Nigeria’s CcHub acquires Kenya’s iHub to create mega Africa incubator

Two of Africa’s powerhouse tech incubators will join forces. Nigerian innovation center and seed-fund CcHub has acquired Nairobi based iHub — CcHub CEO Bosun Tijani confirmed to TechCrunch.

The purchase amount is undisclosed, but Tijani said CcHub will finance the deal out of its real-estate project to build a new 10 story innovation center to replace its Herbert Macaulay Way building in Lagos.

Details are emerging on how the two entities will operate together, but Tijani noted some degree of autonomy.

“The names will stay the same…iHub  will remain iHub…it is a strong brand…but iHub  will be supported from the central CcHub, which will help them strengthen what they do,” he said.

Per the acquisition, Tijani becomes CEO of both organizations, while Nekesa Were continues as iHub Managing Director. iHub’s existing programs will remain, according to Tijani, but CcHub will extend some of its existing activities in education, healthcare, and governance to Kenya.

CcHub will also use the iHub addition to expand its investment scope. “We’ll now have access to pipeline in Nigeria, Kenya,  and Rwanda,” he said.

Tijani views the arrangement as a boost to the continent’s tech ecosystem. “It strengthens our ability to support innovation. iHub and CcHub…coming together makes us stronger; it gives us a chance to attract greater resources and talent,” he said.

The acquisition joins two of the Africa’s most recognized tech hubs. These innovation spaces, accelerators, and incubators—which tally 618 per GSMA stats—have become focal points for startup formation, training, and IT activity on the continent.

There aren’t official rankings for Africa’s most powerful tech hubs, but if there were, CcHub and iHub would arguably be up top. This would be based on the size of their membership networks, volume of tech related programs, startups incubated, partnerships, and global visibility.

Founded in 2011 in Lagos’ tech-synonymous Yaba suburb, the Co-Creation Hub has grown into a multi-faceted innovation center. The organization manages digital skills programs for entrepreneurs and school kids, startup incubation, and a portfolio of investments through its Growth Capital Fund.

CcHub is considered a go-to spot for any tech related visit to Nigeria. It was Mark Zuckerberg’s  first public stop on his 2016 Africa trip. While leaving a CcHub event in 2018, I noticed the Vice President of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo, and his entourage packing into the elevator.

Tijani and team have mastered gaining partnerships with big global tech names. When Facebook launched its tech space in Nigeria—NG_Hub—CcHub was named lead partner. Google for Startups sponsored CcHub’s Pitch Drive, an African startup tour to Europe and Asia. CcHub also collaborated with the Government of Rwanda this year to open its Design Lab in Kigali, focused on innovating impact solutions in health, education, and governance.

The Design Lab launch extended CcHub’s West Africa reach further east and closer to iHub. The innovation center was co-founded by Erik Hersman in 2010 out of what he saw as a need in Africa’s emerging tech scene “for…creating community spaces…in major cities [for] young entrepreneurs. The nexus point for technologists, investors, [and] tech companies.”

iHub became that central spot in East Africa. Along with M-Pesa mobile-money and a vibrant startup scene, it is one of the pillars that inspired Kenya’s Silicon Savannah moniker.

iHub is also widely seen as giving rise to the Africa’s innovation center movement that inspired the upsurge in tech hubs across the continent.

Since 2010, 170  companies have formed out of iHub. It has 16,000 members and has played host to most major visitors to Kenya’s tech scene. After seeing CcHub in Nigeria in 2016, Zuck then headed to Kenya and toured iHub.

There’ll be plenty for continuing coverage on how these two prominent African incubators settle into becoming one big Africa mega-hub. That includes the sustainability question and what this all means to the continent’s tech scene.

At a high level, for now, the CcHub-iHub union creates a direct innovation link between two of Africa’s most active markets for VC and startup formation—Nigeria and Kenya.

In the past, both countries’ techies have shared a healthy rivalry. That could now turn to more  collaborations, as CcHub’s acquisition connects East and West in African tech.

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Facebook announces Horizon, a VR massive-multiplayer world

Facebook  today announced it’s building its own Ready Player One Oasis. Facebook Horizon is a virtual reality sandbox universe where you can build your own environments and games, play and socialize with friends or just explore the user-generated landscapes. This is Facebook’s take on Second Life.

Launching in early 2020 in closed beta, Facebook Horizon will allow users to design their own diverse avatars and hop between virtual locales through portals called Telepods, watch movies and consume other media with friends and play multiplayer games together, like Wing Strikers. It also will include human guides, known as Horizon Locals, who can give users assistance and protect their safety in the VR world so trolls can’t run rampant.

