TECH NEWS

San José, United States | AFP | Facebook on Tuesday gave its popular Messenger app the ability to translate missives in real time, deploying artificial intelligence to enable text conversations between people using different languages. Messenger has become a tool for businesses to connect with customers, and the ability to converse …

San Francisco, United States | AFP | Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that the world’s largest social network will soon include a new dating service. “This is going to be for building real, long-term relationships, not just hook-ups,” Zuckerberg said as he unveiled the plan in a speech at Facebook’s …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | British MPs threatened Tuesday to issue a formal summons to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg for him to testify over a major privacy row, after he declined to appear. Zuckerberg was grilled by the US Congress last month but sent one of his executives to …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | We’ve all had friends who like to lord it over the rest of us in real life as well as the virtual world. But now you’ll be able to take revenge on controlling people who seize control of your Whatsapp group chats and won’t relinquish …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | People should be paid whenever their personal data is used by tech giants to make money; that is the proposal of Sir Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in the UK. He said data was the ‘new oil’ and the ‘growth …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A new study has shown that hand dryers are spraying poo at us. The paper – published in the Applied and Environmental Microbiology – studied hand dryers in public toilets at the University of Connecticut. Previous studies like this one found that Dyson hand …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | An underwater villa will be opening in the Maldives this year. It sounds like a dream. Guests of the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island will soon be able to sleep with the fish in a stunning new residence immersed 16.4 feet under the Indian Ocean. …

Washington, United States | AFP | Facebook’s new focus on protecting private user data is likely to change the game for many campaigns, making it harder to deliver highly targeted, personal political messages. The changes unveiled by the huge social network following an outcry over the hijacking of data on …

Paris, France | AFP | US-based researchers have successfully kept alive the brain cells of decapitated pigs for 36 hours, sparking concerns over the ethics involved in such frontline research. The MIT Technology Review said a team at Yale University led by neuro-scientist Nenad Sestan had carried out experiments on …

Kampala, Uganda | PARLIAMENT UG | Government has tabled new proposals to the Tax Bills in a bid to lower the proposed Excise Duty on Over the Top Media Services (OTT) from Sh 200 to Sh100 per day. If carried, those who access and use OTT services, including WhatsApp platforms …