News : Africanews

A lake in Sao Paulo turns green due to algae bloom

Monday, september 30, 2024

• 3:07 PM

A lake in Sao Paulo’s iconic Ibirapuera Park has turned green due to an algae bloom stemming from low water levels amid historic drought and record high temperatures in Brazil.

UN officials underline uneven progress in digital transformation worldwide

Wednesday, september 18, 2024

• 1:54 PM

UN officials on Tuesday underlined that digital inequalities could leave some developing nations behind, as the digital world continues to transform. Experts in the field are calling for more support to developing nations, particularly in Africa.

Kenya: Islanders upcycle washed up plastic waste into boats

• 10:09 AM

On the coastal island of Lamu, off Kenya's east coast, workers are turning plastic waste into furniture, even boats Lamu is contending with mounds of plastic waste - some washed up on its beaches, others generated by its own residents.

Kenya: An organization gives rural communities first glimpse into wonders of metaverse

Thursday, september 12, 2024

• 8:05 PM

Kenya-based Arica VR Campus and Center is on a mission to giving members of remote communities a first glimpse into the wonders of the metaverse. The organization started hosting weekly metaverse events in 2019.

Apple embraces the AI craze with its new iPhone 16 lineup

Tuesday, september 10, 2024

• 2:14 PM

8 min

Apple embraces the AI craze with its newly unleashed iPhone 16 lineup

Robot waiters turn heads in Kenya

Thursday, august 29, 2024

• 8:55 AM

Customers access the menu by scanning a QR code at the table and place their order online. Once the food is ready, a bell rings to alert a human waiter who places it on a robot's tray.

China and 26 African countries agree to strengthen partnerships in digital field

Tuesday, july 30, 2024

• 1:32 PM

The parties jointly issued an action plan which includes the implementation of 10 digital transformation demonstration projects and the training of at least 1,000 professionals in the digital field.

Chinese Lunar probe returns with first far side moon samples

Tuesday, june 25, 2024

• 11:22 AM

“I now declare that the Chang’e 6 Lunar Exploration Mission achieved complete success,"

Want to turn off Meta AI? This is what to do

Monday, june 10, 2024

• 11:22 AM

6 min

The chatbot can recommend local restaurants, offer more information on something you see in a Facebook post, search for airline flights or generate images in the blink of an eye.

Tanzanian forest recreated in Italy to raise awareness on biodiversity research

• 10:19 AM

8 min

Through a partnership with Tanzania National Parks, MUSE in 2006 established the Udzungwa Ecological Monitoring Centre to support the park in ecological monitoring and biodiversity research, as well as to support development of environmental education pro

Morocco raises awareness of forest fire risk as summer approaches

Sunday, june 2, 2024

• 12:34 AM

According to the National Agency for Water and Forestry, 466 fires were recorded in 2023, affecting 6,426 hectares, while the area burnt in the previous year reached 22,760 hectares.

Gitex Africa: Start-ups carving their way into the global AI economy

Friday, may 31, 2024

• 7:48 PM

Powering Africa into the global AI economy was one of the ambitions of the 2024 Gitex tech fair which ended in Morocco Friday (May 31).

Gitex Africa: Morocco's tech fair focuses on continent's needs

Thursday, may 30, 2024

• 4:50 PM

Around 1,500 exhibitors, companies, entrepreneurs, innovators and startups from over 130 countries are attending the second GITEX Africa tech show.

AI creates excitement and worry at digital festival in Berlin

Tuesday, may 28, 2024

• 7:24 PM

Around 25,000 people are expected to attend this year's event to discuss all aspects of the digitalisation of the world.

AI reigns supreme at the 8th edition of Vivatech

Friday, may 24, 2024

• 7:11 PM

"Today, tech is going to speak your language, whereas before it was you who had to adapt to tech. And what's interesting is that it's reshuffling the deck. Particularly the balance between countries, because access to artificial intelligence doesn't cost

Microsoft's AI chatbot will 'recall' everything you do on a PC

Tuesday, may 21, 2024

• 9:37 AM

Microsoft wants laptop users to get so comfortable with its artificial intelligence chatbot that it will remember everything you're doing on your computer and help figure out what you want to do next.

