The Daily Hash

// by Mwaoshe Njemah

If you are thinking of purchasing the Safaricom Big Box this weekend, don’t.

I arrived home excited with my shiny new Safaricom Big Box a couple of weeks ago. At the Safaricom shop I had inquired about antennas, and the set top box’s DVB-T2 functionality. I was concerned specifically about it’s ability to work with my building’s common antenna. As is often the case, I soon realized I had been worried about the wrong thing altogether.

Straight out of the box, the Big Box picked up all the available digital channels. The initial setup was pretty straight forward to my pleasant surprise. After connecting the box to the common antenna, and an initial scan, I now had digital TV. I could access channels carried on Signet, free to air PANG , ADN and even a couple of Bamba channels. Nice. I could watch DW and Al Jazeera courtesy of Bamba. I had access to the local Big 3, Citizen, NTV and KTN. So far, so good.

Then came the hard bit. Connecting to the Internet.

Of course if I had wanted to watch TV, I could just have copped a Bamba TV set top box. What drew me to the Big Box, was internet access, and the prospect of free YouTube.

I selected YouTube from the menu, and was somewhat disappointed to find that there was no YouTube app. What was there was a browser window that linked to YouTube.com. I could live with that, I thought.

And there it was. Glorious YouTube. For a whole 5 minutes. Then it all took a turn for the worse. I attempted to view a video. The video would not load. I got an network connectivity failure error instead. A second attempt failed. I tried to connect to the Internet from the default Android browser. This failed too.

I contacted Safaricom’s fairly responsive Twitter customer care team. I received a call a little later from a Safaricom customer care representative. I was advised to reset the box. I dutifully did so, but then nothing. I was still unable to connect to YouTube. Or to the Internet for that matter. I complained to customer care again. This time after a long phone conversation I was asked to go to “Settings” and provide the rep with the Big Box’s IP address. I was then advised to disconnect from 3G/4G and reconnect. I had been assigned a new IP address.

I was able to connect to the Internet for a full 15 minutes. After that my connection went to shit. I was unable to connect to the Internet at all.

I contacted customer care a third time. This was quickly turning into some sort of terrible joke.

In the 18 days since, I have spoken to customer care on a dozen different occasions. To my dismay, I have learnt what anyone who has dealt with Safaricom’s customer care on a few occasions knows. Safaricom customer care have a script. Switch off the box, switch it back on. Disconnect from 3G. Switch to wired. Turn off the box. Turn it back on. We will escalate with our network team and revert. Meaningless platitudes. Rarely does anything get resolved. It’s good PR, but little more.

Safaricom’s 3G network is excellent in my area. I have gotten speeds of upto 245KBps on a phone that I had placed on top of the set top box. So there was no weird network vortex or “dark spot” where I had positioned the Big Box. So why couldn’t I connect to the Internet, I kept asking.

A visit to the Safaricom Shop I had purchased the box from established that my line was yet to be registered. I had provided ID when I purchased the box, and filled and signed a registration form. The line had not been registered two weeks on. There was also an issue with the tariff I was on, I was informed. Taking two weeks to register a line was unacceptable they concurred. I was given 650 MB of data to get me through the night, as my issues were being resolved.

The fact that Safaricom’s customer care hadn’t realized in 2 weeks of calls that my Big Box line was not registered is in itself perplexing. Safaricom’s right hand didn’t seem to know what it’s left hand was doing. Or simply didn’t care.

The situation had not improved a week later, and I visited the store again. My line had not yet been registered. This time I ensured that they had registered the line while I was in store. I also confirmed that the 6GB bundle I had purchased along with the box was intact.

I went back home and finally after 16 days, a dozen calls to customer care and 3 visits to the Safaricom store where I bought the box, I was able to connect to the internet.

But wait there is more.

