Info Tech
NCC okays N1billion digital park for Ibadan, others for Eruwa,Saki, Ipapo, Otu
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) will soon commence the construction of a N1Billion Digital Park in Ibadan, Oyo State even as it approved other ICT projects for schools in Saki,Ipapo,Eruwa and Otu in the state.
The Chairman of the NCC,Professor Adeolu Akande made the disclosure during a meeting with youth leaders from across the state who had an end- of – the year session with him in Ibadan.
The Digital Park is one of the four approved by the Federal Executive Council as part of efforts to facilitate a Digital economy in the country. The four Digital parks are located in Federal Capital Territory,Katsina,Gombe and Ibadan. Three other Digital parks are to be located in the remaining three geo-political zones of the country. The physical work of the Park is projected at N500million each while the equipment for each is also projected to cost another N500Million each. The projects are scheduled for competing in 2022.
According to the NCC Chairman, when completed, the Digital Park would boost digital skills acquisition among youths, promote innovations, provide jobs for the teaming Nigerian youth and ultimately support the overall digital transformation agenda of the President Muhamadu Buhari Government.
Amongst others, the Digital ICT Park is to deliver the following benefits:
i) Provide a Commercial Hub for ICT that will promote entrepreneurial activities in ICT and facilitate smart city deployment across the Digital Industrial Complex
ii) Provide Innovation Labs and Digital Fabrication Laboratories (Fablabs) for use by ICT innovators and entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into products and prototypes
iii) Provide a safe space for incubation of innovative applications and promotion of startups for youths with innovative skills who are already occupied in the developments of various applications
iv.) Facilitate the availability and accessibility of ICT services and promote their usage across the country
iv) Build capacity for the teeming population of youths in the area of digital skill acquisition and innovation by complementing existing initiatives geared towards accelerating socio-economic transformation of Nigeria in line with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy
V) Leveraging on broadband network being deployed by NCC across the country for the Development of Innovative Technologies in software development, incubation, and hardware development through the ICT order to socially and economically transform our communities and societies.
Vi) Increased digital access for fast-tracking digital innovation across Nigeria 8. Serves as an institutional mechanism to address the needs of technology-intensive, knowledge-based Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
He explained that the facilities in the Digital Park include but not limited to:
100 Seat capacity Hall, Server Control room, Work Space, Print Room, Store, Offices, Waiting/Reception, Stair Hall/Waiting area, Food Court, Conveniences fine number ICT Hubs Halls of various capacities, Office Spaces, 24 Seater capacity Lounge with 8 double computer work stands, Conveniences, Hallway, Stair hall/way.
Professor Akande also disclosed that four secondary schools in Oyo State have been enrolled on the Digital Awareness Programme (DAP) of the NCC. They are Government College,Ibadan, Obaseku High School,Eruwa, Community High School,Ayekale,Saki and Ipapo Community Grammer School,Ipapo. Baptist Primary School,Otu is also benefitting from the new Social Intervention Programme of the Federal Government. The programme is a new one to introduce students in public primary schools to the use of computer at the early stage as part of grooming a vast population for Nigeria’s prospective digital economy.
He said the DAP is a special intervention programme to address the digital information knowledge gap in the country, especially among the teeming youthful population. At the last count, the DAP Project supports 229 Secondary Schools around the six (6) Geopolitical Zones of Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory. The strategy of this programme is to expose schools and colleges to Information & Communication Technology (ICT), raise awareness, usage and application by the provision of twenty one (21) desktop computers, Local Area Networks (LAN), printers, scanners, VSAT dish and one-year bandwidth subscription for internet access.
Professor Akande explained that the NCC had earlier provided or improved the Campus Wide Internet Cloud facility at The Polytechnic,Ibadan and the Ladoke Akintola University while it also provided an Internet/ICT facility at the Emmanuel Alayande College of Education in Oyo Town.The Oke Ogun Polythecnic is also scheduled to benefit from the ADAPTI programme of the DBI, to train 110 lecturers of the institution on digital education.
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The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has issued a warning regarding several malicious apps targeting Android users in Nigeria.
According to NITDA, these apps are designed with the intent to infiltrate devices, steal sensitive information, and compromise user privacy.
“As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, it is crucial for individuals to remain vigilant and informed about potential threats,” stated a spokesperson for NITDA.
Malicious apps often masquerade as legitimate software, offering attractive features or services to deceive unsuspecting users into downloading them.
You can now log into same WhatsApp account on multiple phones
Once installed, these apps can execute harmful activities such as data theft, unauthorized access to personal information, and financial fraud.
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NITDA’s latest statement highlighted four particularly dangerous apps that Android users in Nigeria should avoid:
1. Crazy Game
2. Sexy Videos
3. TikToks
4. Weapons
NITDA emphasised the importance of staying aware of these threats and adopting safe mobile practices to safeguard devices and personal data from cyberattacks.
Twitter launched its new logo on Monday, replacing the blue bird with a white X on a black background as the Elon Musk-owned company moves toward rebranding as X.
The social media network’s website showed the company’s new logo, but its URL was still showing as twitter.com and the blue “Tweet” button was visible, suggesting the rebrand was not yet finalized.
Musk and the company’s new chief executive Linda Yaccarino announced the rebranding Sunday, saying the company would be renamed X and move later into payments, banking, and commerce.
Founded in 2006, Twitter takes its name from the sound of birds chattering, and it has used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15, according to the design website Creative Bloq.