Kenyan government recommends regulating, not banning TikTok

Thursday, april 25, 2024

• 2:16 PM

Kenya's government is cautioning against a blanket ban on TikTok despite growing worries over the content circulated on the platform. Instead, authorities are advocating for stricter oversight measures by regulatory bodies.

SA users of Starlink will be cut off at the end of the month

Tuesday, april 16, 2024

• 3:20 PM

Starlink users in South Africa are facing a major setback as the satellite internet service provider has issued a warning that their services will be terminated by the end of the month.

Facebook News tab will soon be unavailable

Friday, march 29, 2024

• 11:44 AM

Meta says users will still be able to view links to news articles, and news organizations will still be able to post and promote their stories and websites, as any other individual or organization can on Facebook.

Internet disruption hits West and Central Africa, Netblocks and Cloudflare data shows

Thursday, march 14, 2024

• 4:44 PM

A major internet outage struck West and Central Africa on Thursday, as reported by the internet observatory Netblocks, which cited information from operators indicating multiple subsea cable failures. The precise cause of these failures remains unclear at

Google denies Gmail is shutting down after viral hoax

Monday, february 26, 2024

• 1:09 PM

Google denies Gmail is shutting down after viral hoax

A Kenyan start-up turns plastic waste into solar-powered freezers

Friday, february 23, 2024

• 12:39 AM

A Kenyan company is collecting plastic strewn across beaches and turning it into cold storage units. The recycled plastic is used to manufacture solar-powered freezers.

Meta says it will label AI-generated images on Facebook and Instagram

Wednesday, february 7, 2024

• 12:47 AM

Facebook and Instagram users will start seeing labels on AI-generated images that appear on their social media feeds, part of a broader tech industry initiative to sort between what's real and not.

Elon Musk says the first human has received an implant from Neuralink

Tuesday, january 30, 2024

• 5:31 PM

When Neuralink announced in September that it would begin recruiting people, the company said it was searching for individuals with quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's Dis

X now worth 71% less than when Musk bought it, Fidelity estimates

Tuesday, january 2, 2024

• 11:45 AM

X, formerly known as Twitter, has seen its value fall by a staggering 71% since Elon Musk's acquisition in late 2022.

China helps launch Egypt's MISRAT-2 satellite

Wednesday, december 6, 2023

• 3:15 PM

Egypt's space agency chief has hailed cooperation with China, following the launch on Monday of a remote-sensing satellite into orbit from a centre in northwest China.

Women in science: two Cameroonians win prize

Tuesday, december 5, 2023

• 11:30 AM

In Cameroon's rural north, a career in science is a rarity for most women. Two young women have bucked the trend, winning a prestigious science award on November 8.

Flying Taxis: Archer Aviation's Vision for Urban Air Mobility Takes Flight

Thursday, november 16, 2023

• 12:16 AM

Archer Aviation is pioneering the development of the Midnight, a four-passenger electric-powered vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

Meta given 30 days to cease using the name Threads

Wednesday, november 1, 2023

• 11:19 AM

A British software firm, Threads Software Limited, has given Meta a 30-day ultimatum to cease using the name "Threads" in the UK, citing ownership of the trademark.

Rwanda: an AI platform for small holder farmers

Thursday, september 28, 2023

• 5:12 PM

A young female student in Rwanda from the University of Rwanda Theofrida Muginga is creating 'Mkulima GPT,' a ChatGPT-driven Swahili chatbot. Its mission is to empower smallholder farmers by detecting crop diseases and providing culturally-sensitive agric

Meta officially launches "Threads", the new social network competing with Twitter

Thursday, july 6, 2023

• 8:48 AM

The app went live just after midnight Wednesday in the U.K. in Apple and Google Android app stores in more than 100 countries including the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada and Japan.

