by Tech Talk | Feb 27, 2023 | Articles
South Africa and Kenya are worlds apart in their embrace of information technology, but they have one thing in common: they jointly lead the African continent in having the biggest impact of cloud computing on customer experience across 7 major African markets.
This was one of the most significant findings of the final results of the Cloud in Africa 2023 study released this month by World Wide Worx, with support from F5, Red Hat, Dell Technologies, Intel and VMware. The study, based on interviews with 400 information technology decision makers in medium and large organisations across Africa, found that 63% of respondents across the continent had experienced an extremely positive impact on customer experience as a result of cloud computing. In South Africa and Kenya, that number jumped to 71%.
The two countries also shared a high impact on business growth: 51% of South African companies and 46% of those in Kenya reported strong business growth following migration to the cloud.
However, a gulf opened between the two countries when it came to the impact of cloud on innovation. In South Africa, 65% of respondents reported a high impact on innovation, while the proportion dropped to 36% in Kenya.
“Companies often move to the cloud seeking quick wins in the form of improved business efficiency or enhanced customer experience,” says Dion Harvey, regional general manager of Red Hat Sub Saharan Africa. “However, what we tend to see at Red Hat is that true value in the form of real innovation and impact on strategic goals is only realised once they have matured their thinking and approach to cloud.”
Asked what they saw as the biggest benefits of cloud computing in general, companies identified what World Wide Worx CEO Arthur Goldstuck, principal analyst on the research project, calls the cloud’s “golden quartet”: improved security, better customer experience, business efficiency and scaleability.
However, the benefits were not equally distributed. Fewer than half of South African companies, 47%, reported security as a major benefit, compared to an average of 59%. The figure leaped to 78% in Ghana and 63% in Kenya. On the other hand, South Africa led the way in seeing scalability as a benefit, at 47%, compared to an average of 41%. Nigerian companies reflected the lowest response in this regard, at only 29%.
Alain Tshal, district manager of F5 for Sub-Saharan Africa, says that these results underline the extent to which the cloud is not a one-size-fits-all proposition in Africa.
“Every country is at a different level of maturity, and that has a major impact on both immediate benefits of migration and long-term benefits of use,” he says. “South Africa has had the most extensive investment in hyperscale data centres over the past five years of any country in Africa, so it is no surprise to see that it has very different characteristics to most other markets.”
At the same time, where companies have accelerated their investment in cloud computing, the impact is immediately apparent, says Goldstuck.
“The latest findings show that Kenya had the strongest growth in cloud computing in 2022, with a huge 84% of respondents reporting increased spend, compared to an average of 62%,” he says. “South Africa saw 55% of companies increasing their spend. That is partly a consequence of spending already having been high in previous years, compared to countries like Kenya.”
Companies from Malawi, Zambia and Botswana all reported a higher level of increased spend, while Nigeria and Ghana came in just below South Africa. Expectations for 2023 flip around, however. While an overall average of 68% of companies expect to increase spending on cloud services this year, that jumps above 80% for Botswana and above 70% for South African and Nigeria. In contrast, Kenya drops to the bottom of the list this year, with 51% of companies reporting they will increase their spend.
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Feb 27, 2023 | Articles
Acer has been included in Forbes’ list of the World’s Top Women-Friendly Companies in 2022. Forbes cooperated with the market research institute Statista in conducting an anonymous survey of nearly 85,000 women working in multinational companies around the world. The selection of the top 400 companies was based on several gender-related criteria including equal opportunities for career development, public perception, and female representation in corporate ranks. Acer received high marks in terms of its overall image and the proportion of women holding leadership roles, as it gives importance to creating a gender-equal work environment to support the company’s competitiveness.
In 2022, Acer’s female employees accounted for 38% of its total workforce with 31% holding managerial roles. Acer plans to continue attracting outstanding female talent by offering competitive salaries, professional development opportunities, and parental support.
