EXCLUSIVE: PHOTOS OF THE FIRST APPLE COMPUTERS

Paul Terrell opened the Byte Shop in Mountain View, California in December of 1975. It was one of the first computer stores in the world, and did a lot to help popularize a business which just barely existed at the time. And it earned an even more legendary spot in tech history in 1976, when a couple of local proto-computer geeks tried to convince Terrell to sell the rudimentary PC they'd cobbled together.

Those geeks were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. They called their machine the Apple-1, and it was a do-it-yourself kit; any buyers would have to solder the necessary chips onto the circuit board themselves, then supply accoutrements such as a power supply, keyboard and display.

 Terrell was intrigued, but told Jobs that what he really needed were fully-assembled computers. In fact, if Jobs could come back with an assembled version of the Apple-1, the Byte Shop would buy fifty of them. Jobs did, and the Byte Shop became the first Apple dealer (it eventually offered the Apple-1 in a wooden case with keyboard and power supply).

Terrell's deal helped turn Apple from a project into a company. Just as important, it steered Jobs and Woz in the direction of making gadgets which were unusually approachable. Apple kept that concept going with 1977's Apple II. It's still at it today.

So Terell on Facebook shared some photos of the first Apple-1 from his fifty-machine order, which he took in 1976, when there were very, very few Apple products in existence. They're Polaroids — which seems like the right sort of photos for them to be, somehow — and if you know of any earlier Apple photos which survive, I'm impressed. Here they are,

This is the naked-but-assembled Apple-1 with an uncased keyboard (the aesthetic kind of reminds me of the original iMac, with its see-through case):

Here they are with a video monitor:

And here's the Apple-1 running the sort of program you'd write if you were learning to program in BASIC in the 1970s:

 Just for good measure, this is another iconic system which the Byte Shop sold: MITS' Altair 8800, running Bill Gates and Paul Allen's BASIC:

The Apple-1 famously sold for $666.66. On Facebook, Terrell says that he paid $500 apiece (wholesale!) for his fifty systems, for a grand total of $25,000.What a revolution?

Source* - Harry McCracken for Technologizer

MTN ‘ULTIMATE WONDER’ AEROPLANE PROMO, WINNER GRABS N64M CASH OPTION

Ebube Essien-Garricks, a student of College of Health Science and Technology, Rivers State, has been declared the winner of the Cessna aeroplane in ‘MTN Ultimate Wonder’ promo.
 

The announcement comes after Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) banned all promos and lotteries by MTN and six other telecoms companies in the country.

In a lottery draw held at the MTN Head Office, Ikoyi, Lagos, monitored by NCC officials and Nigerian Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC), Essien-Garricks emerged the undisputed winner.

Endorsing the selection process, Obi Iriegbu, Assistant Director, NLRC, described the lottery as transparent and credible citing that the commission was there to ensure that MTN subscribers’ interests are protected and that the telecoms company fulfilled its promise.

Notified of her bonanza by phone, Essien-Garricks, 27, decided to get the cash value instead of the aircraft, which was pegged at N64 million.

She described her bonanza as “a true wonder” which made her Christmas already, though it is still about five weeks away.

“I am short of words to describe my feeling right now. It is a dream come true. This must be the best Christmas gift ever. It is truly wonderful,” she says.

Larry Annetts, MTN’s Chief Marketing Officer, did not mince words to cash in on the credibility, describing the process of finding the aeroplane winner promised by MTN as interesting, credible and transparent.

LOTUS: FAREWELL TO A ONCE-GREAT TECH BRAND

Just heard the news about IBM's plan to remove the Lotus branding from its Notes and Domino workgroup products. It’s the apparent end of Lotus, a brand which was launched in 1982 with the 1-2-3 spreadsheet, the most important productivity application of its era.

It’s tough to remember now, but in the period before Microsoft Office came along, it was Lotus, not Microsoft, that was synonymous with office software. Lotus Development Corporation, which Mitch Kapor founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had a ginormous cash cow in 1-2-3, a product which was so popular that companies bought fleets of IBM PCs just to run it.

