Author: Gugu Lourie
Two Nigerian men and two local women were arrested in Cape Town on Tuesday night for opening bank accounts at all the banks in South Africa and using them to receive monies from online dating victims. By News Agency One suspect was arrested shortly after receiving a dummy parcel from the Hawks at Postnet Somerset West Mall. The Hawks seized five laptops, two of them with profiles of people who have been fraudulently used to scam people online, as well as 12 cell phones. The suspects, aged between 27 and 38 years, will make their first appearance in the Cape…
Even though it’s not officially available in South Africa yet, you’ll likely have heard of the phenomenon that is Pokémon Go. This augmented reality game played via an app on Android and Apple iOS smartphone platforms has attracted millions of players since its July 2016 release in Australia, New Zealand and the US. By Jessica Foreman Back to the future Pokémon has of course appeared in different guises over the years having previously been available on Game Boy, a cartoon programme, and a low-tech trading card game. In this app version, players roam around using their phone’s GPS to hunt…
Do your online shopping habits put you at risk? Are you exposing yourself – and your confidential information – to opportunistic fraudsters? These are questions that online shoppers should be asking themselves says Mark Chirnside, CEO of ThisIsMe, who highlights that South Africans may not be taking adequate steps to secure their online identities and personal information. While South Africa is often regarded as lagging behind Western markets in online shopping penetration, Paypal research in fact indicates a healthy 29% growth rate will be achieved by the end of 2016, generating a whopping R37 billion in revenue. Considering that in South…
Vodacom has scooped top honours at the 18th Sunday Times Top Brands Awards. South Africa’s best network, Vodacom, was awarded the Grand Prix prize for overall favourite brand and also won the hearts of consumers as the best Telecommunications Provider in both the consumer and business categories. By Staff Writer “We are once again honoured to be the recipient of this prestigious award. It is important for the Vodacom brand to remain relevant to South African consumers. Over the years, we have been able to do this through various campaigns which have always depicted South Africans at their best,…
MTN South Africa is bringing the international telecom developer hackathon TADHack to Africa for the first time on 14-16 October 2016. This means local developers can enter and compete against the best developers in 30 countries around the world. By Staff writer TADHack South Africa, will be staged at the MTN Innovation Centre in Johannesburg, putting local developers in line to benchmark themselves against the best in the world, and stand a chance of winning prizes. The Global TADHack challenge will see developers creating hacks using the global sponsors’ resources. This year’s development theme will encourage hacks in particular topics,…
A boost in revenue growth and strong organic growth, helped Blue Label Telecoms to deliver a 21% rise in core headline earnings per share (HEPS) to 102.85 cents in the year to end-May 2016. HEPS is South Africa’s main profit gauge. By Staff writer The JSE-listed telecommunications group said revenue rose 19% to R26.2 billion and growth profit was up 11% to R1.8 billion. Revenue generated on “PINless top-ups” rose by R1.4 billion from R2.7 billion to R4.1 billion, equating to effective growth in South African distribution revenue of 23%, in that only the commission earned thereon is recognised. Brett…
Adult sexual content and culture has woven itself seamlessly into the fabric of the internet. Some of it is subtle, and some not so subtle, but there is now a wealth of dedicated porn websites available and plenty of demand to view the content. By Joanne Orlando One of the most popular is Pornhub, and according to its 2015 year in review, visitors to the website watched more than 4.3 billion hours of porn. Pornhub is just one of thousands of porn websites so these figures help us to gain some idea of just how much porn is available online. So…
In 1957 Vance Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders shocked the world by revealing that messages exposed subliminally, below our level of perception, were able to increase sales of ice cream and Coke. The experiment he cited was later shown to be a hoax, but one of Packard’s other assertions, that advertising can influence us below our level of awareness, is absolutely true. By Robert George Heath In fact, rather scarily, the vast majority of advertising’s influence on us is subconscious. My own research has shown how the emotive content of advertising enables it to break almost all the rules which we…
The Portfolio Committee on Communications (PCC) has dismissed calls for an inquiry to probe ongoing issues at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). By News Agency This comes after a presentation by Communications Minister Faith Muthambi and the SABC top brass to the PCC at the Old Assembly on Tuesday. Committee chairperson Humphrey Maxengwana said the committee was satisfied with the explanation of the public broadcaster’s management and the Minister on the “perceived ongoing crisis” at the SABC. “After the presentation by Minister Muthambi, the SABC Board and management, as a committee, we came to a conclusion that there will…
