We switch to water as our in-studio drink this week thanks to the presence of Aki Anastasiou and Toby Shapshak on our panel. They join Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle to discuss;

• Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype.
• BlackBerry’s make or break situation.
• The Endeavor space shuttle launch.
• Sony restoring Playstation Network.
• Neotel’s new consumer telephony service.

Our technology picks and pick-ons this week:

• Toby Shapshak – The joy of retro (don’t look at us).
• Aki Anastasiou – Picks: Apple TV.
• Brett Haggard – Picks: Seamless.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: BlackBerry Tablet OS.

We’re in our new studio space this week, echoes, unpainted walls and all. Brett Haggard, Don Packett, Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle are your panel this week. We discuss:

• The future of Cell C.
• Improving PC sales and analysts’ expectations for tablet computers.
• Microsoft Mix and the prospects for Windows Phone.
• Sony’s 8001050F error on the PS3.
• Apple vs. HTC in patent dispute.
• In-flight WiFi coming to Mango.
• HP’s Pavilion DM1 netbook.
• Dropped calls on Vodacom and the smartphones that apparently cause them.
• iBurst’s new iDSL service with unlimited bandwidth for gaming.
• Telkom bumping up speed on ADSL lines.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan McLeod – Picks: Skype for Symbian.
• Brett Haggard – Picks: The Macheist nanoBundle 2.
• Don Packett – Picks: Mi-World and the Mi-Bar for geeks.

Direct file download…

Aki Anastasiou from Talk Radio 702 drops by the studio this week and hangs out with Brett Haggard, Ben Kelly, Duncan McLeod, Jon Tullett and Simon Dingle for a discussion on:

• Skype for iPhone.
• Skuku and other novel ways of beating high roaming rates.
• The birth of BlackBerry App World.
• The death of Microsoft Encarta.
• The Conficker no-show.
• How much bandwidth is enough?
• Telkom’s restructuring and preparations for 2010.
• Our next minister of communications.
• Wolfram Alpha.
• Exciting things to do with USB sticks.

And much more…

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Aki Anastasiou: Audioboo – the audio blogging app.
• Duncan McLeod: Scramble and Postbox – the email client based on Thunderbird.
• Brett Haggard: Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link.
• Simon Dingle: Audacity – the open source audio editor.

Direct file download (26MB)

In this week’s episode Jon Tullett, Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard, Simon Dingle and ITWeb’s Candice Jones discuss:

• Google advertising the country manager position for South Africa.
• Google’s new Voice service.
• Why isn’t Skype tackling mobile more aggressively?
• The new Facebook features and layout.
• Twitter’s amazing popularity and lack of revenue.
• Emoji, Chinese QQ and other Asian whatsits.
• Apple’s big iPhone 3.0 announcement this week and order of 10″ touchscreens.
• Porting between cellular networks and service providers.
• MTN’s results for the last financial year.

And much more…

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Ben Kelly: Virtual Google Talk clients.
• Simon Dingle: Authoxy and Ping.fm.
• Brett Haggard: CheetahWatch.
• Candice Jones: BlackBerry Curve.
• Jon Tullett: Research for capturing keystrokes – no link, because we can’t find it on the normal Internet.

Direct file download (29MB)

In this episode Jon Tullett, Duncan McLeod, Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle discuss:

• Gmail’s downtime.
• South African updates to Google Maps.
• Safari 4 beta.
• Amazon’s Kindle 2 hits the market.
• Yourtunes.co.za.
• Penguin Club – the MMORPG for kids that’s taking the world by storm.
• NASA’s space exploration MMORPG.
• MTN’s impressive performance.
• Our picks including Jam Legend, Last.fm and other awesomeness.
• Do you really need an elaborate word processor?

And more…

Direct download (22MB).

Our panel this week consists of Brett Haggard, Simon Dingle and Mike Stopforth from Cerebra.

