As the 2011 festive season gets underway, Andy Hadfield, Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle gather at ZA Tech Show HQ to discuss;

• Intel’s “ultrabooks” – supposedly big next year.
• HP open-sourcing WebOS.
• Mobile app development and HTML 5.
• Windows 8 and Windows Phone.
• DStv is launching a new satellite.
• Local loop unbundling.
• iCloud’s backup fail.
• Absa’s NFC trial.
• Mac App store reaches 100 million downloads while Android tops 10 billion.
• The Video Game Awards.

Our technology picks of the week:

• Andy Hadfield: Mi-Fone.
• Ben Kelly: Picks on Matthew Reilly.
• Brett Haggard: Picks the iNoxCase and Tweetdeck for sucking.
• Simon Dingle: Mario Kart 7.

• Microsoft’s XBox announcements at E3.
• Android tablets and how Honeycomb stacks up against iOS.
• Apple’s Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud announcements.
• Console gaming.
• Microsoft Windows 8 and rumours of an nVidia acquisition.
• Google’s Chromebooks and prospects in personal computing.
• The City of Tshwane’s initiatives and fibre rollout in SA.
• Oracle’s OpenOffice.org decision and general take on open source.

Our technology picks of the week:

• Ben Kelly – Picks: Sparrow.
• Duncan McLeod – Picks: GoToMyPC.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: FNB Connect.

Technology features alongside football, wine and potjiekos in this episode of the ZA Tech Show. Andy Hadfield, Arthur Goldstuck, Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle discuss;

• Windows Phone 7 ’Mango’.
• The cool factor for smartphones.
• BlackBerry’s fortunes and research from World Wide Worx.
• Android tablets.
• The Samsung Galaxy S2.
• Amazon planning a tablet?

Our technology picks and pick-ons this week;

• Arthur Goldstuck – Picks: BlackBerry PlayBook.
• Andy Hadfield – Picks: Nokia Ovi App Wizard and SpeedTask.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: Wunderlist and BitCoin.

‘Twas the month before Christmas and all through the house three geeks were stirring. Their names are Ben Kelly, Jon Tullett and Simon Dingle. In this week’s episode of the ZA Tech Show they discuss:

Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle talk their way through an interesting tech news week with acquisitions, much-ados about nothing and veins of awesomeness.

• The iPhone 4 storm in a teacup.
• The flood of business news this week including MTN, Naspers and Dimension Data.
• YouTube’s partner programme going live in South Africa.
• More hints at BlackBerry 6.
• Windows Phone 7 for developers.
• Converged devices.
• Movement in the ebook space.

Our technology picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Brett Haggard – Picks:  Guacamole.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: Angry Birds.

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Jon Tullett, Toby Shapshak, Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle are the crew this week. We discuss:

• Intel IDF.
• Microsoft’s Courier tablet device.
• Livescribe Pulse Smartpens.
• 3D video.
• Will Blu-ray be the last optical disk format of its kind?
• App stores and why most are failing.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Toby Shapshak: Pick – The Big Bang Theory.
• Jon Tullett: Pick – Prototype.
• Brett Haggard: Pick – iPhone Configuration Utility.

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An experiment in cross-Atlantic podcasting ensues as Simon Dingle is in Florida this week and chats to Brett Haggard, Duncan McLeod and the guys from FNB Connect back in Johannesburg, South Africa. We discuss:

• All things FNB Connect.
• The Wireless Enterprise Symposium for Blackberry.
• The cost of roaming data.
• MTN first to market with an Android phone in South Africa.
• Cell C’s dismal results.
• Ensuring competition in telecoms in SA.
• Telkom Media has found a buyer.
• The Idols mess.
• ATI first to get certification for Windows 7 drivers.

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Three geeks gather amidst public holidays to discuss:

• Mobile broadband and then some.
• The power of Chinese manufacturing.
• Oracle to buy Sun Microsystems. What would this mean for MySQL?
• Windows 7 RC1 leaked.
• Netbooks, nettops and the operating systems that make them work.
• Chips. Again.
• Adobe pens deal to have Flash embedded in hardware.
• Symantec announces detection of a Mac botnet.
• Pirate Bay founders found guilty.
• The new Nintendo DSi is apparently selling like hotcakes.

And more…

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Brett Haggard: Live streaming IPL cricket.
• Simon Dingle: Nambu – a Twitter client.
• Jon Tullett: Nothing really, but sort of Travian.

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Simon Dingle, Brett Haggard, Duncan McLeod and Candice Jones from ITWeb feature in this week’s episode, discussing:

• MacOS X on netbooks.
• The Gears of War DRM lock-out.
• DRM fueling piracy.
• The BlackBerry Storm, launched recently in South Africa.
• Will Apple’s multi-touch patents stop the Pre?
• Laying fiber in the Johannesburg rain.
• Solar-powered traffic lights.
• Improvements in Telkom ADSL performance.
• Neotel versus Telkom.
• Mobile data prices and the possibility of price-cuts.
• The Faritec fall and Intel posting losses.
• Brett’s Nehalem platform and the processor market.
• Acer getting into the smartphone market.
• Nokia launching music service locally.
• When will the likes of Apple get real and recognise the SA market?
• The ‘Obama Worm’.
• Some of our panelists’ favourite new thingies.

And more…

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This week’s panel includes Simon Dingle, Jon Tullett from TechTarget and Saul Kropman from The Digital Edge podcast. On the cards:

• Netbook price discrepancies. Jon bought an Aspire One in the UK for next to nothing. Why are we paying through our teeth in SA?
• Tweaks and hacks for netbooks.
• Neotel’s NeoFlex Data offering being launched last week. We talk caps, prices and practical use.
• Informal collusion in South African tech pricing.
• We dive into Windows 7 Beta and Internet Explorer 8.
• Vista Service Pack 2 delayed.
• A new Worm threatens the world’s computers. Apparently.
• The Macintosh platform finally has a real virus doing the round. Again – apparently.
• MacOS X developer group CocoaHeads now has a South African chapter.
• Application roll-out on smartphones and the BlackBerry app store.
• Canonical is reaching its goal of becoming self-sustaining.
• Some of the Tech in the Obama inauguration, courtesy of CNN.

And much more…

We apologise for the cellular buzz that occurs in a section of this recording. It stops after a few minutes… we promise.

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