This recognition follows Acer’s being named by Forbes as one of the World’s Best Employers for the third straight year and joining the ranks as one of America’s Best Employers for New Grads in 2022. These accomplishments reflect Acer’s efforts in providing a positive work environment for all its employees and implementing corporate sustainability initiatives.
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Feb 24, 2023 | Articles
On the questions of who pays for data or the cost to communicate, Coega’s Chief Knowledge and Digital Officer, Monde Mawasha, writes that one can say, with no danger of irony, that the South African economy pays and will continue to pay dearly.
…I once listened to an Academic Clinician relate the access model regarding access to peer reviewed and sometimes un-peer-reviewed information. The story runs, as all tragedies do, with an Oligarchy or Monopoly being a major player. Any academic must perform academic duties, one of which is to publish articles. The researcher will gather all required resources of money, time, effort and especially, collaborators (who are mostly postgraduate students, needing to earn their academic stripes through publication or articles).
Research work is completed, and conclusions are drawn. The academic paper is then peer reviewed with a view to scientific publication in one of the two or three clinical publication platforms. The reviewers are usually experts in their fields who offer their time to critique papers for publication. The paper is then published. Anyone interested in the publication will pay the Oligarch for access to the publication through various payment methods.
Who pays?
…Or maybe, let us start with: Who derives income? It is not the researcher who needs to earn their academic stripes. It is not the collaborators or Master’s and PhD students, who gave their knowledge to be able to join academia. It is the publisher!
Who paid?
The PhD student, the researcher, and the consumer of the material!
If I, for example, spend time researching and writing this article, I will pay for the data bundle I require to conduct my research. The consumer will pay for the data bundle to access the article. The ‘telcos’ will derive income from this work because they control access as well as telecommunication infrastructure. Big tech companies will derive revenue from the use of the data using algorithms that drive your (consumer) spending behaviour, thus utilising the content. The other income accumulators are the advertisers that work with big telcos.
Public Good:
Content generated by experts who give advice, content providers who produce educational material, and linkages to partnerships and value-chains are a public good.
If we use public road infrastructure, as an example, profit generating entities use these mechanisms of Public / Common Good and derive an income from it. The environmental impact and tax debates are designed precisely because of this cost-burden asymmetry (between the taxpayer who pays for the road infrastructure on one side and the logistics companies and intermediaries that extract profit from the infrastructure, on the other side).
There is enough high-quality online content produced by competent producers, which is for the good of the public, but this is instead paid for by the public and the profits extracted by private entities.
Each school, community centre, library, health facility, low-cost housing complex, must ensure that access to online content at the basic level is provided. It is a public good. The health of the economy depends on the government providing education, crime fighting (in the affected community) and access to health information as a fundamental public good. As and when the government acquits itself of providing this good, the better the prospects will be for the economy. If it is accepted that the government has now used taxpayer money to provide this public service, there comes the matter of the consumption side of the market. Things start to degenerate quickly. For example, learners are unable to access the public good because they need to buy data bundles to access the content.
South Africa seems too content with a telecommunications service that shows clear signs of market failure. Data provision intermediaries abuse this market failure to generate profit, at the expense of the long-term sustainability of the economy.
This sounds very much like the climate change scenario where the market failure, as is clear to all and sundry, is abused for profit. What could be a virtuous cycle becomes a whirlpool that drives the economy into a downward spiral; into a snake pit of inequality when it comes to access to information, constrained access to learning material, constraints on health information and basic information to run their lives. The market is being abused through commission and omission to the detriment of the economy.
Some detractors point to criminality and vandalism as the reason that this cost needs to be levied. A cursory glance at development economics examples around the world, explicitly show communities protecting and making good use of such public good.
Therefore, when it comes to data in South Africa, who pays? The inexorable conclusion that the same people who eventually pay for climate change, the poor, the unempowered and most tragic of all, the future generations carry the highest burden of cost for data. Cost of data is regressive tax on the poor and the -to-be-born!
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Feb 24, 2023 | Articles
Netflix has cut prices of its subscription plans in some countries as the streaming giant looks to maintain subscriber growth amid stiff competition and strained consumer spending. The shares fell 3.3%.
