Is “push” technology on mobile phones so helpful for your job?

Some thinking on the never ending discussion on “push” and “pull” technology, with particular implication for mobile phones.

I keep on reading commercials and articles about the importance, for professionals, of push access to email.  I’ve always thought that time and concentration are key while working. Usually we don’t have time to do things [...]

Marketing of mobile telephony in Tanzania

Back from my trip in Tanzania I have to show an interesting collection of images about marketing of mobile telephony around the country. As you can see they are pretty aggressive!
From cars to charts

From walls to houses

From billboards to shops

And they have clients of every age! 

\o/ FrontLineSMS new release

kiwanja is releasing a new version of its famous software FrontLineSMS, the leading SMS management platform. Now the software allows users to manage forms to collect and share data:

You can read more on afromusing, an interesting blog on innovation, technology and beyond or on Ken’s blog.

Gfail!

This morning I had the chance to observe something incredible: thousands and thousands of messages on twitter about the Gfail that’s to say the fail of Gmail’s servers.

It was incredible to see, using twitterfall, the ways people reacted to this event. When I came back after lunch, there were over 8.000 messages in line about [...]

Do we agree on this list?

Time magazine recently published this list of the Best Blogs 2009.
Do you agree? I see they consider Techcrunch top of Overrated blogs and this sound very strange to me.
And they voted lifehacker as one of the best. What do you think?

1981: predicting the birth of Internet

Have  a look at what techcrunch found out somewhere, somehow around Youtube.

This video is really fantastic and gives a flavor of what, less than 30 years ago, seemed to be only science-fiction.
The speaker ended her note mentioning speed and cost of the new service and concluding that it wouldn’t be able [...]

Mobile Telephony in Rural Area – Week I Summary

The summary of the discussions of Week I of the online forum on “Mobile Telephony in Rural Area” is ready to be downloaded.

Social media is taking place on Google

This morning I found out that Google interface is changed.
As you can see on the image, new buttons have been added to the screen while reading the list of results.

Three new features are now available:

promote
remove
comment

Just checking techcrunch, and reading the Google blog, it seems like I won’t be one of the few testers able to [...]

Will cellphones replace other ICTs?

With his article called “Rural communication: Is there still a need for telecentres now that there are mobile phones?” Ion Howard of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) affords a very interesting topic.

The problem is real: will mobile phones replace other ICTs wherever they are not yet developed? In my opinion, they are a killer [...]

Who is using mobile phones for development – part 2

As the online Forum on “Mobile Telephony in rural areas” is getting closer, the list of projects using mobile is getting longer and longer. I have to thanks the participants to the KM4Dev list who have been proposing examples of application they were aware of. Let’s see what’s new around the table:
mDevelopment

Launched in the late [...]

MobileActive 08

Mobile for development is definitely taking off and many events which celebrate its applications, can help collecting knowledge and experiences.

This is the time of Mobile Active 08, in Johannesburg, South Africa from 13 to 15 October 2008. Entitled “Unlocking the Potential of Mobile Technology for Social Impact”, this international fair co-organized by SangoNet, will gather [...]

Writeshop on Video for development

These days FAO is hosting a very interesting writeshop about how to use Video for development. Introducing the event, the organizers declare the objective to:
document experiences and provide guidance to readers on the application of video for rural and agricultural development
So FAO, CTA, gtz and the University of Wageningen, gathering experts in Rome, want to [...]

The first competitor for the iPhone

A new challenge for the iPhone was launched yesterday: it is the first mobile phone with Android inside.
Even if not everybody seems to be so enthusiast about the product, more than everything else in the DEV perspective, at least, I see a very interesting trend for prices. The announced price is 120 Eur (at certain [...]

New connection for the South of the world

It is called O3b and stands for other3billion: that’s to say the 3 billion people who are not connected yet to the Internet. It is a new initiative funded by Google, Liberty Global, and HSBC to build a new telecommunications infrastructure, with 16 satellites, offering high-speed, low-cost Internet connectivity to emerging countries.
The service is supposed [...]

Who is using mobile phones for development

Before the summer, I was looking for examples on the use of cellphones for development and I got plenty of them in a moment!
Here is just a short list of the first examples I found:
mDevelopment
The first way cellphones were used to sustain development is to deliver news about market prices. It is happening for agriculture [...]