Users of Apple iOS have often boasted, to the discomfort of Android users, of the possibilities that AirDrop offers them, including the possibility to seamlessly exchange multimedia from one iPhone to another or to Mac computers.
Google has announced that the feature, called Nearby Share, will also be available to Android users as of the 4th August 2020 and it will work starting with Android 6.0+ “making it easier to instantly share files, links, pictures, and more with people around you.” The initial devices to receive the service will be select Google Pixel and Samsung devices before a wider roll out to other supported devices.
The company also promises the protection of user privacy to prevent snoops who might want to compromise the service to gain access to private files that are not specifically being shared.
“It also allows you to adjust your privacy settings from your phone’s Quick Settings at any time”, reads the statement from the google blog page, in an effort to secure one’s data.
Just like with Airdrop, when you open Nearby Share, it allows you to see all the devices within your proximity to allow you share that intended content.
Late last year (2019), Liquid Telecom silently rolled out an internet package intended for home users. This was a drastic shift from the company’s old goals of mainly serving big corporate clients, hotels and restaurant chains.
This home internet package that was hidden on the liquid telecom website came to be known as fibroniks and it came in various speeds. Previously the speeds were 5, 10, 20, 40 and 100 mbps with each Fibroniks package named after the speed of the package namely fibroniks 20 for the 20mbps package.
Before the covid lockdown, Liquid telecom upgraded all their customers who had 5mbps packages to Fibroniks 10 at the same rate which was 119,000/- and to be honest the speeds were very fast and at times users including myself reported speeds higher than those they were paying for.
A couple of weeks into the lockdown, there was a drastic change in the connection speed, videos began buffering and it even got worse where some internet-powered apps couldn’t load. Then speed tests till the kb zone. I mean imagine having a connection of 49kbps.
To back up my statements, Liquid telecom offers some of its customers access to a ‘Sphinx-based’ dashboard that shows their average speed, maximum speeds and since it’s an internal tool, there is no way it would read false speeds. (Check out the how terrible speeds the speeds got after the forced ‘upgrade’ below)
Analysis of how the Liquid Telecom Internet has been getting worse after March where the speeds dropped from 20mbps down to a point where the average speed is 0.34 Mbps (340kbps)
Tweets about the shitty connections started flying left, right and center, with some users complaining about how the company had taken months or weeks without coming to connect new clients. The other half was either complaining about outages or very slow speeds.
Getting Liquid telecom internet for home was a big mistake.
Hello @dkahindi, how does one know when they’ll be connected to Liquid Telecom at home without having to send countless emails, call the hotline weekly and wait for close to two months after signup?
Adding salt to the wound, Liquid Telecom’s customer care response was terrible, they have one toll-free number (luckily) but it would take you about 13 minutes on average to go through, and if the attendant ever told you that they would refer to the technical team, one would have to follow up for a response for about 3 days.
@liquidtelecom user number ltu-400060 for liquid telecom uganda suffering from internet not working. nobody picks calls at customer care. the team working on my case is stuck. planning to change the internet provider if no resolution.
One random evening, liquid telecom sent out messages that they would be phasing out the popular Fibroniks 10 packages and everyone would be forced to upgrade to the Fibroniks 20 package which costs 169,000/- per month.
A customer would think that if they were forced to upgrade then they would get ‘faster’ internet speeds. Damn, it backfired, the speeds were now actually much lower despite the increased costs, customer care was harder to reach both via WhatsApp and Voice calls. I will let the tweets and screenshots below speak for themselves.
Well, most customers jumped ship and either returned to former ISPs, or got new ones entirely.
Word reaching Guru8, from Liquid Telecom’s subcontractors, employees and some honest customer care officials is that the network was and is struggling in terms of network capacity.
But the company didn’t stop advertising its packages even when they knew they had capacity problems, in fact, they heavily advertised home internet packages more intensively including adverts on one of the most-watched shows, they even rolled out a package for schools to enable streaming of classes through Microsoft teams. (Hey schools, good luck video conferencing on liquid telecom without buffering.)
Speaking of insider information, Here is what Liquid Telecom didn’t tell us about its Fibroniks Home Internet Customers when they were ordering;
Your connection is ‘shared’
The home internet packages that Liquid Telecom advertises are not dedicated connections but rather shared connections. This means that when you pay for 20mbps, you are placed in a pool with other connections and hence your internet connection is determined by usage of others.
