Dianne Jacobs - itbusinessdirect

Opera’s Opay Pulls Plug on ORide, OCar, Shifts focus to eCommerce & payments

July 6, 2020June 8, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

News earlier in the week broke that Opera-backed Nigerian fintech startup, OPay has reportedly shut down all its business operations in Nigeria following a letter issued by its foreign investors amidst the poor economic climate caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.. A report claims that all verticals of the startup, including ride hailing, ORide and OTrike — which were still active in other states aside Lagos; the recently launched B2B and B2C eCommerce platforms, OMall and OTrade; OExpress for logistics; and food delivery feature, OFood will be closed down. Opay launched…

Amazon to manufacture self-driving cars after acquiring start-up Zoox for $1bn

July 3, 2020May 23, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

Amazon is making strides into developing its own self-driving vehicles, agreeing to buy Californian start-up Zoox in a deal said to be worth more than $1bn (£810m). The takeover was first reported by tech website The Information and was later confirmed by Amazon. Talks were said to have started between the two companies last month. Zoox’s chief executive Aicha Evans and chief technology officer Jesse Levinson will continue to lead the team as a standalone business after the deal has completed, Amazon said. The takeover is believed to be part of Amazon’s plans to begin…

Power Panel at DCA WebForum voice their thoughts on impact of COVID-19 SME Financing in Africa

July 3, 2020May 23, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

DCA WebForum Series 3 Executive Roundtable The Impact of COVID-19 on SME Financing in Africa

The DCA Group hosted an engaging and insightful Executive Roundtable conversation, with Top Industry and Business Leaders and Representatives of SMEs operating in African countries, as businesses and individuals globally seek solutions for the COVID 19 crisis to innovative ways to achieve their goals. The panel of distinguished speakers exchanged expert insights, practical approaches and good practices on the topic: The real effects on the ground for SME’s; the plans that are being implemented to curb further negative effects on the market; future strategies that organizations can rely on to…

IBM to cease developing Facial Recognition Technology after #BlackLivesMatter protests

June 11, 2020May 26, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

IBM will no longer develop and research facial recognition or analysis software and, on top of that, it will no longer offer the technology for general-purposes. This is part of the company’s mission to advance racial equality in the US after #BlackLivesMatter protests – campaigning against violence and systemic racism towards the black community – were organised all over the world. “IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and…

Online retailers sales see their highest growth on record in April

June 9, 2020May 26, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

Online retailers are seeing Black Friday-like sales due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their business. According to new data from Adobe’s Digital Economy Index, U.S. e-commerce jumped 49% in April, compared to the baseline period in early March before shelter-in-place restrictions went into effect. Online grocery helped drive the increase in sales, with a 110% boost in daily sales between March and April. Meanwhile, electronic sales were up 58% and book sales have doubled. The data comes from Adobe’s index of the digital economy, which analyzes more…

COVID-19 is Transforming E-Commerce Globally

June 4, 2020March 7, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

Buy on Google ,Commission feesgoogle waive

Just over 306 million Americans are affected by stay-at-home orders, nearly 95% of the U.S. population. COVID-19 will forever change retailing, and its initial impact on e-Commerce is creating challenges to online selling & service no one imagined in January. The following graphic from COVID-19 Commerce Insight, an Emarsys initiative in cooperation with GoodData show how year-over-year revenue growth comparing the last seven days to the same period last year: Mobile devices are the most popular device for online shopping by a wide margin. 72% of consumers are using mobile…

Counting the cost of COVID-19? Report Spells bad news for Women in STEM

May 27, 2020June 2, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

COVID-19 is threatening to reverse hard-fought gains for women in STEM, according to a new report commissioned by the federal government. The report, commissioned by Industry and Science Minister Karen Andrews and produced by the Rapid Research Information Forum — a group of 35 research sector-led organisations chaired by Australia’s chief scientist, Dr Alan Finkel — was collaboratively led by Science & Technology Australia (STA) and the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE). According to the peer-reviewed report, Australia’s scientific and technical services industry recorded job losses of 5.6%…

Kaspersky partners with Arctic Security

February 28, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

Kaspersky has announced a new partnership with Arctic Security. Through this collaboration, Kaspersky Threat Data Feeds will be available out-of-the-box, on Arctic Security’s Arctic Hub platform. These feeds will help organisations with Security Operation Centers, as well as managed security service and internet service providers, to obtain the most up-to-date and relevant information about cyberthreats. Not all information about cyberthreats is helpful. For instance, 37% of information security executives say that there’s too much security data to deal with and not very much of it is actionable – as revealed by…

Kenyan Industries Partner with Distributed Power Africa

February 28, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

Kenyan industries are set to benefit by saving a minimum of 30% on their current cost grid consumption following a partnership between Distributed Power Africa (DPA) and Canadian Solar company. Currently, Kenyan companies lose nearly 10% of their production because of power outages and fluctuations. The deal is expected to help DPA provide top tier PV panels from the company that is estimated to be over 60,000 KuMax and KiKu which would quite easily construct 50 large industrial solar plants. The PV panels will be made available to DPA customers…