Elon Musk set to hand over Twitter to new CEO. 2 other stories and a trivia

This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today

1. Elon Musk set to hand over to new CEO

Billionaire owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, has announced hiring a new CEO to oversee the management of Twitter.

Musk, who didn’t reveal the name of the new administrator, made the announcement in a recent tweet.

Musk tweeted: “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!”

Since the tweet made entry into public domain, there have been speculations in the media with the Wall Street Journal reporting that Comcast (CMCSA.O) NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino was in talks for the job.

The tweet stated that Musk is expected to transition from the role of chief technology officer of the social media platform within the next few weeks.

Recall that Musk took over as CEO of Twitter when he completed his $44 billion purchase of the company in October.

Since taking over the management of the platform, Musk has been disruptive and frugal, according to many industry analysts.

 

Trivia Answer: File compression is an example of what process?

A. Encoding
B. Dithering
C. Rasterizing
D. Digitizing

Answer: see end of post

2. Egyptian startup, Balad, closes 7-figure pre-seed funding round

Egyptian fintech startup Balad has announced closing a seven-figure USD pre-seed round of funding to launch its remittances platform amongst other developments.

The startup made the announcement in a statement seen by Ripples Nigeria on Friday, May 12, 2023.

Ripples Nigeria gathered Balad was founded in 2022 by Adham Azzam, Sally Asaad and Mohamed Assem.

The startup is a remittance-driven financial service provider catering for migrants and their families.

Speaking on the new raiser and vision for the startup, Azzam said:

“Acasia Ventures has been an instrumental lead investor for our pre-seed round, as it supported the founders from the start and facilitated our access to other funding partners.

“We are excited to leverage Acasia Ventures’ expertise, African connections and synergies with its portfolio companies.”

3. Google launches text-to-music AI for public use

Google has on Froday released MusicLM, a new experimental AI tool that can turn text descriptions into music.

The company stated that the new product was designed for Android and iOS users looking to try artificial intelligence for music.

According to Google, users can specify instruments like “electronic” or “classical,” as well as the “vibe, mood, or emotion” they’re aiming for, as they refine their MusicLM-generated creations.

According to analysts, deepfaked music still stands on murky legal ground, and the new Google product may fall into the mix.

Several lawsuits may make their way to the courts as music generated through AI “steal lines” from existing artistes.

Answer: Encoding

Encoding is the process of converting data from one form to another. While “encoding” can be used as a verb, it is often used as a noun, and refers to a specific type of encoded data. There are several types of encoding, including image encoding, audio and video encoding, and character encoding.

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