Econet  is opening a series of premium stores and the first ones have been opened in Bradfield, Bulawayo.

The stores, Econe says are to reward its committed customers for their loyalty over the last 15 years.

The Bradfield Shop shall be the first in a series of exclusive shops for Econet’s premium customers to offer access to top class service.

The store’s design aims to put the customer at the heart of Econet’s service philosophy by ensuring that the needs of the High Value Customers are easily identified and taken care of in the most efficient manner possible.

Econet’s premium shops will offer end-to-end service from bill payments, air-time top-up, replacements, purchase of handsets and devices and the ever growing EcoCash mobile money service.
To ensure convenience to the customer, the premium shop comes with a variety of benefits,including access to premium service, access to flexible payment plans for handsets and devices and easy and convenient access to all Econet products and services.

Other benefits include a comfortable and relaxing atmosphere in the lounge suites where premium customers can access and surf the internet.

Intel Corporation and FC Barcelona have made an agreement that brings together two brands with shared core values of innovation and performance, as well as to support and improve the communities they serve around the world.

“This is more than a sponsorship to Intel,” said Deborah Conrad , Intel chief marketing officer. “The technology we are deploying and the programs we are working on together are designed to lift FC Barcelona into one of the most technologically advanced soccer clubs in the world and to launch an ambitious slate of educational initiatives.”

So as part of the partnership, or rather a symbol of the partnership is the new jersey, which will feature the Intl Inside logo for the very first time.

This jersey was unveiled today at FC Barcelona’s training facility by Intel’s Conrad; Sandro Rosell, president of FC Barcelona; and   FC Barcelona players Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol. The new jersey will be worn beginning in the La Liga match against Villareal on Dec. 14.

“It is a huge satisfaction for FC Barcelona to be able to join forces and share the values of innovation and teamwork with a company of such worldwide prestige as Intel,” said Rosell.
“We are both trendsetters in our fields, and I am convinced the collaboration we are starting today will be very important. It will mean much more than a financial sponsorship.”

Initiatives unveiled today include:

• Providing the latest Intel-based technology to the students at the famous La Masia academy to enable and foster a culture of creativity.
• Supplying FC Barcelona players and coaches with the latest Intel-based 2 in 1 devices, while working with the club to improve its research, training and performance via the most up-to-date technology.
• Working to improve the fan experience through new technology at Camp   Nou.
• Delivering the latest technology to the education network FC Barcelona has built across the globe.

It now easier to understand where the land of a thousand hills started from as the country has launched the Rwandapedia; Through this platform anyone can access cultural and historical information.

The portal was launched, with the help of the African Development Bank(AfDB), at the recent Transform Africa Summit’s Cultural Gala.

The online archive is a free, openly accessible platform on Rwanda’s post genocide development including Home Grown Solutions, sustainable development programs derived from the ways Rwandans historically dealt with various challenges, modernized to fit the 21 century context.

Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, said the documents, statistics, videos, photos and audio would be useful to students, journalists and anyone who wanted accurate information about Rwanda’s post genocide journey.

“It is a means by which Rwandans can share the story of ourselves, our country, and especially our reconstruction journey, our development. It is done in a very transparent way, a credible way and it is accessible to all. It solves the problem of inconsistent and patchy record keeping during the post-genocide critical development period,” she said.

Negatu Makonnen, AfDB’s Resident Representative in Rwanda, said: “This project has been great for two reasons. The first is that it shows how working with this government is made easy by the leadership and how they get things done. The second is that it gives access to accurate primary information that enables Rwanda to tell its story. The Bank is proud to support this project and we hope it can be replicated throughout the continent.”

For the last four years, ­Appsfire, has worked as an apps promoter now it has changes gears and is now looking to venture into the mobile advertising sector.

So far, the company has managed to reach 12 million different users and makes an extraordinary growth of 8-10,000 users daily.

Well, despite all this success Appsfire wants to take a different turn saying that the future for them is no longer in Apps but in the growing, or hype-lead, native advertising model — which used to be more commonly known as advertorials.

The company is therefore no longer offering its existing service to new customers, although it will support existing users. It is also stopping development of the Appsfire service.

It’s a big leap for any company to shift focus, and the company is itself not sure as it says in its own statement that it might bring the Appsfire app back at a later date.

The company also hinted that Apple have made it harder for small companies to flourish in Apple’s App Store. Appsfire also alleged that Google did not look as if they were doing much to make its app store easier to use either, reserving rare praise for the Amazon app store.

By Kate Voss

In the age of widespread internet, where free Wi-Fi is available anywhere from coffee shops to libraries, Africa is undoubtedly lacking in regards to affordable and widespread access to the internet. In 2011, a UN commission stated that access to broadband internet is a basic human right, but Africa still stands as the world’s last major untapped market for internet.  According to Internet World Stats, the current internet penetration in North America is at a 78.6 percent, Europe at 63.2 percent and Africa at 15.6 percent.

White space broadband — a technology that makes use of the unused channels between TV broadcast signals left open to protect interference between multiple networks — might just be the solution Africa needs to solve its internet access crisis. Wireless broadband internet is able to utilize these “white spaces” in order to transmit data and provide remote regions, where traditional cable is expensive and hard to lay, providing anyone with the opportunity to access high speed internet.

A white space device (WSD) is designed to detect the unused areas of airwaves and utilize them to transmit signals for Internet connectivity. Due to the low frequency of the adapted white space radio waves, signals can travel up to a 10-kilometer radius, enabling them to reach remote areas. White space is not only cheap to provide, since it operates on an already existing structure, it also penetrates walls and has the ability to bend around physical obstructions (like trees, or better yet, mountains) far better than mobile signals can. These low-frequency signals are the reason that single, large TV transmitters can broadcast a signal to millions of residential homes, versus cell phone signals or cellular radio, which need towers every few miles.

Already, there have been various proposals, such as IEEE 802.11af that advocate using white spaces to provide and improve the availability of wireless broadband Internet access, and are working to define standards for future spectrum sharing. Powerhouse companies Google and Microsoft, who have been long-term supporters of white space usage, have already started trials in Kenya, Cape Town and Tanzania in hopes of lessening the digital divide and creating new opportunities for education, healthcare, commerce, and government services in Africa and other underdeveloped countries.

Africa currently heavily relies on mobile phones to access the internet, but only the wealthy can afford such devices, and mobile phone companies are hesitant to build expensive networks in remote areas. Satellite internet was once the only option for connecting rural communities, but now, if white space technology proves effective, African countries could have access to affordable broadband access that requires less set-up, runs faster, and costs less.

Google is already claiming that their white space trial, which began in March and implemented white space Wi-Fi in ten schools in Cape Town, has had positive results. The company announced that, “After six months, the trial has been a success. The participating schools, which previously had slow or unreliable Internet connections, experienced high-speed broadband access for the first time. Teachers were able to use videos in their lesson plans, make Skype calls to other schools, update school websites, and send regular email updates to parents. Students could use educational videos for research. Because the service was better and faster, teachers and learners used the Web to enrich the classroom experience.”

In addition to the Google white space trials in Cape Town, Microsoft launched a white space pilot in rural Limpopo. Microsoft hopes to prove that white space technology can be used to meet the South African government’s goal of providing low-cost internet access to 80 percent of South Africans by 2020. The company worked with the University of Limpopo as the hub for a white space network that would provide internet access to nearby schools in local communities, and also provided each school with Windows tablets, projectors, laptops and solar-panel chargers.

Microsoft previously worked with Tanzania and Kenya, and those trials proved that white space technology is an excellent solution for internet access in rural areas. As of today, the Kenyan government reportedly is delivering bandwidth speeds up to 16mbit/s to communities which previously lacked internet access and electricity. Likewise, in Google’s South African white space trial, the goal was to ensure that white space would not interfere with broadcast channels and that, too, was also successful.

World Bank research shows that a 10 percent increase in broadband penetration can result in an extra 1.4 percentage points of annual economic growth, but there are further benefits if Google and Microsoft’s tests prove successful. As the companies are working to perfect white space technology, there’s no doubt that any amount of increased internet access will help improve education by providing more resources and learning opportunities, strengthen the government by allowing for more interaction, and give Africans their basic human right — access to the internet.

About the author:

Kate Voss is a tech blogger from Chicago focused on covering new technology including electric vehicles and white space.

The best space film ever done, so far.

Gravity is a traumatic tale of survival that unfolds within space, as envisioned by the director of Children of Men and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Alfonso Cuarón. Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone, tied to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness.

The 4 year process that Gravity took to come to life involved plenty of typical film-making challenges, but also the process of actually inventing technology to make the movie possible. As the director states, “It’s not a film that could have been made before now.” Initially he thought that it’s a small movie, and with only two characters, they would be done in a year. This wasn’t the case as the mapping out process of the film was being done; it became very apparent that the technology to create it didn’t exist, so they had to invent the technology. This, to them, was a process of discovery as they had no idea of what they were doing.

But how realistic is this movie Gravity, you ask. Well from my research I found out that in this case, the space-shuttle mission is the victim of a phenomenon first explained in a 1978 scientific paper called “Collision Frequency of Artificial Satellites: the Creation of a Debris Belt” by Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais. The researchers explain how debris from a satellite collision can have a cascading, or chain-reaction, effect with other satellites. Unlike shrapnel here on Earth, which travels for a distance before gravity pulls it to the ground, each piece of collision debris in space just keeps moving, circling the planet in its own independent orbit, until it hits something, or eventually burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere. This phenomenon is called the Kessler Syndrome.

Am even lacking in movies to compare this to (maybe In Time), since it’s just so refreshingly new, it’s a rare breed. I would recommend all to see this movie and especially at IMAX 3D. Its a ground breaking, beautiful and technically perfect movie of which am quite sure film schools will be studying in future. 9.1 stars out of 10 because I love a movie with brilliant visual effects and makes you wonder if it really was done in space.

Its a sci-Fi Fairy Tale of the Haves and Have Nots

In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a perfect man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. The people of Earth are desperate to escape the planet’s crime and poverty, and they critically need the state-of-the-art medical care available on Elysium – but some in Elysium will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve their citizens’ luxurious lifestyle. The only man with the chance bring equality to these worlds is Max (Matt Damon), an ordinary guy in desperate need to get to Elysium. With his life hanging in the balance, he reluctantly takes on a dangerous mission – one that pits him against Elysium’s Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her hard-line forces – but if he succeeds, he could save not only his own life, but millions of people on Earth as well.

If you’ve been watching movies this year you’ll note that they all kind of fixated on the earth’s annihilation, movies like After Earth, Oblivion, World War Z and even the comical This is the End. The director, Blomkamp, doesn’t consider his movie to be far flung science fiction though; it’s the unequal class struggle between the 1% and the 99% that explains why Elysium exists in the first place. The director keeps the action moving fast enough that there isn’t time to look into the plot until the movie is over. It’s worth seeing, if not for the action then for its futuristic technology.

We have advanced robotics that police over the poor while they work in hazardous conditions. I wonder why not have the robots go into the radiation filled rooms and finish off the work. Also there are space shuttles that cater to singular persons (the rich of course) and it’s a matter of minutes before they are in space, surreal. There are also those medical beds that cure anything, wow! Blomkamp doesn’t spend any time explaining how these miracles of nature work, which would take hours of complicated scientific jargon that no one would understand or believe, so it’s entirely skipped. Anyway, the basic principle is, be a citizen of Elysium, and literally any illness possible is cured. Got cancer? Not anymore. Did a grenade literally explode in your face? It’s cool bro, there’s an app for that. Seriously, all those medical disasters are completely cured in seconds. Also everyone on Elysium has one of these in their house like it’s no big deal.

Hopefully by now we understand that intentionally misusing technology is one of the quickest routes to dystopia. And while some people do abuse modern wonders, I think humanity does a good job of handling big innovations appropriately. Still, it’s science fiction like Elysium that reminds us all just how important it is to share the fruits of our technological labor. 9 stars out of 10

Some 1.5 billion people are affected by conflict, wars and atrocities in developing countries, notes a 2011 World Bank World Development Report. However, the events are expected to lessen, as mathematical models that use existing socio-political data to predict mass atrocities will soon alert governments and NGOs on taking preventative measures, winners receiving awards from a competition run by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and NGO Humanity International.

In the Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention competition, the winners announced on 18 November are set to do further research and pilot their innovations. Reports say that the top five winners from different countries won awards ranging between US$1,000 and US$12,000, among nearly 100 entrants who developed algorithms to predict when and where mass atrocities are likely to happen.

The competition began from the premise that certain social and political measurements are linked to increased likelihood of atrocities. According to organisers of the competition, the new algorithms could help governments and organisations identify risky areas, thus allowing them to intervene before mass atrocities take place.

In the award-winning mathematical model, the algorithms use sociopolitical indicators and data on past atrocities as their inputs. The data was drawn from archives such as the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone, a data set that encodes more than 200 million globally newsworthy events, recording cultural information such as the people involved, their location and any religious connections.

The Model Challenge, which was the last of five sub-challenges within the overarching Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention launched in 2012, successfully drew in new minds and thinking as well as added incentive to develop solutions to challenging problems like atrocity prevention, say reports.

Citing the example of the post-election violence in Kenya that began in 2007 and killed more than 1,000 people, the US Institute of Peace’s Genocide Prevention Task Force put together a list of countries at highest risk of mass atrocities based upon variables known to be associated with such atrocities – yet Kenya was not on the list when the violence ensued, reports continue to say.

In all, the USAID and Humanity United plan to work with the winners to develop and pilot new tools for atrocity prevention.

It is possible to quit smoking in an hour, reducing risks of acquiring diseases like cancer, notes Iquit Smoking, motivated to spread the message further by offering individuals an opportunity to franchise their habit-quitting technology.

“Our patented technology, refined expertise and mature product will guarantee that we will be leading the competition for many years to come,” reads an inscription on the Iquit Smoking website, regarding franchising the technology, “Our experienced team is well positioned to give continuous market leadership into a stable international network with high growth potential in an expanding market.”

The idea of “IQS” as a franchising system was born in 2001 in Europe, when a team of professionals consisting of medics, scientists, marketers of the innovative program aimed to curb the addiction, decided to launch it in the international market. And eventually open franchises.  Till then, Kenya became home to the first I Quit Smoking center in Africa in 2009, adding to the list of over 400 centers of its kind worldwide fighting smoking addictions.

“We plan to open up more branches in Kisumu and Mombasa,” Gheeta Dhanda a Therapist of Iquit Smoking Kenya said in an interview, revealing high hopes to reach out to many addicted by cigarette smoking. “We treat 25 to 30 people a month and in a good month, we see about 60,” noting that since the organisation began in 2009, close to 900 clients with a 90 per cent success rate have been treated.

The IQS technology known as auricular therapy combines ancient and modern technology plus one-on-one personal care programs of which, is becoming a popular option to those who would like to quit smoking.

Yet, the World Health Organization estimates that by 2015, the number of smokers worldwide is expected to rise from the current 1.2 billion to more than 1.6 billion. And in African countries like Kenya, the 2011 National Bureau of Statistics stated that the consumption of cigarettes in 2008 was 10.073 billion sticks; in 2009, 11 billion sticks, while in 2010 it was 12.157 billion sticks.

And if that trend of tobacco use is not reversed, disease burdens resulting from tobacco related illness include cancers, heart disease, inflammatory diseases of the trachea, blood vessels and other body organs would be on the rise, say experts. Maternal and child problems include miscarriages, deformities, premature births, underweight babies, stillborns and infant deaths as risk factors, in addition to hormonal problems such as impotence and eye diseases to mention a few.

Nevertheless, close to three quarters of smokers have tried to quit, using acupuncture inclusive of a laser or needles, medical follow up with Zyban a drug, patches, and through “cold turkey” or “will power”.

But when smokers fail to quit even after trying various means, IQS swears that their personalized, interactive treatment method comes to the rescue. According to IQS, the Auricular therapy removes the craving of substances such as nicotine found in cigarettes, a root cause of addiction. Yet, nicotine has been declared a highly addictive drug, compared to heroin, cocaine and alcohol, says the organisation.

The Auricular Therapy includes a Reflection Instrument Scanning Electro-pulse (R.I.S.E) device and an instrument that gently touches certain points of the ear lobe, helping the body release beta endorphins that block the craving of cigarettes.

Before the hour long therapy, the therapist during the meeting records key indicators of the smoker’s habit as well as personal information such as how many cigarettes he or she smokes in a day, when they began, medical history, health conditions to mention a few. However, the therapy is not proven to be safe on expectant mums, epileptics or individuals wearing a pace maker.

The data for fit patients is then programmed into the patented R.I.S.E device in which the computer software creates an individualized program. Using a special instrument, the R.I.S.E device delivers a small electric current to key points (as in acupuncture an ancient healing art) on the earlobe.

Then a flow of endorphins known as compounds naturally made in the body are released throughout the body, not only making the person feel energetic but removing the craving of cigarettes.

Lasting one hour, the smoker is guaranteed a 90 per cent chance of quitting the habit. And after 10 days, with the cravings gone, the nicotine in the body is flushed out by fresh fruits, vegetables and water.

However, those highly addicted or who smoke more than a pack of cigarettes per day are recommended to return after six months for follow up. A second session is worth half the original cost.

And after recovery, former addicts can open franchises of the technology. According to Iquit smoking therapists, this system is set to create new standards in smoking cessation because of its “unparalleled success rate”. Thus, the IQS program allows partners to participate in this growth and capitalize on the profit potential through franchising and licensing opportunities worldwide.

For details on quitting smoking or opening a franchise, send an email  info@iqskenya.com.