Kenya’s telecoms market is steadily coming of age as the regulator opens up the space for more players ending Safaricom’s monopoly power on mobile money and voice services.

Airtel last evening launched a package to help it nab as many discontent customers from its competitors as possible with a promise of one-African network where roaming customers will communicate at local rates, receive calls for free and recharge partner airtime vouchers when they travel to at least 17 countries in Africa.

The package dubbed Premier Club is also designed to offer exceptional and personalized services for customers.The club will enable premier customers have personalized credit services such as credit facilities, an exclusive website, free sim replacement, priority services and discount with preferred partners. Apart from subscribers using their local Airtel SIM cards, access to cheaper rates for calls made, subscribers will also access data/value added services as if they were home and they can also recharge their airtime using local top up vouchers in the country visited.

Airtel Kenya Chief Executive Officer, Adil El Youssefi said, “This product demonstrates our commitment to provide innovative and relavant products and services to our customers.The package will deliver a superior brand journey for our high value customers by creating memorable brand moments.”

Also present were Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology, Dr. Fred Matingi and Airtel Africa, Chief Executive Officer, Christian de Faria.

We think this is the rebirth of Airtel’s One Network service launched a few years back. Due to differences in regulations across countries, the Airtel One Network has not performed as expected. We hope this Airtel Premier Club survives.

Aerocomm Ltd has appointed African Press Organization (APO) the official wire service for Aviation Africa 2015, a two-day Summit & Exhibition that will take place on May 10, 2015 in Dubai, UAE.

APO, as the official newswire, is providing exhibitors a 20 percent discount off news release distribution.

According to APO, Aviation Africa 2015’s press releases will be distributed via Africa Wire®, the newswire service for press release distribution and monitoring in Africa. This reaches over 50,000 media outlets, bloggers and social networks, and redistributes content to more than 50 African websites, as well as to Bloomberg Terminal, Thomson Reuters, Lexis Nexis, Dow Jones Factiva, 250 million mobile subscribers in 30 countries, and more.

Used by some of the world’s largest companies, PR agencies, institutions and organizations, APO Africa Wire® has a potential reach of 600 million and guarantees the most extensive outreach in Africa, acting as a channel that allows APO’s clients to target audiences in all parts of the continent and also the world.

Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, APO Founder and CEO commented, “Better connected African countries and regions through a viable air transport industry could be the catalyst that can boost intra-African business, trade, tourism as well as cultural exchange. We at APO feel that connectivity starts with communication hence we look forward to supporting the Aviation Africa 2015 in Dubai; where we have opened our latest office.”

APO is the sole press release newswire in Africa and the global leader in media relations relating to Africa.With offices in  Switzerland, Senegal, Dubai, India, Seychelles and Hong Kong, APO has a media database consisting of more than 50,000 contacts and is the main online community for news relating to Africa.

It provides a full range of services, including online press conferences, press release distribution and monitoring, interactive webcasts, strategic advice, media interactions, public diplomacy, events promotion and government relations.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged a $50 million grant to support the scale up of emergency efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and interrupt transmission of the virus.

The foundation said it will channel the funds to United Nations agencies and international organizations involved in the response to enable them and national governments to purchase badly needed supplies and scale up emergency operations in affected countries. It will also work with public and private sector partners to accelerate the development of therapies, vaccines, and diagnostics that could be effective in treating patients and preventing further transmission of the disease.

“We are working urgently with our partners to identify the most effective ways to help them save lives now and stop transmission of this deadly disease,” said Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Gates Foundation. “We also want to accelerate the development of treatments, vaccines and diagnostics that can help end this epidemic and prevent future outbreaks.”

To date, the Gates Foundation has committed more than $10 million of the $50 million to fight the Ebola outbreak, including $5 million to WHO for emergency operations and R&D assessments and $5 million to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to support efforts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to purchase essential medical supplies, coordinate response activities, and provide at-risk communities with life-saving health information. An additional $2 million will also be committed immediately to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to support incident management, treatment, and health care system strengthening.

In August, Nigeria responded to the current crisis by opening an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Lagos, with support from the foundation and the Dangote Foundation. Leveraging expertise and lessons from the national polio program, the EOC has been at the center of an aggressive push by the federal and state governments to contain the spread of the virus, and there is cautious optimism that this prompt action may have helped avert a broader outbreak.

