Sony updated its smart watch Tuesday, introducing the Sony 

SmartWatch 2 at Shanghai's Mobile Asia Expo.

Designed to be used as a second screen for your Android smartphone, the water-resistant smart watch has NFC (near-field communication) connectivity, and can be personalized with apps based on how you want to use it.

“Competitors are only now launching first-generation devices, while we are already launching a third-generation device with all the insight gained from over half a million customers combined with Sony’s wealth of technology expertise to create the best ever smart-watch experience,” Stefan K Persson, head of companion products at Sony Mobile Communications, said in a press release announcing the watch.

“We have over 200 unique apps dedicated for Sony SmartWatch, with over one million downloads to date, and we are continuing to work with our strong developer network to deliver ever more compelling smart-watch experiences."

These experiences include the ability to answer calls by touching your wrist, take photos with your phone remotely via the SmartWatch and control presentations remotely using Sony’s “Presentation Pal.”

For fitness buffs, mapping apps for the SmartWatch can help track your biking excursions, while apps such as Runtastic can make it easier to monitor progress towards your fitness goals.

The watch also includes basic features, such as displaying caller ID information, calendar entries, as well as Twitter and Facebook notifications.

The Sony SmartWatch 2 will be available worldwide this September.

Mashable.com

The facebook fan page of the wha’s app Tanzania is just showing 966 likes today!but actuly with huge number of user where by out of 3 smart phone user 2 have this application.

“When I search for Whatsapp in the App Store, the search does not return the application in the results. I contacted Whatsapp business development team and was informed that this is a bug in the App Store and I should contact Apple support for it. Please assist as my communication is jeopardized without Whatsapp. If I change my Store ID account's country to US, then the App is returned in the results. But if set to Tanzania (where I reside), then the App is not returned in the results.

I contacted BD team of Whatsapp and I was informed that there is a bug in the App Store and I should report this to Apple.

Dhyanesh

iPhone 4S, iOS 5.0.1””

The above discussion is still moving at apple.co;and it it the vivid for application usability.

What’s app,what’s happening Tanzania??

The usability of smart phones which is still extending both locally and internationally; iphones and andreoid being theleading,most of local and international developers are now considering local usability of the smartphone applications,especially on social interaction such as facebook,twiter,what’s app and other social services supportive applications that arevery user friendly and outstanding.

The communication companies such as Vodacom,milicom ,Raselo ,ABI and other small enterpreneurcompanies such as coder lab have created best apps that we must use.


   The best 10 apps in Tanzania and awesome Kenyan’apps are the coming articles introducing this series of The Smartphone era in East Africa

An app exclusively for the business experts to create, share and collaborate. It has multiple features which include uploading content from handheld devices to Google’s Cloud storage, edit images and videos, fax and sign documents, manage projects, create flow charts and many more.

 It enables uploading and accessing of files like documents, images, videos, Google Docs, PDF’s and so on. It is freely available for iOS and Android systems and can be installed and accessed from any devices.

Like dropbox, Google Drive also gives a free space of 5GB. Expanding storage space will obviously cost you money. The online backup service integrates with other google products such as Google Docs, so it is one of the safest option to use Google Drive as an online backup utility.

Tech360 Correspondent

Wunderlist 2, known as one of the best to-do list managers enables to manage and share the lists efficiently. Whether sharing a shopping list or planning a trip, it helps you gets your things done easily within no time.

 It hosts a lot of features including Reminders, Recurring and Subtasks along with improved Notes, Notifications and Sharing and many more. It has gone native with all the major platforms like Android, Mac, iPhone, Web and Windows.

Tech360 Correspondent

Make your work a lot easier and interesting with CloudOn as it lets you add Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader and many more apps to your iPad through the use of cloud computing. It also lets you use your cloud storage accounts to handle files. With CloudOn, it is easier to access to a workplace with Microsoft Applications such as Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files on your iPad.

There are limitations of using mobile apps on mobile devices compared to an advanced office PC. Inspite of the limitations, CloudOn hosts the Office programmes on their servers and streams them to the mobile devices.

Besides it has tied up with storage accounts such as Google Drive, Dropbox and SkyDrive accounts for storage.

Tech360 Correspondent

Facebook has launched its new camera app with the help of which you can share your photos on the site easily. This app is available for iPhones and iPods. It is a quick way to share photos.  The app looks exactly like Instagram with all the cool features that Instagram offers

Before this app you had to post all the photos one by one and this required a lot of time. But now you just have to select all the photos that you want to post on Facebook and then you can post them by just one click.

