But have you seen the 3D View? Yup, how insane is that?

Click for bigger image

How do you activate it?
- Well, firstly you go to maps.google.com
- Search for the street in Cape Town you’re looking for.
- Then Drag the orange “Pegman” onto your street.
- Voila! Streetview (Or click here for an example )
- Then for the 3D, it’s as easy as right clicking on the image in Google Maps and selecting “3D on”. Easy Peasy!
But you’ll need a pair of these:

Will be weird walking in on someone scanning Google Maps wearing a pair of those..
-A-

Then Mike showed me Web Africa’s latest Facebook online Campaign. You have got to check it out here.
Now here’s the BOMBSHELL. They are giving away iPADs. What?! You heard me. And it’s so effing easy to stand a chance. Check this:

Normally, I’d keep this a secret, but this is so awesome you gotta give it a shot.
Holding thumbs!
-A-

Flashback.
The year was 1995 and  the Sony Playstation was just released, this in a time when I was still saving to buy a Famicom TV Game (a Nintendo knockoff that came with those 100 in 1 cartridges). Oh how I lusted at the sight of the Playstation. Our local video store then got some in and started hiring them out, my heart yearned to take one home with me. One afternoon while cruising the magazine section at CNA I saw it, a PCFormat magazine with the Metal Gear Solid Ninja on its cover. I read the entire article right there and then and was convinced that I needed to play that game! My sanity depended on it. So I saved up some coin and hired MGS and a playstation early one saturday morning, then proceeded to play the game for as much of the  24 hours I had it as possible. Well, actually I was kinda forced to, seeing as how they did not hire memory cards making me have to finish the game in one go.

Epic Ninja picture that started it all

So where am I going with this? From that day I was hooked. Let me tell you this, I have never owned a Playstation, but I started religiously buying Playstation magazines. Leaving me with a pile of Game Previews and Ratings but yet no actual Playstation.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Fast forward to 2009 and I was now one year into my  two year Vodacom contract with a despicable HTC S740. Only other owners of S740′s know of the pain I speak of. I choose it because I was unsure, unsure whether I would like a fully touch screen cellphone and would not miss a Qwerty pad. Biggest mistake ever! You might know that the S740 runs with Windows Mobile 6.1, probably the worst phone OS I have ever had the displeasure using. I even dropped the HTC a few times (accidentally) and cracked the screen, didn’t even bother me. Now the outside matched the software inside. My desparation got so bad that I started entering competitions such as WebAddiCTs “Win a Google phone” competition. I started already looking at what my next phone would be. It was around this time that I started noticing people around me having iPhones, and they seemed very happy about their little mini-Mac phone, sometimes even obsessively so. I looked at them and thought “wow, they such Apple Fanboys” but then wondered where this intense patriotism came from. Soon after that I wandered into an iStore and played around with the demo model. It just felt right. I was hooked.

2010
2010 came around and Apple lust started consuming me, I subscribed to RSS Feeds with ipad and iPhone content. I questioned my strange excitement when Gizmodo ran a series for post detailing the iphone 4 that they had “bought”. Then the inevitable, I installed iTunes and started downloading Free iphone Apps from the US Store (Marc Forrest has a nice Tut showing you how). I now have 73 Apps that I have not yet used, all in anticipation to the soon to be released “iPhone 4″. So once again I have media but no actual device. Even scarier is that I am already looking in the mirror and seeing th Apple Fanboy I once mocked. Perhaps only Google with their Android platform can save me from becoming a Steve Jobs slave (but I could wear a black Turtle neck and make it work…).
Below you can see an iTunes Screenshot of the Apps I have downloaded. The iTunes Appstore has a great selection of Games, Social networking and reference Apps but it is an area Google with the Andriod Appstore will start aggresively tackling in months to come. At the moment I still feel that Apple Quality over Andriod Quantity is better, but time will tell as to how this pans out. What makes it hard for me to get a better sense of a Andriod phone is that I cant walk into a Google “iStore” and play with the device. This is an area where Apple is doing well to convert sceptics, like I once was.

Click on the image above to view the larger image

With a week and a half to Steve Job WWDC 2010 announcement where he will show the world the latest incarnation of the iphone I’m looking forward to the following features:
- The new design
- Video Recording at 720p
- Improved display “960×640″?
- Flash for the Camera
-  The Game Centre

The soon to be released iPhone 4th Generation

Oh, I’m sure your noticed the hint in the blog title to a particular Jay-Z song. If you didnt click the link below to watch the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etl9kkIGaHo Jay Z 99
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and come back in a few months when I have cleansed myself from the HTC S740 and will be basking in iPhone awesomeness
-A-

Rafiq Phillips your Cape Town Web AddiCT has also been delivering great posts on Andriod Mobile advancement and it’s adoption by Cellphone Manufacturers.
His recent post to win a Android phone comes as a godsend as I’ve been considering Andriod as a replacement to my disfigured HTC S740.

