Paris, France | AFP | Designers of machine translation tools still mostly rely on dictionaries to make a foreign language understandable. But now there is a new way: numbers. Facebook researchers say rendering words into figures and exploiting mathematical similarities between languages is a promising avenue — even if a universal …
Read More »Volkswagen Rwanda starts ride-hailing service
Volkswagen (VW) is testing a new ride-hailing business in Rwanda that it hopes to expand in Africa starting with Ghana and Ethiopia. | THE INDEPENDENT | The ride-hailing service is Volkswagen’s South Africa chief Thomas Schaefer’s Trojan horse for breaking into the new car market. VW’s ride-hailing cars are assembled …
Read More »Africa moots for joint position on Global technology
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Africa Information and Communications Technology consortia groups, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology and the Uganda Communication Commission – UCC are lobbying all ICT departments across the African continent to come up with a joint position on global technology. The position agreed upon …
Read More »Zuckerberg’s Facebook extends fact-checking programme to Uganda
Paris, France | AFP | Facebook on Tuesday announced the expansion of its third-party fact-checking programme to 10 new African countries in partnership with Agence France-Presse and other media. The programme will be available in Ethiopia, Zambia, Somalia and Burkina Faso in partnership with AFP; in Uganda and Tanzania …
Read More »Samsung Electronics flags 56% fall in Q3 operating profit
Seoul, South Korea | AFP | Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday it expected operating profits to drop more than 50 percent in the third quarter as it struggles with a long-running slump in the global chip market. Operating profit for July to September was forecast to reach 7.7 trillion won ($6.4 …
Read More »UCC report: NTV, NBS, BBS, Bukedde TV and Radio Sapientia must explain
Kampala Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has asked broadcasters NTV, NBS, BBS, Bukedde TV and Radio Sapientia to show cause why the regulator shouldn’t revoke their licenses. The statement comes after UCC released a report of their investigation into an alleged breach of minimum broadcasting …
Read More »Gold medalists, Bombardiers arrive on same day
Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda started 57th Independence Day celebrations two days early today with the arrival of the national team from the World Athletics Championship hours before two new Bombardier planes landed to join its national airline. Gold medalists Halimah Nakaayi and Joshua Cheptegei led the national …
Read More »New Uganda Airlines Bombardiers land in Europe
Maastricht, Netherlands | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda’s two new Bombardiers, flights UR474 and UR470, have landed in Netherlands and Belgium, after leaving their manufacture base in Canada earlier on Saturday. The two CRJ-900s planes will spend the night there, before starting a day and night flight Sunday for Entebbe, where they …
Read More »US pressures tech giants over encrypted WhatsApp messages
Washington, United States | AFP | The US government on Friday urged tech giants to allow police to read encrypted messages, saying access was essential to prevent serious crime despite privacy concerns. After Facebook rejected giving access to law enforcement agencies, US Attorney General William Barr upped the pressure by …
Read More »Blow as PayPal abandons Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency group
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Pioneering digital payments firm PayPal on Friday said it is abandoning an alliance intended to oversee the Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency, which has come under attack by regulators. “PayPal has made the decision to forgo further participation in the Libra Association at this time,” …
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