Category Archives: Technology

Lifestyle, Technology

Your high-end Samsung phone or iPhone might be a counterfeit.

If you use a high-end phone, but didn’t buy it from the brand or an authorised reseller, and the phone was ‘Made in Vietnam,’ then that beauty in your hand might be a dud.
 
A fake.
 
I paid for one last week.
 
A brand new Samsung S24 Ultra.
 
Bee’s knees, that phone. Sleek and features-laden.
 
But it turned out to be a knock-off.
 
A fugazi.
 
How did I know?
 
Well, I geek out on gadgets. I’m that guy who reads a 379-page manual. I pixel peep and read about chips and processors. Even for blenders. It’s a curse, I know. But I didn’t create me.
 
But don’t figure me for an Android guy. Though the Samsung S series has amazing tech and features, I am still an iSheep. I have been lapping up the grass from the stables of farmer Jobs and farmer Cook since 2006. I own six Apple devices. My wife is an iWife and my girls, iKids. If I had a doggo that could use a laptop, it would be a MacBingo. I’m sold on the Apple ecosystem.
 
But back to the S24 Ultra.
 
Because the S24 Ultra is almost two years old, Samsung outlets and authorised resellers no longer have it in inventory. Why would they? The current flagship is the S25 Ultra, and the S26 Ultra launches in January.
 
So I had to turn to Computer Village, Ikeja, for the S24 Ultra. And lovely jubbly, there was no shortage of vendors who had it in stock.
 
Many people do not trust the Computer Village, dread it even. Dubious vendors have swindled customers with no consequence. But I don’t share the distrust. There are both dubious and trustworthy vendors in any business ecosystem. Sharks and dolphins in the same tank. I have bought expensive devices at Computer Village that check out. But I am also cautious. There is no smoke without fire. Computer Village’s fishy reputation is not without cause.
 
So, I ordered the S24 Ultra from a vendor at the Computer Village. It was delivered.
 
The first red flag: the pack was labelled ‘Made in Vietnam.’
 
Now, Vietnam’s grilled pork and noodles are an epicurean delight. And the country is beautiful. But it is also a huge hub for counterfeiting.
 
Name it: counterfeit luxury goods, electronics, software and consumer goods. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Nike, Rolex, Samsung phones, Ray Ban glasses; the lot of them. 
 
And the counterfeiting is so good. So good that they could make a copy of you and your mom would believe it’s you.
 
Vietnam’s knock-off market is of significant concern to the West. In June, President Trump threatened to impose a 46% tariff on the country due to its counterfeiting. Hanoi scrambled into action, clamping down on counterfeit stores. But where there is demand, there is a market.
 
So, you could understand my suspicion when I saw ‘Made in Vietnam’ on the pack.
 
I proceeded to unbox the phone.
 
I removed the ‘do-not-accept-if-seal-is-broken’ sticker. Ostensibly, the sticker was not broken. 
 
Out of the box, the phone looked like the S24 Ultra. It felt solid and premium.
 
But when I powered it on and began the setup, the shenanigans spilt out.
 
One, an original S24 Ultra has a 120Hz refresh rate. Meaning the display and navigation should be buttery-smooth. But this unit felt like Madea doing ballet. The user experience was laboured.
 
Second, the OS didn’t update. Understandably, the phone was still running One UI 6 and Android 14. That was easily rectified by updating it to One UI 8 and Android 16. But the phone won’t even update to One UI 7, let alone One UI 8. That was dodgy.
 
Third, the phone lacked notable features. Like ‘circle to search,’ ‘ambient wallpaper’ and ‘Galaxy AI.’ Its Galaxy AI was, well, Galaxy CHAI.
 
Chai, I have entered once chance.
 
Lastly, I dialled *#06# to call up the identification details.
 
The serial number and EID number that came up on the screen did not match the ones on the box.
 
The phone was a dud.
 
Thereafter, I noticed the typos in the fine print at the back of the pack. ‘Product’ was spelt ‘produet’ and ‘separately’ spelt ‘separaieiy.’
I spat sulphur and brimstone on the vendor.
 
I got a replacement the next day.
 
The packaging also had ‘Made in Vietnam.’
 
I did the checks.
 
The serial number and EID didn’t match.
 
Another dud.
 
I didn’t bother setting it up. I asked for a refund.
 
The vendor started edging. He said the refund would take at least 24 hours to process.
 
Did you wait 24 hours to get paid?
 
I spewed some terrestrial and celestial vituperation.
 
He did the refund in 40 minutes.
 
Why do people fear Ayelala more than they fear Jesus?
 
OK, just kidding. I didn’t threaten him with Ayelala.
 
