Author: Gugu Lourie
Australia is known to be a nation of drinkers with almost 18% having a drink on a daily basis at a level that is considered risky. By Omar Mubin But the ill-effects of such behaviour extend to binge drinking, impacts on health and well-being, assaults drink driving with resulting car accidents and many others. Various governments and organisations have launched campaigns and policies to combat problem drinking, such as Danny Green’s Coward Punch Campaign and the lock out laws in New South Wales and Queensland. Lock out laws have met with some success in reducing alcohol-related serious injuries in some regions.…
Social media has changed. After 10 years of popular use, the information in our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter profiles is no longer just about the current moment or instant connections. Instead of simply broadcasting our thoughts and actions as they happen, these platforms have become a biographical archive of our lives, storing our photos and recording where we went and who we were with. The result of this archiving is that social media is taking on a new role in the way that we remember. By David Beer Even the most ephemeral social media platform, Snapchat, has now joined in this…
“I need to pee.” “My phone is dying.” They’re such familiar phrases — everyday mini-crises of modern life, and that makes them a perfect match. It’s one made not in heaven but in a British laboratory. And what a beautiful scientific marriage it is, reported Credit.com Using ‘pee power’, scientists have been able to provide three hours of phone calls for every six hours of charge time, all from 600ml of urine, according to Engineering and Technology Magazine. A miniature fuel cell that costs less than £2 (R38.00) and can generate electricity from a single visit to the toilet has recharged…
While the term land grab has negative association, in the telecommunications space it means good news. South Africans pay a lot more than other countries for broadband and the move this week by MTN to slash fibre broadband bodes well for consumers. By Warren Bonheim As fibre networks started rolling out it was inevitable that broadband prices would start bottoming out, as evidenced by MTN’s announcement on Tuesday to slash fibre broadband costs for consumers. Land grab in the context of the telecoms industry is a strategy large networks have of offering last mile fibre with pricing at breakeven levels,…
Technology often needs a “killer app” to gain mass market appeal. For the touch screen, it was the iPhone; for wearables, the Fitbit. Augmented reality games have been around for more than a decade, so what was it about Pokémon GO that allowed it to become a global phenomenon? By Thuong Hoang and Steven Baker We believe it can be attributed to three core social components of the game: the blending of the virtual and the real, geo-location and the success of existing Pokémon culture. Smile for the camera The first time we heard about Pokémon GO was via a few Facebook…
Telecoms provider Broadlink has launched a big last mile fibre access network which will ultimately have national coverage across South Africa. By Staff Writer Broadlink, which is a subsidiary of WBS Holdings, who were recently acquired by Multisource, says that adding fibre solutions was a natural extension of its services, and in response to a growing demand in the business market for fibre-based Internet access. The current shareholders of MultiSource include consortiums led by Phumlani Moholi, former CTO of MTN, and the family interests of Paul Harris and Michael Jordaan, together with management. Broadlink have extended its radio network to include:…
Sales of the BMW i3 in the German home market have increased significantly since the German government decided this spring to offer a $4,400 incentive to buyers of electric cars. Previously, Germany was one of the few countries that lacked any EV incentives at all, reported Gas2 Citing company sources, weekly German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) said that orders for the new i3 with a longer range battery, for deliveries from mid-July onwards, had risen “many times over” levels following the introduction of the car’s initial version in 2013, said Reuters. Total orders for the new version had risen…
New York-based Codecademy has secured a $30 million (R431 million) Series C investment led by Naspers through its Naspers Ventures division. By Staff Writer Codecademy’s existing investors, including Union Square Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, Index Ventures and Sir Richard Branson contributed to the round. The new funds will allow the digital skills education firm to grow its team to accommodate further international growth, extend the capabilities of its innovative platform, build its mobile presence and develop additional course content to even better serve its users. “Since we founded Codecademy in 2011, we have seen an explosion of interest in learning…
Self-driving cars are not some futuristic auto technology; in fact there are already cars with self-driving features on the road such as BMW, Mercedes and Tesla. But Jaguar Land Rover is taking the self-driving cars off-road. By Staff Writer The British carmaker has developed a range of innovative research technologies that allow a future autonomous car to drive itself over any surface or terrain. The carmaker said in a statement that it aims to make the self-driving car viable in the widest range of real life, on and off-road driving environments and weather conditions, ensuring future highly automated and fully…
Vodacom’s YeboYethu BBBEE (Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment) scheme is to move its over-the-counter stock to the JSE’s black economic empowerment (BEE) board. By Staff Writer The company said the YeboYethu shares are likely to be traded on the JSE BEE board from 11 August 2016. The Vodacom YeboYethu empowewrment scheme was established in 2008 and allowed black people to purchase Vodacom SA shares at a discount. YeboYethu does not own nor have any beneficial interests in nor rights to Vodacom Group shares. Since YeboYethu’s incorporation, over 100 000 black people have been able to hold, through investing in YeboYethu shares. YeboYethu…