Author: Contributor
By Staff Writer E-food delivery service, UCOOK, and social communications app, WeChat, have teamed up to take on the South African food market with regards to mobile commerce. Since 2013, WeChat has made the move to South Africa, and in 2016, has partnered up with various companies like OrderIn, picup and FitKey. Their latest addition is a partnership with UCOOK, a fast growing e-food delivery service in Cape Town. UCOOK is a company providing fresh, gourmet food kits directly to your door. Step-by-step meal preparation instructions are provided by renowned chefs, reinvigorating the dinner time scene with less effort and…
By Henning Melber These days the African middle class is widely discussed as a phenomenon considered indicative of social change. But a great deal of the debate hasn’t been very well informed. For a long time contributions lacked a rigorous analysis, failing to examine the so-called middle class in terms of its potential as a proper class. People involved in the debate hardly bothered to engage with the more methodological aspects of the analysis of classes, which has a long tradition in social sciences and should be an integral part of any analysis. Most problematic was the fiddling with figures, which…
By Staff Writer South African consumers are eager users of new payments technologies, which means that bitcoin and the blockchain may soon be on the radar for some of the country’s early adopters. Yet few merchants and banks have yet started to consider in much depth how these technologies may affect their businesses. Yet few merchants and banks have yet started to consider in much depth how these technologies may affect their businesses. Research from the Sage Payments Landscape Report shows that consumers in South Africa place a lot of importance on businesses adopting safe, progressive payment methods. Fast and…
By Staff Writer Public service and administration minister Faith Muthambi is using her department to hire friends and family members without job ads or interviews. The Sunday Times reported that Muthambi has hired uncles and cousins, who have been hired as drivers, deputy directors and a “food services aide” – all allegedly without following due process. She has hired over 27 support staff members since taking office in May. The ministerial handbook provision allows a minister to appoint only 10 people for various functions, plus two advisers. The Sunday Times reported that Muthambi – whose department is tasked with ensuring norms…
By Sundaram Mahalingam, Senior Technical Architect – IoT delivery at Prodapt and Vishwa Nigam, Manager – Business Analysis & Insights at Prodapt The retail industry is moving from selling products to selling experiences, so it has become extremely important for retailers to know what their customers need in order to enhance their shopping experience. However, knowing customer issues has been a challenge for retailers — as a result, the retail industry is one that faces the greatest risk of losing a customer. Almost 8 out of 10 customers don’t even give retailers a chance to fix their issues before moving to the competitors. IoT…
By Staff Writer Good sales for the electrified cars are slowing bring BMW’s plan closer to sell more than 100 000 electric vehicles in 2017. The German carmaker announced on Thursday that more than 50,000 BMW i, BMW iPerformance and electrified MINI vehicles have been delivered to customers around the world since the start of the year. The company now has a total of nine electrified automobiles on the market: sales of these vehicles totalled 50,711 in the first seven months of the year, an increase of 74.8% on the same period last year. The German automaker said this makes…
South African and Nigerian authorities should hang their heads in shame for allowing the ludicrously high mobile telecoms roaming charges suffered by travellers from between the two countries. If you are not careful enough you could land a bill around the R100 000 mark for normal internet browsing when travelling between the two countries. We were exposed to the ludicrously high charges when we landed in Lagos from Johannesburg early this week. Landing with an intention to roam throughout our scheduled two weeks stay, we had to reconsider our options on discovering the ludicrously high roaming charges. On landing at the, Murtala…
By Staff Writer Opera and digital reading non-profit Worldreader have joined forces to understand how women in Africa use mobile internet. Two studies undertaken by the organizations have found that women in Africa use mobile internet to empower and entertain themselves. Opera ran a survey of 1,500 women and men aged 14 to 44 in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa in May 2017 to learn more about their web browsing habits on their mobile phones. The poll results were later combined with Worldreader insights on the mobile reading habits of 50,000 Worldreader app users in the three countries above. Women…
By Staff Writer The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Commission is investigating Netcare, Nokia, MTN, Eskom and the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) for allegedly violating the BBBEE Act. According to a report by Business Day, the Commission is investigating MTN’s broad-based black economic empowerment schemes MTN Zakhele and Zakhele Futhi BBBEE The Commission is also investigating Nokia Solutions and Networks SA to determine whether the BBBEE ownership transaction involving its employee trust and Sekunjalo Investment resulting in 26% black ownership and the subsequent change in black ownership, which resulted in 31.28% black ownership by Sekunjalo, complied with the…
by Ben Dickson Where will humans fit in a world where robots outsmart them? This is the focus of a heated debate between thought leaders and tech billionaires. Some believe we’re steadily meandering toward an AI apocalypse, where humans are either obliterated or enslaved by robots, and we must act quickly to prevent it. Others will tell you that artificial intelligence will always be the subservient best friend of mankind, even when it outwits its creators, and we should move ahead with developing AI at full speed. At every industrial revolution, there’s a dystopian and a utopian vision of the future. And…