May, 2017 - itbusinessdirect

#SheTechsAfrica: Miss.Africa Seed Fund Announces its 2016/17 Prize Winners

May 31, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Closing the global digital gender divide is a pressing concern. Women are yet to reach their full potential as participants in all aspects of society. Closing this digital gender gap can help empower women and girls to actively participate in governance as civil society members and political leaders. The Miss.Africa digital Program, a Pan-African trust program of DotConnectAfrica (DCA) , is aimed in attracting more young girls and women to the Internet platform to enable them form a sizable demographic of Internet users in Africa, thereby involving them in complementary…

Microsoft to Introduce DNA data storage to its cloud

May 30, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Humanity has a data storage problem. Now, researchers report that they’ve come up with a new way to encode digital data in DNA to create the highest-density large-scale data storage scheme ever invented and microsoft is implementing this. Microsoft is now developing an apparatus that uses biology to replace tape drives, researchers at the company say. Internally, Microsoft harbors the even more ambitious goal of replacing tape drives, a common format used for archiving information. The tech giant believes that its data center will contain a fully functional DNA storage…

Dell Unveils the World’s First 32-Inch 8K Monitor

May 30, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Dell has unveiled some impressive new monitors for its products. At the start of the year, the 2017 lineup included new Infinity Edge displays, HDR displays, a new touchscreen display, and even the world’s first 32-inch, 8K monitor. Dell has now released the UP2718Q monitor, which offers a A 27” 3840 x 2160 resolution with the all trendy trick for 2017, HDR. The UP2718Q is making use of an IPS panel (AHVA) at 6-hz, and thus offers support for HDR10. This is a stunning panel for people who do a particular kind of work…

Over 36.5 million Android users get infected by Judy Malware

May 30, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

A new malware named ‘Judy’ has been found in over 41 apps on the Google Play Store, and it has infected between 8.5 million to 36.5 million users. This is according to a report from security research firm Check Point, which discovered the malware and alerted Google. The search giant has started removing these infected apps from the Play Store. According to researchers from Check Point, the apps were available on the Play Store for years, but have been clean and virus-free for most of the time. It appears that…

CIO Names Founder & CEO of DotConnectAfrica Sophia Bekele “Industry Trailblazer and Internet-Governance Pioneer”

May 30, 2017June 9, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

CIO East Africa has been following Bekele’s work for many years now and so did we, at ITBusinessdirect. No wonder the influential Business and Tech News Magazine in its May Issue 2017 decided to lay out a two page spread and a cover note on this impressive Women-In-Tech and “her significant contribution to her field” entitled “MEET SOPHIA BEKELE – Industry Trailblazer and Internet Governance Pioneer”. True enough, Bekele’s career reads as one that simply picks up and champion the most challenging causes that society has neglected or that have…

Apple Inc. Acquires Beddit, a sleep-tracking company

May 10, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Apple recently acquired Beddit Sleep Monitor, an app and sleep system designed to monitor daily sleep habits through the iPhone. As first reported by CNBC, Beddit has updated the privacy section of its website to note the acquisition and confirm that consumer data is now subject to Apple’s own privacy policy. subscribers’ personal data will now be collected, used, and disclosed in accordance with the Apple Privacy Policy. The company added that users can use Apple HealthKit to connect the Health app to the app. “Connecting the Health and Beddit…

Microsoft Patches 56 Vulnerabilities

May 10, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Microsoft has released an urgent update to stop hackers taking control of computers with a single email. The unusual bug, in Microsoft anti-malware software such as Windows Defender, could be exploited without the recipient even opening the message. Researchers working for Google’s Project Zero cyber-security outfit discovered the flaw at the weekend. The fix has been specially pushed out hours before the software giant’s monthly Tuesday security update. The update CVE-2017-0290 addresses a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution if the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine scans a specially crafted file.…

Android Wear 2.0 on Huawei Watch is finally here

May 9, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Android Wear 2.0 has finally rolled out to the original Huawei Watch. Despite its popularity and the fact that it was one of the few models to support the new software’s extended beta program, it has only now gotten the final release. Of course, there’s no official word as to why it has taken about three months to finalize the software for Huawei’s last generation smartwatch, but it is very likely due to its new Huawei Watch 2 as to why things got pushed back a bit. Android Wear 2.0…

Machine learning set to Impact Online Security

May 9, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Technology moves swiftly. Nowhere is that more accurate than in the current state of machine learning. A lack of awareness of security issues in the C-Suite and among employees is part of the problem, but the major cause is the enormous complexity of modern infrastructure deployments and the data generated by corporate and government networks. Finding security breaches is incredibly difficult. Online criminals want to remain hidden — if they’re discovered, it’s game over. They invest significant resources into hiding their presence, but it’s impossible for them to hide completely. There…

Report: Smartphone owners use 9 apps per day

May 9, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Mobile’s continued global growth is evident when looking at market-level data. In 2016, smartphone users downloaded over 90 billion apps on the iOS App Store and Google Play, and they spent nearly 900 billion hours in apps. Now a report shows that smartphone users are spending more time in apps than in years past, and now access over 30 apps on a monthly basis. At first, news that users are accessing nearly 10 apps daily sounds like a notable increase from a report from a couple of years ago, which had…