The rise of E-commerce in Nigeria

Without a doubt Nigeria is one of the fastest growing economies on the African continent. Its largest city, Lagos, is rapidly becoming an important economic hub for this developing country and E-commerce and trade sites are playing a big role in this meteoric rise. One day Nigeria will have the largest GDP in Africa and the development of an “Amazon Africa” will surely become an inherent cog in the future economic machine.

The internet is now the fastest and easiest mechanism for profitable trade. People in Nigeria commonly use e-commerce sites to buy and sell second hand products online through free-classifieds sites like this one. On these African online websites you can notice how much costs are cheaper than Occidental markets. For example you can find an Apple iBook Laptop for $90 while on EBay the same computer costs more than $100. This proves that the growing market is evolving into an opportunity for investors. It will also help startup companies survive by being able to purchase cheaper goods.

One of the biggest challenges that E-commerce trade websites face is the actual delivery of goods throughout the continent. Since many of the countries in Africa do not yet have the modern infrastructure to support the efficient shipments of goods, it is pushing investors to look towards other means of delivery systems such as drones to get the purchased goods to the consumers. This will truly make or break some of the new sites emerging in Nigeria and other African countries. The terrain and climate plays a big role in reaching communities detached from major cities such as Lagos. Therefore whichever company finds a way to effectively reach the entire internet consumer community indiscriminately, will take advantage of this rapidly growing market. This type of vehicle for transportation will even help in cities as well. Lagos, for example, does not have the infrastructure to support its 20 million large population that is growing exponentially by the year. It is a nightmare to navigate for drivers and delivery trucks alike, so the race is on for E-commerce sites to find a solution.

Google commits $50M to encouraging girls to code

Google’s $50 M for Made with Code Initiative

With all intent and purpose to bring along more women in the technology industry, Google has planned to fund in $50 million into it’s`Made with Code’, initiative and would want more women in technology, encouraging them to learn how to code, in an effort to give equal status to them.

Recently the company launched the Made with Code initiative with celebrities like the former first daughter Chelsea Clinton and the actress and comedienne Mindy Kaling. The event was emceed by Kaling who informed that she had a whole lot of ideas for apps but had no knowledge on how to make them work, which is the plight of several other women all over where most of them have no idea on how to build them up.

According to the Labour Department, only around 20% of software developers are women in the US with Google recently admitting that only 17% of its tech workers are women.

Made to Code Website Designed to Motivate Girls

This gender issue is a big problem for Google as well as several other technical companies, who may be in need of qualified engineers to enhance growth and innovation in their industry and Google who is keen on increasing these numbers in women is making headways in bringing about this change.

 Recently the company started the Made with Code website designed to motivate young girls in middle and high school to learn how to code and the company also announced about funding the project along with key partners like Girl Scouts of the USA and Girls Inc., for $50 million for the next three years.

Kaling who admits being famous stated that she had never written code and like many other women, she too was a outsider in the all-boys world and yet managed to find success. She further went on to relate that girls needed to be encouraged to become the next generation of coders because they needed to play bigger role in the tech-driven society.

Learn to Code Software

The concept of Google’s `Made with Code’, initiative is created to motivate them in getting them into role models to follow along with ideas on how computer coding can fit into their activities as well as interest which they love.

The website launched at the event also features many female engineers, entrepreneurs as well as artist, most of those who had used their knowledge of computer coding in order to pursue their careers in fashion, animation, cancer research, music, dance and much more. Besides this it also makes available Google’s free Blockly learn-to-code software which teaches in one lesson to design a bracelet which is then 3D printed by Shapeways.

The software also teaches how to create animated GIFs or even build beats for music track. Megan Smith, Google X Vice President informed that learning to code is like learning to read and the best way to learn is to be exposed to it. She also stated that encouragement at home and school is critical to inspiring girls to even try coding and further added that parents need not be techies to encourage a love of technology.

Radio Apps That Will Enchant the Audiophile within You part. 2

XIIALive Internet Radio 

The Android platformoffers the user a highly overwhelming music experienceswhere there is so much to explore that which will take a lifetime to hear every song that has been featured on each of these apps. The Visual Blasters LLC, makers of XIIALive have come up with strong user friendly interactive and intuitive app for music, for all music lovers and with a simple interface which is not too fancy but a face kind of graphics, this type of app is much simpler and easy to comprehend. Some of the main features of the XIIALive app which appear on the home screen are: Genres, Search, Top Hits, Favourites, History, Settings, Directions and Player. Though the settings seem simple, the interface gives the user to a large extent; a feel of a Radio Jockey with the designing on the app created with this intention. On entering the main screen, the listening page is divided into three sections, the topmost being the swipe section. If the user is on thePlayer section, they can horizontally swipe the screen and to reach another section, can click on it to enter it.

Main Player Screen – Indication of Station/Frequency

Beneath it is the main player of the screen with the indication of the station and the frequency that is playing. Besides this one also gets the bandwidth along with the speed at which the data is received together with the name of the artist enabling the user to keep track of what is being played for future listening options. The choice to tag, share and even broadcast the song directly through the app is also available so that others can also get to know what you are listening through the app. With the help of the option tab, user can look for multiple other settings. An added feature to this is that the user can control the volume from the main screen below which is the Stop and Pause button as well as the next and backward option of the songs to be played. Below this is the streaming option together with the bar which shows what part of the song is being played. Users can also have the list of top hits from that charts created at the back end by DJs across the app in order to get the best musical experience.

