Microsoft Edge passes 1 million downloads on Android

Only a week out of beta, Microsoft’s Edge browser has already made significant ground in the Google Play Store, passing 1 million downloads. With this traction, Edge shot up the rankings to 3rd place in the ‘top free communication’ rankings in Google Play.

While its download numbers still lag far behind the behemoths of Chrome and Firefox, Edge’s unique feature-set may be able to help it gain more ground in the coming months and years. For comparison, since the iOS launch on December 1 the app has only reached over 10,000 downloads on Apple’s App Store due to the cap on beta sign-ups.

Google’s less restrictive beta process meant that more Android users could download the beta prior to the official launch on November 29.

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Digital Virgo introduces Playup, its new music platform 

Digital Virgo continues to develop powerful digital entertainment solutions with the launch of Playup, its new music service!

Playup, Digital Virgo’s new music portal, provides our partners with a 360 music experience.

As a guaranteed traffic generator for their content portals, our platform offers a premium catalog of local and international artists (Universal Music, Because Music, Musicast …), with more than 15,000 titles available for download and more than 100 radio and playlists to listen to (12,000 hours of streaming music).

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Opera integrates web payment platform in Kenya

Opera, the Norwegian developer of Opera Mini, has integrated a new web payment platform in Kenya which directly runs on the Opera Mini browser. This is part of the Opera’s $100 million investment initiative to grow the African digital economy announced earlier this year.

OPay will enable Opera Mini as well as other mobile browser users to top up their Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom mobile phone accounts, pay electricity, cable TV and utility bills directly through its platform. It will also accommodate multiple payment methods, such as credit cards to Airtel Money and M-Pesa.

“This mobile payment technology integrated into the Opera Mini browser will help Kenya continue the highest rate of mobile payment technology adoption in the world. More than 80 percent of the country’s population with access to a cell phone use it to pay for goods and services,” says Nuno Sitima, Executive Vice President of Payments and Fintech, Opera Software AS.

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Mozilla Launches iOS App to Experiment With WebAR

The Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Mozilla Firefox web browser, just made their experimental WebXR Viewer app available for download on iOS devices, letting developers quickly experiment with web-based AR built with web technologies and ARKit.

According to a blogpost announcing the app, the WebXR Viewer lets you view web pages created using Mozilla’s own JavaScript library that features sample code for a proposed API for building AR and VR applications in web browsers. Mozilla maintains that developers using the app will be able to more easily test, demonstrate and share their web-based AR experiments.

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Zenvia innovates strategy with competitive chatbots

Traditionally known as a corporate mobility company, Zenvia takes the strategy of simplifying the world with smarter, contextualized and personalized conversations with chatbots through the Zenvia Conversational Cloud platform, as announced CEO Cassio Bobsin.

“We have drastically reduced the cost and timeframe for deploying chatbots, allowing our customers to be able to generate results from the first conversation.

We help companies simplify processes that touch the consumer through smart conversations, or chatbots, “says the CEO.

He points out that the company has a team that specializes in creating chatbots and works with a network of partners that specialize in certain verticals or business processes that help clients define their strategies and thus generate clear results for the business.

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