Category: e-Business

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ are two devices with sleek exterior, powerful new internal components with speakers that create phenomenal sound.

Super speed dual pixel

With the S9 series you can say hello to even clearer and brighter photos thanks to the new dual aperture feature. Selfies, using the device’s 8 – megapixel front camera, are brighter, sharper and crispy clear with the addition of the f/1.7 aperture lens.

The S9’s primary 12-megapixel lens mechanically opens the aperture at either f/1.5 or f/2.4 letting in more light resulting in brighter images when in low-lit conditions. Samsung says this feature lets in 28-percent more light. When in Pro Mode, users can manually switch the rear-facing camera between 1.5-aperture shots (for low lighting) and 2.4-aperture shots (for brighter settings). When set to Auto Mode, the smartphones are prompted to automatically switch between the two settings depending on the lighting conditions at the time.

Samsung has introduced a second 12-megapixel, telephoto lens with the S9+ with a fixed 2.4 aperture, which allows users achieve portrait effects using Live Focus, giving users 2x optical zoom for clearer shots from far away.

AR Emoji

A new feature exclusive to the S9 and S9 Plus is the AR Emoji which allows users take selfies to create emojis that look just like them. Samsung partnered with Disney, creator of some of the most beloved characters in history – to make its AR Emojis the happiest faces on earth and give users access to the most popular characters to share with friends across most third-party messaging platforms. The camera can track a user’s face and mimic their facial expressions, head gestures, winks, nods, mouth movements as they speak, allowing users create an emoji version of themselves by simply taking a selfie, select stickers for any feeling and share across all your favourite messaging apps.

To create an emoji that looks, sounds and acts like the user. Samsung AR Emoji uses a data-based machine learning algorithm, which analyses a 2D image of the user and maps out more than 100 facial features to create a 3D model that reflects and imitates expressions like winks and nods, for true personalisation. Sounds really exciting and definitely a feature users will be thrilled to lay their hands on. There are currently 14 pre-determined poses that can be used in GIFs.

Security

While its predecessor, Galaxy S8 offers three modes of authenticating identity: iris scanning, facial recognition and the fingerprint sensor, the S9 adds a fourth, called Intelligent Scan. The new method combines facial and iris scanning, which means users will not have to pick between the two as the S9 will simply default to the other, seamlessly and interchangeably. Intelligent Scan marries the iris scanner and facial recognition to make unlocking your smartphone with your face a far, simpler task. Also, the fingerprint sensor is now beneath the camera, allowing users easily authenticate their identity.

Super slow-motion

Another exciting feature of the S9 series is the Super Slow-Motion Video which allows users capture the moments within the moment. The S9 camera can slow down a video clip to 960 frames per second to create a 6-second. When shooting in this mode (super-slow-mo), the S9 camera lens detects movement in the frame, automatically begins to record and slows it down. A manual mode allows users control the action if preferred. The best part is what you can do with the slow-mo clip after it is recorded. Users can select background music from 35 different options or add a tune from their favorite playlist; easily create, edit and share GIF files with a simple tap in three playful styles of looping to watch the action over and over again, swing the clip back and forth, or reverse it. This is a very intriguing feature and because the quality of Samsung’s new super speed dual pixel camera is so good, the clarity of well-lit super slow-mo videos is flat-out nuts, making every moments epic with dynamic, slow-motion video.

Design

The smartphones feature a 5.8-inch touch-screen display with a resolution of 1440 pixels by 2960 pixels at a PPI of 568 pixels per inch. Powered by 1.7GHz octa-core Samsung Exynos 9810 processor, the Galaxy S9 comes with 4GB of RAM while the S9+ touts 6GB of RAM. Both smartphones offer 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 400GB via a microSD card and run on Android 8.0. The S9 is powered by a 3000mAh non-removable battery while S9+ features 3,500mAH non-removable battery. Both phones support Gigabit LTE, with peak download speeds of 1.2 gigabits per second.

