Tech Vibes

“All SIM cards that have been linked to Ghana cards, that is completed Stage 1 registration, but have not completed Stage 2 registration of biometrically verifying users, will be blocked from the end of October 2022.”   This statement was issued by The Minister for Communications in Ghana, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful who made it abundantly clear that there will be no more extensions for the 10 million people who have already done Stage 1 of the registration by linking their cards to the Ghana Card but are yet to go through Stage 2. All other unregistered SIMs will also be blocked at the end of October 2022. No excuse will be accepted since most individuals have received their Ghana Cards and have had ample time to register their sim either through the self-registration app which is the first of its kind in the world or by visiting your network provider to register. Sure, there are some who are opposed to the SIM Card registration exercise for ideological, philosophical, or political...

As we all know by now, the  EU  mandated recently that all smartphones switch to USB-C charging . Long before this, there have been a lot of rumors and speculations about Apple switching to USB-C charging . Yet Apple never confirmed that it was going to switch. The mandate from the  EU  changes everything. Will Apple Capitulate and accept the change? Well, In an interview with the Wall Street Journal,  Craig Federighi  and  Greg Joswiak  of Apple confirmed that “ Apple is 100% planning to respect the new law passed by the EU ” conforming all sorts of devices to a standard USB- C charging connector. As to when exactly Apple is going to make the transition, we do not know yet. What we know for now is that the mandate given by the EU had a deadline of 2024. At the moment, Apple is testing iPhone 15 Pro models with USB-C connectors . So we should expect the next iPhone (iPhone 15 ) to come with the USB- C charging connector. But incase it does not, ...

Last year,  WhatsApp  went down as part of a massive outage that also took down  Instagram, Messenger , and  Facebook . It was nearly six hours before it the outage was resolved and WhatsApp came back online. After a long year without any other issues, it happened again. Around 3 AM ET, users of  WhatsApp  started experiencing issues with the app.  Downdetector  reports there have been more than 60,000 reports of issues with the app so far. Meanwhile, the owner of WhatsApp, “ Meta ” hasn’t issued a comment on the problems yet even though the issue spans globally.  Whatsapp  rarely experiences outages but when it does, it affects countries that use  WhatsApp  as their main app for communication and also for work. Last year's outage coursed some workers in Brazil to lose their jobs. Small businesses in Africa were also affected. Although the app( WhatsApp ) started working perfectly after 2 hours of the outage,  Meta  h...

credit to Meta Yesterday, Meta gave us an introduction to how social virtual reality is going to look like with the introduction of the new  Meta Quest Pro , and hear me out LEGS! Yes, LEGS!! During the event, Mark Zuckerberg joined leaders from Reality Labs at Meta and a few special guests to the advancement they have made in making the metaverse a reality. The success they achieved with the previous generation  Meta Quest 2  was emphasized.  credit to Meta Meta Quest Pro and Legs Meta quest 2 aided in making virtual reality more social by showcasing fitness innovations, gaming, and work. But Meta’s vision goes further than that. Meta revealed the  Meta Quest Pro , a high-end VR headset retailing at $1,499 . The headset is aimed at making it possible for the physical and digital worlds to grow a step closer to each other. It also gave Meta the chance to flex the result of all the money it’s invested into Reality Labs. The new Meta Quest Pro will begin shipping ...

Google's $1billion commitment to investing in Africa was upheld after an  AlphaBeta  Economics report commissioned by Google proved that South Africa was one of a handful of countries that represented $3.4 trillion in economic opportunity in Africa. Wednesday, October 5th, during the  “Google for African”  event, Google joined cloud giants  Microsoft Azure  and  Amazon Web Services  in South Africa by building a Cloud Region aimed to provide cloud services that it plans to stretch across the continent. This will help developers, businesses, and institutions across Africa to move more information online and create jobs.  The Director of Google Cloud Africa, Niral Patel  during the event said:  “We believe in growing an open and healthy ecosystem of technology solutions to support Africa’s digital transformation goals which  lead  to more opportunities for businesses.”   Besides the Cloud Region, Google will be building...

