technology news
Sasol to Start Cutting Jobs in August Amid Global Oil Price Slump
Sourced from BizNews. Sasol is set to begin employee dismissals from mid-August in efforts to cut costs in a new strategy aimed at boosting its balances. This comes after the company was battered by the general decline in oil prices as a result of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. According to Fin24, in a letter to its employees dated 18 June the company says it was under considerable financial pressure and that unless stringent and emergency actions are taken, it would not survive the year. The massive petrochemical firm, employer of 31,000 people around the world, continues to estimate that its financial position will remain under “severe pressure” due to the depressed prices on oil. Based in Johannesburg, Sasol says that its “…financial position continues to be under severe pressure, esp...
Satellite TV Continues to Gain Popularity in Ghana and Nigeria
Sourced from Britannica. A new study shows that Satellite TV reception increased by 23% in Nigeria and 19% in Ghana in 2019 since the last study, conducted two years ago; SES currently reaches 35 million TV households across the African Continent. SES has unveiled the results of its annual Satellite Monitor survey, which reveals a steady increase in the penetration of satellite TV across Africa. The study on TV reception also shows an increase in satellite TV across the continent, leaping from 33 million African households in 2018 to 35 million households in 2019. 2 million households in a year’s time. If this trend continues, satellite TV penetration could reach 41 million households by 2022. In Nigeria, the Satellite Monitor results revealed that satellite TV reception was the choice for...
Huawei Partners with SovTech to Develop HMS Apps
Sourced from Getty Images. Huawei has partnered with software development company, SovTech, to assist with refiguring the core services of some of South Africa’s most used mobile apps to be able to function fully on its mobile ecosystem – Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). “SovTech is responsible for developing a new Android Package File (APK) that would work on the Huawei AppGallery using only HMS integration kits. Huawei is focusing on a lot of research and development and will really challenge the status quo in terms of what we are used to in the space of mobile services offerings,” says Luke Hunt, Director of Product Advance at SovTech’s app division. To kick off the partnership with Huawei, SovTech had a codeshare agreement with Travelstart, using it as a proof of concept to demonstrate th...
LG Unveils New Tone Free Wireless Earbuds
LG has revealed two new LG Tone Free true wireless earbuds (models HBS-FN6 and HBS-FN4) – which are both said to deliver an “exceptional listening experience” thanks to Meridian Audio technology. The earbuds not only use Headphone Spatial Processing (HSP) technology from Meridian to add an extra dimension of audio but also Digital Signal Processing (DSP) to simulate the experience of listening to real loudspeakers. The LG HBS-FN6 features LG’s industry-first UVnano case which eliminates bacteria and germs on the earbuds as they charge. The new canal-type design delivers a more comfortable fit and comes in two colours: matte black and glossy white. The compact charging case provides up to an hour of listening time after a five-minute charge. Fully charged, both models provide six hours of u...
NASA Headquarters Named After its First Black Female Engineer
Sourced from Getty Images. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that the agency’s headquarters in Washington DC will be named after Mary W. Jackson, the first African-American female engineer to work at the aerospace company. Jackson, who passed away in 2005, started her NASA career in the segregated West Area Computing Unit of the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. She was a mathematician and aerospace engineer went on to lead programs influencing the hiring and promotion of women in NASA’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. In 2019, she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Donald Trump, along with her “Hidden Figures” contemporaries in Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Christine Darden. /* custom css *...
Google Will Begin to Automatically Delete User Location History by Default
Sourced from Shutterstock. Google announced that it will start to automatically delete the location history and web activity of users after an 18 month period. “We continue to challenge ourselves to do more with less, and today we’re changing our data retention practices to make auto-delete the default for our core activity settings,” Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai says in a release. Usually, users would have to manually turn this feature on, but now it seems that the search engine giant has decided to include it by default. Google will be able to keep certain amounts of information on the online activity of users and still be able to recommend websites and adverts on things you may like based on your location and browsing history, but now, they won’t have to deal with vast amounts ...
