In this episode our geeks are spread out across SA. Simon Dingle, Jon Tullett and Will Hahn are in Cape Town for Gartner Symposium 2009, Brett Haggard is in Durban for Microsoft TechEd and Duncan McLeod is at home with his bulldogs in Johannesburg. They hook up on Skype to discuss:

• Gartner Symposium.
• Microsoft TechEd – Windows 7, Live Mesh and all things MS.
• Screens and the rumoured Apple tablet.
• The Nikon S1000pj camera with built-in projector.
• The evolution of interfaces.
• Mobile broadband.
• Eric Schmid leaving the Apple board.

And more…

Our pick and pick-ons for the week:

• Brett Haggard: Picks – Microsoft Live Mesh and VMWare Fusion 2.
• Duncan McLeod: Pick – Microsoft Windows 7 RTM.
• Jon Tullett: Grooveshark.
• Will Hahn: Pick-on – Telkom. Pick – Nintendo Wii.

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A tripartite gathering of geeks, consisting of Candice Jones from ITWeb, Ben Kelly from Ungeeked and Simon Dingle, make up our panel this week and discuss:

• iPhone 3.0.
• The Iranian elections on Twitter and mobile.
• What massive bandwidth pipes mean for media.
• Keeping people honest using online crowd dynamics.
• Windows 7, Bing, Project Natal and all things Microsoft.
• Is Sony the new Microsoft?
• The new competitive environment in online.

And more…

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Simon Dingle: Bing, and Tomtom for iPhone.
• Ben Kelly: DVDFab.
• Candice Jones: Sims 3 and Project Natal.

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Following on the success of The  Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, the new game offers new features, campaigns, storylines, characters and locations, as well as a new multiplayer function.

‘Assault on Dark Athena’ is distributed in South Africa by Megarom Interactive.

In our first episode of 2009 the ZA Tech Show recorded live at the MTN domestic game between the Cobras and Titans at Supersport park. We also welcome Candice Jones from ITWeb – a new voice on the show. We discuss:

• Console sales in 2008.
• Twitter and other social network hackers.
• The Apple keynote at Macworld and hacks of live blogging streams from the event.
• The criminal banking system in South Africa.
• Operating system wars heat up with the arrival of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, Windows 7 and OS X Snow Leopard in 2009.
• Some of the changes coming in Windows 7.
• Is Linux lagging in terms of user interfaces?
• Palm is back with a new smartphone – the ‘Pre’ – and operating system called webOS.
• MTN’s acquisition of Verizon South Africa is going ahead.

And much more…

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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…

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The number was revealed amidst celebrations of the Playstation 3′s second birthday and caused a stir in the gaming industry considering that Sony’s network has not been around for quite as long as Microsoft’s. Xbox Live launched in 2002 and has been a central pillar of Microsoft’s strategy since the Xbox 360 launched in 2005, one year before the PS3.

“Seeing as PlayStation Portable does include Playstation Network services in the form of games stored natively on the device, those numbers do include all Playstation Network registrations,” said a Sony representative.

“Sony does not count a registration made on the PS3 and then used on the PSP, or vice versa, as two accounts. Like with Xbox Live, the figure also includes multiple accounts used on the same console or in the same household,” they add.

Sony declined to release any specific numbers on how many PSN users are logging on via the PS3, preferring to play up the PS3′s rising registration rate.

“We’ve seen an increase in unique consoles registered for PSN compared to the sell through rate, which means we are seeing more PlayStation 3 owners who didn’t previously register, do so lately, based on the new features we’ve added to PSN, such as Video Store and Trophies,” said the representative.

IDC game-industry analyst Billy Pidgeon concurs, estimating that PS3 PSN registration has sky-rocketed by 160 percent since January 2008. That said, he still estimates that only around 50 percent of PS3s have logged onto PSN, versus 60 percent for Xbox Live. With Sony announcing last month that 17 million PS3s have been sold worldwide, Pidgeon’s estimate pegs the number of PS3-based PSN users at 8.5 million, not 14 million.

“Remember, though, they’re not claiming that every account is a connected PS3,” he told popular gaming website GameSpot.

However, as a veteran of game-industry analysis, Pidgeon knows that the tide can turn.

“Sony has released some numbers for SOCOM and Resistance 2 that are pretty impressive in terms of concurrent users,” he elaborated. “It’s got a ways to go until they get to the level where they’re putting out their PSN IDs, but that’s changing with Little Big Planet. When the beta for that launched, that’s when people really started wanting to connect with people online, and that’s really promising.”

Xbox Live is not officially available in South Africa, but users are able to log on from the country by lying about their locations when creating an account. Microsoft South Africa has assured users that it is lobbying for the service to be provided locally. Playstation Network, however, is freely available for local (South African) Playstation owners.

A major differentiator between Playstation Network and Xbox Live is that the former is free, while Xbox Live carries a subscription fee.

Our special guest in episode 41 is Rudolph Muller from MyBroadband. We discuss:

• All things online and broadband, from deregulation to the subtleties of EV-DO and expectations for the coming year.
• Internet Solutions’ wireless university hotspots being rolled out next year.
• The University of South Africa (UNISA)’s strange email policy and Microsoft’s involvement therein.
• Microsoft Imagine Cup.
• Nokia’s N97 and the evolving market for mobile phones, including the BlackBerry Storm and Nokia in the Japanese market.
• Alan Knott-Craig’s sympathy for Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.
• Our experiences with Garmin Mobile XT and other mobile phone GPS solutions.
• The astronomical (and increasing) prices of console game titles and how the model differs from PC gaming.
• Facebook and Google launch single sign-on services with Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect.

And more…

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The big four-oh! This week we are joined by Tiana Alswang, editor of G.E.A.R. magazine, and Athena Twin, along with members of her PMS Clan of professional female gamers from the USA and Canada. We cover:

• Girls in gaming and the Plugg event recently held in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the PMS Clan took on a top team of local dudes in Counterstrike.
• Gaming in South Africa and the growth thereof.
• Some of the best new titles on the block. What are the PMS Clan playing?
• The addiction of World of Warcraft, and why it is banned for many professional gamers.
• Multiplayer gaming – it’s more social than you think.
• Local servers, bandwidth and the other bits and pieces we need to improve the gaming scene in South Africa.
• Alienware is still around and kicking arse.
• Intel’s Core i7 ‘Nehalem’ processor has landed. And Brett has benchmarked it – he even has some memory tips.
• Why Halo 3 didn’t quite cut it.
• Rock Band versus Guitar Hero – the competition gets thick with Guitar Hero: World Tour.
• Kids and games. Can you really keep them away from violent games they may be too young for?
• The big game titles to look out for this Christmas.
• Console versus PC gaming.
• A review of Duncan’s panel discussion on telecommunications that took place at the MyBroadband conference 2008.
• The promise of WiMAX, and whether or not it can deliver thereon.

A big congratulations to Duncan McLeod for winning MyBroadband’s SA IT Journalist of the Year award. Well deserved!

By the way… the SA guys beat the PMS Clan at the Plugg event…

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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…

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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…

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