Author: Francis Muli

Twitter is today rolling out the beta version of Shops to allow sellers to add a virtual storefront to their profiles. Users will not be able to shop directly from the shops, but will instead be able to browse through the catalogue of products and redirect to a company website in an in-app browser to complete a purchase. Twitter shops will be displayed with a ‘View shop’ button on the top of the profile to allow companies to list up to 50 products for customers. The feature is free to use and will be useful to the vast number of…

In the latest update of Google apps and services on android, the portrait blur feature will be available for a variety of images including food and plants. Other updates will include a  new screen time widget, and a Gboard function to help you improve your grammar. In the past, Google Photos was able to blur the background in images of people. The company is now rolling it out to enable customers to use it on a wider range of subjects as a result of this update. As a post-processing effect, users will be able to apply portrait blur to existing…

Facebook and Instagram will temporarily alter its hate speech policy to allow users in some countries to call for violence against Russia due to the Ukraine invasion. According to internal mails seen by Reuters, the social media giant will also allow posts calling for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Soldiers and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. “As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for…

Standard Chartered Bank in partnership with @iBizAfrica-Strathmore University has launched the 5th cohort of the Women in Tech incubator program. The program aims to champion for more diversity in technology and for more opportunities for women to develop entrepreneurial and leadership excellence. The program’s theme for this year is‘’ Advancing global trends in women owned businesses’’, indicating that a high level of consideration will be given towards women owned businesses that incorporate global trends including emerging technologies, sustainability and digital economy accelerants. This is aligned to emerging global trends as well as local post pandemic recovery efforts that have signaled…

Instagram will demote posts from Russian state-controlled media to curb misinformation about the Ukraine crisis, the Meta-owned company said. The posts will be down-ranked in the users’ feed and the stories, and if users try to share the content, they will be notified that the posts are from Russian state-run media accounts. Posts that are shared anyway will appear at the bottom of the stories tray, and stories with stickers leading to Russian state-run media websites will be labelled. In addition, the company will weed out posts from Russian state-controlled media from Explore and Reels recommendations, and also make the…

The recent crackdown on Bodabodas across the country has affected online businesses which rely on them for delivery. Food businesses, individual vendors and courier services have been affected by the crackdown. President Uhuru Kenyatta this week ordered a crackdown on Bodabodas after a video of a number of riders assaulting a motorist went viral. It was reported that the lady motorist had caused an accident involving the bodaboda and before she could leave the scene, she was ambushed by several riders who proceed to rob and sexually assault her. The lady who tried to protect herself while screaming was later…

Twitter is working on a new feature that will make it easier for users to add alt text descriptions to their images on the platform. The new accessibility feature will make the descriptions more useful and prominent for all users. “We’ve gotten a lot of feedback about how to improve the image description (or alt text) experience on Twitter. Today we’re launching 2 features; the public ALT badge and exposed image descriptions.” Twitter says the features will be tested by about 3 percent of Twitter users on Android, iOS and Web. Images with a description will have an ‘alt’ badge…

Meta is increasing its momentum in the fight against misinformation on Facebook. The tech giant has rolled out a number of features designed to help Facebook group admins reduce misinformation while also keeping members secure. The Ukraine crisis has intensified the tech giant’s fight against misinformation even though Russia blocked Facebook from operating in the country last week. Kenya is preparing for elections on August 9, and many leaders have been known to form groups and build social media accounts in the hopes of wooing the public to their political parties. During election season, the risk of disinformation is higher,…

Electric mobility startup, BasiGo, has today launched a Sh5 million passenger bus in Kenya in anticipation of increased demand for environmentally friendly transport. The bus was designed by BYD locomotive, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric buses. The 25 seater bus has a 250 kilometre range and is fully rechargeable in under four hours. “Today marks an important step towards a cleaner and brighter future for public transit in Kenya,” BasiGo chief executive and founder Jit Bhattacharya sai Buyers will also be expected to pay a daily subscription fee of Sh20 per kilometre to cover the cost of leasing the…

Kenya Power is engaging about five electric mobility companies that are set to roll out their services across the country. The utility company is looking into a new market from the introduction of electric vehicles (EV) on the Kenyan roads. According to Acting Chief Executive Officer Rosemary Oduor, the move is motivated by the need to diversify revenue streams and enhance electricity sales by better utilizing idle power during off-peak hours. Speaking during the flagging off event for BasiGo, Oduor said that apart from the total installed capacity of 2991MW, Kenya has an off-peak load of 1200MW which is sufficient to…

Instagram is rolling out a new feature that gives creators tagging options allowing them to give credit to their collaborators. Photographers, partners, stylists are among common collaborators most creators usually recognize. However, prior to the new update, content creators had devised a number of do-it-yourself solutions for acknowledging those who contributed to their posts. Some mention collaborators in the captions of their pictures, while others have labeled a slew of handles directly on the photo or video they’ve posted. According to Instagram, content creation involves efforts from multiple people. Read also: Instagram Rolls Out Auto-generated Captions for Videos “For many…

Google is working on a feature that will allow Android users to archive apps and free up space on smartphones. Any app that will feature the archive option will be partially uninstalled by shrinking it to about 60 percent without deleting it entirely. Google will achieve this by introducing archived APKs, a new sort of APK (Android Package) that contains the code that allows an app to run on your device. According to Google, archived APKs are much smaller and save all of your data until you restore it, restoring it to its original size. The feature will be accessible…

Google has announced a Sh114 million funding to support African female entrepreneurs. The initiative was announced through the tech giant’s philanthropic arm, Google.org as part of a new series whose goal is to support women-owned businesses. “Research shows that 58% of small- and medium-sized business (SMB) entrepreneurs in Africa are women. Despite this, women-run businesses show, on average, 34% lower profits than those run by their male counterparts.” Google’s Head of Brand and Reputation, Africa Mojolaoluwa Aderemi Makinde said. “They are also less likely to receive funding and investment. This is why we are announcing a series of initiatives today,…

WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new group polling feature in its latest update. The feature, which has been rolled out for beta testers on iOS allows users to create a poll for other members in a group. The Group Polls feature is already available in a number of social media platforms such as Twitter and rival messaging app, Telegram. According to WhatsApp tracker, WABetaInfo, users will now be able to get the opinions of its members via a virtual poll. It is not clear how many options the users will be able to vote on, or the time limits…

After shipping out the Samsung S21 without chargers, Samsung is reportedly planning to adopt the same trend on their low end smartphones. According to SamMobile, the tech giant could soon remove all chargers from their mobile phone models. The trend started two years ago when Apple made the decision to start shipping out their iPhones without a phone charger. At the time, Samsung mocked its biggest rival for the move, but within the same year, it applied the no-charger policy with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S21. The company claims that the decision is motivated by environmental concerns, as…