Home Authors Posts by TechCentral

TechCentral

75 POSTS 0 JOBS
https://techcentral.co.za/
TechCentral is the leading quality news and information resource for people involved in South Africa’s fast-growing information and communications technology industry and those interested in the fast-changing world of information technology.

IS in big Wi-Fi push in Africa

TechCentral
-
0

Dimension Data division Internet Solutions (IS) has announced it will work with Dublin-based Accuris Networks to introduce an Africa-wide Wi-Fi network to telecommunications carriers, Internet service providers and other companies.
IS’s various independent Wi-Fi networks in Africa have been consolidated using the Accuris Wi-Fi Server offering, the company said on Wednesday. This allows for a “carrier-grade, homogeneous network accessible anywhere with single sign-on’ and providing a Wi-Fi “fabric’ for Internet-of-things applications, it said.

IS hopes to attract mobile network operators looking to offload traffic onto Wi-Fi to address capacity demands created by smartphone users. It also hopes, through partners, to attract roaming mobile customers looking for high-quality Wi-Fi Internet access while travelling on the continent.

The Accuris offering will allow Internet service providers to monetise connectivity in venues and hospitality locations using managed “captive portal’ and “landing page’ services for private Wi-Fi networks — an offering common in South Africa but less so elsewhere in the region, IS said.

Accuris Networks provides products that enable Wi-Fi roaming and hub services for Wi-Fi network providers and mobile network operators. Its Wi-Fi Server SaaS platform allows service providers to interconnect with other Wi-Fi providers and mobile operators to facilitate low-cost access to data services while subscribers are travelling abroad. It can also be used for domestic data offload.

© 2017 NewsCentral Media

Source: Tech Central

Icasa holds hearings on spectrum

TechCentral
-
0

Communications regulator Icasa held public hearings late last week to determine how scarce radio frequency spectrum is utilised in future.
The idea, according to Icasa, is to update the National Radio Frequency Plan to ensure the efficient use of spectrum.

It wants to ensure that the plan reflects the final acts of the World Radiocommunication Conference of 2015 and that it is in line with the latest version of the International Telecommunication Union’s radio regulations.
The updated plan must be consistent with the Southern African Development Community’s Frequency Allocation Plan and ensure that spectrum allocations reflect the usage of the radio frequency spectrum until the next World Radio Communication Conference in 2019, Icasa said.

“The update will be followed by the development of the frequency migration plan process, aimed at addressing the frequency migrations identified during the evolution of the earlier national radio frequency plans, starting with Sabre 1 of 1997…’
The hearings kicked off at the regulator’s offices at Pin Mill Farm in Sandton on Thursday 9 February. Mobile operators MTN, Cell C and Vodacom were scheduled to speak first, followed by Telkom, M-Net, the SABC and Sentech, among others.

(c) 2017 NewsCentral Media

Source: Tech Central

Microsoft wins pivotal privacy case

TechCentral
-
0

Microsoft persuaded a judge not to let the US government out of a lawsuit alleging the company’s free-speech rights are violated by a law that blocks it from alerting users to the clandestine interception of their e-mails.

The judge said Microsoft has at least made a plausible argument that federal law muzzles its right to speak about government investigations, while not ruling on the merits of the case.

“The public debate has intensified as people increasingly store their information in the cloud and on devices with significant storage capacity,’ US district judge James Robart in Seattle said in Thursday’s ruling. “Government surveillance aided by service providers creates unique considerations because of the vast amount of data service providers have about their customers.’

Robart rejected the tech giant’s argument that the so-called sneak-and-peek searches amount to an unlawful search and seizure of property. Former US attorney-general Loretta Lynch had argued that federal law allows the justice department to obtain electronic communications without disclosure of a specific warrant if it would endanger an individual or an investigation.

