Company News
Google to Enforce 30% In-App Payment Policy
Google has revealed that it will be taking on app developers, who circumvent the Play Store’s in-app payment system, by enforcing its 30% service fee. In a blog post, Google reveals that a number of developers have reported being confused over the company’s billing system policies. “We want to be sure our policies are clear and up to date so they can be applied consistently and fairly to all developers, and so we have clarified the language in our Payments Policy to be more explicit that all developers selling digital goods in their apps are required to use Google Play’s billing system,” reads the post. The tech company has always required developers who distribute their apps on Play to use Google Play’s billing system if they offer in-app purchases of digital goods, and pay a service...
Red Hat and Samsung Partner to Drive 5G Adoption
Red Hat and Samsung have partnered to deliver 5G network solutions, built on Red Hat OpenShift, across 5G core, edge computing, IoT and machine learning. According to the companies, it is important for telecommunications service providers to adopt a consistent horizontal cloud-native platform hardened for their environments. A recent Red Hat-sponsored report from ACG Research, open horizontal platforms can lower total cost ownership (TCO) up to 30% when compared to siloed vertically integrated deployments of virtualized radio access networks (vRANs). By taking this horizontal approach, customers have access to more choice and better service. This collaboration will utilize Red Hat’s hybrid cloud portfolio including Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linu...
Jumia and Airtel Kenya Partner to Enable Mobile Payments
Jumia and Airtel Kenya have partnered to allow consumers to complete their online payment transactions using Airtel Money. “Millions of Kenyans rely on mobile money daily to make fast payments. By expanding our payment options to include Airtel money, it will make it easier for more consumers to incorporate online shopping as part of their daily transactions,” says Nelly Movine, Head of Financial Services at Jumia. The service is expected to further enhance the Jumia contactless-delivery initiative launched in March as a safety measure against COVID-19. Consumers are encouraged to prepay for their purchases to avoid cash exchange or pay with Airtel money upon delivery. “We are delighted to be working with Jumia on this exciting partnership to enhance customer experience on the Jumia platfo...
Microsoft 365 Suffers Worldwide Outage
Microsoft has confirmed that a number of its cloud services – including Teams, Outlook, and Office 365 – suffered an outage. “We’re investigating an issue affecting access to multiple Microsoft 365 services. We’re working to identify the full impact and will provide more information shortly,” reads an official tweet. The tech company revealed that the outage could have been caused by a recent update – which it has now reverted. “We’ve identified a recent change that appears to be the source of the issue. We’re rolling back the change to mitigate impact.” /* custom css */ .tdi_3_852.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_852.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “We have confirmed via our monitoring that the majority of services have recovered for most customers,” reports Micro...
Google Drive to Automatically Delete Trashed Files
Google has revealed that it will be making an adjustment to the longevity of ‘trashed files’. In an email to users, the tech giant confirms that files moved to the ‘trash’ will be deleted automatically after 30 days. “We are writing to let you know that starting October 13, 2020, Google Drive is making a change so that its trash behaves more consistently with the rest of Google applications (such as Gmail) with regards to automatic deletion,” says Google. “This means that any file that is put into Google Drive’s ‘My Drive’ trash will begin to be automatically deleted after 30 consecutive days in the trash.” “You can always restore files from trash before the 30-day time window.” /* custom css */ .tdi_3_b5c.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_b5c.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } ...
Telkom Makes New Changes to Board
Telkom has made new changes to its board committees. In a recent statement, the telco says “shareholders are advised that Telkom will reconstitute various of its Board Committees with effect from 28 September 2020.” Here is a closer look the changes that Telkom will make to its board committees: Botha will resign from the nominations committee and the remuneration committees Dolly Mokgatle will be appointed as a member of the nominations committee Sibusiso Sibisi will be appointed as a member of the risk committee Rex Tomlinson will be appointed as the chairman of the remuneration committee and a member of the nominations committee. He will retire from the audit committee Louis Von Zeuner will be appointed as a member of the remuneration committee and will retire from the social and ethics...
