Author: Tapiwa Matthew Mutisi

The Foschini Group (TFG) has recorded a drop in profits for the first six months ended 30 September 2023 (H1 2024) as it fights a challenging economic environment. “Performance in the current period was impacted by challenging trading conditions in all three territories, occasioned by rising interest rates, high inflation…

Nedbank is hosting its 2023 Innovate Hackathon in partnership with Make.dev. The event will take place on 1 and 2 December at the Nedbank Rivonia Campus in Sandton. According to the bank, the focus is on creating innovative artificial intelligence (AI)-powered financial tools to help local SMEs with issues such as…

MTN’s Fintech business is delighted to announce the appointment of Patrick Attoungbre as the Chief Executive Officer of Fintech Côte d’Ivoire, effective November 2023. In this capacity, Patrick will spearhead MTN’s Fintech business in Côte d’Ivoire, marking a significant milestone in the company’s expansion. With nearly two decades of experience…

MultiChoice Group CEO Calvo Mawela revealed that the company has embarked on a proof-of-concept to package and sell solar and battery energy storage products, in a bid to bring back subscribers who have ditched the platform after being frustrated by load-shedding. Mawela said they have partnered with alternative energy importers…

Microsoft has finally announced that it will soon start testing the Copilot chatbot in an update to the widely used Windows 10 operating system. Microsoft on Oct. 31 started rolling out an update that features Copilot to Windows 11, its latest operating system. But according to StatCounter estimates, among Windows PCs, Windows 11…

Big win for Google, as the blue bubble versus green bubble drama may be coming to an end, with Apple bringing RCS support to iPhones via software update starting in 2024. That’s not to say that messages from Android devices will no longer appear green on Apple’s iMessage app. It…

Vodacom has reported a decline in headline earnings for the six months ended 30 September 2023, citing higher interest rates, elevated levels of inflation and currency volatility as the cause. The group reported a huge jump in revenue for the period at R72.8 billion, up 35.5% from the comparable period…

Microsoft unveiled two chips at its Ignite conference in Seattle on Wednesday. The first, its Maia 100 artificial intelligence chip, could compete with Nvidia’s highly sought-after AI graphics processing units. The second, a Cobalt 100 Arm chip, is aimed at general computing tasks and could compete with Intel processors. Cash-rich technology companies have…

SpaceX aims to send Starship to space for its second test flight on November 17, now that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given it the clearance to do so. The company completed its next-generation spacecraft’s first fully integrated launch in April, but it wasn’t able to meet all its objectives, including having its…

Tags are a key way to seek out content on social media, but so far they’ve been missing on the Meta’s Threads platform. But that’s changing soon, however, as the feature is now in testing on Threads in Australia “with more countries coming soon,” Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a new thread.…

Eutelsat OneWeb, a subsidiary of satellite communications provider Eutelsat Group, has signed a multi-year distribution deal with ICT systems integrator NEC XON, to bring low Earth orbit (LEO) internet connectivity services to Sub-Saharan Africa. The agreement, announced yesterday at Africa Tech Festival 2023 in Cape Town, encompasses internet services, equipment, installation and training…

YouTube Premium may have gotten more expensive in the last year, just like basically every other streaming service, but the company at least has adding features pretty frequently as well. YouTube Music in particular has gotten a lot of upgrades in 2023, but today YouTube is announcing a number of experimental features and…

Multichoice Group has reported a massive R911 million loss for the six months ended September 2023 as it bled subscribers and took a hit from foreign exchange volatility. Revenue for the period was down marginally (1%) to R28.3 billion from the R28.6 billion recorded in HY22. Operating profit was down…

It has been a year since Apple enabled emergency SOS via satellite on all iPhone 14 units in the US. The feature lets users text emergency services for help when they don’t have cell service. The company is offering two years of free access upon activating an iPhone 14 or iPhone 15.…

Cruise, General Motors’ embattled driverless car unit, recently announced that it will pause all public road operations — both supervised and manual — in an expansion of last month’s pause of driverless operations. Cruise wrote in a blog post; This orderly pause is a further step to rebuild public trust while we…

Vodacom Group continues to grow its pan-African customer base of 196.2 million people through finding innovative ways to keep customers connected via land, sky and sea. Earlier today, Vodacom shared highlights of its various connectivity projects, which aim to accelerate connectivity in Africa and promote digital inclusion. “Through our diverse…

BCX, an ICT services provider and a subsidiary within Telkom Group, has announced the winners of its fifth annual digital innovation awards. The company this year introduced public sector as a category, and best society and sustainability as a sub-category, says Jan Bouwer, Chief of Solutions and Innovation Sponsor at BCX.…

CSquared, a pan-African technology company, making commercially driven investments into broadband-enabling infrastructure throughout Africa, has announced an equity investment from new and existing shareholders to finance its growth objectives. The company has raised $25 million (R467 million) in new equity from CPDIF, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the International…

Johannesburg-based car insurance start-up Pineapple has announced the conclusion of a R400 million funding round. According to the company, this transaction sets a new record as the largest insurtech fundraised on the continent. The investment round was led by new investors Futuregrowth, Talent10 and MIC, while the business received additional…

You may want to check your Google account storage situation if you back up your WhatsApp conversations to Drive on Android. In 2018, WhatsApp and Google announced that you could save your WhatsApp chat history to Drive without it counting towards your storage quota. But starting in December 2023, backing up the…