Tag: mobile

May282015 by editorNo Comments

Africa’s mobile broadband access below 20% says ITU report

Despite increasing access to cheaper smartphones, Africa's mobile broadband penetration still remains below 20%, report indicates The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) released its ICT Facts & Figures report, which revealed that the continent is the only region where mobile broadband access is less than 20%. The ITU's report examines the global development of ICT over the past 15 years from the year 2000 to 2015.And acco rding to the report Africa's mobile broadband subscriptions currently stands at 17.4%. The report notes that mobile-broadband penetration levels are highest in Europe and the Americas, at around 78 active subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. A report by the Pew Research Center released earlier this year revealed that smartphones (those that can access the

Jul12014 by editorNo Comments

Alibaba throws billions at figuring out how to turn mobile into money

Business, Mobile

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba may have dominated online retail on personal computers, but is some way from replicating that leadership in shopping by smartphone and other mobile devices. Reports ITWeb Alibaba, which is heading towards a bumper New York IPO later this year, is throwing billions of dollars at figuring out how to thrive as half a billion people, 80% of China's 618 million Internet users, go online via mobile. The Hangzhou-based firm said last month that mobile has become an increasing source of transactions, now accounting for more than a quarter of the value of goods sold across its online marketplaces. But Alibaba's shift to wireless commerce is a double-edged sword: mobile commerce brings in significantly less revenue than traditional e-commerce. The quick-hit impuls

Apr92014 by editorNo Comments

Africa to dwarf USA in Internet Usage by 2017 Cisco Predicts

Broadband, Business, Internet, Mobile

Carlos Slim of Telmex tells me the world is about to change. "Two billion more people will connect to the Internet when smartphones cost $50. The phone makers are promising me a $50 phone in 2014." If Spreadtrum and Firefox deliver a $25 smartphone, as promised, that could accelerate takeover. ~310,000,000 Africans will be connected to the Internet in 2017, Arielle Sumits of Cisco predicts. The population of the U.S. is about 310,000,000, Africa over a billion. It's inevitable that the U.S. will be dwarfed by the rest of the world. In Africa, there are already about 450,000,000 mobile phone users with substantial growth continuing. Most of them will get Internet-capable phones in the next few years. There are fewer than 10M broadband landlines on the continent, about one line per hundred...

Mar132014 by editorNo Comments

WhatsApp Messages May Not Actually Be Private or Secure

Cyber Security

NEW DELHI: If you use WhatsApp on an Android phone, you should be careful about what you talk about or share on the instant messaging app. Using a few scripts and a rogue app, anyone can peer into your chat logs and see what you talk about with your friends. A Dutch security consultant has found that WhatsApp chat logs saved on the SD card of an Android phone can be read by other apps because of the way Android allows sharing of data between apps. "The WhatsApp database is saved on the SD card which can be read by any Android application if the user allows it to access the SD card. And since majority of the people allows everything on their Android device, this is not much of a problem," Bas Bosschert wrote on his blog. "What do we need to steal someone's WhatsApp database? First we nee...

Sep302013 by editorNo Comments

Four Critical African ICT facts and figures

Broadband, Business

Africa may be regarded as a booming telecommunications market but it still lags behind the rest of the world. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which is a specialised agency of the United Nations that is responsible for issues that concern information and communication technologies (ICT), annually reveals facts and figures regarding the global uptake of ICT. ITU officials have said the mobile revolution is moving closer to having almost as many mobile- cellular subscriptions as people on earth. Africa is no different in this case, but as ITU statistics reveal, the continent lags behind the globe with respect to particularly the take up of broadband. Below are four tables with fast facts and figures for mobile, internet, mobile broadband growth in specific areas around ...

Mar142013 by editorNo Comments

m:Lab East Africa launches Pivot East 2013, the Region’s Premier Mobile Start-ups Pitching Competition and Conference

Business, Uncategorized

m:lab East Africa will be holding its third Pivot East on 25th – 26th June 2013 in Kampala, Uganda. Pivot East is East Africa’s premier mobile start-ups pitching competition and conference which has been held annually since 2011. Pivot East is about catalysing the growth of mobile start-ups, with an aim to amplify and consolidate the gains of East Africa’s Mobile developer and entrepreneurship ecosystem. read more

Feb12013 by editorNo Comments

Innovation in AfricaUpwardly mobile

Mobile

VISITORS to Kenya’s capital are often horrified by the homicidal minibuses called matatu. They swerve around potholes, seldom signal and use their iffy brakes only at the last second. They are therefore an ideal subject for a video game, which is why Planet Rackus, a Nairobi start-up, released “Ma3Racer” last year. source