I only told him to lawyer up.
 
Apparently, lawyers are just as horrible as Ayelala.
 
I then tried a second vendor. I’d known her for a long time and bought authentic devices from her. She runs the shop alongside her husband.
 
I narrated my ordeal to her. She was sympathetic. She offered me her own brand-new S24 Ultra. She told me I could open it and verify the details before paying.
 
That was reassuring.
 
But it was another ‘Made in Vietnam’ phone.
 
Well, third time is a charm, isn’t it?
 
I removed the ‘do-not-accept-if-seal-is-broken’ sticker.
 
I did the checks.
 
This copy was worse.
 
It was chinked at the base. The casing was matte and not titanium. And the pack didn’t have a serial number.
 
I returned it. She didn’t argue.
 
OK, that’s it for us, Samsung. This union is not meant to be.
 
But I am scandalised at how unchecked Nigerian counterfeit phone vendors have become. These knock-off phones are not like a N15,500 ‘Balenciaga’ t-shirt. They are sold upwards of N1.1m. This isn’t trifling money.
 
There is a bloke on Instagram who brazenly advertises a cloned iPhone 17 Pro Max.
 
By some witchery, the discontinued iPhone XR is modified and turned into an ‘iPhone 17 Pro Max.’ On the outside, the thingamabob looks just like the iPhone 17 Pro Max. But its innards belong to the iPhone XR. He sells the contrivance for N450K.
 
How are these folks allowed to operate in the open? Infringing on intellectual properties and defrauding consumers? What are you doing, the Federal Competition & Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC)? You have an office right inside Ikeja GRA, air’s breath from Computer Village! Show some teeth!
 
And to anyone about to shell out good money on a phone, do your checks. Below are simple checks you can perform before and after buying the phone.
Before Buying
  1. Check that the box has a serial number and IMEI numbers. If the phone supports an e-SIM, the box will have an EID number. If the box does not have a serial number or IMEI number, it is a red flag.
  2. Scrutinise the box for any typos. Cloned phones often have typos on the box. Samsung and Apple are not going to sell                   $1200-phones with bad English on the tin.
  3. Learn as much as you can about the features of the phone you want to buy. Watch the launch keynote if available. Watch YouTube reviews. This is important when you unbox the phone and set it up. You have a basis for evaluation.

After Buying

  1. Set up the phone at the vendor’s store! That way, you can address discrepancies sharpish.
  2. Dial *#06# on the phone to call up its serial and IMEI numbers. Check to ensure they match those on the box. If they don’t, the phone is either stolen or a clone.
As for me, the Google Pixel 10 Pro is fluttering its eyelids at me and I am seduced. Maybe I have been looking for love in the wrong place.
I still like Samsung. But I don’t want Samsing under the hood.
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Activisim, Social Media, Technology

The challenge with Twitter is us, not the youth.

It’s been ten days since the Federal Government suspended Twitter. As I suspected, my life has not come to a cataclysmic end. Yup, I’m still here. And so is my mind. A luxury these days.

Now, it is not that I do not care for Twitter or support the government’s brutish machismo. I like Jack Dorsey and don’t mind his little blue bird nesting on my phone. The problem is, I’m not a bird lover. I don’t bird-watch. And I don’t like ceaseless chirping. Which is why I don’t have notification enabled for Twitter. When I get notifications, I want it to be of something really important. Like a 200km-wide-asteroid-is-hurtling-towards-Earth important. Or Man-United-just-signed–Jandon-Sancho-Rafael-Varane-Marco-Veratti-and-Erling-Haaland important. Besides, I’m wary of social media addiction. I’ve seen The Social Dilemma on Netflix. Scared the bejesus out of me.

Where do I stand on the ban? Well, last time I checked, our demonym is still ‘Nigerian’. Not Chinese, North Korean or Iranian. That being the case, I have come to expect a great measure of free speech and liberty to tweet as a Nigerian. So, while I only check Twitter once or twice a day, I am yet filled with a righteous, if hypocritical, rage at this denial of my right to use Twitter.

Mr. Dorsey’s algorithm hasn’t done him much favours though. It should have picked up the IPOB tweets that so clearly violated the much-vaunted Twitter’s Rules. It didn’t. I can therefore understand how the government can accuse Twitter of double standards. I’d be miffed too.

And spare me the drivel that the government should have reported the IPOB tweets to Twitter. OK, yea, maybe messers Lai Mohammed and Tolu Ogunlesi should have reported the IPOB tweets. But so what they didn’t? Social media companies owe society a duty of care to protect us from seeing evil and hearing evil. The burden of spotting violative posts is on them and not on us. The algos have to do better.

