technology news
Huawei Partners with Mondia to Expand Contactless Payments Across Africa
Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) has teamed up with Mondia Pay, a digital payments company, to roll out seamless and contactless payments solutions for mobile network operators. Since the commencement of the partnership in September 2020, demand for the implementation of Direct Carrier Billing service (DCB) for seamless, contactless payments for mobile users in the MEA region has grown. Mondia Pay’s direct carrier billing service integration was launched with Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat UAE. During this quarter the following operators – Ufone Pakistan, Cell C South Africa, Orange Tunisia and Ooredoo Algeria – will go live with the DCB service, following the testing phase. As a DCB services for consumers, Mondia Pay is available on HuaweiAppGallery, to facilitate online payments. Subscribers ca...
How Telematics is Driving eCommerce during COVID-19
If ever there was a time for the eCommerce sector to adopt telematics technology, it would be now: COVID-19 has disrupted the retail landscape, with more South Africans now choosing e-commerce as their preferred shopping channel over traditional brick-and-mortar stores. According to a Mastercard study, as much as 68% of South African consumers said they are shopping more online since the onset of the pandemic. More online shopping means that there are more deliveries to be made, and the logistics industry has had to scale operations to meet the growing demand. The various levels of lockdown, COVID-19 regulations and people working from home have created a greater reliance on home deliveries, with the industry now findi...
Safaricom Partners with Ericsson to Provide Gbps Backhaul Capacity in Kenya
Image sourced from Techweez Safaricom has chosen Ericsson to supply microwave solutions based on the E-band platform to achieve multi Gbps backhaul capacity for mobile broadband nationwide coverage in Kenya. The solution – MINI-LINK 6352 – is expected to offer high capacity, efficient use of spectrum, low-energy consumption and simplified operations and maintenance. With technological advances in microwave system software and new radio hardware, microwave transport capacity has moved from megabit-per-second capacity to gigabit-per-second capacity. By deploying Ericsson’s microwave solution, Safaricom will benefit from multi Gbps links as an alternative in areas where fibre is not viable. The links will assist in providing the much-needed capacity to assist the service provider to expand da...
What is Cyber Doxxing and How to Protect Against It
Since the beginning of internet errors, a lot of personal details is revealed. Publishing personal data online may be very dangerous. The internet is a pool where you will find all sorts of people including hackers, cyberbullies, and other people with defamatory intentions. Such people collect and publish personal information with a bad intention. When this is done, it is known as Doxxing. Doxxing comes from the word “documents” with the act of documenting another person’s information. Criminals dig up personal details of an individual who wants to remain anonymous and expose them to the public. The main aim is to harass or shame the person. Although details like email addresses, phone numbers, and social security numbers are available online, there are other details like pictures, financi...
Ride-Hailing Platform, Bolt Now Available on Huawei App Gallery
Huawei has announced that ride-hailing platform – Bolt – is now available on its AppGallery. The service provides users with a simple, affordable, and much quicker way of reaching any destination within certain cities in South Africa. Moreover, it can help users avoid the hassle of missing an important appointment, reduce stress related to heavy traffic during peak hours, and enable a secure and contactless payment method. Huawei has also revealed that ride-hailing apps – like Bolt – are integrated within the core Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem. They include Huawei Map and Location kit, which provides an accurate location when booking rides and location tracking, thereby offering an enhanced user experience. FNB Banking App Launches on Huawei App Gallery FNB has confirmed that its ...
M-Pesa Africa Appoints New Managing Director
Image sourced from Twitter Safaricom’s M-Pesa Africa has appointed Sitoyo Lopokoiyit as its new Managing Director. He is a “mobile financial services expert who has directly managed mobile money in two of the largest markets in the world – Kenya and Tanzania,” reveals MyBroadBand. Lopokoiyit joined Safaricom in 2011 as head of M-Pesa strategy and business development. He then went on to Vodacom Tanzania in 2016 where he worked as the director of m-commerce, before re-joining Safaricom in 2018. Kenyan Senators Call for Safaricom to Split Senators in Kenya believe that Safaricom should split into two firms – Mobile Services and M-PESA. According to The Star, a split would see the mobile telephony service is regulated by the Communication Authority of Kenya (CAK) and the M-Pesa...
