As Christmas draws closer, many people find themselves thinking of dynamic ways in which they can help make a real difference in their communities. ITWeb asked the industry players which tech gifts they wish to get for the festive season.
The joint CEO of Blue Label Telecoms, who is the IT Personality of the Year 2010, Mark Levy, says he would like an iPad because it is a multi-functional device.
“It can store my music, books and movies, as well as allowing me to receive my e-mails. I travel frequently, so it is very handy to take this compact gadget with me,” he says.
Levy also would also want a Boxee Box. ”You hook the device up to your TV and you have access to content from various streaming video sites across the net. What's more, you can access media on any networked PC within range of the box, he says.
The CEO of Cerebra, Mike Stopforth, says he has had the chance to play with a Galaxy Tab. “It is an awesome device, but in all honesty, the kid in me wants an Xbox Kinect.”
Andrew Cardoza, Mobilitrix CTO would like to have a Motorola Droid X. “I have the Motorola Milestone and I have fallen in love with smartphones, especially the Android platform. So has my little 30-month-old boy, Matthew,” he says.
He reckons the Droid X with the extra screen real estate, the next version of Android, and the video playback facility directly to electronic display will make for a very handy business tool, entertainment and a "capture-your-family-moments" tool. “Hope Santa hears me. I have been a good boy in 2010,” he adds.
An iPad is what Samantha Perry, editor of Brainstorm magazine, would like to have. “It is ultra cool, ultra-light and ultra-portable and will make an adequate Mac replacement when I'm travelling, removing the necessity to lug kilogrammes of laptop and accessories through vast and unfriendly international airports,” she says.
Justin Spratt, managing partner at Quirk eMarketing says he wants the Kindle. “This gadget makes reading easy and annotating key points in books is essential for me.” He says the search functionality is also powerful and it holds up to 1 500 books.
He also says in 2011 he is looking forward in to the licensing of WiMax so there is increased 'last mile' competition, thereby reducing Internet connectivity prices even further. “I am looking forward to seeing the range of Android tablets that will compete with the iPad. I am looking forward to further proliferation of HTML5 Web pages, reducing the need for heavy and crash-prone plug-ins like Flash,” he adds.
EMC Southern Africa country marketing manager, Sonelia du Preez says although she works in the IT Industry, she is more of a low-tech person and she prefers books, listen to music on a hi-fi system.
However, she says rumour has it that Research In Motion will be releasing the BlackBerry Playbook (an iPad competitor) very soon, and if that's true: “I'd rather like to get my hands on one of these and if not, then I'd look at the Kindle 3,” she adds.
“The gadget I would most like is the iPad,” says entertainment and media industry leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers Southern Africa, Vicky Myburgh. She says it is a great innovation. “I would love to gain access to the many available apps, read books and magazines [and the like] wherever I am,” she says.
Christo van Germet, ITWeb's consumer technology editor, says he would like to get LG's LX9500 3D TV. “Not because it does 3D - I don't quite like the technology in its current state - but because it's simply one of the best regular TVs I've ever used,” he adds.
ITWeb's events director, Angela Mace, wishes to get the iPod Nano 6. “This will be a great gift for me as I can use it when I get to the gym. It is portable and it has the Radio Live Pause feature.”
8ta's managing executive, Amith Maharaj, says he would love to get the Parrot AR drone. This is a remote controlled quadro-copter - a helicopter with four propellers that can be controlled via your iPod, iPhone and iPad.
“As I'm a self-confessed Apple junkie and still a bit of a kid at heart, this would make a very cool gift to play with during the holiday period. It will also come in handy when spying on the competition,” he says.