Robart, a 2004 appointee of Republican President George W Bush, has already riled President Donald Trump this month by halting a temporary ban on visitors, immigrants and refugees from seven mostly Muslim countries. Trump labelled Robart a “so-called judge’ and called his ruling in that case “ridiculous’.
Microsoft sued the government in April, escalating a feud with the US over customer privacy and the company’s ability to disclose what it’s asked to turn over to investigators.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft drew support in the case from tech leaders including Apple, Google and Amazon.com, which argued the very future of mobile and cloud computing is at stake if customers can’t trust that their data will remain private. They said the federal law allowing the searches goes “far beyond any necessary limits’ and infringes users’ fundamental rights.

“We’re pleased this ruling enables our case to move forward toward a reasonable solution that works for law enforcement and ensures secrecy is used only when necessary,’ Brad Smith, Microsoft’s chief legal officer, said in a statement.
A justice department spokeswoman declined to comment on the ruling while the department reviews it.

The department and Lynch defended the searches, saying they need digital tools to help fight increasingly sophisticated criminals and terrorists who are savvy at using technology to communicate and hide their tracks.

In the portion of Thursday’s ruling that sided with the government, the judge said he could not reconcile the company’s attempt to assert the Fourth Amendment protection against invasive searches on behalf of its customers with earlier court decisions. Other courts have found that such rights can only be asserted by individuals, and not vicariously by third parties, he said.

Still, Robart recognised that the law used by the government to block Microsoft from informing users about searches “means customers whose accounts have been accessed by the government may never know of the search.’

Secrecy orders on government warrants for access to private e-mail accounts generally prohibit Microsoft from telling customers about the requests for lengthy or even unlimited periods, the company said when it sued. At the time, federal courts had issued almost 2 600 secrecy orders to Microsoft alone, and more than two-thirds had no fixed end date. In those cases, the company can never tell customers about government searches, even after an investigation is completed.
The industry’s push against government intrusion into their customers’ private information began in the wake of Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosures about covert data collection that put Internet companies on the defensive.

Microsoft concedes that there may be times when the government is justified in seeking a gag order to prevent customers under investigation from tampering with evidence or harming another person. Still, the company contends the statute authorising the gag orders is too broad and sets too low of a standard for secrecy.

By Kartikay Mehrotra.

(c) 2017 Bloomberg LP

Source: Tech Central

SABC loses Motsoeneng appeal

TechCentral
-
0

The SABC has been handed yet another legal defeat over efforts to defend its former chief operating officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

The high court in the Western Cape on Tuesday dismissed the SABC’s appeal against an earlier judgment which found that Motsoeneng is not fit to hold any senior position at the public broadcaster.

In December, the high court ruled in favour of the Democratic Alliance, finding that Motsoeneng’s appointment as group executive of corporate affairs was unlawful and irrational.

Judge Owen Rogers found that the SABC’s disciplinary process – which cleared Motsoeneng – was “wholly inadequate’, and ordered a new disciplinary to be held in the open and in line with former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report into the broadcaster.

The DA welcomed the court’s latest judgment. The chairman of the party’s federal executive committee, James Selfe, said: “This is a victory for the rule of law and a positive step towards restoring the integrity and independence of the SABC.’

Selfe said Motsoeneng must now be removed from the SABC “until such time as he has either faced a satisfactory disciplinary hearing and/or the findings and remedial action by public protector have been reviewed and set aside by another court.’
“It is high time that the SABC cease with its frivolous litigation at the expense of the South African taxpayer and focus on fixing the SABC, and correcting the damage that Mr Motsoeneng caused during his reign of terror,’ he said.

© 2017 NewsCentral Media

Source: Tech Central

SA exchanges now offer free virtual peering

TechCentral
-
0

Networks currently interconnecting through Internet exchanges can now use their peering ports to make virtual private network interconnects (VPNIs) to other networks, at no cost, INX-ZA, which operates the exchanges, said on Monday.
There are no bandwidth restrictions placed on the service or how it is used.

INX-ZA manager Nishal Goburdhan said the additional internet exchange service is available at all data centres linked to the Johannesburg Internet Exchange (Jinx), Cape Town Internet Exchange (Cinx) and Durban Internet Exchange (Dinx).
Goburdhan said the decision to offer free virtual interconnects will help grow the domestic Internet by keeping costs low.

