More than 11 million South Africans access the internet via their mobile phones compared to just six million who use personal computers.
Durban company Always Active Technologies (AAT) is riding the wave of this surge in mobile data use, providing a range of innovative applications and services to some of South Africa's biggest companies.
Since it was founded just over ten years ago by Rob Fisher, Greg Mahlknecht and Loet de Swart, AAT has grown from a startup comprising just a handful of “tech heads” to a company employing 28 full time staff with some 53 000 users per month of its various mobile and online services.
Fischer has since retired, but maintains a stake in the company and Mahlknecht, highly respected in geek circles, remains active as the company's Chief Technology Officer. De Swart, as Chief Executive Officer, is the public face of the company, along with Business Development Manager, Alan Haarhoff.
After matriculating from Thomas More College in Kloof, Durban, De Swart tried his hand at several things, including running a few successful businesses and a spell in the police force as his National Service obligation.
“I ended up travelling the world and working in various business environments which offered some great experiences.” He worked in the Middle East for a while, including for ABN Amro Bank as a researcher and for the Kahlifa family (the Royal Family of Bahrain) putting together joint venture projects.
“I came back to SA for a visit, met my wife Michelle, settled down, started AAT, had two daughters and never looked back.”
Haarhoff, like De Swart, also travelled and worked various jobs before joining AAT.
“My wife Leshane and I spent a year overseas working on a Kibbutz in Israel and travelling around Egypt and Turkey. Then, after managing a restaurant for a while, I took a year off in 2001 to study web development, as it was the buzzword at the time and seemed an exciting space to be in.”
While studying for a Microsoft Certified Systems Developer and Web Development qualifications at IT Intellect in Durban, he moonlighted developing websites for various business. His work caught the eye of Fisher who offered to take him on for a month to gain experience at AAT. He's been there ever since.
“My first years at AAT were spent in the development and systems architecture environments. AAT’s incubatory culture helped loads. Since then I have moved into the business side of the company, and completed my Marketing Management Diploma through the IMM in 2010.”
Haarhoff (37) and his wife have three daughters.
De Swart says the IT landscape is changing faster now than it ever has. “In my opinion this is due to the mobile device and the adoption not only of the device but how the device is used and information is consumed. AAT aims to leverage our current ‘tools’ in the mobile space, including SMS (short messaging service), MMS (multimedia messaging service) and LBS (location based service) , USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) as well as mapping to deliver user friendly, accessible, everywhere mobile applications.”
The Kloof-based company, the only one of its kind in KwaZulu-Natal, has already built an impressive list of these mobile applications, headed by their flagship product, Vodacom Messaging, which offers the mobile giant's blue chip clients, including South African Breweries, FNB, Africa Bank, Ellerines, South African Revenue Service, Blake, Private Property, Mango and Kulula a powerful range of mobile solutions.
StreetMaps.co.za is the most popular on-line South African mapping website and includes points of interest, directions and satelite imagery overlays, while their SouthAfricanWeather.co.za web and mobi sites offer up to date and easy to use weather information.
AAT's Premium Lite product offers a no frills, affordable, premium rate SMS service, MySuperHero is a mobile and easy to use employee performance recognition tool, Mobile Cow is a mobile research and surveys tool, ICE+ is a voice free, cell phone panic button that notifies a user's emergency contacts by SMS and e-mail when pressed and the company's 4Mobi service offers mobile phone friendly site development as well as mobile marketing campaigns.
AAT's latest product is mStatements (short for mobile statements). Companies using this service can offer their clients the ability to receive and query their financial statements from their mobile phones without installing an application or downloading software.
Uses include credit card statements, account statements, reward programme statements, flight booking confirmations, utility bills and medical aid claims update statements.
Haarhoff says one of their clients, a micro-loan provider of credit for customers of building merchants, is a huge fan of the service. “Their customers love it. Many live in rural areas far from the banks. Thanks to this service they can use their mobile phones to check how much credit they have before making the long trip to town to buy building materials.”
The company is also able to send quarterly statements and a variety of personalised warning letters to its clients.
“There are so many benefits to using mobile statements over old fashioned paper based statements. They're far cheaper, with no printing or postage costs. Because of this, they're also far more environmentally friendly. And, thanks to delivery receipts, the company knows for sure that their customer has received the statement, right down to the date, hour and second it arrived. There's no grey area, no room for 'my dog ate it' excuses.”
Haarhoff says there are a few competitors offering this service, “But what makes ours unique is that it can be used by any cellphone currently on the market, no just smartphones or MMS capable handsets.”
One of the company's guiding principles is to produce “device agnostic” services and websites, that can be used by people on any device. “We believe that someone using an older or less sophisticated cell phone should be able to access the same range of services as someone on a smartphone or tablet computer. Sure, the look and feel will be different, but the core information should be the same.
“If your company is using a data service that doesn't offer this capability, you're failing to reach a huge swathe of your existing or potential customer base,” says Haarhoff.
De Swart says it's thanks largely to producing innovative products like these that AAT has been able to grow its revenue at an average of about 30% year on year since inception. And while it's largely operated under the radar until now, it is gearing up for an aggressive growth and marketing drive with the aim of doubling its revenues over the next two years.
He believes three words best describe the people who work at AAT: motivated, disciplined and happy. “We like to employ people who are able to manage themselves and their projects so that are not required to micro-manage or police anyone.
“I would say that the ethos at AAT is one of a relaxed environment where our people are given all the opportunity to build a future for themselves and performance is rewarded,” says De Swart.

