Just when everyone had agreed that Econet and the other GSM mobile operators are scared of VoIP, the largest telecommunications firm in Zimbabwe has come out to launch that very service. Tomorrow, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe will launch Econet VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) at an event to be held in Harare.

We’ve been receiving bits of information (and some reaction) to Telecel’s re-branding push that we wrote about 2 days ago. According to a reliable source, revelation of the new red colors and new logo were scheduled to happen on the 13th February. Yes, just before Valentine’s Day.

About two weeks ago when Google launched Search plus Your World, we wrote an article noting that what was really worrying was not anti-trust lawsuits or the war of words that ensued between the search giant and Twitter. More worrying was Google’s betrayal of the trust that we the users have in it to deliver the best search results.

Before we moved the comments system on this site from Disqus to Facebook about a week ago, we had thought about it for a while and the decision wasn’t any easy one to make. Eventually we decided to move. And this is why:

If you have been to the Telecel Zimbabwe Harare city branch in the past few days, you probably noticed the mobile operator is changing its colors. The new Telecel Zim, as you can see from the picture below, will be red. The outgoing is the blue logo on the right.

We just got news that Zimbabwe Online (ZOL) has been acquired by the Liquid Telecommunications Group. ZOL is now officially part of the Liquid Telecom Group. From the information available to us so far, ZOL will remain an independent company in terms of branding and operations.

Having read so many comments and stories here on how you cannot access PayPayl services in restricted countries like Zimbabwe, I felt compelled to share how you can use PayPal without having access to PayPal, having no PayPal account, and without the means to create a PayPal account.

The internet is on strike today. One of the most popular website globally, Wikipedia, has blacked out in protest against SOPA and PIPA. If you visit Wikipedia today it will load you a black page with the following text:

Today, we have some exciting news that we know tech entrepreneurs, developers, designers and others among you would love to hear. At the end of this week, JumpStart, an initiative we’re part of, will be holding its inaugural event at the Harare Club in Harare.

I had a chance to see the “hot” mobile phones in Wedza in all their shapes and sizes. The Chinese made models topped the list perhaps because of their key features – dual sim support, high audio output, multimedia support (ability to play a range of audio file formats, record audio/video clips and snap JPEG photos with reasonable resolution).

The term “piracy” implies that the wide availability of unauthorized copies of copyrighted content is the result of bad actors preying on the legitimate market. But history teaches us that it is primarily a result of market failure, the unwillingness or inability of existing companies to provide their product at a price or in a manner that potential customers want.

Good news like this press release travels fast. No sooner had it been published than Zimguardian picked it up and repeated the PR. It’s said if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. Eventually a big local daily newspaper, the NewsDay, picked the lie and amplified it yesterday. But in these connected times we live in there’s high risk repeating a lie; someone will eventually call you out on it.