Reporting a crime should not be as traumatic as the experience of the crime itself. But unfortunately this is the sad reality for many victims of online fraud. By Cassandra Cross and Kelly Richards Australians reported more than A$229 million lost to fraud according to a report published last year by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). But behind every statistic is a person, and there are millions of victims globally who experience a wide range of online fraud. Romance fraud and investment fraud remain the two highest categories of victimisation in Australia, with offenders using the guise of genuine relationships…
South Africa’s banking group FNB is aiming to redefined mobile banking by launching its own branded FNB smartphone, a move that fully integrates banking and customer mobility. The smartphone comes on the back of the FNB Connect cellular offering launched in 2015, which seamlessly integrates customer’s financial and mobile accounts on a single banking platform. FNB is offering customers the choice of two smartphones, the ConeXis A1 and X1 respectively. The A1 is pitched at the price-sensitive Easy bank account holder, who now has access to possibly their first high quality smartphone at an affordable price of only R59 per…
MTN SA has strengthened its executive team once again following the appointment of Maxwell Takalani Nonge as the new Chief Digital Officer. Nonge’s appointment will be effective 01 September 2016. Nonge is an accomplished professional who has extensive experience in the telecommunications and broadcasting space. He has worked for a number of organisations in a career spanning approximately 17 years where he served in a number of roles. Before he accepted his new role at MTN SA, Nonge was the Group Chief Technology Officer for eMedia Investments, and served as Managing Director of Platco Digital, eTV’s sister company, between 2013…
At present, purchasing travel insurance online can be a confusing experience for the customer., but a Cape Town-based fintech company Hepstar has announced the launch of what it terms a “simplified online service” to take the “hassle” out of buying travel insurance. By Staff Writer This mobile app-like website is customer-centric with an interface that is exceptionally easy to use, making the purchase of travel insurance faster, simpler and more streamlined. No more quotes. The confirmation is immediate and the policy kicks in the same minute. “Our vision is making travel insurance easy for the customer,” said Hepstar chief operatingoOfficer,…
Communications Minister Faith Muthambi says the planned picket outside her department’s head office in Pretoria today by the Right to Know Campaign is aimed at silencing her from driving media transformation in the country. By Staff agency “It is interesting to note that Right2Know is staging the picket on the eve of our Print Media Transformation Colloquium — a clear indication that it is meant to distract the attention and focus of department idea to de-racialise print media by increasing black ownership and control, as well as its role in support of development. “We want to make it clear that…
Who was the first woman to have her period in space? What is it like changing sanitary products while being weightless? And why doesn’t menstrual flow just float up into the body when gravity isn’t around? By Varsha Jain These were some of the questions I had when I started researching female astronaut health. The human body goes through a lot of changes when in space. Not having gravity to constantly work against, it loses bone density and muscle mass. The cardiovascular system gets lazy and the body’s balance control mechanisms have to completely readapt themselves to find a new norm.…
End-to-end telecommunications and networking solutions provider Saicom Voice Services has entered into a strategic partnership with SEACOM, a provider of internet, connectivity and cloud based services, to allow SEACOM to provide Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Cloud PBX services over a white-label platform to corporate and SME customers. By Staff writer Through the partnership, SEACOM will offer voice services to its growing customer base, in addition to its existing high-speed internet access and cloud services. “Our strategy is to build our channel platform in order for resellers to partner with us and in turn extend their service offering to…
South Africa’s mobile phone giant MTN has announced a second black economic empowerment (BEE) deal, under which it will sell a 4% stake in the mobile phone company, worth about R9.9 billion, to black investors. By Gugu Lourie The mobile phone operator said the new MTN BEE transaction, together with the continuing contribution of the MTN Zakhele empowerment transaction, translates to an effective indirect “see-through” black ownership in excess of 30% of MTN’s South African operations. MTN will provide an effective transaction discount of 20%, through additional equity in the structure. BEE is designed to widen ownership of the South…