I managed to watch just the one video. Attempts to connect to the device’s hot spot from my laptop failed. I switched off the Big Box and reconnected to Safaricom’s 3G network again. Finally I was able to connect to the Internet from my laptop via the Big Box’s hot spot. A few minutes later I ran into a new, annoying hurdle. Safaricom’s weird traffic shaping seemed to disconnect me from the 3G network once my usage hit 100 MB or so. I then had to disconnect and reconnect to the network so I that I could be assigned a new IP. This involved switching off the box on occasion and disrupting any TV viewing in the living room. For folks that are offering free YouTube, the 100MB cap is bizarre. How many YouTube videos are those?

I wonder what exactly could be gained by cutting off access for people who are paying for their internet by the megabyte once they hit a certain cap. I would be okay with Safaricom limiting access to free YouTube. But limiting access to my email on a bundle I paid for is infuriating.

Safaricom sells the Big Box as a smart media consumption device with great internet connectivity and free YouTube for the first three months.

What you do get with the Safaricom Big Box is a DVB -T2 set top box with PVR functionality. The PVR functionality means you can record TV shows and view them later. The box also comes with built in DLNA support so you can connect to your UPnP media server, though I am yet to test this.

The TV watching experience is not without annoyances. Blinking message envelopes keep popping up on your screen. You will have to go to the menu, leaving your enjoyable Mexican telenovella, to access these cryptic messages. The messages themselves read like AT commands, and they typically mean nothing to you. So why would anyone want to be notified of AT commands being sent to their device again, Safaricom?

The box itself is pretty standard set top box/mini PC fare. It runs Android 4.x. There is no information in the settings on the exact version of Android it is running or the kernel. The box comes with 1 GB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. These specs read like those of the average Alcatel One Touch phone. It has an SD card slot if you need extra storage. OTG works great on the device so you could just plug in a flash disk or hard disk via the single USB port. The SIM card is internal meaning you are locked to Safaricom’s network.

It works fine as a router too. But then, so does your stock Android handset.

I have since learnt that I had purchased The Big Box the day after it’s launch. I have been punished accordingly for that mistake. It has been one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever had with any device.

The Big Box looks increasingly like a hurried product. There are so many kinks, network or otherwise, that are yet to be worked out. You are supposed to dial *422# to check your bundle balance but I am yet to come across a dialer on the device. Calls to the 422 customer care number do not go through. I doubt that any Safaricom engineers actually took the box home with them for testing. I find the internet connectivity bits particularly irksome.

It is hard to imagine a time when Americans did not eat pizza. Isn't pizza after all the  quintessential American foods? Well, no. Not until 60 years ago.

In this article from  the New York Times archive written in 1944, Jane Holt, an American reporter with the New York Times writes about an alimentary discovery. Pizza. "Pizza, a pie popular in Southern Italy ....is one of the most popular dishes..especially in the city of Naples", she writes, inrtoducing her American audience to the Italian wonder food. American soldiers returning home from  their second World War outposts in Italy probably added  the taste for the Italian pie to the American palate and the American imagination. A growing number of Italian immigrants helped engrain the food in the  fabric of American food culture. Pizza is now an integral part of American pop culture. Pizza is especially prominent in geek culture. The food fuels hackathons the world over. Pizza is the bread-to-break at most tech meetups.

Today pizza is a global delicacy, appreciated in virtually every corner of the world. The popularity of pizza has been driven largely by American multinational franchises. These  franchises have been expanding aggressively around the world in the last few decades. Chains such as Domino's Pizza have come to be viewed as a symbol of globalization.

Locally pizza is the preserve of the Instagramming upper middle classes, consumed only per chance by the hoi polloi(Terrific Tuesdays, anyone?).  Brought to us largely by South African food franchises in the last two decades, pizza has become the snob food. I am a bit curious as to the origins of the food locally. Before the Pizza Inns, and Italian restaurants, where did people gather to grab a slice or two. What was the snob food back in the day? Where did pimply pubescent boys take their pimply pubescent girlfriends on dates?

by Mwaoshe Njemah //

Countless Bitcoin primers exist on the Internet today. What, with the increased interest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Flawed as they may be in the present, it is becoming apparent with each passing day that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are going to be an important part of our digital future. A lot of these Bitcoin primers read like doctoral theses, replete with technical minutiae. Those that seek to simplify matters , simply do not have enough meat on their bones and are often fraught with plain misinformation. In this article,and others in my Bitcoin primer series, I will attempt to explain technical concepts in simple terms and at the same time convey as much of the essence of Bitcoin as possible.

