Author: Gugu Lourie

Many organisations are now turning to mobile-first strategies that provide more access and encourage employees’ mobility in order to improve productivity and overcome tough economic time. These strategies depend on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions that enable a mobile workforce to stay connected anywhere at any time. By Greg Hatfield, General Manager for Products & Solutions at MTN Business South Africa These solutions, coupled with advances in mobile Internet connectivity such as Long Term Evolution (LTE), enable employees to connect seamlessly and faster via a corporate network or secure Cloud service. One of the biggest headaches for Information Technology (IT)…

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When I pulled out the bright red, stylish AG#Hashtag smartphone at my friends’ party in Meyersdal Eco Estate, south of Johannesburg, curious partygoers mistook it for a Samsung Galaxy phone. By Gugu Lourie The bright red colour, which gives the phone a funky edge, attracted more attention especially from ladies, who were quick to declare their love at first sight for the device. The more discerning asked whether I had put a striking red cover on a Samsung phone to give it a bright, beautiful look. I couldn’t help letting the curious and interested know about the true nature of…

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Vodacom has pulled the plug on its M-Pesa product in South Africa after admitting that the service doesn’t stand a chance to succeed in the country. By Staff Writer The mobile phone operator, which is owned by Vodafone, said following a thorough review, it will discontinue its M-Pesa product in South Africa with effect from 30 June 2016. “Vodacom’s decision is based on the fact that the business sustainability of M-Pesa is predicated on achieving a critical mass of users. Based on our revised projections and high levels of financial inclusion in South Africa there is little prospect of the…

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The competition for the pockets of movie and series binge watchers is hotting up in South Africa. For only R1 a day, you can now binge-watch marathon sessions of your favourite TV series and movies as and when you want, JusFlicks – a new video streaming firm, has entered the South African video streaming market to compete against MTN’s VU, Netflix and ShowMax. The offering will allow customers to sign up for unlimited subscription. To be a user, you don’t require a dish or a decoder and you can cancel your subscription anytime as there are no contracts. There’s no scheduling…

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Susan Tarr, a Hoedspruit Vodacom customer, faces a R20 000 data bill on his Samsung tablet after his seven-year-old-son Matthew watched Minecraft tutorial videos on YouTube. According to The Power Report in the Sunday Times, Tarr clocked the staggering data bill despite setting a R50 overdata limit on her MYGIG2 open contract for R319/month. Tarr was advised by SMS of ‘unusually high data usage’ only when Matthew clocked R17 000. “I can only assume it had been my son’s Minecraft tutorial videos on YouTube,” Tarr told The Power Report in the Sunday Times. “We had moved house at the end of July; we’d been staying…

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Locomute, a South African mobility start-up, has decided to raise upwards of $5 million (R75 million) in ne equity funding in the Silicon Valley, California, according a media report. The City Press newspaper reported on Sunday that Locomute will be part of a California trip organised by Investec’s En-novate, together with about 20 South African entrepreneurs. Ntando Kubheka, Locomute’s chief financial officer, told the newspaper that the new funding in equity will allow the firm to expand. Locomute currently operates in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Durban and Ekurhuleni, and is looking to expand into Port Elizabeth and East London. The…

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When music CDs appeared in the 1990s, they struck what looked like a fatal blow to vinyl records. Naturally, the consequences were felt on South African marketplace bidorbuy.co.za for years to come. The sales of LPs on the site had dwindled to such an extent that the very existence of a separate category devoted to this “dying” format was called into question. By Staff Writer Then in 2007 the vinyl staged a come-back in the Western world. After some time, the South African market caught on to the trend. “Our figures show that the sales of LP records on the…

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Pharmaceutical companies typically develop new drugs with thousands of staff and budgets that run into the billions of dollars. One estimate puts the cost of bringing a new drug to market at $2.6 billion with others suggesting that it could be double that cost at $5 billion. By David Glance One man, Professor Atul Butte director of the University of California Institute of Computational Health Sciences, believes that like other Silicon Valley startups, almost anyone can bring a drug to market from their garage with just a computer, the internet, and freely available data. In a talk given at the Science…

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The debate about online privacy versus the battle against crime was given new life this week with an attempt in Brazil to ban the popular messaging application WhatsApp. By Jill Slay A well-known and strict judge in a regional area of Brazil issued a court order banning WhatsApp for 72 hours in the whole country on Monday, because of problems he was having getting information from the company that owns the app. That company is Facebook, which bought the app for US$19 billion in 2014, and it was allegedly not cooperating by handing over data from customers in a drug-running case…

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Today, MTN experienced data connectivity issues which started on the afternoon of 05 May 2016, around 2pm. The mobile phone operator said on Thursday afternoon that engineers are still busy investigating the issue and have established some level of stability but the investigations are still ongoing. “The network is busy recovering so services will be restored intermittently. MTN wishes to apologise unreservedly to affected customers for any inconvenience caused,”said MTN South Africa in a statement. MTN and Afrihost subscribers experienced connectivity issues on the operator’s mobile data network.

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