Almost 50% of South Africans Will Avoid a Service Provider Following a Data Breach, Research Shows
Nearly half of South African consumers (46%) would walk away from an online service provider if it suffered any form of data breach, according to a global study by Kaspersky. The idea of avoidable data misuse is likely to incur even greater wrath from respondents, however, with 68% affirming they would no longer use the provider for fear of their data being sold to a third party in this case. As consumers understand more about businesses’ data privacy responsibilities, more transparency is needed from those companies about how they handle user data. Having to shop, be entertained, communicate and conduct business virtually is likely to have sparked heightened awareness about how much data is being offered, and what the upshots of this proliferation could be. Over two-thirds (67%) of respon...
Absa Partners with AWS to Launch Cloud Computing Skills Incubator
Image sourced from Wikiwand Absa has launched a cloud incubator initiative in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to enhance its cloud computing skills across its operations in Africa. This move is part of Absa’s broader efforts to promote learning, experimentation and innovation across the organisation to enhance the banking experience for its customers. By migrating to the cloud, companies can eliminate the expense of building and managing on-site data centres while gaining the ability to reduce infrastructure costs and scale up and down rather than paying for excess on-premises capacity. “Cloud is rapidly becoming the norm for large companies, a trend that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted a step-change in digital solutions,” says Andrew Baker, Absa ...
Facebook Says it Won’t Notify Users Implicated in ‘Hack’
On April 3, Business Insider revealed that more than 530 million Facebook users personal information had been made publicly available in an unsecured database – this included names, email addresses, and phone numbers. Facebook has now disclosed that it doesn’t plan to notify the users whose data was exposed online. According to The Verge, the social media platform “cited two reasons as to why it’s not telling users proactively: it says it’s not confident it would know which users would need to be notified and that users wouldn’t be able to do anything about the data being online”. Facebook believes that the data leak is the result of malicious actors who obtained the data by scraping it from the platform prior to September 2019. “We believe the data in question was scraped from ...
South Africa to Receive 20 Million Doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine
Image sourced from TimesLIVE Pfizer is set to distribute 20 million doses of its COVID-19 Vaccine to South Africa – starting mid-April. This comes after the pharmaceutical company managed to resolve contractual conditions that weren’t in line with South Africa’s normal procurement policies, revealed Department of Health deputy director-general, Anban Pillay. According to Bloomberg, the Pfizer-BioNTech version will be “used to kick-start the rollout after a decision not to use AstraZeneca Plc’s shot, which was found to offer little protection against mild forms of COVID-19 in a local trial”. AstraZeneca Vaccine Only ‘Minimally Effective’ Against South African COVID-19 Variant, says Researcher The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has proven ‘minimally effective’ against the South African variant...
Why Telcos Should Gear Up to Secure New Wave of 5G Networks
Telcos are expected to implement a wide array of measures in 2021 to secure the next wave of 5G connectivity, according to a global survey by Heavy Reading. As operators begin to rollout standalone 5G networks, they are moving swiftly to secure core network configuration services, such as slice management, which enable 5G operators to provide highly customized connectivity. By the end of 2021, 71% of respondents expect to have implemented security measures for their core network configuration services and 75% plan to have secured the radio access network (RAN). ...
Africa Data Centres to Build 10MW Facility in Nigeria
Africa Data Centres (ADC) has already begun work on its plans to construct a 10MW facility in Lagos, Nigeria. According to TechCentral, the Nigerian data centre will form “(ADC)’ West African hub” and join its network of facilities across East and Southern Africa. ADC CEO, Stephane Duproz says that the Lagos build will help spur the Nigerian economy. “The stimulus effect to the economy of digitisation is well documented and Nigeria is ready for this technology boon. Furthermore, our construction policy is to uplift the community as far as possible, employing local contractors and creating work opportunities within the communities we enter – so the job creation opportunities are realised at both grass-roots and hi-tech levels.” Africa Data Centres Joins NVIDIA DGX-Ready Data Centre Pr...
