💸 Thepeer shuts down |🎙️Google Podcasts set to close Thepeer shuts down | 👨🏻‍💻Microsoft Teams to be sold as Standalone Product

In today’s menu ☕️

💸 Thepeer shuts down; challenged by compliance and adoption issues
🤖 OpenAI Demonstrates Early Success with Voice Engine, a Tool for Generating Realistic Speech
👨🏻‍💻 Microsoft Teams to be Sold as a Standalone Product from Office
🎙️ Google Podcasts set to close, users encouraged to shift to YouTube Music
👩🏾‍💻 Opportunities

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💸 FINTECH

Thepeer shuts down; challenged by compliance and adoption issues

The Nigerian fintech startup Thepeer unexpectedly announced its closure on April 1st, shedding light on the formidable obstacles confronting innovative startups within Africa's burgeoning financial sector.

Despite raising $2.1 million in a seed round in 2022 to facilitate seamless money transfers between digital wallets, the company struggled to surmount compliance challenges and spur user adoption, ultimately curtailing its growth and reach......……continue reading

🤖 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

OpenAI Demonstrates Early Success with Voice Engine, a Tool for Generating Realistic Speech

OpenAI, a research company known for its work in artificial intelligence, announced that it has made significant strides in developing a new system called Voice Engine. This system utilizes a combination of text input and a brief audio sample to generate realistic-sounding speech that closely resembles the original speaker’s voice.

While still under development, the results so far are impressive. OpenAI reports that even a small 15-second audio sample is sufficient for Voice Engine to create natural-sounding speech with emotions.

OpenAI has been using Voice Engine internally for some time now, powering the preset voices in its text-to-speech API, as well as ChatGPT Voice and Read Aloud. However, the company is expressing caution regarding a wider release due to the potential for misuse of synthetic voice technology....continue reading

👨🏻‍💻 PRODUCTIVITY

Microsoft Teams to be Sold as a Standalone Product from Office

In a strategic move aimed at addressing antitrust concerns, Microsoft has announced that it will begin selling its popular chat and video application, Teams, separately from its Office suite of products on a global scale. This decision comes six months after the tech giant initiated a similar unbundling effort in Europe, a move perceived as an attempt to evade potential fines from the European Union.

The European Commission has been investigating Microsoft’s practice of bundling Office and Teams since 2020, following a complaint filed by Slack, a competing workspace messaging app owned by Salesforce. Teams, initially introduced to Office 365 users for free in 2017, gained widespread popularity, especially during the pandemic, owing to its robust video conferencing capabilities.

Critics argued that packaging Teams with Office provided Microsoft with an unfair advantage in the market. Consequently, Microsoft began selling the two products separately in the EU and Switzerland last year....…..continue reading

🎙️ SOCIAL MEDIA

Google Podcasts set to close, users encouraged to shift to YouTube Music

Google is set to discontinue its Podcasts app in the U.S. and has alerted users to shift their subscriptions to h by April 2 so they can continue streaming their preferred shows. If users are not able to switch immediately, they will still have extra time for the transition, but won’t be able to directly stream from the Podcasts app after the mentioned date.

The Google Podcasts app, downloaded over 500 million times globally on Android devices, has provided easy accessibility and user-friendly mechanisms for podcast discovery and listening for more than five years. In the wake of its decision to streamline its audio services under YouTube, Google announced in September that it would start phasing out the Podcasts app from early 2024....…..continue reading

OTHER STORIES

• You can now use ChatGPT without an account……read more

• Samsung eyes integrating generative artificial intelligence into voice assistant Bixby…..read more

• Namibia invests $5.9 million to improve telecom infrastructure over three years….read more

• US Congressional staff barred from using Microsoft’s Copilot on government-issued devices over Cybersecurity concerns….read more

• Amazon makes record-breaking $2.75 billion investment in AI startup Anthropic……read more

• Ransomware Attackers Increasingly Targeting Backups, Prompting Urgent Data Protection Measures…..read more

OPPORTUNITIES

• Norrsken Accelerator calls on early-stage African startup founders to apply…..read more

• AgriTech4Egypt Innovation Challenge invites applications from agri-tech ventures for a sustainable agricultural future….read more

• Invitation for Female Entrepreneurs to Apply: Bayer Foundation Women Empowerment Award….read more

• Call for Applications: Amazon Web Services South Africa’s Equity Equivalent Investment Programme for SMEs….read more

• Irish Tech Challenge 2024: Call for South African startups to help address global issues….read more

• 14th Orange Social Venture Prize in Africa and the Middle East Now Open for Applications…..read more

• Applications Now Open for the Second Edition of the BH Africa Startup Awards….read more