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain is said to have once quipped. It's a saying these days that could easily apply to the personal computer. With so many people now connecting to the Internet and communicating via tablets and smartphones, some analysts are referring to this as the post-PC era.
“Bunk”, I say, a Twain-ism if ever there was one. Of course it depends on your definition of a PC. For me, computers don't get more personal than one you can carry around in your pocket. With this expanded view of what qualifies as a PC, it's clear we're witnessing its teenage growth spurt years rather than its demise.
But even if you restrict yourself to the narrow definition encompassing desktop and notebook computers – known more commonly as laptops in South Africa – I wouldn't be administrating last rites just yet.
If you've ever tried, as I have, to do all your work on a tablet computer you'll be surprised at first just how much it actually can do. But the novelty is quickly replaced by frustration at just how badly it does it all.
My job entails a lot of text entry, not a pleasant task using a 10-inch touch screen, never mind a 4-inch smartphone screen. Now, you can make this a bit easier by linking your mobile gizmo to an external keyboard, which leaves you with a fiddly hybrid that looks a lot like... well, a laptop.
A new breed of more powerful mobile devices that morph seamlessly from tablets into laptops and desktop computers is on its way – the first generation of these shape shifters, like the Asus Transformer range, is already here.
But until these become mainstream, the first thing most mobile professionals pack is their trusty laptop – and I include here dinky, but under-powered netbooks and those super-slim and pricey newcomers, ultrabooks.