Anyone who knows me also knows that I have a huge sweet tooth. I always have. My friend and fellow graduate student Andrew is equally afflicted, and living in Hershey, Pennsylvania – the “Chocolate Capital of the World” – doesn’t help either of us. By Jordan Gaines Lewis But Andrew is braver than I am. Last year, he gave up sweets for Lent. I can’t say that I’m following in his footsteps this year, but if you are abstaining from sweets for Lent this year, here’s what you can expect over the next 40 days. Sugar: natural reward, unnatural fix…
Anger can be very quick, powerful, reactive, and can make us do things we typically wouldn’t do. There is nothing inherently wrong with anger as an emotion, but nowhere is anger less helpful, more common, and potentially more dangerous than when we are behind the wheel of a car. By Stan Steindl and James Kirby Most of us are familiar with “road rage”. There are, of course, extreme examples of violence and assaults on the roads that end up in the courts, hospitals, and the media. But every day, drivers get angry and aggressive, and the evidence is mounting that this can…
Mercedes unveiled a new all-electric luxury-class coupé concept: the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6. The coupé reinterprets classic, emotional design principles in an extreme way, following the Mercedes-Benz design philosophy of sensual purity. The Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6, which measures almost six metres in length, is designed as an electric car. The output of the drive system is 550 kW. The shallow underfloor battery has a usable capacity of approx. 80 kWh. This not only allows performance characteristics typical of a sports car (acceleration from 0‑100 km/h in under four seconds, top speed electronically governed at 250 km/h) but also a range of over 500 kilometres. The extended, round “boat tail” format…
The network connectivity disruption that affected some of MTN customers was fully restored last night, the mobile phone operator said on Friday. “Subscribers who are still experiencing connectivity disruption are urged to turn off their devices briefly and switch them on again to enable complete connectivity,” the telco said. “MTN wishes to apologise once again for any inconvenience caused.” MTN said in a statement on Thursday that it was experiencing voice and data connectivity issues affecting some of its subscribers across the country.
This Apollo Thomas fellow is telling me via Facebook Messenger that I have serious problems. He declares; “There are several invisible and complex obstacles hindering your progression.” By Vula Mthimkhulu The thing is; I’ve always suspected this to be the case. The other day, I woke up to find my lounge invaded by hundreds of wet, white and thin chickens (a really bad version of Ramthuthu). With all entry points to the house properly sealed, except for the chimney, I concluded that yizinto zabantu lezi (someone is playing mind games with me). And so I sold them chickens to my local supermarket.…
I am an anthropologist with a special interest in establishing the field of the medical humanities. This emerging field is wide open for producing new knowledge about the history and culture of medical practices. It focuses, for instance, on representations of patients and medical landscapes in art, literature, philosophy, bioethics, and other disciplines in the arts and humanities. By Susan Levine Usually, our interdisciplinary masters course in this field at South Africa’s University of Cape Town (UCT) attracted fewer than 40 students. Then a colleague and I were asked to consider creating a Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC. These online…
African policy makers are increasingly called on to use evidence-based research to inform development decisions. But this requires the rigorous collection of data as well as a coordinated system to disseminate it. This is why Kenya-based African Population Health Research Center is advocating for national policies to enable strong data systems. Donatien Beguy explains Africa’s challenges and opportunities. By Donatien Beguy What is data driven decision making in the world of policy making? Data, and especially data of good quality, are essential for national governments and institutions to accurately plan, fund and evaluate development activities. Basic development indicators are essential for…
We launched ShowMax on 19 August 2015, hitting the ground running with Africa’s largest on-demand catalogue of TV shows and movies. Over the past 12 months we’ve clocked up well over 10 million views, or more than 700 years’ worth of content if viewed back to back. By Barron Ernst, Chief Product Officer for ShowMax It’s been an insanely busy year for our team. My intention isn’t to boast, because we’ve got loads more to do, but dispassionately I’d say we’ve achieved a fair amount in that time. Enabling content downloads, setting up data usage caps, putting together a cash…