As additional grants are made, the foundation will provide further details on its funding commitments to on-the-ground operations and to research and development for Ebola drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics.

East Africa Data Centre, the only Tier 3 secure electronic data centre in east and central Africa, has today announced a Ksh1bn expansion to meet rack space demand that initially forced it to ration allocations to customers. Unveiling the second and third floors of the data centre, the East Africa Data Centre announced that the centre would now be extended to four floors, totalling 2000 sq. m.

The data centre, which now houses Kenya’s Internet Exchange Point, has been credited by the global Internet Society as a key factor in driving down internet prices in Kenya, to among the lowest in Africa. The East Africa Data Centre hosts the Points of Presence for global carriers with international coverage, including Tata, Level3, Seacom, and Liquid Telecom, as well as carriers owning fibre network infrastructure, including Safaricom, JamiiTelcom, Access Kenya, Orange Telkom Kenya Ltd, Wananchi Online, and Frontier Optical Network.

It is further playing a key role in enabling financial and corporate organizations to hold data securely; protecting them in the event of cybercrime and offering 24/7 secure housing for their data and back-ups.

“The East Africa Data Centre has transformed how data traffic is handled in the region. By providing a central point for interconnect services, it has reduced latency, improved data services, reduced costs and made it easier to transfer data across networks,” said Dan Kwach, General Manager East Africa Data Centre.

Within six months of starting, it had fully sold Phase 1 of the centre’s rack space amounting to the entire first floor. It has now opened another 500 sq m floor, which is already 90 percent occupied, and with the third floor already prepped for occupancy, East Africa Data Centre unveiled plans to expand to the fourth floor immediately, to cater for demand.

“We had to ration the rack space when we were selling the first floor due to huge demand, until we could get the second floor built and operational and the third floor ready to go quickly. The second floor took roughly 8 months, but now we have the space ready, we can move much quicker and customers can buy the amount they want,” said Mr Kwach.

The accelerated expansion in EADC’s rack space has benefitted the local engineering and construction services sector, with all of the contractors for the expansion sourced locally.

It also comes amid growing concern for data security. In late 2013, Kenya’s ICT Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiangi, raised the flag on estimates that the country would lose an estimated KSh 2 billion (about $23 million) through cybercrime, with the number of cyber-attacks detected in Kenyan cyberspace more than doubling last year to 5.4m attacks, compared to 2.6m in 2012.

Uganda, which last year reported a surge in economic crimes, up 14.9 per cent, singled out cybercrime, principally in mobile money and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) fraud, as responsible for the loss of about USH1.5bn (Ksh51m), while Bank of Tanzania (BoT) statistics indicate TZS 1.3bn (Ksh69.5) has been stolen across the country through cyber fraud, according to the Kenya Cyber Security Report 2014.

Financial institutions are also introducing potentially vulnerable web and mobile applications, with a recent study that sampled 33 online banking portals finding that only 2 of the 33 portals sampled had adequate online security deployed on their web application. As a result, many financial institutions are now looking into EADC to store their data, reported the Kenya Cyber Security Report 2014.

“Banks and financial institutions are the second largest type of occupant at the East Africa Data Centre, at about 30 percent. With about 43 banks in Kenya, the demand for highly secure stable environments like ours, for use as disaster recovery, high-availability, or primary sites, has been rising,” said Kwach.

At IFA, a global trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, Intel launched the new Intel® Core™ M processor, which will power new 2 in 1 devices from a variety of manufacturers including: Acer*, ASUS*, Dell*, HP*, Lenovo* and Toshiba*. The Intel Core M processor can power razor-thin devices with Intel Core processor-level performance and deliver up to double the battery life when compared to a 4-year-old system.2

“We’ve been on a multi-year mission to address end-user requirements and transform mobile computing,” said Kirk Skaugen, senior vice president and general manager of personal computing at Intel Corporation. “The introduction of Core M marks a significant milestone in that journey. Core M is the first of a new product family designed to deliver the promise of one of the world’s thinnest laptops and highest performance tablets in a single 2 in 1 device.”

The Intel Core M processor enables up to 50 percent faster computer performance and 40 percent faster graphics performance versus the comparable, previous 4th generation Intel Core processor.3 Consumers with older PCs will notice a more significant performance improvement. The Intel Core M processor delivers up to two times the compute performance and up to seven times better graphics compared to a 4- year-old PC.

