Author: Francis Muli

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cape Town region has gone live today,  April 22, 2020. AWS administrators can now enable the Cape town Region their account on the AWS portal. The region has been named ‘Africa- (Cape town)’ and labelled ‘af-south-1’ AWS regions have a number of data centres named availability zones. The zones provide cloud computing services to the region and nearby edge networks. They are also connected with redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. The availability of Amazon Cape Town Region on AWS is great news to the South African developers as they do not have to use cloud storage and computing…

The Nairobi Hospital has announced commencement of COVID-19 testing known as PCR SARS COV-2, at a cost of Ksh10,000, Kahawa Tungu has learnt. In a statement, the CEO Dr Allan Pamba says that they have been authorised by the Ministry of Health to conduct the tests. “This is after rigorous training and collaboration by the Centre of Disease Control (CDC) and approval by the Ministry of Health, following validation by the National Influenza Center (NIC) Laboratory,” said Dr Pamba. According to Pamba, the testing facility which is located at the Main Hospital on Argwings Kodhek Road has the capacity to…

The Ministry of Health has admitted that laid down guidelines for disposal of bodies of Covid-19 victims were not followed during the burial of James Oyugi Onyango, a Covid-19 victim in Siaya. In response to a letter written by Siaya Senator James Orengo on behalf of the Senate Adhoc Committee, an apologetic Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said that it was not the wish of the ministry to conduct the burial as it happened which was not in line with the guidelines “We sincerely regret the incident regarding the burial of the late James Oyugi Onyango. It is not the wish…

MultiChoice has announced the launch of two brand new reality TV shows: Mercy and Ike which will kick off on Sunday, April 26 and Judging Matters which will kick off on Monday, April 27, 2020,  on Africa Magic Showcase on DStv channel 151. Mercy and Ike reality TV show follows the love life of Mercy Eke, the winner of Big Brother Naija Season 4 and Ike Onyema, her fellow housemate, who began a relationship during their time at the Big Brother house. Their unlikely bond during the show makes for a great love story as they continued to entertain viewers with their pranks and an…

Hackers looking for the truth behind the Coronavirus pandemic are alleged to have hacked the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Centre for Diseases Control, National Institute of Health (NIH), the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the World Bank emails. According to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism and terrorist groups, the unknown activists leaked and posted about 25,000 email addresses and passwords. SITE was unable to verify whether the addresses were authentic but said the information was released on Sunday and Monday and was almost immediately used for hacking attempts by far right…

In a letter from the Office of the President dated March 18, 2020, Head of the Public Service Joseph Kinyua said the government was overseeing manufacture of alcohol-based sanitisers following a recommendation by the World Health Organization (WHO). The sanitisers were to be distributed to most vulnerable Kenyans, for free. The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) released 18 containers of ethanol that had been seized from illegal importers, as directed by the government to manufacture sanitisers to curb the spread of Coronavirus (Covid-19). “The government is desirous of distributing affordable sanitizers to the general public. To this end, corporations in the…

Hackers attacked businesses 22 million times in the last one week alone. This is according to data that was analyzed and compiled by Atlas VPN. Malware attacks comprised over 63 percent of the hacking attempts. Other attacks that were monitored include Command & Control (C&C) and phishing attacks A command & Control attack happens when hackers try to take control of a system in order to steal or delete data. C&C attacks also happen as part of a phishing scam and can also be used to infect the system with malware. Atlas VPN extracted and organised the data from cybersecurity…

Kirinyaga Woman Representative Purity Ngirici and her husband Andrew Ngirici are now selling their TV and radio Stations following failed business structure that has had zero returns for close to three years now. In an ad placed on a local daily, the two announced the sale of the two stations, but failed to disclose the names. However, a dig by Kahawa Tungu established that the stations on sale were Mt Kenya TV and Iganjo FM, which have been struggling to generate income since inception. “Tv station-live broadcast, FM Radio Station with following operating frequencies: Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Eldoret, Nyeri, Nyandarua,…

MTN Zambia in partnership with Simfy Africa has launched an instant messaging app ‘Ayoba’. The free app is available for Android devices and can be downloaded from Google play store. Users can use their devices to securely send and receive text messages on Ayoba, send voice messages, images, videos, audio and other files between contacts regardless of whether they have the app or not. “Ayoba is an exceptional new product that combines innovation, high-end encryption security with convenience of service to ensure that we provide our customers with the utmost satisfaction in terms of their digital experience,” says Bart Hofker,…

Liquid telecom will support customers on its Hai fibre network with unlimited high capacity broadband as the demand for home internet is on the rise following the Covid-19 pandemic. This comes at a time more employees are working from home and students studying online as they are encouraged to stay at home to help curb the spread of the virus. Liquid telecom is offering the free upgrade to current users of Hai Network at no extra cost as they seek to meet demands for high speed internet for eLearning, video conferencing, streaming movies, gaming and staying connected with friends and…

Unicef and Microsoft have announced the expansion of the learning passport to help students affected by the Covid-19 pandemic to continue with their education from home. The learning passport is a global learning platform that was first started off as a partnership between Unicef, Microsoft Corp and the university of Cambridge. Initially, two departments; the Cambridge University Press and Cambridge assessment were designed to provide a digital remote learning platform for displaced and refugee children. However, the learning passport underwent a rapid expansion to assist students at country level in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic. With most schools closed…

Whatsapp has doubled the limit of participants in group audio and video calls from the current four to eight. However, the new feature will be available for the beta version of WhatsApp, and all the participants must be using the same version. To make a group video call on the new version, open the ‘Calls’ tab and tap on the ‘Call’ button on the upper right corner. Then, tap on ‘New Group Call’ and select the participants for the video call. The other way to make a WhatsApp video call within a group is by tapping on the ‘Call’ button…

Irish Company Tullow Oil has appointed Rahul Dhir as its new chief executive Officer, with effect from July 1. Dhir takes over from Dorothy Thompson who currently serves as the executive chair of Tullow. Mr Dhir is currently CEO of Delonex Energy, an Africa-focused oil and gas company that he founded in 2013. Tullow has been without a CEO since Paul McDade left the business in December 2020. Before Delonex, Mr Dhir served as managing director and CEO of Cairn India from its IPO in 2006 until 2012. His started his career as a Petroleum Engineer, before moving into investment banking…

Oil producers in the US are now paying buyers to take oil from their hands as oil futures turn negative in the US for the first time in history. This comes at a time the demand for oil has gone down across the world as the Coronavirus (Covid-19) forces most countries into a lockdown, limiting economic activities that largely depend on petroleum oil. Its is estimated that by May 2020, most oil producers will have no storage left for crude oil, forcing them now to “get rid” of their reserves in a bid to have more storage. BBC reports that…

Tanzania now has 254 cases of Coronavirus (Covid-19), following the confirmation of 84 new cases in the last 24 hours. This comes as the East African nation ends its three days of prayer and fasting today, after ignoring social distance warnings from health practitioners. The country has also recorded three deaths as a result of Covid-19, bringing the total number of Covid-19 fatalities to 10. This is the biggest number reported in a day in the country as President Pombe Magufuli continues to attract criticism over his style of leadership in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak. Magufuli refused to close…