Users interested in early access can apply for the beta here.

As part of the launch, Facebook will on October 25 shut down its existing social VR experiences Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms, leaving a bit of a gap until Horizon launches. Oculus  Rooms debuted in 2016 as your decoratable private VR apartment, while Spaces first launched in 2017 to let users chat, watch movies and take VR selfies with friends. But both felt more like lobby waiting rooms with a few social features that were merely meant as a preamble to full-fledged VR games. In contrast, Horizon is designed to be a destination, not a novelty, where users could spend tons of time.

How Facebook Horizon works

At first glance, Horizon seems like a modernized Second Life,  a first-person Sims, a fulfillment of the intentions of AltspaceVR and a competitor to PlayStation’s PSVR Dreams and cross-platfrom kids’ favorite Roblox. Back in 2016, Facebook was giving every new Oculus employee a copy of the Ready Player One novel. It seems they’ve been busy building that world since then.

Facebook Horizon will start centralized around a town square. Before people step in, they can choose how they look and what they wear from an expansive and inclusive set of avatar tools. From inside VR, users will be able to use the Horizon World Builder to create gaming arenas, vacation chillspots and activities to fill them without the need to know how to code.

Facebook Horizon lets you build objects from scratch

You could design a tropical island, then invite friends to hang out with you on your virtual private beach. An object creator akin to the Oculus Medium sculpting feature lets you make anything, even a custom t-shirt your avatar could wear. Visual scripting tools let more serious developers create interactive and reactive experiences.

Facebook details its Horizon safety features on its “Citizenship” page that explains that “As citizens of Facebook Horizon, it is all of our responsibility to create a culture that’s respectful and comfortable . . . A Horizon citizen is friendly, inclusive, and curious.” Horizon Locals will wander the VR landscapes to answer questions or aid users if they’re having technical or safety issues. They seem poised to be part customer support, part in-world police.

Facebook Horizon will include human Locals who provide safety and technical support

If things get overwhelming, you can tap a shield button to pause and dip into a private space parallel to Horizon. Users can define their personal space boundaries so no one can get in their face or appear to touch them. And traditional tools like muting, blocking and reporting will all be available. It’s smart that Facebook outlined the community tone and defined these protections.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg  announced Horizon today at the Oculus Connect 6 conference in San Jose. He discussed how “Horizon is going to have this property where it just expands and gets better” as Facebook and the community build more experiences for the VR sandbox.

Facebook lets you build your own islands and other locales in Horizon

Horizon makes perfect sense for a business obsessed with facilitating social interaction while monetized through ad views based on time-spent. It’s easy to imagine Horizon including virtual billboards for brands, Facebook-run shops for buying toys or home furnishings, third-party malls full of branded Nikes or Supreme shirts that score Zuckerberg a revenue cut or subscriptions to access certain gaming worlds or premium planets to explore.

As Facebook starts to grow stale after 15 years on the market, users are looking for new ways to socialize. Many have already ditched the status updates and smarmy Life Events of Facebook for the pretty pictures of Instagram and silliness of Snapchat. Facebook risked being cast aside if it didn’t build its own VR successor. And by offering a world where users can escape their real lives instead of having to enviously compare them to their friends, Horizon could appeal to those bored or claustrophobic on Facebook

source: techcrunch

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FLUTTERWAVE - Disrupting The Future Of Online Payments Processing In Africa

When a formidable team of innovators rub minds together to create a product that would be industry-changing, it is called a disruption.

This is the story of flutterwave.

Are you a business owner looking to do business in Africa but managing payments seamlessly is a huge source of concern for you? Then read on . 

By now it's no longer news that there's disruption in the finance industry especially within Nigerian and generally on the African continent as a whole, technology is re-shaping how payments are made not just within Nigeria and Africa but in the world at large. One of such companies at the intersection of this rapid growth and innovation that has piqued interests is flutterwave.

What is Flutterwave? 

Flutterwave is an online payment processing company focused on helping and connecting businesses and their customers with secure and seamless payment experience.

Flutterwave works with banks across Africa by providing the needed technology and integrations for payments in local currencies with local debit cards, bank accounts or mobile wallets across several African countries. It was founded in 2016 by a team of ex-bankers, entrepreneurs and engineers and one notable member of the team is Iyinoluwa Aboyeji (a co-founder at Andela one of the African continent's most notable tech startup). 

