hundreds of millions.

“The site will provide people with the information they need to protect themselves on the Internet,” said Love. “However, attackers are always finding new ways of duping people into disclosing their personal information. Being well informed and alert is as important as keeping up to date with the latest protection software updates.”

AdMod records the number of ad requests its system generates, meaning this leap has come about through more people downloading and using ad-supported apps via the Android market.

Here are the higlights of AdMob’s latest metrics:

• 97% increase in worldwide requests from Android devices, totalling to 1 billion ad request between October-December
• 98% of the ad requests came from HTC devices in October, 56% in December from HTC devices and 30% from Motorola DROID.
• Among the Android devices that generated more than 3% of ad requests are Motorola DROID, HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ, HTC Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Magic and HTC Hero.
• Motorola DROID received 30% ad requests in December making it the number one Adroid handset in terms of ad requests.

Interestingly, these data have to come in just in time for Google’s announcement of the Nexus Phone. And even more interesting is the fact that AdMob is already owned by Google.

Will the Nexus One phone add spike to Android’s current achievement in terms of ad request?

This just in – Internet marketer and entrepreneur Randolf Jorberg just blogged the news that eTRAVELi has acquired Cape Town based Travelstart’s Nordic operations – this adds just another success story to serial entrepreneur Stephan Ekberghs list of achievements. Travelstart is a South African company and generated sales of approximately ZAR 1.5 billion during 2009. eTRAVELi and Travelstart combined produce a monster booking engine with expected revenues of 5 billion (Rand and Swedish kronor are nearly on par) in 2010. The report does not state the acquisition price, we are waiting for a reply from Stephan with further details.

Reportedly brokering 50,000 bookings a month on the Travelstart SA platform, Travelstart is a travel giant in the e-commerce market of South Africa and I do seriously hope that this is not the last positive news we hear from this travel powerhouse, operating from Cape Town.

Update from Stephan -

Just to clear some basic facts:
The Deal covers our european business and our brand in Europe.
We will still continue to do business outside of EU with our new global HQ in Cape Town.
Our main efforts will be directed towards continental Africa for a while as well as launching a global kick ass mobile app.
Our ZA business is doing very well and we expect to break the 1 billion zar mark in 2011.

Come by and see us at 56 Shortmarket.

I have written some personal reflections on the sale on my blog:
http://ekbergh.blogspot.com/2010/01/when-to-let-go-2930-decade-with.html

(edit – we have fixed our confusing headline)

While the technology that will enable in-flight Internet services is depending on Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approval, it will be provided through an exclusive agreement with US-based Row 44 who is already successfully offering in-flight Wi-Fi Internet to Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines and in 2010, through Norwegian Air Shuttle. After extensive testing in the US, the first complete set of hardware will arrive in South Africa shortly. This will be used to setup a ground-based proof of concept (POC) here in South Africa to test the complete solution including the Satellites that will be used for the commercial product.

WirelessG also holds an exclusive agreement for the African continent, but are still investigating options to see how soon, and to which extent they will be able to provide in-flight Wi-Fi into Africa and is actively investigating potential airline prospects to identify valuable business partners.

Carel van der Merwe, CEO of WirelessG, says the company is already in negotiations with local airlines, and while the solution is already in POC phase, no information is being released as to which carrier will launch the service first.

Because Row 44’s in-flight broadband system is satellite-based and leverages the extensive Hughes satelllite network, WirelessG and Row 44 will be able to provide African airlines’ passengers with uninterrupted high-speed connectivity in-flight, no matter where they fly—including flights across multiple countries and over water.

WirelessG has successfully integrated its converged billing platform to this new technological environment. This platform, which has undergone extensive testing against the WirelessG converged billing service, will connect via satellite to provide a full range of Internet services such as web browsing, email access, VPN connectivity and web-based SMS.
Van der Merwe says the new solution will dovetail perfectly into G-Connect’s current converged Internet solution and extend the ADSL, Wi-Fi hotspot and 3G Internet access currently on offer from the service into the cloud.

The in-flight Internet service will be available to all passengers on participating flights for a fee, while G-Connect users can benefit from the service as they will be able to use their current G-Connect accounts onboard the aircraft.

“With the G-Connect sign-up process being free of cost and contracts, we are expecting many travelers to utilise the advantage of our in-flight offering,” says van der Merwe.

“We have always focused on innovating within the telecoms space in order to provide increased value to our customers. We were the first provider to offer a 3-in-1 service (ADSL, 3G, Wi-Fi), and a wallet for managing connectivity spend. All that is required now, is to legitimise the US approved Supplemental Type Certificates (STCs) through the South African CAA. Once we have received this approval, we are able to launch the POC aircrafts and then be the first to offer in-flight Internet access in Africa,” explains van der Merwe. “Being able to provide such a highly necessary and useful product, makes us really proud.”

