Just in case you live in an area where open WiFi networks are rare or perhaps have a really large data plan, then you going to enjoy the new iOS update.
Previously, if you wanted to download a big app when not connected to Wi-Fi, iOS would pop up a message telling you that the app wouldn’t download until you connect to Wi-Fi.
With iOS 13, you can really put your unlimited data or big data plan to the test with multi-gigabyte downloads. The new popup for apps over 200MB allows you to download later over Wi-Fi or right away over cellular.
This feature comes in handy when you really need to update or download an app that you want to use urgently but have no wifi connectivity.
To activate the ability to download apps over 200MB on iOS 13, go to Settings > iTunes & App Store, you can set iOS to always allow app downloads over cellular, ask only when over 200MB, or always ask.
We are all familiar with the Youtube Ads that we can only skip after 4 seconds. Well, just when you thought those aren’t enough, the streaming service is rolling out auto-playing masthead ads when you open the app on your smart TV.
The masthead adverts are wide, and occupy about half the size of your TV Screen and worse they automatically start playing when you open the app.
Google says that they know advertisers are looking for new and impactful ways to reach these audiences. That means advertisers can now reach audiences right when they open the YouTube app on their TV—as they discover new content in the home feed.
Here is an example of a Youtube Masthead Ad
On your smart TV, the YouTube Masthead will begin to play automatically after a few seconds on the home feed, and it’ll go full-screen a few seconds after that. Luckily, the ads don’t have sound.
Andela, the company that builds distributed engineering teams with Africa’s top software engineers, is announcing the departure of approximately 250 junior engineers and staff from its Nigeria and Uganda hubs with another 170 potentially impacted in Kenya. The move comes as the company looks to restructure its talent pool to more closely align with global market demand.
Andela is now working with all impacted and potentially impacted employees and is committed to providing a holistic professional and financial support package.
In addition, the company is partnering with CcHUB (Nigeria), iHub (Kenya), and Innovation Village (Uganda) to help connect impacted developers with opportunities in their local ecosystems. Together, they have identified over 60 companies who are looking to hire top quality junior engineering talent. These hubs will also offer impacted engineers the opportunity to use their co-working spaces free of charge for the next three months.
Jeremy Johnson, Andela co-founder and CEO says: “As the talent world has evolved, we have as well, and over the past few years it’s become increasingly clear that the world needs what Andela provides: high-quality engineering-as-a-service. It has also become clear, however, that the majority of the demand is for more experienced talent, and to keep up with it, we need to grow our senior talent base even faster.
“This shift in demand also means that we now have more junior talent than we are able to place. This is a challenge for the business, and for these junior engineers who want, and deserve, authentic work experiences that we are not able to provide.”
Beyond this restructure, Andela continues to grow rapidly with plans to hire an additional 700 experienced engineers by the end of 2020. Today’s announcement will not affect Andela customers’ operations, as the company evolves to deliver even stronger engineering support for their teams.
Jackie Ochola, Andela Uganda Country Director says, “Whilst we strongly believe that these changes will enable Andela to be a more successful business going forward, our first priority is to support all of the team members affected by today’s news, both directly and indirectly. We will be working closely with strategic partners in the Ugandan tech ecosystem to match amazing talent with current opportunities.”
Moving forward, the company will continue to invest in the Andela Learning Community (ALC), which has already introduced over 30,000 learners from across the continent to software engineering. Over the next three years, the company expects over 100,000 engineers from across the continent to take advantage of programs within the community.
Johnson concludes, “Five years ago, we launched Andela to solve a global challenge: Brilliance is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not. To succeed in our long-term mission, we have to make tough decisions to continue growing a company that we know will change the way the world thinks about talent.”
The most sought out East African Music and dance festival has finally launched an app to enable revellers enjoy the whole four day festival at the palm of their hands.
The Nyege Nyege mobile app will allow users and revellers to discover the festival and its programs, as well as the best acts and where to find them.
The app can be downloaded for free from Google Play Store. The festival program, Map, Stages, performing acts and in festival experiences are a finger tap away with an in app scheduler to help you map out your experience.
The app also features the performing acts’ bios with links to their music and social platforms. Users can also filter performers best on preference i.e selecting the performance time of acts specific to one country. Notifications can be set within the App for performance times.
The Nyege Nyege Festival is happening from the 5th to 8th of September at the Nile Discovery Beach in Njeru, Jinja.
MultiChoice Uganda has announced that DStv and GOtv Plus customers effective 1st September will enjoy quality entertainment content and the new football season for less. After a consideration for economic relief, DSTV has reduced its prices for their DStv Premium, Compact+, Compact and Family as well as the GOtv Plus packages!