Headquartered in San Francisco (which was stragetic to the company landing international funding) with offices in Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, Johannesburg flutterwave's service allows consumers to pay for things in their local currency. Before flutterwave, there was no universal payment method in Africa for businesses to accept and transfer payments which significantly created a gap for businesses as well as consumers. African businesses have a hard time accepting payments within the continent as well as outside. This digital divide also makes it difficult for companies like Google, Netflix,Amazon and Facebook to accept local payments from African customers.This was one of the motivating factors for one of the co-founders, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji to leave Andela ( a company he had recently cofunded for flutterwave, a passion to place Africa on the global digital and payments landscape). 

In 2017, it was able to raise over $10 million in a Series A round of funding. The round was led by Greycroft Partners and Green Visor Capital with participation from Y Combinator and Glynn Capital which flutterwave used to get more talents and build it's global reach. 

To date, the company has processed more than $2.5 billion in payments (as of 2019, flutterwave) across 100 million transactions.  350 currencies across 30 African countries are currently accepted by flutterwave and a small service charge is collected from businesses, which it shares with banks. It has partnered with 50 banks in Africa and 1200+developers build on Flutterwave for a company that's 3years old that's laudable of course having a highly skilled team is evidently a plus as well. To advance their goal as the payments platform to be reckoned with, the Flutterwave team has integrated other foreign payments API to theirs, making transactions between buyers and sellers globally even more seamless. businesses that use flutterwave include Uber, flywire, OjaExpress, Kikikamu etc

Lifechanging Innovations 

Products that have been developed by flutterwave as it charts frontier leadership within the fintech industry include:

Rave (flutterwave for business) is a payment service created by flutterwave that enables merchants accept global payments from card, bank accounts and USSD. It supports payment from 150+ currencies which is a breathe of fresh air for African businesses. Rave has no set up or monthly fees costs, you can start with right away and only pay for the transactions you accept Rave is now connected to Xero, Quickbooks, Sage and Zoho.

GetBarter (flutterwave for consumers) is a lifestyle payment solution launched by flutterwave alongside Visa. Visa cardholders will be able to make payments within the app and make online and mobile transactions by attaching their card details to their GetBarter app profile while non-card carriers can generate a virtual Visa card upon registration. GetBarter users can carry out their business transactions, pay utility bills and send payments to thousands of  anywhere Visa is accepted globally.

FlutterWave's Challenges

Amidst these rave reviews (pun intended), there have been some reservations like one’s inability to securely capture a payment when you make use of your own forms, unlike its foreign peers: Stripe and Fattmerchant, that allow you to tokenize your credit card payments in a safe way, while allowing you to use your own forms. But it cannot be ignored, the unique abilities that Flutterwave possesses when it comes to payment on a continent where very few are in possession of credit cards is quite a feat on its own. 

Achievements

1.  2017 -  raised $10 million in a Series A  funding.
2. 2018 - completed an extension of its Series A funding round backed by global payments companies like CRE Ventures, Fintech Collective, MasterCard 4DX Ventures amongst others and raised a total of $20 million.
3.  2018 - Flutterwave received an award for the Best Payments Company at the Ghanaian eCommerce Awards ceremony in Ghana.
4.  By the end of 2018 there was 550% growth in the customer base for rave(flutterwave for business). Also it had 26,000 users and counting.
5. 2019 - Flutterwave partnered by Visa launch consumer payment product called GetBarter.
6. 2019 - Flutterwave currently partners hotels.ng on its internship project for young developers IN Nigeria.

In all if you are a business looking for a way to create a seamless payments system within your business within the African continent then flutterwave is your best bet for a seamless experience.

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SpaceX Merlin rocket engine explodes during testing at Texas facility

SpaceX suffered an explosion of one of its Falcon 9 rocket engines during qualification testing at its facility in McGregor, Texas, per The Verge. The failure resulting in the explosion occurred on Sunday, and the company is now underway with investigations designed to determine what went wrong that resulted in the incident.

The Merlin engine explosion did not result in any injuries to personnel, but the component was intended to be used during a launch late next year. Even so, it shouldn’t impact SpaceX’s launch manifest or plans going forward, according to the company.

For now, however, all testing at the McGregor facility is on hold while the investigation into the cause proceeds. Repairs might be completed before the investigation delivers its findings, however, and it will continue with its planned launches in the next few weeks while also running the investigation and sharing results publicly when appropriate.


SpaceX has had a very good year so far, with 16 total successful Falcon 9 launches – a great bounce-back from its more serious setback last September, when one of its Falcon 9 rockets exploded during pre-launch fueling with Facebook’s internet satellite on board.

