Culture

Ancient village that predates pharaohs discovered in Egypt

Published

6 years ago

September 3, 2018

One of the oldest-known villages in the Nile Delta, dating back to the Neolithic era, has been discovered in Egypt.

Chief archaeologist Frederic Gio said his joint Egyptian and French mission found silos containing animal bones and food, as well as pottery and stone tools, in the fertile Tell al-Samara, in the northern province of El-Dakahlia, around 90 miles north of Cairo.

It indicated human habitation as early as 5,000 BC, some 2,500 years before the Giza pyramids were built, Egypt’s antiquities ministry said.

“Analysing the biological material that has been discovered will present us with a clearer view of the first communities that settled in the Delta and the origins of agriculture and farming in Egypt,” said Nadia Khedr, a ministry official responsible for Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities on the Mediterranean.

Rain-based Neolithic farming may hold vital clues to a technological leap that led to irrigation-based farming along the Nile.

Egypt has been stressing its archaeological discoveries in recent years in a bid to revive its tourism industry after the destabilisation which followed the 2011 uprising.

Earlier this year Egyptian archaeologists said they had discovered a 4,400-year-old tomb near the pyramids outside Cairo.

The antiquities ministry said it was likely to have belonged to a high-ranking official known as Hetpet during the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt.

It included wall paintings depicting Hetpet observing different hunting and fishing scenes.

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Culture

MultiChoice targets illegal streamers in crackdown against piracy

Published

8 hours ago

October 9, 2024

Isaac Dachen

Satellite television services provider, MultiChoice, says it is now targeting illegal streamers in its renewed crackdown against piracy.

Frikkie Jonker, the Anti-Piracy Director for Broadcast and Cybersecurity at MultiChoice-owned Irdeto, in a statement on Tuesday, says the company now uses tools to analyse illegal streams and identify the individuals responsible for streaming pirated DStv content.

Jonker stated that authorities knew who the end-users of these pirate streaming services were and warned that MultiChoice would consider legal action against them once criminal proceedings against such operators had been finalised.

“We are going after the whole ecosystem,” Jonker said in response to a question asking who MultiChoice is targeting.

“The company has carried out several raids in recent months, resulting in the arrest of several suspects allegedly involved in pirate streaming operations.

“Suspects include individuals allegedly distributing pirate streaming devices and login credentials for illegal streaming services like Waka TV.

“We have identification tools that we can use to analyse a stream of a pirate operation. By analysing it, we can say that the stream is using account number ‘123’, and then we take that account down,” Jonker said.

Jonker emphasised the importance of the crackdown, stating that the impact of pirate streaming services on platforms such as DStv Stream and Netflix is difficult to quantify due to their size.

Culture

Online streaming platform Spotify increases price for its Nigerian premium subscribers by 40%

Published

2 days ago

October 7, 2024

Isaac Dachen

Online audio streaming platform, Spotify, has announced an immediate increment in price for its premium subscribers in Nigeria by over 40%.

In a statement announcing the price increase, the platform said the hike in the fee would allow the team to continue innovating on its product offerings and features, providing users with the best experience.

In the notification, Spotify informed that starting from their billing date in November, their subscription price would change from ₦900/month to ₦1,300/month.

The latest price update puts the Premium subscription plan at ₦7,000 ($4.40) monthly, up from the initial ₦5,000 ($3.14), indicating a 40% rise.

The platform had in April, hiked its Premium Plan price from ₦4,400 ($2.76) to ₦5,000 ($3.14).

However, it added that users who do not wish to continue paying for Premium at the new price can cancel via their account page.

Spotify has also introduced Offline Backup to its Premium users globally, allowing them to listen to music offline without needing to download, with the
Offline Backup appearing in the Home feed when users are offline, and can listen to more than five songs once they have offline listening activated.