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Wednesday, 7 January 2015

WhatsApp now has 700 million users

2015-01-07 14:15

Johannesburg - Popular instant messaging service WhatsApp has grown to half the size of social media giant Facebook.

On Wednesday, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum announced the service’s latest user numbers.
"Today, we’re thrilled to share that WhatsApp has more than 700 million monthly active users. Additionally, every day our users now send over 30 billion messages," Koum said.

Facebook also acquired WhatsApp last year for $19bn, a move that has boosted the combined user reach of the two social media services.

Photo-sharing web app Instagram was also bought by Facebook for $1bn in 2012.
Instagram announced last month that it has more than 300 million users, overtaking Twitter’s reported 284 million active users.

Facebook recorded 1.35 billion monthly active users as of September 30, 2014.

South Africa social media stats
The World Wide Worx and Fuseware SA Social Media Landscape 2015 report ranked Facebook as the number one social media network in South Africa with 11.8 million users.

WhatsApp follows with 10 million users in SA, according to the study.
Meanwhile, Instagram grew from 680 000 active users in 2013 to top 1.1 million in 2014 and Twitter has 6.6 million users in SA.

The World Wide Worx and Fuseware research also noted how South Africans are increasingly turning to their phones to access social networks.

“The most significant finding, aside from the growth itself, was the extent to which social networks are being used on phones in South Africa,” said Arthur Goldstuck, MD of technology market researchers World Wide Worx.

“No less than 87% of Facebook users and 85% of Twitter users are accessing these tools on their phones,” he said.
Fin24

J&J starts clinical trials of Ebola vaccine

2015-01-07 14:19
Johnson & Johnson has started clinical trials of its experimental Ebola vaccine, which uses a booster from Denmark's Bavarian Nordic, making it the third such shot to enter human testing.

In clinical development
The initiation of the Phase I study, which had been expected about now, marks further progress in the race to develop a vaccine against a disease has killed more than 8,000 people in West Africa since last year.
Two other experimental vaccines, one from GlaxoSmithKline and a rival from NewLink and Merck, are already in clinical development.
U.S.-based J&J says it had produced enough vaccine to treat more than 400,000 people, which could be used in large-scale clinical trials by April 2015, and a total of 2 million doses would be available through the course of 2015.

It also expects to be able to make enough vaccine for 5 million treatments, if required, over a 12- to 18-month period.

Just how much Ebola vaccine will be needed depends on how quickly the epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is brought under control and declines. Currently, experts project demand at anywhere between 100,000 and 12 million doses.

'Prime boost' approach

The initial stage of first-in-human testing with J&J's vaccine is being conducted by experts at the University of Oxford, where the first of 72 healthy volunteers will get different regimens combining the vaccine components or placebo.

Additional clinical studies are planned in the United States later this month and soon after in Africa.
The J&J and Bavarian vaccine uses a so-called "prime-boost" approach of giving a first shot to stimulate the immune system, followed by a second booster a few weeks later.

The GSK and NewLink vaccines have been tested initially as single shots, although there is growing debate as to whether two-stage vaccination might be a more strategic option, since it is likely to provide better protection. The downside is that it would make mass immunisation more complicated

- Reuters

Hollande: Paris shooting a terrorist attack

2015-01-07 14:26

Paris - French President Francois Hollande has labelled the shooting at Paris newspaper Charlie Hebdo as a terrorist attack.

Black-hooded gunmen shot dead at least 11 people at the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper on Wednesday, a publication firebombed in the past after publishing cartoons lampooning Muslim leaders and the Prophet Muhammad, police said.

President Francois Hollande headed to the scene of the attack after government confirmed it was raising France's security level to the highest notch.

"This is a terrorist attack, there is no doubt about it," Hollande told reporters.
Another 10 people were injured in the incident and police union official Rocco Contento described the scene inside the offices as "carnage".

"About a half an hour ago two black-hooded men entered the building with Kalashnikovs (rifles)," witness Benoit Bringer told the TV station.

"A few minutes later we heard lots of shots," he said, adding that the men were then seen fleeing the building.
France is already on high alert after calls last year from Islamist militants to attack its citizens and interests in reprisal for French military strikes on Islamist strongholds in the Middle East and Africa.

British Prime Minister David Cameron described the attack as sickening.
Late last year, a man shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest") injured 13 by ramming a vehicle into a crowd in the eastern city of Dijon.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said at the time France had "never before faced such a high threat linked to terrorism".

A firebomb attack gutted the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a publication that has always courted controversy with satirical attacks on political and religious leaders, in November 2011 after it put an image of the Prophet Muhammad on its cover.

The last tweet on Charlie Hebdo's account mocked Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, which has taken control of large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Reuters

Akpoborie hits out at Keshi

2015-01-07 13:18
Lagos - Former Nigeria international Jonathan Akpoborie has joined the growing list of football stakeholders in the country, who do not think that Stephen Keshi is the right man to coach the national team.

That Keshi isn't currently involved with the national team does not appear to be relevant, as the Nigeria Football Federation has yet to make a permanent appointment. However, Akpoborie thinks it is important to let the federation know that when it finally does make a final decision, Keshi must be excluded from the discussion.

"For those who know about the technicality of the game, it is obvious that from what we have seen in the last two years Stephen Keshi is not good enough for our national team," said Akpoborie.

"Though we won the Africa Cup of Nations, it is clear we have not improved and I keep wondering why he was brought back after the NFF let him go.

"It took Victor Moses' individual brilliance to see us qualify for the knockout stage of the 2013 Afcon, most times we bank on Ahmed Musa to rescue us and that has been our problem. You don't need to depend on a particular player every time.

"When I say a coach is not good enough, it's not just picking eleven players. It's virtually about an in-depth knowledge of the game. We are not yet ready to have an indigenous coach lead the Super Eagles.

"How many good foreign coaches have been brought into the country? Berti Vogts was already finished when he was hired. You want to talk about Lagerback? No, he wasn't good enough. In Europe, he wasn't good enough, how then could he have been good enough for our boys who play topflight football in Europe?
"Bring a very good coach and you will see the difference," he concluded.

Asa finds love

2015-01-07 13:18
Lagos - Soul singer, Asa says she has found love in the arms of a foreigner, reports Nigerian Entertainment Today(NET).

The singer whose real name is Bukola Elemide is currently in Lagos where she recently shot the video for her song, ‘Eyo’ off her 3rd album titled Bed of Stones.

She revealed this while speaking to Tolu Oniru (Toolz) on Beat Fm 99.9 on Tuesday.

The country’s biggest soul export, will be touring Europe for three months from February.

The soul singer who released her third studio album on the 25th of August 2014 will start in Berlin and end it in France.

The tour starts on February 18, 2015 and end on 10th of April, 2015 at La Belle Electrique, Grenoble, France.

Read more at NET