Which brings me to the Toshiba Portégé R700. If ever there was a perfect compromise between the pack-ability of a netbook, the power of a full sized notebook and the svelte good looks of an ultrabook, the Portégé is it.
Weighing in at just 1.4 kilos, it's as easy to carry around as any netbook. But unlike any netbook I know, it doesn't come with the usual ultra low voltage processor found in these devices, but a full Intel Core i5 520M, 2.4 GHz dual-core processor, 4 GB of RAM and 320 GB of hard disk space, giving you full notebook power.
And unlike most netbooks with their 10 or 11 inch screens, the Portégé has a 13.3-inch, anti-glare display.
At just 2.6 cm thick it's nearly as slim as an ultrabook and thanks to its Magnesium alloy construction and brushed metal look its almost as attractive. But show me an ultrabook that's managed to squeeze a fully-fledged CD/DVD drive into its taut midriff.
Ultrabooks are notoriously stingy when it comes to flash card slots and connection jacks. Not so the Portégé. On its left side, you'll find one regular USB 2.0 port and one eSATA/USB 2.0 port, which allows you to charge your cellphone or other mobile devices even when the laptop is shut down or “asleep”. There's also an HDMI slot and external monitor connection. On the right, there's another USB 2.0 port, headphone and microphone connections, an Express Card slot, network cable port and the aforementioned optical drive.
I liked the responsive “chiclet” style keyboard, finding it a pleasure type on – particularly after a week pecking away at a tablet touchscreen. My only gripe is that it's not backlit, not great for use in a darked room. The keyboard is spill resistant, though, a useful feature if you're prone to knocking over cups of coffee.
If you plan to use the R700 for watching movies or playing games, you'll be less impressed. There's no dedicated graphics card and while the LED backlit display provided crisp stills visuals, video playback was jumpy and the sound disappointingly tinny.
Battery life was quite impressive, averaging six hours, but when the battery does finally give up the ghost it takes positively ages to charge up again. For the security minded, there's a fingerprint scanner to protect your sensitive data.

The Sunday Tribune's popular new Business KZN supplement has just run several interviews of mine with Durban tech industry movers and shakers. I'll be posting them to this blog over the next week or so.
Here's the first with switched on, super friendly mobile fundi, Marc Forrest...

From its humble origins in founder Justin Clarke's garage, South African real estate upstart, Private Property, has never done things the conventional way.
So when it came to hiring someone to run its mobile projects last year, it should come as no surprise to hear that the company ignored the traditional employment channels and approached mobile phone boffin and uber blogger Marc Forrest directly.
Forrest (33) remembers that day clearly. “I opened my email and there was a message from the guys at Private Property asking if I'd be interested in joining their team as Mobile Project Manager. Of course, I said 'yes' and went into the interview without a CV. The company already knew all about me through my online presence.”
How Pretoria born and educated Forrest created and built up that web persona until it caught the eye of one the country's leading entrepreneurs is a textbook case of pursuing your interests with passion and perseverance.
“I've been interested in gadgets and technology for as long as I can remember. My father worked for Telkom and there was always a computer in the house.”
In 1999, while studying for a marketing and business management diploma, Forrest took on an evening tech support job for an Internet service provider.
“I got it by pure chance. I was working for Mr Delivery and got chatting to one of their bosses when delivering some pizza to their Pretoria offices. They were opening in Jo'burg and he asked me to come see them there. I was offered a slot on the 3pm to 11pm shift.”
One thing led to another and before long, Forrest had a full-time job. The company was bought by Storm Internet and he moved to Durban to join the team working on its billing system.
In 2007, Storm was bought by Vox and Forrest left to work for Derivco for two years.
He first dipped his toes into the blogosphere in 2004, shortly after moving to Durban. “I set up my first blog as an experiment, calling it Durbsblog. I was new in the city, recently married and wanted to document the lifestyle and vibe of this fantastic place that was my new home.”
Over time he began to focus more on technology, and Apple products in particular, and in 2007 he re-branded his blog MarcForrest.com.
“At that stage the latest Internet boom was just starting. Facebook, Twitter and and other social media were taking off here in a big way. I was approached by the 27dinner movement, a group of tech-savvy movers and shakers, to help start their regular dinners, already popular in Jo'burg and Cape Town, in Durban.
“At the same time, my blog was growing in popularity and I started getting invited to product and car launches.”
One of the highlights was being invited to the South African launch of the iPhone 4 in 2010. “I was flown up to Jo'burg as one of just 15 bloggers from around the country for the event. This was a really gratifying indication that my blog, which I'd started as a hobby really, was being taken seriously by corporate heavyweights.”
At the peak of its popularity, MarcForrest.com was ranked the top personal blog in KZN as well as in the top 25 South African sites by Afrigator.
“I was always scrupulous about keeping my blogging separate from my day job and made sure it never interfered with my work. So it's ironic that it was my blog that helped me land my current job.”
Forrest said that while he was happy with his existing job, he didn't hesitate for a moment before accepting the invitation to the Private Property interview. “There are only a few online businesses in Durban and Private Property is a legend, a real pioneer in the field in South Africa. And the cherry on the top was that I was being offered the chance to work in mobile, a field I was and remain passionate about.
“At the time, they already had an iOS application for iPhones and iPads as well as a mobi (mobile phone friendly) site. But there was no one actively driving their mobile strategy.”
Forrest grabbed the challenge with both hands and in the short time he's been there has helped shape their next iOS app and is currently working on the following version.
He's also working with the development team building the company's next Android and BlackBerry apps and ironing out issues with its existing products, like the mobi site.
“Private Property saw the potential of mobile early and moved quickly to harness it. Some of the early apps weren't perfect, but as you discover in this game, perfection is a moving target. As you launch one app, you're already working on its replacement.”
And, says, Forrest, Private Property's early willingness to embrace mobile technology is starting to pay of handsomely.
“We're a leads-based business and quite a significant portion of our leads now come from one mobile device or another. That's only going to grow as mobile devices get more ubiquitous. For example we now get approximately 1500 downloads of our iPad app and 700 of our iPhone app every week.
“In designing our next iPad app we've done a tremendous amount of research. For example, we've discovered that most people browse the web on their tablets between 7pm and 11pm. So in the new app we're rebuilding and restyling the app so its really easy to use by someone sitting on the couch in front of the TV.”
With Microsoft starting to make its presence felt in the mobile space, thanks to its revamped Windows Phone mobile operating system and partnership with handset maker Nokia, the company is also exploring the possibility of a Windows Phone app.
Forrest, who is married with three children, lives in Ballito and when he's not working, blogging or Tweeting likes to unwind with his family or, when he's feeling masochistic, work out with kettlebells.

