tech news
Need a Culture Fix? Here are 5 French Museums You Can Visit Virtually
Sourced from Flickr. As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to restrict international travel, many wanderlust travellers around the world are craving their next trip. Wouter Vermeulen, GM of Southern Africa for Air France KLM notes that while we are all being responsible citizens practising social distancing, people across the world are finding creative ways to bring the world to them. “During this time of lockdown, we have seen people embracing virtual travel to their dream destinations. And while it is no replacement for the real thing, it helps keep that travel dream alive. Another way we have seen people bringing the world to them is through virtual tourism! Many tourist hotspots and museums have created interactive versions of their offering to give travellers a glimpse into their ...
Crossfin Transactional Solutions Rebrands To Adumo
Crossfin Transactional Solutions (CTS) has rebranded to Adumo, in an attempt to infuse the fast-growing fintech company with an authentic African feel that speaks to its existing and future customer base. Following the 2019 acquisition of Sureswipe by Crossfin Technology Holdings, a fintech investment company, and Apis Growth Fund, a private equity fund managed by London-based Apis Partners LLP, Crossfin Transactional Solutions (CTS), South Africa’s largest independent payments and merchant acquiring solutions platform was formed. 2020 will now see an authentic, local positioning of CTS to ‘Adumo’. Adumo services more than 30 000 active clients and 50 000 active card machines – processing over $4 billion in transaction value – and with a presence in 7 African countries, making it is the la...
iPhone 12 Still on Track for September Release
Sourced from Phone Arena There has been continued speculation about whether or not the iPhone 12 launch might be delayed further by around a few months due to the worldwide pandemic and its supply chain disruptions earlier in the year. A report from Wedbush now says that Apple’s supply chain has made impressive strides in ramping up production capabilities, putting the iPhone 12 back on track for a September launch. According to 9to5Mac, the report suggests that while there has been some disruption, suppliers have managed to make up for lost time, working hard to get back on schedule for the usual September timeframe “Our recent Asia checks and supply chain contacts are now looking at iPhone units in the 160 million to 180 million range for CY20 with strong underlying momentum into CY...
Sony’s Music Portal Launches Two New Features for African Artists
Sony Music Entertainment Africa has just unveiled two state-of-the-art features – Real-Time Earnings and Cash-Out – that allow their artists to view and withdraw earnings faster than ever before through the Sony Music Artist Portal. In these unprecedented times where artists need immediate access to funds, the Real-Time Earnings element of the Sony Music Artist Portal is available anytime, anywhere and provides artists with immediate updates about their global earnings and account balances, while also giving them faster insights into their earnings trends. The Cash-Out element gives artists even greater control over their money by providing them with the ability to request a withdrawal of all, or part, of their payable balance, and there are no hidden fees or charges that are incurred when...
Tech is Essential in Developing a Flourishing Agriculture Sector in Africa
Sourced from Getty Images. Africa should be in a great position to feed itself and play a significant role in feeding about nine billion people by 2050. For this to be realised, however, significant reforms have to be made to leverage the current standing optimally. The World Economic Forum reports that the African continent has 65% of the uncultivated arable land left in the world and creates about 60% of the continent’s employment. Africa boasts a wide diversity of agro-ecological zones, heavy rain-forest vegetation with bi-annual rainfall to relatively sparse, dry and arid vegetation with low uni-modal rainfall is positioned to be a World’s supplier of Agricultural produce. With these factors at play, it is difficult to find that Africa is still stuck with the burden of being a net food...
Zuku Could Soon Be Releasing an Android TV-Ready Decoder
Satellite and fixed internet provider Zuku seems to be looking into releasing a decoder loaded with Android TV in the future, combined with Google Play and YouTube. The service is available in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi & Zambia. Zuku is working on an Android TV box. Interesting stuff. But also it can end in tears. pic.twitter.com/IWkpxdiNNt — Kenyan Citizen 🇰🇪 (@BeingWesh) June 25, 2020 New images circling social media might give an indication of what this new product may look like, as well as what might be included in the box set. According to TechWeez, the product is set to be a decoder that is capable of running Android TV, Google Play and YouTube. No word yet if the decoder will be able to support the installation of any other streamings services like Netflix ...
