tech news
Apple May Delay its iPhone 12 Announcements Even Further
Sourced from Computerworld California-based tech giant Apple may delay its iPhone 12 announcement event, expected for September, due to the global coronavirus pandemic. The company had delayed the launch of its new iPhone 12 by over a year into 2021 when the pandemic first began affecting tech companies across the globe. Now, Apple is considering pushing the announcement into October to avoid a gap between the event and handsets reaching store shelves – the iPhone maker will have more stores reopened by that point, according to Jon Prosser, a reliable Apple insider. Prosser, who correctly reported the release date of the iPhone SE, says that there is also the possibility that a later iPhone 12 launch event could allow more reporters and analysts to attend in person. WeeklyVoice.com reports...
DHL Debuts Digital Road Freight Platform in Uganda
Image sourced from Transport Advancement DHL Global Forwarding – an international provider of air, sea and road freight services – has launched its digital road freight platform Saloodo! to shippers and transport providers in Uganda, connecting the country to its growing digital network on the African continent. With a total road network of over 129 000 kilometres, it is no surprise that almost 95% of cargo freight in the country relies almost entirely on road transportation. However, similar to the situation in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, there remains infrastructural challenges – a top priority to address as laid out by the Ugandan government in its National Development Plan II and Vision 2040. A 2016 World Bank report found that imports of transport and logistics services make up 55...
FNB is Leveraging AI to Redefine Risk Management
Sourced from Htxt.Africa FNB has been harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to reimagine risk management and forensic due diligence processes. The result is the ability to review profiles for various financial crimes holistically, more rapidly, and more consistently, and free up the time of analysts to perform the functions that they remain better suited to than AI. FNB claims that this doesn’t mean that they need fewer analysts, but rather that their focus is now being used to conduct quality assurance of reviews, and to constantly feedback data into the evolution of the AI. On average, the use of AI frees up 70% of analysts’ time and generating a forensic synopsis ready for a human analyst to review that previously took hours can now be completed in as little as 8 seconds. AI is growin...
Apple and Google Launch COVID-19 Exposure Alert Tool
Apple and Google have officially launched their Exposure Notification system – previously debuted as contact-tracing software – which is designed to alert users of possible contact with individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19. “Starting today, our Exposure Notifications technology is available to public health agencies on both iOS and Android. What we’ve built is not an app — rather public health agencies will incorporate the API into their own apps that people install,” says the tech giants in a joint statement. The Application Programming Interface (API) will enable apps created by public health agencies to work more accurately, reliably and effectively across both Android and iOS devices. “Our technology is designed to make these apps work better. Each user gets to decide whet...
Over 1 Billion SMSs Sent since the Beginning of Lockdown in Nigeria
Sourced from allAfrica. Nigeria’s lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the usage of SMSs – the quintessential short message service used all across the world – as subscribers were discovered to have sent over 1-billion messages within the last month. Though this mass of messages was largely free, checks on some operators revealed the rate of how customers made use of the SMS platform to send messages to one another. For instance, a check on MTN showed that within the first five weeks of lockdown, where people all across the country began to work remotely. Over one billion text messages were sent by customers within the first four weeks of the pan-African telecom introducing a new free SMS package – the package allows MTN Nigeria subscribers across the country to send 1...
South African EduTech Supports Online Learning for Students in Rural Communities
Sourced from CodeXtra Trends Syafunda, an educational platform that provides access to digital content through mobile technology, has received investment funding from SME-enabler Edge Growth which will allow them to scale their platform to meet the surging need for online learning in South Africa. Syafunda, which means “we are learning” in Zulu, was the inspiration of entrepreneur Zakheni Ngubo. Together with his Durban-based Syafunda team, Zakheni is capitalising on South Africa’s high mobile penetration rate to make education more easily accessible. Syafunda partners with local content developers and publishers, setting up digital libraries in places like townships and rural schools where connectivity is limited or non-existent. The digital libraries have five terabytes of pre-loaded con...
