Tag: newsflash1

U.S. tech look to Africa for developers

Andela

Tech companies founded in the United States are setting up software development centers in Nigeria and Kenya, where a number of young developers has led to growing tech communities. Microsoft has launched its Microsoft 4 Afrika initiative, aiming to help empower African youth, entrepreneurs, developers and others to make their ideas a reality. Steve Case, the AOL founder, and his wife Jean, Generation Investment Management and Sir Richard Branson have provided $19 million to Kenyan pay-as-you-go energy start-up M-KOPA Solar. Andela, which has attracted $24 million of funding from a scheme led by…

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European Union privacy officials asks Facebook told to stop exploiting WhatsApp data

WhatsApp launches end-to-end encryption on messages for all its users

European Union privacy chiefs said Facebook must stop processing user data from its WhatsApp messaging service while they are investigating the privacy policy changes the company announced in August. The Article 29 Working Party, made up of privacy chiefs from across the 28-nation EU, told Facebook it had “serious concerns” about the sharing of WhatsApp users’ data for purposes that were not included in the terms of service and privacy policy when existing users signed up to the service, according to a statement e-mailed on Friday. European privacy watchdogs don’t…

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Interview: Hootsuite’s CEO Lessons from Getting Hacked on Social Media

Cybersecurity

“Hey, it’s OurMine Team, we are just testing your security, please send us a message.” Earlier this summer, that message was blasted out to my followers on Twitter… only I didn’t send it. I had been hacked. It was embarrassing. I run Hootsuite, a social media management company that prides itself on world-class security for our customers. How could this happen? What did I do wrong? In the following days, I learned that Ev Williams, the co-founder of Twitter, had fallen victim to the same hackers. And not long before that,…

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Cybersecurity firms greenlit to decrypt Viber, WhatsApp traffic

Russian cybersecurity companies have a greenlight to decrypt traffic of such popular communication tools as Viber, WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger, a popular business daily reports. The measure is connected to a recently-adopted anti-terrorism law. “We are going to look into the main messengers — WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Skype both for iOS and Android,” Kommersant cites a letter from an employee of Con Certeza, a company dealing with the development of tools necessary for enforcing law in the telecommunications field. The employee wrote that the company aims to make…

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Uber and Little Cab’s duel for Nairobi’s Taxi Market

Uber Africa launches Uber Cash in partnership with Flutterwave

Uber is in the middle of a bruising battle for dominance in east Africa’s largest economy: Kenya. The ride-hailing company started operating in the cities of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Thika last year. It has already outlasted the online cab operator Easy Taxi, which opted out of the Kenyan market in May this year following a decision by one of its backers, Goldman Sachs, to direct all its investments towards the more profitable Uber. However, Uber now has a new domestic rival: Safaricom. It’s one of Kenya’s largest companies, 40%…

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Study: Canadian tech sector outperforms finance

Staff Writer

The Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship (BII+E), a non-profit arm at Ryerson focused on innovation research, has released The State of Canada’s Tech Sector 2016, a report that breaks down the technology sector’s key characteristics and its contribution to the economy. The tech sector, which consists of 71,000 companies, employs around 5.6 per cent of all working Canadians (864,000 of them), and they tend to make more than workers in other sectors, said the report. The average tech employee earns $67,000 per year compared to a national average of…

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New Kaspersky Report Indicates That Crypto-Ransomware Attacks Are On The Increase

Staff Writer
crypto-ransomware

Kaspersky Lab has released a new report whose findings indicate that crypto-ransomware attacks are on the increase and will not end anytime soon. Ransomware is a type of malware that, upon infecting a device, blocks access to it or to some or all of the information stored on it. In order to unlock either the device or the data, the user is required to pay a ransom, usually in bitcoins or another widely used e-currency. The Kaspersky Lab report covers the evolution of the threat over the last two years. The…

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The First Interactive Digital Learning Centre (IDC) In Africa Has Been Launched in South Africa

Staff Writer
IDC

The first Interactive Digital Learning centre (IDC) in Africa has been launched in Tshwane, South Africa, ItNewsAfrica reports. EON Reality, a Virtual Reality based knowledge transfer for industry, education and edutainment is behind the Interactive Digital Centre.  The Chairman of EON reality, Dan Lejerskar, said that: “We’re extremely excited to partner with the City of Tshwane and build an IDC in South Africa…We fervently believe that knowledge is a human right and this aligns perfectly with Tshwane’s goal for greater income equality, creating jobs, and improving educational opportunities.” This IDC will…

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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Becomes the 475th City To Get Uber

Staff Writer
Uber Africa launches Uber Cash in partnership with Flutterwave

After beginning operations in Kampala, Uganda and Accra, Ghana. Uber officially launched in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania yesterday. Uber had earlier on announced their intention to expand to three African countries. The launch of operations in Tanzania marked the accomplishment of Uber’s goals. Tanzania becomes the 475th city to get Uber and the 5th African nation to enjoy the Uber services. Uber is celebrating the launch by giving Tanzanians free rides through the code, ‘Move Tanzania’. Tanzanians can enjoy six free rides over the course of three days. Uber’s existence…

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CyberXchange Conference And Hackathon To Be Held In Nigeria In November

Staff Writer
CyberXchange

The Facebook Sponsored CyberXchange Hackathon will be held in Lagos, Nigeria in November. The Hackathon is a competition geared towards finding the best prototypes by starting from scratch to build a workable idea with the help of collaborating colleagues on their teams. As aptantech reports, during the Hackathon, teams will compete against other teams with less than 2 years experience from all over Nigeria. These participants will have the opportunity to build a hack against a cybersecurity issue. The pre-qualifier registration for the Hackathon closes on August 30th, successful parties…

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