Powered by Shout Cast with Various Radio Stations

Moreover, the XIIALive app’s white colour interface can be inverted and changed to black since the app supports two opposite in colour themes for extreme set of users and in terms of the themes for the app besides these two, there is nothing much in it. The equalizer enables them to search around with the sound in order to get some good listening experience according to their choice. Powered by Shout Cast, the XIIALive app has around 50,000 radio stations and if one does not find a song, Shout Cast directs the user to other areas to locate the song one is searching for. Besides this, the app also helps to fall asleep with the timer and the stations to select from, to put you to sleep, providing a descending sound alarm. This app can be downloaded on Android device for free from Google Play Store.

Radio Apps That Will Enchant the Audiophile within You part. 1

Radio.io - Feature Packed App

The app, Rad.io that has been designed by Radio.de, is a feature packed app which is more like an all in one app for radio stations all over the world. What makes this app so special in particular from all the radio apps on the Android space is that, it amalgamates somewhat from every other elite radio app present in the market. Though in comparison to other radio apps on Google Play Store, the fact of the feature is that it helps to make this app worth mentioning with regards to radio app, since Android and Rad.io seems to be a well-structured app which will ensure that the user has all the radio needs all on a single platformand if one has observed other apps in the radio genre across the Play Store, one will see an easy simulation of everything in one place.

Black and Green Interface – Variety of Options

The Rad.io app in its black and green interface provides everything to listen to with genres which ranges from Jazz, Pop, Rock, Ballad, Digital etc.; with a variety of options to choose from. The list being endless, the user may add any of the stations of their choice in the favourites bar where these features divide the tab into three categories which are the favourites that are marked by the user. Besides this it also has favourite tab which has been marked by the team at the back end in order that you get the best choice along with recommendations from the editorial team. In case one has forgotten a song one wanted to listen to, the history can trace back and provide the information on all details needed. List of radio frequencies are also made available in the list view with the thumbnails of the radio station. From the side bar of the volume knobs on the phone, a volume control that can be alternatively accessed has been added which is located in the middle of the screen

Provides Popular Widget Compatibility

The Rad.io app also enables the user with the local radio station in a given area in order to get the best music in a given locality. Moreover it also provides popular widget compatibility which most users prefer to have since it is easy to use, making it a less tedious task with the app while searching for good music. The Rad.io also offers similar stations to select from recommending stations depending on the genre as well as the kind of artist music which plays on the phone. It has all the features combined into one screen which includes the heard last, editorial recommendations, individual favourites, and stations from current region along with the top hundred. Users can also instantly navigate to what had been heard last, hop to individual favourites or even skip to editorial recommendations and can select station from the current region and top 100 lists. To top it, users could also add in the sleep time and have a 4.3 star rated radio app for Android platform. The Rad.io can also be used as an alarm feature to wake you on some good new music giving a good start to the day with music ringing in your ears.

Top 5 Free Best Android Video Player Applications

Nowadays, the smartphones are used to make calls, send media messages and also they are used as a media player for the most of the teenagers in this globe.

You can use your mobile for watching high graphics videos, and the main thing is that, you can use various applications for watching the videos in the smartphones. One of my readers has asked me a question that which application is suitable for watching the high graphics videos in the mobile phone.

Basically there are loads of applications are available in the market for watching the high graphics videos. In this post, I have shared some of the apps that are also used as the audio player in the android devices. The top 5 android video player apps are given below and you can use these applications for both mobile phones and tabs.

MX Player App

MX player Application is a free video app. It is the best one among the others avails in the market. This player is the first one that supports the multi core decoding of the android. Most of the people use this app only.

Features 

• It has the simple user interface and it is easy to use.
• It Supports Multi-Core Decoding
• It Supports Hardware Acceleration.
• There is a screen locking option in order to avoid kid using other settings of your phone. It supports all video formats.
• It has the very feature called, Auto Resume Option.

VPlayer App

The people who all are watching YouTube videos more, VPlayer are the best player. It has the wonderful graphical user interface which is simple too. It is available only for trail about 7 days. After that you have to buy the unlocked version.

Features

• It uses Less Battery to play videos.
• From the VPlayer, it can able to play videos of the YouTube.
• Facebook videos can be played using VPlayer.
• It supports Hardware Acceleration.
• It will play HD Videos

MoboPlayer

It is the video player which plays almost 90% of the video formats.

Features

• It supports HD videos.
• It supports multi-subtitles and multi-audio streams.
• In this player videos can be streamed the protocols of HTTP, RTSP.
• Simple and Great User Interface.

Easy Video Player

The people who want privacy in their videos can use this Easy video player. This is the one and only player has privacy control settings. So it is differs from other players.

Features 

• It has privacy control on your videos.
• It supports all video formats.
• It enables the Wi-Fi transfer.
• It offers advanced video sorting.

BSPlayer

In order to use the simple player with good features, use BSPlayer.

Features 

• Kid Lock( screen lock) is there
• All video formats can be played.
• It is available in both free and paid options.
• Files directly from uncompressed RAR files can be played.