It would serve anyone reading this piece well to understand four basic facts clearly. First off, Bitcoins do not exist. You cannot point to a file or an object and call it a Bitcoin. What exist are records of transactions of Bitcoin in  a sort of master ledger called the block chain. Secondly and more importantly, Bitcoin is cash. Bitcoin is not a form of electronic banking. Making payments with Bitcoins is a lot more like paying with cash than paying with your credit card or debit card. Thirdly, much like you do not require a graduate education in monetary studies to spend fiat currencies, you do not require an advanced understanding of cryptography or indeed technology in general to spend or accept Bitcoin. Fourth, there is no central bank that issues Bitcoin.The purpose of Bitcoin is to eliminate the need for such trusted third parties as central banks. Wiith these popular misconceptions about Bitcoin out of the way, the rest of this primer will read a lot easier.

So, what pray tell is Bitcoin?  A bit of history is in order here. In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto authored  a paper that proposed the creation of a peer to peer electronic cash system.. The system would allow  online payments to be sent directly from one party to another party, eliminating the need for trusted third parties such as financial institutions by creating trust by cryptographic means. Questions still abound as to the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, or whether Satoshi is indeed one person or various people.  Satoshi has remained anonymous despite numerous attempts over the years to uncover her real identity. Satoshi is credited with the invention of Bitcoin and the burgeoning number of other cryptocurrencies in existence today.

As any banker or financier will tell you, all money is virtual. Money largely does not exist in the physical sense. Millions are transacted through banks daily simply by changing figures in the bank’s ledger, debiting and crediting accounts. What exist are physical tokens such as paper notes and metal coins. These paper notes and coins are referred to as currency or cash. They serve the important purpose of keeping money current, allowing people to reassign ownership of money. In fact the  Miiddle English root of the word current “curraunt” means simply “in circulation”.

Bitcoin is a cash system created in 2009 that utilizes digital tokens called unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) in lieu of physical tokens such as paper notes and metal coins. Think of these unspent transactional units as digital coins. When you pay with Bitcoin, you reassign ownership of one or more of your digital coins to the recipient. When you accept a Bitcoin  payment you receive one or more of these digital coins.

Unspent transactional outputs or  digital coins are held in a Bitcoin address. If you were to think of your unspent transaction outputs as cash notes and coins, think of your Bitcoin address as an envelope where you stash your notes.  On terra firma , a single envelope may hold one or more currency notes and coins. Likewise, a single address can hold multiple coins at the same time. And just like having multiple envelopes to stash your cash in is possible, albeit unwieldy at times, you may generate multiple Bitcoin addresses to hold multiple coins in at the same time. When making a payment,you may draw notes from different envelopes. Much in the same way a Bitcoin transaction may draw  coins from different addresses.

One Bitcoin is currently divided into 100 million smaller units called Satoshis. One satoshi is defined by eight decimal places. That is 0.00000001 BTC. The point here is, Bitcoin is infinitesimally divisible.  Ensuring that a single Bitcoin can be divided into much smaller units is important in two ways. First, it makes it easier to price goods and services in Bitcoin and enables people to transact with Bitcoin when paying for every day goods. As at the time of writing this, Bitcoin  was exchanging for USD 570.65 on Bitcoin exchanges. Being able to divide a Bitcoin means you would be able to pay BTC 0.001 for bread in Kenya. More importantly, by design only a finite number of Bitcoin will ever exist. This number , 20,999,839.77085749 , is baked into the protocol. It is not hard to imagine a future where Bitcoins would be spread so thinly as to make 0.00000001 BTC valuable. Should further subdivisions be needed in the future, the protocol may be updated to allow for this.