In a recent post I shared a little trick I'd learned to rescue a water damaged cell phone - removing the battery, wiping off and shaking out as much water as possible and burying the phone in a bag of dry rice for 24 hours.

From the feedback I've received from readers, it worked a treat for many of you - including a colleague who was chucked into a swimming pool with his Blackberry in his pocket.

Heart warming as success stories like these are, the sad reality is that they're the exception rather than the norm. In most cases when your phone or other electronic gizmo takes a dip, it's never coming back to life, no matter what you try.

With this in mind, it's really best to ensure the wet stuff never touches it in the first place. Sure, you could shun the beach and stop accepting invitations to poolside parties, but where's the fun in that? Rather, take advantage of the wide choice of products designed to protect your, phone, tablet or camera from H2O and other hazards.

While water is undoubtedly a major hazard for our gadgets, especially mobile phone, as many if not more phones are damaged by dropping them. Slipping our phone into a cover or case helps, but most are designed to only protect against scratches, scuffs and minor bumps.

The next time your phone takes a tumble down a long, hard flight of stairs, you'll want it to be sheathed in something that's made of sterner stuff... something like an Otter Box (www.otterbox.com). This company makes a range of cases for most phones and tablets and thanks to their composite, layered construction comprising hard polycarbonate and soft silicone! they're amazingly shock and impact resistant.

Otter Box's Defender range offers the most protection, but I find these cases do make your phone a bit bulky. I prefer their Commuter range which offers a surprising level of rubustness for very little extra girth. They're not cheap, with Defender cases costing close to R500 and Commuter cases around R400, but when you consider that top end cellphones cost R8000 or more, it's probably a worthwhile investment.

Both cases will also protect your phone from splashes, thanks to screen protectors and silicone flaps covering most buttons and ports, but Otter Box is at pains to stess that they are not water resistant.