The young guard of African animation in the spotlight on Disney+

Wednesday, july 5, 2023

• 1:59 PM

The young guard of African animation in the spotlight on Disney+

In conservative Somalia, an online app to find your soulmate

Wednesday, june 28, 2023

• 9:33 AM

"It's less difficult than physically meeting strangers. When you interact with someone online, you can ask them all the questions you want and make sure they're right for you before you meet them," she smiles.

VivaTech forum: Africa at the heart of the digital revolution

Thursday, june 15, 2023

• 8:59 PM

The 2023 edition has given prominence to artificial intelligence. The sector is getting increasingly popular in Africa, a continent firmly at the heart of the digital revolution. From June 14th to 17th, over 2,500 exhibitors will showcase their latest inn

Young Nigerian entrepreneur in vanguard of green mobility

Sunday, june 11, 2023

• 1:13 PM

31-year-old entrepreneur Mustapha Abubakar Gajibo first converted petrol-powered minibuses into solar-powered electric vehicles, in his workshop of Borno state. He launched his company after dropping out of university. He says potential clients contact hi

Kenya: Virtual reality used to teach students about plastic pollution

Tuesday, june 6, 2023

• 4:01 PM

So, VR comes in helping them, one, conceptualise the problem. It's one thing to say 'don't throw away waste,' but it is another thing to understand that if I throw away a plastic bottle, it will end up in the Indian Ocean and it will affect marine life, w

Gitex Africa: Tech giants, startups and SMEs gather in Morocco

Thursday, june 1, 2023

• 11:07 AM

The first edition of #Gitex Africa was launched in Marrakech on Wednesday (May 31st). 900 companies and 250 lecturers from 95 countries are taking part in the exhibition.

World's tallest hemp hotel set to open in June in South Africa

Monday, may 8, 2023

• 9:56 AM

The 12-storey building with breathtaking views and a minimal ecological footprint is set to open its doors in Cape Town, South Africa. "Hempcrete" blocks derived from the cannabis plant have been used to fill the building's walls, supported by a concrete

Kenya: Residents on a mission to reduce flooding damage

Sunday, may 7, 2023

• 8:32 AM

5 min

Kenyan volunteers are being equipped with weather forecasts and advice to allow people living in informal settlements to prepare for extreme weather. They clear waste from drains ahead of rainy weather in a bid to prevent blockages and reduce the damage

Launch of Kenya's 1st observation satellite aborted again

Friday, april 14, 2023

• 11:17 AM

Satellite Taifa-1 was supposed take off from California USA on Friday (Apr. 14) but exploration technology company Space X, cancelled the exercise nearly 28 seconds into flight. The new launch is scheduled on Saturday (Apr. 15).

Young Libyans answer call of e-gaming

Thursday, april 6, 2023

• 3:29 PM

Unlike in other Arab states, "the gaming community was completely dead here" until recently, says Sofiane Mattouss, a computer science student, who runs an arcade set up in 2022.

Twitter logo changed! Elon Musk replaces Twitter's blue bird with 'Doge' Meme

Wednesday, april 5, 2023

• 11:36 AM

As of now, when Twitter users open the website, they will be greeted with a new loading screen featuring Kabosu, the Shiba Inu who served as the inspiration for the infamous Doge meme.

The app making 'Made in Togo' local products more accessible

Tuesday, february 7, 2023

• 9:13 AM

"The application has allowed me to have an easy access thanks to the sales points. Currently, there is even a way to find a point of sale that is very close to us". Kpatcha AKABA, a DuSa app user

Google hopes 'Bard' will outsmart ChatGPT, Microsoft in AI

• 12:07 AM

Google is girding for a battle of wits in the field of artificial intelligence with "Bard," a conversational service apparently aimed at countering the popularity of the ChatGPT tool backed by Microsoft.