The big bezel is out, replaced with a larger screen that pushes right to the edges resulting in more screen space. The metal and glass body retains its curved display, the aluminum rim has been strengthened and the Gorilla Glass 5 coating the screen has been thickened to make for a sturdier and yet sleeker device.

Samsung is expected to introduce 128GB version of the Galaxy S9+ in Nigeria next month, with Blue, Black, and Gold colour options for customers nationwide.

The pay Tv industry has grown phenomenally in the country. This growth has not been without challenges, especially in meeting the expectations of subscribers. The MD/CEO Multichoice, John Ugbe, says only telcos have the technical capability to offer pay-as-you-go service. He says the option of pay-per-view is costly. He sheds light on the just concluded Big Brother Naija, the footprints of the firm in the country on the sideline of a media event in Dubai.

What is your reaction to the assertion that 170million votes from the recently concluded BBN, came exclusively from SMS, thereby yielding profit in billions?

There has been a lot of focus on the figure 170million, but to set the record straight; 170million votes came from 49 African countries, and more than 90 per cent came from online voting. Under two per cent of the entire votes came from SMS voting. Nigeria is the only country that was enabled to vote via SMS. The actual revenue generated from SMS voting could not be further from the much touted purported figure. Over and above the administration and platform set up costs, majority of the profit went directly to the GSM and data service providers.

Is there a way that you can review the location of Big Brother Naija to ensure it is domiciled in Nigeria, so that all economics of the hosting and its associated benefits come to Nigeria?

Tinsel is domiciled in Nigeria and shown all over Africa. We just premiered a new epic series in Lagos. For this we built an entire village from scratch to portray the realities of a village setting. Our group of channels are called Africa Magic to reflect our African heritage. Nigeria has the biggest movie industry and that is why our productions are domiciled in Nigeria. For Hotel Majestic, we had to take over a hotel in Nigeria for two years as a set. It’s a lot of investment. Big Brother demands a lot of complexities and outfitting a house. For the Big Brother shows, we set up one facility for the Nigerian, Angolan and other editions. It makes sense from a production perspective. It is impractical to replicate sets across our operations in 49 African countries. We choose the best location for each specific production. Big Brother Naija’s production team is made up of 90 per cent Nigerians even though it wasn’t set in Nigeria – so a good deal of skills transfer occurs. Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCA) comes to Nigeria every year. Speaking as a Nigerian and an advocate of Nigeria – we keep looking at what it will entail to run it locally.

Have you considered implementing the pay-as-you-consume model considering that work and life schedules make it difficult to catch shows without steady power?

From a producer’s perspective – we have to buy the movie in full and we have to buy enough content to fill the channel and put it on air. That’s what the pay-TV model prescribes anywhere in the world. We have to aggregate content for our different packages. This means ensuring there is something for everyone on the package depending on your interest and pocket strength. But there is a good spread of a variety of content across all packages. Everyone thinks of today. From day one, you have to buy enough movies to make up the channel and sell that package to one person. It’s a risk as you cannot determine if after buying content, only one or 10 people will subscribe. If only one person does, you cut your losses and move on, but you continue to invest in content with the hope that more people will be interested in watching. Regarding breaking off viewing according to your availability, the challenge is in the model of the business. We don’t know when your decoder is on or off. That makes it impossible to say I want to start billing because this customer has started viewing. Pay -as-you-go is a mobile network term. The mobile operators have the technical resources to measure what is being used. For pay-Tv on the other hand, it is not the same thing. Last August, the Mayweather vs McGregor boxing match was delayed for close to three hours. The reason it was delayed is because of the technicalities of pay-per-view in the United States. Pay-per-view for a fight like that would be $99 – that is more than your one-month subscription on Premium – about double. However, we buy the fight and aggregate it for our Premium subscribers, who were able to record it, even when the live event did not happen on schedule. What we encourage our subscribers to do is download DStv Now, and you can watch all the content on your current subscription on the go, on your phone or tablet. You do not have to be bound by availability of power. Catch Up is there… Get it before the World Cup so it’s right there on your phone and your iPad and your laptop. Those are the innovations we’ll continue to make.

