Category: <span>Tech News</span>

Stripe has led a $12 million Series A round in Manila-based online payment platform PayMongo, the startup announced. PayMongo,  which offers an online payments API for businesses in the Philippines, was the first Filipino-owned financial tech startup to take part in Y Combinator’s accelerator program. Y Combinator and Global Founders Capital, another previous investor, both returned for...

Google is changing how Google Drive handles trashed files and documents. Starting on October 13th, files in the trash will automatically delete after 30 days. The change means that Drive’s trash will work the same way as other Google products, like Gmail, for more consistent behavior across all of Google’s products. Previously, Google Drive would keep...

Everybody vs the App Store! A host of companies, including Facebook Inc., Spotify Technology SA and “Fortnite” maker Epic Games Inc., are challenging the way Apple Inc. runs its App Store. The App Store generates at least $15 billion in annual sales for the tech giant, according to analysts’ estimates. Critics say Apple takes too...

More Spotify  podcasts could soon become TV shows or movies thanks to a new, multiyear partnership announced today between the streaming music provider and film and television production company, Chernin Entertainment. The agreement will allow Chernin to identify and adapt film and TV shows from Spotify’s library of over 250 original podcast series, totaling thousands of hours...

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has sought permission from the Chinese government to export technology, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. ByteDance filed a request with the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau asking for approval to export its technology under restrictions recently implemented by the Chinese government, according to Bloomberg. ByteDance, TikTok, and the Commerce Bureau did not respond to requests for...

The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) has published a government gazette in which it outlines its Digital and Future Skills Strategy. Key to this strategy, said the DCDT, is driving digital literacy and fluency in South African schools – which it believes can be achieved by evolving the school curriculum to address the important...

Though concert halls are closed and artists have stopped touring, you can still get a front-row seat to some amazing musical experiences. TIDAL has partnered with Facebook’s virtual reality platform Oculus “to bring live, immersive, and intimate music performances straight into people’s homes,” the press release says. Oculus Quest headsets, much like Facebook, help connect people with...

Facebook today is introducing a new tool that will allow rights holders to protect and manage their photos across both Facebook and Instagram. With the newly launched “Rights Manager for Images,” Facebook is offering creators and publishers access to content matching technology similar to what it introduced in 2016 to combat stolen videos. The new feature, which...

“Netflix is proud to continue to invest in more original content from Nigeria.” Netflix on Monday unveiled a new Nigerian original series and three new films from the African country. “The new series and films, which are at different stages of production while others are ready to premiere, will join the growing slate of Nigerian...

Washington’s crackdown on WeChat will disrupt communications between millions of people in the United States and their friends, families and business partners in China. But the app had not managed to reproduce in the US its success in China as the dominant smartphone-based payments platform. The US Commerce Department announced partial bans on Friday on...