HPE Finalises Acquisition of Silver Peak
Sourced from Silicon Angle Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has completed the acquisition of Silver Peak, an SD-WAN company, in a transaction valued at $925 million. Silver Peak will become a part of Aruba, an HPE company. The acquisition is intended to strengthen Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), helping to advance enterprise cloud transformation with a comprehensive edge-to-cloud networking solution covering all aspects of wired, wireless local area networking (LAN) and wide-area networking (WAN). “WAN transformation is a key component of HPE’s Intelligent Edge and edge-to-cloud vision and growth strategy,” says Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE. “Armed with a comprehensive SD-WAN portfolio with the addition of Silver Peak, we will accelerate the delivery of a true distributed clo...
Opera Launches New Android and Desktop Browser Update
Opera has revealed new versions of its Android and desktop browsers – Android version 60 and Opera for desktop version 71. The new version of Opera’s flagship browser for Android ships with a completely redesigned Sync feature that uses a straight-forward QR-code reader to establish a seamless connection between Opera for Android and the Opera desktop browser on Windows, macOS or Linux. The latest version of Opera’s desktop browser, on the other hand, introduces a useful Easy Files feature. When attaching files in the Opera browser, Easy Files presents the user with their most recently downloaded files in a visual form, helping them select the desired files quickly, without having to search through folders or remember the file names. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_645.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: le...
Cartrack Launches Personal Safety App in South Africa
Cartrack has launched Karu Safety, a rapid response safety app that dispatches emergency security assistance for people in need. Founder and Group CEO, Zak Calisto says the launch of Karu Safety was a natural evolution for the company. “We’ve been in the software business for 16 years and consistently introduced ground-breaking innovations that have made significant contributions towards the growth of the industry globally. We have unparalleled experience and insight into the need of people living in South Africa for personal safety. We too are concerned with the growing safety concerns in our communities. We view this new service as our duty to respond to the dire call from the South African people for affordable and accessible safety,” says Calisto. The Karu Safety app dispatches a ...
BBD Achieves AWS Advanced Partner Status
BBD has announced that they have achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advanced Consulting Partner status in the Amazon Partner Network (APN). After meeting rigorous requirements, achieving this status comes in recognition of BBD’s proven track record in expertly architecting, building, migrating and managing client workloads in the cloud. “Achieving this status from the largest provider of cloud computing services in the world validates our ability to accelerate our clients’ journey to the cloud while ensuring optimised performance once there,” says Tony van der Linden, BBD’s head of research and design. As cloud technology matures and workplaces move into a cloud-first and technology-driven norm, BBD draws on the expertise of their certified cloud specialists to offer ...
Ukheshe Confirms Two Key Appointments
Ukheshe has announced the appointment of Victor Ndlovu as its new Vice President for Africa and Paul Opie as Head of Issuing for Ukheshe Africa. Both appointments come as the fintech innovator continues to branch out from its South African roots into Africa. Joining Ukheshe from Wirecard South Africa, where he was responsible for driving regional business development, Opie says he is looking forward to working on local solutions that meet local market requirements and expanding them more broadly. “The challenges in the African payment industry as well as current global trends presents an opportunity for us to provide cost-effective payment acceptance infrastructure, such as QR code or mobile, rather than POS. Increase in acceptance creates trust and limits the want to withdraw cash from AT...
Facebook Opens New HQ in Nigeria
Facebook has officially opened its new HQ in Nigeria – marking the platforms second office on the African continent. Aimed at supporting the entire Sub-Saharan Africa region, the office is expected to become operational in H2 2021 and will be the first on the continent to house a team of expert engineers building for the future of Africa and beyond. Facebook’s office is expected to be home to various teams servicing the continent from across the business, including Sales, Partnerships, Policy, Communications as well as Engineers. “The opening of our new office in Lagos, Nigeria presents new and exciting opportunities in digital innovations to be developed from the continent and taken to the rest of the world,” says Ime Archibong, Facebook’s Head of New Product Experimentation. /* custom cs...
