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.

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.

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.

On March 15th 1985, a computer systems firm called Symbolics, which made software based on MIT research, registered the first dotcom domain name: Symbolics.com, with registration firm Network Solutions. Neither Symbolics nor Network Solutions exist independently any more and the event has been long forgotten. The founders of Symbolics do not even remember it taking place. However it sparked a global revolution, albeit one which would take a while to get going.

In the rest of 1985, there were only five more dotcom domain names registered. While most of the first 100 dotcoms created were for computer businesses, it took a while for the industry giants to become interested. Apple registered in February 1987 while Microsoft took until 1991 to buy theirs.

By 1992 there were still fewer than 15,000 dotcom domains compared to the 84 million that currently exist. Of these the majority are e-commerce and online business websites. Dotcom actually nearly never happened at all. It was first thought up back in 1984 when ideas were being drawn up for commercial domains but initially .cor was the most popular. The milestone is being celebrated by VeriSign, an internet security company which administers dotcom registration and acquired Network Solutions in 2000.

Ironically the 25th anniversary of dotcom comes just five days after the 10th anniversary of the dotcom bubble bursting.

See a list of the first 100 domain names ever registered here.

They have now released a product which they bill as a “simple and affordable technology for schools that allows several students to work a single computer at the same time – each with their own screen, mouse and keyboard”.

If you’re in Joburg you can see this new technology, which is currently on display at the African School Technology Innovation Centre (STIC) in Newtown, Johannesburg.

Called Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, it aims to give more teachers and students access to technology at low cost.

Check out these videos for more info:
mms://msvcatalog-5.wmod.llnwd.net/a2249/e1/ft/share3/be21/0/70e11e70-326a-403a-b719-f329f803c12b.wmv

mms://msnvidweb.wmod.msecnd.net/a10026/e1/ft/share15/e1ed/0/5bbc002c-a4c7-41e6-92ac-cd15f2e0ee0d.wmv

“It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see.”

Fair enough. What those who have come out strongly against the move have pointed out, though, is that those parents who have complained are not aware of, or simply aren’t using, the parental controls available to them that would restrict their kids from access to these apps.

Also controversial is the fact that Apple have retained two risqué, borderline soft-porn apps in the form of Sports Illustrated and FHM. Are these two allowed to remain because of the commercial clout of the companies they represent? And, if so, is Apples app purge aimed only at smaller developers, who need their products to remain in the App Store the most?

Schiller, when asked about Sports Illustrated, does not deny this: “the difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,” he said. But, the idea that it’s fine to publish half-naked women as long as you’re famous is insulting.

And, many Apple-heads want their favourite brand to be cooler than the others. We want it to treat us like adults, and that is why the idea of the brand condoning a world in which we cannot choose which Apps we can and can’t to download is troublesome.

Are Apple in the right self-censoring their App Store at the expense of developers? Let me know below.

Just to put into perspective exactly how much of these babies have been downloaded since the launch in Jan, Nokia’s Executive Vice President, Anssi Vanjoki tells us that “we’re averaging a download a second, 24 hours a day,” That’s a lot, he said, stating the obvious.

Good news for those too silly to work out how to download something is that next month all new Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones will include the new version of Ovi Maps, pre-loaded with local country map data, with high-end walk and drive navigation and access to Lonely Planet and Michelin travel guides at no extra cost.

Ovi Maps is pretty comprehensive, covering more than 180 countries with car and pedestrian navigation for 74 countries, in 46 languages, and traffic information for more than 10 countries. There are more than 6000 3D landmarks for 200 cities around the world.  Lonely Planet and Michelin guides have information on more than 1,000 destinations globally.

All of this means that I, a Nokia user, may never get lost again. Unless I lose my phone, in which case I will have to sit on the pavement drooling on myself until someone with Ovi Maps (or, although less likely, a sense of direction) tells me where to go.

Check out the full press release here.

In case you’ve never heard of them (which I assure you is nothing to be ashamed of), they are a tongue-in-cheek attempt to honour the sexiest geeks in South Africa (or the sexiest nerds, as Nerd Mag would have it, although we all know that there is a big difference between nerds and geeks, this competition really targeting the latter. But I digress…) in a manner echoing Wired’s annual Sexiest Geek awards.

Unlike in a more conventional beauty pageant, when it comes to online beauty looks aren’t everything, as Gates herself puts it, “The nominees should be nominated for their personalities more than anything else, this is onlinedom okes, shallowness is null and void here.” So, if you know someone of such extreme online sexiness that you think they can take the title, nominate them here. The finalists get cool prizes including free hosting, Mowali and Ster Kinekor merchandise, hampers, a Connect Magazine subscription, a Springleap shirt and Kalahari vouchers.

And it’s for a good cause too, people. The awards will culminate in an auction, and the money will go to a charity which will soon be announced. For more info click here.