Mzansi

Just got word of a local start up called Mzansi. Mzansi is a South African word for, ummm,  “South Africa”. A really good name for a local start up I guess.

Mzansi is a URL shortner pretty much like any other URL shortner. Enter your extremely long(ish) URL and get a nice short one that you can use anywhere, forever. Exactly like this http://mzan.si/XJvM. Mzansi bagged the mzan.si domain which keeps the URL nice and short which is exactly what a URL shortening service needs to be doing.

HIV911 Logo

There is no doubt that HIV is one of the most prolific diseases ever. Yet the world, mostly Africa, is struggling to come to understand that the only cure is prevention at the moment. However we cannot ignore those who are already affected by it and it is great to see start ups like HIV911 coming up and trying to make a difference.

Silicon Cape

We love start ups here at Tx Daily especially local ones and we never fail to mention them once they make themselves known to us (if we have missed you please comment on this post and we will contact you – yes we are that nice).

So we just got news on Silicon Cape (www.siliconcape.com). Any person involved in the internet or something vaguely to do with technology will immediately see that this is our local attempt at a Silicon Valley. Cape Town has always been an incubator to many of South Africa’s start ups and a majority of the biggest start ups are actually based there so this is no doubt what should be Africa’s Silicon Valley.

Jiqa Logo

South Africa’s very own local start up, Jiqa, has created a real-time web aggregation browser. The concept is great and will allow endless amounts of data to be collected regarding user habits and aggregating news that is current and more importantly real time.

The product is very much still in Beta and a very young Beta by the sounds of it. It has been built from the ground up though the .Net framework which is interesting seeing that you have numerous options in terms of Open Source browser releases such as Gecko Engine or Webkit which Firefox and Safari use respectively. Creating a product from a pre-built framework with a community backing gives you a head start in terms of stability and of course exstensibility.

The way the “browser” works is that is captures your browsing data whilst your browse and uploads it to a central server where all the work is done. You can then visit the Jiqa home page which allows you to do 1 of 2 things. Either view the hottest articles browsed by the Jiqa browsers or search for articles that are in the Jiqa system. This already supports to important aspects of modern web and those are real time trending topics and real time search.

However, there are two importants points I need to bring up. The first one is there needs to be a whole lot more introduced to the browser for me to think about making a move to it. I have many more options out there such as Chrome or Firefox, both of which I use on a daily basis. I am also not really caught by someone capturing all my browsing data which brings me onto my second point.

Where are Jiqa going to draw the line between privacy and getting the data they need to be successful at any point? That is a very important question they will need to answer and it will need to be done before the stable version gets released to the innocent public. Here is an extract from their download terms:

ANY FEEDBACK YOU PROVIDE AT THIS SITE SHALL BE DEEMED TO BE NON-CONFIDENTIAL. JiQA Information Engine Pty Ltd. IS FREE TO USE SUCH INFORMATION ON AN UNRESTRICTED BASIS.

Update: Kevin Davie, the head of the start up, just informed me that Jiqa does not capture any private info like IP addresses etc.

Google Squared Logo

Search has always had its downside, that downside being that you always had to go through the search results to get information. Yes the information is there but Google Squared brings order to the overwhelming amount of information.

Wolfram|Alpha has already a system that brings order to information but does not bring order to search. What Google Squared does is exactly that. Google are taking steps into computing information and sorting it. If you have ever sorted through pages of search results you would definitely understand how complicated it is categorizing the vasts amount of data you can find on the internet.

Google Search definitely brings a new way to search and an even better way to get information with less frustration. It will be interesting to see if Google Squared takes off and if it damages the use of Googles normal organic search engine.

To help you understand what it does we did a few searches that would show you how it organises data into digestable information:

SA Presidents:

Google Squared SA Presidents

SA Accommodation:

Google Squared SA Accommodation

TomTom Go 630 (seen that we just wrote about it)

Google Squared TomTom

What is interesting about the TomTom search is that it brings up information on purchasing the product including what seems to be future support for pricing information etc.

Google Squared is a pretty nifty product from Google but it is still very much in its infancy.

Wolfram Alpha Logo

Google took the world by storm with it’s relevant search results and breath taking speeds. The only problem is getting actually answers right in front. Yes you definitely will find the results you were looking for after going through the many results Google picks up.

This is where Wolfram|Alpha joins the party. It is no search engine and does not aim to be. What it is is a computational knowledge engine, yes in other words it is the first computer that could potentially take over the world!

The computer interprets the input given by you and then gives what it thinks is the appropriate response and depending on how much it understands your input it will give you related data.

So put this in perspective we did a few test runs which gave a few really interesting results.

1. How much cheese could a Chinese sneeze if a Chinese could sneeze cheese?

   This question is hard to say yet alone answer yet our new companion gets it for us!

   

   How much wood could a woodchuch chuck

2. Theory of relativity

   This is Wolfram giving more answers than Einstein.

   

   Theory of relativity

3. Today

   What about asking about today? Simple, how about giving you all the information you need to know like what is happening with the moon, big moments in history, deaths and births of important people that have graced this planet… nice!

   

   Todays Date

So far so good. The system is working really really well for an Alpha release and will see many more upgrades in the future.

What we like about the system is the way it tries to answer you questions and also give you a great resource to look for and extend you knowledge on  a certain subject. Wolfram|Alpha seems to want to answer questions on every topic even ones that take people with degrees to get an answer for, here is what it suggests:

• Mathematics
• Engineering
• Dates & Times
• Physics
• Money & Finance
• Units & Measures
• Chemistry
• Places & Geography

What would be interesting to see is if they can handle the amount of queries they are about to get.