Issue 6 Release Notes

This month’s feature on the revolution of smartphones, together with MTN Uganda’s launch of 3.5G internet technology bring an very interesting dimension to service delivery, especially for people who work in positions that rely heavily on email. Lately, that is pretty much everyone that sits behind a desk with a computer at work. MTN has come up with several packages that enable subscribers to access the internet “anywhere”, “anytime”. It is, of course more convinient for those using Smartphones. Unfortunately for East Africans, there aren’t many “conventional” outlets for these phones, and the few ones available have greatly hiked their prices. Worse still, there are many fake ones on the market, mostly shipped from China, and going for as low as 10% of the price of the original ones. This  poses a serious problem to someone going out to buy a smartphone for the first time.

In our cover story therefore, we’ve done an extensive investigation into the smartphone industry, with an idea on how to buy. We hope that with this kind of guide, choosing your next phone will become easier.
MTN upgraded to 3.5G and also brought an innovation that will bring back the memories of the World Cup: their new modem is shaped like the official World Cup ball. We have done a review of this modem. What I was asking myself is why they did not write there, “keep out of reach of children”, because it is expected that children will start kicking the nice looking internet gadget the first time they get an opportunity.
We have continued our coverage of mobile health technologies with an exclusive interview with Mr. Bas Hoefman, the founder and Director of Text to Change, an SMS service aiding health care in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Apps4Africa, a development contest which will challenge technically minded East Africans to build digital applications to solve big social problems such as government transparency or lack of public health information, is currently on-going. Joshua Goldstein, the cordinator, discusses key questions about the contest, and its objectives.
Also, we have consolidated our commitment to facilitating ICT Education in Africa. Last month we launched yet another initiative, Digital Learning Africa, which is basically, an online resource platform. We are populating it with teaching/learning resources for all students across Africa. You will also read about this initiave and the objectives for its establishment.
In our pictorial, we have published photos for some of the key activities in which PC Tech was involved over the month of July.
Don’t miss the regular sections: What’s New, Features, Reviews, Research, Gaming and leisure.

If you are reading online, the FREEVIEW is a summary of the magazine.
I hope you find this magazine as interesting as we feel it is.