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How COVID-19 is Changing the Music Consumption Industry

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Self-isolation and social-distancing laws have given rise to new trends in the music industry. In a bid to flatten the curve, fans across the world have substituted live music concerts for virtual alternatives, relying heavily on technology’s ability to recreate these experiences in the comfort of their homes. From the yesteryears of evenings spent on the couch, enjoying the ambience created by the magnificent combination of vinyl and gramophone to the more current trend of wirelessly streaming the latest chart-topping hits through state-of-the-art Bluetooth speakers – audio technology has continuously adapted to the changing requirements of fans and performers alike. A new trend is on the rise for music consumption Research by Billboard and Nielsen Music, titled COVID-19 tracking the impa...

Politics

Bitcoin is Part of Mainstream Finance, says deVere CEO

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Sourced from Ethereum World News. Bitcoin’s historic halving event on Monday underscores that the “long-term future of cryptocurrencies is secure”, says the CEO and founder of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations. The comments from deVere Group’s Nigel Green come as the world’s supply of Bitcoin was forever slashed. The highly anticipated halving event, occurring only every four years, means that less and less Bitcoin – which is limited to 21 million units – will now be mined. Monday’s was only the third ever halving. In 2012, the number of new Bitcoins issued every 10 minutes fell from 50 to 25. In 2016, it went down from 25 to 12.5. Now, in the 2020 halving, it will drop from 12.5 to 6.25. Nigel Green says that the “Bitcoin halving event has demonstrate...

Politics

Twitter is Using New Labels to Fight COVID-19 Misinformation

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Image sourced from Mission Statement Academy In an attempt to make finding credible news a little easier, Twitter has announced that it is introducing new labels for tweets that contain COVID-19-related misinformation. The social media goliath started testing labels in February after it became known that a number of public figures were tweeting misleading and manipulated media – these untrue tweets were highlighted with an orange label that includes Twitter’s policy guidelines as well as accurate information from fact-checkers and journalists. And now it seems that Twitter wants to take these labels one step further – “earlier this year, we introduced a new label for Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media. Similar labels will now appear on Tweets containing potentially harmful, ...

Politics

NCC says No 5G Licenses have been Issued to Network Operators in Nigeria

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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is adamant that it has not yet issued 5G licenses to any of the countries operators – despite rumours spread via social media platforms that claim the local telecoms industry would switch on 5G networks in Lagos this week. In an official statement, the NCC says that these rumours couldn’t be further from the truth – “there is no deployment of 5G in Nigeria at the moment”. The commission – which insists that the rumours come from “faceless sponsors” – told The Vanguard that it had approved 5G trials in November 2019 for a three-month period, ending January 2020. The trials have since been concluded and installation decommissioned. “The trial among others was to study and observe any health or security challenges the 5G network might present. Rele...

Politics

How COVID-19 Misinformation Continues to Go Viral

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Sourced from Speechling. Despite pledges from massive social media companies to remove dangerous instances of coronavirus misinformation – from false causes to false cures – Silicon Valley and fact-checkers around the world are struggling to stem the flow of fake news about the pandemic. Last week, a video titled “Plandemic” went viral, clocking up millions of views and clicks across Facebook and YouTube before the companies took action. “I’ve not seen a video of this type gain this kind of viral traction so quickly,” Alan Duke, the editor in chief of Lead Stories, a fact-checking group that works with Facebook told CNN. As of last-week Thursday afternoon, a book that features the subject of “Plandemic” has rocketed to number 1 on Amazon’s Best Seller’s List, where it remained over the wee...

Politics

What to Expect from the 2020 Bitcoin Halving

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The Bitcoin halving is a planned reduction in rewards miners receive. Halvings happen once every four years or so. And the next one will take place in the early hours of Tuesday, 12 May 2020. What exactly is a halving and why does it happen? Bitcoin is generated by miners. They have computers performing complex calculations which validate the transactions on a public digital ledger, called the blockchain. The miners compete with each other to earn newly-issued tokens known as a block reward. A halving is a 50% reduction in the value of rewards to Bitcoin miners. There is a finite number of Bitcoin that will ever be in circulation (21 million) and there is no way of producing more. Halvings are a unique protocol which controls the supply of Bitcoin. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_98b.td-a-rec-img{...

