Author: ITPulse

Galaxy Backbone, a digital infrastructure and shared services provider to government and all its agencies, said infrastructure for the implementation of the Electronic Government master plan is readily available for deployment. In an email message, the Managing Director/CEO, Mr, Yusuf Kazaure of Galaxy backbone said the e-government master plan heralds the platform that will help ministries and agencies perform better and become more effective in providing services to other government institutions, businesses and the citizenry in a fast, reliable and efficient manner. “The goal of the e-government plan is to provide a transparent, competent, service oriented digital base, and an…

A Globaldata latest report has disclosed that spending on automated home devices will hit $75bn by 2025, up from $23bn in 2018 globally. The report titled ‘Thematic Research: Automated Home’, noted that much of that growth will be driven by two types of devices: smart thermostats, which are becoming increasingly common as consumers and governments alike look to control energy consumption; and smart speakers, relatively recent entrants to the market. According to Ed Thomas, Principal Analyst for GlobalData’s Technology Thematic Research, the advent of smart speakers has had a significant impact across the automated home, as they have enabled simple, voice-activated…

The Chief Executive Officer of DHL Express, Mr. Hennie Heymans has disclosed that the courier company has unveiled mobile and desktop platform e-shop in nine African countries. The unveiling follows the success of DHL Africa eShop app in 11 countries across Sub Saharan Africa. The countries are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, Ghana, Senegal, Rwanda, Malawi, Botswana, Sierra Leone and Uganda. According to Heymans, the uptake and usage of this platform over the past seven weeks has been incredible, with exponential growth in subscribers and physical orders. “Based on this rapid growth and the positive feedback that we have received…

Customer service departments of big companies engage with thousands of customers every day. Each interaction holds importance and the company can use it for their benefit. But the increasing number of these interactions means it is impossible to look at each one of them individually or to understand the individual customer journey. That is where Data visualization comes in. It can help customer-facing teams to improve their customer experience and point out the areas for improvement by using data analytics, and machine learning on customer data. Marketing managers, sales representatives, and customer service professionals need to process a rapid flow…

Sophos has announced the acquisition of Rook Security, a pioneer and leader in managed detection and response (MDR) services to boost its threat detection, investigation and response capabilities to its recently acquired DarkBytes technology platform. With the acquisition, Sophos will deliver the new MDR services through its network of approximately 47,000 channel partners worldwide. “Cybercriminals are relentlessly trying to exploit organizations with techniques ranging from tried-and-true phishing emails to the more recent trend of ‘hacker pen-testing’ to find weaknesses in their surface area. As a result, businesses need 24/7 monitoring and management of what is happening on their network, yet…

Africa’s short-term growth prospects remain favourable, but there are clear regional discrepancies The global economy faced more volatility at the start of the year, driven by signs of a slowdown in world GDP growth, marked dovish U-turns on the monetary front, uncertainty over the US-China trade spat and Brexit. But Africa’s short-term prospects in general remain encouraging, with West Africa in particular set to do well. Southern Africa, however, continues to struggle, with the two largest economies in the region still performing poorly. South Africa is plagued by domestic issues related to policy uncertainty, credit rating risks associated with debt…

The Solve Initiative, an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has called on African Technology Startups with innovative solutions to apply for the sum of $1.5 million United States of America dollars it has made available. “Over US$1.5 million is available to winning solutions, while teams will join MIT Solve’s supportive community of peers, funders and experts to help advance their work. Applications are open until July 1,” MIT announced in an email message. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), offers startups funding and access to a global network, advances lasting solutions from tech entrepreneurs to address the…

.China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has cut or canceled orders to major suppliers for components that go into its smartphones and telecom equipment following its U.S. blacklisting, the Nikkei reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) confirmed that orders from Huawei have declined after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a ban on the Chinese firm on national security grounds. Huawei has also downgraded its forecast for total smartphone shipments in the second half of 2019 by “about 20% to 30%” from the previous estimate, the Nikkei reported. Both, Huawei and TSMC did…

The African ICT Foundation has announced the appointment of Ms. Lobna Smida as the Regional Director for North Africa. With the appointment, Lobna will assume the role of directing the activities of the Foundation in the region. Lobna, who is currently working as an Administration Advisor at the Presidential Palace of Tunisia, is also expected to guide the overall direction of the region, develop a regional strategic plan every two years, using input from the regional officers and/or committee members. “In her acceptance speech, Lobna was partly quoted as saying; “I believe in the important role of the ICT’s SDGs…

Sophos has announced Intercept X for Server with Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and Response to Help Businesses of all Sizes Battle New Blended Cyberattacks. By adding EDR to Intercept X for Server, IT managers can investigate cyberattacks against servers, a sought-after target due to the high value of data stored there. Cybercriminals frequently evolve their methods and are now blending automation and human hacking skills to successfully carry out attacks on servers. This new type of blended attack combines the use of bots to identify potential victims with active adversaries making decisions about who and how to attack. The SophosLabs…