Author: Staff Writer

Sources Intimate that Rocket Internet is preparing a Jumia IPO

Staff Writer
Banking Crisis

Reuters sources have intimated that German start-up investor Rocket Internet (RKET.DE) is preparing its African online shopping platform Jumia for a possible New York listing in the first quarter of 2019 which could value the firm at about $1 billion. Citi (C.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Berenberg are coordinating the IPO, the sources said. Shares worth up to $250 million may be sold, one of the sources said, adding that no final decision about the timing or metrics of the deal had yet been taken. The investor and the banks…

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Surprise overdue dual-SIM support coming to the iPhone

Staff Writer
Apple

Apple’s introducing letting you embrace your inner duality with your iPhone. At Wednesday’s Apple event, the company announced the launch of dual-SIM support for the iPhone. Both the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max will offer the dual SIM card option. This will allow you to have two different phone numbers and two different carriers on the same phone. The dual SIM support is possible because Apple’s newest iPhones will have an eSIM as well as a regular nano SIM card. The eSIM means you won’t have to swap…

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Fintech Will Contribute New $150 Billion to Africa’s GDP.

Staff Writer

The contribution of the Fintech industry to sub-Saharan Africa’s economic output will increase by at least $40 billion to $150 billion by 2022, according to Financial Sector Deepening Africa, a development-finance organization. The industry currently employs about 3 million people directly and indirectly in the region, FSD Africa Financial Markets Director Evans Osano said in an interview on Thursday. Sub-Saharan Africa’s gross domestic product is about $1.6 trillion, according to data compiled by the International Monetary Fund. “If you look at the value chain, most of that money is coming…

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SEC New Suspends on Exchange-Traded Bitcoin and Ether Investment Vehicles

Staff Writer

Ether, the second-largest virtual currency, slumped 8.9% from its level at 5 p.m. New York time on Friday, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Bitcoin lost 2.1%, while the market capitalization of digital assets tracked by CoinMarketCap.com shrank to $197 billion — down about $640 billion from its January peak. Cryptocurrencies have declined for five of the past six weeks amid concern that a broader adoption of digital assets will take longer than some had anticipated. That worry was underscored over the weekend after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily…

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Tanzania New freeze of its local free to air channels.

Staff Writer

Tanzania (DStv)has removed free-to-air (FTA) channels from its subscription list, barely a week after the country’s communications regulator warned it would suspend the pay TV licence. The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) had said it would suspend Multichoice licence for its continued carrying of free channels on its service despite holding a licence that barred it from doing so. “In exercising its powers, the authority hereby notifies the general public that it intends to suspend all the licenses issued to Multichoice Tanzania Ltd for failure to comply with the authority’s…

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Tinder parent company buys New anti-Tinder dating app Hinge

Staff Writer
Cancer

Match Group, a massive online dating conglomerate, acquired Hinge today in a deal that gives the company a 51 percent stake in the app. Hinge initially marketed itself as a more welcoming version of Tinder in which users could only see potential matches who shared a mutual Facebook friend. The company then redesigned its app to get rid of all swiping features and in its place let users build out full profile pages. Hinge users can answer three questions about themselves, connect their accounts to their Instagram, and also upload multiple photos,…

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Lyft makes it new easier to track business travel expenses

Staff Writer

Lyft  announced today that taking a business trip and then actually turning in your travel receipts just got a whole lot easier. A new feature for business profiles will allow employers to create a direct connection between employee trips and travel managers in charge of their reimbursement. While this integrated functionality is not new for the ridesharing company, it is the smoothest it has ever been. In 2016, Lyft launched its business profiles to allow users the ability to easily share receipts via their work emails. Then, in the summer of 2017, the company announced in-app integration…

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Facebook entices content creators with new community-centered video platform

Staff Writer
Telkom

Facebook announced several new live video features today that will allow creators to make their live streams more like games with polls and quizzes. The features are similar to those that creators on YouTube have had access to for months through the recent addition of the Community tab. These new features could entice established creators to migrate to Facebook’s video platform. Facebook says these features will reinvent traditional entertainment formats as more “community-centric,” and it noted a trend in more collaborative video consumption that relies on audience participation. YouTube integrated polling…

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New Instagram’s Video Hub Dubbed IGTV Set to Launch Tomorrow

Staff Writer

The Instagram longer-form video hub that’s launching tomorrow is called IGTV and it will be part of the Explore tab, according to multiple sources. Instagram  has spent the week meeting with online content creators to encourage them to prepare videos closer to 10-minute YouTube vlogs than the 1-minute maximum videos the app allows today. Instagram is focusing its efforts around web celebrities that made their name on mobile rather than more traditional, old-school publishers and TV studios that might come off too polished and processed. The idea is to let these creators,  who have a knack for this…

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Uber booking New removal from Google Maps for Android

Staff Writer

Google Maps can no longer be used to book an Uber on Android. It brings the app in line with the iOS version, which lost the feature last summer, as noted by Android Police. Google has had the ability to show price estimates and pickup wait times for ride-sharing apps for a while. Back in January 2017, Uber alone gained the ability to actually book rides in the Google Maps app by pulling up your account window and hailing your ride without ever leaving the app. But for whatever reason, Google has officially removed the…

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