We discuss:

• Twestival and all things Twitter.
• Business models for new media.
• British Airways allowing rich people to use their cellphones on board.
• Google Sync for Mobile.
• New mobile app stores coming from Microsoft, et al.
• The new BlackBerry Curve.
• Psystar wins its case against Apple – will this force an any-PC version of OS X?
• Youtube adds download functionality for videos.

And much, much more.

Direct file download (34MB)

Topics under discussion this week include:

• Nintendo launches Wii Party website and an online gaming store in South Africa.
• The question of why only Playstation has an online presence in SA. Why can’t Microsoft or Nintendo do it?
• Comparing ADSL service providers – Axxess versus Plugg more specifically.
• All-girl gaming team, the PMS Clan is on its way to South Africa. We’ll be there. 
• The second expansion pack for World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King has been launched.
• Guitar Hero: World Tour is being launched next week.
• Google Video Chat.
• Skype – and why it should have an open API.
• Telkom’s ADSL issues.
• Neotel’s data-only product.
• Duncan has the new Macbook. We play.
• Alienware’s new laptop – the M17.
• The new Windows Live social network.
• Microsoft strategy.
• BlackBerry Storm is being launched on November 21 in the US.
• Dimension Data posts annual results.

And more…

Direct file download (31MB)

A somber group of geeks gather this week to talk about:

• The Rand-Dollar exchange rate and what it means for prices of technology in South Africa.
• Vodafone’s purchase of Telkom’s share in Vodacom in the face of the current economic crisis.
• Apple’s new range of Macbook portables that will arrive locally at massive prices.
• New graphics technology and how the ATI and Nvidias of the world are taking things to the next level.
• Lenovo’s new Thinkpad models with extended battery-life.
• OpenOffice.org 3 and the vast improvements it introduces to everyone’s favourite free office suite.
• The power of Outlook.
• IBM Lotus and how the brand has progressed.
• The iPhone App Store and how Android’s approach will stack up, along with mobile device management for corporates, and some of Duncan and Brett’s favourite applications on the iPhone.
• Games and other applications excluded from the South African iPhone App store.
• Zune availability and how Microsoft has addressed the media player market.
• The new iPod Nano’s shake function, and what we think of the new range, having had some time to play with them.
• The awesomeness of Gmail and its mobile site.
• Barack Obama’s online campaign and how it has bolstered his success.
• Pandora, Last.fm and other services that use the Music Genome Project being reinvented on the iPhone.

And more…

Direct file download (32MB)

Episode 33 was recorded in Holland at Symantec Vision + Manage Fusion 2008 in The Hague. But not in its entirety, thanks to dodgy technology. So we re-recorded it in South Africa.

And apologise profusely for it being late. We discuss:

• Open document standards as the OXML committee suggests alignment and interaction with ODF.
• OpenOffice.org 3.0 is out.
• BlackBerry entering the touch-phone market with the launch of the ‘Storm’.
• The migration to mobile.
• A new directive in the EU requiring vendors to have easily removable and recyclable  batteries.
• Battery technology in general, including maximising battery times on laptops and why batteries will continue to suck for some time still.
• Nintendo’s new DSi and announcement that an HD Wii is in production.
• Console gaming in general. Why not?
• Mail Goggles and other things we’re not entirely sure about.
• Things we learned and discussed at Symantec Vision + Manage Fusion.
• Google putting in local servers… or are they?

And more…

Direct file download (32MB)

This week Brett’s in San Francisco and joins us via Skype. Under discussion:

• The future of SSD and what it enables. Intel has some compelling offerings on the way.
• Gartner Symposium 2008 – Simon and Ben look at this year’s event.
• Duncan has the Multichoice HD PVR and gives his impressions.
• Eyeballs mobile advertising platform.
• Instant messaging and convergence.
• Cell C’s improved market performance.
• Intel’s Nehalem and Laraby processors and how they will change the game.
• Sony confirming that the PSP Phone is on the way.
• Microsoft’s planned responsive advertising campaign against the famous ‘I’m a Mac’ ads from Apple.

And more…

Direct file download (27MB)