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Amazon is selling its own private label diapers again, now under the Mama Bear brand

Amazon quietly launched its own private label diapers on its site last week, this time under the Mama Bear brand. The brand, which already sells other baby items like baby food and diaper pail refills, is now carrying size newborn through size 6 diapers. However, shoppers will have to request an invite to purchase the items, as they’re still being launched.

The arrival of Amazon’s own diaper brand follows reports from last year which claimed Amazon was planning to re-enter this market, after pulling its line of diapers sold under the Amazon Elements name back in January 2015.

While Amazon Elements continues to sell baby wipes, it more recently expanded to include vitamins and supplements – not other baby products.

But the success of Amazon’s baby wipes line may have rival diaper manufacturers fearing Amazon’s return to the market. Today, Amazon Elements wipes have achieved 14 percent market share, up from 9 to 10 percent since last year, notes the firm One Click Retail. Another brand, Water Wipes, have gained more market share in wipes, but Amazon Elements is the number 2 gainer, the firm said.



While still invite-only, Amazon’s new diapers area already proving to be a strong sales driver for the Mama Bear brand. The seven ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Number, or basically, an Amazon SKU) for these new diapers have now accounted for 38 percent of the brand’s sales.

In addition, Amazon launched a new diaper pail refill ASIN around three months ago. On its own, it accounted for 41 percent of Mama Bear sales last week.

In other words, diapers and the diaper pail refill combined accounted for around 79 percent of Mama Bear sales last week.



While Mama Bear sales have spiked before – such as during Amazon’s sales holiday, Prime Week – the launch of the new private label diapers led to the largest sales spike the brand has ever seen last week, says One Click Retail CEO Spencer Millerberg.


Amazon’s investment in its private label lines has been exploding in recent months, including fashion, home, and other verticals. Its latest additions, reported this week, were new lines of activewear clothing, via brands called Goodsport, Rebel Canyon, and Peak Velocity. It also just entered the furniture market, with brands called Rivet and Stone & Beam, following earlier expansions into lingerie, shoes and handbags, and plus-size fashion.

A number of Amazon’s private labels today have seen millions, or even tens of millions or hundreds of millions in sales. A prior report from One Click Retail found the AmazonBasics line, for example, has over $250 million YTD, or 85 percent of total private brand sales in the U.S.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s apparel label Lark & Ro and its baby care and vitamins brand Amazon Elements have each grown 90 percent year-over-year, with respective sales of approximately $5 million and $10 million, the report said.

The new Mama Bear-branded diapers are being manufactured through Kimberly Clark, a source familiar with the situation says.

The diapers also come in two pattern options, white and a bears print, and are sold as 4-packs, with a varying amount per pack, depending on the diaper size. They’re competitively priced with leading brands: for example, 128 newborn diapers will sell for $25.49 when launched; 216 size 1 diapers are $38.49; 184 size 2 diapers are $39.69; and so on.

For comparison’s sake, 128 newborn Pampers Swaddlers are $26.28 and 216 size 1 Huggies Little Snugglers are $37.04 – to give you an idea of diaper pricing in general.

When comparing four sizes of Pampers Swaddlers that did have exact equivalent pack sizes to Mama Bear’s packs, Amazon’s brand saved shoppers 11 percent to 17 percent.

For Amazon, the addition of its own diapers and other private labels will have a bottom line impact, due to their increased margins. Plus, in some cases, the labels are used to drive customers to subscribe to Prime, as the brands themselves are Prime-only. So far that’s been the case for Mama Bear products, but the diapers aren’t yet labeled this way. However, that could be because they’re still in invite mode.

Source: TechCrunch

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Apple’s iPad could drop the home button and add Face ID in 2018

Apple is reportedly working on a redesign of the iPad that includes dropping the Home button and slimming down the bezels on the top-end model, as well as adding facial recognition tech to allow for Face ID unlocking and more. Bloomberg says the redesigned iPad could make its consumer debut as early as next year.

The upgraded tablet would likely sit at the top of the iPad line, which would probably make it an iPad Pro, and would not pack in an OLED screen in addition to the other changes it would inherit from the iPhone X. It’s said to be similar in size to the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, at least (no word yet on a 12.9 version), with a release date late in the year.

Dropping the home button on the iPad would allow for a larger screen in the same physical footprint. Apple already reduced the thickness of the edges on the 10.5-inch version vs. the 9.7-inch model it replaced, to maximize screen real estate, and it could go further still with additional space savings from reducing the ‘chin’ of the front of the device.

