Author: Kaluka wanjala

Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, and international mobile financial services firm Branch have announced a partnership under which  Branch will offer custom financing to merchants who accept payment via Visa (Visa on mobile or Card). The loans will provide merchants with funds to grow their business through supplemental stock, infrastructure investment, and other key operational needs. Loans will be disbursed directly to the merchants’ phones. “We are happy to work with Branch to offer seamless access to finance through our Visa network, as they seek to provide micro-credit facilities to merchants across Kenya“, said Visa General Manager for East Africa,…

The next major Android release may be happening in less than 3 weeks. Google has been testing Android P for a few months now as we should see its official release on August 20 according to Evan Blass (@evleaks). Google is yet to confirm the exact date it plans to release Android P but so far it has only said that we should expect that to happen during the third quarter of 2018. This means that we should have the final release out by the end of September. Even without Google’s official confirmation, we can rely on what Evan Blass…

It seems like almost every popular social networking service in 2018 has the Stories feature. You may have seen it from Facebook to Instagram and even WhatsApp. Stories offer a different avenue for those who want to share more content with their friends/family without being too spammy. YouTube has been interested in introducing Stories to its platform for quite sometime now. Late last year, the company announced this but it was calling it Reels and not Stories. This was the plan but it looks like YouTube is finally calling the feature Stories and not Reels as it should have been…

Google hosted its second Google for Nigeria event where it made a number of big announcements aimed at helping more people in Nigeria, and across Africa, benefit from the opportunities the web has to offer. In a bid to make the internet more easily accessible to people in Nigeria, Google is launching Google Station for Nigeria: a program to provide high quality, high-speed Wi-Fi hotspots in partnership with 21st Century, one of the largest fibre network providers in Nigeria. “Google Station will be rolling out in 200 locations in five cities across Nigeria by the end of 2019, bringing Wi-Fi…

Whether you love or hate the “Notch” that seems to be on most smartphone these days, it is just not going away. For those who may not be aware, the Notch is the cut out at the top of front panel on smartphones with very thin bezels. This cut out is to accommodate the front facing camera, sensors and the earpiece as manufacturers have to find a place to have these but do not want their devices to have the very thick bezels we are used to seeing. We have seen manufacturers such as OPPO and Huawei introduce smartphones with…

Telkom Kenya has today officially unveiled its new data centre in Nairobi that will help it tap into the growing data storage needs of local and reginal businesses. The Ksh 150 Million data centre is located in Nairobi’s Upper Hill area and will help the company improve its network quality, colocation and hosting services, internet connectivity and local loop connectivity. The modernized open access facility at Milimani Exchange along Bishop Road, Upper Hill, Nairobi, is part of Telkom’s network infrastructure expansion programme and is capable of hosting all Telco’s infrastructure both local and international clients at the site. According to…

If you have ever wanted to make a group video chat on WhatsApp, I have some good news for you. The Facebook-owned messaging service has just been updated to include support for group video chats. The company announced that it was working on this feature back in May this year and it is finally ready to roll it to the masses. WhatsApp group video chats support up to 4 people which I believe is the sweet spot without it being crowded. To start a group video chat, you will have to start a one-on-one voice or video call first. After…

In March this year, Google officially announced that YouTube for iOS had a dark mode that some users activate if they wish to do so. This option is now coming to YouTube for Android according to 9to5Google. The publication reports that dark mode is already rolling out to some Android users. The key word here is “some” and I have updated my app but do not have the option to activate dark mode so do not panic if you are on the same boat. If it is available on your end, YouTube for Android will automatically switch to the dark…

Earlier this year at CES (Consumer Electronics Show), LG took that stage and introduced ThinQ AI, its official dive into AI. The company also introduced a number of ThinQ branded products from smart TVs to smartphones and even vacuum cleaners. The company says that its main aim is to bring real-world benefits that will improve the lives of its customers. The company also said that the best way to do this is to connect the various products customers interact with and the LG ThinQ can just do that. In 2018, we have seen different industry leaders dive into AI with…

Spotify has a good year so far as it has just reported that its user base now stands at 180 million. This is 40 million new users from the same time last year when reported that the music streaming platform had 140 million users. Competition has been tough with the many players on the market so these numbers are not so bad for Spotify. Out of the 180 million people actively using Spotify, 83 million of them are paying subscribers, up from 60 million reported in August last year. This may not be that huge of a jump but shows…