This week Brett Haggard, Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle drink some wine, eat some chinese and discuss:

• MTN’s “Uncapped” mobile “broadband”.
• MWEB’s “uncapped” wireless broadband.
• Google’s Chrome Web Store and Google TV.
• The cloud race featuring Canonical, Google, Microsoft and Apple.
• Microsoft Office 2010 Starter Edition.
• The explosion of TopTV and price reductions for DStv.
• 900Mhz mobile broadband.
• The Linkbook.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Simon Dingle – Picks: Iomega iConnect and Alan Wake.
• Brett Haggard – Picks: Ubuntu Netbook Remix and Daemon by Daniel Suarez.

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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.

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Two first-timers join the ZA Tech Show panel this week – stand-up comedian and co-founder of Thunk! Perspective Lab, Don Packett and CTO of the Johannesburg Area Wireless Users Group, Kieran Murphy join Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle to discuss:

• Duncan’s experiences with the Nokia Booklet 3G.
• Wireless users groups.
• Rumours of Multichoice preparing transactional video-on-demand services via DStv, as well as the possibility of a porn channel.
• The 10 billionth iTunes Music Store download.
• Sony’s 3D broadcasts of the 2010 Fifa World Cup and 3D TV in general.
• Heavy Rain, new-school Mario and gaming in general.
• The Nokia E72.
• Mobile Linux distributions.
• Exclusive Books getting into the ebooks game.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan McLeod – Picks: The Opera 10.5 beta web browser.
• Kieran Murphy – Picks: Thesixtyone music adventure.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: Plants vs. Zombies.
• Don Packett – Picks: Fitness Builder for iPhone.

Direct file download (25MB)

In our final episode for 2009 Aki Anastasiou from Talk Radio 702 swings by the ZA Tech studio, joining Brett Haggard, Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle to discuss:

• Mark Shuttleworth changing his role within Canonical.
• The Joojoo internet tablet.
• Mobile GPS applications.
• Google’s Nexus One smartphone.
• The BlackBerry edge, Nokia’s services and mobile in 2010.
• DStv adding Discovery HD and Supersport HD to its bouquet.
• On Digital Media and what it will amount to.
• James Cameron’s Avatar and the future of 3D video.
• New tech in car tracking in SA.

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Brett Haggard: Picks – Samsung WB5000 digital camera.
• Duncan McLeod: Picks – Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0 email client.
• Simon Dingle: Picks – MarsEdit 2.4 blog publisher.
• Aki Anastasiou: Picks – Kilofuel iPhone application.

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Special guest Dwayne Bailey from Translate.org.za adds his voice to the show this week along with Duncan McLeod, Brett Haggard, Simon Dingle and later Samantha Perry. We discuss:

• Translation work in software.
• Changes in Microsoft’s Office strategy.
• Open source.
• Patents on XML use in document formats.
• Microsoft and Nokia’s alliance.
• Nokia vs. Apple vs. Microsoft vs. Google vs. Blackberry.

And much more…

Our picks and pick-ons of the week:

• Duncan McLeod – Pick – GSM short codes.
• Samantha Perry – likes her new Mac (pick).
• Dwayne Bailey – Pick: FishMS.
• Brett Haggard – Pick: Mobile Air mouse.
• Simon Dingle – Picks: iDisk and Keynote Remote apps for iPhone.

Direct file download (31MB).

Jon Tullett, Toby Shapshak, Brett Haggard and Simon Dingle are your panellists in this week’s episode. They try to speak as quickly as possible, and at the same time, as they discuss:

• Microsoft’s dodgy IE8 ads.
• The Core debacle.
• How technology vendors go to market in SA, and calculate prices.
• Mobile broadband options.
• The switch to DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television).
• The RICA act in SA and its impact on prepaid cellular.

Our choice technologies of the week:

• Toby Shapshak: Sony Ericsson W995.
• Jon Tullett: Ubuntu Linux 9.04.
• Brett Haggard: G-Connect.

Direct file download (29MB)

This week’s panel includes Simon Dingle, Jon Tullett from TechTarget and Saul Kropman from The Digital Edge podcast. On the cards:

• Netbook price discrepancies. Jon bought an Aspire One in the UK for next to nothing. Why are we paying through our teeth in SA?
• Tweaks and hacks for netbooks.
• Neotel’s NeoFlex Data offering being launched last week. We talk caps, prices and practical use.
• Informal collusion in South African tech pricing.
• We dive into Windows 7 Beta and Internet Explorer 8.
• Vista Service Pack 2 delayed.
• A new Worm threatens the world’s computers. Apparently.
• The Macintosh platform finally has a real virus doing the round. Again – apparently.
• MacOS X developer group CocoaHeads now has a South African chapter.
• Application roll-out on smartphones and the BlackBerry app store.
• Canonical is reaching its goal of becoming self-sustaining.
• Some of the Tech in the Obama inauguration, courtesy of CNN.

And much more…

We apologise for the cellular buzz that occurs in a section of this recording. It stops after a few minutes… we promise.

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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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The whole gang is back together for Episode 35. We discuss:

• Tech stocks plummeting and the prospect of buying into the market. Yet. Telkom or MTN? Which stocks should you be looking at – or is this really not the time to be buying?
• The coming barrage of acquisitions. Potentially. Will Sun be bought? Will Microsoft buy RIM? What will happen to Facebook and Twitter in the current market?
• Microsoft has a big announcement coming this week. We speculate about what this announcement, concerning a cloud operating system, could be.
• Cloud computing in general.
• Apple’s reaction to Microsoft’s recent (and very expensive) ad campaign. 
• Will Microsoft stop producing Office for Mac?
• Mail and PIM applications and services.
• An urgent security patch for Windows.
• Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex is in final testing and is being launched at the end of this month.
• What Linux needs… and what it doesn’t.
• The netbook space, and the smartphone market’s impact on it.
• More on the iTunes App Store and Apple’s curious exclusion of content from the South African store.
• Mobile application distribution.
• The source code for Android being released as open source. Watch out for versions coming for just about every phone out there… and with Symbian and Android being open source, what will the future hold for Windows Mobile?
• Neotel’s new voice tariffs and other offerings on the way.

And more…

Direct file download (35MB)