Making OLED displays at scale for the new iPad would be too much of a technical and financial hurdle, according to the report, hence it not making the jump from iPhone X to iPad. But Face ID for unlocking will make its iPad debut, per Bloomberg’s sources, along with improved internal specs, and a brand new version of the Apple Pencil.


The report makes no mention of a ‘notch’ design that would eliminate most of the top bezel, as well. It’s possible that this wouldn’t make as much sense on a larger device like this which is often used for consuming video in landscape format.

Obviously, Apple taking the technical achievements of its iPhone X and spreading them around its other products was bound to happen, but if it really is in the next iPad revision then Apple’s moving pretty quickly to capitalize on its main iPhone X innovations.

Source: TechCrunch

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Amazon launches Alexa-less Fire TV Stick for international users of its Prime video service

We’re approaching one year since Amazon expanded its Prime video service to over 200 countries internationally, and today the company is doubling down on that global audience with the introduction of a ‘Basic Edition’ of its popular Fire TV Stick that ships to over 100 countries.

The company unveiled a much-improved third-generation version of the product in September, adding HD support, but, like its predecessor, availability is limited to the U.S. initially with little chance of hitting much of the world. That’s an issue with Amazon wants to marry the dongle with Amazon Prime Video viewers outside of its strongest markets.

This new Basic Edition is essentially the previous incarnation of the device but without voice commands via Alexa. Alexa has been omitted altogether — you’ll note the lack of a voice command button on the remote. That’s because Alexa products aren’t yet available in many parts of the world, although Amazon has just begun to ship the Echo to India and Japan will follow soon as it bids to expand in Asia.

The Basic Edition, like the previous Fire TV Stick, comes with 720p and 1080p up to 60fps video output, Dolby Audio, a 1.3 GHz processor, 1 GB memory and 8 GB of storage for apps and games. The price is advertised as $50 — it may vary based on location — which is more than the new $39.99 model.


It may seem a little cheeky that Amazon is charging more for essentially less here — Alexa being the main difference — but this is the first time that a Fire TV Stick has been available for direct shipping to many parts of the world. So even if you wanted a superior model you’d end up paying more — both in terms of shipping cost, and the hassle of getting a product moved to your country of choice. This new version also includes free shipping, another small bonus.

It’s a logical move for Amazon because the Fire TV Stick can drive adoption of Prime Video, but for now but — if you live in a country where Amazon’s core e-commerce business and the remainder of the Prime membership services are not present — it isn’t exactly deal of the century. Google’s Chromecast, one of the closet like-for-like competitors, has local resale options world in some parts of the world but, for many, this new Basic Edition might be the most attractive dongle — even when it isn’t tied to Amazon’s full quota of Prime Video services.

“Last year, we made Amazon Prime Video available to customers globally, and today, we’re building on that momentum as we introduce Fire TV Stick Basic Edition to new customers around the world. This makes streaming content from apps like Prime Video fast and easy and we can’t wait to hear what customers think,” Marc Whitten, vice president of the Amazon Fire TV business, said in a statement.

Source: TechCrunch

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BlackBerry confirms it will can its Classic smartphone

Goodbye to more tactile keys, and hello to planes of cool and smooth glass. Today, BlackBerry confirmed that it will stop making the Classic, one of the company’s last smartphone models based around a physical keyboard for inputting text, as the company prepares for a new series of phone designs based on Android and BlackBerry 10 platforms, and more attempts to compete in an increasingly lopsided smartphone market.

BlackBerry’s COO and GM for devices, Ralph Pini, confirmed the decision in a blog post published a little earlier, which itself appeared to be a belated response to news that leaked out by way of a U.S. Senate memo published by Politico before the long Independence Day weekend.

“Sometimes it can be very tough to let go,” he wrote. “As part of this, and after many successful years in the market, we will no longer manufacture BlackBerry Classic.”

To be clear, BlackBerry is not backing out of making any devices with physical keyboards. The Politico memo mentioned that a full range of BlackBerry OS 10 devices (“Q10, Z10, Z30, Passport, and Classic”) was getting discontinued, which would have covered yet more QWERTY models. But Pini writes that only the Classic would be going, and BlackBerry has confirmed the same directly to us.

