Afroes, a creator of uniquely African mobile applications and tools for social development agencies and corporate enterprises keen to spread educational and branded messages across the continent, recently announced that they have decided to use this week’s Mobile Web East Africa 2013 Conference, organised by UK based company All Amber, as a platform for the official Nairobi launch of a mobile phone game designed in conjunction with the Tukuke Initiative for Peace, Haki: Chaguo Ni Lako (which in English translates to Justice: The Choice is Yours), to inspire commitment to peace and tolerance among young Kenyans.

The Nairobi Launch press conference will held on Thursday 21st February at 3PM at the Southern Sun Mayfair. Read more »

InMobi, recently released insights on Kenyan shoppers and their behaviour particularly when making purchase decisions in retail shops. The research was based on a survey spread over a sample of 503 respondents across Greater Nairobi, Eldoret, Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru and Nyeri and a few other less prominent areas like rural towns.

Findings reveal that 65% of shoppers are influenced by their mobile phones when making a decision to buy groceries at a local supermarket. In specialty or boutique stores, consumers use mobile 34% of the time to augment their shopping experience, but the majority augment their shopping experience with a mobile phone when in malls or department stores; a larger 31% of respondents. Interestingly, 29% of consumers are using their mobile phones while shopping at street traders either to compare product prices to major retailers or check availability in those retailers. “The mobile phone has become the consumer’s constant companion and Read more »

InMobi, the world’s largest Independent Mobile Ad network, reports on how mobile innovation and technology give political parties innovative new ways to reach voters.

Kenya is facing an election year in 2013, about 6-8 months from now depending on how you look at it. This would generally mean that there is no better time to reach a broad audience come voting season for political parties than now. So InMobi went ahead and did a study on what matters most to Kenyans beliefs are as far as they’re tie-in with mobile are. Findings reveal that what matters most seems to be policy and how they get to hear vis-a-vis interact with information as this is key to informed decisions. 

Quick Comparison: Barack Obama in his first campaign massively used digital, online and social media to reach out to would-be voters and wood them into voting in America’s first Black president. Read more »

From the beginning: I invited a friend over to an event I was helping host over at KIE office on Muranga road and while we were there, I noticed he had a new white phone. “Nice looking phone” I thought to myself. “I wonder if it is as good as it looks.” Luckily enough, @Kachwanya had an extra one to give me to review so here goes. He told me it is called the LG E400.

The first thing you kind of notice about this device is its colour. It is black on the front and features a silver sort of ‘uni-body’ on its seams and sides. The back cover comes in either white or black. I preferred the white since I pride myself in being very clean (or at least I like to think). The back battery cover can be interchanged between black and white which gives a good feel of choice for users.

Read more »

Anyone who’s installed the Beta version of Windows 8 (Consumer Preview) has definitely played with it by now. They’ll attest to existence of multiple functionality most of which looks very cool and metro-styled. This means we have had a chance to see what Microsoft has in its pipeline to blow our minds hopefully before the end of 2012 (most probably between Q3 and Q4 2012). We also expect the OS to run light on even the simplest of devices. There has been rumour mills on possibility of Microsoft running Windows 8 or ARM Chips meaning that Windows 8 will have the capacity to compete favourably with the IOS and Android versions of Tablet OS.

There is still massive speculation on Win8 capabilities though. The recent build and subsequent release of the Dev Preview has also answered quite a number (unfortunately not all) questions surrounding Win8.

Some of the noted features include;

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image courtesy, Crackberry

Samsung recently toppled Nokia as the best seller on the planet and word on the street is that this surprise attack and win has been fueled by Samsung’s rigorous marketing campaign and evident cutting edge technology. With the new Galaxy, Samsung could have potentially set another benchmark. They are huge on community which is a crucial driving force behind a successful product. Essentially, if you don’t have the numbers, you have nothing.

Well, what about BlackBerry? Blackberry could potentially be onto something new with BlackBerry 10.

Many are saying that this is BBs last great hope (lol). Others keep at it that BlackBerry is deader than alive (Even more LOL although I doubt that Grammar makes any sense). Point is, they couldn’t be more wrong. Developers and top brands alike are already beginning to commit to BB 10 platform for their (MAB) Mobile Application Development. Recently at BlackBerry World, RIM  revealed relevant endorsements who have already confirmed their excitement for the upcoming launch of the BlackBerry 10 platform. Read more »

Cell·SDK, the cross-platform experts which enable application developers to seamlessly create new apps with their ‘develop just that once’ slogan, recently announced InMobi, the world’s largest independent mobile advertising network, as its global partner. This means that devs (developers) will now be able to monetise their applications across multiple platforms by inserting only three lines of code.