I have mentioned Bitcoin addresses, the virtual “envelopes” you stash your digital coins in. But where do these addresses come from? In explaining this in a later post, the cryptographic underpinnings of Bitcoin will become apparent, but how would one acquire Bitcoins in the first place?

One may mine coins, either alone or in league with others. New Bitcoins are generated by the Bitcoin network through a process called mining. One of the specific limitations of virtual currencies that Bitcoin sought to address is that the person accepting an unspent output or a “coin” can not verify that the owner did not spend the coin twice. This is called double spending . Without the existence of a trusted third party, cases of double spending would be rampant. Bitcoin overcomes this problem by recording every transaction in a global public ledger, the “block chain”. By necessity and design, every Bitcoin transaction is appended to,  and  remains permanently viewable in, a global public ledger of past transactions called the “block chain”. In case of any doubt, or attempts at double spending, the first transaction recorded stands. Mining is simply the process of adding transaction records to this ledger or “block chain”. Those processing these transactions each receive a subisidy that is proportional to their share of the Bitcoin network’s total computing power.

The process of mining is intentionally designed to be resource intensive to ensure the steady flow of blocks of Bitcoins. The value of a block for the first 210,000 blocks or the first four years was 50BTC.  As the amount of processing power present in the network changes, the difficulty of creating new blocks and consequently Bitcoins changes. The difficulty is calculated every 2016 blocks and is based on the time taken to generate the previous 2016 blocks. Anyone can be a miner. That is anyone, with sufficient computing power and wherewithal.  Mining was the primary way to acquire Bitcoin in the early days. At the moment though, this process is so difficult as to warrant looking at other ways of obtaining coins.

Accepting Bitcoin as payment for goods sold or services rendered would be an obvious way to acquire Bitcoins. Alternatively, you may purchasing Bitcoin on the hundreds of Bitcoin  Exchanges that have sprouted online all over the world. These exchanges allow one to exchange Bitcoin for other currencies. South African Bitcoin exchange BitX are currently setting up shop in Kenya. The BitX Kenya exchange will allow you to deposit and withdraw funds via Mpesa. As mentioned earlier, at the time of writing this 1 BTC was exchanging for USD  570 or approximately KES 51,300.

by Mwaoshe Njemah //

by Mwaoshe Njemah //

Equity Bank’s most recent foray into mobile banking, the launch of its own mobile network might be interpreted as yet another example of the bank’s impressive innovation record or C.E.O extraordinaire James Mwangi’s knack for good business. Some might wonder why a bank like Equity would want to go into the already overcrowded mobile money transfer market. A market that is dominated by de facto industry standard MPesa. In reality though the bank is responding to an existential threat.

Safaricom and CBA’s mobile banking product MShwari poses the biggest threat yet to Equity in it’s traditional target market, low income earners. MShwari is targeting the same customers that were Equity’s traditional customer base. The product is targeting the same deposits Equity relies upon thus affecting the banks ability to grow it’s liabilities. Liabilities, your deposits in the bank, are a good thing in this context.

More importantly though MShwari is affecting the bank’s ability to grow it’s asset book in the form of loans. Lending money is how Equity and other banks make their money. For quite a while now, Equity Bank has been the premier lender especially among low income earners. With the advent of MShwari more and more of Equity’s low income customers are looking to the mobile banking solution for loans.

After the failure of Safaricom and Equity’s MKesho – a product launched to much fanfare and promise- due to an apparent bust up between the two companies, Big Green decided to look beyond Equity. And they didn’t have to look far. Commercial Bank of Africa, CBA, had been Safaricom’s banker for quite a while. Money in your Mpesa account was already largely money in Safaricom’s bank account at CBA. All that was needed now was a way to funnel that money from Safaricom’s CBA bank account into your bank account. Between Safaricom’s 18 million plus Mpesa account holders and KES 220 or so billion in deposits, and CBA’s commercial banking license the two realised there was a great opportunity for a most profitable partnership. Enter MShwari.