If you actually grill their customer care or technicians, they will tell you that you are only paying for speeds of Up to ‘the bundle’ you paid for. Worse you are paying for a shared ‘Up and Down’ connection meaning if you pay for 20mbps, the speed is shared by both your uplink and downlink which is a bummer.
In short, when you pay for 20mbps you are most likely to get 12mbps up and 8mbps down, and to make it worse, there are interruptions from fellow customers, distance to the masts which will bring you actual experience to about 8 mbps on average.
Which poses the question, Why is Liquid Telecom doing wrong marketing to it’s clients? Why aren’t they sharing terms and conditions with their customers? Actually when the technicians come to make a connection (I have personally witnessed 6), they are often too busy to show you that over photocopied form with the terms. Also, why aren’t these terms of the fair usage policy listed on the liquid telecom website?
They are throttling your internet speed
Liquid telecom’s customers must have noticed that some websites load way faster than others despite the difference in data size. For example, your 720p video on Youtube or 720p Netflix movie will stream without issues on a good day but try attaching a 1mb email attachment and you will see how it will take ages to upload.
Generally their upload speed has been bad.
Allow me quote a customer care call “Fibroniks home internet is meant for streaming and not for work, if you want to use it for work, please upgrade to an office connection.” says a tired sounding customer care lady who forgot to hang up the phone and went into gossip with her colleagues. (Guys mute your phones when you ask your customers are waiting for a response)
An ISP giving priority to particular websites or services to make it seem like their connection is okay is against the International Net Neutrality rules but hey that’s liquid telecom for you.
By the way, this also happens to fibre clients and technologically, fibre is always above the normal capacity of its’ user but several customers we talked to who had access to fibroniks fibre also complained about low speed even when they have a fibre connectivity.
Shady Installations
Remember when liquid telecom offered free installations at home? You had to go through a waiting list? Turns out that because of the intensive work that the companies subcontracted had to fulfil, the technicians had to find the quickest rather than the most efficient way to install.
Customers complained of technicians not having ladders or coming with S shaped-stands instead of L shaped-stands so they would connect users to distant masts instead of masts with minimal interference or distance.
Speaking of shady installations, some of the customers who we talked to who had claims of low speeds, were able to fix their problems after a geeky process of changing from 20Mhz to the 40Mhz band on their radios. (We will share a guide on how to do this).
The hack from 20Mhz to 40Mhz drastically improved connections especially those of people who were distant from their masts. Other customers had to call in for installation fixes.
Notice how the radio has a link capacity below 50%, which engineer would even approve such connections
Which poses the question, Why didn’t they do the installations right?
Unannounced Outages
Liquid Telecom is that ISP that will have an outage and not warn you in advance about an technical upgrade. You will wake up one morning and have no connection and when you call in (if they pick your call), you will be told that they are experiencing a technical fault.
You won’t get an email or SMS apologising about an outage. Outages became so common that you have to call your friends who have liquid telecom in case you have an outage just to make sure you are not facing the problem alone.
Reports reaching GURU8 indicate that some Home Fibre clients had non-refunded outages of over 48 straight hours.
Bad Customer Care and Support Tickets
When one gets a problem with their Internet Service Provider, they either call, send an email or use the customer ticket in Dashboard Portal for Customers.
Liquid Telecom uses Splynx for its user portal. You can monitor your connection, check your balance, and submit support tickets. Well, if you ever submitted a support ticket through this platform, it will never be read, in fact, a former employee once told me that the Splynx portal is for the group and in ‘Uganda no one ever checks it’. (Why don’t they shut it down altogether?)
See how long a support tickets take to get answered. Imagine a support ticket being marked as resolved without a response from the ISP
So if support tickets and calls fail, then one resorts to email. Well, the email for support used to work until multiple users started complaining about how they were blocked from sending emails to the support email. For my case, I am only able to email them when someone created a Support ticket internally and I was in copy, also threatening to get another ISP for physical action to be done for my link.
As for the WhatsApp Business chat for Liquid Telecom, the blue ticks are worse than those of bitter divorcees. Good luck getting a genuine or fast response from them.
