Author: Akin Naphtal

Indonesia has banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms, in what the government says is a move to protect offline merchants, marketplaces, and small and medium-sized businesses from predatory pricing on social media. The ban comes as a blow to some major social media platforms, especially Chinese short video app, TikTok, which pledged a billion-dollar investment in Southeast Asia just three months prior, in its bid to use Indonesia’s economy to boost its e-commerce platform, TikTok Shop. The ByteDance-owned social media platform, has 125 million active monthly users in Indonesia. A TikTok Indonesia spokesperson has since stated that the social…

British electric vehicle supplier, Bedeo, has launched a service in France to convert thousands of diesel vans to electric hybrids, benefiting from the French government’s subsidies for retrofitting fossil-fuel models. France provides EV retrofitters with a 9,000-euro ($9,509) subsidy, but has a requirement that each retrofitted model must first pass the government’s vehicle tests before being considered eligible to receive the subsidies. The matter of climate change has caused a growth in the conversion of fossil-fuel vehicles to EV status, with companies like Bedeo and France’s Transition One being among the retrofitting services doing so. France is the only country…

JPMorgan’s digital retail bank in the UK, Chase, has revealed its decision to ban crypto transactions made by customers from 16th October, stating an increase in crypto fraud and scams as the reasons for the restriction. The US-owned digital bank informed its customers of the upcoming restriction on Tuesday 26 September. Since the mobile app-based service was launched in England in 2021, it has attracted more than 1.6 million customers. Parent company, JPMorgan, has already planned to roll out the consumer bank in other international markets over time. A spokesperson from the bank, who commented on the issue stated that…

Nigerian technology company, Pixels Solution Ltd., has been adjudged Africa’s Most Outstanding Technology Company of the Year 2023 at the African Brands Congress 2023. The awards ceremony, which was held at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, on Friday, 14th September, saw industry leaders, dignitaries, and technology professionals across Africa attending to offer their insights on technology advances. Pixels Solution was selected for its role in pioneering software innovations across the education, law, real estate, fintech, aviation, and telecommunications sectors. The company’s zealous work in these areas snagged it the award. Pixels Solution Ltd., CEO, Okey Udeogu, stated that the “award…

South Korean battery company, LG Chem Ltd, has partnered with China’s Huayou Group, to build a joint electric vehicle (EV) battery material plant in Morocco to expand its range. The Morocco plant, is slated to begin production in 2026, and will have an annual production target of 50,000 tonnes of lithium-phosphate-iron (LFP) cathode materials. LG Chem revealed in a statement that that production rate will be enough for installation in 500,000 entry-class EVs. LG Chem has made a name for itself by manufacturing expensive nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) cathodes, however, the company has opted to enter the LFP cathode market to cater…

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is set to receive a major update to enable the chatbot to interact with users through voice chat and using images, making it similar to popular artificial intelligence (AI) assistants like Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri. In a blogpost on Monday, 25th September, OpenAI stated that the voice feature “opens doors to many creative and accessibility-focused applications”. Similar AI services like Siri, Google voice assistant and Amazon’s Alexa are integrated with the devices they run on and are often used to set alarms and reminders, and deliver information off the internet. Launched last year, ChatGPT has grown popular…

Hong Kong crypto firm, Mixin, has reported in a social media post on X (formerly Twitter) that hackers have stolen around $200 million from its coffers on Saturday, 23rd September. In what researchers say is the largest crypto theft so far in 2023, the crypto firm stated that the hackers attacked the database of its network’s cloud service provider, “resulting in the loss of some assets,” and added that “the funds involved are approximately US$200 million”. Mixin’s website states that the company is a network for transferring digital assets, and that it caters for one million users. Following the theft,…

The Kenyan government has signed a Ksh.8.7 billion ($60 million) agreement with the United States Millennium Change Corporation (MCC). The MCC deal is labelled the Kenya Urban Mobility and Growth Threshold Program. The program will channel the funds into four projects in Kenya. The Integrated Transport Planning Project, the First and Last Mile Connections Project, the Detailed Land Use Project. Lastly, it will finance the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project. For the BRT, the deal aims to finance the acquisition of electric buses for Nairobi’s Bus Rapid Transit system. Recently, it was announced that the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) network…

The European Union is seeking to make certain that cars powered by e-fuels must be 100% carbon neutral so as not to pollute the environment, in response to Germany’s insistence that e-fuel cars be allowed to remain in production beyond 2035. Banning the sale of fossil fuel-powered cars is one major policy that the EU plans to adopt in its bid to reduce greenhouse emissions. Its main climate policy for cars states that only vehicles with zero CO2 emissions will be allowed to be sold in EU countries after 2035. E-Fuels vs Fossil Fuels Unlike fossil fuels, whose production methods…

The Regional Executive – West Africa at Africa Data Centres, Dr. Krishnan Ranganath has been crowned the ‘Technology Person of the Year’ at the Tech Innovation Awards, organized by Digital Economy Magazine at the Oriental Hotel in Lagos on Friday, 22nd September 2023. This is coming a few months after he was crowned the ‘Man of the Year ‘ at the Africa’s Beacon of Information and Communications Technology Merit and Leadership Award 2023. According to Digital Economy Magazine, Dr. Krishnan was chosen for recognition based on his expertise in helping to champion the growth recorded in Nigeria’s Information and Communications…