Former U.S President Donald Trump is set to launch his own social media app 'TRUTH social' in a bid to "stand up to Big Tech" companies like Twitter and Facebook for banning him from their platforms. TRUTH Social will be created by a new company formed by a merger of Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) and a special acquisition company (SPAC). “I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech. We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable," Trump said in a released statement.

Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) readiness to begin full deployment and implementation of 5G network in the country is at 97 percent status, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has said. Danbatta re-affirmed the status of the Commission’s 5G technology deployment in a statement on Thursday. Danbatta, during the annual African Tech Alliance Forum (AFRITECH) 2021, held in Lagos with the theme: “Embracing Changes and Digital Transformation in the New Normal,” stated that this paradigm shift in communication has led to a significant increase in network connectivity requirements as a result of an unprecedented upsurge in internet traffic, occasioned by the use of a plethora of web applications. He explained that the NCC is working with operators to implement a number of initiatives to ensure network expansion. These, he said, include an ongoing plan to auction spectrum in 3.5 gigahertz (Ghz) band to operators for the deployment of 5G network in Nigeria.

Subscribers of MTN Nigeria on Saturday lamented the breakdown in network services, obstructing calls, internet data, and SMS services across the country. The mobile network operator confirmed the breakdown in a short message, apologizing for the inconvenience and assuring subscribers that the network challenge will be fixed and sorted.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) disclosed on Tuesday that over 180 million telephone lines are now linked with National Identity Numbers (NIN). This was made known by the Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta during the Public Inquiry on three Regulatory Instruments on the Rule Making Process for industry stakeholders at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja.

Social networking services including Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram are back up and running after going offline globally for almost six hours. The companies were down from about 16:00 GMT until around 22:00 on Monday. Facebook, while hinting at the outage blamed an internal technical issue, which not only affected Facebook’s services but reportedly also employees’ work passes and email. Facebook however said there was “no evidence that user data was compromised.” New York Time’s technology reporter, Sheera Frenkel, said part of the reason it took so long to fix the problem was that “the people trying to figure out what this problem was couldn’t even physically get into the building” to work out what had gone wrong. During the outage @WhatsApp wrote on Twitter that, “We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with WhatsApp at the moment.

President Muhammadu Buhari has on Friday announced that he has directed a conditional lifting of the ban placed on Twitter operations in Nigeria. Buhari made the announcement during his nationwide broadcast to mark the country's 61st independence. He said the importance of Twitter, noting that some users have misused the platform to spread fake news and to promote ethnoreligious sentiments.

Mobile telecommunications operator, MTN Nigeria Communications Plc has announced that subscribers would be compensated for network disruptions experienced last Saturday. On Saturday, October 9, 2021, users of MTN Nigeria experienced hours of network disruption which left customers without a connection. The Chief Executive Officer, MTN Nigeria, Olutokun Toriola apologized to customers for any inconvenience experienced and also stated that in order to avoid a repeat of such an event, new measures were already being implemented.

WhatsApp promises to improve its voice messaging functionality in a move that could see users finally given the ability to pause voice messages while recording. Earlier in the year, WhatsApp took aim at one of the app’s biggest annoyances by adding multi-support across devices on iOS and Android. It’s now shifting its sights to handle the app’s built-in voice messaging. Though text messages are the core of WhatsApp, many people use voice messaging as it’s quicker to record a short clip of you speaking than typing it, or dictating it and then correcting Siri or Google Assistant’s transcription. There’s no word on when the new feature will be introduced to the public version of the app, but according to WABetaInfo, it’s currently being tested in beta versions of WhatsApp for Android and iOS. Currently, WhatsApp does not let users pause and record voice messages without having to start afresh every time they need a break. Recording a voice message in a single attempt is the only option currently available to WhatsApp’s users, there is no way to pause and then resume your message, which could be quite frustrating for some users, especially when one gets interrupted or distracted while recording.

Search engine giant, Google Inc. has announced an investment of $1Bn over a five-year period to support digital transformation in Nigeria, South Africa, and other African countries. According to the company, this investment would result in a 21 percent reduction in internet prices, and also a five-fold increase in internet speed in Nigeria.

The divorce between Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates has now been finalized by a judge in King County Superior Court, Washington State. The world’s richest, most powerful couples signed the dissolution decree on Monday, ending the 27-year marriage between them. 

The Amazon founder and richest man on Earth blasted into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket Tuesday morning with three crewmates which included his brother Mark Bezos as well as the oldest and youngest people ever to fly into space – 82-year-old pioneering female aviator Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen, 18, a physics student. Daemen, whose seat was paid for by his father, Joes Daemen, CEO of Somerset Capital Partners, was put on the crew after the winner of an anonymous $28 million auction for the flight had to postpone due to a scheduling conflict.

American business magnate, media proprietor, and investor, Jeffrey Preston Bezos has stepped down from his role as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Amazon after nearly three decades at the helm. The leading world’s richest man according to Forbes is estimated to be worth nearly $202 billion. Bezos who joined the billionaire list in 1998 will remain as Amazon’s executive chairman even as he turns over the reins to Amazon Web Services chief Andy Jassy.