He explained that the VPNI service helps maximise efficiencies by enabling peering networks to re-use their existing peering ports to connect to other partners through a simple software configuration.

“Peers are already cabled-up and running existing services, so it literally just takes a few minutes for us to enable the service. That’s a fraction of the time that it would take to get completely new cables run across a data centre, tested and connected to two individual parties,’ he said.

Internet exchanges enable networks to interconnect so that domestic Internet users benefit from faster connections and more efficient access to online services. Network operators benefit from lower costs, resulting in more affordable bandwidth.
South Africa’s first Internet exchange, Jinx, began as a project of the Internet Service Providers’ Association in 1996 and is now independently managed by INX-ZA.

(c) 2017 NewsCentral Media

Source: Tech Central

Set-top box dispute goes to arbitration

TechCentral
-
0

Two set-top box manufacturers are headed to formal arbitration proceedings — and possibly to court — after the government agency responsible for procuring decoders for South Africa’s digital television migration project halted orders.

CZ Electronics, which is 93 per cent black owned, and Leratadima, which is 100 per cent black owned, have now entered an arbitration process with the Universal Service & Access Agency of South Africa (Usaasa) in an effort to resolve the impasse.

Neither company is prepared to comment on the arbitration proceedings as they have agreed to confidentiality, but it is understood from well-placed industry sources with knowledge of the situation that both companies have been left seething, accusing government of abandoning its stated commitment to supporting black-owned electronics manufacturing businesses.

Leratadima has been forced to cut hundreds of jobs because of Usaasa’s decision, the sources said. The company is also believed to be sitting on millions of rand worth of components it ordered from overseas to make the boxes, which it now can’t use.

According to the industry sources, the companies have come under financial pressure, and as a result have been slow to pay their suppliers.

It’s understood that CZ Electronics is sitting on tens of thousands of unsold set-top boxes, made for Usaasa in terms of the order and for which the agency has not paid.
Usaasa has been mandated by government to procure the boxes, which will be provided free to 5m indigent households in South Africa so that they can continue receiving terrestrial television once analogue broadcasts are terminated.

Analogue switch-off, which should have happened in 2015 in terms of a government agreement with the International Telecommunication Union (and agency of the United Nations), is now only expected to take place towards the end of the decade.
Leratadima, frustrated that Usaasa has allegedly failed to engage with it in the arbitration process, may even be considering court action, it has been established.
Sources say the two manufacturers are owed hundreds of millions of rand in terms of their supply agreements with Usaasa. Both feel aggrieved that government, which had planned to use the set-top box subsidy as the cornerstone of a flagship programme to support and grow black-owned electronics manufacturers, is now putting the squeeze on them by halting the contracts.

Usaasa has suspended the contracts with the manufacturers pending the outcome of a constitutional court battle between communications minister Faith Muthambi and e.tv, which is set to be heard on 21 February.
The minister is challenging a supreme court of appeal judgment, handed down in 2016, which in effect found that government was wrong not to allow encryption of terrestrial digital broadcasts.

MultiChoice, which supports Muthambi’s court action, has long been engaged in a high-stakes legal and commercial battle with e.tv over encryption, with the pay-TV operator arguing that providing encryption technology in the free government boxes would amount to an unfair subsidy to prospective rivals which could use the boxes to launch commercial services that compete with DStv.

Sources say that both Leratadima and CZ Electronics say that the suspension of the set-top box contracts isn’t necessary because, if the constitutional court finds in favour of e.tv, the boxes can simply be upgraded “over the air’ to support encrypted signals and do not need to be scrapped or recalled.

Usaasa CEO Lumko Mtimde confirmed in an e-mailed response to questions that the parties are in arbitration, but declined to comment in detail, saying the agency is “bound by the confidentiality of arbitration proceedings.’
However, Mtimde said the supreme court judgment “could be interpreted to mean a change in a policy in terms of which Usaasa is procuring the set-top boxes.’
“Usaasa has been advised by senior counsel to halt production pending finalisation of the constitutional court hearing.’

