At Home

The Samsung Galaxy SIII was officially unveiled in SA recently, at an event in Sandton. The SIII is the highly-anticipated successor to the Galaxy SII. While the device has already been available from select Vodacom and MTN stores, Samsung says the handset will now be available nationally. The handset has a recommended retail price of R7 999. – ITWeb

Filmmaker and Internet pioneer Tiffany Shlain will be attending the Encounters documentary festival, in Cape Town, where she is hosting the continental premiere of her new movie: “Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, & Technology”. It has won numerous accolades, including the Tribeca Film Festival’s Disruptive Innovation Award. The film is a documentary about how the connected age could reshape our world, and pays homage to her father, the late author Leonard Shlain. – ITWeb

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Robert Sussman" />ZunguZ, a locally developed, multi-tiered platform that integrates social networks, financial service providers and banking institutions to facilitate micro-payments, has been selected for inclusion in Facebook’s App Centre. ZunguZ co-founders Robert Sussman and Lance Fanaroff believe ZunguZ suits Facebook’s strategic initiatives around the penetration of mobility into emerging markets. Sussman says the inclusion in the Facebook App Centre reinforces the credibility of ZunguZ in what he describes as an ‘increasingly diverse marketplace’. – ITWeb

HP has introduced HP StoreOnce B6200, which it says increases enterprise agility by offering an industry-first back-up performance of up to 100TB per hour, and data recovery of up to 40TB per hour. According to the company, this is three and fives times faster, respectively, than the closest competitive offering. HP adds that users can recover more in one day with HP StoreOnce than they can in a work week with EMC, and that HP’s StoreOnce B6200 provides three times faster back-up and faster recovery than EMC’s product, the DD990. – ITWeb

The Insider threat continues to be the biggest cause of data loss in many organisations as employees either intentionally or unintentionally give away information, according to Samresh Ramjith, GM for technology and operations at Dimension Data SA. In order to get a clear understanding of the extent to
which South African organisations are losing data and how they are dealing with it, ITWeb, in partnership with Dimension Data, released the Data Loss Prevention Survey. – ITWeb

Altech ISIS GM Anton van Heerden argues that the Real-Time Payment Platform market has evolved rapidly and with varying degrees of consumer adoption. He adds that mobile financial transactions are already proving to be a fertile ground for operators in emerging and mature markets. According to Juniper Research, the mobile payments market this year is worth $240 billion and is expected to almost triple in value by 2015. – ITWeb

Dimension Data has inked a deal with Microsoft that will allow it to offer cloud services encompassing Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Exchange Server 2010 and Lync 2010 hosted in its managed private cloud environment. Dimension Data will provide the cloud-based offerings in six regions globally, and SA will be the first country to go live. The deal will aid Dimension Data’s push into the cloud. – ITWeb

Into Africa

Three Ugandan A-Level students, Alvin Kabwama, David Tusubira and Nigel Kinyera, with the help of Makerere lecturer Cosmas Mwikyirize, have invented a device that can detect and detonate bombs by using WiFi and Bluetooth technology. It can also detonate improvised explosive devices commonly used by the terrorists that have blighted East Africa in recent years. – ITWeb Africa

Zimbabwe is likely to have a new mobile life cover scheme, following the collapse of EcoLife last year, which left almost one million subscribers stranded. “We have travelled to India and we will soon be announcing a new product to replace EcoLife,” said Ruth Ncube, MD of First Mutual Life, the life assurance division of Afre Corporation. – ITWeb Africa

Google has launched near-field communication technology-enabled cards for Kenya’s public transport system. The cards allow passengers to pay for their bus fares with cards that protect them from the country’s virulent and frequent fluctuations in public transport fares. Passengers can now tap the NFC card on a reader to initiate the transaction, which deducts a standard fare from money put on the card before use. – ITWeb Africa

Egypt’s government said the country could soon roll out one of the largest number of digital identity cards in the world. This is according to Ars Technica, which has reported that the Egyptian ministry, as well as the Embassy, plans to work with Estonia to release digitised ID documents to the country’s 85 million people. – ITWeb Africa

A tender for a 4 500 kilometre fibre-optic cable connecting Nigeria’s city of Abuja with Algiers will be up for offer soon. Algeria’s ministry of posts, information and communications technology plans to offer the $62 million project for tendering to global companies, according to a Zawya report. The cable is to cover a distance of 4 500 kilometres, of which 2 700 kilometres will be in Algeria. – ITWeb Africa

Abroad

A federal judge cancelled a scheduled 11 June trial between Apple and Google’s Motorola Mobility unit over patents related to mobile phones and tablet computers, and expects to dismiss the case because neither can prove damages. In a “tentative” order, US Circuit Judge Richard Posner, in Chicago, said each company’s case should be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought up again. – Reuters

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion said it would phase out the 16GB model of the PlayBook once stock currently with retailers is depleted. The company will continue to produce 32GB and 64GB versions of the device, which can hold more music, video and other content and which likely boast better margins. – Reuters

The EU antitrust chief gave Google until early July to say how it would change its business practices to settle an investigation into possible abuse of a dominant position. “I want to give the company the opportunity to offer remedy proposals that would avoid lengthy proceedings,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a speech. – Reuters

Barnes & Noble has objected to the US government’s proposed settlement of its price-fixing lawsuit against top publishers, saying it would harm book sellers and “millions and millions” of book buyers. The bookstore chain said the settlement would lead to “higher overall average e-book and hardback prices and less choice, both in how to obtain books and in what books are available”. – Reuters

Losses by banks and brokerages due to Facebook’s botched market debut on Nasdaq OMX Group’s exchange nearly a month ago may be as high as $200 million, said Thomas Joyce, CEO of Knight Capital Group. Nasdaq said it would offer $40 million in cash and rebates to clients harmed by its mishandling of Facebook’s market debut. – Reuters