“These are tough economic times and as a company,
we’re constantly looking at various ways our to thank customers for their
ongoing support and loyalty whilst delivering a world-class entertainment
service at a price they can afford,” said Joan Semanda Kizza, the PR and
Communications Manager of MultiChoice Uganda. “These significant
price drop the various DStv bouquets and GOtv Plus is our way to
demonstrate our commitment to ensuring our customers receive the best possible
access to great entertainment at outstanding value.”
The price decreases were
implemented on DStv & GOtv packages from 1st September 2019 as below:
These are the new DStv Prices:
DStv Package
Old Price
New Price
DStv Premium
UGX 280 000
UGX 219 000
DStv Compact Plus
UGX 180 000
UGX 129 000
DStv Compact
UGX 115 000
UGX 79 000
DStv Family
UGX 60 000
UGX 49 000
DStv Access
UGX 33 000
No Price Change
Premium+Asia Addon
UGX 298 000
UGX 237 000
Premium+French Addon
UGX 410 000
UGX 349 000
These are the new GOtv Prices:
GOtv
Package
Old Price
New
Price
GOtv Max
UGX 39 000
No Price Change
GOtv
Plus
UGX 28 000
UGX 26 000
GOtv
Value
UGX 16 000
No Price Change
GOtv
Lite (Monthly)
UGX 11 000
No Price
Change
GOtv
Lite (Quarterly)
UGX 25 000
No Price Change
GOtv
Lite (Annually)
UGX 70 000
No Price
Change
Furthermore, the subscription prices of DStv Access,
GOtv Max, GOtv Value and GOtv Lite will remain the same, ensuring that
customers on these packages also continue to enjoy their favourite
entertainment, at the same price!
During this period of the reduced price, all active
DStv customer will also get access the UEFA Super Cup match between Liverpool
and Chelsea, which will follow on Wednesday 14 August 21:00 CAT on SS3. Later
in August, the world of champions, SuperSport, will bring live action of the
new Serie A and La Liga seasons alongside the Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A,
UCL, FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, UEFA Euro Qualifiers, UEFA Nations League, UEFA
Euro 2020, UEFA Champions League, Super Cup, Supertaça Europeia, UEFA Nations
League and Super Spanish Cup. As part of our football offering, we have the
broadcast rights to the UEFA Nations League (UNL) to DStv football fans in
Uganda! That’s not all – from DStv
customers also have access to a wider variety of sports including WWE; UFC;
Rugby; Cycling; Golf; Tennis; Athletics; Cricket; Motorsport and International
Boxing.
DStv and GOtv also offers customers local and international movies
and series as well as the widest variety of quality local and international
entertainment channels including telenovelas, music, news, children’s
entertainment alongside the recently-launched WWE SuperSlam pop-up channel and
Big Brother Naija which is currently heating up screens‚ ‘Pepper-Dem‘ style!
The first Africa Adverting Week , premier event for advertising, creative, entertainment, marketing, media and technology professionals will be held at 1Fox, FerreirasDorp, in centre-city Johannesburg from 28th to 31st October 2019.
The inspiring, forward-thinking four-day programme, which is expected to attract 4,000 attendees, will include more than 100 curated events and involve over 200 leading speakers. Each day will feature the Global Keynote Series – a selection of thought leaders from around the world, who will share their high-level perspectives ranging from brands to cultural icons, agencies to tech companies. In addition, the #AWLearn workshops will offer intimate teaching and learning experiences, where delegates can interact with presenters to not only gain new knowledge, but walk away with actionable plans to position them at the industry’s leading edge.
Among the inaugural edition’s confirmed speakers include:
Jean Marie Dru – Chairman, TBWA Worldwide
Kwame Acheampong – CEO, Mall for AfricaLolu Akinwunmi – Group CEO, Prima Garnett, Africa
Faheem Chaudry – Managing Partner, MC Saatchi Abel, SA
Kobo360, a digital technology platform disrupting African third-party logistics, announced the completion of a $20M Series A equity round led by Goldman Sachs, with participation from Asia Africa Investment and Consulting Pte. and existing investors including TLcom Capital, Y Combinator, the International Finance Corporation. An additional $10M in local currency working capital financing has been secured from Nigerian commercial banks.