He said that in terms of the agreements with the manufacturers, Usaasa is entitled to stop the contracts midway if, among other reasons, there is a “change in government policy and/or regulatory regimes, as it seems to have been the case in this instance’.
Mtimde denied Usaasa is intentionally harming black-owned businesses through its decision.

“On the contrary, Usaasa is established to support underserved areas and black empowerment. It is further compliant with our government policy and laws regarding black economic empowerment,’ he said. “We fully support government’s initiative for empowerment of previously disadvantaged persons.
“Usaasa is, however, constrained to perform its statutory duties in terms of the legislation and policies of the environment in which it operates.’

He said the contracts with set-top box manufacturers remain in force, with “full-blown production on hold pending the finalisation of the constitutional court case.’ He added that the agency will “review the situation’ once judgment has been handed down.

• This article was originally published in the Sunday Times of 5 February 2017

Source: Tech Central

Facebook loses $500m VR headset battle

TechCentral
-
0

The virtual reality headset maker that Facebook bought in 2014 for US$2bn used stolen computer code, a jury said in awarding $500m to ZeniMax Media.

The case was over the Oculus Rift, the device that has put the social media giant at the forefront of the VR boom.

The 1 February verdict in a Texas federal court is a rebuke to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who isn’t a defendant but who told jurors in his first-ever courtroom testimony that it was important for him to be there because the claims by ZeniMax were “false.’ An Oculus spokeswoman said the company will appeal.
ZeniMax claimed it was responsible for key breakthroughs in the development of software and hardware for the headset, only to be betrayed when one of its star employees joined with two other entrepreneurs and purloined ZeniMax’s intellectual property for their own startup, Oculus VR.

Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus gave it a head start against Microsoft, Sony, Google and others competing for a piece of the VR market that’s forecast to exceed $84bn in sales in 2020. Facebook began shipping the ski-goggle-like Rift for $599 in March.

The case centred on the defection of video game programmer John Carmack from ZeniMax, where he had designed blockbuster games Doom and Quake, to Oculus, where he was named chief technology officer in 2013. He acknowledged in testimony that he took with him e-mail records including computer code related to VR.
While the jury rejected trade-secret theft claims, it ordered Oculus to pay $200m for violating a nondisclosure agreement, $50m for copyright infringement and $50m for improper use of ZeniMax’s trademarks.

Jurors also hit Oculus’s co-founders, Brendan Iribe and Palmer Luckey, with $150m and $50m in damages, respectively, for the trademark misuse. The jury found that Carmack took property belonging to ZeniMax but didn’t order him to pay damages.
“The heart of this case was about whether Oculus stole ZeniMax’s trade secrets, and the jury found decisively in our favour,’ Oculus spokeswoman Tera Randall said in a statement. “We’re obviously disappointed by a few other aspects of today’s verdict, but we are undeterred. Oculus products are built with Oculus technology.’
ZeniMax said in a statement that while it regrets having to go to litigate to vindicate its rights, “it was necessary to take a stand against companies that engage in illegal activity in their desire to get control of new, valuable technology.’

ZeniMax’s lawyer, Tony Sammi, argued at trial that Oculus committed a “heist,’ covered it up by destroying evidence and made off with “a lot of money’ when it was bought out by Facebook. He told the jury Oculus went from “zero to hero’ using Carmack’s innovations at ZeniMax to improve on the crude prototype for the Rift designed by Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey.
“If they could make it, why’d they take it?’ Sammi asked the nine-member jury in his closing argument.

Zuckerberg testified for five hours during the three-week trial, denying ZeniMax’s allegations and saying it’s common for companies to “come out of the woodwork’ and make such claims following an acquisition.
Facebook’s lawyer, Beth Wilkinson, underscored that point in her closing argument, saying ZeniMax ceased all work on VR in early 2013 and didn’t accuse Oculus of wrongdoing until Facebook announced the takeover in March 2014.

