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  Nigeria’s Piggybank.ng , an online and mobile app savings platform, announced that it has raised USD 1.1 M in Seed Funding from High Net Worth Individuals, led by Olumide Soyombo, Founder of LeadPath Nigeria, and with participation from International and Pan-African investors Village Capital and Ventures Platform, according to TechCrunch . The startup, Founded in 2016 by Somto Ifezue, Odunayo Eweniyi and Joshua Chibueze, graduates of Covenant University, Nigeria, Piggybank.ng is positioned to fill a void for tens of millions of Nigerians, who have no access to credit, in a country where up to two years’ rent is often required upfront to secure a home The scheme which targets low-middle income savers in Nigeria, of which there are 26.5M with a market size of $2.2Bn, the fintech start-up is an automated savings platform where savers manage their finances by depositing small amounts of money [starting from as little as USD$1/day] on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, depending on their s

Google Calendar now lets you add a note when you change or delete an event. Google has recently announced in its official blogpost that it is adding an interesting feature in its Calendar app which will allow users to leave a note when they change or delete an event in the Calendar. A dialog box appears that asks you to add a short message to explain why are you changing the event and what changes are being made. The option to leave a note appears in a pop-up box when an event is edited. Participants receive the alert in the form of an email with the subject, “Updated invitation with note.” The alert shows who made the event edit, what was changed, as well as the included note. How to set up an event reminders By default, you receive an email and a pop-up reminder 10 minutes before each event on your calendar. To change your default reminder settings, follow these steps: Open Google Calendar In the My calendars section, click the down arrow that appears when you hover over your cal

Microsoft passed Google’s parent company Alphabet in market value by $10b for the first time in six years on Tuesday. Google overtook Microsoft six years ago but over the last 12 months, Microsoft’s stock value has grown by about 40 percent which according to CNBC is five times Google’s (Alphabet’s) gain. As of Tuesday the 29 th of May 2018, Microsoft had a market value of $749b while Alphabet had $739b. Apple which is the most valuable by market capitalisation is now worth over $920b and is well on track to becoming the world’s first trillion dollar company .   Here’s more from CNBC ; Microsoft"s latest rally has been sparked by growth in its cloud-computing business, which is bigger than Google"s though it still trails Amazon Web Services. In March, Microsoft reorganized its Windows and Devices Group and moved its engineering resources into other units, including one focusing on cloud and artificial intelligence. Both Microsoft and Alphabet beat analysts" expectations

There are numerous opportunities revolving around the globe this week. Here’s a list of opportunities and how to apply for them and let me add that the list has been narrowed down to a couple which are relevant to Africans entrepreneurs, innovators, students, etc. They include:   The Unilever Young Entrepreneurs Awards The Unilever Young Entrepreneurs Awards can help you take your sustainability initiative, product or service to the next level. If you’ve got an initiative, product or service already in action that’s tackling a sustainability problem. This year, the Awards will recognise initiatives in eight key areas. Since the launch of the Awards in 2013, Unilever has reached over 3,500 inspiring young sustainability entrepreneurs and their organisations, and provided tailored support and funding to 29 winners There will be 8 winners, who will be provided with financial support for their business while the grand enterprise winner for the year will walk away with €50,000. How to Apply

Social messaging app Snapchat has become somewhat renowned for its AR features, and it appears some of those will soon be in the hands of developers. According to TechCrunch , Snapchat is preparing the launch of its first complete developer platform under the tentative name of Snapkit. Earlier this year in March reports revealed that Snapchat had started testing a new ‘Connected Apps‘ feature in a beta release which would allow users to connect their Snapchat account with other apps. Snapkit SDK will allow third-party app developers access to a number of Snapchat’s feature, including the aforementioned login authentication, Snapchat Bitmoji avatars, and most interestingly, Snapchat’s full-featured AR-enabled camera software. The Bitmoji will offered a keyboard full of your avatar in different scenes, Snapkit could make it easy to add yours as stickers on photos or in other ways in third-party apps. Seeing them across the mobile universe could inspire more users to create their own Bitm