What social responsibility programmes do you invest in as an organisation?

We focus on education, health and youth and economic empowerment. Our MultiChoice Resource Centre project is our education initiative that we have been active with it for over 14 years. What we do here is work with the governments in each state to select beneficiary schools. We then provide audio-visual equipment (which include a dish, decoder with educational channels, TV, generating set, tables, chairs, UPS), to bring learning and the school’s curriculum to life. We set up our education package in the chosen schools, train the teachers on how to select relevant programmes intended to illuminate and animate information that would otherwise have remained theoretical or textbook based. The MRCs are present in over 400 schools across 33 states in Nigeria, tens of thousands of students have benefitted from these centres since inception. The feedback has been astounding. The rate of passing school leaving exams has improved. Several beneficiary students have gone on to become medical doctors, lawyers, and a good number are working in several other professions, as a result of this foundation that changed how they learn and retain information. I have experienced how this centre is used, and saw how students responded when they saw how a Tsunami actually happens. They saw it happen on our platform and this made it easier for them to imagine how destructive a Tsunami could be. Also in terms of education, we have partnered with Eutelsat for many years to roll out DStv-Eutelsat Star Awards, a satellite based competition for secondary school students across Africa. The students are required to answer questions on how satellites can be used to improve processes, the advantages of satellite and so on. These questions need to be answered through an essay or a poster. Last year, a Nigerian; Emmanuel Ochenjele emerged overall winner from the poster category. He met a real life Astronaut – Claudie Haignere, right here in Nigeria, and not long ago, he returned from Paris, as part of his winning prize, where he went to the Eutelsat headquarters to witness how rockets are assembled. This has changed his perspective forever. We implement our health responsibility by supporting the Sickle Cell Foundation. We have been partners for many years. We support them because the statistics of how Sickle Cell Anaemia affects Nigerians paints a dire picture. The Foundation seeks funds to carry out research, treat and inform sufferers. Their key objective is creating awareness on how to minimise its effects, research on how to avoid and ultimately cure the ailment. On our part, we offer support through creating awareness, which we do on an ongoing basis through educational videos, community outreach programs, fund raising and other initiatives to support them in what they do. Our GOtv Boxing Next Gen clinics support the growth of boxing which we brought out of near extinction in Nigeria. Over and above the boxing matches which provide an avenue for the boxers to earn a living, the clinics provide tips on welfare, training and psychological support to these young ones. Some of the young boxers were picked from our Next Generation Search (for talented and passionate amateurs), they have now proven themselves in mainstream boxing and have won millions over the years. Ultimately, we train them to go professional, so that one of our boxers can proudly fly the Nigerian flag internationally.

Is it possible to put my subscription on hold when I travel for a month?

Yes, we have made it possible for you to do that. You can put your subscription on hold when you travel for up to two weeks each time, twice a year. One of the things we thrive on is technology. The dual view decoder was first introduced in the world by MultiChoice. Digital Satellite TV (DStv) was only second after the United States. When we build the DTT network, we had Russians coming to study it. We look to the future for what is possible to do.

Recently, MultiChoice ran a promo asking subscribers to pay for two months and get one month free. There were complaints from customers who didn’t get the promised month. What is your response to this?

It is true that we ran a retention offer late last year. When we received feedback that some customers did not get the free month on schedule, we identified those customers that were affected and we fixed it. We introduced a new process which helps to identify those who received the offer, and ensure that they get the benefit immediately. Additionally, in terms of improving on technology, we upgrade our decoder software from time to time to improve customer viewing experience. We ran a free swop campaign where we asked customers to bring in obsolete decoders for a free swop. It’s all in line with always striving to improve our offers to our customers. We also introduced toll free lines a few years ago. These numbers are available on our website and social media care platforms. On twitter, the address is @DStvNgCare.