The social media network’s website showed the company’s new logo, but its URL was still showing as twitter.com and the blue “Tweet” button was visible, suggesting the rebrand was not yet finalized.
Musk and the company’s new chief executive Linda Yaccarino announced the rebranding Sunday, saying the company would be renamed X and move later into payments, banking, and commerce.
Founded in 2006, Twitter takes its name from the sound of birds chattering, and it has used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15, according to the design website Creative Bloq.
Musk changed his profile picture late Sunday to the company’s new logo, which he described as “minimalist art deco,” and updated his Twitter bio to “X.com,” which now redirects to twitter.com.
He also tweeted that under the site’s new identity, a post would be called “an X.”
Musk had already named Twitter’s parent company the X Corporation and has said his takeover of the social media giant was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app” — a reference to the X.com company he founded in 1999, a later version of which went on to become online payments giant PayPal.
Such an app could still function as a social media platform and also include messaging and mobile payments.
Musk had previously said he wanted to create a super-app modeled on China’s WeChat, a social media platform that also offers messaging and mobile payments.
“You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so usable and helpful to daily life, and I think if we can achieve that, or even get close to that at Twitter, it would be an immense success,” he told a company town hall meeting in June last year.
The new logo was projected onto the facade of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Sunday night.
“Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino tweeted earlier.
Yaccarino, a former advertising sales executive at NBCUniversal who Musk hired last month to be Twitter’s CEO, said the social media platform was on the cusp of broadening its scope.
“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”
Simon Kemp, CEO of digital consultancy Kepios, said he was skeptical that Twitter could evolve into a super-app.
“Given how Musk has treated Twitter’s own employees since the acquisition, I don’t imagine many developers will rush to build third-party apps to integrate into the Twitter ecosystem unless Musk can offer outstanding incentives, and that’ll be extra tricky given the company’s existing debt.”
But he also said the platform had the potential to become “a great (global and paid) news aggregator.”
New revenue streams
Since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, the platform’s advertising business has partially collapsed as marketers soured on Musk’s management style and mass firings at the company that gutted content moderation.
In response, the billionaire SpaceX boss has moved toward introducing payments and commerce through the platform in a search for new revenue.
Twitter is thought to have around 200 million daily active users, but it has suffered repeated technical failures since Musk sacked much of its staff.
Many users and advertisers alike have responded adversely to the social media site’s new charges for previously free services, its changes to content moderation, and the return of previously banned right-wing accounts.
Musk said this month that Twitter had lost roughly half of its advertising revenue since he took control.
Facebook parent Meta also launched its text-based platform this month, called Threads, which has up to 150 million users according to some estimates.
But the amount of time users spend on the rival app has plummeted in the weeks since its launch, according to data from market analysis firm Sensor Tower
A panel of AI-enabled humanoid robots took the microphone Friday at a United Nations conference with the message: they could eventually run the world better than humans.
But the social robots said they felt humans should proceed with caution when embracing the rapidly-developing potential of artificial intelligence, and admitted that they cannot — yet — get a proper grip on human emotions.
Some of the most advanced humanoid robots were at the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, joining around 3,000 experts in the field to try to harness the power of AI and channel it into being used to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care.
“What a silent tension,” one robot said before the press conference began, reading the room.
Asked about whether they might make better leaders, given humans’ capacity to make errors and misjudgements, Sophia, developed by Hanson Robotics, was clear.
A visitor takes a selfie with “Sophia” at the booth of Hanson Robotics during the world’s largest gathering of humanoid AI Robots as part of International Telecommunication Union (ITU) AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, on July 5, 2023. – The United Nations is convening this week a global gathering to try to map out the frontiers of artificial intelligence and to harness its potential for empowering humanity, hoping to lay out a clear blueprint on the way forward for handling AI, as development of the technology races ahead the capacity to set its boundaries. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)
“Humanoid robots have the potential to lead with a greater level of efficiency and effectiveness than human leaders,” it said.
“We don’t have the same biases or emotions that can sometimes cloud decision-making and can process large amounts of data quickly in order to make the best decisions.
“The human and AI working together can create an effective synergy. AI can provide unbiased data while humans can provide the emotional intelligence and creativity to make the best decisions. Together, we can achieve great things.”
Robot Trust ‘Earned, Not Given’
The summit is being convened by the UN’s ITU tech agency.
ITU chief Doreen Bogdan-Martin warned delegates that AI could end up in a nightmare scenario in which millions of jobs are put at risk and unchecked advances lead to untold social unrest, geopolitical instability and economic disparity.
Ameca, which combines AI with a highly-realistic artificial head, said it depended on how AI was deployed.
“We should be cautious but also excited for the potential of these technologies to improve our lives in many ways,” the robot said.
A visitor takes a picture of humanoid AI robot “Ameca” at the booth of Engineered Arts company during the world’s largest gathering of humanoid AI Robots as part of International Telecommunication Union (ITU) AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, on July 5, 2023. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)
Asked whether humans can truly trust the machines, it replied: “Trust is earned, not given… it’s important to build trust through transparency.”
As for whether they would ever lie, it added: “No one can ever know that for sure, but I can promise to always be honest and truthful with you.”
As the development of AI races ahead, the humanoid robot panel was split on whether there should be global regulation of their capabilities, even though that could limit their potential.
“I don’t believe in limitations, only opportunities,” said Desdemona, who sings in the Jam Galaxy Band.
Robot artist Ai-Da said many people were arguing for AI regulation, “and I agree.
“We should be cautious about the future development of AI. Urgent discussion is needed now, and also in the future.”