The ease of use application allows you also to tag your friends in your photos as you upload them. It is attractive and save a lot of time, portable and flexible. 

Tech360 Magazine Correspondent

DropBox is the one of the fastest growing software out there. This is the easy to use software which allows you to store and share your files online with your friends and colleagues. The great thing about the software and what have been the secret of its success is the cool interaction with smart devices and the way you can quickly exchange your files between your smart device, your PC and your online space which have been provided with Drop Box. Drop Box give you a minimum online storage of 2GB at the beginning soon after you have signed in on the their site and become their member the privilege keeps on increasing has you add more invite to use drop box via your email address. Your space can be increased up to 16 GB in your drop box account. The software can be downloaded from here

TECH360 Correspondent 

Microsoft has released to manufacturing Windows Server 2012 Essentials -- the successor to Windows Small Business Server company officials announced yesterday.

A downloadable trial version is available for evaluation purposes as of October 9. The Essentials product is a hybrid on-premises/cloud server. It will have a 25-user limit and sell for $425, Microsoft officials have said. Windows Server 2012 Essentials is one of four Windows Server 2012 flavors, with the other three being Foundation, Standard and Datacenter.

Among other features, Windows Server 2012 Essentials offers an on-site backup option with Windows Azure; cloud-based e-mail and collaboration (either using Office 365 or via a hosted service provider); and support for Storage Spaces disk-pooling.

Microsoft made the near-final Release Candidate (RC) test build of Windows Server 2012 Essentials available to testers in August.

TECH360 Correspondent 

3GP Player 2011 is a cool software to play 3GP files which is available free online. It plays all 3GP movies made from your phone or any other handheld devices wither a tablet or smartphone. The software is light and come with easy to use interface. It supports also 3GPP, 3GPP2 and most codecs which are used with our mobile phones. Actually in the reganam.com site which is responsible for the production of the software you will find several other cool desktop software to use in your PC like 3GP converters and others the software can be downloaded from here.

TECH360 Correspondent 

The multiple benefits of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools and applications have manifested in Nigeria with the deployment of Skype video by the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA).

The move, it was gathered, was part of the agency's commitment to excellent customer relations and service delivery. With the introduction of Skype video, LASAA said it would set the record as perhaps the first industry regulator in Africa to deploy the interactive medium to enhance engagement with its diverse stakeholders.

With the deployment of Skype video, coupled with intensive training of LASAA staff members in the human resources, client services and business development departments, the agency said members of its staff were fully prepared to handle of the Skype application.

The Skype video application will among other things ensure quick response time to enquiries from LASAA stakeholders, thereby making service delivery more effective and efficient.

Skype allows users to communicate with individuals by voice, video, and instant messaging over the Internet. The service has almost 700 million registered users across the world. In Nigeria, it is estimated that over one million persons use the service mainly for personal communication, but LASAA said it would adapt it as part of efforts to improve its relations with its stakeholders including outdoor practitioners, customers, prospects as well as institutions.

Commenting on this new initiative, the Managing Director of LASAA, Mr. George Noah, said "Skype video application demonstrates the agency's commitment to the provision of value-addition services, and stakeholders' satisfaction and positive experience. We are most delighted at the launch of this service because it aligns with our commitment to continuously offer our stakeholders opportunity to connect with us freely. We are convinced that with Skype, engagement at both ends will be quicker and faster."

He disclosed that the Skype video application had been well received in a pre-test exercise conducted among randomly picked stakeholders.

"The trials of Skype video which we conducted among some customers were successful and we are happy to announce the deployment of the service. As a forward-looking and innovative organisation, we will continue to employ new innovations that can improve service delivery for all our stakeholders," Noah said, adding that part of the sustainability plan for LASAA is a proposed outdoor master plan which will be unveiled soon.

By Emma Okonji

THISDAY Nigeria

1.      The young energetic co-founders of Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University in 1995. By 1996, they had built a search engine (initially called BackRub) that used links to determine the importance of individual webpages.

2.      Google Inc. founded the giant mail company Gmail on April Fools' Day in 2004. Their approach to emailing services included features like speedy search, huge amounts of storage and threaded messages.

3.      Google has not always been successful in its projects some of its major projects like Google Wave they admit it was a dead end mission. They stopped to develop the service since August 2010.

4.      David Filo (Co- Founder of Yahoo) neglected the proposal when Larry Page and Sergey Brin approached him for a new search engine they have developed later on Google. Andy Bechtolsheim Sun co –founder saw the opportunity and issued a cheque for US$ 100,000 to be pumped in to the project.

