Author: Gugu Lourie
MTN Business today announced the winners of its 5th annual MTN Business App of the Year Awards during a ceremony held at Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg. Tonight’s ceremony honoured app developers whose winning solutions were selected from over 450 entries competing in several categories. The App of the Year Awards celebrates the out-of-the-box thinkers that drive change through real solutions that deal with real problems. The six categories for this year’s Awards are Best Enterprise, Best Consumer, Best Enterprise Development, and Best Breakthrough Developer, Best Most Innovative and Best Mobile Gaming. Domestly was named as the winner in the…
The digital technology is disrupting the car manufacturing industry and at the centre of it all is a smartphone’s data channel, SIM card and cellular radio integrated into the vehicle’s onboard system. By Gugu Lourie The digital technology is changing the way we look at a vehicle. The global connected car market will be worth €39 billion (R607 billion) in 2018 up from €13 billion (R202 billion) in 2012, according to new forecasts from research firm SBD and the GSMA. The report titled Connected Car Forecast predicts that over the next five years, there will be an almost sevenfold increase…
With Pokémon GO all the rage, the Open Design Cape Town festival from 10 to 21 August offers opportunities to get to grips with the augmented reality technology behind the latest craze. By Open Design Cape Town The tech events are part of the 12-day Festival, which features over 140 events including talks, exhibitions, workshops, tours, activations and interactive experiences that explore how design and innovation can be used to add great value to our daily lives and create a more sustainable future. The festival takes place in two stages, with events, expos and workshops at Cape Town City Hall…
Steve Tyler – of the Gin Tub, a new cocktail bar – has turned to physics in an attempt to force his customers to actually talk to other instead of just staring at social media all night, reported BBC. He has built an electronic shield, known as a Faraday cage, into the walls and ceiling to stop the signals penetrating the building. He told BBC tha he wanted to force “people to interact in the real world” and remember how to socialise. “If the person you are with goes to the bathroom, the problem with mobiles is they insulate you from…
ShowMax has added a new feature to its Android, Apple TV, iOS and web apps that supports multiple user profiles on a single account. This feature makes it possible to customise the experience of individual users and also to limit the access of children to age-suitable material. “Why are profiles a big deal? Different users can now customise their own experience, create individual watchlists and receive personalised recommendations. It’s even possible to set up themed profiles – one for romantic comedies and another for action as an example,” ShowMax’s chief product officer Barron Ernst said. “Perhaps most importantly, this new…
Thousands of mobile network users and fixed line customers in Limpopo were yesterday left without connectivity following a serious incident of sabotage to the Telkom network. By Staff Writer Most of the mobile operators have been affected by the sabotage, along with businesses and individual consumers, in the province. “Technicians were immediately despatched to the sites where the fibre cables were cut and they have been working through the night to restore connectivity”, said Jacqui O’Sullivan, Telkom Group spokesman. “Three significant cable breaks occurred but this was not cable theft. This was the targeted and considered action of a person…
A little-known web standard that lets site owners tell how much battery life a mobile device has left has been found to enable tracking online, according to a report by the Guardian. By Staff Writer The report states that researchers claim that your battery status is being used to track you online. Now, two security researchers from Princeton University have shown that the battery status indicator really is being used in the wild to track users. By running a specially modified browser, Steve Engelhard and Arvind Narayanan found two tracking scripts that used the API to “fingerprint” a specific device, allowing them to…
South Africa’s popular online comparison website Click ‘n Compare, which currently attracts 50 000 users, is rebranding into CompareGuru. By Staff Writer The new identity of CompareGuru signifies the company’s shift to a more tailored and personalised experience for information hungry users on the site. Click ‘n Compare currently attracts 50 000 users and 150 000 page views monthly, and the site generates an average of 10 000 leads a month. The majority of these leads are generated in the following categories: Mobile (2000); Insurance (2000) and Loans (4500). Current users will be automatically directed to the new CompareGuru site.…
South Africa’s Telkom has been selected by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) as its trusted partner to provide the state-of-the-art ICT services required to enable free and fair elections in South Africa. On 3 August 2016, over 26.3 million of South Africans will head to their local voting stations to cast their votes in what is anticipated to be one of the most highly contested and record breaking municipal elections in the country’s history. Telkom will provide a variety of ICT solutions to be sure that every point of the electoral chain, from the local voting station to the National…
Vodacom, which is owned by British mobile phone giant Vodafone, is considering providing a full-service of in-vehicle Internet bundles to connected car owners in the future. By Gugu Lourie Vodacom SIM cards are already powering BMW South Africa’s ConnectedDrive technology, which is designed to offer infotainment and other in-vehicle digital services for its drivers. “Internet-in-the-Car has recently been launched in several Vodafone operating companies in Europe, Tony Smallwood, executive head at Vodacom for business development in Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Vertical Industries, said. “Vodacom is considering a similar service offering.” In February 2016, AT&T and Vodafone announced that they are supporting…