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Tech is Essential in Developing a Flourishing Agriculture Sector in Africa
Sourced from Getty Images. Africa should be in a great position to feed itself and play a significant role in feeding about nine billion people by 2050. For this to be realised, however, significant reforms have to be made to leverage the current standing optimally. The World Economic Forum reports that the African continent has 65% of the uncultivated arable land left in the world and creates about 60% of the continent’s employment. Africa boasts a wide diversity of agro-ecological zones, heavy rain-forest vegetation with bi-annual rainfall to relatively sparse, dry and arid vegetation with low uni-modal rainfall is positioned to be a World’s supplier of Agricultural produce. With these factors at play, it is difficult to find that Africa is still stuck with the burden of being a net food...
Zuku Could Soon Be Releasing an Android TV-Ready Decoder
Satellite and fixed internet provider Zuku seems to be looking into releasing a decoder loaded with Android TV in the future, combined with Google Play and YouTube. The service is available in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi & Zambia. Zuku is working on an Android TV box. Interesting stuff. But also it can end in tears. pic.twitter.com/IWkpxdiNNt — Kenyan Citizen 🇰🇪 (@BeingWesh) June 25, 2020 New images circling social media might give an indication of what this new product may look like, as well as what might be included in the box set. According to TechWeez, the product is set to be a decoder that is capable of running Android TV, Google Play and YouTube. No word yet if the decoder will be able to support the installation of any other streamings services like Netflix ...
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...
INTERVIEW: Skynamo Founder on Choosing a Career in Technology
In 2013, Sam Clarke – founder and CEO of local startup, Skynamo – decided he wanted to solve a problem that had been getting in the way of business for decades. A few years later, in 2020, Skynamo went on to secure $30 million in US funding and is now putting it to good use – starting with an app that supports & protects sales field agents in the fight against COVID19. ITNA’s Jenna Delport had the opportunity to chat to Clarke, here’s what transpired: What first made you think of a career in technology?I have been a tinkerer my whole life. From a very young age, I would take things apart to see how they work – often even getting to put them back together again. I started teaching myself to write software when I was 12 years old. I wrote a few programs for friends while at high school, ...
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...
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...
