Southern Africa
vivo to Launch Two New Devices in South Africa
vivo Mobile has announced that it will be extending its offering in South Africa with the introduction of two new handsets. The Y12 and Y30, both evolutions in the Y-series will enter ahead of 5G towards the end of 2020. vivo CEO, Jeff Cao says that the company plans to sit rank the top tier segment of cell phone brands in the country within the next three years. “vivo plans to provide South African consumers with a user experience beyond expectations through technology and innovative, trendsetting products,” adds Cao. Here’s a closer look at vivo’s new devices: vivo Y12 The vivo Y12 is available in Aqua Blue or Burgundy Red and requires just one hand to work as it’s specifically designed for gesture controls. It sports an AI Super-Wide-Angle Camera on the back while the front is fitted wi...
Competition Commission Approves Cell C Recapitalisation
Image sourced from Town Press The Competition Commission announced that the proposed acquisition of Cell C assets by Gatsby SPV has been conditionally approved. “The Commission has recommended to the Competition Tribunal to conditionally approve the proposed transaction in which Gatsby SPV intends to acquire certain assets of the mobile network operator, Cell C,” the Commission in an official statement. Weekly Media Statement : @CompComSA gives #CellC deal a conditional approval pic.twitter.com/LjfWtDAlvs — CompComSA (@CompComSA) May 21, 2020 “The Commission found that the proposed transaction is unlikely to result in a substantial prevention or lessening of competition in any relevant markets – further found that the proposed transaction does not raise any other public interest concerns,”...
Konnect Africa Offers Free Internet to Clinics in South Africa during Pandemic
Konnect Africa, a subsidiary of Eutelsat Communications, is offering its services to the South African authorities to help them manage the COVID-19 health crisis. The communications company says that it will provide temporary free broadband connectivity to eight clinics in the Mpumalanga province where terrestrial networks are not able to provide appropriate bandwidth. Each site will benefit from 300GB of monthly data for several months, renewable if necessary. The deployment was undertaken by Konnect Africa’s local ECNS-licensed distributor, Logical Wireless, which has been authorized to operate during the lockdown as an Essential Services provider. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_400.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_400.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “This operation demonstrates ...
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...
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...
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...
Samsung Introduces the New Galaxy A31
Samsung has officially introduced the new addition to the Galaxy A series – the A31. According to the smartphone giant, this device has been designed for a generation that wants to express themselves to the world and look good doing it. “The Galaxy A Series has always stood for value. The Galaxy A31 embodies this in a big way, through its premium features offered at an affordable price. We designed the device with bigger screens, powerful batteries and cutting-edge cameras – to bring A new world to life,” says Justin Hume, Director of Integrated Mobility at Samsung South Africa. The Galaxy A31 – which is available in Prism Crush Black and Prism Crush Blue – is equipped with an immersive Infinity-U display and a powerful 5,000 mAh all-day battery. Its advanced Octa-core processor and 4GB of...
To Emerge from COVID-19 Businesses Will have to “Re-Think” Traditional Models
Sourced from Tech Loot Traditional models of business funding need a re-think if South Africa’s small businesses and entrepreneurs are to emerge from the financially crippling “winter of coronavirus” into a spring of growth and rejuvenation. Accepting that downturns, recessions and economic crises are inevitable, one needs to shift the focus into building “Zebra” companies – sustainable businesses with steady growth, strong balance sheets and cash flows, and able to withstand downturns – rather than “Unicorns that will die without the next round of funding”, says University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB) Senior Extraordinary Lecturer, Daniel Strauss. “In the past, we had a mindset of ‘or’ – we either had a traditional SMME that was funded through debt or we had a start-up that was f...