Launched in 2017 by Nigerian entrepreneurs Obi Ozor and Ife Oyedele II, Kobo360’s tech-enabled full truckload offering enables the development of an efficient supply chain for end-to-end long-haul freight operations, connecting and supporting cargo owners, truck owners & drivers, and cargo recipients. The company has moved over 500Mkg of goods, aggregated a fleet of over 10,000 drivers and trucks, and services SMEs and over 80 large enterprises such as Dangote Group, DHL, Unilever, Olam, African Industries, Flour Mills of Nigeria, and Lafarge. Located in key strategic trade hubs in Western and Eastern Africa, the e-logistics company will continue its expansion with the ambition to build a Global Logistics Operating System [G-LOS] powering trade and commerce across Africa and emerging markets.
Nigerian entrepreneurs Obi Ozor and Ife Oyedele II
With the funding, the team will continue to scale the organization, develop the technology offering and accelerate supply growth – planning to add 25,000 drivers to the platform in the coming months to power the recent Africa Free Trade Continental Agreement, expected to catalyze intra-African trade. Kobo360 is also planning to significantly broaden its reach in Africa, entering 10 new countries by the end of 2020 beyond its footprint in Nigeria, Togo, Ghana and Kenya.
Obi Ozor, Co-founder and CEO of Kobo360 said, “Our Series A allows us to invest in growing our talented team that is working hard on the ground to systematically address the inefficiencies within the African logistics sector, and strengthen our already extensive network of clients and truck owners across the continent. We are also focusing on developing the partnership with drivers, ensuring that they are trained to use mobile-enabled technology, so they can convey goods seamlessly and earn more money. We are already seeing drivers running trips on the Kobo360 platform increase their monthly earnings by 40%, as we work together to mobilize logistics across Africa.”
Jules Frebault of Goldman Sachs said, “Kobo360’s on-demand logistics offering has generated impressive traction and we are excited to support Obi, Ife and the team as they harness technology to tackle one of Africa’s most pressing development challenges – increasing market transparency, improving reliability and unlocking efficiencies for all participants in the logistics ecosystem”.
Senior Partner of TLcom Capital, Omobola Johnson said, “We see this Series A round as a means to support an ambitious, laser-focused company who are using technology to actively solve problems for enterprises across the continent, and we look forward to working with them as they continue to scale and transform the African logistics sector.”
Kobo360 is also developing a suite of driver-focused products to support the over 10,000 drivers on the Kobo360 platform. It has launched KoPAY, offering access to up to $5,000 monthly working capital; KoboSAFE, access to an insurance product; and KoboCARE, access to discounted petrol, comprehensive HMO packages and an incentive-based education program for drivers’ families.
Wale Ayeni, who heads venture investing in Africa for the International Finance Corporation, added, “IFC’s continuous investment into Kobo360 stems from the company’s successful track record. Kobo360 is empowering and enhancing the capacity of the vast underserved network of “micro” fleets in Africa to serve the huge unmet long-haul freight needs of large enterprises and SMEs, delivering value to both sides.”
Every person using their personal computer professionally has
encountered various malfunctions ranging from software glitches to the widely
feared blue screens of death (BSODs) and complete hardware failures. There are
few things in life worse than waking up to your morning coffee and a day of
freelance work and finding your trusty tools totally inoperative. While this
threat is mostly inevitable (let us face it, all things break
and computers are not much sturdier than human bodies), there are some trusted
tips from system administrators that can help you minimise the resulting damage
or totally avoid it.
1. Learn Basic Computer Maintenance
Knowing your computer means seeing the signs of the imminent failure. From the software standpoint, freezing or slow operation may be an indicator that reinstallation of the system or some software products may be required. The hardware part is trickier. From the system side, you should install specialised disk monitoring software such as Crystal Drive or Hard Disk Sentinel and use AIDA64 or a similar comprehensive package for everything else. The first kind of programmes will inform you about upcoming disk failures by showing the deterioration of their physical state. The second type shows the temperatures of all PC components and allows you to stress-test them from time to time. If you see unusually high temperatures or start experiencing failed runs in stress tests, this may be a sign that you need to clean your computer case from dust, replace the thermal grease on your processor or take your PC to a professional service centre for deeper analysis to prevent malfunctions.
2. Make Regular Backups
According to a popular saying, there are people who do not make backups,
people who already make backups, and people who have learnt to check the
backups they make. While going corporate-level paranoid about your data may be
a bit too extreme, you really need to start making backups right now. Speaking
simply, a backup is a copy of your critical data. It can be
full (everything is copied) or incremental (only the changed data is added to
the backup). The most basic way to do this is to have a flash drive or a
redundant computer disk drive (preferable) and copy all relevant information to
these media on a regular basis. Luckily, this process can be automated with
such tools as Acronis or its multiple freeware alternatives.
