Richards Bay and eMalahleni (Witbank) have become the latest two cities to get “speedcover” by Cell C as part of the national rollout of its HSPA+ 900/2100 network.

 

Cell C’s CEO Lars P. Reichelt stated that the company’s new network covers 98% of the city population of both Richards Bay and eMalahleni. These new HSPA+ network enables average speeds of between 5-8 Mbps in downloads in Richards Bay and 7-11 Mbps in downloads in eMalahleni with average upload speeds in both cities between 2-3 Mbps.

 

As part of the new network rollout in these two areas, Cell C also donated internet connectivity to two local schools in the region. Dover Combined School based in Empangeni and TP Sililo High School in Tasbet Park each received a modem, 60 GB data bundle as well as a wireless router to allow for multiple users to be connected at the same time.

 

We have good reason to believe that Cell C will be switching on this service for Pretoria and Johannesburg next week. 

 

 

Nvidia released its financial results for Q3 of fiscal 2011 that ended on 31 October 2010. The company’s revenue of $843.9 million is up 4% from the prior quarter and down 6.6% from $903.2 million from the same period last year.

 

During the conference call Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia’s president and chief executive officer, stated that a variable flood of “truly remarkable” Android tablets are on the way to take on Cupertino’s popular iPad.

 

According to Cnet, these tablets will be released early next year and are expected to use Android 3.0, also known as Gingerbread, an operating system (OS) optimised for larger displays.

 

“Look at the Samsung Galaxy Tab. It’s a tablet that uses a phone operating system on a large display. A tablet is not a large phone.”

 

 

 

It would seem that it isn’t only Dell that wants its employees to ditch their company issued BlackBerry devices. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Bank of America and Citigroup are also mulling over whether to equip their staff with Apple’s iPhone 4 as an alternative to Research In Motion’s BlackBerry smartphones, like the Bold 9700 for corporate e-mail. The banks are also reportedly testing software for the iPhone, which will make it secure enough for company messages.

 

 

 

According to TechCrunch, the search giant offered a staff engineer that was being courted by social networking behemoth Facebook, a whopping $3.5 million (around R24.35 million) in restricted company stock to stay put. He accepted Google’s counter offer, but in September it was reported that the company offered a different engineer a 15% raise plus $500 000 in restricted stock, but that employee opted to move over to Facebook.

 

In related news, Google has stated that it isn't working on its own social network that will allow it to compete head-on with Facebook. "We're not working on a social network platform that's just going to be another social network platform," the company's head of mobile product development, Hugo Barra, said at the Monaco Media Forum. "We do think that social is an ingredient for success for any app going forward, search and advertising being probably the best two examples that I would mention. So that's how we're thinking about the problem."

 

 

 

According to Cnet, Audi A1 E-tron prototype is fitted with a factory-installed Wi-Fi hotspot that supports up to eight devices, while its multi media interface (MMI) integrates Google Earth navigation with three-dimensional graphics and Internet search.

 

The Audi A1 E-tron prototype employs a 45-kilowatt electric motor powered by a 12-kilowatt battery in order to deliver a travelling range of almost 50 km. For the long haul though it also boasts a small gasoline engine that generates electricity to recharge the battery and extends its range by an additional 200 km.