5.      In 2006, Google acquired online video sharing site YouTube. Today 60 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. Cat videos, citizen journalism, political candidacy and double rainbows have never been the same.

6.      Google has evolved from 9,800 average searches per day in their first official year in 1998 to the current number which hits 4.7 billion average searches per day throughout the world. 

7.      Google has more than 70 offices in more than 40 countries around the globe all of them possess some common features: murals and decorations expressing local personality; Googlers sharing cubes, yurts and "huddles"; video games, pool tables and pianos; cafes and "microkitchens" stocked with healthy food; and good old fashioned whiteboards for spur-of-the-moment brainstorming.

8.      Google’s Android mobile operating system is the world’s leading smart phone platform surpassing Nokia and Apple with a 33% share

9.      The CEO for ‘Excite’ George Bell rejected to buy Google when it was offered to him for $1 million when Brin and Page were finding the search engine taking  up to much time from their research in 1999

1.  Almost 97 percent of Google revenue is coming from advertising even though Google has so many ways of attaining their revenues. 

      

      TECH360 Correspondent 

t

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 20 – Kenyan graduates studying Information Technology will now be able to undergo free high level SAP certification training thanks to a three year partnership between the Kenya ICT Board and leading enterprise application software provider SAP.

The training program dubbed “SAP Skills for Africa” is aimed at improving the employability of university graduates. The program will begin in January with the enrolment of 100 students who can start applying in October and Kenya ICT Board Program Manager for Business Process Outsourcing Andrew Lewela revealed that they will be in charge of the overall management of the programme and will provide classrooms with necessary computer infrastructure. “IT spending will grow about 17 percent year on year, however IT employment will be less than 10 percent and this appears to be widening,” he said.

“The plan is to create what we call an authentic examination to test for certified software developers. Many institutions have been focusing on the theoretical side of things and forgetting the actual testing of how to test software and make it secure,” he explained.

According to the Julisha Report, a national ICT Market survey taken in 2011 by the Kenya ICT Board, an estimated 9,600 professionals are added to the ICT market each year, but a third of the company’s surveyed plan to contract external providers because the present supply of skills do not meet business requirements in various ways, including the currency of the courses taught as well as the need for business specific training.

The Julisha report reveals that the ICT sector directly employs an estimated 27,000 professionals and that software development (70 percent growth) and project management (57 percent growth) are the most in-demand skills for the 2011-2013 periods and represent the areas with the widest skills gap.

The report went on to say that there is little visibility on the demand for specific skills, suggesting that greater and closer collaboration is needed between education institutions and businesses to determine the exact mix of skills needed in the market.

To address this issue, SAP Africa CEO Pfungwa Serima said that they will provide instructors, training material and educational systems and that they aim to train at least 500 students for free and get them employed within the next three years.

“The SAP Skill for Africa programme aims at ensuring that each and every university graduate is equipped with the skills necessary to enter the job market and not only gain economic stability and prosperity, but also to be able to plough back into the ecosystem,” he said.

“SAP training will deliver valuable skills on software use, best business practices and processes that will greatly benefit the trainees and their future employers,” he explained.

Capital FM

Wither you are iPod touch, iPhone or iPad user this is a very cool app for you. SoundHound is an app for sound recognition; hear a sound and you don’t know the app can help you to identify the sound immediately and instantly. The app has witnessed 80 million downloads and appear minimum five million searches per day in the search engines. It is the most advanced mobile sound recognition & search technologies. With a great user interface no wonder why people download it every day. Download it from here. 

TECH360 Correspondent 

 

You can’t be left behind in tech world especially these days where there is an app for everything some of our readers have been sending us queries about the apps that they can use for chatting in their regular and smart phones. Some of the most recognized apps chatting available out there are Nimbuzz, Fring and eBuddy. Nimbuzz is a cool app although it takes time to load. Nimbuzz allows you to interact with your GTalk account.

Another app used out there for chatting is called Fring. The good thing about Fring it takes lesser time to load compared to Nimbuzz. It has cooler interface than Nimbuzz the only boring thing about Fring is the notification sound sometimes can be irritating to some users. eBuddy is another cool chatting application it takes lesser time to download the app although it has limited features but it does the work have fun testing the apps in your phone see which one suits you more.

The name COMPAQ was formed by using COMP for computer and PAQ to denote small integral object. Recently COMPAQ has joined forces with HP in the digital gadgets world. The name HP was formed from the two tech guys Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard when they had to toss a coin to decide whether to call the company  Hewlett Packard or Packard Hewlett am sure you know who won the honor definitely Hewlett that is why we have Hewlett Packard (HP) today.

