Author: Kaluka wanjala

This post has been updated to include the Safaricom Neon Kicka 4.  In a developing market such as Kenya, not everyone has the finances to get the best and most powerful smartphone out there. This market is flooded with entry level smartphones that for years have not offered the best experience. The phones are usable but in some cases they can be frustrating. This is the case with phones with 1GB of RAM or less and Google knows this and that is why the company introduced us to Android Go. Android Go is the same version of Android but is…

Internet Solutions Kenya has launched a new cost-effective, integrated cloud mail service targeting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as it strives to grow its revenue and market share. The new cloud-based service dubbed Integrated email solution offers complete e-mail functionality, collaboration archiving and branding on a single platform. The service will be offered in partnership with SYNAQ, a South African open source cloud e-mail management services company where Internet Solutions has a majority stake. According to Internet Solutions Managing Director Richard Hechle, email is central to all organizations and has become the most essential business application and as a result,…

By Charles Kimari For the past several years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has remained the industry’s biggest buzzword for its promise of delivering seamless connectivity across the multiple devices and technologies that we interact with in our daily lives – from our smartphones to smart TVs to the Family Hub refrigerator to even our cars. Yet while the vision has been alluring, with IoT and related technologies still maturing, the promise has always remained ‘a few years off’. For example, in the home, when you wake up in the morning on a rainy day, the home lights will gradually…

Instagram wants you to spend more time on its platform and one way it hopes to achieve this is by letting you know when your friends are online. For the longest time now, it has not been easy to tell who is online at a particular time unless you see then actively interacting with you or other users on the app. Instagram wants to change that by adding a green dot that will be shown in the bottom right of the profile pictures of the people who are online and are using the app at a particular time. This is…

Leading fintech companies from the dynamic Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) technology startup community have made it to the finals of Visa’s Everywhere Initiative, a global innovation program that tasks start-ups to solve commerce challenges of tomorrow, further enhance their own product propositions and provide visionary solutions for Visa’s vast network of partners. Among the 12 chosen, from the 238 total entries, Kenyan startups M-Changa, Mookh, WayaWaya and LipaPlus will compete against innovators from across Sub Sahara Africa for a chance to secure funding of up to US$50,000 to develop their ideas when the initiative concludes in Johannesburg on July 24. Fintechs…

In this latest episode of 24 Bit, we discuss the recent Twitter purge and what it means. Found out more on the video below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGT0X1ROlKU

The Infinix Note 5 has just got a minor update that will see the addition of portrait mode to the back camera. Given the price of the Infinix Note 5, some people were not happy that it did not have portrait mode. We see a number of smartphones within this price range come with a dual camera setup and/or support portrait mode but the Note 5 had a single camera setup with no portrait mode until two days back. Portrait mode allows you to keep the subject in focus while blurring the background. The update adds software-based portrait mode which…

Google has announced a $25 million investment to expand its work supporting the news ecosystem’s long-term success in online video—with a special focus on YouTube. This comes just three months after the launch of the Google News Initiative (GNI) with the goal of helping journalism thrive in the digital age. The new Google News app subsequently launched in May is available in Kenya. In March, GNI committed $300 million towards three goals: to elevate and strengthen quality journalism; evolve business models to drive sustainable growth; and empower news organizations through technological innovation. “Over the past 20 years, we’ve grappled with…

Malware sophistication is increasing as adversaries begin to weaponize cloud services and evade detection through encryption, used as a tool to conceal command-and-control activity. To reduce adversaries’ time to operate, security professionals said they will increasingly leverage and spend more on tools that use AI and machine learning, reported in the 11th Cisco 2018 Annual Cybersecurity Report (ACR). While encryption is meant to enhance security, the expanded volume of encrypted web traffic (50 percent as of October 2017) — both legitimate and malicious — has created more challenges for defenders trying to identify and monitor potential threats. Cisco threat researchers…

The Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 has finally been launched in Kenya. This is the latest smartphone from the company and is available in Kenya through e-commerce platform, Jumia, and through offline retailers across the country. The recommended retail price is Ksh 9,999, very competitive and will definitely eat into Tecno’s and Infinix’s pie. The Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 is the second device in the Y series that the company has launched in the country recently, the other one was the Huawei Y7 Prime 2018 that we have already reviewed and you can read about it here. With the launch of…