Sasol to Start Cutting Jobs in August Amid Global Oil Price Slump
Sourced from BizNews. Sasol is set to begin employee dismissals from mid-August in efforts to cut costs in a new strategy aimed at boosting its balances. This comes after the company was battered by the general decline in oil prices as a result of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. According to Fin24, in a letter to its employees dated 18 June the company says it was under considerable financial pressure and that unless stringent and emergency actions are taken, it would not survive the year. The massive petrochemical firm, employer of 31,000 people around the world, continues to estimate that its financial position will remain under “severe pressure” due to the depressed prices on oil. Based in Johannesburg, Sasol says that its “…financial position continues to be under severe pressure, esp...
Satellite TV Continues to Gain Popularity in Ghana and Nigeria
Sourced from Britannica. A new study shows that Satellite TV reception increased by 23% in Nigeria and 19% in Ghana in 2019 since the last study, conducted two years ago; SES currently reaches 35 million TV households across the African Continent. SES has unveiled the results of its annual Satellite Monitor survey, which reveals a steady increase in the penetration of satellite TV across Africa. The study on TV reception also shows an increase in satellite TV across the continent, leaping from 33 million African households in 2018 to 35 million households in 2019. 2 million households in a year’s time. If this trend continues, satellite TV penetration could reach 41 million households by 2022. In Nigeria, the Satellite Monitor results revealed that satellite TV reception was the choice for...
Huawei Partners with SovTech to Develop HMS Apps
Sourced from Getty Images. Huawei has partnered with software development company, SovTech, to assist with refiguring the core services of some of South Africa’s most used mobile apps to be able to function fully on its mobile ecosystem – Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). “SovTech is responsible for developing a new Android Package File (APK) that would work on the Huawei AppGallery using only HMS integration kits. Huawei is focusing on a lot of research and development and will really challenge the status quo in terms of what we are used to in the space of mobile services offerings,” says Luke Hunt, Director of Product Advance at SovTech’s app division. To kick off the partnership with Huawei, SovTech had a codeshare agreement with Travelstart, using it as a proof of concept to demonstrate th...
LG Unveils New Tone Free Wireless Earbuds
LG has revealed two new LG Tone Free true wireless earbuds (models HBS-FN6 and HBS-FN4) – which are both said to deliver an “exceptional listening experience” thanks to Meridian Audio technology. The earbuds not only use Headphone Spatial Processing (HSP) technology from Meridian to add an extra dimension of audio but also Digital Signal Processing (DSP) to simulate the experience of listening to real loudspeakers. The LG HBS-FN6 features LG’s industry-first UVnano case which eliminates bacteria and germs on the earbuds as they charge. The new canal-type design delivers a more comfortable fit and comes in two colours: matte black and glossy white. The compact charging case provides up to an hour of listening time after a five-minute charge. Fully charged, both models provide six hours of u...
NASA Headquarters Named After its First Black Female Engineer
Sourced from Getty Images. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that the agency’s headquarters in Washington DC will be named after Mary W. Jackson, the first African-American female engineer to work at the aerospace company. Jackson, who passed away in 2005, started her NASA career in the segregated West Area Computing Unit of the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. She was a mathematician and aerospace engineer went on to lead programs influencing the hiring and promotion of women in NASA’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. In 2019, she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Donald Trump, along with her “Hidden Figures” contemporaries in Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Christine Darden. /* custom css *...
Google Will Begin to Automatically Delete User Location History by Default
Sourced from Shutterstock. Google announced that it will start to automatically delete the location history and web activity of users after an 18 month period. “We continue to challenge ourselves to do more with less, and today we’re changing our data retention practices to make auto-delete the default for our core activity settings,” Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai says in a release. Usually, users would have to manually turn this feature on, but now it seems that the search engine giant has decided to include it by default. Google will be able to keep certain amounts of information on the online activity of users and still be able to recommend websites and adverts on things you may like based on your location and browsing history, but now, they won’t have to deal with vast amounts ...