So Techtober just got interesting. Last month, we all were blown away by the introduction of the  iPhone 14  lineup and all the cool features that came with them. We all thought nothing could get more interesting until Google dropped the new lineup of Pixel phones and oh boy were they interesting.  Right off the bat, Google threw a couple of jabs at Apple by highlighting how they always had the  “Always On Display, Night Sight, and Astro-photography”  which Apple introduced into their phones about 3 years ago. The biggest and most recent feature they called attention to was the fact that they already had  “Car Crash Detection”  which they introduced 3 years ago which Apple is now introducing to their phones.  Funny enough, not long after saying all this, Google started to show how they are also copying features from Apple's previous and current phones. Examples are the  “Face Unlock”  capability which Apple introduced with the iPhone X,...

The invention of telephones has always been focused more on communications. It kind of stayed that way for the better part of a century. But things changed in the year 1994 when the first  “smartphone”  went on sale. IBM developed the first phone which featured a touchscreen, email capability and a handful of built-in apps, including a calculator and a sketch pad.  But today,  “smartphones”  has evolved from what was deemed a smartphone 28 years ago. Not only have phones been upgraded to be more smarter, you can pretty much call them mini computers now. And you have a lot of options to choose from also.  One upgrade phones have received over the years has been how it’s AI has been interactive. We have seen how people use  ‘Siri, Google and Alexa’  in simple stuff like making or answering calls, texting messages and basically controlling their house and cars for them.  I must say it’s made the use of phone more easier.     In the que...

So the question of whether people will be able to use electric cars in Ghana or in Africa has been a  lingering subject in the minds of most Ghanaians. With most of the questions raised about this issue, being able acquire an electric car is the least of them.  How to recharge on the other hand, has been one the most asked questions about electric cars. ( How and where are we going to charge it if we get one? )  Well, if you also have been asking this same question, there is a bit of good news for you. The French oil group TotalEnergies recently inaugurated a charging station for electric vehicles at its Liberation Road service station in Accra, the capital of Ghana.  According to the General Manager of TotalEnergies Marketing in Ghana, Olufemi Babajide, the charging station installed has a capacity of 22 kilowatts, which will allow an electric vehicle to be fully charged in less than two hours.  As Ghana transition to green energy, this initiative will see...

  As of January 2022, Morocco had an internet penetration of approximately 84.1% , making it the country with the highest internet penetration in Africa. The majority of their web traffic originated from mobile devices. It so happens to be the same for the other African countries. In the first half of 2022, 89% of web traffic was generated via smartphones and only 10 % via PC devices in Africa. This is to some extent due to the fact that accessing the internet with a phone is a lot less expensive and don't need  any medium to help it connect to the internet as a computer does. Despite all this information, African still has the lowest of Internet connection with only 43.0% of internet traffic in the entire continent while the entire world has an average 64.2% of web traffic. During the peek of COVID-19, a whole lot of businesses and companies realized that the internet which was largely used in communicating with family and friends could also provide an opportunity for...

So one of the biggest nightmare an individual goes through while planning to purchase the newest models of an iPhone is how much it will cost to fix the phone and most significant, whether it will be repairable. Indeed Apple's repairability issues has been quite possibly the most concerning issue, not exclusively to the individual buying it but also the individual who needs to fix it when there is an issue with it. Try not to misunderstand me, I'm not saying in the event that your iPhone encounters any of these issues ranging from camera issues, a cracked screen to perhaps a battery issue, it can't be fixed once you take it to the closest Apple Store. Be that as it may, the point to which I’m driving at is that, in a case you don't visit an Apple Store but rather visits a third-party repairer, you might not be able to get your phone fixed. @PhoneRepairGuru  who from the name of his channel, shows he's a phone repairer, purchased two iPhone 14s and in a video test th...