Xbox One: dog days for the console market
The most memorable image from Microsoft’s reveal of the Xbox One was an animated German Shepard with Kevlar armour and a high polygon count. Motion-captured from a retired Navy Seal dog to serve as a player companion in this year’s iteration of Call of Duty, the pooch is an apt mascot for the console. The dog
Intel convinced of smartphone success
Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is at a crossroads. The company, with Microsoft, dominated the client-server era of computing. Its chips power most servers and PCs sold today. But the action in the computing industry is no longer in desktops and laptops, but rather in smartphones
Pule set to crack open TV rights
Could pay-TV operator MultiChoice, which owns DStv, be forced to allow rival broadcasters access to premium sports and entertainment content that it has bought rights to? If communications minister Dina Pule gets her way, this could happen.Pule told parliament on Tuesday
Vodacom hunts for future growth
Vodacom expects demand for data to offset a decline in voice revenues in the next few years, but with the margins on data slimmer and the price of data being driven down by a competitive market, the operator is also hoping so-called “over-the-top” services – content, social networking and financial services are three examples
Adapt or die for mobile operators
As their markets become saturated and as lower-margin data overtakes voice as the primary traffic on their networks, mobile operators are going to have to change dramatically, altering their operating models, cutting costs and completely reshaping their cultures, if they’re to continue to survive, let
Battle lines drawn over digital TV
Kagiso Media, which has previously expressed interest in launching both free-to-air and pay-television services, says digital terrestrial broadcasting may be on the “brink of irrelevance” and the longer the process is delayed, the less likely new players are to be successful. CEO Omar Essack made the comments
TopTV flop gobbles up state funds
Perhaps best known for its foray into pornography, TopTV’s anti-climax in the world of broadcasting has resulted in a little-known fact: South Africa has suffered a loss of almost R1,2bn because of this venture, which critics say it should not have flirted with in the first place. Three arms
Local-loop unbundling in limbo
Whatever happened to cracking open Telkom’s last mile of copper cables into homes and businesses to rival broadband operators? The industry regulator has gone silent on the issue, leaving industry players wondering whether local-loop unbundling has quietly been shelved
Kenya’s BRCK: all the details
Kickstarter project BRCK, the brainchild of Kenyan nonprofit technology outfit Ushahidi, hopes to raise $125 000 to build a communications device that connects users to the Internet using any means possible, even when the power is out. And it’s well on its way to achieving its first objective. In little more
The Samsung Galaxy S4 reviewed
Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S3 was the runaway success in Android smartphones over the past year, selling more than 50m units by mid-March 2013, exceeded only by Apple’s iPhone. So, you’d think the consumer electronics giant would have waited a little longer than it did to release the
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