Cellphone mathematics

Education has just gone mobile. A South African technology training company, IT School Innovation has launched MOBI. This application allows users to learn mathematics while chatting to others. IT School innovation refer to it as mobile edutainment.

''Although the underlying technology provides the foundation for rolling-out mobile education programmes on just about any topic to any location for any organisation or community – the initial focus is on mobile mathematics (MOBI Maths) for grades 10 to 12, specifically tailored for the South African mathematics curriculum," says IT School Innovation's CEO, Lieb Liebenberg.

MOBI can be downloaded for free. Using a 3G connection the user can then connect to the server. This provides them access to MOBI Maths, MOBI Chat and MOBI Radio.

"Looking specifically at education, MOBI currently offers both mathematics education in the form of a five section structured educational approach and secure private chat rooms for learners to communicate with their friends. This is an ideal platform for cooperative learning events, or just socialising. Content preparation for other subjects such as physics and chemistry is in progress," says Liebenberg.

BPL gets the amber light

Broadband over power lines (BPL) is starting to pick up. Goal Technology Solutions (GTS) announced today that they are offering their services in all areas in which they are allowed. The problem being that municipalities seem to be holding back the process.

BPL, in short, allows for Internet connectivity over power lines. The benefits of this is that the infrastructure (the power lines) is already there and speeds are greatly increased from the more traditional access options. BPL means a great deal for rural areas where wireless hotspots and telephone cables are scarce to non-existent. Most of the country is covered by power lines and therefore these stand as a more ubiquitous form of Internet access.

The problem is that GTS has to get the permission of municipalities as they are using their power infrastructure to provide the service. Last year Intelligence Magazine featured the work of GTS and highlighted the importance of BPL, both for speed and access purposes. Let’s just hope the municipalities come to their senses.

Cellphones get MobileChoice

Vodacom has made their entry into the broadcasting and multi-media market a formal one. Today they announced an exclusive pay-television agreement with MultiChoice. The result of this agreement is that consumers can now watch a bouquet of channels on their mobile phones.

“For the first time, South Africans will be able to subscribe to satellite pay-TV for as little as R139 per month and choose one of the two DStv Select bouquets of channels they’d like to view. We expect to attract many customers who will enjoy the variety of more than four channels, but can now afford it for the first time,” said Alan Knott-Craig, CEO of the Vodacom Group.

With increasing cellphone penetration this is definitely a viable option in South Africa. It will be interesting to see the uptake figures though.

Samsung take the leap

At last, a local company has embraced blogging. Samsung recently launched The Samsung Blog which seems to deal mainly with their mobile offerings. Post are written by bloggers that have been given Samsung products to use, they simply write about using the products in every day life.

It is not clear yet whether the posts are shameless marketing or genuine reviewer opinion but one thing is for sure, the powers that be at Samsung South Africa obviously realise that traditional forms of advertising and marketing are not as effective on jaded audiences as they used to be. People are more likely to trust the opinion of a blogger than a paid actress on a television screen.

Lets hope this is the beginning of a corporate shift to increased online marketing.

Nokia road show hits town

The Nokia Nseries road show came to Johannesburg today. The two items they seem to be most proud of at the moment are the N95 and the N76. The N95 has some seriously impressive features, the dual slide handset allows for easy access to many features which helps, especially considering Nokia tend to include as many features as possible in one phone. What really impressed me is that the whole presentation was done through the N95 onto the LCD, video out is a great feature to have on a phone (see picture).

The N76 also got some coverage at the event. There were murmurs in the crowd though – the hushed whispers focused on the fact that the N76 looks exactly like the Motorola Razr. Admittedly there are a lot more features in the N76 but you would expect Nokia to use their own design.

The presentation did reveal one major issue with the cell phone giant – they release so many phones so quickly. If you buy the latest and greatest today it will be yesterday’s news very quickly. Another point brought up at the presentation is the fact that other cell phone makers tend to offer specific features on each of their phones. The customer then has to choose the features they need the most, supposedly making life easier for them. Nokia are obviously taking a totally different approach by including all the multi-media functions they can. With Nokia holding a 50% share of the multi-media market it seems there approach is winning at present.

.za DNA rewired

The Domain Name Authority of South Africa (.za DNA) today announced a new approach to regulating local domain names. From now on disputes will be settled through independent adjudicators, meaning that expensive court cases are no longer a necessity.

“One of the most common problems we see is when a person or business registers a competitor’s name online for financial gain, or to get an unfair advantage over competitors by denying them access to a domain name,” says Dr. Hasmukh Gajjar, chairman of the .za DNA. “They may also register an offensive domain name, which could bring another person or organisation into disrepute.”

It will cost companies R10 000 for a single adjudicator while a panel of three will set them back R24 000. According to DNA this is far cheaper than a legal battle in the courts, which can apparently run up a bill of around R250 000. 10 percent of the fee will go towards a fund intended for companies that cannot afford the adjudicator fees.

In essence this new system acts as a domain name claims court, without the lawyers though. This will definitely be a big breakthrough for companies that have had their domain names taken.

“If people or businesses want to lodge a complaint, the process requires that they are able to provide sufficient evidence proving that a domain name registration is abusive or offensive. The current owners of that name are also given the opportunity to prove why they should keep the name up and running” furthered Gajjar.

Second life, second business

Companies need to wake up to the virtual world. According to Gartner research 80% of active users will have some kind of second life on the Internet by 2011. Virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life will soon have many more users than we are currently seeing. If businesses do not start making inroads into these virtual worlds they are set to lose out.

Gartner stress that businesses need to come up with a viable business model for success in these worlds, however they also mention that large projects, at least in the beginning stages should be avoided.

Just imagine the possibilities in a game such as Second Life though. Real Estate agents could open up their virtual offices and sell off property. Millions could be made by anyone with enough business sense.