Is the call centre is 24 hours? DStv should have a 24 hour call centre.

This is good feedback and something we tested in December. However, there are a few challenges with labour laws. So we’ve been looking at how best our customers can reach us at any time of the day. We will communicate changes and updates in due course.

Your payment operation is 24 hours. As soon as the payment drops, does the thing come up immediately?

Payment is automated, and we encourage our customers to use our payment platforms such as eazy.dstv.com. This way, the customer can troubleshoot and resolve reconnection issues directly from their mobile phones without having to call into our call centre to be reconnected.

The signal strength is still a problem. For instance, if you watch a match and it rains you lose signal. What is responsible for this?

To shed some light on that, it is called rainfade. Satellite signal from the KU Band is susceptible to weather. I have taken pictures of my Tv screen when I’ve been in New York or other parts of the world and I experienced interruption as a result of bad weather. It’s not a Nigerian problem. Your DSTV will work even with 40 per cent signal. There is a need to boost the signal to have less interruption. We also make available quality cables to reduce interference. If rain comes in it will affect the quality. We recommend getting a certified installer to conduct regular checks to verify signal strength. Also, some dishes have not been checked in up to five years. Regular checks ensure that your dish works optimally, thereby reducing rainfade.

Nigeria’s information communication technology (ICT) powerhouse, 21st Century, has partnered Nexusguard, a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) security solution provider, to build a DDoS scrubbing centre in Nigeria.

The centre will not only provide DDoS mitigation service to enterprise and government customers in the country but across Africa.

A DDos scrubbing centre is a centralised data cleansing station where traffic is analysed and malicious traffic (DDos, known vulnerabilities and exploits) is removed.

Scrubbing centres are often used in large enterprises, such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and cloud providers, as they often prefer to off-ramp traffic to an out of path centralised data cleansing station.

According to a statement, 21st Century Technologies would tap into Nexusguard expertise to build to build its digital infrastructure including most advanced global digital security point of presence (PoP) in Nigeria, Tier 4 data centre, academy, software development centre to help its esteem customers, partners and government on the continent to deploy necessary innovation solutions to remain secure, competitive, lead and win in the era of digital transformation and engagement.

Speaking on the deal, 21st Century Technologies CEO, Wale Ajisebutu, said: “We opted to partner with Nexusguard because of their global reach and the robustness of their platform. They have helped many companies and governments globally to defend against cyberattack. Nexusguard is consistently recognised by analysts such as Gartner and Forrester as a market leader. Customers who choose to take advantage of our new compelling cybersecurity solution will surely capture enormous opportunities for unlimited growth.”

With global increase in DDoS risk, service providers are updating their capabilities to provide not only bandwidth and subscriptions, but also cybersecurity. That transformation, known as Telco 5.0, demands the methodology and mechanics to shift platforms, people and processes to provide optimal security. Nexusguard fulfills that need with its global scrubbing cloud. Paired with 21st Century Technologies’s local capacity, the companies will provide a seamless “global+local” scrubbing network that detects and mitigates both international and local DDoS attacks, simultaneously.

Also, Nexusguard CEO, Andy Ng, said: “Communications service providers (CSP) have a new opportunity to help create a global DDoS defence network to protect internet users. Our partnership with 21st Century Technologies in Nigeria, as with other Telco 5.0 providers around the globe, are critical to not only helping enterprises fortify themselves against future attacks but also to telcos transforming their business.”

Providing further insight into what happens at scrubbing cemtres, the Information Security Stack Exchange, an oline question and answer site for information security professionals, expalined: At the scrubbing centre there are multiple layers of protection through routers, different mitigation appliances and use of high capacity bandwidth links that distribute the traffic. The difference is, upon attack, this traffic is analysed remotely.

