These new phones include the Samsung Wave. There were a couple floating around the event yesterday, and I felt lucky to get a peak since they aren’t officially available in South Africa yet. I have to say I was well impressed – the Wave will transform Samsung into proper players in the smart phone category, boasting as it does a very clear and high res super-AMOLED display, a 1Ghz processor and a five megapixel camera, as well as the bit that places it in the same category as the likes of the iPhone, Blackberry and HTC smart phones – the social networking aggregator Social Hub. It looks really slim and sexy too, and has an excelerometer, giving it ACC (or motion sensitive gaming.

But I digress. This piece is supposed to be about Samsung’s Developers Day, not the Wave. Basically, the day involved a lot of technical information aimed at developers, explaining how developing for bada works and what the advantages will be. These advantages include the fact that apps for Samsung will not only be for mobile, they will become compatible with other Samsung devices such as TVs and MP3 players. Also, for the first time this opens up Samsung as a company to develop for, as bada is open to all developers.

But by far the most exciting thing of all is the Samsung Global Developer Challenge, which will see dev guys from all around the world competing to make the best app for the new OS. There are massive prizes involved, the grand prize internationally being three hundred thousand dollars (over 2 million rand). The 300 top submissions will also receive the above-mentioned Samsung Wave. And rumour has it that there will be an additional prize for the best locally developed app, will let you know if I get more info on this.

This really is an incredible chance for developers to create great apps which will be sold on Samsung’s new phones, and to potentially win a bunch of cash (or at least a phone) in the process. Tell your developer friends, unless of course you want to keep it a secret so there’s less competition
Go to the site for more info and to register to compete in the Developer Challenge.

But recently I was pleased to discover that there is a regular dinner in my city, Johannesburg, where geeks aren’t only welcome, they’re pretty much the only guests.
The 27 Dinner seeks to bring together technology, social media and business minds for a night of networking. There are speakers, you get a meal and a welcome cocktail. The upcoming one costs R100. For more info or to sign up for the next one, which is taking place on May 27, check out the site.

It’s at the Metro Cafe’ & Bar Benmore Gardens shopping centre, Sandton.

The speakers are Clicks2Customers founder and Yola CEO Vinny Lingham, who’s topic is “Building a Global Business – Lesson’s Learnt”, Crowdfund founder Eve Dmochowska, who’s topic is “How the Crowdfund and the Geekspace will jumpstart Geekdom in South Africa”, and Aphelion owner Mark Stacey, talking on “The impact of social media on decision making in the enterprise”.

This is such exciting news that I may even stay up past 11am. See you there.

Noto Modungwana
(http://notomodungwa.com/blog)

Nice one Noto! He was up against some stiff competition in the form of Adriaan Rossouw (http://developmentseed.org/team/adrian-rossouw) and Anton De Wet (antondewet.com/).

In the coming week the blog will feature a profile on Noto and his work!

Stay tuned for part 2: Developers: Joomla!

Previously, chemicals were used for these procedures, but unlike chemicals, which can damage the cells permanently, lazers pass right through the cells, leaving them unharmed. The field relates to stem cell research as well, because once these cells can be isolated and seperated they can also be altered genetically.

There is nowhere you can study this kind of thing at home, so Dr Mthunzi had to do so in Scotland, at the St Andrews University. Dr Mthunzi is glad to be back on home soil after completing her PHD, and was quoted on News.24 as saying “I miss the weather and the friendliness of South Africans. In Europe, people keep to themselves, so I’m glad to be back after being away for slightly less than four years.”

Ayoba.

As far as we are aware this is the cheapest yet! With reference to a great post on Chris Mills’s blog iMod as well as Hellkom, let’s look at what the others are offering. I have stuck to those offering 384 Kbps for less than R300.

MWEB

* 384k uncapped – R219
* 512k uncapped – R299
* 4096k uncapped – R539

The guys who kicked off the price war! They need no introduction, though it must be said they aren’t everyone’s favourite company.

OpenWeb.

* 384k uncapped – R219
* 512k uncapped – R299
* 4096k uncapped – R539

They are partnered with MWeb and with the same prices this is pretty much the same deal, although their support and services have a good reputation (and may well be better than MWeb’s).

Imagine (IS)
* 384k uncapped – R199
* 4096k uncapped – R499
Of course it was only a matter of time before IS joined the fray.

Snowball
* 384k uncapped – R199
* 4096k uncapped – R499
Must say I don’t know much about these guys but I saw their uncapped option listed on Hellkom.

AfriHost

* 384k uncapped – R197
* 512k uncapped – R297
* 4096k uncapped – R497

They were tied as the cheapest available until MyISP stepped it.

Axxess

* 384k uncapped – R196
* 4096k uncapped – R496

Going with Axxess instead of AfriHost means a whopping saving of R1!!!

If we are leaving anyone out please comment below. Also, if you have any criticism and praise for the above ISPs please help any readers of this article by telling us about your experiences below. Game on!

Unfortunately due to some recent gremlins in this blog’s transition to a new server the post calling for nominations is no longer on the site. But I managed to recover the comments, and so was able to compile the list of nominations you see below.

I have divided it into different sections. We will be declaring the winning nominee a Geek God in the following sections of IT:

Developers (NOTE: So that we don’t leave any stones unturned we have decided to have various Developer competitions for the various major development platforms), Designers, Entrepreneurs, Tech Journalists, Strategists

PART ONE: Developers: Drupal

And the nominees are…

Noto Modungwana (http://notomodungwa.com/blog)

Adriaan Rossouw (http://developmentseed.org/team/adrian-rossouw)

Anton De Wet (antondewet.com/)

To decide who you think should win, simply leave a comment below this post.

The winners and their achievements will be featured on the site in the coming months! Exciting stuff.

Thank you so much for those who sent their nominations, particularly Mongezi Mtati, Julia Makhubela, Mike Stopforth and various Cerebrans and Brandsh peeps.

Get nominating! And stay tuned for Part Two.

This is according to an MWeb press release as published on Tech Central. There are various packages, starting at a miniscule R219 a month. This can only be a good thing, as it put pressure on other service providers to compete, and then, before we know it, we’ll have affordable uncapped wireless internet all over our wonderful land. I think we deserve it!

This is the removal of a barrier which gets in the way of our attempts to be competitive with the rest of the world – we need to have connectivity that rivals powerful countries like the US, India, England and China if we are to rival them in any of the many areas that relate to the internet – and these days that means most business. Bring it on!!!

It says:

“The Internet Access in South Africa 2010 study, conducted by technology research and strategy organisation, World Wide Worx in collaboration with Cisco, found that wireless broadband has grown almost three times as fast as fixed line broadband in SA.

The study revealed that most of the growth in fixed line broadband comes from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) upgrading to ADSL. This in turn has extended internet access to more than half-a-million South Africans working in small offices, who did not previously have access.”

Our level of connectivity is set to increase even more due to two factors, the production of new undersea cables and the introduction of terrestrial fibre-optic networks. This can only be good news for SA business. As the article points out, the group on which the study was based “noted that the ability to collaborate and share information in real time would help to increase business productivity and profitability across the region”. Sounds good to me.

Read the whole article here.