But enough of my faux adjudication. What has got under my skin is the role my demography is playing in the ban. I have come across many forty-something-year-olds glorying in the Twitter ban. They cite the ‘disrespectful’ and ‘uncouth youths’ that inhabit the platform as desert. The so-called ‘children of anger.’

‘Children of anger’? For speaking up? For developing allergies to bunkum, tosh and codswallop?

Shame on you lot!

When the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) terrorized the country, it was the youth that bore the brunt of the oppression and malfeasance. Not we the forty-something-year-olds. When that yoke of police brutality was heavy on our necks, it was the youth that mobilised. Not we, the forty-something-year-olds. And thanks to them, we were rid of SARS. We are not the ones struggling to find jobs. They are. We are not the ones who have hardly tasted the good of the land. It is they. It is, therefore, to be expected that they would be the most uninhibited and vehement segment of society.

But how quickly we forget the past. We, the forty-something-year-olds, were once these ‘children of anger.’

We were the ‘disrespectful’ youth that marched when our mandate was annulled in the June 12 1993 elections. The ‘children of rage’ that stormed the streets when the acclaimed winner of that election died in prison in 1998. A few decades earlier, it was the youths that marched against the military power in 1978 in the Ali Must Go nationwide protest. How quickly we forget we once wore this badge with pride.

The only difference between us and today’s youths is that back in the day, we didn’t have social media to amplify our grievances and mobilise. Today’s young bloods do and are using it in very effective ways. We may not always agree with their tactics or language but when has the old and the young seen eye to eye? It’s the circle of life. Hakuna whatever.

I get it though. We the forty-something-year-olds are risk-averse. Age does that. We’ve become the old and lazy cats we railed against when we were younger. The scared lot afraid and tired of speaking the truth to power. I suppose it’s understandable. We have a lot more to lose than these young Turks. Family, security, position, power. Best let sleeping dogs lie. Since it’s a kennel of feral Dobermans, Rottweilers and Pitt Bulls.

So, here is the obvious: the youths are going nowhere. With or without Twitter, you can’t gag them. And they are coming. Over 70 million of them. Oh, they are coming!

It was once our time. It is now their time. Best get with the program.

 

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Advertising, Technology

Facebook vs Apple. Nobody likes a voyeur.

Picture this. You are on your bed in your boxers. The mood is right. Barry White’s deep sensuous voice comes up on the HomePod. Telling you this. Telling you that. Or maybe Joe is your thing. Or Ed Sheeran. The room is chilled by the air conditioner. The lights are dimmed. Your bonnie lass is in the bathroom. You can smell her fragrance. She comes into the bedroom in a towel. She drops the towel as she walks towards you. 

Then your eye catches something in the corner of the room. A silhouette. A male figure seated in the armchair with a glass in his hands. You jump up from the bed in panic and switch on the lights. It’s the landlord.

You are shocked and furious. You shout at him to get the hell out of your room. Out of your apartment. He smiles and says no can do. He has the right to be there. You agreed to his presence when you rented the house. It was in the fine prints. But you didn’t bother to read it. Like the last tenant. And the one before him. And the one before that. All tenants really. But if you are adamant he should leave the room, he will. You’ll only have to move out of the apartment and forfeit your rent. It’s in the contract. In the fine prints. 

He pours himself another drink and waits on your decision. He smiles at you the way I imagine a lecher would. 

The story above is, of course, a sordid metaphor. An over-dramatization of Facebook’s tracking activities. But you did grant Facebook a front-row seat to your private life when you installed the app on your phone. You didn’t know you did. But you did. 

So, here is how Facebook tracking works. 

When you use the Facebook app on your iOS or Android device, Facebook tracks what you do on the app. It collects a host of information ranging from device, OS, city, gender, age and many more. But this tracking is not limited to what you do on the Facebook app. Facebook also tracks you across other apps on your phone and websites you visit. It is not content to know what you do on its app; it also needs to know what you do on other apps and on the internet. Instagram, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, Candy Crush, TikTok, Tinder, Bumble, PornHub. Name it.  

Now, why does Facebook track you across apps and websites? 

Why, to know you better, of course! 

You see, Facebook’s business is selling targeted advertising. That’s how it makes money. It makes some $86 billion annually selling these targeted ads. Targeted ads are personalized advertising delivered to you based on the data companies like Facebook and Google collect about you. They collect these troves of data about you so they can have a good picture of who you are. That picture is important to advertisers and data brokers who need to reach a specified audience. That, after all, is the vaunted advantage of digital media over traditional media.

