Author: Marcé

South Africa is facing some of the coldest nights it’s seen in 2021 this week, with Johannesburg facing sub-polar winds and negative-count degrees on the thermometer. And while you’re queueing for gas for your heaters, make sure to throw in a pack of firewood as the country will face Stage 2 load shedding this evening, according to Eskom. Announced an hour before the next stage of load shedding is slated to commence, Eskom published an official statement detailing why the country’s residents will face more outages during one of the country’s coldest days of the year so far. Eskom’s frozen…

While South Africa’s workforce isn’t completely shifting to work-from-home soon, maybe the school system is? The University of Cape Town (UCT) has partnered with the Valenture Institute to develop a completely online high school curriculum.  “The UCT online high school ecosystem has been designed to service South African learners from a broad range of socioeconomic means,” the university said in a recent press release.  High school on the small screen Officially named the UCT Online High School, it will offer a CAPS curriculum for learners from grade 8 to matric. Registrations for the school opened on 21 July 2021, with…

The ongoing global pandemic successfully lodged a spanner into many business’ workflows over the past year and a half. And while many expected this to push digital transformation practices across many industries, new research suggests that’s not the case in South Africa. Only 15% of local companies have increased their adoption of digital transformation. “South African enterprises took a step backward in digital transformation over the first year of the pandemic, as disruptions, lockdowns and staff unable to maintain operations remotely slowed down the roll-out of new systems at head offices,” reports World Wide Worx in its Digital Corporation in…

South Africans haven’t had much choice when it comes to electric vehicles — and the choices we do have are near unaffordable for most. BMW’s i3 is a brilliant, compact EV that is built for zipping around the city, but it also costs upwards of R750,000. Meet the tiny Eleksa CityBug EV priced at R200,000.  Resembling something straight out of a Tron x Toy Story mashup movie, the CityBug measures in at just under 3m in length. It sports two doors, but you get four seats out of the deal.  CityBug’s crawling into SA While MyBroadBand didn’t gain any details…

South Africa’s municipal elections are around the corner, and South Africans have until 8 August 2021 to register to vote. Luckily, the cumbersome process of heading to your closest registration station and battling through a sea of yellow, blue and red pop-up tents have come to an end. Thanks to the worldwide pandemic, South Africans can now head to an online portal to register to vote.  The Electoral Commission launched an online voter registration portal that’ll allow both new voters the ability to register, and old voters to update their registration. While funneling local voters online sounds like a swell idea,…

Earlier this week, we reported how Pegasus, the spyware developed by the NSO Group was found to allow remote access to a group of journalists’ smartphone data. Further research reportedly suggests that South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s name and number was found on a database of suspected spyware targets.  Find the mythical Pegasus  According to The Guardian UK, Ramaphosa’s name was found on the leaked database alongside 14 other heads of government, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Pakistan PM Imran Khan. The information suggests that Ramaphosa was selected as part of the project by the country of Rwanda in…

The holding company Remgro, which has a majority stake in a company called Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH) which owns the fibre operator Vumatel, has raised R3.72 billion in equity. While a mouthful, this means that Remgro can finally pay off the debt incurred when it acquired Vumatel and execute its expansion plans.  Remgro(w) In addition to Vuma, CIVH also owns Dark Fibre Africa, so its footprint in the broadband space is kinda expansive. This is part of an overall strategy to help develop South Africa’s information technology infrastructure. This will help provide not only increased connection across the country,…

It’s no secret that the world’s app developers have been insistent on creating an alternative to WhatsApp. And while a few of those exist already, it’s hard to beat Facebook’s massive marketing budget and existing reach. Now, two former WhatsApp employees are releasing their creation into the world — HelloApp, which’s aimed at providing a private chat environment for its users. And it’s launching in two major app stores next week.  HelloApp, spot the difference HelloApp reportedly sports features similar to the famous WhatsApp: one-on-one and group messaging options. The only way to add people is by knowing their mobile…

In a strange turn of events, Nintendo has issued a statement denying reports that it’s making the recently announced Switch OLED console purely for profit. This is in response to recent reports that the company’s new console will have higher profit margins than the regular model.  A report by Bloomberg speculates that the new and improved parts for the Switch OLED will only cost the company around $10 per device. All the while, Nintendo is charging around $50 more than the standard console.  Switching the blame? Nintendo went on full-blast, essentially @ing the journalists behind the original report. “To ensure…

While centred around US-based journalists and activists, new research suggests that spyware intended for tracking potential terrorists and criminals was found on 37 smartphones that shouldn’t have had it installed. The software, developed by Israeli-based NSO Group, is called Pegasus and allowed access to messages, files and microphones on the affected devices.  Through the smartphone’s looking glass The investigation was prompted by media outlets in the States, along with a Paris journalism nonprofit called Hidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International. The groups found a leaked list of numbers reportedly linked to surveillance by certain countries — all…