technology news
Twitter Clarifies Policies on Misinformation After Labelling Trump’s Tweets
Image sourced from Mission Statement Academy Twitter has taken to social media to set the record straight regarding the platform’s new policies on misinformation. In a series of Tweets, Twitter says that it’s is not focused on flagging or labelling every piece of misinformation as it’s rather tackling the content with “the highest potential for harm”. This is, according to the company, because people have insisted that the platform “shouldn’t determine the truthfulness of tweets,” but rather “provide context to help people make up their own minds in cases where the substance of a tweet is disputed.” We are NOT attempting to address all misinformation. Instead, we prioritize based on the highest potential for harm, focusing on manipulated media, civic integrity, and COVID-19. Likelihood, se...
Ride-Hailing Businesses Begin to Recover
Sourced from Forbes. Uber Technologies Inc.’s global rides business is down 70% from this time last year, a small improvement from its rock-bottom fall during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Though slight, it is an indication that recovery is coming, albeit slowly. The decline in rides seems to be offset, if partially, by a boom in food delivery. Uber Eats’ gains have more than doubled, and they continue to accelerate, says Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, speaking at a virtual tech conference hosted by Bank of America. Bloomberg reports that the ride-hailing company intends to continue to look for opportunities in the food delivery market. Khosrowshahi declined to comment on Uber’s proposal to buy Grubhub Inc., which was first reported by Bloomberg last month. Since being so hars...
Dropbox Launches New Password Manager in Private Beta
Sourced from TechSpot. Dropbox has quietly launched a new password manager named Dropbox Passwords. The app is only available in a private beta on Android, and although it can be downloaded, users won’t be able to use it yet – at least not until they get an invite. The app’s Play Store listing notes that the app is currently “in development” and therefore may be unstable. Sourced from Dropbox. While still currently in a very basic state, like most password managers, it creates unique passwords, stores them in a single place and synchronises them across your devices in order to automatically and quickly fill-in login fields. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_44e.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_44e.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } There’s still no mention of other useful features like i...
Nashua Appoints New CEO
Nashua has announced the appointment of Barry Venter as CEO – the company says this comes at a time when the challenging economic and social times we face would have many on the run. Venter’s career has mostly been within the ranks of Nashua Group. He says “Nashua forms part of my DNA as I have grown and evolved over 22 years with this business. It is an aspirational, truly South African brand and the value system and culture within the business is very important to me.” Venter started at the very bottom in Nashua – he was a contractor, worked in the warehouse, packed SIM cards and even sold second-hand phones to dealers – along the way, was exposed to great mentorship and opportunities, moving into IT to implement new technology and create a call centre before moving back onto the busines...
Slack and Amazon Join Forces to Take On Microsoft Teams
Sourced from TechSpot. Slack is partnering with Amazon in a multi-year agreement that means all Amazon employees will start to use video-conferencing and business communication platform Slack. This deal comes on the heels of Slack facing increasing competition from Microsoft’s Teams platform. The deal will also see Slack migrate its voice and video calling features over to Amazon’s Chime platform, alongside a broader adoption of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon’s roll-out of Slack to its employees is a key part of the deal, thanks to an enterprise-wide agreement. It’s not immediately clear how many of Amazon’s 840,000 employees will be using Slack, though. Up until today, Slack’s biggest customer has been IBM, which is rolling out Slack to its 350,000 employees. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_7e...
Twitter Suspends Account that Posts Exact Copies of Trump’s Tweets
Image sourced from Al Jazeera In an attempt to prove that social media giant Twitter is more than lenient when it comes to its A-list users, an account under the name ‘@SuspendThePress’ copied and posted US President Donald Trump’s tweets. This account will tweet what the President tweets. Let’s see if it gets suspended for violating twitters TOS. Follow along with this social experiment. Report any tweets that violate the rules. Thank you. — Will they suspend me? (@SuspendThePres) May 30, 2020 This experiment comes shortly after US President Donald Trump threatened to regulate or even “close down” social media platforms – after a number of his tweets were branded as containing misleading information. According to TechWeez, the owner of the account “wanted to see how long it would tak...
