TechNigeria: A weekly digest of what went down in Nigeria’s tech space

Lazerpay, SpaceX, Twitter, Amazon, OurPass, ChatGPT, Sumitomo, OpenAI, Google, Alibaba, Twitter were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

Nigerian crypto and web3 company, Lazerpay, has halted its operations after its inability to raise funding.

Also, Italian data protection agency has announced plans to approve ChatGPT’s resumption in Italy if it meets the data watchdog’s demands.

Let’s get into details.

Nigerian crypto and web3 company, Lazerpay, has halted its operations after its inability to raise funding.

This was contained in a statement from Njoku Emmanuel, founder, and CEO of Lazerpay on Friday.

Lazerpay, which debuted in 2021, functioned like Stripe except for cryptocurrency.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has granted a license that will allow Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch its Starship rocket to orbit for the first time.

The license, which will set the company for a test flight into space, was approved by the regulatory board in a statement seen by Ripples Nigeria on Saturday.

“After a comprehensive license evaluation process, the FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy, payload, airspace integration and financial responsibility requirements,” the FAA said in a statement.

Twitter on Friday unveiled a new feature that enables Blue subscribers to send posts with 10,000 characters or more.

‘Twitter Write’ disclosed the new feature on its handle seen by Ripples Nigeria on Friday.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, also disclosed that the social media site would provide subscribers with access to long-form text and hours-long video.

Amazon has revealed a suite of technologies to boost chatbot development amid AI competition between Microsoft and Google.

Vasi Philomin, vice president of generative AI at AWS disclosed the development in a statement on Friday.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), billed as the world’s biggest cloud computing provider, took a different approach in the race with AI.

A one-click checkout company, OurPass, has announced rebranding to become a global neobank for businesses.

Samuel Eze, Founder, and CEO of OurPass disclosed this in a statement on Thursday.

Launched in 2021, OurPass provides businesses with access to banking, payment, and business management tools to enable them start, grow and scale their businesses.

A learning management system, LMS365, built into Microsoft 365 and Teams, has raised $20M in funding.

READ ALSO:TechNigeria: A weekly digest of what went down in Nigeria’s tech space

CEO Rasmus Holst confirmed the funding in a statement on Thursday.

LMS365 enables customers to design their courses from scratch or import them from a third party, such as Go1 or LinkedIn Learning, with whom LMS365 just established a relationship.

Italian data protection agency has announced plans to approve ChatGPT’s resumption in Italy if it meets the data watchdog’s demands.

An Italian spokesperson disclosed the development in a statement on Thursday.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that following a temporary restriction on the processing of personal data and the launch of an investigation into a potential violation of privacy laws by the Garante authority, OpenAI temporarily shut down ChatGPT in Italy.

A Japanese company, Sumitomo Electric Wiring Systems, has obtained the Golden license with plans to invest $100m in Egypt to expand its electric wire factory.

Egypt’s CEO of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, Hassan Hamed confirmed the investment plans in a statement on Wednesday.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that Sumitomo obtained the license to build the world’s largest factory for the manufacturing of electrical wiring harnesses for vehicles with investments at US$100 million.

OpenAI has announced a $20,000 bounty to users for reporting vulnerabilities in its systems.

The firm behind chatbot sensation ChatGPT disclosed this in a media release seen by Ripples Nigeria on Wednesday.

According to the release, the OpenAI Bug Bounty program will offer rewards to people based on the severity of the bugs they report, with rewards starting from $200 per vulnerability.

At its campus in Asan, Korea, Samsung Display and Ferrari signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Tuesday to work together to create a display solution that would be used in Ferrari’s upcoming vehicles.

JS Choi, President and CEO of Samsung Display, and Benedetto Vigna, CEO of Ferrari, confirmed the partnership in a joint statement.

According to the statement, the partnership is set to develop the latest display solution to be implemented on Ferrari’s next-generation cars.

South Korea’s authorities have fined Google $31.88 million for blocking the release of mobile video games on a competitor’s platform.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) stated on Tuesday that Google, by requiring video game developers to exclusively release their titles on Google Play in exchange for providing in-app exposure between June 2016 and April 2018, increased its market dominance and harmed the revenue and platform value of the local app market One Store.

A Google spokesperson while also confirming the fine said in a statement that the tech giant will review the decision of the Korean authorities.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has announced on Tuesday the launch of Tongyi Qianwen, a large language model powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to rival ChatGPT.

According to Alibaba, the idea of the new product is to integrate Tongyi Qianwen into all of its business applications in the near future.

The company is expected to roll out the feature starting with DingTalk, the company’s workplace messaging app, where it can be used to summarize meeting notes, write emails, and draft business proposals.

Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, along with two other former executives, Vijaya Gadde and Ned Segal, are suing Elon Musk-owned social media platform for over $1 million in unpaid personal legal expenses.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Delaware chancery court, alleges that Twitter has refused to cover the legal bills incurred by the trio in responding to lawsuits and investigations related to their former positions at the company.

According to sources privy to the suit, the legal expenses include costs associated with an investigation by the US Department of Justice (DoJ).

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