For the last week or so, I’ve been pondering a thought provoking article in the July 2008 issue of Wired - ‘The Petabyte Age,’ by Chris Anderson. I call it thought provoking because Anderson asserts that current statistical and theoretical methods will be trumped by the availability of HUGE amounts of data - PetaBytes (1000’s of terabytes), and the ability to process it. The basic idea is that with enough amounts of data, the numbers will eventually speak for themselves. I suppose the other reason this peaked my interest is that about a month ago I wrote about 'Crowdsourcing and the future of crisis reporting'. With enough data, you’d be able to ‘quite possibly’ predict future human and environmental disasters! While large amounts of data exist, the problem to date has been how to process it, and that’s how cloud computing comes into place.

Cloud computing is a relatively new word. Some people have used the term grid computing to refer to the same thing. It basically refers to the outsourcing and consolidation of computing services and resources. I’ll explain some more so that you can understand. The biggest nightmare to most companies IT departments has been dealing with scalability and the processing power or storage that is required to address it. Enter cloud computing companies - which would basically provide you with on-demand capacity as you grow. Some big companies you know have already been providing such services for the last few years; Amazon, Google, IBM and many more, each striving to be the next general-purpose computing platform. Basic services like Google Docs and Amazon S3 are modest examples of cloud computing.

Lately I’ve been following Google’s forays into Africa. Especially interesting has been the introduction of the Google Global Cache (You can read more about it on White African’s blog). Google in their infinite wisdom has come up with a way to deal with the voracity for data on the African continent. Because bandwidth demand surpasses supply, they would store the web on their servers and serve it up to users based on the shortest path to location, thereby improving performance. Some would call this cloud computing at its best. This would save on bandwidth costs for ISP’s, and improve performance for their customers. Wow!

If you don’t already know by now, that ‘Wow!’ in my last paragraph was meant to be sarcastic. While I applaud google’s efforts, google is inherently a corporation whose goal is ultimately profit. Google China is a prime example of how this all comes into play. Search results for ‘Tiananmen Square’, ‘Falun Gong’ or ‘Tibet’ yield far different results within China than outside it. The fallacies of cloud computing start to become clear. If a whole continent outsources its computing needs, isn’t this data then open to manipulation by the 3rd entity (Google) and other political and profit motivated interests?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Africa stands to benefit a great deal from ‘this’ faster access, but I think this means we need to step up our efforts to increase bandwidth instead of depending on a 3rd parties for access to information. We are at the dawn of the age of information, opening up new paradigms of thinking (some jokingly call it the age of mis-information). Just as happened during the industrial age, new products and integrated services are jostling for attention and marketplace attention. Ultimately there will be just a few winners.

 Email This Post

This month, the construction of the $235 million East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) project will begin following the approval of $70.7 million in start-up funds from the IFC, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), Germany's (KfW) and the AFD of France.

The 10,000km fibre-optic cable connecting South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, and Sudan will be laid by French firm Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, while firms from Britain , India , Saudi Arabia , the United Arab Emirates and the US are also part of the ambitious venture.

Initially the EASSy initiative would cut costs by up to two-thirds. Current costs of internet access in the region range from $200 to $300 a month.

Let me also point out that Kenya probably stands to benefit the most from this initiative for a number of reasons:

• It has both the population level and a density of private sector activity to be different
• Consumer and Business confidence has increased substantially with a liberalised regime. We hope that a similar climate can be maintained after the 2007 elections
• The market is readying itself for the arrival of cheaper bandwidth. This is evident with the increase in the number of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) companies already maxing out the available satellite bandwidth

 Email This Post

It is with great anticipation that I awaited the 3-part documentary 'Diamond Road' that's currently airing on the Discovery Times Channel. I thought this might be a good follow up to another documentary - 'Blood Diamonds' that aired on the History Channel. While the focus of the documentaries might be different, the core message is the same - The diamond industry has been taking us for a ride!

My article is titled 'A Solution To Conflict Diamonds' because it looks like the industry is about implode on itself. Two startups in America are launching an all-out assault on the cartels. Gemesis (Florida) and Apollo Diamond (Boston) are now manufacturing gem-quality synthetic diamonds, replicating in two weeks the 100 million years that nature needs to make diamonds from coal.