The numbers have been impressive so far. On launch day, 75,000 new MShwari accounts were opened. By February this year Mshwari had over KES 24 billion(USD 266 million) in deposits. Total loans stood at KES 7.8 billion (USD 86.6 million). Daily deposits averaged KES 211.5 million (USD 2.35 million) with an average of 30,000 loans disbursed daily.

Mshwari enabled CBA to acquire over one million new accounts, becoming only the 6th Kenyan bank with over a million account holders. MShwari has also made micro-lending possible. The average loan amount on MShwari is around KES 1000 (USD 11) a loan that would be far too expensive for traditional banks to administer.

Earlier this week Safaricom and CBA announced “Lock” a fixed deposit account product that offers MShwari account holders the ability to save as little as KES 500 at a 6% interest per annum.

The mama mboga in Githurai who had to wait till she had a spare 50 bob to deposit it into her bank account at the local Equity bank branch – to become bankable so to speak – now need only spare 3 bob to transfer to her MShwari account.

The mama mboga also had to wait months, probably join a chamaa (a women’s group) that would co-guarantee her and amass substantial savings before she could take a KES 50.000 loan. Now with MShwari she can take a loan conveniently though interest rates , at 97% per annum are somewhat forbidding. In addition she can take a KES 250 loan “ndio aslilale njaa”,(so as not to sleep hungry), an amount she can not borrow from her bank.

For most salaried people today the first transaction you make when your salary hits the bank is a withdrawal so you can deposit money into MPesa for further transfer. Remember all those 10 bobs that are always left over in your MPesa account after you send mom money. MShwari has done a rather good job of mopping them all up lately, no? Once your employer starts remitting your salary into your Mshwari account, how long do you think before you don’t need a bank account?

And therein lie Equity’s problems. Equity’s business model has long relied on it’s ability to raise cheap deposits en masse, and lend out these deposits en masse. Low income earners do not typically have much in savings. For a long time this made them unattractive to Kenyan banking boutiques. Until Equity came along. Equity’s genius was in converting these small amounts into highly profitable small loans. Noticed how you never actually have a zero balance in your bank account. In the hands of a bank like Equity, these relatively small amounts are worth a lot thanks to credit creation.

For the bank to survive this latest onslaught they need an MPesa equivalent. It would ensure Equity’s continued ability to raise cheap deposits, open an avenue for lending smaller amounts to a much wider market, and open a potentially lucrative new revenue stream

The Copa del Munda is upon us and woe be unto him that knoweth not the time or the hour. Luckily everyone is making it easier for you not to miss any of the action this time round. With the following simple steps you can import the entire World Cup schedule, every match of every stage, into your Google Calendar. You'll be able to receive notifications on your smartphone or via email before the start of the action every single time.

1. Head over to Google Calendar at https:www.google.com/calendar. Log in to your account if you haven't already.

2. On the lower left side of the page click on the "Other Calendars" option. Select "Add by URL".

3. Enter the following URL webcal://www1.skysports.com/calendars/football/fixtures/competitions/worldcup in the box entitled "Add by URL". The is no need to tick the box  for making the calendar publicly accessible. Sky Sports calendars are already publicly accessible.

4. That's it, your subscribed calendar information ought to be downloaded into your calendar and will be updated automatically should any changes be made to the schedule.

Your World Cup calendar will appear under 'Other Calendars' and you could select the options menu to change the colour of events, create notifications, or hide the calendar.