If your work, sport or play involves you being near, on or, even, in rivers, pools or the sea, you'll want a cover that's completely impervious to water. While there's a variety of cheap waterproof bags on offer from camping stores, I'm personally a bit loathe to entrust the wellbeing of a gadget worth thousands of rands to a bag costing R20. By all means use one of these cheap bags to store your smokes or toilet paper on your next camping trip, but put your phone, tablet or camera into case with a proven track record.

One of the leaders in this field globally is the aptly named Overboard (www.overboardafrica.co.za), which offers an enormous range of waterproof bags, from hefty duffel bags and backpacks down to lightweight, but tough bags for most handheld gadgets.

Apart from being totally waterproof, one of the real benefits of these bags is that they're see through so you can still use your phone or tablet, including the camera and touch screen.

Now you can use your GPS equipped iPad to navigate between islands on your next kayaking trip to Mozambique. Good luck finding somewhere to charge it, though. Expect to shell out R280 for a phone bag and R780 for a tablet bag.

If slipping your phone into a cover or bag every time you head out onto the water is too much of a hassle - and let's face it you do look like a bit of a dork holding a bag against your head to make a call - why not go for the ultimate in protection, a phone that's designed and built to be waterproof.

Sonim (www.sonimtech.com) is the established player in this field and makes a range of astonishly tough waterproof, shockproof and dustproof phones for soldiers, oil rig roustabouts, mountain bikers and other rugged types, starting at around R3500.

They are a bit basic in the features and apps department, though, especially the entry level models, and thanks to their muscular physique, they are a bit hefty to lug around.

The Motorola Defy Mini (www.motorola.com), by contrast, looks just like any other smallish Android smartphone. But looks can be deceptive. When Motorola showed off their new baby at the recent Mobile World Congress it was in a spinning barrel filled with coins and grit. And, yes, it's also waterproof.

Although it lacks some of the frills and processing power of top end handsets, the Defy Mini may just be the closest you'll get to balancing brains, looks and brawn in a phone. It's only just been launched, so no word yet on prices or availability.

 Water. We can't survive without it for more than a few days. But if water is life to us, it's death to our precious electronic gadgets, especially cellphones.

Can you be a sports fan and a geek? For a generation raised on 80s classics like Revenge of the Nerds, the answer is an unequivocal "no". Today, thanks to TV shows like Fringe and 24, being tech savvy is no longer synonymous with social ostracism. Quite the contrary.

These days, at least if popular culture is your yardstick, it takes mastery of gadgets, not just guns, to make you a bad-ass. Try questioning Jack Bauer's masculinity and he'd set you straight in no uncertain terms, just as soon as he'd finished torturing his prisoner and uploading the GPS co-ordinates of the hidden nuke via his smartphone.

But that's TV. What about real life? Enter Durban web developer Justin Raleigh. I'd been tipped off that he'd built a smartphone app that's going to dramatically change the way we shop and watch live sports.

When I request an interview he suggests we meet, not in some Dilbertesque cubicle, but at that temple of testosterone, Mr Price Kings Park Stadium. As I arrive, I park my station wagon next to Raleigh's far more muscular Chevy Lumina SS. Another tick in the jock box.

But here comes the geek bit. About a year ago, the 36-year-old Maritburg College old boy and married father of one became so concerned about falling attendance levels at Sharks games that he decided to come up with a high tech alternative to the old-fashioned and, let's face it, rather tired concept of the loyalty programme.

His company LoyalT had run a traditional card-based version successfully for a local premier league football team and was in the middle of introducing one for the Sharks. “But the further into the process we got, looking at printing cards and installing expensive machines to read them, the more we realised just how archaic this model was,” he recalls.

“No one wants a dozen loyalty cards cluttering their wallet. I knew there had to be a better way.” The solution for this iPhone-toting app addict was blindingly obvious: a smartphone based programme.

“Virtually everyone who comes to a Sharks match has a cellphone. Tying the loyalty programme to their phone was the answer.”

