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.

In this episode you’ll hear the voices of casual wine aficionado Andy Hadfield and international man of mystery Stafford Masie who join Simon Dingle to discuss;

• HP’s new direction.
• Amazon’s rise as an ecosystem player.
• The future role of network operators.
• The information revolution.
• Motorola’s XOOM and Atrix.
• News from Gamescom.
• Kids and computing.
• The Twitter ‘walkout’.
• ‘Retweet’ and ‘sexting’ entering the dictionary.

Our technology picks this week:

• Stafford Masie: Arduino and Quantified Self.
• Andy Hadfield: Carbonite.
• Simon Dingle: Mobile Mouse.

Joining us on the show this week is Samantha Beckbessinger, Toby Shapshak and Simon Dingle. We discuss;

• BlackBerry’s new device line-up.
• HP WebOS devices.
• Digital publishing and the role of print.
• ADSL woes in SA.
• Predictions of SA’s IT market size.
• Cory Doctorow’s tablet bashing.

Our technology picks this week:

• Sam Beckbessinger: If this then that and The Inside Experience from Intel and Toshiba.
• Toby Shapshak: The new BlackBerry line-up. And paper.
• Simon Dingle: Roku 2.

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.

The crew this week consisted of Jon Tullet, Samantha Perry, Stafford Masie and Simon Dingle who discussed;

• New laptop lines from Apple, HP and Lenovo.
• Intel’s Thunderbolt I/O technology.
• Claims of breakthroughs in battery tech.
• Smartphone cans and can’ts.
• The current spike in singularity interest.
• And much more…

Our technology picks and pick-ons this week:

• Stafford Masie – Picks: iThoughts.
• Jon Tullett – Picks-on: Kalahari.net and Amazon.
• Samantha Perry – Picks-on: spammers and picks: Dropbox.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: The Huawei E5 and Abigail De Kosnik‘s take on piracy and TV.

Sam Beckbessinger makes her debut on this week’s episode, joining Nic Callegari and Simon Dingle to discuss;

• Vodacom and MTN’s TV-internet thingies..
• Battle of the Twitter clients.
• Linux’ desktop readiness.
• More on new tablet offering’s.
• BlackBerry’s deck of cards.
• Star Trek porn (don’t ask).
• The rescue of FireID.

Our technology picks and pick-ons this week:

• Nic Callegari – Picks: Posterous.
• Sam – Picks-on: Catbook and picks: Maria Fischer’s Traumgedanken.
• Simon – Picks: SugarSync.

A very dry ZA Tech Show studio was ably manned by Brett Haggard this week, who was joined by Andy Hadfield and Ben Kelly for a discussion of the week’s technology news, which included;

• Nokia’s turn to Microsoft.
• The rise of Google in mobile.
• The significance of gaming in mobile.
• New tablet announcements from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
• Red Bull Mobile and the reinvention of Cell C.

Our technology picks and pick-ons this week:

• Brett Haggard – picks: Open Transport Tycoon.
• Andy Hadfield – picks: MindNode.
• Ben Kelly – picks: Flight Control HD.

Gathered at the ZA Tech Show’s Northriding lair Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle encrypt their messaging systems and discuss:

Amidst whiskey and Movember challenges, Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard and Nic Callegari join host Simon Dingle to discuss: