automating the world, one script at a time
General
With top speakers, Silicon Cape generates a ‘real buzz’
0I was going to write something about the Silicon Cape launch event yesterday myself, but I’ve read so many articles already this morning, that writing another one that says the same thing would just be a waste of time and space on my blog.
Of all the ones I’ve read I think that Ivo Vegter from Tech Central summed it up best. Excerpt below and click the link to read the rest of the article.
With top speakers, Silicon Cape generates a ‘real buzz’: “Many innovation hubs have been proposed around the world, ostensibly modelling themselves on Silicon Valley. There have been successes, but most peter out. Silicon Cape, launched on 8 October 2009 in Cape Town, hit all the right notes.
The key element in any start-up hotspot, explain Silicon Cape Initiative founders Vinny Lingham (himself a successful startup [...]“
(Via TechCentral.)
Do you Poken ?
02 years ago
I’ve been looking at getting one of these for a while, but never got around to it.
Now I’ve won one in a competition and I’m keen to see just how useful these are. The primary challenge that “early adopters” will have is that if you don’t have anyone to “Poken” with, you basically just have a small piece of plastic with an LED that never goes on in your pocket.
My poken
The idea is simple, you store all your online contact information on the Poken and then when you are at social or business gathering and you need to exchange information with someone else you simply touch the two Poken together and they exchange information. There is a flurry of LED’s and all things electronic and then when next you connect your Poken to your computer you have all the persons details.
They’re R199 from the local Poken distributors (Poken Africa).
Get one. The more people that have them, the more people you can “Poken”.
Finally ! A Blu-ray player for under R2k hits our shores.
0I’m not sure how long the special is going to be on, or if it has already finished, but Makro were advertising the Philips BPD3000 Blu-ray player for R1999.
Philip s BPD3000 Blu-ray player
This is the baby of the new Philips line up of Blu-ray players so it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that the pricier ones have, but it apparently does a very good job at its primary function: outputting HD video and audio.
It comes with all the ports you need at the back, including Ethernet and USB for BD Live downloads.
I’m sure that if you wait a few more months before investing in a Blu-ray player there will be a few more options on the market.
If you can’t wait for HD goodness, this is the best deal around at the moment.
Pi Calculated To Record 2.5 Trillion Digits
0All I ask is why ? Just because they can ? Surely they could do something more useful with the 47th most powerful super-computer in the world ?
Pi Calculated To Record 2.5 Trillion Digits: “Joshua writes ‘Researchers from Japan have calculated Pi to over 2.5 trillion decimals using the T2K Open Supercomputer (which is currently ranked 47th in the world according to a June, 2009 report from Top500.org). This new number more than doubles the previous record of about 1.2 trillion decimals set in 2002 by another Japanese research team. Unfortunately, there still seems to be no pattern.’
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
My ISP is not my Big Brother
0Today I was involved in some heated debate around whether or not your ISP should be threatening you with service termination on receiving one or even multiple complaints from various “watchdog” organisations out there.
Are you kidding ?
ISP’s are not the information super-highway police. Never have been and never should be ! Law enforcement should be left to the relevant law enforcement agencies.
I’m not agreeing with the act of piracy, I’m merely of the opinion that ISP’s are the wrong place for them to turn to for assistance.
If an ISP receives a court order asking them to provide personal information so that they can prosecute an offender, by all means the ISP should assist as far as possible, but they should not act on a threat request from a watchdog to cease and desist.
By all means, pass the C&D request onto the user, but leave the enforcement to someone else. If the watchdog decides it is worth the time and effort to pursue the offender, by all means let them engage with the local law enforcement to attempt to prosecute.
Next we’ll be getting all our traffic offences checked when we pull up to a toll gate !
Even AT&T and Comcast has shown these watchdog’s the finger in the past (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10204514-93.html).
Viva le resistance !
Vodacom will screw you.
1I just don’t understand it. The iPhone 3GS has been available for weeks from Vodacom, but it seems that other operators still “have no stock”. My contract is with Nashua Mobile and they are telling me that Vodacom are wanting to keep the phone exclusively for their customers at first before they release them to the other service providers.
Apple iPhone 3GS
Can they be any more obtuse ?!? Vodacom will still get the business at the end of the day, so why are they withholding stock ?
Come on Vodacom pull up your socks ! Are you getting nervous about interconnection rates being slashed and your years of taking us for a ride coming to and end ?