African Tech Roundup - Will Facebook’s OpenCellular Crush BRCK?

Last week, the global digital behemoth that is Facebook announced that they’ll be rolling out the OpenCellular system worldwide. OpenCellular is said to be an inexpensive, weather-resistant and fully customisable platform that will be able to serve as a wireless access point for connecting devices using 2G, LTE or even Wi-Fi. While this move by Facebook is no doubt just a footnote in the company’s playbook for achieving complete digital dominance, one wonders if this could signal the beginning of the end for the likes of Kenya’s BRCK— a home-grown system designed to do exactly what OpenCellular promises to do, perhaps less reliably. One wonders if there is any chance that a minnow like BRCK can stand up to the fire and might of a beast like Facebook? It seems unlikely that BRCK has captured enough of the affordable WiFi deployment market to develop a legitimate first-mover advantage, and it’s equally unlikely that anyone over at Facebook is losing any sleep worrying about their plans being disrupted by smaller players. Also in this week’s show, we share a snippet from a conversation Andile Masuku had with Gareth Cliff— the controversial South African Radio DJ, Idols South Africa judge, and Co-founder & President of Africa’s largest podcast producer, CliffCentral.com. Listen in to hear Gareth’s candid take on why he quit one of South Africa’s most lucrative radio gigs to found a platform that now boasts over 40 podcast titles and garners over 140,000 downloads per week. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

PHPUgly - 18:What Time Is It?

Show Notes: https://github.com/PHPUgly/podcast/blob/master/shows/ep18.md PHPUgly - Episode 18 recorded July 7th, 2016 Topics A blog post called The Autistic Programmer Do PHP and IoT Have a Future Together? Pipes (||) vs OR The joys of Timezones in code. How is the best way to handle them? Laracon.us now offering a live streaming package Laravel Package Mailthief A peak at VueJS 2.0 and what to expect The hosts Eric Van Johnson Twitter / Github / Blog / About.me Tom Rideout Twitter / Github / About.me John Congdon Twitter / Github Follow us on Twitter @PHPUgly Email us at Podacast@phpugly.com

African Tech Roundup - African Spirit American Spin

It’s the 4th of July, and in honour of the fact that our biggest audience outside of Africa is based in the USA, this week’s African Tech Round-up episode has a decidedly American spin. Playing guest-host in this instalment is very good friend of the show, aka “The American Homie”, Trevor Wolfe— Co-founder and CEO of Delvv.io. Trevor is fresh off a plane from Europe and the States where he’s successfully closed a round of funding for his crowdsourced research startup. In addition to factoring in on the week’s headlines, Trevor shares some interesting insights on what it takes to launch and operate a tech startup on the continent, while maintaining a global outlook. But that’s not all, folks… This week’s show also features two Stateside-based personalities who are extremely active on Africa’s tech scene— namely, Maya Horgan Famodu, Founder and CEO of Ingressive, and Toro Orero, Co-founder and Managing Partner, at DraperDarkFlow. Listen in to hear Maya share some of what she’s observed while leading high profile investment tours to Africa, and explaining what operating in Silicon Valley is like on the day-to-day. Then tune in to listen to Toro share what he and Tim Draper look for in startups they hope to invest in, as well as dish on the pros and cons of running an Africa-focussed VC firm that’s headquartered in Silicon Valley. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

PHPUgly - 17:Trademark This

Show Notes: https://github.com/PHPUgly/podcast/blob/master/shows/ep17.md PHPUgly - Episode 17 recorded June 30th, 2016 Sound Cloud Uncut Video Topics Let's Encrypt Trademark issues PHP Alpha 2 released October CMS version 1 releasing July 2nd Zend Framework 3.0 released EU's Crazy Cookie Laws The hosts Eric Van Johnson Twitter / Github / Blog / About.me Tom Rideout Twitter / Github / About.me John Congdon Twitter / Github Follow us on Twitter @PHPUgly Email us at Podacast@phpugly.com

African Tech Roundup - Kenya’s Buni.tv Acquired by Trace TV

One of the more surprising things that came out of a recent conversation Andile Masuku had with BT’s Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, Oliver Fortuin is his answer when asked (somewhat unfairly) what disruptive trend could potentially render BT redundant in the next decade. His answer? The trend towards consolidated media ownership. Listen in to this week’s African Tech Round-up to hear Oliver unpack that answer. Meanwhile, the French Urban television network Trace TV’s acquisition of Kenyan, pan-African VOD service Buni.tv made headlines last week. Buni.tv is believed to be one of the largest African VOD services offering home-grown content. Trace TV has revealed that this acquisition is part of their plans to gear up for the launch of a VOD platform called Trace Play later in 2016. Now, it does seem that aside from keeping an eye out for competitors like iROKOtv, DSTV and Netflix, aspiring VOD service providers like Trace TV might do well to anticipate the moves being made by the likes of South Africa’s Telkom, Zimbabwe’s Econet Group and offshore players like BT— because by Oliver’s own admission, incumbents like BT don’t plan to quietly “stay in their lane” and watch the world pass them by. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

PHPUgly - 16:Protected, Private, and Final

Show notes: https://github.com/PHPUgly/podcast/blob/master/shows/ep16.md Uncut Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu2BKY1D4SM PHPUgly - Episode 16 recorded June 23rd, 2016 Topics the latest San Diego Laravel Meetup we talk some more about VueJs when to use a Single Page Application the differences between Protected, Private, and Final Some of the ups and downs around working as a web developer in the adult industry The hosts Eric Van Johnson Twitter / Github / Blog / About.me Tom Rideout Twitter / Github / About.me John Congdon Twitter / Github Follow us on Twitter @PHPUgly Email us at Podacast@phpugly.com