As it turns out, it is now getting close to impossible to find any discernible differences between synthetic and natural diamonds. The $7 billion industry has been shaken to its core with unfathomable implications - public perception will surely be affected. In my opinion it can only mean that diamonds will become more affordable as the two startups increase their yearly carat output. Hopefully this will make mining diamonds a worthless endeavour and put an end to the madness.

Diamonds have always been steeped in mystery purposefully in an industry that's increasingly heartless and indifferent - except to the end users of course, who have been duped into believing that a marriage cannot work without a diamond. Conflict diamonds have been sold to buy weapons for the mass slaughter of innocent victims while the diamond cartels like De Beers profit.

 Email This Post

I’m going to contradict myself here - I criticized the iPhone before it launched, but as soon as I laid my hands on it, all I could think of was ‘Eureka!’. My friend Hash at the White African blog has been preaching  mobile computing in Africa for quite a while now, but none of us could have seen this coming. indulge me for a moment…

Phones are the prevalent computing devices in Africa, but they have numerous drawbacks (a ball and chain if you will):

• There are so many types of phones and mobile operating systems that developing software for them is extremely arduous
• The WAP Protocol (Protocol that allows online access on phones) serves up multimedialess web pages that offer little or no interaction
• Developing websites for mobile phones is a resource hog, in terms of labor

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The iPhone on the other hand gives us the one thing that has become standard across all computers - a true web browser. The real magnitude of this will unravel in coming years. We have come to depend heavily on the web browser for work and play, and having one on your hip means we’re set to become an ‘always on, always connected’ society. Imagine checking your email, reading news, monitoring stocks and viewing FaceBook or MySpace without the need for special software! I suspect by now you see where I’m headed with this.

The device still has an exorbitant price tag, but this is sure to come down. Either way, a standard has been set, and other companies are sure to follow. More later…

 Email This Post

Early last month Rwanda's president, Kagame inaugurated Africa's largest solar energy plant, proving once again that Rwanda can stay ahead of the curve in the adoption of new technology on the continent. The plant generates only 250kW, which isn't much, but definitely a sign of things to come.

Also on the horizon is the harnessing of methane gas from lake Kivu, which could potentially generate up to 700mW!

At this point I should mention that while renewable energy holds the great promise of energy independence, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that by 2030 only 14 percent of total energy demand will be met from renewable sources. I tend to disagree with this notion because solar cell efficiency has been improving steadily every year, converting even more of the sun's energy into electricity. Solar power will be in widespread use in a decade or so.

 Email This Post

Safaricom, Kenya's most profitable company has launched a major disruptor… M-PESA is a new money transfer service in which ordinary SMS (text messaging) is used to initiate a transfer. Kenyans will deposit or access the money through Safaricom agents like supermarkets or shops situated all over the country. They can can then send money to other mobile phone users via SMS even if they're not Safaricom subscribers.

Only Safaricom subscribers can send M-PESA, but anyone who can receive an sms can receive money by MPESA. Customers do not need to have a bank account to benefit from M-PESA services. 

This service is the first of its kind in the world, and frankly I'm quite surprised (and pleased) Kenya was the country chosen to test such an innovative new idea. I call this a disruptor, because it could have a major impact on traditional money transfer services like Western Union, Moneygram and the newly launched PostaPay.

 Email This Post

For the last week, I've had the privilege of testing out what I believe to be the future of television. Another creation from the well known disruptors of the decade. The same guys who brought you: Kazaa - Peer to Peer file sharing and Skype - Free PC to PC calling.

The duo of Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström have thrown yet another spanner into the cog wheels of the system. Their new product 'Joost' revolutionizes television - using the same principle as their first two products by running on a hybrid peer-to-peer platform. The principle is simple in theory; stream data, in real time on a global scale by distributing the load throughout the peer-to-peer network.

Anyhow… enough of the technical mumbo jumbo. Basically you can watch high quality streaming tv on your computer. I was blown away by just how good the quality was in full screen mode. That coupled with the fact that the tv stream was smooth, no skipping or stuttering. This is truly a peek into the future. Joost has a slick interface that allows you to watch movies, documentaries and music on demand. Currently, Joost channels are like playlists of videos. You can flip between channels, or use the program guide to choose a channel or a video to watch. The channels start when you play them and not at any particular day or time. If you let them continue they will loop round to the beginning again.

I have Joost installed on my laptop and home pc and so far I'm impressed beyond words.

 Email This Post