Tired of sticking your tongue out to watch that Snapchat augmented reality mask change into a puppy dog face or your face in a dancing doll? Snapchat has a new lens reaction that responds to sound. The messaging social media app"s latest addition is an animal mask with ears that pulse and shine, as well eyes that move, depending on the sound your phone"s microphone picks up. It also appears to react more at greater volumes. “It"s a cute animal mask overlay for your face, with ears that pulse and glow, and eyes that move based on the sounds it hears. Snapchat says it"s just the first of many," Engadget reports . Previously, certain Snapchat Lenses could only respond to facial gestures — for example opening your mouth, or raising your eyebrows might trigger an animation. This latest feature, however, responds to sound. Snapchat"s "Lenses" is one of its "face filters" feature that comes with two options, "Face Lenses" and "W

One of the most frustrating things about being an iPhone owner is the lack of expandable storage. Once you have gotten the model of your choice, be it 32GB, 64GB or 256GB, you’re stuck with that storage until you buy a new phone. And Of course, you can also compensate the non-expandable storage with iCloud, but Apple only provides 5GB of cloud storage for free. If you want an amount that you can actually use, you’ll have to pay a monthly fee of $0.99 or more in order to access it. Most iPhone users are already familiar with the word “You do not have enough space in iCloud to backup your iPhone” message, which seems to pop up most times as a reminder. And users have long complained about the lack of free iCloud storage but now the company appears to be taking one step in the right direction. However, the recent development is that when users choose to upgrade from the 5GB free tier, they will receive the first month of their new tier for free.  As first noted by AppleInsider , the free

Game lovers are in for a treat. ESPN and Riot games has signed a  multi-year agreement to stream esports competitions on the ESPN+ app. ESPN+ will kick off its coverage in June 16 — just in time for the North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split. Ten teams will go against each other twice each season, with 18 matches for each, and one match per day. The matches will stream live on ESPN+ on Saturday and Sunday. Following this, the summer finals will be held in Sept. 8-9 at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif. Three teams will qualify for the League of Legends World Championship in South Korea. That competition will put 24 teams from 14 regional leagues up against each other later in the fall. However, ESPN+ won’t have exclusive rights to the “League of Legends” programming, which will continue to be distributed on Amazon-owned Twitch and other platforms. Here is how it all started: In 2016, Riot Games (publisher of multiplayer battle-arena title) inked a long-term pac

Now you"ll be able to use PayPal, with your Google Pay account, to pay for items in Gmail, YouTube. Google and PayPal are extending their partnership to allow you to use your PayPal account to pay for things across the Google, including Gmail, YouTube, and the Google Store. Better yet, if you link your PayPal account to Google Pay, you won’t have to keep signing in to PayPal every time you want to make a transaction. However, this isn"t the first time for both companies to work together. Since 2014, Google Play users have been able to purchase apps and games thru their PayPal accounts. But this new relationship goes deeper than that plain integration — it means Google users likely won"t have to leave Google"s apps and services just to be able to pay for stuff using their PayPal accounts. It makes payments easier, more frictionless, and intuitive. As TechCrunch notes. "PayPal and Google Pay share common goals of creating simple payment solutions across our plat

Developing a website that accurately does what you desire is a tricky process. The end goal is usually the same despite what sort of business you are running. You need a site that will influence your visitors to consume your product or compel them to investigate what you and your services are about. An aspect obvious to most but used by few developers is predicting and triggering the human psyche. Psychology influenced web design can help you make a more concrete decision that has a rational argument beyond “this seems pretty to me.” Influencing many aspects of your design by using the psychology-based approach will open you towards pathways of thought you perhaps lacked previously. Design layouts Most users have similar ways of exploring websites. Since most of us learned how to read before opening the Internet we have a similar pattern of looking for info as with reading through books or newspaper. Therefore the most important information should be placed at the top left, bottom righ