“We continue to actively support sales of our BlackBerry 10 smartphones to customers in most markets. And for customers choosing our Android device as their next smartphone, there will be a seamless transition without any compromise to the security of their mobile platform or operations,” the company noted in a statement. “We believe that being truly cross platform – which includes support for BB10, Android, iOS and Windows Phone – will allow us to best serve our customers across the world.” While phone companies will stop selling these devices, BlackBerry notes you can still buy them unlocked while supplies last.

As part of this, the company said it will be releasing 10.3.3 next month, with another update next year.


In the meantime, pour one out for the model that arguably started it all, and may have even given the company its original fruity brand. (Hold it with your arm stretched out, and one of the original black Blackberry phones kind of do resemble one of the sweet berries that grows in the brambles in the forest.)

BlackBerry continues to have huge challenges ahead of it in the smartphone industry, and you could easily argue that the Classic was more important as an icon than as an actual business.

Once the early mover and market leader among all smartphones, BlackBerry accounted for only 0.2% of all worldwide sales in Q1 2016, according to Gartner. Android phones represented over 84% of all purchased devices.

The thinking seems to be that by pushing BlackBerry deeper into the realm of Android, it may pick up more users in a market that isn’t particularly strong on one brand: underscoring the fragmentation in Android, market leader Samsung only accounts for 23.2% of sales. iOS and Apple are close by at 14.8%.

In that regard, it’s particularly ironic that the Classic — which itself was a relaunched (in 2014) version of the company’s original design — is being discontinued: it was one of the few remaining phone models that you could distinctly make out in a sea of me-too, anonymous Android styles or iPhone lookalikes.

Next up, you have to wonder about the longer term fate of BlackBerry’s platform. The company has seen some major setbacks, with companies like Facebook pulling away from supporting the platform, which it lumped together with Symbian and older versions of Android in the “unfriend” pile. As the slow growth of Windows Phone demonstrated, popular app availability was one (but not the only) factor that kept consumers from buying those devices.

Source: TechCrunch

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Apple is building organ donation into iOS 10

Granted, it’s not the most cutting edge new feature for iOS 10, but it’s an important one, nonetheless. Apple issued a release this morning announcing that the company is teaming with Donate Life America to bring organ donation to its mobile operating system.

When iOS 10 rolls out this fall, it will include an option that makes it possible for users to become organ, eye and tissue donors “with just a few taps.” Those who register through the baked-in Health app will be added to the National Donate Life Registry. The app will also point interested parties to additional information.

“With the updated Health app, we’re providing education and awareness about organ donation and making it easier than ever to register,” Apple’s COO Jeff Williams said in the release. “It’s a simple process that takes just a few seconds and could help save up to eight lives.”


As the company notes, some 120,000 Americans are currently waiting for a transplant that could save their life, with a new person added to the list every ten minutes.

Source:TechCrunch

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Metro Africa Xpress Looks To Bring On-Demand Local Delivery To Urban Africa

Adetayo Bamiduro had to convince his co-founder Chinedu Azodoh that starting an e-commerce site wasn’t necessarily the best idea — at least, not yet. Instead, the two decided to start Metro Africa Xpress (or MAX, for short), a last-mile delivery service for urban Africa based in Lagos, Nigeria. MAX is launching onstage today at TechCrunch Disrupt London.

The service gives merchants a way to have their goods delivered to customers within three hours through a platform that can use an API the company built, as well as through text messaging and other platforms. Merchants summon MAX couriers through the platform and MAX charges the merchants based on distance instead of weight and other factors that logistics companies often use. In addition, traditional logistics companies currently can’t offer that kind of speed, which is largely the focus of MAX, Azodoh said.

“We hated the way things are done today — you have kilograms, measuring, everyone wastes time,” he said. “Typically, the whole process wasn’t well-organized or well thought out, so for us we do it to simplify the process and make it easy to use our platform.”

MAX does have crowdsourced couriers, but it also has a baseline staff of people to deliver packages on branded motorcycles. The couriers they employ full-time are paid on a salaried basis, while its crowdsourced couriers — if the demand is there — get paid per delivery. Around 70% of the drivers are full-time, Azodoh said on stage.

The pair is from Nigeria, and they went through TechStars (one of the first to come out of Nigeria). Azodoh said they built MAX in Africa to help encourage others on the continent to start companies.

“When you look at the landscape, there weren’t many successful companies that were African-owned, it made it difficult for younger people to look up,” Azodoh said. “Cities in Africa have some of the highest urbanization rates compared across the world. With more and more coming into the system, it’s very important we have things that you can look up to, and say hey, if MAX has done it, I can do it.”