Making this a reality wasn't nearly as simple, but after months of gruelling 18-hour workdays, the fruits of Raleigh's and his team's labours, the SharksFrenzy app, is available for most smartphones.

I've played with the app for the past couple of weeks and it looks like a winner. Here's how it works.

Sharks supporters download the application from the Apple, Android or Blackberry app stores.

It's a free download, but you'll need to “activate” it at a cost of R100-a-year to unlock its true power.

This gives you access to freebies and discounts at a range of local shops, bars, restaurants and hotels, from guaranteed instant rewards like a glass of wine or a cappuccino to surprise random rewards.

Raleigh estimates that if a fan takes full advantage of the rewards on offer, his or her R100 annual membership is worth around R4000.

All very nice, I hear you say, but what's that got to do with getting fans to switch off their TVs and go to Sharks matches? Well, every time you “check in” to one of the SharksFrenzy affiliated establishments using the app, you're not only get the reward on offer there, but also an entry into the prize draw at the next Sharks game at Kings Park. And here's the bums-on-seats bit – you have to be at the game to be in line for one of the prizes.

There are some pretty attractive prizes up for grabs, including a family holiday worth R47 000, free tickets for KZN Sharks fans, flights and tickets for fans from other provinces and gaming consoles for kids.

Geo-location technology is key to the success of the programme, alerting members whenever they're near an affiliated establishment and helping authenticate the check in process both there and at the game. The developers have also cleverly integrated social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare into the app, so expect an explosion in viral growth once the rugby season kicks off in March.

More partners are being added to an already impressive list all the time. Raleigh preferred not to be drawn on the subject, but I wouldn't be surprised if other rugby franchises didn't adopt the programme before too long.

 

For most of us by this time in January the holidays are a fading memory, along with our New Year's resolutions. But it needn't be that way. It's not too late to resuscitate those good intentions and, thanks to some clever tech, turn them into actions.

Cut the clutter

 

There are few things more dispiriting than a mountain of paperwork that needs sorting through and filing. Ensure yours doesn't swell any further this year by requesting that your bills and statements be sent in electronic form. More and more companies and organisations offer this option. Granted, this is probably to save money rather than out of any concern for the environment, but why not turn their greed to your advantage?
Resist at all costs the temptation to print out the documents. This would simply put you back were you were - worse off in fact because you'd be paying for the paper and ink rather than the senders. For younger readers this should come easy, but it can be a bit of an adjustment for those of us schooled in the importance of keeping paper records.
Capture other important documents like passports, air tickets and receipts using a scanner or your cell phone camera and they'll be available long after the originals are lost or fade to illegibility.
Then make sure you organise this information, either in virtual files on your computer or, even better, in a cloud-based programme like Evernote. This way if anything happens to your PC, your documents will live survive.

Get organised

 

Evernote is a lot more than an archiving tool. It's also a superb programme for organising your thoughts and recording them for posterity, without the added pressure of sharing them with the world on social networks like Facebook or Twitter - it gives you the option to do so when you are in a sharing mood.

A "note" can take many forms - a piece of formatted text, a webpage, a photograph, a voice clip, or even a handwritten "ink" note.
Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported. Evernote's available for all major operating systems, smartphones and tablets. There's a premium, paid version for power users, but the free, ad supported version is more than adequate for most needs.

Diarise it

Older readers will remember, or indeed still practice, that early January ritual of sitting down with a pencil or pen and transcribing the previous year's annual diary entries into the new book. If this brings you some measure of comfort, I won't try to dissuade you. But for most of us this is a tiresome, and today totally unnecessary, chore.
All computers, smartphones and tablets come with electronic calendars. Most let you link to an online calendar, like those offered by Google's Gmail and Facebook, and scynchronise this information across all you devices, ensuring it isn't lost if one of them crashes or goes missing.