The Intel Core M processor package is 50 percent smaller and, at 4.5 watts, has 60 percent lower thermal power than the previous generation.5 This lets OEMs design sleek, fanless systems less than 9 mm thin – thinner than an AAA battery and today’s sleekest laptops. There are already more than 20 Intel Core M processor-based OEM products in the development pipeline. The first systems based on the Intel Core M processor will be on shelves for the holiday selling season.

At IFA, manufacturers including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo unveiled new, coming-soon Intel Core M processor-based devices across a range of sizes, styles and price points.

• In Q4, Acer will expand its popular 2-in-1 series of notebooks with the Aspire Switch 12, featuring a 12.5-inch FHD display with unique kickstand and magnet keyboard to move smoothly between five modes.
• ASUS introduced the ASUS Zenbook UX305, an incredibly light and thin Ultrabook™ with a 13-inch QHD display and the ASUS Transformer Book T300FA* 2 in 1, which was unveiled during the Intel keynote. The Transformer Book T300FA is a high-performance 2 in 1 and is expected to be available in Europe this fall for an estimated €599. Looking ahead, ASUS plans to go even thinner with the ASUS Transformer T300 Chi.
• Dell has announced its first commercial 2 in 1, the Latitude 13 7000 Series, which combines a lightweight business Ultrabook and a detachable tablet in one powerful, no-compromise device.
• HP further extends its award-winning ENVY portfolio with the addition of two new HP ENVY x2 detachable PCs, available in 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch form factors.
• The new Lenovo ThinkPad Helix, available in October, is 12 percent lighter and measures 15 percent thinner than its predecessor while packing even more power thanks to the Intel Core M processor.

Intel also previewed a forthcoming Intel Core M processor-based design from Toshiba, and said broader availability of Intel Core M processor-based devices is expected in the first half of next year.

To further system choice and availability, Intel said it is working with ODMs including Wistron and others. Wistron plans an Intel Core M processor-based design inspired by the Intel “Llama Mountain” reference device. Intel first unveiled the stunning, fanless Llama Mountain reference device, which measures 7.2 mm thin and weighs a mere 670 grams, at Computex in Taiwan earlier this year.

Intel Core M is a “conflict-free” product, which means this product does not contain conflict minerals (tin, tantalum, tungsten and/or gold) that directly or indirectly finance or benefit armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or adjoining countries.

The Intel Core M processor is available in several versions: the up to 2.0 GHz Intel Core M-5Y10/5Y10a processors and the up to 2.6 GHz Intel Core M-5Y70 processor. The Core M-5Y70 is the highest performing Intel Core M processor and is also available with Intel® vPro™ technology for business 2 in 1s with built-in security features to help protect data, user identities and network access.6

Additional Intel Core M platform features include support for high-quality audio, Intel® Wireless Display 5.0, Intel’s second-generation 802.11ac products and will evolve to support wireless docking with WiGig from Intel. For more information visit:www.intel.com.

The Kenyan Ministry of Health and TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) has signed a deal that will see the development of an information system e-portal for Port Health Services. The e-portal will help improve reporting and information sharing among all Ports of Entry (PoE) and the ministry headquarters.

Khadija Kasachong the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Health said: “This ministry is one of the 13 key Government Agencies being relied upon for successful achievement of Mombasa Port Community Charter Targets. The Charter, which was launched by H. E. the President on 30thJune 2014, aims at trade facilitation through effective inter-agency collaboration. The targets include faster automated services by 31st December 2014. Automation of Port Health Services will contribute towards achieving this”.

The purpose of the charter is to among others establish a permanent framework of collaboration, targets and timelines and the collaboration of government agencies at the port will immensely contribute to trade facilitation.

TradeMark East Africa Kenya Country Director Dr. Chris Kiptoo added, “The portal will be directly targeting importers and exporters whose goods have to undergo a mandatory check by Port Health officials at the point of entry before they are allowed into country. Traders can apply directly through the online system at their own convenience as long as they have access to internet saving them time and delays. Additionally, the traders will be able to receive periodical notifications on the status of their application as opposed to them having to physically visit port health offices to inquire about applications.”

