Tech Central

Google has added five Western Cape wineries to its popular Street View service in Google Maps and will begin collecting images in Botswana in the next few weeks, the Internet giant says in a new blog post.

The five new wineries – Boekenhoutskloof, Groot Constantia, Hartenberg, Môreson, Rustenburg Wines and Warwick – bring to 30 the number of wineries now available in Street View. Google uses specially equipped trikes and cars to take the images.

Talks between JSE-listed telecommunications group Telkom and Korea’s KT Corp appear to be progressing well. In an update to shareholders on Friday, Telkom says a “diagnostic review” is “well progressed” and the two companies expect to finalise their finding within the next few weeks.

Multinational media company Naspers released its interim results for the six months to 30 September on Tuesday. They show subsidiary MultiChoice has enjoyed far slower growth than in 2010 but the group’s Internet interests are expanding rapidly and accounting for much of its growth.

Consolidated revenues were up 17%. Though its largely offshore Internet businesses grew during the period, subscriber growth at MultiChoice, which owns DStv and M-Net, slowed after a flurry of activity in 2010 driven by the soccer World Cup.

JSE-listed IT services company Business Connexion (BCX) has turned in a poor set of financial results in its 2011 financial year to end-August. CEO Benjamin Mophatlane says the company has had a “tough year” and the results “haven’t met expectations”.

Its technology and innovation divisions posted the most disappointing results. Mophatlane says the company’s recent acquisitions — of selected assets from IT company UCS and of the Canoa Group — have turned in “pleasing results”. UCS and Canoa Group contributed 11.4% of BCX’s revenue in the financial year.

The department of communications is moving to wrest control over management of SA’s scarce radio frequency spectrum from industry regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), a reading of the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill, published last week, shows.

The bill gives power to the minister of communications, rather than Icasa, to determine how spectrum — some of which is in high demand from telecommunications operators — will be divided up.

The eNews Channel is fuming after it went off air for 47 minutes on Monday during President Jacob Zuma’s press conference at which he axed two of his ministers and announced a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle. The channel says it is compiling a report into what happened and will demand answers from DStv, owned by MultiChoice, which it is blaming for the incident.

The fault started at 2.08pm on Monday, shortly before Zuma began addressing the media. Hundreds of frustrated viewers took to social media services like Twitter to vent their frustration.

Telkom’s mobile arm, 8ta, has built six base stations using next-generation long-term evolution (LTE) wireless broadband technology, with 50 sites under construction and plans to expand the network to Cape Town and Durban in the next few months as part of a field trial.

Dimension Data’s Internet Solutions (IS) subsidiary has increased its shareholding in its Kenyan unit from 51% to 80%, as part of a long-term strategy to increase its presence across East Africa. IS initially acquired a 51% stake in Kenyan service provider iConnect in 2005, which was duly rebranded IS Kenya following the transaction.

BlackBerry’s popularity in SA is showing signs of waning, while consumer predilection towards Apple and HTC is skyrocketing. This is according to new research by BMI-TechKnowledge, which surveyed early adopters of smartphones.

Nokia came off worst in the research, showing the largest drop in popularity among respondents.

Ryan Smit, the digital consumer unit head at BMI-T, says the study was conducted on a local consumer technology forum and replies were received from 1 500 respondents. He emphasised the research results are skewed towards early adopters of technology.

Neotel added 10 000 customers to its retail consumer subscriber base in first quarter of its 2011/2012 financial year and plans to introduce new data plans later this month to ensure that growth continues.

CEO Sunil Joshi says Neotel had 50 000 retail subscribers using its code division multiple access (CDMA) and WiMax wireless networks at the end of March, and this figure had risen to 60 000 by the end of June. The company wants to grow the number to 75 000 this financial year, and Joshi says it is on track to meet that target.