Lotus cranked out (and sometimes acquired) an array of apps: Approach, cc:Mail, Hal, Improv, Jazz, Manuscript, Magellan, Organizer, Symphony and many more. They weren’t always successful — in fact, many of them came and went rather quickly — but the company had a really good track record when it came to releasing stuff that was inventive and interesting.

In the 1980s, Lotus was the single most significant Boston-based tech company. Then in 1994 and 1995, and by the mid-1990s, it was reasonably obvious that Microsoft Office was going to slaughter the famous stand-alone productivity packages of the DOS days — not just 1-2-3, but also dBASE, Harvard Graphics, WordPerfect and others. Lotus was smart enough to get into another, nascent business: workgroup software. Notes turned out to be a big deal, and led to IBM buying the company in 1995 for $3.5 billion. And Notes is still with us today, even though Microsoft ended up dominating that market too, with Outlook and Exchange.

So the Lotus which is now on its way out is a dim reflection of its former self. It isn’t the great Lotus, or my Lotus. Truth to tell, I wasn’t even sure it was still around. Even so, I’m sorry to think about the mighty brand disappearing altogether.

Then again, maybe it won’t — it’s hard to snuff all the life out of a once-powerful name, no matter how far it’s fallen. IBM hasn’t updated 1-2-3 in well over a decade, but it’ll sell you a copy today. The wonderfully archaic-sounding Lotus 1-2-3 Millennium Edition 9.8 goes for a mere $342.

VODACOM LAUNCHES M2M IN NIGERIA

Vodacom in Nigeria has announced the launch of the new M2M services aimed at boosting the financial and retail sectors in the West African country.

 The move hopes to bolster corporations and retail companies using the business services from the telecom operator.

Vodacom’s Product Manager Abu Etu said in a statement from the company that “the services can support two Sims and are aimed at applications such as ATMs, POS and back-up.

“Companies can use the mobile data network to connect retailer PoS terminals to central servers or to the Nigerian Interbank Settlement Systems and ATMs to the bank’s central servers,” he added.

According to the statement announcing the launch, the new M2M services will “enables seamless network fail-over to a secondary network in the event of failure on the primary network.”

The goal of the new services hope to bring greater connectivity to commercial districts to rural areas of the 36 states across Nigeria.

With telecom services facing an uncertain future over poor customer services, Vodacom believes that the new service will enable business owners and users to have greater connections with clients and partners across the country.

NOKIA ACQUIRES EARTHMINE 3D MAP SERVICE

Nokia has acquired the 3D mapping service Earthmine. The terms of the deal are confidential, so there's no way of knowing how much cash Nokia shelled out for it.

The idea behind the purchase is for Nokia to import Earthmine's mapping street-level graphics into HERE Maps and eventually its entire Maps ecosystem.

Currently Google has the upper hand in street-level imaging and Nokia hopes that this acquisition will help it catch up faster.

JOBBERMAN.COM TO OFFER FREE JOB ADVERTS FROM DECEMBER 1

The number one jobs website in Nigeria, Jobberman.com will make job advertising on its website free for recruiters and companies that want to advertise their vacancies, Ayodeji Adewunmi, CEO of the top recruitment company has announced.

The free job advertising will benefit jobseekers and companies alike as it will ensure all the jobs in Nigeria are made available for all Nigerians to access.

According to Adewunmi, “Jobberman is the No. 1 destination for jobs in Nigeria. It is important that we make all existing job opportunities available in one place. That’s what jobseekers want. 

That’s what the government wants. That’s what Jobberman wants. As from December 1, 2012, all employers and recruiting agencies can go to Jobberman.com to post their vacancies free.”

He encourages jobseekers to go online and upload their CVs in order to let recruiters find them.
While stating the importance of a CV, he says that being the first interaction with prospective employers and in a highly competitive job-market the importance of creating a good first impression can never be overestimated.

Established in 2009, Jobberman.com is Nigeria’s most popular job website with over half a million users and more than 4,000 employers on the platform, the company said in a statement.

SAMSUNG RELEASES SMALLER, FASTER 64GB SMARTPHONE MEMORY

Samsung on Thursday announced a new 64GB memory chip for smartphones and tablets, which it says is 20 percent smaller and a third faster than current technology.