Politics

Workplace Health Surveillance Tool Launched in South Africa

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Sourced from ISHN.com As more South Africans return to work in May, workplaces are re-designing to combat COVID-19 infection, while simultaneously reassuring workers are the new priority. Fortunately, South African innovation is rising to the challenge of reimagining shared workspaces in the COVID-19 era and a timely example of this is HealthID. Launched this week by a group of Cape Town-based entrepreneurs, HealthID helps employers comply with new government regulations that stipulate they should not only screen employees for signs of COVID-19 infection, but they must specifically create and maintain a database outlining the health status of individual workers. “It’s doubtful any reputable employer would want to incur the wrath of the Department of Labour inspectors by recording something...

Politics

GovChat to Digitise Africa’s Largest COVID-19 Social Relief Campaign

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GovChat, the South African civic engagement technology platform, has announced a partnership with the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) to support the digitisation of the COVID-19 social relief grant application process. The partnership with GovChat could enable millions of unemployed citizens to access the largest social security programme on the African continent directly from their mobile devices. GovChat’s platform – accessed through WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS and USSDchannels – is said to provide a secure application portal for pre-qualifying citizens, automating filling, verification and applicant assessment. The automation of processes, using the GovChat artificial intelligence tools, enhances the agency’s productivity and allows them to respond to more application...

Politics

Microsoft Now Blocks Reply-All Email Storms

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Sourced from My Smart Choice Microsoft is rolling out a new reply-all protection feature for Office 365 and Exchange Online. This new feature is designed to prevent email storms when hundreds or thousands of people start replying to an email thread after someone forgets to BCC everyone or a distribution list was misconfigured. Something that has happened to everyone at least once – where for days on end, people are still replying to the thread “Please take me off CC.” This new block feature is intended to benefit large organizations and is initially being rolled out to detect 10 reply-all emails to over 5000 recipients within 60 minutes. “Over time, as we gather usage telemetry and customer feedback, we expect to tweak, fine-tune, and enhance the Reply All Storm Protection feature to make ...

Politics

Cell C Faces Potential Job Cuts

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Image sourced from Town Press South African network provider, Cell C says that it’s reevaluating some of the jobs at executive and management level – this process could deem certain positions redundant and ultimately result in job cuts. “In early March 2020, Cell C initiated a consultation process in terms of section 189A (2) of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995, specifically at a senior manager and executive level, and advised employees of the possibility of redundancy of certain positions and contemplated retrenchments,” says Cell C to My Broadband. The telecoms provider then went on to say that the process is still underway and it’s not yet sure how many positions will be cut. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_b38.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_b38.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0;...

Politics

A Future Reimagined for Africa Post-Pandemic

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Sourced from Redbubble and iStock. In a rare television broadcast Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, described the COVID-19 pandemic as “Germany’s biggest challenge since the Second World War”. It has indeed proved to be a crisis of global proportion with material implications for the economies and livelihoods of all. Governments across the globe have locked down cities, towns, villages and townships to curb the spread of the virus. Massive fiscal stimuli have been enacted to cushion the economic and humanitarian impact of the pandemic. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have set aside a large quantum of emergency financial support for countries to tap into. African countries have implemented strong containment measures to avoid further spread of COVID-19. For countries in W...

Politics

AirtelTigo and Opera Offer Free Data and Browsing in Ghana

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Sourced from Comms MEA Ghanaian telecom operator, AirtelTigo has announced its partnership with popular mobile web browser Opera Mini to offer free data and browsing on the Opera Mini browser and Opera News App for three months. Through the partnership, both new and existing AirtelTigo customers will automatically receive free 50MB data every day to access the latest local and global news anytime. The Opera Mini and Opera News Apps work on all Android mobile devices. Both mobile applications incorporate the unique data compression technology of Opera, capable of pre-processing and reducing the amount of data from a website before it reaches the users’ phones, saving up to 90 per cent of mobile data. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_7b3.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_7b3.td-a-rec-img img{ m...