Online ride hailing service, inDriver, which allows passengers to negotiate the fare with drivers, has begun recruiting drivers in Harare for the service, which it intends to launch in the capital towards the end of this month. inDriver, which is headquartered in New York, has 26 million users in more than 200 cities throughout the world. The service is already operating in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The inDriver app is used by passengers and drivers to be linked up and negotiate fares. The app can also be used…
Read MoreCategory: APPS
New Mobile-based online lending firms Regulations
Mobile-based online lending firms should be regulated to avoid their usage as channels for introducing illegally-obtained cash into the financial system, Central Bank of Kenya governor Patrick Njoroge has said. In a presentation to parliamentarians Wednesday, Dr Njoroge singled out Tala, Branch and Okash — three highly-popular digital money lenders — as credit-only mobile lending institutions that could be easily used to launder illicit cash. Money laundering, which involves transferring and disguising illegally obtained cash to make it look legitimate, is mostly used by criminals and the corrupt to clean…
Read MoreFacebook, WhatsApp, Instagram in worst new ever worldwide outage for the internet giant
Facebook said it was “back at 100 percent” after an outage on all of its services affected users in various parts of the world. Online monitoring service DownDetector reported on Wednesday that the outage began around 12:00 GMT and affected Facebook as well as its Instagram and WhatsApp services. “The issue has since been resolved and we should be back at 100 percent for everyone,” the company tweeted at 00:06 GMT on Thursday, adding they were sorry for “any inconvenience”. A Facebook spokesperson, also speaking on behalf of Instagram and…
Read MoreVenmo app has 40 million new users, PayPal discloses
Popular payment app Venmo has ushered in 40 million users to the platform, its parent company PayPal announced on Wednesday. This is the first time PayPal has disclosed user numbers for the millennial-focused, peer-to-peer app. In its first-quarter earnings report, PayPal said it now has a total 277 million total customer accounts — including 22 million merchant accounts. Total payment volume for Venmo grew 73% year over year to $21 billion in the first quarter, the company said. PayPal said Venmo is still on pace to do $100 billion in…
Read MoreMumsVillage enters ecommerce to help mothers earn new revenue
Isis Nyong’o’s MumsVillage has diversified into ecommerce to help mothers make money with the launch of MumsVillageShop. The move into ecommerce has been supported by impact investor Gray Matters Capital’s digital accelerator program – GMC Calibrator. MumsVillage also participated in the Unilever-DFID TRANSFORM partnership and Alibaba efounders Fellowship. “It is great to see one of the members from the first class of the eFounders program bring their vision to life. The program aims to empower young entrepreneurs to be champions for an inclusive digital economy, and the growth of MumsVillage serves as a…
Read MoreNew Startups and Partnerships, EurAfrican Forum
Dr. Precious Lunga, CEO and Co-Founder of Baobab Circle, will be joining the 2nd edition of the EurAfrican Forum in Portugal as a speaker, taking place on July 4-5. The EurAfrican Forum exists to explore and promote the power of diasporas as a connecting force between cities, regions and continents, between cultures, companies and people. It is an action-oriented gathering of leaders that aims to foster stronger collaboration between Europe and Africa to promote a shared green and inclusive growth for the two continents, fostering mechanisms for collaboration and creating…
Read MoreNew Swvl, Egyptian bus booking app raises $42 million.
Swvl, an Egyptian app for booking buses, has raised $42 million as it looks to expand into other parts of Africa, including Nigeria. The two-year-old company, which started in Cairo and also operates in Alexandria and Nairobi in Kenya, got the money from venture-capital firms including Sweden’s Vostok, Dubai-based BECO Capital, China’s MSA and Endeavor Catalyst, based in New York. “The plan is to be in at least two or three more African cities by the end of the year,’’ Mostafa Kandil, the 26-year-old founder and chief executive officer, said…
Read MoreNew: Instagram account been hacked? You can recover it this way
Previously, if your Instagram account was taken over by an attacker, recovering it would require wading through choppy customer support, or calling for assistance from white-hat hackers. Now, Instagram is rolling out new measures to help you get your account back more easily. On Monday, Instagram announced it is testing changes that could make it easier for users to regain access to hacked accounts, as well as security features that could make it harder to steal Instagram usernames in the first place. The news comes after a wave of Instagram…
Read MoreA world of new possibilities from Mobile apps to the blind and visually impaired
Ask anyone who was around before smartphones, and they’ll tell you life was different. But for Nutsiri “Earth” Kidkul, who went blind eight years ago, life-changing doesn’t begin to describe the impact of mobile apps. Before specialized apps came along, Kidkul would have to plan and prepare much more for basic tasks like grocery shopping, traveling or reading documents. What’s more, Kidkul often needed assistance from other people to go about her day. “I was always at the mercy of their time or schedule,” Kidkul says. Kidkul uses, for example,…
Read MoreGoogle new ties cut with Huawei.
Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware, software and technical services except those publicly available via open source licensing, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday, in a blow to the Chinese technology company that the U.S. government has sought to blacklist around the world. Holders of current Huawei smartphones with Google apps, however, will continue to be able to use and download app updates provided by Google, a Google spokesperson said, confirming earlier reporting by Reuters. “We are complying…
Read More