Back up

 

One the subject of gadgets imploding or going walkabout, New Year is the perfect excuse to stop talking about and start backing up your data. Portable hard drives are relatively inexpensive and backup software on all recent computer operating systems means this is far less of a schlepp than it used to be.
The problem with a local backup set up like this is that if you computer is stolen or destroyed by say a fire, chances are your backup hard drive will have shared the same fate. This is why you'd be mad not to use a cloud storage solution like Sugarsync, Dropbox or Carbonite.
Most offer free, or inexpensive, basic versions and operate unobtrusively in the background backing up your precious data to the cloud.
An added bonus is that you can access this information from a range of devices, including most smartphones. I discovered just how useful this can when I popped into a bank recently to close an unused credit card account. After waiting for some time in a queue I was asked for some information I didn't have, this being a spur-of-the-moment visit.
In the past I'd have had to abort the exercise. Instead, out came my cell phone and within seconds I was using Sugarsync to browse the online backup of my home PC's My Document folder and opening the required document.
This wasn't a particularly dire situation, but imagine if this had been a lost passport or air ticket.

Got any questions? Tweet me @alanqcooper and I'll be happy to answer them.

Useful links

www.evernote.com

www.sugarsync.com

www.dropbox.com

www.carbonite.com

Historians will look back on 2011 as a momentous year, one in which technology and the Internet played a pivotal role, often behind the scenes, but sometimes as the main attraction.

Little Brother's got a camera

Ever since George Orwell penned 1984 back in 1949, people have debated how much power the state should have to record and monitor the activities of its citizens. What no one questioned was that this was essentially a one-sided relationship, with Big Brother doing the watching and we being watched.
Then, starting in late December 2010, but gathering momentum in January and February this year, shaky, but gut-wrenchingly powerful mobile phone videos and photographs of grassroots protests and the brutal reaction of authorities began to emerge from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Arab countries.
Social media like Twitter and Facebook played a crucial part in organising the protests and in sharing the often bloody outcomes with the wider world via the web, where the footage was seized upon by mainstream journalists and broadcasters.
Just ten months later three despots have been unseated, one murdered in the process, and several others are clinging to power by the skin of their teeth.
Western democracies haven't escaped the ire and scrutiny of their citizens either. In London in August, what began as a protest against the police's shooting of an unarmed man quickly spiralled  into an orgy of looting and arson. Just how instrumental social media were in fanning the flames is debatable, but there's no doubt that many of the compelling images and videos of the riots were captured on mobile phones, and Twitter and Facebook were central to the efforts of ordinary Londoners as the co-ordinated clean-up campaigns and organised themselves into groups to defend their properties from rioters.
Just a month after the London riots, a protest against unemployment, corporate greed and corruption was held in Zuccotti Park in New York's Wall Street financial district. Dubbed “Occupy Wall Street,” it swiftly spread to other cities across the US and the world, thanks almost exclusively to social media.
The often heavy handed response of the police was captured by mobile phone cameras and broadcast almost instantly to millions.  
In less than a year there's been a seismic shift in the relationship between states and their citizens. Little Brother's got a camera now and he's not afraid to use it.

Dude, where's my BBM?

Seldom has the truism, “You don't miss something until it's gone,” been so amply illustrated as by the disastrous collapse of BlackBerry's internet services in October, plunging millions of BBM users across the world into frustrated isolation, many of them for nearly a week. Parent company RIM eventually got to the bottom of the outage, but not before immeasurable damage was done to its already shaky reputation, despite a belated apology and give-away of premium apps.
The outage prompted a huge uptake in cross platform communications applications like WhatsApp and not just amongst BlackBerry owners. If there's something positive to emerge from the débâcle, it's been that many of us have learned the lesson that we shouldn't put all our tech eggs in one corporation's basket.

