Author: Gugu Lourie
Controversial radio personality and former Idols SA judge Gareth Cliff on Thursday said he was disappointed that people were calling for a boycott against him following some backlash he’s received on Twitter for adding his views on the Penny Sparrow racist post debate. “I am very disappointed how this agenda has been hijacked by an angry mob on Twitter,” he said. By Naledi Shange, NewsAgency Asked to give his comment on what was behind these sporadic race debates, Cliff said: “I think this is an ugly situation. It’s a conversation we absolutely need to have, but I believe it has gotten…
eNCA senior anchor Andrew Barnes has been taken off air following his perceived mockery of Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga‘s pronunciation of certain words on air. By Naledi Shange and Paul Herman, NewsAgency “We have begun disciplinary measures against Andrew Barnes. Andrew has been taken off air with an on air apology being broadcasted this afternoon,” the broadcaster told News24. Barnes made the initial remark while the broadcaster aired extracts from Motshekga’s speech she delivered when announcing the results for the 2015 matric year on Tuesday. After cutting back to Barnes at the end of the snippet, he said: “Maybe someone…
eNCA senior anchor Andrew Barnes has sparked the fury of many South Africans on social media, after he mocked Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s pronunciation of certain words on air. By Paul Herman, NewsAgency Barnes made the initial remark while the broadcaster aired bits from Motshekga’s speech delivering the results for the 2015 matric year on Tuesday. After cutting back to Barnes at the end of the snippet, he said: “Maybe someone should have a word with the Basic Education minister about how to pronounce the word ‘epitome’.” @eNCA here is the comment that you don’t want to share with everyone…
Africa’s largest mobile phone operator MTN has bought Visafone Communications, Nigeria’s surviving CDMA operator, for an undisclosed amount, according to a media report published on Thursday. By Staff Writer The Leadership newspaper said the deal by MTN to acquire Visafone has been given a nod by the country’s communications industry watchdog, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The newspaper added that the deal which was sanctioned in late December 2015 allows MTN Nigeria to utilise Visafone’s 800MHz spectrum to launch fourth generation long term evolution (4GLTE) services. According to the Leadership newspaper’s sources MTN will formally issue a statement on the JSE…
The Gauteng sports, arts, culture and recreation department has started an internal disciplinary process against employee Velaphi Khumalo over his racist Facebook comments. By Thulani Gqirana, NewsAgency Acknowledging him as an employee, the department distanced itself from the “barbaric and racist utterances” made by Khumalo. The racist remarks were his personal views and the department did not condone such hateful and disturbing racial slurs, it said in a statement on Wednesday night. “The department of sport, arts, culture and recreation views the hateful post by Velaphi Khumalo in a serious light,” MEC Faith Mazibuko said. “Our key mandate is nation building and…
Online movie and television series streaming service Netflix has officially gone live in 130 countries including South Africa on Wednesday night. By Gareth van Zyl, NewsAgency Co-founder and chief executive officer of Netflix, Reed Hastings, made the announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Amid the announcement, the South African Netflix website was switched on at www.netflix.com/za on Wednesday and advertised a price of $7.99 (R126) per month with a free month’s trial. Other additional countries to get the service included Russia, India and South Korea, according to the announcement from Netflix. China, though, is not on Netflix’s new countries while other…
The German-based car manufacturer has launched the BMW i Vision Future Interaction Concept Car that comes with the BMW i 8 Mirrorless concept at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. By Staff Writer The BMW i 8 Mirrorless concept system replaces the rearview mirrors with three cameras, which covers larger viewing angles and eliminates dangerous “blind spots”. BMW said in a statement that the interior mirror is replaced by a display that shows wide-angle images. The manufacturer added that the system evaluates camera images and provides a situative response to imminent hazards, for example with yellow warning icons.…
A computer science Masters student Tony Beltramelli at the IT University of Copenhagen has demonstrated that software running on a smartwatch could be used to record a user’s passwords and PINs. He managed this by using the smartwatch’s motion sensors and analysing the patterns of data from the sensors when tapping a keypad to enter a PIN. By David Glance Software detecting PIN being entered Although it is assumed by Beltramelli and others that the application doing the spying would be installed without the user knowing, it is quite possible that a seemingly legitimate app installed from the app store…
