tech news
CIOs Should Embrace the Opportunities of a Post-lockdown Market
As South Africa enters the tenth week of the nationwide lockdown, the business focus has shifted from enabling employees to work remotely to now planning for what the new normal is likely to look like. This requires CIOs to balance existing organisational priorities with ways of becoming more adaptive to the changing environment. Critical to this is decisive decision-making that positions the business for growth. For small to medium-sized businesses that do not have all the skills in-house to transform their IT environments, decision-makers should consider going the outsourcing route. By partnering with a managed service provider (MSP) that can deliver everything from a cloud-readiness audit through to helping identify the technology gaps that exist between the business strategy and what i...
YouTube’s ‘Chapters’ Roll out on Desktop and Mobile
Sourced from Speechling. YouTube has released its new video chapters feature to all users on desktop, smartphones and tablets. Chapters, the new feature that soft-launched in April, will make it easier to skip to precisely where you want to go in a video, similar to the chapters in a book, or scenes in a movie. Though not to the most ground-breaking or exciting new feature to land on YouTube, they are a welcome, if not overdue quality-of-life feature that will no doubt make the experience easier for many users. On desktop, a video with chapters won’t look different from how videos have always looked. The biggest change is barely noticeable: the red bar used to show video progress will have breaks within it, showing the different chapters, the breaks indicate when the chapters begin and end...
Donald Trump Signs Executive Order Targetting Social Media Companies
Sourced from Deadline. United States President Donald Trump has signed a controversial executive order that could allow federal officials in the US to go after technology giants like Twitter, Facebook and Google over how those companies treat content that appears on their websites. The president, whom The Independent claims, has uttered “thousands of false or misleading statements” since taking office, complained as he signed the missive that social media firms have, what he called, “unchecked power,” adding: “Imagine if your phone company edited or silenced your conversations.” Trump signed the order two days after Twitter, for the first time, placed a link on a pair of Trump’s tweets that guided users to news articles that fact-checked his statements about mail-in-ballots. The Independen...
Playfre Expands Music Streaming Service to the Entire African Continent
Playfre has announced that it plans on expands platform across the entire continent. Before this, Playfre – which launched in May 2019 – was limited to only 18 African countries and before that, only to 5 African countries. With a library of over 50 million songs and 2 million artists, Playfre is currently the largest African music streaming service in terms of catalogue size. It has grown steadily in the past few months; averaging around 250 streams per registered user. According to Playfre co-founder and CEO Chika Nwaogu, music isn’t limited only to the just over 20,000 registered users on the platform – it’s freely available to anyone who downloads the app. Although any visitor outside the continent of Africa who tries to use the service is taken to the “Playfre is currently not availab...
What are PAMM accounts?
Forex is a virtual market, not restricted to any location, be it London or Johannesburg. This trading platform is available 24 hours a day, as the world’s banks operate in different time zones. This is the key difference between Forex and the “traditional” stock exchange. All you need to work on the financial market is a stable Internet connection and access to the platform offered by the intermediary. For most clients, a prime broker represents such a guarantee. All rights and responsibilities of the client and the intermediary are stipulated in the contract. Forex exchange rates change rapidly during the trading day. Positive or negative tendency is shaped by various factors, such as global political changes, economic performance, policy of national financial institutions and...
ATCON Tasks Nigerian Government to Begin Digitizing the Economy
Sourced from the Guardian Nigeria. The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has charged the Federal Government to begin the digitization of the nation’s economy. The association stressed the importance and crucial need for the government to map out fresh plans that would assist the country cope with economic challenges post-COVID-19 pandemic. Olusola Teniola, president of ATCON, told The Guardian Nigeria that every sector of the Nigerian economy should brace for the challenges ahead, stressing that information and communication technology (ICT) would be strategic in diversifying and digitising the economy going forward. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_dff.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_dff.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Teniola makes clear that the assoc...
Twitter Flags Trump Tweet for Glorifying Violence
Twitter has taken the unprecedented step of flagging a tweet from Donald Trump, saying it violated the platform’s rules against glorifying violence. Early Friday morning, as protests boiled over in Minneapolis over the murder of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, by police, Trump sent out an especially incendiary tweet threatening violence against protestors. “These thugs are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” Trump tweeted. Just spoke to [Minnesota] Governor Tim Waltz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the lotting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” Twitter subsequently added a warning label to Trump’s tweet, which prevented users from viewing it without first reading a brief ...
How to Shop for Gadgets Online Like a Pro
If you want to shop for an electronic gadget online then you are probably wondering how to get the best deal. Shopping online is cool but it also has its shortcomings. You can lose cash buying the wrong gadget, or you might even get a faulty one that might lead to frustrations. Most gadgets are expensive, that’s why you must be careful not to lose your hard-earned cash as you shop. Let us look at some tips and tricks that will help you shop for your gadgets online like a pro. Research on an item before purchase Research on an item to compare brands’ prices and quality. Ensure that you get the best quality on your budget. You can get this information from a seller’s website but ensure that the manufacturer’s specifications are similar to those listed by the seller. In case of any variations...
The Future of Work – Becoming a Digital Workforce
Sourced from HCAMag.com The future of work has always been a popular topic for discussion, especially among HR and payroll practitioners. However, the current COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown many countries have experienced are fast-tracking discussions towards more practical interventions to prepare the workforce for what will be the new normal. “Even though many aspects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and the digitalisation of workforces have been theoretical, the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic has forced management to rethink their approaches to employees and how they use technology to not only improve productivity but reinvent traditional processes,” says Ian McAlister, GM at CRS Technologies. More than just technology Consider artificial intelligence (AI)...
Nutanix Appoints New Director of GSI Business
Enterprise cloud computing company, Nutanix has announced that it has appointed Adam Tarbox as Director of Global System Integrator (GSI) Business for the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region. With more than 25 years’ experience in the IT industry, Tarbox moves to Nutanix from NetApp, where he spent more than a decade running the Service Provider, Channel UKI and GSI UK business units. In his new role, Tarbox will be responsible for developing and executing an overarching regional alliance strategy for Nutanix’s GSI partners. He will lead a team distributed across the EMEA region, and be focused on driving go-to-market (GTM) activities with GSIs around joint offerings for both horizontal markets and industry verticals. “GSI partners are a key element of our ability to deliver exa...
Facebook and Instagram Introduce Gift Card Feature for South African Businesses
Instagram and Facebook are making it a little easier for South Africans to support local businesses in their communities thanks to the new gift card feature. Facebook has created this feature to help local businesses, such as restaurants, fitness studios, salons, bookshops and bakeries as they navigate their way through the COVID-19 pandemic and national lockdown. People can find offers from participating merchants through a “Support Local Businesses” ad in their Facebook feeds, a Gift Card button on merchants’ Instagram profiles or in Stories through the Gift Card sticker. Supporting small businesses and restaurants is an important part of Instagram’s community, which is why Instagram is also launching Food Orders, making it easier for businesses to get support from their customers throug...
Safaricom Eyes an Opportunity to Expand into Ethiopia
Sourced from CGTN. Safaricom PLC is planning to extend its reach into Ethiopia, Kenya’s northern neighbour. Although not initially successful with its first few attempts, new changes within the Ethiopian government may prove beneficial for the mobile carrier to finally establish a presence within the country. Last month, the Ethiopian government said that it would be impossible for Safaricom’s M-PESA service to have any space in the market. The Ethiopian central bank about reiterated that no foreign financial institutions would be allowed to offer mobile money services in the country. Now, the good news for Safaricom is that the company was recently offered a window to buy into Ethio Telecom, the country’s mass-monopoly provider whose privatisation process is currently underway. This is on...
