Author: Tapiwa Matthew Mutisi

“Power Rangers” is baloney through and through, but as baloney goes, it’s better than you might expect. It packs enough zing to make you forgive the origin-story clichés. And the predictable save-the-world stuff. And the insanely ubiquitous product placement. (Seriously, whatever Krispy Kreme paid to be an actual plot point…

The days of Google Talk are quickly coming to an end. As the company  announced, the messaging service that allowed Gmail users to talk to each other since it launched in 2005, will now be completely retired. Even while Google pushed Hangouts as its consumer messaging service (before Allo, Duo, Hangouts Chat and…

Google recently announced the new version of Hangouts, which is focussed on catering enterprises. Now that Google is more keen on developing Android Messages as a unified messaging platform for Android, the company is reportedly stripping Hangouts of SMS feature. As Android Messages is Google’s RCS (Rich Communication Service) product, the…

After years of stubborn caution, Facebook is finally embracing the animated GIF. Next week Facebook will begin testing a GIF button that lets users post GIFs from services like Giphy and Tenor as comments. Facebook confirmed the GIF test is coming with this statement: “Everyone loves a good GIF and…

Instagram is adding two new features for security and community guidelines on its social network. Instagram just made your account much harder to hack. Today instagram added two-factor authentication to the social network, increasing security measures for their 600 million active users. You can activate two-factor in authentication by going…

If you use Google’s G Suite apps and Mozilla’s Firefox browser, good news: The two are going to get along much better. The G Suite tools for word processing, spreadsheets, Gmail and other chores have worked better on Google’s Chrome than on rival browsers in one important way: You can open…

50 million Spotify users who now listen music for free will be unable to access new tracks from some top artists. The service has announced a major change, which would see making some music available only to paying customers. Before, all music on Spotify has been available to both free…

“Make an appointment for 3pm tomorrow with Francis,” I say to my assistant. Remembering that there was a time when you had to be high up in an organisation to have an assistant. My assistant is an artificially intelligent piece of software that lives in my smart phone. It makes…

Entry of the mobile technology ride-sharing service, Uber, into passenger transport markets across the world has brought disruptive competition with substantial benefits to consumers. Africa is no exception. Uber is currently the dominant ride-sharing app used in Africa. It has rapidly grown its African footprint and now has operations in eight countries; Egypt,…

Companies are bombarded with phishing scams every day. In a recent survey of more than 500 cyber security professionals across the world, 76% reported that their organisation fell victim to a phishing attack in 2016. These scams take the form of emails that try to persuade staff to download malicious attachments,…

Twitter made it clear that Periscope was more than just a live selfie platform when it added support for professional cameras and GoPros last year. Now, the social network is ready to extend that same platform beyond its own native apps. In a post on the company blog today, Twitter…

Reddit knows its old-school message board style can be a little intimidating for new users, and its individual user pages have never really expanded beyond a list of submitted comments and some badges — which can make it intimidating for casual redditors to keep up with real people on the…

Amazon has quietly rolled out the “Send to Kindle” feature to its Kindle for iOS application that allows you to save articles and documents found on the web to the app. That means your Kindle device or app can replace your preferred “read it later” application – like Pocket or…

Apple gets all the attention, but Android remains the world’s biggest operating system. You find it everywhere, which means it absolutely must work on devices of every size, shape, and spec. Now that you can use Android apps on ChromeOS, that opens them up to gadgets with trackpads, keyboards, pens,…

With the release of a new video app called Clips, Apple Inc is inching one step closer to fully engaging in the messaging world, where its huge base of iPhone users could help it compete with Snap Inc’s Snapchat and Facebook Inc’s Messenger. Clips, which will hit Apple’s App Store…

A recent survey, commissioned by anti-piracy company Digimarc, has revealed that people illegally downloading ebooks are normally aged between 30 and 44 and have a household income of $60,000-$99,000. Previously, it was suggested that pirates were much younger and less wealthy, but the latest results show that 41% of all…

It turned out that Google Europe publicly apologized over placing ads next to extremist content only after it was “read the riot act” at a Whitehall summit. Google’s representatives will meet Cabinet Office ministers again to set out further action aimed at strengthening Google’s advertising policies in order to make…

As promised, the social media giant is already rolling out its third-party fact-checking tool to combat fake news, which will alert users to “disputed content”. Back in late 2016, Facebook announced that it would be partnering with independent fact-checkers (ABC News, AP, FactCheck.org, Politifact and Snopes) to fight the spread…

Experts believe that extremists and hate preachers have made at least $318,000 from ads for household brands and government departments placed alongside their YouTube videos. In the meantime, Google is estimated to have earned about $150,000 from advertisers for providing a tool that enables to place the ads against the…

Google and sister company Jigsaw are joining forces to defend election organizers and civic groups against cyber attacks free of charge as the broader tech industry seeks to fend off criticism that it is not doing enough to stop online efforts to distort elections. The growing frequency of politically motivated…