Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle talk their way through an interesting tech news week with acquisitions, much-ados about nothing and veins of awesomeness.

• The iPhone 4 storm in a teacup.
• The flood of business news this week including MTN, Naspers and Dimension Data.
• YouTube’s partner programme going live in South Africa.
• More hints at BlackBerry 6.
• Windows Phone 7 for developers.
• Converged devices.
• Movement in the ebook space.

Our technology picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Brett Haggard – Picks:  Guacamole.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: Angry Birds.

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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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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.

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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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The crew this week consists of Brett Haggard, Duncan McLeod, Steven Ambrose and Nic Callegari. They discuss:

• An update from Icasa’s recent stakeholders’ meeting.
• Spectrum allocation in South Africa.
• The ISPA call for mandatory voice line rentals to be dropped on ADSL connections.
• Internet line speed and quality tests.
• World Wide Worx’ The Mobile Internet in SA 2010 research.
• Samsung Bada and the mobile app war.
• Microsoft Communicator for Nokia phones.
• Apple’s market capitalisation surpassing Microsoft’s for the first time.
• Microsoft Office 2010.
• DStv’s HD PVR P2 decoder.
• Monitor technology and the rise of OLED.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan McLeod – Picks: Cred.
• Steven Ambrose – Picks: Samsung PL150.
• Nic Callegari – Picks: PayCity, RunPee, Maximus Cards and MifiClub.
• Brett Haggard – Picks: Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link Director Edition.

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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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Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle brave traffic, flu and chat-room critics to discuss:

• Progress at Cell C.
• Telkom Mobile’s prospects.
• DStv On Demand.
• The realities of uncapped ADSL access in SA.
• ODM’s TopTV launch and the overwhelming demand for the service.
• TechCentral’s Debate Series debut.
• All the announcements from BlackBerry WES 2010.
• New Android devices.
• Rumours of a Nokia tablet.
• Xbox Live.
• Half-Life 2: Episode 3.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan McLeod: Picks – Parallels Desktop 5.
• Simon Dingle: Picks - Xbox 360 Wireless N Networking Adapter.

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Jon Tullett is your host this week with Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard and later Duncan McLeod on the panel. We discuss:

• Seacom’s outage and its impact on connectivity in SA.
• HP’s acquisition of Palm.
• The launch of TopTv and DStv Lite.
• Delays in Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) migration.
• The launch of Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS.
• Online shopping.
• The Apple vs. Adobe debacle.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan McLeod: Picks – Garmin FM Traffic, coming soon to SA.
• Ben Kelly: Picks – iFixit.
• Brett Haggard: Picks – Air Video for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
• Jon Tullett: Picks – MakroShop.

Direct file download (37MB)

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.

Direct file download (30MB)

Video version

Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard, Jon Tullett and Simon Dingle are your panel this week. They discuss:

• The delayed international launch of the iPad.
• The local launch of the HTC Legend, Desire and Smart.
• The Microsoft Kin.
• App stores versus the web.
• Opera Mini hits the iPhone.
• ICASA’s announcements on interconnect and mobile TV.
• The outlook for Telkom Mobile.
• IPTV.
• The impact of faster DSL on SA’s ISPs.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Jon Tullett – Picks-on: MWEB uncapped ADSL.
• Ben Kelly – Picks: Words With Friends.
• Brett Haggard – Picks: Linkinus and Tweetdeck (for iPad, mostly).
• Simon Dingle – Picks: FlightRadar24 – watch planes fly around the ash.

Direct file download (34MB)