“They’re jealous. They’re angry,’ Wilkinson told jurors. “They’re embarrassed because they had the opportunity to get in on this.’
Zuckerberg had a vision and followed through on it, she said. He “saw what these guys could do in the future and invested.’
ZeniMax had sought $2bn from Facebook and Oculus to compensate for losses and unspecified punitive damages

(c) 2017 Bloomberg LP

Source: Tech Central

Digital migration has “failed’

TechCentral
-
0

South Africa’s long-delayed project to migrate from analogue to digital terrestrial television has “failed.’

That’s the view of Democratic Alliance MP and shadow minister of telecommunications and postal services Marian Shinn, who said on Tuesday that the programme “urgently needs to be revised’ if South Africa is going to move off analogue broadcasts.

Digital migration is crucial not only for opening up South Africa’s terrestrial broadcasting sector to greater competition, but also making available the “digital dividend’ bands of 700MHz and 800MHz for mobile broadband.

Shinn said in a statement that the project’s “failure’ needs urgent intervention. She said she has written to Humphrey Maxegwana, chairman of parliament’s portfolio committee on communications, requesting that he hold a two-day public hearing of ICT stakeholders to evaluate the status of the roll-out, its technological relevance and affordability.

“The aim of these hearings should be to thrash out a new path for the switchover to digital broadcasting technology to free up spectrum used by analogue broadcasting for much-needed mobile broadband use, mainly in rural areas,’ she said.

Shinn said that “after years of delays and political meddling’, the programme is now “being held up because of legal challenges to the revised broadcasting digital migration policy that (communications) minister Faith Muthambi bamboozled through her cabinet colleagues in March 2015.” But Muthambi’s office has hit back, saying her record of delivery in digital migration “speaks for itself.’

The minister had reversed an earlier government decision on encryption of terrestrial broadcasting signals, decided that government-subsidised set-top boxes — as many as 5 million of them were meant to be produced — will not be capable of receiving encrypted broadcasts. E.tv won a court challenge at the supreme court of appeal in Bloemfontein. Muthambi, with the support of MultiChoice, is now challenging that judgment in the constitutional court.

The constitutional court will hear the case next month.

“I maintain that, even if the court decides in Muthambi’s favour, a review is essential as the programme is obsolete, unaffordable and riddled with irregularities that mean that it cannot proceed in its current form and must be revised,’ Shinn said.

In support of her contention that the project has failed, Shinn said government did not meet the International Telecommunication Union’s deadline of 15 June 2015 to switch off analogue broadcasting signals and failed to stimulate the entrance of new small and medium electronics manufacturers into the sector. Also, government failed to deliver 5 million subsidised set-top boxes to identified indigent South African households.

“Poorer South Africans will continue to be excluded from economic opportunities, worldwide information flow and ease of communication with all spheres of government service delivery if the digital migration programme is not rapidly and radically revised.’

Meanwhile, the communications ministry has hit back at Shinn’s allegations, saying Muthambi’s record of delivery on digital migration “speaks for itself.’
Muthambi’s spokesman, Mish Molakeng, said: “It is imperative to note that the project was handed over to the ministry of communications on 30 January 2015. Three months later, on 18 March 2015, the policy was gazetted. The first South African citizen received a subsidised set-top-box in Keimos on 17 December 2015. All this happened within a 12-month period.”

“In October last year, the ministry successfully switched off the first analogue transmitter in the Square Kilometre Array areas in the Northern Cape and we continue to switch off many more in the area. The uptake of set-top boxes continues to gain traction nationally,’ Molakeng said.

© 2017 NewsCentral Media

Source: Tech Central

Cellphones crucial to digital radio in SA

TechCentral
-
0

Widespread penetration of cellular phones with integrated digital radio receivers is crucial if the technology is going to take off in South Africa.

That’s the view of Primedia Broadcasting CEO Omar Essack, who was speaking to TechCentral in a podcast recorded on Monday with broadcasting industry experts on digital radio, looking specifically at the country’s digital audio broadcasting (DAB+) and Digital Radio Mondiale trials. Primedia owns radio stations such as 702 and 94.7 in Gauteng and Cape Talk and KFM in the Western Cape.

