An electricity grid for the whole village
Problem: According to Yale Environment 360, a total of 1.3 billion people worldwide currently don’t have electricity. Getting people in rural areas on to the national grid is proving too difficult and traditional solar panels generate meagre amounts of energy.
Solution: Steamaco makes solar and battery micro-grids which can work for a whole village. They are small electricity generation and distribution systems that operate independently of larger grids.
How it works: Steamaco’s technology automates the regulation of electricity. So, if the system detects there will be a surge in demand for electricity, for example on a Saturday night when people want to start playing music for a party, or they see a dip in supply, like when the sun has gone down and so the grid is not collecting solar energy, then the grid automatically stops electricity for people it won’t affect too badly.
The system sends an automatic text to all customers on the grid saying that the electricity in houses is about to be cut off so that the hospital can keep on going.
A jacket that detects pneumonia
Problem: Pneumonia kills 27,000 Ugandan children under the age of five every year. Most of these cases are due to pneumonia being misdiagnosed as malaria.
Solution: Ugandan engineer Brian Turyabagye has designed a biomedical “smart jacket” to quickly and accurately diagnose pneumonia. The Mamaope jacket measures a sick child’s temperature and breathing rate. It can diagnose pneumonia three to four times faster than a doctor and eliminates most possibility for human error.
How it works: A modified stethoscope is put in a vest. It is linked to a mobile phone app that records the audio of the patient’s chest. Analysis of that audio can detect lung crackles and can lead to preliminary diagnoses.
A tablet to monitor your heart
Problem: It is difficult for people in rural areas to travel to the cities to see heart specialists. There are just 50 cardiologists in Cameroon, which has a population of 20 million people.
Solution: Arthur Zang invented the Cardio Pad – a handheld medical computer tablet which healthcare workers in rural areas use to send the results of cardiac tests to specialists via a mobile phone connection.
How it works: Cardiopads are distributed to hospitals and clinics in Cameroon free of charge, and patients pay $29 (£20) yearly subscriptions. It takes a digitised reading of the patient’s heart function. In a few seconds the results of a heart test are sent to a specialist clinic in the capital.
Hair inspiration app
Problem: A lack of accurate information about how to achieve certain hairstyles and where to find a high-quality stylist.
Solution: Three software engineers – Priscilla Hazel, Esther Olatunde and Cassandra Sarfo – invented Tress, an app to share ideas about hairstyles.
How it works: It is described by Okay Africa as a kind of Pinterest or Instagram for hair. Once you have downloaded the app, you can follow other people who are sharing their hairstyle. You can search specifically by place, price range and the type of hairstyle your want, from relaxed hair to cornrow.
You can then scroll until your heart’s content through people who have uploaded pictures of themselves with that style, tell them how much you like their style, ask how long it took, and even arrange to meet up with someone to style your hair.
A currency for paying online workers
Problem: There are online workers, specifically web developers, in Africa who people outside the continent would like to employ but it is difficult or prohibitively expensive to get their wages to them. Some don’t have passports, and so don’t have bank accounts either.
Solution: Bitpesa uses Bitcoin to significantly lower the time and cost of remittances and business payments to and from sub-Saharan Africa.
How it works: Bitpesa uses the crypto-currency bitcoin as a medium to transfer cash across borders. Bitcoin is a system of digitally created and traded tokens and people keep their tokens in online wallets.
It then takes the Bitcoin tokens and exchanges them into money in mobile money wallets – a popular way of paying for things in places like Kenya and Tanzania.
BitPesa is already used to pay online workers – a company called Tunga is using it as a way of getting wages from clients abroad to web developers in Uganda.
source: BBC News Africa

© Source: http://pctechmag.com/2017/01/here-are-the-five-african-inventions-to-look-out-for-this-year/
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Easily the most anticipated game this year is that of GTA 6. Following on from the monumental success of GTA 5 , which has sold over 70 million copies since its release in 2013, the new instalement has a lot to live up to. This could explain why the franchise developer Rockstar Games is taking its time, making sure that everything about the next open world adventure meets the standards of its illustrious predecessor.
Details about the upcoming title are still thin on the ground but we’ve collected everything we know so far into this article, which we’ll update regularly as new revelations come to light. So if you’re hungry to know what to expect after the last exploits in San Andreas, read on.
See also: Battlefield 1 review | Best PS4 games 2017 | 30 Most anticipated games of 2017
As Rockstar is yet to even confirm the existence of GTA 6 there is no set release date. We do know that the developer has recently announced the upcoming release of Red Dead Redemption 2 , so with that title finished it would make sense for the company to turn its attentions to the crown jewel itself.
There is no great hurry for Rockstar though, as the continued development of the GTA Online platform, alongside new additons such as the Tron inspired Online Deadline, means that there is plenty of life (and money) still to be found in the existing worlds.
We expect to see GTA 6 on both the Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles, with perhaps graphically revved versions for the new Xbox One S and Playstation Pro machines. PCs will hopefully see a faster release this time around, after lagging a couple of years behind the consoles in GTA 5. It’s also fair to say that GTA isn’t really the sort of title you’ll find on the new Nintendo Switch. Last generation consoles are likely to miss out this time around, with the predicted size and complexity of the GTA 6 world proving too much for PS3 and Xbox 360 hardware.
We can’t see Rockstar deviating much from the tried and tested formula of an open world adventure with a strong, and most likely dark, narrative that sees players stealing cars, robbing banks, and pulling down buildings built on stilts. At least we hope not.
Two notable exceptions might arrive with GTA 6 though. One is a first-person mode to replace the classic third-person used on all the major GTA releases since GTA 3. This was actually added as an option in GTA 5 some time after the game was released, so it makes sense that it could be there from the start this time.
The other is a playable female character in the main storyline. GTA 5 did recieve quite a bit of criticism for its depiction of women, so this could go some way to alleviating that problem this time around. Plus it would just be interesting to have a woman protagonist and the storylines that this would open up.
It’s unclear whether the GTA: Online world would be updated to match that of the new title, especially after the troubled launch the online version had, so we’ll have to wait and see.
This is perhaps the biggest question of all. We know from past interviews that Rockstar begins designing the games once its settled on the right location, so the choice of city will directly afffect the tone and feel of the game. In the past Rockstar has looked at Tokyo as a potential setting, and London has already appeared in one of the older top-down 2D GTA releases.
It’s more likely though that San Andreas remains the backdrop for the story, with the possibility that the new generation hardware finally allows Rockstar to do what it’s wanted to do for several years – actually have all the previous cities in one game! In a 2012 interview Rockstar North head Leslie Benzies stated that this was what they wanted to achieve, with players able to fly between locations. It would be an incredible accomplishment and offer gamers a truly enormous playground, but one problem seems a hard one to solve. With Vice City being so intrinsically tied to the 1980s, how would it work in a modern setting?
One to ponder, but if Rockstar can solve this conundrum then GTA 6 might sell even more copies than the title proceeding it.
We’ll keep updating this feature as and when more information comes to light. So be sure to check back regularly. In the meantime you could read our guide to the 30 Most anticipated games of 2017