However I must credit Liquid Telecom for having some of the fastest notifications reminding you to pay before your package expires. You will receive an SMS and email telling you the same thing within the same second.
All in all, there is all you didn’t know about Liquid Telecom’s Home Internet.
And since I have been asking myself questions all through, allow me ask one final one.
Do liquid telecom staff including the CEO sleep well at night?
Do they sleep well at night knowing their customers are enduring such terrible services?
Guru8 has read a statement by Google’s, or Alphabet’s subsidiary YouTube that was published on the subsidiary’s blog on the 4th August that has revealed that there is a planned shutdown of Android’s default music play Google Play Music by the end of 2020.
“We are announcing two important updates”, partly reads statement by the YouTube team. The updates are that 1) YouTube Music will be replacing Google Play Music by December 2020 and that in the coming months, and 2) Google Play Music users will no be able to stream from or use the Google Play Music app. The same announcements also come with changes to Google Play store and Music Manager to reflect the updates.
In the gradual shutdown, users in some countries like New Zealand and South Africa will by the start of September no longer be able to stream songs from the app or be able to use the App completely. The ban will extend to the other countries from the start of October 2020.
However, not to worry, Google promises that in the transfer from the two apps, users will be able to access their playlists that they will have had in Google Play Music, their uploads, purchases, likes and more so that they can easily be transferred to YouTube Music easier.
By the time it reaches mid – August, users will not be able to make purchases or pre-order music or upload and download music from Google Play Music Manager. To transfer their purchases from Google Play Music to YouTube Music, users will have to install what has been called a transfer tool or Google Take Out to export their uploaded and purchased music.
Google advises that users that have not yet commenced on the transfer process, should start now.
YouTube Music is actually the better version of Google Play Music giving the user a wider access to music and controls, and features with an improved design. The features include an explore tab, Android TV, Google Maps, and the ability for a user to discover music with the help of Google Assistant. Google Play Music has been limiting on some features, and often users resorted to using third party music apps for the music experience, however, YouTube Music has an attractive user interface, and well fitted album art.
It is a service, that I look forward to fully enjoying, the limiting factor being the slowed launch speeds, and the delays in syncing my local device music onto the app.
In June 2020, the Indian government banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese applications from India following allegations of national security concerns.
Early last month, it was reported that the President of the United States, Donald Trump was also considering banning the application as a way to punish Chinese for their role in the outbreak and spread of the Corona virus. However, these plans did not conceptualise.
Yesterday, Friday 31 July, the president reiterated that he would be signing an executive order banning the social media company from the US for national security concerns that the owner of TikTok, ByteDance is in bed with the Chinese and is collecting data to share with the Chinese government. The order is expected to be signed on the 1st August. We are yet to see how that pans out.
Other countries seem to be considering the decision to ban the social media company from their countries.
Guru8 has also learned that Microsoft is in plans to buy the application from Byte Dance, but from the look of things, the transaction might fail as it is being jeopardized by the continued allegations of data violations and especially plans for Trump to ban the platform from the US, one of its biggest markets.
The ban could also impact Facebook positively, as Mark Zuckerberg has continuously rallied support against the company as he considers it a threat to Facebook. After failed attempts to buy the company in 2019, it developed a competing application Lasso, that has since been abandoned. Now focus is on creating a TikTok feature Reels that is being incorporated into Instagram to try and win over TikTok clientele. Reels has already been rolled out in some countries like India.
With the influence the US government sways in world politics, it might not be long before it makes demands for other countries to follow the move, as it is doing or has done with Huawei.
Big Tech excluding Microsoft, aka the Big Four, GAFA, the Gang of Four listed Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon with a combined valuation of USD 4.85 trillion are the subject of anti-trust and anti-competition hearings in the US Congress over their dominance and power in the technology sphere in what has been described as the “Big Tobacco Moment”.
Google is a dominant search engine, mobile operating system (Android) and Maps, Facebook in social media and photo-sharing, Apple in iPhones and the Apple Store control, and Amazon in ecommerce and cloud computing.
The virtual hearings were conducted via video conference where the CEOs Jeff Bezos for Amazon, Tim Cook for Apple, Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook and Sundar Pichai for Google/Aphabet were questioned on behalf of their companies in almost 5 hour long questioning session.
