TECH ROUNDUP: MTN Group Might Sell West African Assets

• MTN Group Ltd. is considering selling some of its West African assets

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• Kenya is proposing a special tax regime on startups’ Employee Share Ownership Plans

• Uber is now selling national and international flights in the UK

• Zoho has launched Ulaa, a privacy-centric browser

MTN Group Ltd. is in advanced talks with Axian Group Ltd. to sell some of its West African assets, including its assets in Liberia, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea-Conakry, according to people familiar with the matter.

Also Read: TECH ROUNDUP: MTN Nigeria secures NCC’s consent to rent two spectrums from NTEL

Zoho has launched Ulaa, a privacy-centric browser that blocks tracking and website surveillance, heightening the protection of personal data and online activities.

POLITICS

The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has criticised the NITDA Bill arguing that it seeks to transform the NITDA into a full-fledged regulator in the digital economy, a role that the NCC already performs. It says that could lead to “double and possibly conflicting regulations.”

Kenya is proposing a special tax regime on startups’ Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOPs), as part of its 2023 finance bill 2023 which will allow the deferment of taxes on employee-allocated shares.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Apple Weather temporarily went down this week displaying only a city’s name without any forecast — an apparent repeat of other outages over the past month.

Uber in partnership with Hopper, a Canadian-based travel agency, has launched a new flight booking tool for its UK customers to sell national and international flights as part of the company’s wider efforts to expand into other travel markets.

Meta has defended itself after Elon Musk said it cannot be trusted. “Over the last 24 hours, we’ve been in touch with a Twitter engineer who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp. We believe this is a bug on Android that misattributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate it. Users have full control over their mic settings,” Meta said.

Google will embed information called markup inside images created by its AI models, in order to warn people that they were originally created by a computer.

Google has launched Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC), a new tool that uses internal directions API to estimate the travel time to the nearest, second nearest and third nearest EmOC facilities across specific regions.

WORLD NEWS

Apple Inc.’s top executive in charge of its video and sports businesses, Pete Distad is departing, according to people familiar with the matter, reshuffling a services division that has fueled much of the company’s growth in recent years.

Microsoft said it will hold off on offering salary increases to full-time employees, CEO Satya Nadella told staffers by email on Wednesday. “We will maintain our bonus and stock award budget again this year, however, we will not overfund to the extent we did last year, bringing it closer to our historical averages,” Nadella wrote in the email.

Google has introduced a $1,799 foldable smartphone, a new entry-level Pixel phone and a tablet for the home, its latest attempt to spark hardware sales.

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