“Generally, this involves the victim to route their traffic via a BGP announcement to the mitigation service provider, requiring an ASN (Autonomous System Number) or making a DNS (Domain Name System which is a hierarchical decentralised naming system for computers, services, or other resources connected to the Internet or a private network) change to point the attacked domain to an IP (Internet Protocol) address within the mitigation provider’s network. Either method should require some baselining of normal traffic to help generate a profile and reduce collateral damage. Before choosing a provider, one should request a “stress test” to confirm the provider’s mitigation abilities.

AN online fresh food processor and grocer targeting working professionals and  small and medium scale enterprises, Easyshop Easycook, has announced its seed financing by EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund.

The firm offers a convenient grocery shopping experience by providing a multi-platform technology solution to suit both customers and partners by delivering fresh food sourced from farms, non-perishables, office supplies and household items to homes, offices, schools, hospitals, hotels, and restaurants in Lagos.

Founder and CEO, Easyshop Easycook, Saudat Salami, said: “Our vision is to optimise the fresh food supply chain by empowering the various participants and delivering repeatable value.

“Despite significant demand on the customer end, we realised that friction was causing massive amounts of waste and fraud in our food supply and it is incredibly important to us that we offer a streamlined pipeline to local farming communities while providing them the opportunity to generate greater income by optimising and increasing the supply of quality food ingredients to business and retail customers.”

Easyshop Easycook will put the funds into optimising its online platform and supply chain.

Also, EchoVC’s Olaide Olusoji-Oke said: “We are incredibly excited to back Saudat and her team. We have been tracking her progress over the last few years and have been consistently impressed by her ability to build trust across the entire supply chain.

“Her understanding of the business is unrivalled (she’s been doing this for over a decade) and her unique insights into behaviours in the offline market exhibited by farmers, traders and consumers are invaluable. We believe she represents the type of elite entrepreneur we love to support.

“We are thrilled by the broad impact of Easyshop Easycook on families, businesses, farmers and food safety standards across Nigeria and very pleased to welcome Saudat and the Easyshop Easycook team to the EchoVC portfolio,” added EchoVC’s Fisayo Durojaye.

Easyshop Easycook has become a leading high-impact initiative in food safety standards. According to data from local industry experts, over 200,000 persons die yearly of food poisoning in Nigeria. These deaths were caused by foods contaminated through improper processing, preservation and service. By improving various elements of the supply chain, Easyshop Easycook is positioned to drive food safety solutions, which should also support Nigeria’s food export initiatives.

With this investment, Olusoji-Oke and Fisayo Durojaye will join the company’s Board of Directors.

ESET has emerged the Best Information  Security Company of the Year at Beacon of ICT awards 2018 held in Lagos at the weekend. Organisers say the recognition was as a result of dedication of the firm to developing high-performing security solutions for home users and corporate customers, predicting, preventing, detecting and remediating all known and emerging forms of cybersecurity threats.

It has taken the award for two consecutive years in a row .

ESET is notable for its extensive line of solutions which protect  all types of environments and platforms from computers and servers to mobile devices, helping their clients maintain maximum protection across all types of environments.

Speaking after collecting the award, the country manager, Mr. Olufemi Ake, dedicated the award to ESET’s loyal customers in the country.

He also appreciated the team for their consistency and resilience over the years. “We are happy that Nigerians recognised our efforts in offering a full range of business and consumer products. In fact, more than 95 per cent of our customers in Nigeria are retained annually. This says a lot about our commitment to providing proactive protection and enviable technical support service to existing customers.

“Our product range from Endpoint Security, Server Security (both File Server and Mail Security for Exchange Server), Access Protection (Two-Factor Authentication), Data Loss Prevention, Encryption, Mobile Device Management, Patch Management and Threat Detection & Management. ESET has over 120 active partners in Nigeria and over 95 per cent  of sales generated since the past nine years were made through these partners.

“ESET Nigeria continuously prioritise educating the citizens on the importance of IT security of their personal and work devices. We hence have invested in projects such as ESET Secure School over the years which has provided over 100,000 copies of premium IT security solutions free for the academia and still running,” he said.