Today I spent some time with the folks from Nokia South Africa and got to play with the N8. This is the second time I’ve checked out the device, but I’m not allowed to talk about the first.

The N8 is a make-or-break play for Nokia. The Finnish cellphone manufacturer is the dominant mobile device vendor in the world but has been lagging behind in the smartphone market where it has had its ass handed to it by the likes of Apple and BlackBerry. The Nokia N97 was a bit a of a fail, but Nokia has astutely focused on services such as Ovi Maps and its Music Store – and services are key to winning in the smartphone space. That doesn’t mean you can get away with having crappy hardware, however.

The N8 is Nokia’s answer to the iPhone and the plethora of Android devices that are flooding the market. After playing with this device and seeing it in action these are the most important things I think you need to know: (more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS is a major release of the operating system Mark Shuttleworth and his company Canonical first released in 2004. In this interview with Simon Dingle Shuttleworth discusses the significance of the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, competitor operating systems, the move to cloud services, open source advocacy and how it has changed in recent years, application distribution, social networking, smartphones and other topics.

Shuttleworth is a South African philanthropist and internet entrepreneur who started the company Thawte in 1995 and went on to sell it to Verisign at the turn of the century in a US$575 million deal. He then became the second ever self-funded civilian astronaut traveling to the international space station as a member of the Soyuz TM-34/TM-33 missions. Upon his return to earth Mark formed the Shuttleworth Foundation and Canonical.

Simon Dingle recently authored a chapter on Mark Shuttleworth for the book South Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs. The publication will be available in September 2010.

Use the audio player above to stream the interview or click here to download the mp3 file.

The streets of South Africa are awash with hawkers selling cheap flags and drivers that have turned their cars into mobile shrines for whichever football team they support for the 2010 World Cup that gets underway in June. It’s a generally tacky affair, but I’m prone to letting people do whatever the hell they want as long as it doesn’t involve imposing on anyone else’s freedoms or punching me in the face.

The World Cup is a goldmine. For FIFA. But also for the other companies that manage to slip their own brand into the mix. Chinese company Huawei has used its relationship with MTN – an official sponsor of the sporting event – to do just that, launching the Huawei F@stlink E2010 3G modem in the shape of the official ‘Jabulani’ soccer ball designed by Adidas. And you know what? I like it. (more…)

Telecommunications group Vodacom has launched its Linkbook into the SA market – a super-low price netbook that will go for R199 per month on a two-year contract, including a monthly bandwidth bundle of 300MB. (more…)