Author: Chris Anu

Number 1519 Connecticut Avenue lies just north of Dupont Circle, just over a 20-minute walk from the White House in Washington, DC. In 1921, the inventor Charles Francis Jenkins set up his laboratory and offices there, upstairs from a car dealership. Today there are no obvious external indications of this famous resident, nor of his exceptional achievements, awards and numerous patents. A hundred years ago at his laboratory, on 13 June 1925, Jenkins gave a demonstration of a televised film sent by radio waves from a building 10km away at what is now the US Naval Research Laboratory in Bellevue,…

From left: Cuy Sheffield, VP, head of crypto, Visa; Chris Maurice, CEO and co-founder, Yellow Card; Godfrey Sullivan, senior VP, head of product and solution, CEMEA, Visa. Licensed stablecoin payments orchestrator Yellow Card has partnered with global digital payments firm Visa to help drive the next phase of innovation in cross-border payments and financial infrastructure across emerging markets.In a statement, the companies said they will collaborate to explore stablecoin use cases and opportunities “to help streamline treasury operations, enhance liquidity management and enable faster, more cost-effective money movement across borders”.Kamogelo Mosime, SA country manager at Yellow Card, said emerging markets…

The State IT Agency (Sita) has said that recent regulatory changes giving government departments the option to procure IT services from entities other than itself have been misinterpreted. In a statement, Sita spokesman Tlali Tlali said government departments are still required to approach Sita first for their IT needs, with the option to procure services from elsewhere only available should the agency not be able to fulfil their requirements. “The narrative that departments are now free to bypass Sita entirely is misleading,” Tlali said in the statement. “The new regulation does not grant government departments unfettered access to open markets.…

SA’s FTTB market continues to grow, with increasing interest among smaller companies. The uptake of fibre connectivity solutions bysmall and medium enterprises (SMEs) is fuelling growth in the local fibre-to-the-business (FTTB) market. This is in addition to cloud adoption and ongoing digital transformation across industries that keep the sector on a positive trajectory, says Lehlohonolo Mokenela, senior analyst and director at Africa Analysis.Mokenela was speaking on the back of the research firm’s FTTB Market Tracking Programme report, which shows the local FTTB market reached 257 000 connected and active endpoints by December 2024.It further projects this will expand to nearly…

The song Echoes of Tomorrow is a laid-back, catchy tune that might happily slot into a summertime playlists on Spotify or Apple Music. Only the lyrics, which make curious references to “algorithms”, reveal its non-human creator: artificial intelligence. The track’s mimicry of flesh-and-blood pop is pretty unsettling. Yet what’s really disturbing is the sheer quantity of similar AI tunes sloshing around online. Tools like Udio and Suno, trained on millions of songs crafted by human artists, are now churning out millions of their own tunes at the click of a button. Deezer, a rival of Spotify Technology, estimates 20 000…

Cyber attacks are a danger to SA’s financial stability in a time of uncertainty. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has warned that cyber attacks are a systemic danger to the country’s financial stability at a time when the global economic situation is as uncertain as during COVID-19.According to the central bank, a cyber attack on South Africa’s financial system could result in a ripple effect throughout the economy – essentially an economic heart attack. South Africa’s gross domestic product grew a mere 0.1% in the first quarter of the year, although this was better than economists had expected. SARB…

The World Bank Group is considering financing US$500-million (R9-billion) of South Africa’s participation in a new credit guarantee facility meant to unlock private financing for a massive transmission grid expansion plan, a senior bank official said. South Africa is courting private investment for an ambitious plan to add 14 500km of new lines and enhanced transformer capacity over the next decade, at an estimated total cost of $25-billion, as it looks to emerge from a decade of crippling power cuts that have battered the economy. The proposed credit guarantee vehicle aims to help overcome transmission infrastructure bottlenecks that have held back…

Capitec Connect is aiming for tighter integration with Cell C to enhance service delivery and grow its mobile customer base.Capitec Connect, the burgeoning mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) launched by South African bank Capitec, is pursuing tighter integration with Cell C, the mobile network on which it piggybacks.So said Dr Dalene Steyn, head of Capitec Connect, in an interview with ITWeb TV, saying the move aims to strengthen its position in the competitive MVNO landscape, leveraging its banking customer base, while capitalising on Cell C’s network infrastructure and evolving wholesale strategy.“We launched about two-and-a-half years ago and we are one…

Trade Link CEO Ahmed Laher A lot goes on behind the scenes when major South African retailers modernise or migrate their IT systems. For key implementation partners like Trade Link, planning and preparation can start years before the project begins. Trade Link, a specialist in retail IT systems, supports over 50% of leading FMCG retailers in South Africa and has a 30-year history of enabling transformation and modernisation for household name organisations. CEO Ahmed Laher says Trade Link stays abreast of every new development in retail technology, as well as going to great lengths to understand customer strategies. It invests…

There is a need for 6 600 legal e-hailing and metered taxi operators in the Cape Town metropolitan area. Cape Town’s urban mobility directorate, in collaboration with the Western Cape government’s provincial regulatory entity (PRE), has initiated a two-phased process to support e-hailing and metered taxi operators.This, says the city, is to meet the demand for metered taxi and e-hailing services in the Mother City. Cape Town’s metered-taxi industry includes vehicle drivers operating from a rank, base or an e-hailing platform.According to the statement, the city is making available over 1 000 operating licences to e-hailing and metered taxi operators.This…