Because of their market dominance, the companies have been accused of crippling their competition. The congressional hearings and investigations are trying to ascertain the extent of their power and abuse. In internal leaked mail, for example, the true reason for the Facebook acquisition of Instagram has been exposed.
“The businesses are nascent but networks are established, the brands are already meaningful and if they grow to a large scale they could be very disruptive to us” reads one of the messages from Mark Zuckerberg. “One thing about startups though is you can often acquire them” adds another email.
Zuckerberg in an internal memo last year also revealed that TikTok was a threat to Facebook, the company then tried to acquire it, but it was not successful. Now it is developing Instragram Reels, to try and outcompete TikTok using the Instagram market base, a further attempt to cripple its competition.
Where these companies fail to acquire their competition, they are copying the apps or their features to incorporate into their own systems among other measures being adopted.
Google is accused of using its search engine to influence search results or YouTube to censor user’s videos, Facebook using power to block third party adverts on their forum, Amazon using its dominance to control what third party products are sold on their platforms, and Apple using its power over Apple Store to reject installations of its competition services among others.
We are yet to see how the Congress will respond as enforcement is anticipated.
African FinTech Startups seem to be up for grabs lately. About a month ago an African and Uganda based fintech Beyonic was acquired by MFS Africa a “pan – African payments gateway that connects wallets across different mobile money platforms through APIs…”
Guru8 has now learnt that another fintech offering similar services like MFS and Beyonic is being acquired by an outside-Africa entity.
DPO Group is being acquired by UAE’s Network International Holdings PLC (NIH) that is headquartered in the UK. NIH also listed on the London Stock Exchange describes itself as a technology that enables payment solutions to merchants and financial institutions in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), with operations in the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, South Africa and Nigeria.
DPO has a major presence in Africa and all over, globally, it is available in over 19 countries while in Africa, the major markets are Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa, and boasts of over 40,000 merchants.
In a press statement released on the 29th July 2020, NIH has revealed that there is a proposed acquisition of DPO “to accelerate our growth in Africa through online payments and mobile money” where DPO and NIH have entered into an agreement to acquire DPO group, “the leading, high growth online commerce platform in Africa”.
The acquisition is valued at approximately USD 288 million, which financing is said to be “almost funded through the proceeds from an equity placing”. Part of the funding of the total consideration will be in equity where USD 13 Million in stock from Network International will go to the founders of DPO, another 50 million will be vendor consideration shares that will be issued to APIS Growth Fund I (it has been a significant funder of DPO), and the balance to be funded via existing debt facilities.
It is expected that completion of the transition will be done in Q4 2020, “subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory and anti – trust.”
The choice to acquire is to consolidate and accelerate the NIH “presence in Africa, the most underpenetrated and fast – growing payments market in the world”.
While commenting about the transaction, the Chief Executive Officer of NIH, Simon Haslam, commentedthat at NIH, they are “excited by the proposed acquisition of DPO, the leading high-growth online commerce platform operating at scale across Africa.” He describes Africa as a “vast and diverse continent, representing the world’s most underpenetrated, nascent and fast – growing payments markets, where we have seen recent signs of an acceleration in those trends”.
He adds that DPO will further consolidate the presence of NIH in Africa, strengthen their “position across the entire payments value chain and accelerate our growth”. The acquisition he says “will widen our capabilities across online, mobile and alternative payments; bring an extensive and diverse range of direct merchant relationships to our business; and provide a wider range of solutions for our existing customers”.
“We look forward to bringing our two businesses together and welcoming DPO’s colleagues into our group. Together, we have a powerful combination to accelerate digital payments across our regions and deliver significant shareholder value” concludes.
To help business enterprise and employment creation openings in one of their driving markets, distributed (P2P) bitcoin commercial center, Paxful (Paxful.com) will offer all the more free virtual business visionary training workshops and courses to the general population, in Southern Africa, during July and August 2020.
In festivity of their fifth birthday celebration this year and to help the business drive among members, Paxful is parting with R100 000. The initial 1000 members who join any of the above workshops or courses, register a record on the Paxful stage and make their first exchange the long stretch of August, will meet all requirements for R100 in prize cash to get their bitcoin venture in progress.