Cell·SDK, developed by Spanish technology experts Syderis Technologies, is a cross-platform solution of interactive applications and games using C# and .NET for Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Developers using Cell·SDKcan now monetise their apps by integrate advertising into their apps.

Terence Eden, Developer Community Manager at InMobi says that, “It’s increasingly difficult and expensive for developers to release on multiple platforms.  With competing ecosystems the norm for the foreseeable future, it’s imperative that apps and games are launched cross-platform simultaneously. Cell·SDKis a practical choice for developers. Using C# to write applications for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone is an innovative choice.  We’re also proud to sponsor the Cell·App Awards to reward the top 10 application developers who create a mobile application cross-platform with Cell-SDK.”

Daniel Vargas Pérez who is in charge of Responsible Online Advertisingat Syderis Technologies added that, “We were looking for an advertising network, which shared our philosophy of independence and had its finger on the pulse of the developer community. So, are thrilled to have InMobi as our advertising network of choice. The developer community continues to evolve and Cell·SDK knows that we need to make it easy for developers to make money -  that’s why integration of the InMobi platform was key.”

Image Courtesy flickr.com/photos/otrius/

Cell·SDK recently launched its version 1.1, which has new features including camera sensor, localytics integration and status API. It also now gives developers chance to manage multiple screes, in an isolated way to control application flow with its newly added Screen Manager function.

So I recently upgraded my BlackBerry. Or my BlackBerry got an upgrade.

I also saw a couple of my friends get upgraded on their hardware. Some were (and still are legacy Android and Symbian users) so this is a relatively new experience for them.

For one, Blackberry is a very super-user tool. In between sending emails, sharing pictures and updates on the social networks, chatting with other BB users who are on BBM and generally flossing, I would generally say they are enjoying their new devices.

I’ve been a BB user for quite a while now. I used to operate on the Bold 9000, arguably one of the best devices that ever came out of RIM; Superior battery life, good computing power, security and the enviable list of BBM contacts who sort of give a more personalized feel around it. Oh! And the good manly look and feel. It served me very well.

At a glance, the screen on the Torch 2 is bigger than on the first Torch 1 (640×480 against the previous weigh in at 480×360.) so BAM! Larger screen! The 9810 is also a tad bit easier to operate as compared to the 9800. Read more »

Online Gaming: Online games will be big in 2012. Sure consoles will still be in existence and hugely popular at that, but so will games played over the internet. The only difference is that the ones on the internet will be so huge that soon consoles will begin to be obsolete. (Who wants to wait for a Game DVD to be delivered when you can buy, install and game online right from your PC? Answer: Very few.)

 Web development: Anyone doing web development will have to learn from CSS 3 upwards and HTML5 as well. Liquid graphics are in. Beach-side hotels want a website with a wave crashing in the background. They want liquefied tabs. They want to smell the humid salty air that hit their face when they visited Diani last holiday season. Make the website an experience that will sell the dream.

Chrome to run on Android devices: Currently, Chrome runs well on Desktop and particularly well at that. It is not a memory hog like some other browsers and is good on functionality such as Bookmark handling and password keeping. Only issue is that you lose some of this on the installation on mobile. Google are making changes on this though. Expect something better on all devices, including non-Android devices like iPads.

Better web navigation on mobile:  If you are not on mobile, then you are not thinking long-term. Or so the saying goes. Every website will be available on Mobile. There will be a growth in mobile themes for practically all content management systems (CMSs) to enable easy navigation, easy use and the clicks will now largely be generated on mobile browsers. Guys like BlackBerry and doing well in creating liquid graphics interfaces for their newer Operating Systems like BB OS 7 and definitely BBX too in the long run.

BlackBerry has not had a great time this past month. The device manufacturer faced quite the truck load of criticism and down-right discredit for their recent service outage that spanned across major regions of NorthAmerica, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Aside from that, today marks Day 2 of BlackBerry Developer Conference Americas. The event is being held in San Fransisco in the USA and has attracted developers interested in the BB OS platform that currently runs the BlackBerry smart phones as well as the BlackBerry PlayBook, a tablet produced by their device manufacturer RIM.

BlackBerry developers and enthusiasts will now get to interact with a new mobile platform announced today called the BBX which is a mixture of the BlackBerry OS and QNX, a commercial Unix-like realtime operating system primarily used in embedded systems.

QNX is said to assist in combining the best of both worlds to give a full-on experience for users on the BlackBerry service as well as the devices aligned with RIM. Read more »