With Seacom down and the World Cup approaching its final weekend Ben Kelly, Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle gather to discuss:

• The Seacom outage.
• The local loop barrier for bandwidth.
• The possibility of the rumoured Google ‘Newspass’ pay wall for content.
• Wired magazine and its device strategy.
• Google Me.

Our technology picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan McLeod – Picks: Layar, Google Googles and Sky Map.
• Ben Kelly – iRewardChart.
• Simon Dingle – Sony’s HT-CT150 sound system and Qualcomm’s new augmented reality SDK.

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Brett Haggard and Jon Tullett join Simon Dingle to discuss:

• The Gautrain. Trains are technology, right?
• The new ACE undersea cable that will run up Africa’s West Coast.
• Telkom’s next moves.
• Contention ratios – why are they secret?
• Monopolies and comebacks.
• R&D at Microsoft.
• iPhone 4.
• The WirelessG iPod deal.
• Google StreetView in SA and custom homepages.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Jon Tullett – Picks: Manufactoria.
• Brett Haggard – Picks: iPad Camera Connection Kit and Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez.
• Simon Dingle – Picks and picks-on: Sony Vaio P Series and picks: Red Dead Redemption.

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Our panel this week consists of Brett Haggard, Duncan McLeod, Jon Tullett and Simon Dingle. We discuss:

• The new iPhone prototype. They’re everywhere now. We’re so over it.
• Duncan’s fantastic TechCentral Debate Series telecoms panel.
• Fibre rollout in SA.
• Vodacom’s Linkbook netbook.
• Ubuntu Linux 10.04.
• Steam for Mac (and maybe Linux too).
• Recovery in the tech sector.
• The Facebook privacy debacle.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Simon Dingle – Picks: Steam for Mac.
• Brett Haggard – Picks: Pocket Legends.
• Duncan McLeod – Picks: Vintage Kings Quest and Just Cause 2.
• Jon Tullett – Picks: The Humble Indie Bundle.

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We’re back at our studio under construction this week. Simon Dingle is your host, with TechCentral’s Duncan McLeod and Thunk! Perspective Lab’s Don Packett joining the panel for discussions on:

• Motorola’s Milestone launch and Android 2.1.
• Vodacom slashing its data rates.
• Fibre to the home in South Africa.
• Google’s local operations.
• Xbox Live rumours.
• Microsoft Office 2010.
• Die Antwoord and related online phenomena.
• The Gizmodo Apple iPhone prototype and how unreal we think it is.
• The launch of Top TV.
• Good results from top tech companies.
• Steam on Mac.
• Legends of Echo.
• iPad confiscation in Israel.
• Fixed-line interconnect and local number portability.
• Microsoft’s big BEE announcement.
• MTN in merger or acquisition talks again, this time with Orascom Telecoms.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan Mcleod – Picks: Just Cause 2.
• Don Packett – Picks: Cobus Potgieter.
• Simon Dingle – Picks-on: Nokia Messaging.

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Video version

Jon Tullett returns to the show as your host this week, joining Brett Haggard and Duncan McLeod to discuss:

• FNB launching PayPal in South Africa.
• Mobile payment systems like M-Pesa.
• The internet access price war and its move to mobile.
• Disintermediation of cellular network services.
• The 2010 Pwn2Own competition.
• The Nintendo DSi XL, now available in SA.
• 3D film and games.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Jon Tullett – Picks: His car, with USB port (a Kia Sportage).
• Brett Haggard – Picks: The TrickleStar multiplug.

Direct file download (29MB)

Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle are your panel this week. They discuss:

• MWEB’s uncapped ADSL announcement and the market’s reaction.
• Local loop unbundling and spectrum allocation.
• On Digital Media (ODM)’s Top TV pay-TV service.
• The Blue Bulls Tomtom.
• Updates on Altech.
• Google pulling out of China.
• Sony’s Playstation Move controller.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan McLeod – Picks: Radio South Africa and Freebooks.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: Twitter for BlackBerry.

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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.

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Duncan McLeod, Toby Shapshak, Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle are on the panel this week. They discuss:

• District 9.
• Piracy and its impact .
• Neotel Neogo tested.
• Exploding iPhones.
• Apple’s September announcement.
• The PS3 Slim.
• Facebook, FriendFeed and other social networking news.
• Digital terrestrial television (DTT).
• Spectrum allocation.
• Twitter and tweeting.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week.

• Simon Dingle: Pick – GeeXboX media server.
• Toby Shapshak: Pick – District 9.
• Duncan McLeod: NeoGo, but not really.
• Brett Haggard: Pick – MacDrive and iDefrag.

Direct file download (33MB).

Our group of technology enthusiasts this week includes Ben Kelly, Duncan McLeod, Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle, who congregate to discuss:

• Plagiarism and Wikipedia. Poor Chris Anderson.
• Seacom’s delayed launch.
• Pirate Bay suing for human rights infringements.
• Intel and Nokia’s agreement.
• Oracle, Sun, SAP, Larry Ellison and silliness.
• Windows 7 pricing.
• Telkom’s shocking results.

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Duncan McLeod: WeatherZA.
• Simon Dingle: Bento and Filemaker.
• Brett Haggard: Drobo.

Direct file download (25MB)

Editor of Stuff Magazine, Toby Shapshak and later Samantha Perry, editor of Brainstorm join Simon Dingle, Duncan McLeod and Brett Haggard to discuss:

• Google Wave and Microsoft Bing.
• The Seacom undersea cable.
• HTC’s Android launch in SA.
• Kaspersky Mobile Security.
• Bandwidth prices.
• Windows 7 slowing down.
• The SABC’s legal action against the M&G.

And more…

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Brett Haggard: FreeNAS.
• Toby Shapshak: The cellphone microscope and Nintendo DSi.
• Duncan McLeod: Pastel My Business.
• Simon Dingle: Internet Solutions cloud desktop access with Citrix and Poken.

Direct file download (30MB)