Critical to facilitation of trade, the port health e-portal will enable traders to apply and have approval for the mandatory Export Health Certificate (ECG) online. It will also enable officers to access lodged documents electronically 24/7 while providing for them an interface with Kenya National Electronic single Window System (KNESWS) which will lead to faster issuance of Import and Export Health certificates, hence enhancing trade facilitation. The development of the online portal will be facilitated by TMEA as part of its mandate to promote regional trade and economic integration.

TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) will provide technical and financial support to the Division of Environment Health Port Health services Unit. In enhancing trade environment, increasing market access and enhancing trade environment and increased competitiveness, TMEA is spearheading adoption of ICT within key government and non-government institutions to transform their processes and increase efficiencies.

As part of the Kenyan government digitization process, the health services ePortal will also be integrated with other government agencies including Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS) and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) via an interface with the Kenya National Single Window currently in development by the Kenya Trade Network Agency (KENTRADE).

Apple has joined the bandwagon ad has just launched a wearable device, the Apple Watch, which features new technologies, and a user interface and design that honors watchmaking traditions.

Apple Watch introduces a specially designed and engineered Digital Crown that provides an innovative way to scroll, zoom and navigate. The Digital Crown is Apple’s most revolutionary navigation tool since the iPod Click Wheel and iPhone Multi-Touch.

With this watch, users will be able to communicate by sending and receiving messages, answering calls to your iPhone, and with Digital Touch, sending something as personal as your own heartbeat.

Apple Watch also introduces comprehensive health and fitness apps that can help people lead healthier lives. The watch come in three collections – Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport and Apple Watch Edition.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO said: “And once again Apple is poised to captivate the world with a revolutionary product that can enrich people’s lives. It’s the most personal product we’ve ever made.”

“With Apple Watch, we’ve developed multiple technologies and an entirely new user interface specifically for a device that’s designed to be worn. It blurs the boundary between physical object and user interface,” said Jony Ive, Apple’s senior vice-president of Design.

Apple Watch introduces a design and iOS-based user interface created specifically for a smaller device. Apple Watch features the Digital Crown, an innovative way to scroll, zoom and navigate fluidly, without obstructing the display.

The Digital Crown also serves as the Home button and a convenient way to access Siri. The Retina display on Apple Watch features Force Touch, a technology that senses the difference between a tap and a press, providing a new way to quickly and easily access controls within apps.

Apple Watch introduces the Taptic Engine and a built-in speaker that together discreetly enable an entirely new vocabulary of alerts and notifications you can both hear and feel. Apple custom-designed its own S1 SiP (System in Package) to miniaturize an entire computer architecture onto a single chip. Apple Watch also features WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 4.0 to pair seamlessly with your iPhone.

The beautifully designed and durable enclosures are crafted from custom alloys of polished or space black stainless steel, space grey or silver anodized aluminium and 18-karat rose or yellow gold.

Apple also created an entire range of watch straps: the high-performance elastomer Sport Band; the Milanese Loop in a flexible magnetic stainless steel mesh; the Leather Loop in soft, quilted leather that conceals magnets for quick fastening and adjustment; the leather Modern Buckle, which closes with a solid metal clasp; the leather Classic Buckle; and the stainless steel Link Bracelet. Apple Watch comes with a unique charging system that combines Apple’s MagSafe technology with inductive charging for a quick connection that snaps into place.

Apple Watch is an extremely accurate timepiece that’s also customizable for personal expression. Apple Watch comes with 11 watch faces ranging from traditional analogue faces to new faces like the dynamic Timelapse face; the Astronomy face with its interactive, real-time 3D model of the earth, sun, moon and planets; and the Solar face, a contemporary sundial. Apple Watch can be personalized in appearance and capability with additional information such as upcoming events, moon phases or your activity level, enabling millions of possible configurations.

Taking advantage of its location on your wrist, Apple Watch provides timely information that can be viewed at a glance. Smart Replies and dictation let you respond quickly to messages, and with Handoff, you can start a message on your Apple Watch and continue where you left off on your iPhone. Swipe up from the watch face for Glances that quickly show you information you care about, such as your current location, stocks or your next meeting.

Pressing the side button brings up Friends, a view of your favourite people, so you can contact them quickly and easily. Digital Touch allows you to send a sketch, a gentle tap, an audio message through Walkie Talkie or even your own heartbeat.