Job cuts in tech sector spread, Microsoft lays off 10,000

Friday, january 20, 2023

• 1:10 PM

5 min

The company said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that the layoffs were a response to "macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities."

Five big tech companies that have embarked on massive layoffs in 2022

Thursday, november 17, 2022

• 12:10 AM

5 min

Five big Tech companies that have embarked on massive layoffs in 2022

Ivorian researcher awarded for her research to protect yams

Friday, november 11, 2022

• 2:16 PM

Adjata Kamara is one of the 20 winners of the For women in science initiative of the L'Oréal Foundation and UNESCO, which aims to give visibility to women researchers worldwide.

Mobile app enables Kenyans to become wildlife conservation actors

Tuesday, october 25, 2022

• 1:15 PM

The National Museums of Kenya has launched an app to help the country's wildlife authorities track and log rare and common mammals and record whether the species and their habitat are thriving. The phone app allows users to contribute what animals they se

Electric bus debuts in Nairobi in clean energy push

• 8:36 AM

A Kenyan-based green transport company unveiled Wednesday an electric bus. Its inventors hope to encourage environmentally friendly commuting in a city where polluting exhaust fumes contribute to a thick smog.

Microbiomes mission reaches last stop in Senegal

Monday, september 5, 2022

• 10:52 AM

Scientists took samples along the West African coast in order to better understand the microbiome of this part of the Atlantic

The Moroccan start up using less water for cleaning as drought tightens its grip

Saturday, august 20, 2022

• 7:21 AM

"This is my sixth experience of washing without water and I am always satisfied with the result. The current case, there is a water crisis, I suggest everyone to do the same". Karim

In Uganda, Wazi Vision changes lives through innovative eye care

Wednesday, july 20, 2022

• 4:33 PM

Free services catering to those who ordinarily wouldn’t afford to see an ophthalmologist? In Uganda, the first company to design and manufacture eyewear in East Africa conducts many eye test camps in hard-to-reach areas around the country. Moreover, Wazi

IT for the visually impaired and a science newspaper in Swahili [Inspire Africa]

Monday, april 4, 2022

• 12:23 AM

In Abidjan, chocolate maker Axel Emmanuel Gbaou wants more Ivorians to process cocoa locally. Krist Ondziel Bangui has opened a training centre, in Brazzaville, to encourage visually impaired people like him to learn IT. In Dar es Salaam, Syriacus Bugunzi

UN seeks better ways to curb plastic pollution

Tuesday, march 1, 2022

• 9:14 PM

Waterways around the world are choked with plastic pollution that often ends up in the oceans. The UN Environmental Assembly meeting in Nairobi is discussing the problem of plastic waste.

Tanzania unveils new non-invasive method to detect COVID-19

Tuesday, february 22, 2022

• 1:33 PM

This non-invasive EDE technology has tested nearly 20,000 people with 93% accuracy even before its launch at Zanzibar International Airport.

Scientists use ivory tusk DNA data to locate poaching networks

Tuesday, february 15, 2022

• 10:49 AM

9 min

On Monday, Researchers published, in the journal Nature Human Behavior, a combined genetic and statistical method they developed to determine the origin of poached ivory.

Niger drone company takes off in Sahel

Friday, april 9, 2021

• 1:52 PM

From accessing remote areas humanitarian organisations can't get to one day delivering medicine, a drone company is bringing tech solutions to the Sahel.

The story of Kenya's two young inventors bio-robotic prosthetic arm

Monday, february 1, 2021

• 2:58 PM

The story of two young Kenyan inventors David Gathu and Moses Kinyua. The Cameroonian researcher and inventor of an atypical insecticide developed from plants to fight Malaria. And a chat with Cameroon's Crescence Elodie Nonga founder of WETECH.

Invasive trees hold key to Cape Town's chronic water supply problems - Experts

Saturday, december 26, 2020

• 1:53 PM

It's thought the trees -mostly pines - soak up about 55 billion liters of rainfall a year, adding to pressures on the city's precious water supply