© Source: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/feature/game/gta-6-release-date-rumour-roundup-3651601/
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When Amazon announced the Echo, it’s likely even they were not prepared for the response to the device, and Echo is the primary funnel to Amazon Alexa, which is their intelligent personal assistant, which has been so successful in the Echo as a voice based assistant. Today Lenovo is announcing they have partnered with Amazon to bring Alexa to the Lenovo Smart Assistant.
Lenovo’s take on the voice-based IoT assistant is available in three colors, and offers eight 360° far-field microphones with noise suppression and acoustic echo cancellation. All of this is to make it able to be used at up to distances of up to 16 feet, or 5 meters, away.
Lenovo will also be offering a Harman Kardon edition of the Smart Assistant, which will offer better quality speakers for an improved audio experience when using the assistant to playback music.
Some may be wondering why Lenovo would want to create such a device, but the device will be able to control Lenovo smart home devices, and is a foot in the door for them to be part of this arguably large IoT market. It will also work with many existing 3 rd party products as well.
The design is typical for this type of device, with a large cylinder meant to be used upright. A small footprint is ideal since these are almost certainly going to be used on a counter in a home. Lenovo’s multiple color options, as well as the Harman Kardon audio version, bring a bit more customization than perhaps you would see otherwise. The Lenovo Smart Assistant will be available in May starting at $130, and the Harman Kardan model will be priced at $180.
Lenovo is also announcing the Smart Storage solution, which is a NAS device meant to be used to sync between multiple devices in the home. There’s no doubt that our digital lives create an enormous amount of data, and the Smart Storage NAS will be available with up to 6 TB of space.
The design is certainly interesting, with an upright chassis that is much more appealing to look at than most NAS on the market, and the Smart Storage smarts include the ability to use facial recognition to organize your photo library. It features dual-band wireless access, as well as Ethernet and USB 3.0 ports. Lenovo’s press material doesn’t delve too deeply into the other software features of the Smart Storage, so we’ll have to wait for some hands-on time at CES this week.
Finally, Lenovo is also offering a new interesting take on the HTPC keyboard. One of the biggest issues with a HTPC keyboard is you want it to be wireless, portable, and easy to use, but often it would be handy to have access to a trackpad or pointer control. Lenovo’s solution is the Lenovo 500 Multimedia Controller, which offers a full keyboard experience, as well as a full track pad.
Where is the trackpad you might be asking? The entire keyboard is the trackpad. This gives a huge surface to use for pointer control, as well as Windows 10 gesture support, without adding extra space that would be necessary for its own trackpad. The trackpad defaults to 150 DPI, but can be set to up to 1000 DPI if needed. The keyboard connects over a USB dongle, which is on the 2.4 GHz spectrum, and it is powered by two AAA batteries that Lenovo says will give up to 8 months of use. It will be available in March for $54.
Source: Lenovo

© Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10957/lenovo-announces-the-alexa-powered-smart-assistant-htpc-keyboard-and-smart-storage-nas
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Phablet phans, rejoice: new rumors suggest the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 could be a huge upgrade when it arrives, with a 4K screen and improved VR skills being among the highlights.
Speaking to BusinessKorea , an official from one of Samsung’s partner companies said: “Samsung will introduce 2K resolution displays in the Galaxy S8 , but it will use 4K resolution displays in the Galaxy Note 8 to realize improved virtual reality functions.
« I heard that it will connect with new Gear VR wearable.”
A 4K resolution, even on the larger screens found on phablets, is unlikely to look much sharper than a QHD one when viewed normally.
However through a VR headset where the screen is right up against your eyes, that resolution boost makes a huge difference.
Coupled with the launch of a new Gear VR headset this could make for the best mobile VR experience yet – as long as it stays flame free.
And that’s not all the Galaxy Note 8 is said to offer, as the source adds an improved stylus features and a more secure iris scanner will also be included, along with the new AI assistant that’s said to be making its debut on the Samsung Galaxy S8.
Of course, all of this is just rumor for now, but it would make sense for Samsung to pack the Galaxy Note 8 full of improvements, as the company is going to want to do everything it can to banish the memory of the Galaxy Note 7 .
It’s still possible that Samsung will kill the Note brand altogether, but the specificity of this leak shows the brand is still considering creating a new Note.
We’re not expecting Samsung to launch the new phone any earlier than usual, with the Note 8 launch still coming in the second half of 2017 – likely around a year after the Note 7, in August or September.

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