Another reason they built the company in Africa is they want to enable retailers to grow by giving them the tools to actually deliver their goods — which is a natural precursor to growing, you’d expect. On the e-commerce side, one of the reasons it hasn’t hit the penetration rate that is seen in the UK and the United States is that there isn’t a good infrastructure for delivery, he said.

“When you look at comparable markets, the growth of e-commerce has directly correlated with the appearance of strong last-mile delivery,” Azodoh said. “Our main goal is to empower retailers and consumers across the company. The most effective way to do that is to provide last-mile delivery. That provides a real way of commerce workflow.”

Of course, there is the elephant in the room: Uber. The company could end up going after the same space that MAX is going after, given its history of being an aggressive — and well-funded — company with a knack for handling trips from one point to another. Azodoh knows that there’s a chance that Uber could be gunning for them eventually, but said he’s just heads down working on the company right now.

“The great thing has been focusing on executing and executing like crazy,” he said. “We want to get things done as fast as possible. We’re not too focused on what the competitors are doing. We love them and respect them; we don’t use that as a scale of measurement of our performance.”

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Google Adds More Music, TV And Movie Content To Mobile Search, Including Recommendations

An update to Google search rolling out to mobile users is putting a greater emphasis on music and media, including recommendations on songs, TV shows, movies, and more. Now, when searching for things like singers, actors, films and other related items, Google will return enhanced results that provide information like lyrics, covers, or song recommendations for music searches, as well as details on past and current TV episodes, information about the cast, movie showtimes and other items.

To some extent, Google was already offering this information in Google Search previously. For example, it introduced song lyrics around a year ago, pointing web searchers to lyrics from Google Play that appeared as cards just above Google’s search results, reducing traffic to lyrics websites in the process.

Plus, Google’s “Knowledge Graph” – an enhancement to the search engine which provides direct answers to queries by understanding the content found in web pages – has been featuring information about TV shows and movies for some time, including things like showtimes, and even critics’ reviews,announced earlier this summer.

However, with the update, this information has more structure. For instance, a search for a particular singer takes you to a new interface where you can tap your way through tabs that offer you an overview of their work, as well as tabs that list their songs, albums, and upcoming events. You can even listen to their music via services like YouTube, Spotify, Google Play Music, and iHeartRadio – which had also been supported before via Google Search results.


A similar experience is available for actors, film and TV content, which puts Google search in more direct competition with services like Amazon’s IMDb. When introducing the update via its blog post, Google even suggests you could use this feature for the same reason that users would otherwise turn to a site like IMDb, saying: “maybe you’re watching a TV show and can’t remember where you’ve seen that actor before?”


What’s interesting about the update, too, is that Google will also show what’s related to the item in question by showing you other things people have searched for as part of its recommendation system. It’s also pointing searchers to suggestions about what to watch next, and movie showtimes through this interface.

The update is currently available only to mobile users on Android phones and tablets, but Google says it will arrive for iOS users in the near future.

Source: Techcrunch

Images: shutterstock/bloomua

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Android Wear Presents Timely Competition For Apple Watch

The wristwatch has been a fashion accessory for almost 450 years, but technology has transformed what was once a mere timepiece into a $30 billion industry. At the heart of this movement is the Apple Watch, a reimagining of the wristwatch that has turned the space on its ear by marrying wearable tech wizardry with sleek, modern design.

With the inclusion of tech, something else interesting has also happened to the humble wristwatch: It has developed the potential to be a valuable business tool, as well.

With 38 different watches available, Apple has called its Watch the most personalized device it has ever created. But there’s still a chance for a competitor, like Google Android Wear, to take a bite out of the Apple Watch market share — and enterprise usability just might be a key point of difference.

Android Wear devices offer many tools and services that can positively impact the daily life of corporate users. Android Wear’s biggest value-add for both regular consumers and professional users is the ability to communicate through the smartwatch itself. Because it syncs to your phone, all of your alerts and notifications get pushed directly to your wrist — and that wrist vibration can keep you from missing calls in meetings or in loud occupational environments like server rooms or manufacturing floors.

Plus, those who travel for work will benefit from Android Wear’s travel cards, which pop up when a trip is scheduled in your Google calendar. This means QR codes for boarding passes load to your wrist, as do hotel reservations, local traffic conditions and turn-by-turn driving directions, when needed.

Features like these might be Google’s ticket to get ahead in the smartwatch segment. There are many potential paths to this possibility — but here are three ways it could finally pluck Apple Watch from its place at the top of the heap.
Delivering A Swiss-Made Smartwatch

To date, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Asus and Sony have all released Android Wear watches. Those brands have one thing in common: None of them are watchmakers.

