Johannesburg: The event was correctly named “Time to Go Big” and TCL certainly did a fine job of that for the press at their official launch at the Leonardo Hotel in Sandton. The hype around the TCL Mini-QLED products was not exaggerated at all, and the massive flagship 115” MAX certainly delivered on its promised impact creating a lot of buzz and interest. It is not surprising that the leading large screen manufacturer in the world won 22 German iF design awards and 12 Red Dot design awards in 2023 with the 115” Max wining the 2023 Edge award. The…
Author: Greg Stewart
Fast-growing adoption of E-wallet services and digital supplier payments among micro merchants and informal retailers such as spaza shops is helping to reduce security risks, costs and inefficiencies associated with cash payments right across the value chain. Jonathan Thomson, head of supplier payments at Kazang, says that “digitisation of supplier payments is an important element of creating financial inclusion for micro merchants in townships, peri-urban areas and rural areas. “Most micro merchants in Southern Africa still pay for most of their inventory using cash,” says Thomson. “This not only exposes them to the safety and security risks associated with cash,…
The recent protest action in Kenya over the scrapped finance bill, has brought about the emergence of the widespread use of technology and the development of new Ai products, that were key instruments in the protest action. There have been protests throughout other African states in the past that have led to the emergence of new tech such as the “Arab Spring in Egypt” that occurred in 2010 and 2011. Here it was the use of social media that was central to the organisation and communication to a wide audience that had a clear impact on this political uprising as…
Addressing Digital Illiteracy in Africa Despite significant strides, Africa continues to face substantial challenges in digital literacy. As of 2020, internet penetration in Africa was estimated at 47.1%, with mobile service subscriptions in Sub-Saharan Africa reaching 45% by the end of 2019. However, these figures lag behind other continents, highlighting the need for increased digital accessibility and literacy efforts (Do4africa). In 2022, African countries scored between 1.8 and 5 on the Digital Skills Gap Index, below the global average of six. This gap underscores the urgent need for investment in digital literacy to prepare the youth for the global job…
The Mpost Success Story: In many developing countries, reliable physical addresses are rare. This makes receiving parcels, documents, and accessing services like e-commerce and banking a nightmare.According to the UN, it is estimated that over a billion people are unregistered individuals and estimates are that up to 80% of the world’s population lacks proper addresses that are verified. This becomes an enormous barrier for those affected to get access to essential services such as Helathcare or education as well as access to financial products that all require proof of residence and for courier companies to deliver parcels.Founded in 2016 by…
MIT reveals a new prosthesis driven by the nervous system will assist amputees to walk naturally and navigated obstacles. State-of-the-art prosthetic limbs can help people with amputations achieve a natural walking gait, but they don’t give the user full neural control over the limb. Instead, they rely on robotic sensors and controllers that move the limb using predefined gait algorithms that have generally been quite different to natural limb movements. Possibly the closest achievement to natural movement in a prosthetic, prior to this new breakthrough, was the development of a brain controlled prosthetic arm by the Biomedical Engineering Research Group…
In just 6 months, with a team of just 8 staff, the Kyutai research lab developed, from scratch an artificial intelligence (AI) model with unprecedented vocal capabilities called Moshi. The new experimental prototype AI, was publicly unveiled in Paris yesterday. The interactive demo of the AI will be accessible from the Kyutai website as of 4 July where it can be freely tested online as from today, which constitutes a world first for a generative voice AI. This new type of technology is the first to make it possible to communicate in a smooth, natural and expressive way with an…
A cluster of three wind farms, called the Koruson cluster, in the Eastern Cape area of South Africa is nearing completion.
The depth of natural resources combined with a large, young workforce, there is no conceivable barrier to Africa becoming an economic powerhouse. It needs only to adopt business friendly policies and deliver freedom for its countless entrepreneurs to thrive in.
There is much hype around solar and wind energy generation, but there are several other alternatives that deserve consideration depending on your location and how much power generation is required. Micro Hydro Generators Hydro energy generation has found a meaningful place in locations with good water supply and where other tech such as solar or wind do not perform as well due to weather factors. Additionally it is power that is available 24/7 and all year around, but is also dependent on water supply being uninterrupted. Solarite, a green tech company based in South Africa, provides energy generation via its…