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Sony Acquires OnLive Streaming Game Service

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Sony, in a bid to beef up its PlayStation Now service, is acquiring OnLive’s patents for an undisclosed sum. OnLive hoped to change the video game industry by removing the need for expensive hardware, according to a report by CNET.

OnLive, one of the most promising video game startups in the industry, is shutting down.

The Mountain View, Calif., company, which offered gamers a groundbreaking new way to play games over the Internet, announced Thursday that it’s selling its patents to Sony.

OnLive’s service will be shut down after April 30.

“Following the termination of the company’s services and related products, OnLive will engage in an orderly wind-down of the company and cease operations,” OnLive wrote in a statement. Sony confirmed the deal, saying the purchase opens “great opportunities for our gamers, and gives Sony a formidable patent portfolio.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The sale brings to an end one of the more ambitious new video game technology startups. Founded more than a decade ago by Apple and Microsoft alum Steve Perlman, OnLive was built to offer customers a way to play visually sophisticated video games without having to own expensive computing hardware.

The way it worked was through a technology called “cloud gaming,” where gaming programs would run on powerful computers in a server, and the images would be broadcast over the Internet to a gamer playing on a tablet or computer, much in the same way Netflix streams videos to television sets.

But OnLive struggled. Two years after its high-profile launch in 2010, high costs and anemic marketingforced the company to enter a form of bankruptcy, during which OnLive laid off much of its staff and effectively sold itself to investor Lauder Partners. The company relaunched, offering streaming technology for gamers who used Valve Corp.’s Steam online store, but otherwise it appeared to scale back its ambitions.

In 2012, OnLive said it counted 1.75 million active users, some of whom paid $9.99 per month to access its game library of 250 titles on devices ranging from TVs and PCs to smartphones and tablets.

OnLive also at one point sold access to newer titles outright at prices similar to retail.

One of the biggest challenges for game-streaming technology has been convincing players to pay for it.

Only 2 percent of gamers had spent money on cloud gaming technology by last June, according to a survey from research firm IDC.

Only about 13 percent of gamers said they were even interested in spending money on it.

OnLive wasn’t the only company offering streaming technology. Nvidia, which is best known for making microprocessing chips for PCs, offers a game-streaming service for PCs and set-top boxes called GRID.

But perhaps the biggest company offering this technology is Sony. The Japanese tech giant built a streaming service for its PlayStation family of gaming devices using technology it bought in 2012 from a company called Gaikai for $380 million.

The PlayStation Now streaming service, as it’s now known, launched in January.

But Sony faces similar problems to OnLive: cost and lack of interest from gamers. Currently, PlayStation Now allows for the streaming of only about 100 older games.

The company has also priced its service higher than OnLive’s, at $20 a month or $45 for three months. Sony has declined to say how many gamers have signed up for its service.

Though it does offer the ability to rent games on a title-by-title basis, Sony has been criticized for offering unrealistic prices as high as $5 for four hours or $30 for a 90-day play period. Sony says publishers and developers decide what rental durations are offered.

What’s unclear is whether Sony can succeed where OnLive appears to have failed. In its statement, Sony said its continued investment “is yet another proof point that demonstrates our commitment to changing the way gamers experience the world of PlayStation.

 


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FG Unveils AI Public Services Platform

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Federal government has launched GovGuideNigeria, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital platform designed to streamline access to public service information through WhatsApp and the web.

The platform consolidates information from more than 35 federal ministries and over 60 government agencies, marking a significant step in Nigeria’s drive to expand AI-enabled public infrastructure and digital government services.

According to Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, the initiative aims to simplify interactions with government services, particularly for underserved communities that often face challenges navigating complex public-sector systems.

Developed in collaboration with the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Meta, and Publica AI, GovGuideNigeria uses conversational AI to provide real-time responses via WhatsApp and a web interface in English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.

Sade Dada, head of public policy at Meta, said the multilingual rollout highlights the growing use of natural language processing within African public institutions to improve digital inclusion and broaden access to services.

Ignatius Willie, chief executive of Publica AI, said the platform demonstrates how Africa’s next generation of digital public infrastructure can be developed locally using African languages.

GovGuideNigeria is intended to address longstanding challenges in Nigeria’s public information system, where citizens often struggle to access reliable guidance because of fragmented government websites, poor communication channels and the expense of travelling to physical offices.