Bitcoin and blockchain enthusiasts can also join the DeFi Conference 2020(https://bit.ly/3faHobl) taking place on 5 August 2020 where Artur Schaback, Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder of Paxful will share insights on the application of decentralised finance (DeFi) for financial inclusion and the relevant opportunities and challenges within this space.
Responding to public demand
“Notwithstanding seeing an expansion in the quantity of new clients all around on our foundation since the COVID-19 pandemic, our clients have communicated explicit enthusiasm for becoming familiar with bitcoin and crypto during this time,” says Ray Youssef, prime supporter and Chief Executive Officer of Paxful.
He adds that instruction is basic to advancing undertaking improvement in the bitcoin economy, particularly in developing markets as the world keeps on confronting cruel monetary conditions and vulnerability. “It’s likewise significant for us as a business to help steer shoppers from easy money scams, which will in general develop wherever as of now in specific corners of the bitcoin economy.”
Passionate about education and entrepreneurship
Paxful’s organization with these territorial instructive stages is demonstration of the organization’s for some time held duty to furnish first-time and existing clients with the correct data and direction on the open doors that bitcoin and blockchain presents.
“We are very eager to have the option to assist individuals with using their innovative abilities to recognize new chances and occupation prospects inside the blockchain and crypto space during these troublesome occasions. The bitcoin economy is worth billions of dollars and speaks to a noteworthy open door for African youth specifically,” finishes up Youssef.
Amidst the remarkable COVID-19 pandemic, Paxful’s magnanimous arm #BuiltWithBitcoin (BuiltWithBitcoin.org) has additionally been having its influence to help weak networks. A #BuiltWithBitcoin (BuiltWithBitcoin.org) Fund was propelled in June, which underpins noble cause who are handling the effect of the pandemic on underserved networks.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (a.k.a 4IR) assures among others the possibilities of 3D printing, but stretching the innovation to consumables might not have been anticipated by many. (3D printing is also looked at by many others as an impossibility, but alas here we are, eating computerised chicken and “meating” the future).
In a press statement published by KFC Global on their website the company has revealed that 3D Printed Chicken, that they have styled the “meat of the future” for the “restaurant of the future” is in the works.
According to the statement, “KFC is taking the next step in its innovative concept of creating a “restaurant of the future” by launching the development of innovative 3D bioprinting technology… The idea of crafting the ‘meat of the future’…” reads the statement in part, in what the Company believes would be able to promote a “healthy lifestyle and nutrition”.
The decision for the printed meat has also been due to an increase in the popular “demand for alternatives to traditional meat and the need to develop more environmentally friendly methods of food production” also in effect creating the “world’s first laboratory produced chicken nuggets”, which the company estimates will be “as close as possible in both taste and appearance to the original KFC product”.
KFC says that using 3D Bioprinting Solutions (the partner KFC is using to achieve the product), the company will be able to use chicken cells, and plant material to allow it to reproduce the taste and texture of chicken meat “almost without involving animals in the process”, while the company provides its partner with the necessary ingredients such as the breading and the spices to “achieve the signature KFC taste”.
The company in promoting this new future product says that there are several advantages attached to it including containing the same microelements as the original product, creating a cleaner final product, and that it is more ethical as it does not cause harm to animals (read chicken).
“Crafter meat products are the next step in the development of our ‘restaurant of the future’ concept”, reads a comment from the General Manager of KFC Russia and CIS, Raisa Polyakova.
The first meat of the future product will be out in the future around September – December 2020
Samsung will introduce five new devices at its Unpacked event on 5th August, the company’s head of mobile confirmed on Monday in a blog post.
Tae-moon Roh, who took over day-to-day leadership of Samsung’s mobile business in January, called the new products “power devices” and hinted that they’re likely to include wearables alongside phones. Users will “live life to the fullest with these devices in your hand (and in your ears, and on your wrist),” he noted in a post in Samsung’s online newsroom.
“These devices deliver on our vision to be the innovator of new mobile experiences that flow seamlessly and continuously wherever we go,” he wrote. “They combine power with seamless functionality, whether you’re at work or play, at home or away.”