For your business to be successful you need to be up to date with the latest trends, and e-commerce is one of the biggest business trends of this 2018 .  By 2021 the retail e-commerce worldwide sales are expected to reach $4.479 trillion. The potential growth in e-commerce business is huge, more than  80% of the web population have done online shopping. These numbers prove that there is no doubt that eCommerce is the future of business. Online shopping has increased the comfort level among customers and profit levels for the business owners. There must be strong reasons as to why people are closing their brick and mortar stores and moving to open online stores. So here the reasons you need to explore:- Reason 1:-  Starting business is easy and affordable The overhead expenses are lesser when compared to starting a traditional business. You can easily start a business at affordable startup cost and get going using right technology . There are so many eCommerce tools readily available in

Music is something that definitely binds the nation and irrespective of how old you are, there is a certain attraction towards music that almost everyone has. As a kid, not only do you enjoy listening to music but you would also want to learn to play a musical instrument and if you are a parent and you want your child to excel in music, then it"s important for you to download the right music app. If you are wondering is it illegal to use a music downloader? what you need to know then you need to understand that as long as you are downloading an app from the app store, this app has been approved. Here"s a list of 10 popular music apps for the young minds that are sure to keep them engaged. Piano Dust Buster If your kid has always been intrigued by a piano, then the piano dust buster is a fun app to download. This virtual piano is something that is sure to get them hooked on to playing tunes from a young age. It is an easy to use app that is sure to help your child gain a lot

Many of today’s smartphones arrive out of the box with encryption functions. While that may mean privacy protections for smartphone users, it also means plenty of controversy over the use of encryption when it comes to hiding data from the government. Here’s why encryption is making headlines. What is Encryption? Encryption refers to scrambling digital information on phones, laptops, servers, or other electronic devices. On most smartphones, encryption means your photos, texts, emails, and other information are not readable unless you make them so by entering a password or code. Have you ever forgotten your password or mistyped it, only to have your phone or tablet lock itself for minutes or longer? The idea behind encryption is that it protects your data from unauthorized use. Unfortunately, that does not seem to make law enforcement officials happy. Encryption in Court While most people are probably more concerned with keeping their photos and text messages private for personal reas

It’s time for something amazing, like a bundle notifications instead of a single notifications from one app. There have been lots of speculation about Apple iOS 12, the great news is that the grand unveiling of iOS 12 is just a few weeks away and there’s one feature on everybody’s wish list: grouped notifications. iOS 11’s notification screen is a mess when you get multiple notifications from the same app, but developer Matt Birchler at Birchtree. Brought up one of the more interesting ideas in Birchler mockups which involve grouped notifications and has created a simple concept that shows how Apple could make the lock screen notifications so much better. “Bundling notifications from a single app together means your brain doesn’t have to phase shift all the time when scrolling through your notifications,” Birchler writes in a blog post . “In this case, we have 4 messages from 2 people together in one space. This would normally take up far more space and be far less efficient than makin

Over the years, distraction from our smartphones when driving has been a major problem, and now it seem Apple wants to solve this problem to some extent. “Do Not Disturb”, a feature introduced as part of iOS 11, was introduced to help reduce the distraction from message notification and calls while a user’s is driving lesson during workout. Apple published a patent application on  Thursday to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for "Intelligent Digital Assistant for “ ending incoming calls”. The application is aimed at allowing Siri or any another digital assistant device fix the problem of distractions while driving by declining calls and explain in a message why users can pick accept the calls. According to the application, the process will happen when an incoming video or voice call is detected, during that process the Siri or digital assistant devices will try and gather as much information about the user"s location or situation whether he is on transit or doing a worko

StumbleUpon is site discovery and content publishing service which was founded in 2002 and is officially shutting down today even though it says it will transfer is accounts to another content discovery platform Mix . The platform was apparently one of the first of its kind when it started in 2002, furnishing users with a dead-straightforward approach to discover new sites to visit, articles to peruse, and pictures and video to engage with. It likewise happened to touch base when individuals were moving on from utilising the web for fundamental capacities like research and money related exchanges, to killing time and other sharing functions with connections. In a statement today on Medium , StumbleUpon Co-founder Garrett Camp says, Sixteen years ago, we started StumbleUpon to help people discover new webpages. The idea was simple: click a button to find a cool webpage. It was easy and fun. Over the years SU has delivered personalized content to over 40 million users, serving up nearly