Through AI-driven automation, users can obtain information on immigration procedures, documentation requirements, public programmes and agency-specific services through chat-based interactions.

The launch also reflects Nigeria’s broader ambition to integrate AI into digital governance, while strengthening partnerships between government agencies, global technology companies and local AI startups to modernise public service delivery.


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Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

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Elon Musk is poised to become the world’s first trillionaire after  SpaceX, his company, confirmed plans to go public.

Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

Elon Musk

Because Musk owns the majority of the shares, it could push his net worth over the trillion dollar mark.

The entrepreneur is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X, and xAI.

Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025; as of May 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $788 billion.

SpaceX has filed for a blockbuster public listing in the United States, paving the way for what could become the largest stock market debut in Wall Street history.

The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, announced plans to begin trading under the ticker symbol “SPCX” as early as next month.

The listing values SpaceX at about $1.25 trillion, with Musk’s majority ownership potentially worth more than $600 billion alone.

Combined with his existing holdings in companies including Tesla, the IPO could push Musk’s personal wealth above the $1 trillion mark.

The long-awaited filing also offered investors a rare look into SpaceX’s finances.

The company reported $18.6 billion in revenue last year but recorded a net loss of $4.9 billion. In the first quarter of this year, SpaceX generated $4.7 billion in sales while posting a $4.3 billion net loss.

Financial disclosures showed the company holds $102 billion in assets, including rockets, launch infrastructure and satellite systems, while carrying debts totalling $60.5 billion.

Despite the losses, analysts suggested investors were unlikely to be deterred given SpaceX’s dominance in commercial space launches and satellite internet services.

Ruth Foxe-Blader, managing partner at Citrine Venture Partners, described the planned flotation as “extremely exciting.”

“SpaceX is just an absolutely sprawling, enormous project with so many different selling points, and so many points that really point to the future,” she said.

SpaceX operates the Starlink satellite internet network and also owns Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI.

The IPO filing revealed that xAI recently reached a major commercial agreement with rival AI company Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot.

Under the arrangement, Anthropic will reportedly pay $15 billion annually to access data centre infrastructure linked to xAI operations in the American South.

The filing also disclosed that SpaceX expects to incur more than half a billion dollars in legal costs from multiple ongoing lawsuits and regulatory disputes.

Among the cases listed were claims alleging that xAI’s chatbot Grok had been used to create sexualised deepfakes of women and girls, alongside patent infringement disputes, music copyright claims, data breach allegations and investigations into compliance with European Union content moderation rules.

Musk has previously said he plans to dissolve xAI as a standalone company and pursue his AI ambitions directly under SpaceX.

The filing came shortly after Musk lost a high-profile legal battle against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman.

Musk had accused OpenAI of abandoning its non-profit mission after shifting towards a commercial model, but a jury dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that he had waited too long to bring the claims.


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Moniepoint Boosts UK Payments Security

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African financial services platform Moniepoint has partnered with open banking software-as-a-service provider tell.money to deploy a transaction security system in the UK market.

The companies said the partnership will allow Moniepoint to implement Confirmation of Payee, an account name-checking service designed to verify recipient details before payments are processed.

The integration will be rolled out through Monieworld, Moniepoint’s UK remittance subsidiary, as part of the company’s broader European expansion strategy.

Tell.money will provide the underlying verification technology, which the companies said is intended to reduce misdirected payments and help protect users against cross-border fraud.

Ravi Jakhodia, CEO of Monieworld, said: “Our goal with Monieworld is to build financial services for Africans in the diaspora.”

He added that tell.money was selected because it manages compliance and accreditation requirements, allowing the fintech company to focus on customer service.

Moniepoint is entering a competitive UK-to-Africa remittance market that includes established providers such as Wise, WorldRemit and Remitly, as well as African fintech firms including Flutterwave’s Send App.

According to data from the World Bank’s KNOMAD programme, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries are estimated at about $620 billion annually, with digital -first platforms capturing increasing market share through open banking integrations and automated compliance systems.

The rollout reflects a broader trend of African fintech firms expanding into developed markets by adopting local regulatory and open banking standards.

Industry analysts expect diaspora-focused platforms to evolve beyond money transfers into services such as multi-currency banking, credit and investment products.


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