We all hated the cryptic notations and symbols when we first came across Algebra in primary school. Or at least yours truly did. And I always wondered why  'X' is the unknown in maths textbooks? Well, here is a video with a rather fan answer to that question. The explanation is pretty simple actually.

by Mwaoshe Njemah //

1. 11.6" Acer Aspire V5-123 @ KES 31,000

I came across this sweet deal on this Acer laptop on Luthuli Street last week. The V5 has pretty decent specs for the price. The laptop is equipped with an AMD E – Series  (E1 – 2100, 1 GHz) processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 500GB hard disk. It comes with one HDMI port, 1 USB 3.0 port and 2 USB 2.0 ports . The 11.6" display has a resolution of 1366 x 768. The machine's build is pretty nice and the V5 does look and feel very much like a premium lappie. The machine also has a card reader but no optical media drive. The laptop ships with Linux.

The shop's name is Season Logistics Services (K) Ltd, and you will find it at No. 2 Luthuli Street. The asking price is KES 31,000, and a rather  friendly shop assistant even indicated that he was willing to revise the price of the laptop downwards.

2. 11.6” Acer Chromebooks @ KES 19000                                                                                                          The Ebrahim’s Electronics store on Kimathi Street has been selling factory refurbished Chromebooks for KES 19,000/- for quite some time now. I stopped by the other weekend and they had quite a few in stock. The inexpensive laptops are powered by an Intel Celeron processor, and boast 2GB of  RAM and a 16GB SSD

The machines come with Google’s Chrome OS pre-installed, but you may install Linux on them. The machines won’t run Windows natively thanks to driver issues.  You can run Windows on a Virtual machine on top of Linux though if you’re savvy enough.

3. 15.6” Acer Aspire V5-123 @ KES 26,290

Jumia are selling an Acer Aspire V5-123 at the very attractive price of KES 26,290. The Aspire V5 has rather solid specs for the price. The laptop packs an AMD processor, 2GB of RAM and 500 GB drive. The V5 comes with WiFi  and a card reader but no optical media drive.

“There is no word for killing cousins.

by Mwaoshe Njemah //  

                                  This week’s episode opens with the appearance of villain-turned-hero-turned-villain Peter Baelish by the panel of the Vale in connection with the seemingly mysterious circumstances surrounding the deceased Lady of the Vale’s fatal leap into Moondoor. Here Lady Sansa turns into his accomplice when asked to testify before the panel.

In an action packed trial by combat - the very logic of that concept being suspect notwithstanding (two men fight to the death to decide the guilt or otherwise of another man) - Oberyn “The Viper” Martell out on a quest to avenge his sister, tries to get Gregory Clegane a.k.a The Mountain to confess before offing him into the next world.He does get his moment. “You raped her, you murdered her, you killed her children!” Martell screams repeatedly while showing off some bad ass Ninja fighting skills and he almost gets his man. In the end though, Oberyn gets what every show off deserves; a bloody skull crashed into the ground.

Meanwhile the town where good old plump Sam left Gilly and her baby is overrun by Wildlings. Sam is sad that he left her behind there and fears her and the baby dead. The Brothers of the Night's Watch are not in much of a mood for grieving though, realizing that their fort is next, Jon Snow and his chams have to worry about how 100 men are going to fight 100,000.

And good old evil genius Ramsay Snow/Bolton gets to flay a man and take over a garrison with the help of his trademark nefarious trickery and the dickless Reek alias Theon Greyjoy.

The Hound finally delivers Arya to The Vale eager to collect his ransom only to be greeted with the news of her aunt’s death. A more memeworthy face has never been seen.

by Mwaoshe Njemah //

The month of May was full of big news on the payments front all over Africa. Here’s my monthly roundup of happenings on the payment scene: You can now pay for your power in Bitcoin in South Africa. According to local tech news site TechCentral.za, South African firm Invirohub, a smart meter developer, has developed prepaid meters that allow you to purchase electricity using Bitcoin. The metres may be topped up by sending Bitcoins to a unique address associated with each metre. Still in South Africa, the first Bitcoin ATM in Africa was installed in the city of Johannesburg this month. This perhaps points to the potential for the widespread use and adoption of the cryptocurrency in Africa. In a related development, Kenyan startup BitPesa launched a pilot of its service which allows diaspora Kenyans to send money back home via Bitcoin at affordable rates. The Wall Street Journal reported that the start-up is running a pilot involving around 15 UK based Kenyans, who would be able to use BitPesa to remit money to Kenya. Diaspora remittances are a lucrative market with Kenyans abroad sending home USD 1.29 Billion last year alone.