The past year has seen intense competition in the streaming industry as a pandemic-driven boom fades and consumers curtail spending over fears of a possible recession, forcing companies to rethink their strategies.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, the price cuts took place in some countries in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa (including Kenya), Latin America and Asia. South Africa is not among them.
The cuts apply to certain tiers of Netflix in those markets — in some cases, the cost of a subscription was halved, the Journal reported.
Netflix, which operates in more than 190 countries, has been looking to grow its share in newer international regions as the US and Canadian markets saturate. Earlier this month, it laid out plans to crack down on password sharing for accounts on its streaming platform.
The company added about 7.6 million subscribers in the fourth quarter after bleeding subscribers in the first half of 2022 as rivals such as Paramount+ and Disney+ raked in subscribers.
But average revenue per membership declined across regions in the last three months of 2022.
“We’re always exploring ways to improve our members’ experience. We can confirm that we are updating the pricing of our plans in certain countries,” a spokesman for the company said.
TechCentral has established that the price cuts in the sub-Saharan African region apply only to countries where the service is charged in US dollars rather than in local currency. — Reuters – NewsCentral Media
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Feb 24, 2023 | Articles
Apple has a moonshot-style project under way that dates back to the Steve Jobs era: noninvasive and continuous blood glucose monitoring.
The goal of this secret endeavor — dubbed E5 — is to measure how much glucose is in someone’s body without needing to prick the skin for blood. After hitting major milestones recently, the company now believes it could eventually bring glucose monitoring to market, according to people familiar with the effort.
If perfected, such a breakthrough would be a boon to diabetics and help cement Apple as a powerhouse in health care. Adding the monitoring system to the Apple Watch, the ultimate goal, would also make that device an essential item for millions of diabetics around the world.
There’s still years of work ahead, but the move could upend a multibillion-dollar industry. Roughly one in 10 Americans have diabetes, and they typically rely on a device that pokes the skin for a blood sample. There are also patches from Dexcom and Abbott Laboratories that are inserted into the skin but need to be replaced about every two weeks.
Apple is taking a different approach, using a chip technology known as silicon photonics and a measurement process called optical absorption spectroscopy. The system uses lasers to emit specific wavelengths of light into an area below the skin where there is interstitial fluid — substances that leak out of capillaries — that can be absorbed by glucose. The light is then reflected back to the sensor in a way that indicates the concentration of glucose. An algorithm then determines a person’s blood glucose level.
Hundreds of engineers are working on the project as part of Apple’s Exploratory Design Group, or XDG, a previously unreported effort akin to Google X. It’s one of the most covert initiatives at the famously secretive Apple. Even fewer people are involved in it than the company’s self-driving car undertaking, overseen by the Special Projects Group, or the mixed-reality headset, which is being developed by its Technology Development Group.
A spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple declined to comment.
The company has tested the glucose technology on hundreds of people over the past decade. In human trials, it has used the system with people who don’t know if they’re diabetic, as well as people with prediabetes and type-2 diabetes. It has compared its own technology to standard tests on blood drawn from veins and samples taken from a prick in the skin, known as capillary blood.
Apple’s system — more than 12 years in the making — is now considered to be at a proof-of-concept stage, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the project is confidential. The company believes the technology is viable but needs to be shrunk down to a more practical size.
Engineers are working to develop a prototype device about the size of an iPhone that can be strapped to a person’s bicep. That would be a significant reduction from an early version of the system that sat atop a table.
One of Apple’s goals for the technology is to create a preventative measure that warns people if they’re prediabetic. They then could make lifestyle changes to try to avoid developing type-2 diabetes, which occurs when a person’s body doesn’t use insulin properly. Apple’s regulatory team has already held early discussions about getting government approval for the system.
But there’s a reason it’s considered a moonshot goal. Numerous start-ups — and some of the world’s largest companies — have tried and failed to develop a noninvasive monitoring system. In 2014, Google announced plans to make smart contact lenses that could measure blood glucose through teardrops. It shelved the complex project in 2018.