On the other hand, the Swiss produce only a little more than 2 percent of the world’s watches, but capture more than half the global watch revenue. They produce some of the finest watches in the world, and Swiss watchmakers have accumulated thousands of patents that cover everything from clasps to mechanical function. Even the watch faces themselves are valuable: In 2012, Apple reportedly paid $21 million to the Swiss Federal Railway service to use its iconic watch-face design for the clock in iOS6.

Technology has transformed what was once a mere timepiece into a $30 billion industry.

To deliver the ultimate in modern form-meets-fashion, the answer is fairly simple: bring smartwatch technology into mechanical and quartz watches without sacrificing quality or style. In other words, get the Swiss on board! Not only would it be a boon to smartwatch buyers who don’t want to sacrifice fashion for function — it also could help Swiss watchmakers survive the digital age.
Harnessing The Power Of Project Ara And Android Wear OS

Google has spent a lot of time recently trying to regain control over Android. There’s been an uptick in Chinese OEMs leveraging the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), as well as momentum behind Cyanogen. This has resulted in Google preventing customization of some newer product releases, like Android Wear.


However, if Google completely open-sourced Android Wear, it would allow manufacturers to customize the OS for specific use cases, like for divers, pilots and the military. It could also ease the incorporation of Android Wear into Project Ara.

Project Ara is Google’s open hardware initiative for smartphones. The idea is to modularize the components of a phone (CPU, storage, camera, etc.) into an open platform to which any engineer — not just large hardware manufacturers — can contribute modules. These modules can be “hot swapped” or changed on the fly.

For example, an old camera module can be unplugged from the phone’s endoskeleton frame, and replaced with a newer high-resolution camera. Or you can choose to remove your Bluetooth module and add extra storage.

Google could bring together traditional Swiss craftsmanship with Silicon Valley technology.

This is a great initiative, but right now, it’s limited in scope. Why stop at smartphones? The components that live in a smartwatch, like the CPU, Bluetooth and storage, can easily fit inside a traditional watch. This is the integration point between Google and the Swiss. Project Ara for Android Wear, integrated into a Swiss watch, gives consumers the best of both worlds.

For example, you don’t need to worry about a smartwatch becoming dated, as the components can be upgraded as needed. Even better, you can keep your beloved Swiss mechanical function and watch face.
Thinking Outside the Box — And The Watch Face

Both Google and Apple stress that their product is more than just a watch. At Google IO, they are quick to point out that more than 4,000 apps have been created for their device. Today, the most interesting apps don’t even require an electronic display on the watch, such as functions for payment, identity, audio commands and fitness.

Imagine being able to hold up your Breitling to the NFC payment reader at your local supermarket to buy groceries, or automatically unlocking your car door with your Patek Philippe. Go out on a run and have your Swiss Army watch record your workout. Channel James Bond and talk into a microphone in your Omega Seamaster. The use-cases and customizations are endless and exciting.

Even better news? There is precedent for these types of partnerships. Google recently partnered with Levi’s on Project Jacquard to bring gesture and touch-sensing textiles to the masses.

Is there still a window for Google to win the smartwatch race, and drive billions in new revenue into the watch industry? Yes. By leveraging its hardware platform, Project Ara, and completely open-sourcing the Android Wear operating system, Google could bring together traditional Swiss craftsmanship with Silicon Valley technology into packages that deliver variety, and allow more consumers to become smartwatch owners.

Source: Techcrunch

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Samsung Gear S2 is More than your Average Smartwatch

Samsung has unveil its new smartwatch, and the Samsung Gear S2 is more than your average Smartwatches, which comes with a realistic watch style rendering. You could switch your watch interface according to your taste.

Being a design person, i think i would personally score Samsung Gear S2 a 100% mark. It's not just adorable it's also packed with useful applications like the sHealth application that can monitor your daily activities.

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  Monitor daily activity levels

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  Track water vs. caffeine intake

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  Measure your pulse

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  Select type of exercise

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  Count your steps

Samsung Gear S2 also comes with different variation and specs, so there'll definitely be one that will fit into your budget, hopefully.

The Samsung Gear S2 could as well become a game changer in the Smartwatch industry, and i am predicting a great sales for samsung provided the price of the device is reasonable. Regardless, i would definitely love to have one.  :) 

There’s no pricing or availability yet but you can check out the official ad for Samsung Gear S2.

Report by:TechVersusMan

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