SA Regulator Flags Crowd1 as Suspected Pyramid Scheme
South African financial regulators have been taking a renewed critical look at Crowd1 – a nebulous, highly controversial and popular Spanish (or Russian) company that claims to be a networking marketing firm, among other things. Crowd1 has already been banned in Namibia and the Philippines, and other countries, under suspicions of foul play. Since last month, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Prudential Authority has been investigating Crowd1 – a part of what is known as Impact Crowd Technology Group. Looking specifically into whether or not the company is a deposit-taking organisation. According to MoneyWeb, Crowd1 has vehemently denied allegations made against it that it is, in fact, a pyramid scheme. However, claims made by the Bank of Namibia suggest just that. The Bank claim...
Central Bank of Kenya Lengthens its COVID-19 Emergency Mobile Money Measures
Sourced from Forbes. The Central Bank of Kenya announced that it will extend the measures placed on mobile money transactions put forth back in March. Charges for mobile money transactions of up to KES1000 ($9,39) and the withdrawal of money between bank accounts and mobile money wallets. These emergency measures were put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown in Kenya. The initial announcement had the measures in place until 1 July 2020, but now the Central Bank is increasing the duration of the measures by 5 months until the end of the year, 31 December 2020. The Central Bank of Kenya says that in line with these measures: /* custom css */ .tdi_3_5fc.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_5fc.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } There will be no charge for mobi...
Why PRTG Network Monitoring is Crucial for Efficient IT Systems
The IT sector has been forced to gear up for a major increase in connected devices as more organisations around the world look at replacing traditional offices with remote working solutions. This work-from-home migration — triggered by the coronavirus pandemic — means that there more business-critical devices supporting crucial IT networks scattered across the globe than ever before. And while these connected technologies make doing an honest day’s work easier for employees, it’s also an unprecedented challenge for IT teams who need to keep track of their networks in order to minimize downtime and secure any cyberthreats. With this in mind, ITNA recently chatted to Reagan Ndangi, account manager at Value-Added Distributor ASD, about exactly what PRTG Network Monitoring is...
Telkom Launches Digital Marketplace App to Help Small Businesses Grow
Image sourced from My Broadband To help the growth of small businesses in South Africa, Telkom Business has launched Yep! – a digital marketplace where customers can safely and confidently search and purchase from small, trusted businesses – available on Google Play and Apple’s app store. The app is geared toward economic sustainability, creating a long-term future for small businesses. “Think of Yep! as a ‘friend’ to small businesses, as it provides a scalable solution to help grow and enhance their reach,” says Lunga Siyo, CEO of Telkom Business. “The COVID-19 pandemic has far-reaching effects, none of which paint a bright future for many businesses and even more so in South Africa where small to medium-sized enterprises form the backbone of the economy.” Yep! users can easily locate the...
Sony is Offering a $50,000 Reward for Hacking the PlayStation 4
Sourced from Bloomberg Sony has launched a bug bounty hunting reward programme in order to continue to find critical faults with the security of its PlayStation 4 console and the PlayStation Network. Participants in the programme who find exploits and loopholes in the console’s security could be rewarded up to $50,000. This announcement was made by Sony Interactive Entertainment Senior Director of Software Engineering Geoff Norton, who says the company has partnered with a bug bounty platform, HackerOne, for the programme. “At PlayStation, we are committed to providing gamers all over the world with great experiences. I’m happy to announce today that we have started a public PlayStation Bug Bounty programme because the security of our products is a fundamental part of creating amazing expe...
Operation In(ter)ception: How a LinkedIn Message can Result in Espionage
Sourced from Republic Title ESET researchers have discovered highly targeted cyberattacks that are notable for using LinkedIn-based spearphishing, employing effective tricks to stay under the radar and apparently having financial gain, in addition to espionage, as a goal. The attacks, which ESET researchers dubbed Operation In(ter)ception based on a related malware sample named “Inception.dll,” took place from September to December 2019. The attacks that ESET researchers investigated started with a LinkedIn message. “The message was a quite believable job offer, seemingly from a well-known company in a relevant sector. Of course, the LinkedIn profile was fake, and the files sent within the communication were malicious,” comments Dominik Breitenbacher, the ESET malware researcher who analyz...