Essack said digital radio technologies have the potential to transform the radio landscape in South Africa, but only once receivers are in the hands of the masses.
For one thing, he said, it will allow greater diversity of the airwaves and more choice for consumers. For example, FM stations tend to broadcast “generic’ music content in the hope of attracting as a big an audience as possible.

“We try and find a middle ground that tries to get us as many audiences as possible, and therefore rock lovers or reggae lovers, or lovers of certain types of music, tend to have to look elsewhere for this type of content,’ he said.
“They won’t find it on our services, because there just aren’t enough of them. Because of the scarcity of spectrum, we will always go to the lowest common denominator: what is the format or the styles of music that are most commonly going to be enjoyed or appreciated?’

Although digital services promise to solve this problem — at least partially — Essack is concerned about take-up among consumers.
“When we look at the countries where DAB currently exists, they’re all massive middle-class countries… The reason Norway can afford to switch off [FM broadcasts] is they have a small population of very wealthy people,’ he said.
“But we need the technology to serve all people, just like we’re doing in the transition to digital terrestrial television, where there’s a subsidy for people who can’t afford it,’ Essack continued.

“There’s no use bringing a technology into this country if we can’t have receivers available at a cost that people can afford. People won’t even buy [traditional] receivers. It’s much better … if we can get integrated DAB+ into mobile phones.’
He said getting the technology into cars is “not enough’, as this represents only a fraction of the overall market.

“[We must be] cognisant of our huge disparities in economic wealth. If we can get Android phones into the country that are DAB+-ready — DRM-ready, even — then we have a proposition.

“For a commercial broadcaster (like Primedia), or for the SABC, it’s about access. If everybody has access, then (digital radio) is a no-brainer for us.’
And getting digital receivers into cellphones is what’s needed to ensure this happens,’ he said.

In 2016, LG Electronics introduced a smartphone with an integrated DAB+ receiver, and it is available through local operators. However, other manufacturers have been slow to include DAB+ in their products.

© 2017 NewsCentral Media

Source: Tech Central

ShowMax seeking new telco partnerships

TechCentral
-
0

Naspers, Africa’s biggest company by market value, is seeking partnerships with mobile phone operators on the continent to boost its video-on-demand business and help compete with US giant Netflix.

The owner of Africa’s biggest pay-TV provider is planning to build on a joint venture agreed to last year with Kenya’s largest company, Safaricom, to roll out online service ShowMax at more affordable data prices. Safaricom is 40 per cent owned by Newbury, England-based Vodafone Group.

“We will be targeting the whole of sub-Saharan Africa for mobile partnerships,’’ Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk said on Wednesday at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Working together with telcos will be a big part of what we do. We are live in Kenya and there are several others’ that we are targeting, he said.

While the Cape Town-based company’s satellite pay-TV business has long dominated the sub-Saharan African market, it was hurt last year by falling currencies against the dollar and new competitors such as Netflix and Econet Wireless Global of Zimbabwe.
Naspers is seeking to maintain its market-leading position with online products like ShowMax, which offers movies and TV shows such as Game of Thrones and Vikings.

“There’s not a lot of cable on the continent and never will be,’ Van Dijk said. “The video-on-demand business will have to be a mobile play through affordable data.’
Naspers has evolved from a South African newspaper publisher into a global investor in technology companies, with its most successful venture to date being an early-stage investment in the Chinese creator of WeChat, Tencent Holdings. The shares have increased by 8,6 per cent this month, valuing the company at R960 billion.

Naspers plans to harness artificial intelligence to enable growth across its businesses, said Van Dijk. Other Naspers companies include Indian travel operator Ibibo and Russian social media provider Mail.ru Group.

“We want to get people on board and build our AI capacity internally rather than investing in an AI business,’ he said. “We want to bring in the skills. We plan to push this very hard.’

By Katia Porzecanski and Loni Prinsloo.

(c) 2017 Bloomberg LP

Source: Tech Central

1...345...8Page 4 of 8
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -
© Copyright 2017

Pin It on Pinterest