Another busy week winds to end in the Nigerian tech space. As always, it is time to look away briefly from our home zone and talk about some happenings in the global tech space. Let’s go.
General Motors Produces First Ever eBike
General Motors’ (GM) latest product isn’t a car, but a bike. Better still, an ebike. Christened ‘ARIV’ and pronounced ‘Arrive’, the ebike comes in two different versions: The Ariv Merge which has the ability to fold up, and the Ariv Meld which doesn’t.
Both eBikes can reach speeds of up to 25km/h and use batteries that can take them through 64 km’s before needing to be recharged.
The bikes could also link up to the ARIV ebike App through Bluetooth.
The app offers riding metrics like speed, distance travelled, battery level etc. The ebikes will be launched first in Germany, Belgium and Netherlands. Shipping will be concluded before the end of June.
Unless these bikes can take us through Lagos traffic without breaking a sweat, Nigerians won’t bother about it.
Gmail Adds New Functionalities to its Right Click Menu
Gmail is giving a lot of power to its right-click button by adding a number of new functionalities to the menu. Previously, right-clicking on a mail shows a menu with few options. But now, Google is adding options like instant reply, forwarding, searching for all mails from that particular sender and searching for mails with similar topic.
It also includes opening multiple mails in multiple windows at the same time, adding a label to a mail, muting conversation and activating snooze with which you can prompt a mail to appear at the top of your inbox at a set time.
Some of you may have noticed this new functionalities already it but if you haven’t that’s okay because Google plans a gradual introduction that will last till February 23.
Google Play Store Records 55% increase in Rejected Apps in 2018
In response to allegations that Google allows too much malicious apps into its Play Store, Google Play product manager, Andrew Ahn, says the company has indeed improved its abuse detection technologies and generally tightened up its security. As a result of the, rate of app rejection into its Play Store increased by a whopping 55% in 2018.
In 2017, Google Play ejected about 700,000 Apps from its store and banned about 100,000 developers from submitting apps in the future. App developers should watch it because Google isn’t playing.
Those were some of the stories that made the rounds around the world this week. Have a wonderful weekend.
Technext Newsletter
Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!