The legendary Google started its name as a joke boasting about the amount of information the search engine would be able to search. It was originally named Googol a world for the number represented by one followed by 100 zeros. After founders   Stanford graduates students Sergey Bin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they receive a cheque made out to ‘Google’.

                        Hint: Apple was the favorite fruits of the founder Steve Jobs. He was three month late in filling a name for the business and he threatened to call his company “Apple Computers” if the other colleagues didn’t suggest a better name by 5 O’clock guess what happened ……

The world Yahoo was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action is barely human. Yahoo founders Jerry Young and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.

Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company ‘Moore Noyce’ but they were unlucky since the name was already trademarked by the hotel chain so they named their company using acronyms   INTEgrated ELectronics also known as ‘INTEL’.

Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters “html” the programming languages used to write web pages. Hotmail was later on bought by Microsoft which stands for MICROcomputer SOFTwares coined by Bill Gates originally christened Micro-Soft the ‘-‘was removed later.

Yes, its Nico Di Mattia the master of digital speed paint whose works worth millions on the market and his videos are hitting on you tube with millions of viewers. Yet, we have our own Di Mattia’s in our local street. I have done some small research in the street of Dar es Salaam. I went to Buguruni somewhere in urban Dar I found some kids making reasonable money using Photoshop CS3. ViewMegan Fox speed paint by Nico Di Mattia on YouTube.  

The kids are using the software as their main source of income by charging people who want their photos to be edited to create some visual reality about their appearance so that they can share the photos on the social networking site or putting them in their sitting room, dining hall whatever.

Talking with one of the Kids at the local internet café about the business he said “we are able to make up to 10,000Tshs in editing just one photo and that depend with the customer for those who appear broke we took less. The price can rise up to 20,000Tshs depending on the number of photos they brought”. When asking him were he learnt the skills, wither he has gone to some college or not. He told me “We always spent more times in these café we learnt all the skills from the guys who were taught the tricks by their friends, actually is just knowledge sharing”. 

                      Hint: Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems.

Believe me Photoshop has been a savior to these kids, with youth joining the social networking sites day in day out and all of them want to look great on their appearance on these sites for them it is an endless market opportunity and yet once again IT is moving the poor African communities.

 For people like Hassan a teenager who lost both of his parents through AIDS, living with his aunt, the knowledge on photo editing has been a great support to him. It is the time we use the knowledge we have to impact our communities. Just take your time to think if more of these kids could have the kind of knowledge Hassan have, what could have been the impact. Hassan is able to study at Bandari College through the small money he made and the support from his aunt. He just recently bought his new Toshiba laptop to support him on his activities. 

The little you can give to the community the larger the impact. Give these kids the purposes help them to avoid social calamity and falling into irresponsible behaviors. Supporting kids like Hassan and guide them it will help us in the future to have our own Nicco Di Mattias in our community a lot of them.

If you open your blog on the left hand side options tabs you will find an option written Overview. The Blogger Overview Tab allows you to observe the page views which are related to your site and how you have been performing in terms of viewers and visitors of your blog. Inside the overview Tab you can have things like Updates, Page views, News from Blogger and tips about successful blogging. 

What am interested to discuss here it is the Pageviews. Just above the digital graph which displays your blog recent activities on the right top corner you will find a link “More Stats”. This link is very important to you has a blogger to understand the traffic status of your blog. 

Hint: Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web

On clicking the link it will take you inside the Stats tab. Inside the Stats tab you will be able to observe. Pageviews in Categories, Traffic sources and popular posts in your Blog, the pageviews categories will show you the number of the visit to your blog, currently, the day before, the month before and the total page views. Each link provides enough details on what you need to know. The traffic source shows you the main sources of your traffic wither are from a social networking site or any other particular site so that you can get a chance to update your tricks and emphasize on another source of traffic or enhance the one which you are having currently. 

You can explore “more” link on just below the traffic sources tab you will be surprised with what you can find it is the “audience” tab, one of my favorite tabs. The audience tab allows you to observe your page views by country, Pageviews by Browsers and Pageviews by Operating systems showing their actual percentage. This can help you to determine what to focus on and what to enhance. For example: If most of your traffic source comes from Mozilla Firefox and you blog doesn’t function well on it you might want to do something to maintain your traffic, this is how these information can help you. For Pageviews by country it can help you to understand the source of your audience this can help you to find the local contents or contents which corresponds to the exact particular audience which is the main source of your traffic.

Remember all these tabs can be accessed directly on the left hand main column by just clicking on the Stats Tab the drop down menu will appear that will help you to navigate through the tabs and explore your options.