“WirelessG has built the dominant Wi-Fi hotspot presence across Africa and maintains agreements that extend its services globally,” said Frederick St.Amour, Row 44’s Vice President of Business Development. “By extending its coverage to aircraft in flight, they continue to demonstrate the innovation and leadership for which they are well known. As a result, air travelers in Africa will enjoy in-flight broadband services much sooner than they would have otherwise. Row 44 is thrilled to join forces with WirelessG to bring a wide range of connectivity services to the African skies.”

Google Docs lets people create, edit and collaboratively share personal and business-related content online. Users can access files uploaded to Google Docs from any browser, anywhere in the world. Combined with shared folders and multiple file import and export, it is easy to use Google Docs to collaborate and share files with coworkers, teammates, and friends. Now, instead of emailing attachments to oneself or colleagues for “back-up”, Google Docs users can upload content to a shared folder and access content from any computer.

Users can utilise 1GB of storage for free, with additional paid storage available. Files up to 250 MB each can be uploaded in their native formats (uncheck the “convert” option while uploading). Although only Google Docs formats can be edited in the cloud, most common filetypes are viewable with the Google Docs viewer, and all can be shared and accessed from any connection and at any time.

JBB Research recently shared their 10 predictions for the African wireless market in 2010 with Bandwidth blog -

1. Mobile entertainment services set to remain African carriers’ top priority to offset the continued decline of their total ARPU. In 2009, many African carriers experienced a decline of their total ARPU due to increase pricing war. I expect this trend to continue. Thus, African carriers will continue to focus on mobile data services to offset the decline of their total ARPU.

2. 2010 set to be a critical year for Mobile advertising space in Africa. 2010 World Cup Set to Be a Key driver. As mobile web and mobile payment continue to gain traction in Africa, 2010 should see the emergence of innovative mobile advertising concepts in Africa. I expect to see more African carriers focusing on mobile advertising concepts going beyond traditional SMS-based campaigns. WAP banner ads, MMS-based campaigns and ad-funded or ad-supported services/content embedded with value-added features/capabilities like mobile LBS, commerce, (e.g. mobile coupons), widgets, social networking, will start to gain traction in 2010. In South Africa, the 2010 World Cup is set to be a key driver here.

3. Scheduled rollout of first LTE networks in Africa in 2010 set to improve user experience and drive mobile entertainment content/service adoption. As African carriers continue to upgrade their network to 4G technologies (e.g. WiMAX, LTE), users will be able to enjoy a better user experience while using mobile entertainment services as those services will run on faster networks like LTE or WiMAX. African carriers in countries like South Africa and Libya are scheduled to start rolling out their LTE network in 2010. This should help further drive mobile entertainment services usage.

4. Various 4G strategies likely to emerge in 2010. While LTE is set to be the flavor of choice for many carriers at the world level, this might be a different story in Africa. Some African carriers will decide to focus primarily on WiMAX or LTE while others will choose a dual approach (WiMAX-LTE).

5. Improving billing mechanisms and content delivery set to be a top priority for African carriers in 2010. In 2010, more African carriers will start forging strategic partnerships with third party companies specialized in billing mechanism and content delivery. By doing so, carriers will be able to do a better job at differentiating their mobile content products and services, and delivery mechanisms, instead of simply differentiating themselves on pricing and voice quality. That being said, improving customer care, while preventing revenue leakage issues, and adopting more robust mobile entertainment platforms, will remain some of African carriers’ top priorities.

6. Mobile blogging/mobile social networking set to become a key theme among African carriers in 2010. As camera phones continue to gain significant traction in Africa, I expect simple and enhanced chat services, mobile blogging applications, and picture uploading services to experience one of the fastest adoption growths in the African mobile entertainment services/content market.

7. Local content, another key priority for African carriers to attract new customers and drive mobile entertainment adoption. While voice services are set to remain the key purchasing factor, and “king” for most carriers, in 2010, African carriers and application developers will start to provide more local content. To do so, I expect to see more African carriers partnering with local content and mobile app providers.

8. Mobile payment services set to become more affordable and capable, embedded with new value added features. I expect to see the emergence of more affordable and capable mobile payment services in Africa. In 2010, I also expect to see more African carriers offering mobile payment services, which can work across various carriers and countries, and allow customers to make international money transfers. Nokia’s scheduled entry in the African mobile payment market in 2010 is set to play a key role here. Lastly, I expect to see new carriers in the North African regions jumping on the mobile payment bandwagon.

9. Feature phones set to become more capable. In 2010, I expect feature phones to become more capable, embedded with better picture/video recording and uploading, and Bluetooth capabilities, and full browsing technologies based on commercial web browsers from Opera. This should help further drive the mobile web adoption in Africa. Ultimately, it will also help further drive the adoption of web-based mobile entertainment services (e.g. mobile blogging).

10. 3G Smartphones and services set to become more affordable. I expect to see the emergence of more affordable 3G services and devices (BlackBerry devices, iPhone 3G, Android devices, etc) in Africa. As a result, this should help drive the adoption of mobile entertainment services/content in Africa.

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.”

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