3. Research Cloud Solutions
The next step in your backup paranoia is to store your important data on a remote server providing storage space, i.e. cloud storage. There exist multiple solutions such as Dropbox that offer reasonable amounts of capacity for your daily needs free of charge. The additional bonus of using these platforms is the capability to log into your account and continue working on your recent projects from virtually anywhere in the world. Keep in mind that many automated backup programmes offer cloud backups as an option making your data even safer.
4. Learn about Disk Cloning
In most cases, when your PC screen goes black, your main concern is not the safety of your data but the need to meet your pressing deadlines. If your primary drive fails, you face the need to spend many hours reinstalling your system of choice and all your software on a new drive, which is highly inconvenient. The disk cloning procedure offered by most specialised disk management packages does exactly what it says. It makes a full copy of your disk with all data, software, and system installed on it. If you have a redundant drive, make a clone of your system and simply boot from this drive in the case of a disk failure.
5. Think about Nettops and Laptops
If you encounter a major hardware failure such as a motherboard failure
or a RAM failure, you probably need a computer repair service to restore the
functionality of your computer. In this case, your only alternative is to continue
working from another PC. Laptops are considered a traditional replacement
option. However, they do not satisfy all users since you have to use a smaller
keyboard and screen. Nettops are miniature PCs that are capable of performing
basic office tasks while being lightweight and highly inexpensive. This backup
option may also be much lighter on your wallet than a laptop with similar
characteristics. Simply plug your cloned drive, favourite keyboard, and monitor
into a nettop and be airborne within five minutes after the failure of your
main PC.
This short guide does not cover in-depth techniques such as building
RAID 1 arrays from two or more redundant disks for maximal data safety or using
memtest86 for identifying hardware RAM failures. This is a simple ‘crash
course’ into mitigating 80% of common computer-related risks that may disrupt
your productivity and leisure. Most people do not need to become professional
system administrators in order to perform their job-related tasks. However,
becoming a power user is a must if you work from home as
a freelancer or do not have time to take your PC to a computer repair service
every time you encounter malfunctions.
Today, Google announced its initiative to provide support for Nigeria with improved Google Maps, Photos Go, Google Lens and Bolo which have been localized in an initiative dubbed Google For Nigeria.
One of the announcements that will get some countries across the continent happy include; the improvement of Google Maps in countries that have a high usage of motorcycles. These countries include Nigeria, Benin Republic, Ghana, Rwanda, and our beloved Uganda. Google intends to start with improved Google Maps in Nigeria and will scale to other countries over time.
Often, triggering the motorcycle route in maps brought a route that is accessible by walking which is not possible in some cases. So shortcuts for bikes and one-way roads were not clearly shown.
With improvements to the maps in the continent, ride-hailing apps such as Uber, Safeboda are most likely to benefit because users will be able to navigate easily.
Below is a quote from the Google Blog about the launch of Google For Nigeria;
Google Maps helps you navigate, explore and get things done. Nigeria has over 10 million motorcycles and we all know that they move differently from cars. We’re introducing a dedicated travel mode to provide directions and navigation for motorcycles in Nigeria, Benin Republic, Ghana, Rwanda, Togo and Uganda. We’re also launching navigation instructions in a Nigerian voice for both motorcycle and car driving modes, so that local names and places get pronounced as they should be.
Traveling through Lagos, one of Africa’s busiest cities, is often a challenge with unpredictable factors that affect journey times. In the next few months, we’ll introduce a new directions experience for Lagos optimized for informal transit, bringing Danfo routes into Google Maps.
– Google Blog
Are you excited about the new changes from Google in Africa?
Uganda’s most trusted, and used cab and Boda hailing app, Uber always comes up with campaigns that enable ease in mobility for many people in the country especially those in the city centre Kampala.
Uber also keeps surprising fans with the most exciting offers while assuring safety, affordability, and ease.
Earlier this week, Uber uganda extended the 50% off all Uber Boda rides promo that has been running for the past couple of weeks from 1PM-5PM. With the promo, a rider can get an event for as low as Shs500 to their destination.
The campaign dubbed #YitaUber has also offered movie tickets to ‘Stuber’, a movie about Uber, for anyone that uses Uber Boda and takes a selfie (s) with a helmet while at it.
With the advent of Uber Lite, an app that enables people using Android to order their ride (s) even in areas of poor network connection, getting a ride has been made easier, and faster.
Having launched in Uganda’s populous capital, Kampala on June 2, 2016, Uber has tremendously grown diligently offering safe service to the populace.
Order your Uber Boda using the Uber Lite or Uber app today between 1PM – 5PM and enjoy exciting offers of up to 50% as well as a chance to win movie tickets for Stuber.
