Browsing: Opinion

TechCentral’s recent interview with Herman Singh, Commerce is mobile’s fourth wave, is interesting coming in the same week that his employer, Vodacom, was part of a court action to preserve its unreasonably high mobile termination rights arrangement. Vodacom, along with MTN, threw everything it had into

Bewilderment. That’s the word that best described the look on the faces of mobile communications industry executives crammed into a courtroom on the 11th floor of the high court in downtown Johannesburg on Monday afternoon as they listened to judge Haseena Mayat hand down her decision in a key industry battle

Two crucial constituencies have been ignored in communications minister Yunus Carrim’s rather ill-tempered response over the past few weeks to questions about his policy on the digital migration of South African television services. Instead of acknowledging the many deficiencies in the option being pursued by government

On 22 November 2013, the supreme court of appeal (SCA) handed down a rare trademark judgment. It’s marked on the judgment as one that’s not worth reporting in the law reports, which is a great pity given that is of considerable importance. The case pitted international telecommunications operator Orange against a local accounting

The story of Oculus VR is the kind of garage-to-greatness story that geeks usually love. A passionate, self-taught tinkerer barely out of his teens revives a dead technology and two years later, Facebook buys his company for US$2bn. So, why are many of the company’s earliest backers so angry? Oculus VR makes virtual reality headsets

Nearly R1,5bn — that is what was wiped off the market capitalisation of technology group Pinnacle Holdings in just two trading sessions this week after news emerged that one of its directors and biggest shareholders, Takalani Tshivhase, had been arrested on

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to speak to your car, to ask it to navigate you to a point of interest without knowing the address, or asking for restaurants by cuisine type that are closest to your current location? How about just telling your vehicle “I’m hungry”, and it bringing up a list of restaurants

Recent events are evidence of unprecedented pressure on mobile network operators to lower their prices. Yet a sober analysis reveals that the networks are really their own worst enemies, and can turn their fortunes around by simply lowering prices. The latest proposed cuts in the mobile termination (interconnection) rates are the most

The small black box at the heart of the move from analogue to digital is about South Africans’ freedom, which communications minister Yunus Carrim’s decision will either narrow or enlarge. This is unfortunate since technology and markets function

Susan started her new job as a junior attorney at a prestigious law firm today. She was given a company tablet, running Windows 8, to ensure she can work from anywhere. Susan has never worked with Windows 8 before. At university, she would often start an assignment on her personal MacBook, which she didn’t like carrying around