A Cape Town man has opened a criminal case against a Facebook user who called for blacks to do to white South Africans what “Hitler did to the Jews”. By Thulani Gqirana, NewsAgency For 21-year-old Daniel Amos, Velaphi Khumalo’s post was disturbing and needed to be addressed outside the realm of social media. Amos opened a case of crimen injuria against Khumalo, after he said on Facebook that he hated all whites. He called for them to be “cleansed” out of the country. “I want to cleans this country of all white people. We must act as Hitler did to the…
Television in South Africa turns 40 years old today. The SABC TV service marks its 40th anniversary since the very first nationwide broadcast on 5 January 1976 when Dorianne Berry and Heinrich Marnitz welcomed viewers to the “opening night” of TV in the country. By Thinus Ferreira, NewsAgency The past four decades saw the SABC’s television offering going through various channel permutations with the South African public broadcaster currently providing 5 TV channels in the form of SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 and then two channels – SABC News and the archive rerun channel SABC Encore – produced exclusively for MultiChoice’s DStv satellite pay-TV…
Vodacom, South Africa’s largest mobile phone operator, says it expected that all customers that were double debited for their December accounts to have been refunded by today. By Staff Writer Vodacom spokesman Tshepo Ramodibe attributed the incident, which affected about 200 000 accounts, to a technical problem with certain payment files that resulted in a selection of accounts being presented twice for funds collection. “We have reviewed the incident and associated processes to rule out a recurrence,” said Ramodibe. Last week Friday, Vodacom sent an SMS to customers informing them that the company was aware that some accounts had been debited twice owing…
Tesla rival Faraday Future has revealed its vision of the future of cars at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday. Faraday Future said the concept electric car has a 1,000 horsepower, a 0-60 time under three seconds, and a top speed over 200 miles per hour. “We design from the inside out. Our goal was to build a car with a sixth sense for its driver’s intentions and needs. One with adaptive personalization, seamless transfer of custom vehicle configurations, access to live images, and real time data visualization,” said Faraday Futures. Watch video below of the FFZERO1 concept electric car: …
Eskom has confirmed the sale of electricity to Zimbabwe but denied that the power supply agreement with its Zimbabwean counterpart the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) is secret. By Siseko Njobeni, NewsAgency Eskom said the deal is part of an arrangement among southern African power utilities to sell surplus electricity to each other. Media reports in Zimbabwe have alleged that Eskom has entered into a “secret” deal to sell 300 MW of electricity to the neighbouring country, which has been experiencing power shortages lately. The reports also quoted Zimbabwe Energy and Power Development Ministry Permanent Secretary Partson Mbiriri saying the deal…
It was clear from the outset, when the image of a metre taxi driving black woman popped on my screen, that I was going to have an interesting Uber trip on this day. The deep Zulu speaking Sis Thembi did not disappoint. By Vula Mthimkhulu We are talking about a woman who in pushing the gender barriers in this industry has seen it all. A Chilean tourist who came to South Africa to witness Mandela’s burial ceremony picked her Toyota Tazz amongst luxurious German machines for the 1000km trip from Johannesburg to the great Eastern Cape place called Qunu. Looking strong…
South Africa will likely fail in its quest to develop its nuclear energy capacity, according to emerging markets economist Peter Attard Montalto of Nomura. By Matthew le Cordeur, NewsAgency Montalto told Fin24 that if the 9 600 MW nuclear procurement programme does see the light of day, it will be a “slimmed down programme spread over a longer period of time, given the affordability issue”. “For this reason we need to remain calm, but vigilant,” he said. “The end point remains uncertain.” The respected economist said he agreed with energy expert Chris Yelland’s opinion to remain calm after cabinet signed off…