These gems of personal bits are not all necessarily available on the Facebook app. There are a lot more things you do on your phone than just scroll through Facebook. You read the news. You play games. You window-shop. You buy stuff. You watch YouTube. You take pictures. You live for the ‘gram. By following you across apps and the internet, Facebook is able to piece together all these activities and paint your demographic and psychographic portrait. Ergo, nail you down to your needs and wants. If you’ve been checking out websites on how to emigrate to Canada, don’t be surprised if Facebook serves you ads on emigration services to Saskatchewan.

So, if you are playing with your side chick’s phone and you start seeing Facebook ads for baby food and diapers, congratulations homie! Facebook probably knows something you don’t. 

The depth of information Facebook collects about you may be disconcerting. But all ad-based tech companies track you across apps and websites. Google does it. So do Amazon, Instagram (Facebook Inc), Twitter or Yahoo. If they sell ads, they probably track you. That is the cost you pay for using the apps for free. Like many people, you didn’t read the Facebook privacy policy or terms. Nobody reads those. But that’s where the bodies are buried. Where you consented to be tracked.

So, what is the feud between Facebook and Apple all about? 

Starting with iOS 14.5, Apple will introduce a feature called App Tracking Transparency or ATT. ATT requires users (you) to give permissions to apps before they can track you across apps and websites. 

With ATT, when you launch any app for the first time, you will see a pop-up that informs you that an app wants to track you across platforms. The pop-up will explain what the tracker is and asks whether you want to approve or reject the tracking and sharing of your data. 

Which is awesome for privacy.

One of Apple’s brand promises is privacy. The iPhone is supposed to be iron-clad. So iron-clad that Apple itself claims it cannot unlock an iPhone encrypted by the user. The FBI found that out the hard way. Thus, from a consumer and marketing perspective, offering iPhone users ATT is keeping with a brand promise. It helps deepen loyalty. It is good for business.

But not for Markie’s business. Mark Zuckerberg is outraged about App Tracking Transparency. ATT threatens Facebook’s nest egg. When users opt out of being tracked, it means Facebook’s ability to paint a portrait of the user is affected. There’ll be gaps in the picture. A nose missing. One ear missing. Maybe three teeth lost. That is bad for targeted advertising. Bad for Facebook.

Facebook probably suspects that if users have the choice of turning off tracking, many would. I know I would. I don’t want some bot stalking me all over the internet. What happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas. 

So Markie is pissed. So pissed he is calling Apple its biggest competitor. So pissed he is smearing Apple as an enemy of small businesses and the free internet in newspaper ads. He said Apple is using privacy as a justification to disadvantage Facebook. 

Said Markie, “Apple has every incentive to use their dominant platform position to interfere with how our apps and other apps work, which they regularly do to preference their own.” 

Tim Cook has never hidden his disdain for Facebook’s business model and flagrant abuse of users’ data. 

“If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform,” said Tim.

Whoa, those are some pretty strong words there, Tim!

However, Apple claims it is not asking Facebook and others not to track across apps and websites. It only requires them to asks permission from users before they do. 

Yea, right. 

That’s like telling a thief to ask for your permission before he steals your car.

You may well ask why Facebook is worried about Apple’s ATT. After all, iOS is only 27% of mobile operating systems. Android rules the gamut. 

Thing is, the bulk of Facebook’s $86 billion annual revenue comes from the US and Canada. iOS accounts for over 61% and 52% respectively of mobile operating systems in those two markets. Crucially, North America also happens to be the region with the highest Average Revenue per User (ARPU) for Facebook per the Statista data below. 

©Statista 2021

So, Facebook’s fight with Apple is a fight over ad revenue in the US and Canada. Europe is not an insignificant second. The rest of ya’ll go eat a donut. 

Is Apple sincere about privacy claims or only manoeuvring for advantage? Time will tell. We’ll be watching its future actions closely. But Facebook’s history of data abuse and measurement untruths may deprive it of sympathetic ears. At least not from iOS users. They’ll be on Apple’s side. We the iSheep.

And many will also remember the fiasco of Cambridge Analytica, US electioneering, and the upcoming data merger between Facebook and WhatsApp. Facebook always seems to be in the news for all the wrong reasons. 

Social trust is proving to be a thing. 

 

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Artificial Intelligence, Technology, The Future

The doggone geekstitute called Boston Dynamics.

There’s only one reason man eats fish. We eat fish because we can. Fishes are dumb and we are smart. We are at the top of the food chain and we take whatever we want.

I therefore don’t take kindly to anyone who tries to rearrange this balance. Boston Dynamics may think it’s a cool company. But I’ll tell you what a cool company does; it doesn’t make robots that can open doors!

Continue reading →

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