Monthly Archives: July 2010

Samsung Wave Launch Durban

Last night I was invited to the launch of the new Samsung Wave Phone & Bada operating system in Durbs. The event was held in a huge blowup “tent arena” on the outer fields of the ABSA Stadium. It was a pretty swanky affair, with cocktails and sushi on the menu, as well as guys & girls walking around demo’ing the phone.

The evening kicked off with a show by some really talented gymnasts, by doing a show that demonstrated some of the phones features. They then had a DJ playing some awesome tunes, and huge screens with the Samsung Wave plugged in playing the Asphalt car racing game that comes pre-installed on the phone.

Samsung have a huge push to affordable smartphones and the Samsung Wave does impresses in a couple of departments. In fact, I may even go as far as to say, that from it is a close second to the iPhone. The hardware specs of the phone are pretty impressive, and the Super AMOLED touchscreen really looked awesome, although the iPhone 4 has a much higher resolution (640×960) compared to the 400×800 of the Wave. The Wave also offers full HSDPA with WiFi and also has a 5MP camera and video camera. The memory can be expanded to 32GB with a micro SD Card. This post on brighthub compares the iPhone 4 and Samsung Wave pretty well.

The guys from Samsung also officially launched the Bada operating system in SA last night. The Bada OS, is an open source OS developed by Samsung, and offers developers a full SDK to develop apps, and allows them to submit apps to an app store, much like apple, which are then sold through the Samsung app store on the phone. The OS is still pretty new, but from what I could see it has a lot of potential. The SDK uses C++ as it’s development platform, and is only available for Windows at the moment.

Usually before attending an event like this I go and research the phone and the specs etc, but last night I took a different approach and went in, without knowing a single thing about the phone. Everyone I spoke to at the event knew the phones capabilities, and it’s limitations.

Overall, after playing around on the phone for about 5 minutes, I give the Wave a thumbs up :) At almost half the price of an iPhone, it will be the perfect entry level smartphone for people looking to enter the smartphone market, and with it’s own OS, and the potential it offers, I think I can see the phone becoming pretty popular amongst the younger market in SA.

Prime Zulu on Idols

For the first time in a long long time, I have actually enjoyed watching Idols this season. Usually I wait till the latter stages of the competition before actually watching, but this year, I have watched both episodes that have been shown already.

Tonight’s episode was the guys & girls from my home town, Durbs by the sea. There were a couple of really good contestants this eve, and one of them that really stuck out for me, was a guy by the name of Prime Zulu. He hails from a township just outside of Durban, called Kwa Mashu. He tought himself how to play the guitar, after his father has played guitar for most of his life. He sang his rendition of John Legend’s “So High”, playing the guitar as he sang. After the judges told him that he made it through to the next round, he broke down in tears.

But, this isn’t the first time Prime has entered Idols. In fact, last year, we also entered, and also went through to the next round, but didn’t make it through oto the final. But from his performance tonight, it looks like he has upped his game. He has also ben playing regularly at a club in  Kwa Mashu called The Fusion Room, usually on a Sunday afternoon set.

This from the Idols website:

Prime Zulu’s father inspired him to love music and watching his father play guitar gave Prime the resolve to learn how to play his own. His dedication comes from his love of music, and his need to succeed is born from self-preservation. When Prime entered the audition room and let his song fill the air the judges were blown away.

Here is Prime Zulus story, and below that is his audition. I really hope he gets to the finals along with last weeks star, Elvis Blue

Here is his audition:

Good luck :)

Get iSkysoft iPhone Video Converter for FREE

I came across this very cool offer the other day, for a piece of software called iSkysoft iPhone Video Converter, which allows you to convert most video format’s into videos specifically for the iPhone. The software scales the video’s to the correct size, and then allows you to add them to iTunes, which can then be synced to your iPhone or iPad

From the iSkysoft site:

iSkysoft iPhone Video Converter for Mac converts all popular video and audio formats such as AVI, MPEG, MOV, OGG, WAV to iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4 supported formats including MP4, MP3, etc. This Mac iPhone Video Converter software provides a series of practical settings such as video crop, file trim, video brightness, contrast and saturation, and merging multiple files into one outputfile.

The free offer is only valid till the 26th of July, and they will send you a key to use the full functionality. It usually costs $29

To download the software you can go to the iSkySoft site - http://www.iskysoft.com/iphone-video-converter-mac.html for Mac’s or http://www.iskysoft.com/iphone-movie-converter-windows.html

Flipboard – WOW !!!

I got asked the other day, why I haven’t blogged more about my iPad since I got it almost a month ago. Well, the dead honest truth, is that I haven’t been wowed by any apps. There have been a few ( a whole separate blog post) and  News24 & Mix Mobile apps, def did catch my eye, and every morning I read the news on the News24 app.

Well, that was until this morning. Enter Flipboard (iTunes Link). A free app for your iPad from the iTunes app store. Flipboard will revolutionise the way we will use the iPad. It puts the news you WANT to read and is relevent to you, in an awesome looking magazine format.

Here is a video on how the app works:

You simply “swipe” through to the next page, pinch & zoom into an article, and read your news. But for me, the big seller in Flipboard is the fact that it integrates with your social networks. So, it links into Twitter & Facebook and shows you content that has been retweeted or shared by your friends. So for example if someone shares a link on Twitter from any website, it will present it on your Flipboard.

Here is an example. Here is a page from my Flipboard which shows images & stories shared by friends on Facebook.

You can also add specific catgories, like tech & photos etc, which will show you the best of the web. I also love the way page turns and the “animation” it uses.

This is by far one of the best mobile or desktop applications I have used in a long long time. If you have an iPad I highly recommend you download Flipboard, and if you don’t have an iPad, I suggest you download the app, and go and buy one :)

Elvis Blue on South African Idols season 6

UPDATE (2 Nov) – YES !!! Elvis Blue won SA Idols season 6, after I called it in the post below :)

Last night I managed to catch the last couple of minutes of the first episode of the new Idols season on MNet, and one of the contestants towards the end of the show, was a guy by the name of Elvis Blue. The name is a stage name, which is in memory of a friend of his, named Elvis Blue, who was an 11 year old boy who died of HIV/AIDS last year. The little boy’s dream was to be a rockstar and after his death Jan adopted his name and went out to pursue Elvis Blue’s dream by entering Idols. He also helps Aids orphans in the George area learn to play guitar and donates used guitars to the children.

Elvis Blue’s whose real name is Jan Hoogendyk, is actually quite an accomplished Afrikaans Gospel singer, and has 2 albums called Diep Riviere & Ontskemer out, the latter which was nominated for a SAMA award earlier this year. He also appeared on Kyknet show Kwela last year, talking about his Diep Riviere album. Jan was also previously part of the Joburg group Mono who released 3 albums in within a 5 year period. It looks like Elvis Blue is a new project for Jan, and so far he seems to have gripped loads of people heart strings.

Elvis Blue played a cover version of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love“. The song was amazing, and even had one of the Idols judges in tears. I know I also felt a couple of goosebumps as well. You can also follow updates from Elvis Blue on his Facebook Fanpage & Twitter

Here is the video of the song from his audition. I’m putting my money on Elvis Blue to take it to the end, and win Idols. Amazing….

(If the video doesn’t seem to load, refresh the page)

[Hat tip to Justin for prompting this blog post :) ]