Local daily ,The Nation reports on it’s news website today that Equity Bank will be launching it’s MVNO network in July of this year. The bank will also be giving out 8.7 million free SIM cards. The report on the website also quotes the bank’s C.E.O Dr. James Mwangi setting pricing for Equity’s mobile money transfer service starting at 1% of the transation fee subject to a maximum cap of KES 25. “If you send Sh100 , you will pay Sh1. If you send Sh1,000, you will pay a maximum of Sh25,” Dr. Mwangi is quoted as saying at an event to announce the bank’s MVNO strategy held Monday. These prices obviously compare favorably with Safaricom’s popular Mpesa service. It will be interesting to see pricing wars in the mobile money market, as well as, with new competition, improved service. Equity is set to launch it’s telecommunications services through it’s subsidiary FinServe Africa in the second half of the year. The bank will not be rolling out it’s own infrastructure, and plans to ride on Airtel Kenya’s existing infrastructure for it’s MVNO. An agreement is reportedly already in place allowing Equity to use 60% of Airtel Kenya’s existing excess capacity.

Update:

The Moto E is selling for INR 7000 or about KES 11,000 in India. So if you got contacts yonder, consider having them help you acquire it

Update:

Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola Mobility is yet to be finalized.

One of Chinese tech giant Lenovo’s smarter moves was buying the Motorola brand name. This allows them to sell phones they were manufacturing under the little known “Lephone” phone brand under the Motorola phone brand. This means they benefit immensely from better brand name recognition. In case you are wondering Lenovo are the guys that own the IBM trademark for P.Cs.

It also means more kickass phones for the consumer for great prices. Last year for instance saw the launch of the Moto G at the low low price of USD 200. I have had occasion to play wth the Moto G and loved it.

Now hot on the heels of the Moto G, Lenovo have launched the Moto E a great entry level Android 4.4 KitKat 3G smartphone starting at USD 129 (KES ~ 11,610).

The USD 129 Moto E boasts a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 with a 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex A7 CPU and an Adreno 302 400MHz single-core GPU.

The phone’s 4.3” 540 x 960 qHD display boasts a rather impressive 256ppi  along with Corning Gorilla Glass protection, and a water-repellent “splash guard”. The Moto E features a 5MP camera that Motorola claims can capture 30fps FWVGA (854x480) video.

Bluetooth 4.0 and  Wifi - 802.11 b/g/n - are both supported by the E which also gives you a choice of any of three locational services; GPS, GLONASS and Bei Dou.

The 124.8mm high, 64.8mm wide, 12.3mm deep (6.3 mm at the edges) Moto E weighs 142 grams and comes with a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion, 1980mAh battery. The E has 4 GB of internal storage expandable via a Micro SD card slot.

Photo: Courtesy of Flickr user pinguino

DogeVault, an online wallet service for the popular cryptocurrency Dogecoin confirmed yesterday that it  has been hacked, with millions of Dogecoin likely missing from users’ wallets.

The statement on the free cryptocurrency wallet service’s website reads in part:

On the 11th of May, the Doge Vault online wallet service was compromised by attackers, resulting in a service disruption and tampering with wallet funds. As soon as the administrator of Doge Vault was alerted, the service was halted. The attackers had already accessed and destroyed all data on the hosted virtual machines. We are currently in the process of identifying the extent of the attack and potential impact on user's funds. This involves salvaging existing wallet data from an off-site backup. We will also closely be investigating potential attack vectors, and determining the security breach which enabled the attackers to compromise the service.