At Home

The Vodafone Innovation Centre, in Midrand, has won the Mail & Guardian’s Greening the Future award in the “Innovations in renewables” category. The building, situated at Vodacom’s head office, in Midrand, has a Six-Star Green Star rating, making it one of the greenest in Africa. The centre is carbon-neutral and designed for water, energy and emissions savings. – ITWeb

Community satellite TV channel GauTV seeks to get in on the action, with a 24-hour free-to-air service. Mzansi Community Satellite TV, trading as GauTV, submitted an application to the Independent Communications Authority of SA earlier this year, in a bid to obtain a licence to operate an independent 24-hour channel on satellite frequency. – ITWeb

The South African telecoms market is reaching a watershed and key players are going to have to reinvent their business strategy, as the days of only providing telecoms services are over. Analytix BI’s latest report, South Africa Country Report: Telecommunications Market, finds that, as landline use at home has been in freefall Telecommusince 2005, and the mobile market is reaching a plateau, the sector needs to encourage significantly higher Internet and data use. – ITWeb

George Mari

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has raised concerns over the Msunduzi municipality’s awarding of a contract for SMS and MMS messages without a tender process being followed. George Mari, DA KwaZulu-Natal spokesman on co-operative governance and traditional affairs, says the municipality is not following the correct credit control procedures and cutting off non-payers. Instead, he says, it elected to implement an SMS and MMS reminder service, without following the proper procedures.

The South African Social Security Agency says the first two phases of the roll-out of a new biometric payment system have faced challenges, such as overcrowding at pay-points and equipment malfunctions. The agency is rolling out a new biometric system in a bid to eliminate fraudulent payments to dead people, which will save it R800 million a year. – ITWeb

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Sean Emery" src="http://www.iweek.co.za/images/stories/2010/july12/sean_emery.jpg" />A new socially driven peer-to-peer money market service, RainFin, went live recently. RainFin provides a secure online platform within which users can invest and borrow money at more competitive interest rates, cutting out SA’s traditional banking sector. It is the brainchild of technology and financial entrepreneurs Sean Emery and Hannes van der Merwe, who hope to replicate the success of P2P lending services such as Lending Club and PeerForm. – ITWeb

JSE-listed DigiCore Holdings has inked a deal with Translog Management, which will see the roll-out of its TAP-I-FARE electronic fare collection solution into about 3 000 minibus taxis in KwaZulu-Natal over the next two years. DigiCore, which owns vehicle-tracking system Ctrack, will initially target all taxis and commuters within the Grange and Westgate, Ridge Park, Buffer, KwaNyamazane, Alexandra Road Extension, Richmond Crest, Pelham, France and Napierville areas. – ITWeb

Big four bank First National Bank (FNB) has leveraged its social media presence and the extensive popularity of the world’s biggest social network, Facebook, to appeal to the online market. The bank has unveiled its “eWallet Money Magnet” game on Facebook. “This is a fun and interactive game designed to teach customers how to use FNB’s eWallet,” says FNB. – ITWeb

Into Africa

The Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel) has embarked on a countrywide expansion programme to construct 132 cell sites at a cost of $9 million. The project will involve the construction of towers, control rooms, power supply units and various communications and switching equipment. Each site is expected to cover about 400 square metres and implementation is projected over three main phases spanning a four-month period. – ITWeb Africa

Zimbabwe’s largest telecommunication companies, Econet and Telecel, are allegedly forging alliances with each other to prevent their rivals from using their infrastructure. The result is that firms such as Telerix Communications, which owns Internet service provider Dandemutande, has been forced to share towers with the country’s state run power utility, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority. – ITWeb Africa

Fewer African business and IT professionals own tablets as compared to their international counterparts. This is according to research company International Data Group, which says 55% of Africans surveyed in this category said they owned a tablet device – a figure much lower than the global average of 71%. – ITWeb Africa

Selling IT security products in Africa is not an easy task owing to the continent’s lack of technological and economic maturity. This is according to the marketing and online manager of distribution firm Secure Lab, Dean Falcke, who spoke about the challenges of working on the continent. Secure Lab sells IT security products such as Kaspersky Lab" rel=tag>Kaspersky Lab in particularly the southern African region. – ITWeb Africa

Kenyan politicians have taken to social media network Twitter to interact with and attract voters ahead of the 2013 presidential and general election race. Members who are becoming increasingly active on the social networking site include prime minister Raila Odinga, Uhuru Kenyatta, Martha Karua, William Ruto, Peter Kenneth, and Kalonzo Musyoka. – ITWeb Africa

Abroad

Samsung Electronics scored a partial victory against arch-foe Apple after a US appeals court lifted a freeze on sales of its Galaxy Nexus smartphones but upheld a lower court’s decision to temporarily halt sales of its Galaxy 10.1 tablet computer. Apple accused its Asian rival, the leader in global mobile device sales, in lawsuits of blatantly copying its hot-selling iPhones and iPads. – Reuters

Shares in Nokia fell over 3% recently to go below 1.50 euros for the first time since 1996, showing growing investor fears over the Finnish mobile phone maker’s future. Last month, the company announced a new round of job cuts and warned of weaker profit as it continued to lose market share to rivals including Apple and Samsung. – Reuters