SA Solar Challenge
The Sasol SA Solar Challenge pulls into Bloemfontein today. The bi-annual event is dominated by two Japanese teams again this year – one of which plans to set a land speed record after the event at around 170km/h. Teams take part in a 5400km 2 week trek. The South African teams have been having some teething problems – often completing the day’s leg on a trailer. Simon Gear has been part of the journey and joined us from the Free State.

Simfy
More than a decade after iTunes changed the music landscape forever, South African labels are finally trying to play catch-up. Last year, for the first time, digital sales of music surpassed that of physical sales in the United States. Simfy Africa is a new service that gives you access to digital music. Nokia has had a similar offering, but it was limited to a small amount of phone models and was never going to catch on. Simfy allows you, for a monthly fee, to gain access to 18 million different tracks. It’s available online, on your hard drive or your smartphone and tablet. For the first time ever, you can LEGALLY build a digital music collection.

Cheap tablets
In his latest column on gadget.co.za Arthur Goldstuck writes that Cheap tablet computers are flooding the market – but they can cost you if you don't choose carefully. News of a tablet computer available through a South African “group buying” site for just R745 sent ripples of astonishment through the retail community this week. It was selling like hotcakes, partly because its value was claimed to be R1230. However, the device, an All Winner A13 7” tablet with 512 MB of RAM, is a staple of cheap tablet web sites in China, where it sells for as low as $55 – less than R500. On a local auction site, a unit was recently sold for R800.

Paperight
Paperight bridges the gap between technology and legacy. If you are not able to get the books you need at a local shop, then you can buy the rights from Paperight and have them printed out at a copy shop. Paperight estimates savings will be around 20%. But the convenience is priceless. www.paperight.com

Facebook Listing
Facebook's entry to the stock market -- expected Friday -- will be a timeline-shaking corporate event, but users may find nothing new to like or dislike. Expect the same babbling wall posts, ill-advised photos and links to the weird and wonderful dark corners of the Internet. But a few years from now, the ripple effects of Friday's events could make things look dramatically different. From now on, the company will come under relentless pressure from profit-hungry investors to monetize you, the humble Facebook user. "Going public could certainly change the user experience within Facebook," said James Lenz a professor of business at Rice University.

Internet in Africa
Broadband connectivity will be one of the major spurs to the growth of African economies over the next decade, but there is still plenty of work to be done in building the telecommunications backbone that will connect the continent to the global village. This is according to Aidan Baigrie, Head of Business Development at SEACOM, who was speaking at the Sixth Annual Africa Economic Forum. He says that broadband is to the 21st century what railways were to the last century – the engine of social and economic progress that forges economic links between countries and supercharges trade and transactions. One World Bank study found a 1.3% increase in GDP for every 10% increase in broadband connectivity – an illustration of just how important connectivity is in Africa’s growth path. Though the relationship between GDP and broadband may not be one of simple direct causality, there is no doubt that access to information, communication and education helps countries to grow their economies at a rapid rate. Baigrie says that new international cables such as SEACOM have helped to boost the performance of the Internet in many African countries while reducing costs for the end-user. In service since July 2009, SEACOM alone has seen more than 10-fold increases in bandwidth penetration in several of Africa’s most underserved nations, along with big drops in connectivity prices. Many African operators are also investing in national backhaul links and the last mile. Yet there is still a long way to go. Africa has less than 0.4 Tbps of international connectivity going into Europe, compared to nearly 5.0 Tbps of capacity between Europe and the US. Demand for connectivity in Africa is still spiking, meaning that there will need to be plenty of investment to keep up.

SMME's on the Internet
South Africa is about to reach a crucial moment in the evolution of the Internet. Not only is Internet access becoming more affordable, it is also becoming more accessible as people from a variety of economic backgrounds are increasingly accessing the Internet using their mobile phones. “This will have a profound effect on how businesses provide information and services to a growing online savvy user base,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx. Goldstuck, principal analyst for the annual SME Survey in South Africa, points to a coming watershed that will make it all the more crucial for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to have an effective online presence. “More than ever, the sustainability and competitiveness of SMEs in South Africa has become a critical component in an economy struggling to create jobs,” says Goldstuck. “It is therefore vital to determine those factors that will ensure that SMEs are able to make an effective contribution to job creation, while ensuring their own survival and prosperity.”

Near field communications
While technology see considerable milestone every all so often making it easier for people to carry funds without it being in hard cold cash, is something that a lot of banks have been trying to do. With South Africa’s pioneering of the pay-as-you-go system on cellphones, the system has emerged as a leader in digital payments by those customers who are on the move. This development has now seen that introduction of the "Tap-and-go" system. This system uses a technology called near-field communications (NFC) to make a transaction with a smartphone. So, instead of swiping a credit card, one merely has to touch the phone to an NFC reader. To speak to us about this and more about new advances of us being part of the cashless society, we are joined by editor of stuff magazine, Toby Shapshack.

Facebook to list its stocks
As the 2011 calendar year winds down, Facebook is said to now be making concrete steps toward its planned initial public offering. The Wall Street Journal on Monday afternoon published a report stating that Facebook plans to publicly list its shares on the stock market in Spring 2012, specifically looking at “dates between April 2012 and June 2012.” Facebook’s CFO David Ebersman is currently in talks with investment banks angling to underwrite the IPO, but the company has not entered into any mandates yet, according to the WSJ. The IPO will reportedly value the company at more than $100 billion.

Google + opens to brands and companies
Google is now allowing companies and brands to have a presence on its social offering Google+. The avenue, called Google+ Pages means that the social network is no longer the preserve of individuals. In an official blog post the internet giant explained the decision as a natural part of the social network’s evolution: “So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people. But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.” Since opening up to the public, Google+ has attracted over 40-million users who, up until now, have all been private individuals. The goal of the social network, Google says, remains one of allowing people to share their real-life experiences online.