Apple’s senior executives believe this problem is one that it’s uniquely positioned to crack, given the company’s expertise in hardware and software integration — along with its deep pockets. CEO Tim Cook, chief operating officer Jeff Williams and Apple Watch hardware head Eugene Kim all have a hand in the project, and it’s already cost hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the people familiar with the situation.
The Apple Watch has gradually become more of a health tool. The first model, launched in 2015, included a heart-rate sensor but was more focused on fitness tracking. The device gained the ability to take electrocardiograms, or ECGs, from the wrist in 2018. It also can now sense body temperature — for women’s health tracking — and calculate blood oxygen levels.
The glucose system will rely on a slate of Apple-designed silicon photonics chips and sensors. The company tapped TSMC to build the main chip to power the feature. TSMC, a key Apple partner, already builds the main processors inside of iPhones, iPads and Macs.
Before shifting to TSMC, Apple had worked with Rockley Photonics Holdings to develop the sensors and chip for the technology. In 2021, Rockley publicly disclosed its work with Apple, stoking interest in the supplier. Apple later ended the partnership, and Rockley filed for bankruptcy last month.
While Apple has made major technology strides on the glucose effort, it suffered a recent setback: the group’s leader, longtime scientist and engineering executive Bill Athas, passed away unexpectedly at the end of 2022. The work is now led by a few of Athas’s top deputies, including managers Dave Simon and Jeff Koller. They report to Johny Srouji, Apple’s chips chief.
Before becoming part of the XDG team, the project was cloaked in even more secrecy: it operated as its own start-up called Avolonte Health that was, to any outside observer, unaffiliated with Apple.
The start-up was run out of a small office building in Palo Alto, about 20km from Apple’s headquarters. Team members had Avolonte employee badges, rather than ones from Apple. That strategy kept Apple’s work under wraps during human trials, as well as its efforts to gain patents and line up partners.
The project began in 2010 when Apple purchased a start-up named RareLight that touted an early approach to noninvasive blood glucose monitoring.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, dealing with his own health problems, directed the iPhone maker to buy the company. Apple tapped Bob Messerschmidt, RareLight’s founder, to kick off its own work on a glucose monitor, which was initially codenamed E68. Messerschmidt now runs a health company called Cor Health.
The deal ultimately happened because of “Jobs’s vision of health care combined with technology”, he said in an interview. Former senior Apple hardware executives Bob Mansfield and Michael Culbert were also driving forces behind the project, people involved said.
Messerschmidt was replaced as the project head in 2011 by Apple veteran Michael Hillman, who left in 2015. Upon his departure, Avolonte Health wound down and the endeavour became part of Athas’s XDG. The team now works near the Apple Park headquarters. — Bloomberg
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Feb 23, 2023 | Articles
MTN South Africa is increasing its consumer post-paid subscription fees by an average of 5.1%, blaming a “challenging market environment” for the need to push through the price hikes.
The new prices will come into effect on 1 April.
“The impact of the inflationary environment has resulted in increased input costs, driven by load shedding and rising fuel usage, which has been further aggravated by ongoing battery theft and vandalism,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
Describing the increases as “unavoidable”, MTN said it will continue to invest in its network, including in battery roll-out to mitigate against the impact of load shedding.
“In some instances, the actual subscription fee increase may be higher than the average of 5.1%, with a maximum of 7.4%. This mainly represents a R10 increase from R135 to R145 on our Mega XS price plans,” MTN said.
Voice call rates per minute will also be increased on average by 4%, or a maximum of 10c/minute. Out-of-bundle data and SMS rates have been reduced to 25c/MB and 35c/message, respectively.
Instalments on handsets and other devices as part of contract deals will not be affected by the increase.
“We want to assure customers we are working very hard to build the resilience of our network with batteries and generators and added security to guard against theft and vandalism,” the company said.
Details about all of the adjusted prices are included in the MTN-supplied table below. –NewsCentral Media
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