Shoulda gotten a case... I know

I mean really, how is a self-confessed Geek supposed to enjoy my mobile online fix with such a device. Even had the screen not have been cracked the Windows Mobile 6.1 experience alone makes this a undesirable device (Dont know why I thought WinMo was a good idea)

For More on the OpenMoko FreeRunner check Rafiq’s post here.
-A-

Some Key Features:
- Has a 1Ghz “Snap Dragon” Chip
- High-resolution OLED touchscreen
- No Physical Keyboard but possibly has Speech to Text input
- 5 Mega-pixel Camera
- Andriod 2.1 “Flan”

Google Mobile Tech Considerations:
- Google Maps now offer Turn based Directions free from Android 1.6 and higher
- Google has recently Purchased Gizmo5, a a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers (Think Skype Competitor).
- The Nexus One will be more than a Cellphone, but positioned as a Data Device comprising of Text, Web and Voice Call information.
- Google does not charge consumers for its services (excluding Enterprise web app versions), They prefer to target Advertisers as their revenue stream. Could this phone possibly be free?
From the Google Website note their Business Strategy “Google generates the majority of its revenue by offering advertisers measurable, cost-effective and highly relevant advertising”

So are we looking at a Free Phone bundled with Mobile Adword suggestions? Perhaps South Africa and the emerging markets around us need this technology to lift mobile web onto the next level?
I met with Johanna from the Google Johannesburg Office earlier today. She indicated that the three key area’s in the emerging markets for Google are Finance, Travel and E-commerce. These Targets make sense to me.
The Finance Sector as Banks compete heavily for your money. The Travel Sector is huge in terms of online search. And e-commerce (especially on mobile platforms) is an emerging tech that we all expect to spike in 2010.

Image by one of Google's "Dogfooders"

What tricks does Flan have up it's sleeve?

So… affordable 5MP Smartphone with a touchscreen, connected to the “Cloud” with VoIP Call Rates? Excuse me while I change my underwear….
-A-

Blu-ray has been available for about three years now. Despite being the replacement to DVD I’ve not seen a big shift toward this technology, which I expected with Stores such as Hi-Fi Corporation and Game offering more “affordable” Full-HD Ready TV’s

The format battle with HD-DVD seems to have stunted the growth of Blu-ray as it spent it’s infant years proving it’s the superior technology. HD-DVD lost. End of the story? I don’t think so, into the picture steps the soon to be released USB 3.0 aka “USB Super Speed”, which will offer Flash media a major boost in Data Transfer. I would have loved to add Video streaming/Download but this transfer technology can really only be comparable in the US and Euro regions, we have some way to go here in South Africa.

The argument I  forward is that the next generation of hardware devices will should look to the Flash Media format to replace the now aging optical reader options. The Apple Macbook is a good example of how Hard Drive technology has moved to Solid State Drives (SSD).

Teardown any Blu-ray player or Game Console and you’ll see that other than the motherboard the optical drive takes up prime space. Annoyingly with optical media are the delays and noise associated with spin up as the drive reads data from the disk. Sony made a good move with Blu-ray in it’s release of the PS3, Microsoft it seems has lucked out by sticking with the now dying DVD Format. So the we look again to the Game Console manufacturers for when they release their specification of their next generations, albeit 3 years away. For now the Sony Fanboys will continue to bash the xbox die-hards over at LazyGamer.

My money’s on Flash Media For The Win, here’s a summarised breakdown why Flash Media will own Blu-ray at some point:
- Faster Data Transfer:  Bluray = 54 Mbit/s  | USB3 = 3.2 GBit/s
- Smaller Form Factor both for Media and Reader
- Capacity: Bluray = 50Gb | USB = 128Gb

How many of you already have USB flash drives anyway?
-A-

Edit: I’ve updated this article to correct some errors, USB is a BUS Technology where Bluray is a STORAGE Technology. I put forward that USB 3.0 will give Flash Media the edge over Bluray Optical media. Perhaps this was not clearly described in the original post, my apologies

From engadget

Nokia rocked the world this morning by introducing its spin on the laptop, called the Booklet 3G. If you’re the rude sort  you could call it a fancy netbook, what with its Atom processor and 10.1-inch display, but that screen is higher res than your average Eee, and it also sports integrated 3G wireless and a hot-swappable SIM card, so it’s definitely trying to define its own niche. It looks to be running Windows 7, which isn’t particularly netbooky, and also has integrated A-GPS with a copy of Ovi Maps, HDMI output, a rated 12 hour battery life, and the usual Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, all in a 2cm (.78 inch), 2.7lb aluminum body that’s understated, sophisticated, and should make most Nokia fans very happy — Nokia fans who are looking for a tiny laptop, anyway. There’s a fancy promotional video after the break, and while we don’t have any anticipated release date or price just yet, we’ll be learning more at Nokia World 09 on September 2. We promise not to make too manyFoleo references.

Personally, I’m not convinced. It doesnt look half as sexy as the Apple options, how about you?
-A-