Netflix has jumped to the rescue of one of the oldest and most unique theaters in New York. Netflix has announced that it has signed a lease to keep the Paris Theater. The theater had shut its doors for the last time this past August. The Paris Theater is New…
Author: Charity Mbaka
Ethiopia has become the second African country (after Rwanda), to join Alibaba’s Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP). The platform aims to expand the reach for local SMEs. EWTP will connect Ethiopian-made goods to the Asia and the rest of the East, as well as support smart logistics and talent enhancement.…
Tom Berners-Lee is famously credited with being the inventor of the World Wide Web (www) in 1989. Thirty years later, he has watched his invention descend into a tool manipulated by criminals and governments for less than savoury practices. Berners-Lee has proposed a quote, “roadmap to build a better web”,…
Kenyan-based digital drug store, MyDawa has partnered with digital lender, Umba to offer users medicine on credit. The partnership will see users able to access upto KES 1600 ($15) worth of credit to purchase medicine on the platform. This loans will be disbursed based on the patient’s credit score. MyDawa…
Tesla has unveiled The Cybertruck and it is straight out of a Science Fiction movie. It shares no DNA with any other pickup truck in existence. The electric pick-up truck project, which was undertaken under a cloak of mystery, was unveiled by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the firm’s design…
Samasource, an AI training data provider, has raised USD 14.8 million, from Ridge Ventures. The investment will see Ridge ventures principal, Ben Metcalfe, join the startup’s board. He said, “Samasource is a rare instance when an investor can make a difference in more than just the balance sheet. It’s the…
Uber’s Chief Product Officer, Manik Gupta, has stepped down and will officially terminate his service at the company as of December 13. Gupta revealed the tough choice in a note to Uber’s product team. Uber’s product team will be temporarily managed by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshashi, as recommended by Gupta…
Offshore bank, CNB has confirmed a data breach by hacktivist group Phineas Fisher. The notorious hacker group targeted the offshore bank and stole confidential documents and money. In addition to the hack it is offering other hackers USD 100, 000 to encourage them to carry out politically motivated hacks. The…
Rwanda has announced its plans to build Kigali Innovation City, which will be located in Kigali’s Special Economic Zone. The announcement was made at the Africa Investment Forum Event which took place in South Africa earlier this November. The innovation city will be home to tech companies, top tier universities,…
Kenya-based users of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will receive 10% off their purchase if they pay with M-Pesa on Singles’ Day. This offer will stand as of November 11 as part of Singles’ Day, China’s largest shopping day. It is comparable to Black Friday and Cyber Monday in other parts…
Chinese-based tech giant, Vivo, which is the fifth largest smartphone maker globally, has confirmed plans to set up a regional office in Nairobi. Vivo is joining an increasingly crowded Kenyan smartphone market. Some of the more dominant smartphone brands include Samsung, Apple, Oppo, Tecno, Huawei and Infinix. A study by…
Air travel is going green as NASA has been experimenting with an all-electric plane. The NASA X-57 Maxwell Plane, dubbed the X-Plane is an experimental all-electric aircraft that uses lithium iron battery packs, in place of the commonly used fuel-powered turbine engines. Some are describing the aircraft humorously as a…
Facebook has issued a public apology after accusations emerged that the company continues to discriminate against black, Latino and Asian women in its workforce. This comes just a year after a former employee, Mark Luckie, accused the social media giant of quote, “failing its employees of color”. Luckie lists incidents…
Amazon has announced plans to establish a new edge location in Nairobi for its Amazon Web Services product. This will be Amazon’s third location in Africa having previously set up locations in the South African cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the cloud computing division…
African e-commerce giant Jumia has announced a new prepaid subscription service in a move aimed at boosting sales. The service will give users access to up to 20 deliveries a month. The subscription service, dubbed Jumia Prime, has been modeled after Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime is a subscription service that…
You can now access Microsoft’s Word, PowerPoint and Excel, all in one app on your Android or iOS device. Microsoft announced that it was opening up the new version of the Office app to the public to test. The announcement was made at Microsoft’s Ignite Conference. The app is available…
Apple and TikTok have both declined to testify to their ties to China in a US Congressional hearing. The hearing was scheduled to dig into the ties between China and US’s technology sector, and whether it poses a national security threat. TikTok however explained in a statement that it would…
Kenyan-based telecoms company, Safaricom, has announced its partnership with SA-based Vodacom in a bid to expand into Ethiopia. Safaricom and Vodacom will jointly bid for one of the two telecoms licenses to be issued by the Ethiopian government in 2020. Safaricom interim CEO Michael Joseph said that the tel-co was…
The government of Uganda has issued an order to telcos operating in the country. The order mandates them to list a minimum of 20% of their shares on the Ugandan Stock Exchange. The move is a bid to promote local ownership of the telecommunication companies. At the moment, all telcos…
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced the company would no longer accept political ads globally. He said in a twitter thread, “We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought.” He added, “A political message earns reach when…