Cloud cover

The desire not to be at the mercy of one device or entity has, no doubt, also been a factor in the spectacular growth this year of online backup services, or to give them their trendier name, Cloud Storage solutions.
Dropbox, an established player in this field has found itself facing stiff competition from the likes of SugarSync, Carbonite and Box.
If you've never been through the trauma of losing all your data in a hard drive crash without a recent backup take it from me, it's no fun. You should certainly do physical backups to an external hard disk or flash drive. But in the event of a virus infestation, theft or, heaven forbid, a fire you may well lose the external drive along with the computer.
That's when you'll be truly grateful to have all your precious data safely stored in the Cloud.

Dawn of the Droids

2011 will also be remembered as the year mobile phones and tablet computers running Google's Android operating system finally caught up to, and overtook (in popularity, if not profitability) Apple's IOS powered iPhones and iPads.
Google recently celebrated the 10 billionth Android app download, a staggering landmark even allowing for the fact that most Android apps are free or significantly cheaper than Apple apps.
Android owes its ascendancy to sheer weight of numbers, with several big manufacturers now offering phones with droid innards. But there's no doubt that a small, but rapidly growing cadre of Android handsets, led by Samsung's Galaxy SII with its slick interface and gorgeous 4.3-inch screen, are challenging the iPhone's until now uncontested status as most desirable smartphone.
The iPad's place at the top of the tablet rankings is now also under threat, with analysts reporting that Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet, running a highly customised version of Android, is now outselling the iPad. Sure, it's less than half the price of the iPad and lacks many of its features, but it's a state of affairs that would have been unthinkable this time last year.

 
Farewell Steve Jobs. Hello iPhone 4S

Finally, 2011 was also the year tech Titan and Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Whether you loved or loathed him, there's no disputing his incalculable contribution, not just to computing and communication, but to movies, through his animation company Pixar, and music, an industry he revolutionised with the iPod and iTunes music store.
By the time you read this the iPhone 4S (Jobs died just hours after its launch) will have been released in South Africa.
Only a fraction of those who pre-ordered it will get one. The rest will have to wait till more stock arrives, probably only in the New Year. And all will be happy to pay premium for the cachet that comes with owning it.
Until other manufacturers are able to inspire such fervour in their customers, Jobs' dream of making idevices the most sought after in the world will remain unchallenged. Could 2012 be the year that changes?

 

 

Would you wait in line for hours, maybe even days to be among the first to get your hands on the latest iPhone, even if there are phones from its competitors already on the market that are just as good, maybe even better?

If your answer is “yes,” you may want to stop reading now. There's a clever advert doing the rounds on the Internet that pokes fun at these Apple fanboys and girls. 

The A and i words are never mentioned, but the ad's target for ridicule is obvious from the opening shot of a queue of hipsters outside what's clearly meant to be an Apple Store, sporting the trademark white earbuds and clutching take-away coffees.

“Guys I'm so amped I could stay here for three weeks,” says one guy.

“Nine hours down and we're almost in the door,” sings a woman

“Uh oh! Bloggers are saying the battery looks sketchy,” says a worried guy poring over a laptop.

“If it looks the same, how will people know I upgraded,” complains another.

Then someone spots a woman on a nearby bench watching a video on her phone. “Woah. What's she got there?” They spot someone a man with the same phone and ask to see it.

“Check out the screen. This thing is huge,” says one. “And it's got 4g speed,” says another.

But their admiration turns to chagrin when they discover it's an Android powered Samsung Galaxy S II.

“I could never get a Samsung. I'm creative,” says a long haired guy.

“Dude, you're a barista,” his mate says. A barista, for those of you who work for a living and don't spend your days in coffee shops, is a trendy term for someone who makes and serves coffee in said establishments.

Some marketing pundits have rubbished the ad, saying you don't sell a product to someone by insulting them. They're missing the point.

Diehard Apple acolytes will never convert to Samsung, no matter how good the device. But undecided Nokia or Blackberry owners whose contracts are up for renewal might very well switch to a device that promises to put them one up on their iPhone toting colleagues.

 

 

Check out the ad for yourself below...