In a day in which the penny dropped on racism in South Africa with the Penny Sparrow “monkey” scandal gripping the country, Standard Bank dropped another bomb to announce the suspension of economist Chris Hart following a racist tweet on Sunday. By Fadia Salie, NewsAgency Standard Bank said in a statement posted on its website that the bank has suspended Hart pending an inquiry into the events of his commentary on Twitter on Sunday 3 January. “The inquiry will be conducted in line with the bank’s established protocols and its obligations in law,” it said. Standard Bank has distanced itself from…
The “sharing economy” now enables to us to access all manner of things we might need through connecting with others online. In this season that might have included sourcing turkey from a local farm, a chauffeured car to collect the relatives, a week at a stranger’s flat somewhere warm, a few hours with an industrial-strength food mixer and a range of other physical and intellectual goods. By Ann Light Some of these services may be offered without payment, but many are old business models in new forms, brokered or managed across online systems that help match people up for efficient use…
Embattled KwaZulu-Natal realtor Penny Sparrow, at the centre of a race-row that has gripped the country, has said that she was merely “stating the facts”. By Jeff Wicks, NewsAgency She had taken to Facebook and described black beachgoers as “monkeys”, in an apparent reaction to litter left behind after New Year’s celebrations. There has been mass reaction to her statement across social media platforms, as well as from political quarters. Speaking to News24, she revealed what had driven her to compare black revellers to monkeys. “Every year it is the same story; it’s their [black people] day and we don’t go…
Mobile network Vodacom has not revealed what caused an error that led to several of its customers being double debited last week. By Gareth van Zyl, NewsAgency Vodacom sent an SMS to customers on Friday afternoon informing them that the company was aware that some accounts had been debited twice owing to a “technical glitch”. The company promised to reimburse affected customers by the close of business on Monday and it apologised for the inconvenience. But Vodacom spokespeople on Monday did not answer Fin24’s questions about what exactly caused the glitch last week. Fin24 was further informed by a Vodacom spokesperson…
Standard Bank is planning to institute disciplinary action against economist Chris Hart over comments he made on his Twitter page, which were deemed racist. By Staff Writer The Johannesburg-based bank said on its Twitter page: We will be instituting appropriate internal disciplinary processes against @chrishartZA. https://t.co/Hjat3ruPaJ — Standard Bank SA (@StandardBankZA) January 4, 2016 Hart tweeted: More than 25 years after Apartheid ended, the victims are increasing along with a sense of entitlement and hatred towards minorities…. — Chris Hart (@chrishartZA) January 3, 2016 In reaction to Hart’s tweets, Standard Bank said his tweets had racist undertones. …
The KwaZulu-Natal estate agent at the centre of a Twitter race row has gone to ground, as her former employer counts the cost of the damage to their brand. By Jeff Wicks, NewsAgency Penny Sparrow took to Facebook and labelled black beachgoers as “monkeys”, which resulted in a national social media outcry. Dear #PennySparrow If you can’t stand “monkeys” then Africa is a wrong continent for you. #RacistsMustFall pic.twitter.com/2bPWwW8OKj — Terry Pheto (@TerryPheto) January 3, 2016 Jawitz Properties CEO Herschel Jawitz told News24 that while Sparrow had left the company two months ago, her online profile still associated her with…
Vodacom customers who had their accounts debited twice will be refunded by Monday, according to the cellphone company. By Thulani Gqirana, NewsAgency On Friday, a number of Vodacom customers complained that their accounts had been debited twice. In an SMS to customers on Friday afternoon, the cellular network said it was aware of the problem. “Dear customer, due to a technical glitch, your account may have been debited twice. We are resolving the problem,” the message read. “Where a second debit was processed, Vodacom will ensure that refunds and all associated charges are paid by close of business Monday at the…
On December 21, the company SpaceX made history by successfully launching a rocket and returning it to a safe landing on Earth. It’s also the day that SpaceX founder Elon Musk was nominated for a Luddite Award. By Andrew Maynard The nomination came as part of a campaign by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a leading science and technology policy think tank, to call out the “worst of the year’s worst innovation killers.” It’s an odd juxtaposition, to say the least. The Luddite Awards – named after an 18th-century English worker who inspired a backlash against the Industrial Revolution…
BMW Group at the CES 2016 in Las Vegas to presents the principle of the contactless touchscreen with AirTouch.
New Year’s resolutions are set with the best of intentions. But they notoriously fail to translate into lasting behavioural changes.