Author: Tapiwa Matthew Mutisi

GameStop is pulling the plug on its crypto locker after only a year. An alert posted this week to the company’s website (via Game Developer) says GameStop Wallet will be no more after November 1st. The retailer says its decision was “due to the regulatory uncertainty of the crypto space.” The gaming retailer’s iOS and…

Threads users will soon get one of the most requested features for the text-based social network: A web version. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg has announced on the app that in the next few weeks, Threads is getting both a web version people can use to access the service on desktop, as well…

Less than a week after X snatched the “@X” handle from a user, it has reclaimed “@Music,” too. For the past 16 years, that handle belonged to Jeremy Vaught, director of engineering at the nonprofit Life Happens. “Just now, Twitter/X just ripped it away.” Vaught said in a post to X on Aug.…

Nikola Corp. President/CEO Michael Lohscheller is leaving the top executive positions due to a family health issue, less than a year after taking the job. He will be replaced by board chairman Steve Girsky, a former GM board member and the CEO of the special purpose acquisition company that merged…

The gaming website IGN is launching an AI tool that’ll hopefully help you troubleshoot and beat games. That might mean you get to say goodbye to those very specific Google searches and deep dives through Reddit threads. For now, the chatbot was launched only for IGN’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom…

Apple is investing “a lot” in AI, according to Tim Cook. In an interview with Reuters, the Apple CEO said its $22.6 billion spending on research and development is driven by investment in AI technologies, including generative AI. This was in response to the Thursday earnings call, when Cook addressed questions about…

In an earnings call earlier this week, Tinder’s parent company Match Group said it was testing an AI-powered tool that will evaluate photos in a user’s photo album and select five that best represent them on the dating app. “Sometimes, people are really excited to jump into the Tinder experience,” said…

Chat app Discord laid off around 4% of its staff on Thursday, and the 4% cut amounts to around 40 staffers. The cuts primarily impacted the company’s marketing team. Some employees were also moved into different roles at the company. Discord had over 900 employees as of April 2023, The New…

Discord and Microsoft are taking the next logical step in their Xbox-related partnership: Streaming directly from consoles to Discord servers. Last year, Discord and Xbox worked together to integrate the platform into Xbox so that users could talk directly within the popular voice chat app while playing their favorite console games.…

Google on Thursday rolled out a new policy that allows people to request that their personal, sexually explicit photos be removed from its search results. The new feature is one of three updates that Google says are meant to give users more control over content about themselves that is available through its popular search…

Meta’s new AI music generator is the latest in a slew of AI products recently released by the tech company. On Wednesday, Meta announced the release of AudioCraft, an open-source generative AI that creates audio and music from text prompts. AudioCraft has three models, MusicGen for composing music, AudioGen for creating sound effects,…

X is now letting users download videos from its website, as long as a couple of criteria are met. First, the creator must explicitly allow downloads for the content they post. Also, the ability to save videos from the website is exclusively available to verified users mainly comprised of people…

Reed Jobs is stepping into the spotlight: The 31-year-old son of Steve Jobs and Laurene Powell Jobs is starting a venture capital firm to invest in new cancer treatments. It’s an area that hits close to home, since his father, the iconic Apple co-founder, died from complications of pancreatic cancer…

AFP news agency launched a copyright case in France on Wednesday against social media giant Twitter, recently rebranded X, as part of a global struggle to get tech firms to pay for news. Media groups have long argued that their stories and images bring value to platforms like X, Facebook,…

The Indian government will contribute $2 million to the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI), housed and managed by the African Development Bank, affirming its commitment to help break down barriers to the growth and uptake of digital financial solutions and accelerate financial inclusion in Africa. Globally recognized for the success…

Amazon Web Services (AWS) South Africa is inviting black-owned technology small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to apply for up to R7.5 million ($406,245.48 USD) worth of funding as part of its Equity Equivalent Investment Programme (EEIP). Launched in 2019, the initiative was created to support and promote equity and inclusion in…

As content created by artificial intelligence continues to flood our social media feeds, it appears one platform is looking for ways to let users know. According to a screenshot posted to X by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, Instagram is working to label AI-created or -modified content so that users can…

Google is testing a tool that automatically generates YouTube video summaries using AI, according to a notice on a support page dated July 31st.  The page, notes that these summaries will only appear next to a limited number of English-language videos, and will only be viewable by a limited number of users. They’ll appear…

Senegal has suspended access to the social media app TikTok until further notice, the communications minister said on Wednesday, days after restricting the use of mobile internet amid opposition protests. The Senegalese communications minister announced on Wednesday that Senegal has temporarily halted access to the social media platform, TikTok. This…

Internet addiction (IA) among teenagers has been reported frequently in China. As a result of that, in a bid to curb this challenge among teens and children, Chinese minors are now facing harsh restrictions on mobile phones, and internet usage as part of the country’s latest bid to curb perceived internet…