Geneva: Miss.Africa Digital Program Named Finalist in the ITU/UN 2017 EQUALSinTech Awards

ITU and UN Women this week in Geneva, Switzerland announced the Miss.Africa Digital program as one of 15 Finalists and the Winners for the prestigious 2017 EQUALS in Tech Awards. As the flagship event of the EQUALS global network partnership, the annual award event is designed to showcase how ICTs can be used to dramatically improve social, political and economic outcomes for women and girls – and the value that women and girls bring to the technology sectors. This year, there were 293 participants from 72 countries for the EQUALS…

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Self-parking cars to be legalised in UK

The UK government wants to modify its ban on using mobile phones behind the wheel to allow drivers to use automatic parking devices. Drivers who push a button on their phone or key fob to make their car park itself could be running the risk of a fine under current laws, according to a consultation document. Remote-control parking is a feature on many high-end luxury models. But the government claims it could “revolutionise” driving for all. Officials say it can aid those with reduced mobility and help people get into…

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Mobile phone and broadband services need ‘radical improvement’

MTN Rwanda

The head of the UK National Infrastructure Commission has called for urgent action to tackle poor mobile phone coverage. Lord Adonis has written to the telecoms regulator Ofcom urging it to take action to deal with the issue. It follows a report that one million homes have poor broadband and large parts of the UK have no 4G coverage. On Friday Ofcom said calls and text messages could not be sent on all four mobile phone networks in 30% of the entire UK landmass. It is not the first time…

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Uber used undercover agents, court letter says

It is critical evidence in Uber’s legal battle with Waymo, the self-driving car company that accuses the ride-sharing firm of stealing its technology. The letter, sent by lawyers representing a former Uber employee, sparked an internal investigation when it was sent to Uber in May, but has not been made public until now. In a statement, Uber said: “While we haven’t substantiated all the claims in this letter – and, importantly, any related to Waymo – our new leadership has made clear that going forward we will compete honestly and…

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Hundreds of HP laptop models found to have hidden keylogging software

A security researcher has revealed that some HP laptops have hidden software which can log everything typed on its keypads. More than 460 models have been affected, dating back to 2012, according to the list released by the Company. The discovery was made by researcher Michael Myng who found the keylogging code in the pre-installed Synaptics Touchpad software on these laptops.Keyloggers record every key that is pressed on a keyboard. This means the laptop users are at risk of having their passwords, bank details, private communications and search history recorded…

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The technology industry needs to think more seriously about device addictions

Parents

Mobile programmers have the ability to build software that provides deep layers of penetration to the end user through sophisticated targeted notifications. Consumers with their chosen apps, have hundreds of notifications turned on and thus are brought back to their phones at an alarming frequency. A recent study shows that many people consult their phone as much as 150 times a day. Everyone is screaming to the consumer and doing whatever they can to get their attention while not considering the long term ramifications of such excessive stimuli. With the…

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Researchers can determine what smartphone a photo was taken on by analyzing it

Researchers at the University at Buffalo have discovered a way to identify smartphones by analyzing just a single photo taken by the device. The researchers centered on a flaw in digital imaging called photo-response non-uniformity (PRNU) to do so. PRNU happens when the imperfections in the manufacturing process of each camera’s sensors create tiny variations. Those variations can cause the millions of pixels in the camera’s sensor to project colors that are slightly brighter or darker than normal, which creates a systemic distortion in the photo called pattern noise. This…

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Microsoft makes Azure Bot Service generally available for developers

Microsoft introduced the Azure Bot Framework more than two years ago and companies have been building chatbots for a variety of scenarios ever since. Today, the company made generally available the Microsoft Azure Bot Service and Microsoft Cognitive Language Understanding service (known as LUIS). “Making these two services generally available on Azure simultaneously extends the capabilities of developers to build custom models that can naturally interpret the intentions of people conversing with bots,” Lili Cheng, corporate vice president at the Microsoft AI and Research division wrote in a company blog post…

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Apple ‘to buy Shazam for $400m

Apple is close to buying the music recognition app Shazam for about $400m (£300m), media reports say. Shazam, a UK company founded in 1999, allows people to use their smartphone or computer to identify and buy music through a snippet of sound. Shazam, which says it has more than 100 million monthly users, makes most of its revenue from commissions paid on referrals to Apple’s iTunes Store. Neither Apple nor Shazam have commented on the reports on the TechCrunch site. If the deal is confirmed, the music identifying App will…

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German spy agency warns of Chinese LinkedIn espionage

China is using fake LinkedIn profiles to gather information on German officials and politicians, the German intelligence agency (BfV) has said. The agency alleges that Chinese intelligence used the networking site to target at least 10,000 Germans, possibly to recruit them as informants. It released a number of fake profiles allegedly used for this purpose. BfV head Hans-Georg Maassen said the accounts show China’s efforts to subvert top-level German politics. “This is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate in particular parliaments, ministries and government agencies,” he said. China has denied similar…

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