Simon Dingle and Ben Kelly more than compensate for their puny absent fellow panelists this week as they discuss:

• Apple’s iOS 4 in practice, and the launch of iPhone 4.
• Android fragmentation.
• The newly launched Samsung Wave and Bada operating system.
• Mobile app developer headaches.
• Vodacom’s LTE demo.
• Government’s official definition of ‘broadband’.
• Telkom helping its competition along, and the company’s latest results.
• Slashing of ebook reader prices.
• Safari 5′s Reader feature, Instapaper and other reading tricks.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Ben Kelly – Picks: Dave Henson’s world cup songs and  YoruFukurou Twitter client.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Direct file download (29MB)

As Christmas 2009 approaches, our panelists are confined to their quarters and must use Skype to converse. Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard, Duncan McLeod, Jon Tullet, Simon Dingle and Toby Shapshak discuss:

• Cell C’s network expansion and upgrade.
• Telecoms.
• Intel scrapping Larrabee and possibly cosying up to Nvidia.
• Blackberry’s Storm 2.
• Integration between Twitter and search providers.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan McLeod: Picks – Google Chrome for Mac.
• Brett Haggard: Picks – Dragon Dictation for iPhone.
• Jon Tullett: Pick-on – Dragon Dictation and picks – Samsung Star.
• Toby Shapshak: Picks – Blackberry Storm 2.
• Ben Kelly: Picks – Stanza.
• Simon Dingle: Picks – Tornado Outbreak for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.

Direct file download (30MB)

Ivo Vegter makes his debut appearance on the ZA Tech Show this week, by popular demand. He joins Simon Dingle, Duncan McLeod, Brett Haggard, Toby Shapshak and Ben Kelly for a chat about:

• Walled gardens, open systems and whether or not we should care.
• “Evil” technology companies and market perceptions.
• Google and Microsoft’s game of tit-for-tat.
• Google Chrome OS.
• New HD channels coming to DSTV.
• The move to digital terrestrial television (DTT) and MNET’s advantage.

And much more…

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Toby Shapshak – Pick: VLC, which has now reached version 1.0.
• Brett Haggard – Picks: the Monkey Island revival and Linux Mint.
• Ivo Vegter – Pick-on: The R6 million 2010 Durban website.
• Ben Kelly – Pick: Travian (yes, yes. Jon has picked it before).
• Ducan McLeod – Pick: Grooveshark.
• Simon Dingle – Pick: Simple CSS (which he confused with another app. Wrong description in the show, but check it out anyway)

Direct file download (27MB)

Jon Tullett, Toby Shapshak, Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle are your panellists in this week’s episode. They try to speak as quickly as possible, and at the same time, as they discuss:

• Microsoft’s dodgy IE8 ads.
• The Core debacle.
• How technology vendors go to market in SA, and calculate prices.
• Mobile broadband options.
• The switch to DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television).
• The RICA act in SA and its impact on prepaid cellular.

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Toby Shapshak: Sony Ericsson W995.
• Jon Tullett: Ubuntu Linux 9.04.
• Brett Haggard: G-Connect.

Direct file download (29MB)

This week our intrepid group of podcasting buccaneers finds themselves under the command of Lt. Jon Tullett, once again. Will hysterics and swearing derail their mission? Find out in this exciting episode, wherein Jon ‘Federa’ Tullett, Brett ‘Shiny-guy’ Haggard, Ben ‘Ace’ Kelly, Duncan ‘Laugh-a-minute’ McLeod and Toby ‘Mister’ Shapshak discuss:

• The big gaming announcements from E3.
• Microsoft Bing.
• Google Squared.
• Time magazine’s Twitter cover.
• Predictions for WWDC.
• The Palm Pre.
• COSATU withdrawing its Vodacom boycott.

Our choice technologies for the week:

• Ben Kelly: Wesabe - Web 2.0 finance tool.
• Brett Haggard: The Developer Release of Google Chrome for Mac.
• Jon Tullett: Improvements to DNSSEC.

Direct file download (33MB).

Jon Tullett leads our group of intrepid geeks this week, as Simon was away. Jon joins Duncan McLeod, Ben Kelly and Brett Haggard to discuss:

• The post-Vodacom debacle fallout.
• Cellular network reliability.
• More iPhone app blocking.
• Swine flu: the online story.
• Google Chrome 2 and the browser scene.
• 3d cinema tech.
• Microsoft’s Magic Wand patent.
• The Apple tablet. There appears to be more to the rumour.

And much more…

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Brett Haggard: Sun VirtualBox – free virtualisation platform.
• Ben Kelly: Stellarium – free open source planetarium for your computer and Moviestar – the iPhone app.
• Duncan McLeod: The new Star Trek movie.
• Jon Tullett: Kensington wireless mouse with nano receiver.