The company said its new 64GB eMMC (embedded multimedia card) reads data sequentially at up to 260 megabytes per second and writes at up to 50 megabytes per second, 10 times faster than Class-10 rated external memory cards.

 The chips are made using Samsung's 10-nanometer class fabrication, and the company said it began production late last month. Shrinking the size of components allows for more efficient manufacturing and parts that draw less power.

 Smartphones with 64GB of memory are still relatively rare, and most phones have an external memory slot for more storage. High-speed data networks are also allowing more data to be stored online, although most high-definition content is still downloaded and viewed locally.

 For phone manufacturers, adding more memory is a way to increase margins. Apple's top-end iPhone has 64GB of memory, and in the U.S. costs US$200 more than its 16GB version. Samsung recently released a version of its flagship Galaxy S3 with 64GB of built-in memory.

Samsung said the latest memory chip is called the "64GB eMMC Pro Class 2000," a level up from the current "Pro Class 1500" chips. The slower class reads data at up to 140 megabytes per second and writes it at up to 50 megabytes per second.

 The new memory chip measures 11.5mm by 13mm, compared to 12mm by 16mm for previous iterations.

 In September, Samsung announced a massive 128GB eMMC chip for smartphones and other mobile devices, which is expected to begin appearing in phones for next year. That chips is part of its Pro Class 1500 lineup.

 The company said it can manufacture the latest chips on its existing factory lines used for previous generations of chips, making its operations more efficient.

GOOGLE ADDS INTELLIGENT VOICE SEARCH TO GOOGLE TV

Google added intelligent voice search to Google TV Wednesday. Not only can you jump to a channel by saying its name, but the software can also intelligently respond to statements.

For example, if you say, "how to tie a bow tie," you will be taken to an instructional video on YouTube explaining how to do that.

"Just speak to watch TV shows and movies, start playing a YouTube video, open applications, go to websites, do a Google search and much more," the company said in a blog.

You can also do voice searches with the product. So if you say, "Search movies with John Wayne," a search page with movies with The Duke in the cast will appear on your TV.

The new voice feature makes finding what you want on Google TV faster and easier than ever, the company said.

TV & Movies app updated

This latest edition of Google TV also updates its TV & Movies app introduced last year that allowed users of the product to browse and watch more than 100,000 movies and TV episodes. The new version is called PrimeTime, and it allows you to browse and watch TV simultaneously.

Google recently addedGoogle TV support to its Google Play store, so that Google TV users could buy or engage with movies, TV shows, and music from the online outlet.

PrimeTime is available from anywhere inside Google TV, and it allows you to coast through the best stuff on live TV, check out your favorite channels, see what you've watched recently, and get suggestions about what to watch based on what you've watched in the past.

Google also updated its YouTube app for Android and Google TV. The update allows a device to automatically pair itself with a TV so anything being watched on the device can be mirrored on the TV with the activation of a single button, along the lines of Apple AirPlay.

Google said that the updates for its TV product will first appear on LG products that support Google TV, followed by updates to second-generation hardware in the coming months.

First-generation devices won't get the new Google TV update, but they can have the PrimeTime and YouTube apps from the Google Play store downloaded to them. 

BROADBAND SUMMIT 2012: OPPORTUNITIES IN NIGERIA’S EMERGING NATIONAL BROADBAND POLICY

The Business Day conference in conjunction with the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) is organizing a Broadband summit on the 29th of November, 2012; the summit is expected to gather all stakeholders in the world of broadband technology in the nation. 

The conference is expected to have regulators, telecom operator, banks, ISPs, marketers etc. in attendance. The speakers expected to grace the conference include Eugene Juwa (Executive Vice Chairman NCC), Steve Evans (CEO Etisalat, Nigeria), Funke Opeke (CEO MainOne Cable Company) at the Eko Hotel & Suites.

 Broadband technology is no doubt today a major driver of economic development as regards job creation, home office and remote working etc. Robust Broadband internet connectivity has brought about great quality and volume of improvement in all sectors, including education, health, governance, security, commerce and the general quality of life, in Europe and the United States and can do the same in Nigeria. And so, there are enormous benefits Nigeria will gain with a robust National Broadband Internet policy in place.