4 Free Sites You Can Use To Create Your Perfect Website
Sourced from the Random Passion Project. A great way to advertise yourself or your business, especially nowadays, is with a website. A personal website shows potential employers or clients that you are technically informed and ICT-conscious. Personal websites can be great outlets for your creativity, a fantastic way to get your message out there, and sometimes even the prefered way to do business. Here are 4 free platforms where you can create your own websites: 1. Webnode /* custom css */ .tdi_3_566.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_566.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Webnode is a slick, modern and professional website maker and editor. They use stylish and responsive themes, and it features a very intuitive way to work through building your own website. The website-creation...
Vodacom Partners with WITS University to Ensure Continued Online Learning
To help students stay on track to successfully complete the 2020 academic year despite not being on campus, Vodacom has partnered with the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) in Johannesburg to keep students connected to higher learning activities. The network provider says that it has committed to providing each student with a 30GB data bundle to remain connected and continue their education while they are away from campus. “We can all agree that success begins with education. For many students, remote learning is a challenge as they do not have the means to access online learning materials,” says William Mzimba, Chief Officer for Vodacom Business. “As remote learning becomes a necessity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vodacom Business is proud to partner with WITS to support education a...
Zoom Denies End-to-End Encryption to Free Users
Videoconferencing company Zoom confirmed this week that it won’t enable its end-to-end encryption for free calls because it wants to allow law enforcement access to these calls if necessary. Zoom’s statement about the policy reads: “Zoom does not proactively monitor meeting content, and we do not share information with law enforcement except in circumstances like child sex abuse. We do not have backdoors where participants can enter meetings without being visible to others. None of this will change,” says a spokesperson. “Zoom’s end-to-end encryption plan balances the privacy of its users with the safety of vulnerable groups, including children and potential victims of hate crimes. We plan to provide end-to-end encryption to users for whom we can verify identity, thereby limiting harm to t...
Former Nigerian Bank CEO Reveals Finance and Business Focused Digital Ecosystem
Nigerian entrepreneur and former Diamond Bank CEO, Uzoma Dozie has launched a digital ecosystem – called Sparkle – that provides financial, lifestyle and business support services to Nigerians across the globe. Sparkle, which has been granted a banking license from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has been built to help Nigerians fulfil their potential. It offers comprehensive support for individuals including flexible payments, savings and analytics to provide greater freedom, flexibility and control over finances and lifestyle once and for all. Powered by data and technology, Sparkle is available for iOS and Android – giving customers full and free access to one account that offers multiple services and different wallets. According to the company, Sparkle users will be provided wi...
‘Call of Duty’ Creators Are Implementing More Systems to Curb Racism in Games
Sourced from Polygon. Call of Duty developers Infinity Ward has announced that the company will be issuing more bans for racist usernames, and will begin taking more steps to monitor racist content in-game in the future. The Call of Duty series of games has become infamous for hosting a large number of trolls who use racist insults to harass other players, usually via voice chat. “There is no place for racist content in our game. This is an effort we began with launch and we need to do a better job. We’re issuing thousands of daily bans of racist and hate-oriented names,” Infinity Ward says in a tweet. pic.twitter.com/o2nR4ZNQL0 — Infinity Ward (@InfinityWard) June 3, 2020 /* custom css */ .tdi_3_f84.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_f84.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Infini...
Sony Delays PS5 Reveal Event
Sourced from Wikimedia. Sony has announced that it has decided to postpone the PlayStation 5 reveal event, originally scheduled for 4 June. pic.twitter.com/ZAY8StN0EU — PlayStation (@PlayStation) June 1, 2020 The company has decided to postpone the event and the new generation console’s reveal as rioting and civil unrest continues in the US following the killing of unarmed man George Floyd. A killing that many Americans feel to be direly unjust. In addition, the globe is also still grappling with the society-crippling COVID-19 pandemic. “We have decided to postpone the PlayStation 5 event scheduled for June 4. While we understand gamers worldwide are excited to see PS5 games, we do not feel that right now is a time for celebration and for now, we want to stand back and allow more important...