Direct file download (25MB)

Toby Shapshak, editor of Stuff Magazine joins Jon Tullett, Brett Haggard, Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle this week. We discuss:

• The HTC Magic from Vodacom and everything Android.
• Fixing Gmail’s IMAP on some mail clients.
• Mail and calendaring clients.
• Click here for Justin Hartman’s iCal fix.
• Personal cloud platforms. Who’s winning the race?
• Is the bandwidth on FNB Connect really unshaped?
• Hear our first reactions to the ICASA-COSATU-Vodacom debacle (we got the announcement while recording this episode).
• The cellular network reliability debate.
• Finality on the Idols mess.

This week’s choice technologies:

• Jon Tullett: Google’s new search options and Read It Later for Firefox.
• Brett Haggard: GMDesk and Issuu.
• Duncan McLeod: Blue Mail Central.
• Simon Dingle: Lenovo Thinkpad X301 and Blackberry Facebook 1.5.

Direct file download (29MB)

In this week’s episode Duncan McLeod, Jon Tullett, Simon Dingle, Brett Haggard and Candice Jones discuss:

• The release of Internet Explorer 8.
• Content Management Systems, browser compatibility and all things web development.
• Squarespace versus WordPress versus Drupal versus Joomla.
• Neotel’s new data-centres.
• Google servers in South Africa.
• Google Maps versus Windows Live Maps.
• We get hands on with Duncan’s Kindle 2.
• Halo Wars for Xbox 360.
• Voice-recognition in games.
• Classic adventure and quest games on the Nintendo DS.
• IBM’s probable acquisition of Sun Microsystems.
• Digital publishing.
• A new hack that tackles Intel processors at the cache level.
• iPhone 3.0

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Simon Dingle: BrowserShots and the new Griffin iTrip AutoPilot.
• Candice Jones: The new Shox Duo Mini Speakers.
• Brett Haggard: AppCleaner.
• Duncan McLeod: HowStuffWorks’ Stuff You Should Know podcast.
• Jon Tullett: Sierra classic games bundle (available from Incredible Connection).

Direct file download (29.2)

Simon Dingle, Brett Haggard, Jon Tullett and Tiana Alswang get about as festive as four geeks who are still working in the middle of December can and discuss:

• Google’s Chrome browser coming out of beta and the state of the browser nation.
• Google’s plans for global domination.
• Gmail’s new features from the lab.
• Integration of social networks and forced interoperability from technology vendors.
• Japanese scientists getting images from the human brain.
• Johannesburg’s CCTV system in the CBD that can scan vehicle numberplates through eNaTIS.
• Left 4 Dead and its awesomeness.
• EA’s acquisition of Tim Schafer’s genius.
• Little Big Planet, Call of Duty: World at War, Fallout 3, Guitar Hero: World Tour and other titles getting attention this Christmas.
• Jon says Far Cry 2 is boring.
• Sony’s 14 million Playstation Network users.
• The rebirth of Nokia N-Gage as a rounded gaming service and the evolution of mobile gaming.

And more…

Direct file download (32MB)

Gartner Analyst Will Hahn joins the gang on this week’s episode as part of his visit to South Africa – you don’t want to miss this one. We discuss:

• Will’s take on the South African telecommunication’s space. What is the state of play of our market and what are his predictions for the future?
• The maturity of the technology market in South Africa and trends that are shaping the way we do things down here.
• The move to IP telephony and market expectations in this regard.
• We review Neotel NeoFlex Data as Brett and Duncan have been putting the offering through its paces. How fast is it? What latency are they seeing? Can you stay connected in a power outage? All answers within…
• Jerry Yang stepping down as CEO of Yahoo!
• PC Magazine halting print and going online only. What is happening to print publishing?
• Net Neutrality in the USA, the Obama government and how the landscape is changing state-side.
• Is email dead?
• Gmail introduces themes.
• Duncan has a Nokia 5800. It’s poop.
• If you think the 5800 sucks, wait until you use a Samsung Omnia. We discuss the touch phone market. It’s all iPhone for now.
• News on the arrival of a local Google data centre.
• Our predictions surrounding Google Maps – and some general GPS discussion.
• Guitar Hero: World Tour is now available in South Africa.
• How off-line games make the transition to online.
• Wrath of the Lich King breaks a record. We’re not sure which one exactly.
• Microsoft South Africa says it is lobbying for a local Xbox Live service.
• Afrigator has a new revenue scheme for bloggers.

And more…

Direct file download (37.9)