How to Adapt your Marketing Strategy for the COVID Era
Good marketing relies on a thorough understanding of your target market, but when much of what you knew about your customers is suddenly no longer relevant, a major shift is needed. With the onset of the coronavirus, almost every aspect of what was considered typical daily life was upended literally overnight – people confined to their homes, anxious about the future and their financial security. “The most important question you should be asking is: ‘How best can I connect with my customers during a crisis?’” says Gavin Knox-Grant, marketing guru and director of Karbon Media. “It’s not only during the pandemic that business will be different,” says Knox-Grant, “the way in which we all conduct business will be forever changed.” /* custom css */ .tdi_3_556.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.t...
How Technology Can Help Youth Unemployment in Nigeria
Sourced from Entrepreneur Platform. In the second quarter of 2018, youth unemployment peaked at 38% in Nigeria. Although there are no recent statistics, experts in the labour sector say the figure has surged year-on-year. Now with the worldwide reaching effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation has become direr as various sectors of the economy and industries stand greatly threatened including the financial and technology industry in Nigeria. Recently, companies like Andela, a software engineering talent company, laid off 135 of its staff across four locations in Africa including Nigeria. The Vanguard Nigeria reports that some financial institutions and commercial banks have had to also take measures like salary cuts to thwart mass layoffs. Another financial institution, Ren Money, r...
South Africans Ready to Disclose Their Online Activity to the Government
Sourced from Fintech News. Thirty-eight per cent (38%) of South African consumers say they are happy for the government to monitor their social media activity to keep its citizens safe – this is according to Kaspersky’s latest report, Social credits and security: Embracing the world of ratings. At the same time, 67% of local respondents were ready to reveal their private data in exchange for a unique offer in an online shop. However, for many consumers, it still remains unclear how these automated systems of data-driven services work: 55% of all the users participating in the poll admitted they still can’t figure it out. The growing popularity of social media networks and online services has led to a growth in social scoring systems – automated algorithms based on users’ behaviour and infl...
MTN Zambia Invests $9.8 Million in Network Upgrade Operation
Image sourced from Pinterest. MTN Zambia has announced that it will be investing $9.8 million to boost network capacity and enable high-speed data services on 337 3G and 4G (LTE) network sites across Zambia. The site-by-site technical roll-out, which focuses on areas with the highest demand pressure, started in the Copperbelt northern regions followed by Lusaka. MTN says its customers will experience the benefits of the increased capacity immediately and that the upgrade is expected to finalise in August. The improvements are done by adding additional carriers on existing 3G and 4G network sites and upgrading current 3G sites to 4G. It also includes the activation of the 800Mhz 4G spectrum which was released by ZICTA recently. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_654.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.t...
Principles of IT Leadership 2020 goes Digital
Over the last few years, IT has become an essential part of every businesses journey towards digital transformation. In fact, Gartner reports that globally 90% of organizations are making it a priority. This means that now, more than ever before, companies are on the lookout for innovative solutions to outdated issues. Yet, despite the obvious interest, reports suggest that roughly 50% of business’s IT projects fail. And the question is, why? As technology evolves, there’s little doubt that it can provide modern and forward-thinking tools, however, it’s up to the leaders in IT to ensure that their solutions are fully understood and implemented if they want to succeed. This means that IT directors and managers have an increasingly vital role to play within organisations as they become...
Is Your Business Ready for the New Pace of Digital Transformation?
Sourced from Syspro. While digital transformation has ostensibly been on top of the CIO’s agenda for years, the reality is that many businesses have been slow on the uptake. Recent events like the lockdown in South Africa and across the world have forced their hand, and those that were on the back foot are now scrambling to keep up. However, when it comes to accelerating digital transformation, businesses need speed, not haste. Now more than ever it is essential to understand that technology is an enabler, a means to an end and not the end itself. In order to succeed, it is critical to begin with a strategy, to understand what business benefits need to be achieved and how technology can assist. No more delaying the inevitable /* custom css */ .tdi_3_558.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.td...