Instead of holding an in-person press event, Samsung will host a digital Unpacked event at 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT on 5th August to unveil its new devices. The plan follows similar moves by companies like Apple, which have shifted their events online during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Samsung, for the first time, “will be broadcasting live from South Korea,” it said.
Samsung is expected to introduce the Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Fold 2 at this event. It’s also rumored to be working on a new smartwatch and earbuds, as well as a tablet. And Samsung watchers also are waiting on a 5G version of the company’s Galaxy Z Flip foldable, which hit the market in February. It’s likely to unveil some combination of those products at Unpacked.
Samsung’s new products come at a difficult time. 2020 was supposed to be a strong year for the phone industry, as innovations like 5G and foldable screens got people shopping again. Instead, financial struggles and worries about COVID-19 will limit the number of devices companies can make and how many phones people will actually buy. Even once the worst of the pandemic is behind the US and other markets, the global economy will likely continue to struggle.
Samsung’s home of South Korea was one of the first markets to get hit by the coronavirus pandemic. The company temporarily shuttered factories, and it also has closed its four US stores. The pandemic spread at the same time Samsung introduced its most important device of the year, the Galaxy S20. Starting at $999, the device could be a reach for consumers out of work or watching their bank balances. In April, Samsung introduced a new lineup of A Series phones in the US that start at $110. The company hopes they’ll appeal to more budget-conscious buyers, including the tens of millions out of work in the US.
Roh, calling the current era the “Next Normal,” on Monday said the pandemic has caused Samsung to invest “heavily” in R&D.
“We’ve deployed new solutions in record time to do everything from improving video-chat technology to helping frontline workers stay safe on the job,” he wrote. Going forward, there will be “even bolder innovation,” he said.
“We’ll make mobile technology that’s more personal, intelligent, useful and secure,” Roh wrote. “We’ll develop more ground-breaking products, like our industry-leading foldable phones. And as we roll out a wide range of Galaxy 5G devices in more markets, this technology will enable so many experiences we can’t even imagine yet.”
Unpacking Unpacked
When it comes to Unpacked, Samsung is expected to show off its second-generation Galaxy Fold, which expands from a phone into a tablet. The company delayed the launch of its first fold, which started at $1,980, by five months from April 2019 to September of that year after some reporters found screen defects in their review units. This year, it’s expected to launch round two with what could be called the Galaxy Fold 2 or Galaxy Z Fold 2. The new device would build on what Samsung learned from last year’s disaster and February’s Galaxy Z Flip, which is more like a clamshell smartphone that folds into a compact package.
Along with the new foldable, Samsung on Aug. 5 is expected to unveil its next Galaxy Note, likely called the Note 20. Instead of two models, like last year’s Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus, Samsung could introduce three Note models this year, possibly named the Note 20, Note 20 Plus and Note 20 Ultra. The latter device could have two curved screens, whisper-thin bezels to free up maximum screen space and a slightly thinner body overall compared with the Galaxy Note 10 Plus. All models are likely to come with 5G connectivity.
And it’s expected to introduce updated earbuds and a new smartwatch, likely called the Galaxy Watch 3. The earbuds are believed to be kidney bean-shaped and bring improvements like active noise cancellation, while the watch could see the return of the rotating bezel.
Samsung also could introduce its Galaxy Tab S7 Plus, which is expected to have a 5G connection, making it one of the first tablets on the market with the new super-fast wireless technology. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S6 from earlier this year came with a 5G option, aimed at the South Korean market.
While people were facing lockdowns in their homes or wherever the lockdown found them, as a result of the Corona Virus pandemic. They were not making money. However, they were also bored and spending savings especially in entertainment related expenditure.
Netflix late this week released its second quarterly reports for the months of April, May and June, and observed a surge in subscriber numbers from the expected estimates of 7.5 million to over 10.1 million new users increasing the total number to over 193 million signed up members on the platform.
This is compared to the 2.7 million new subscribers in the same period the year before. It also made a record USD 6.15 billion in profit which also exceeded the firms estimates of 6.08.
The company is so much ahead of its competition Apple, Amazon, and HBO Max among other related media companies.
It is however worried about the numbers after the pandemic ends, as the subscriber rate might slow down as this could be the only time people are so bored to need that much entertainment at the same time.
