We are into the last week of this year – and here is the weekly wrap-up for the previous one. This being time for festivities, we are sure many of you might have been offline. But don’t worry, here is all the tech buzz from last week….don’t miss a thing!
In one of the biggest decisions, Education minister Smriti Irani has announced that henceforth, all books under CBSE curriculum would be freely available for students.
In regards to Free Basics, TRAI seems to have received about over 3 million comments. These comments have suddenly come and mostly around Facebook’s Free Basics service thanks to the misleading campaign run by Facebook on its platform.
The state-owned telecom firm BSNL has slashed mobile rates by up to 80 per cent under a scheme for new customers. However, do keep in mind that these highly reduced rates are for first two months only!
With 25.9 per cent month-on-month growth, 4G based smartphone accounted for more than half of smartphones shipped in October. This gain is mainly at the expense of 3G enabled handsets as vendors are replacing their existing models with 4G based smartphones while making consumers future proof.
A crucial bill in US House of Representatives have been passed, which has increased the H-1B and L1 visa fees by 100%. This means that American IT companies will need to pay $4000 for H-1B and $4500 for L1 visa now, if they want to hire an overseas employee to work in US.
In a blatant display of desperation towards somehow getting the mandate for implementing their nefarious ‘Free Basics’ propaganda in India, Facebook is now pushing users in USA and Canada to support their shrewd cause.
nexGTV, a mobile content accumulation platform, has launched SPOTlight for Video content creators in association with famous Bollywood director Imtiaz Ali, a similar idea as YouTube, but to earn money in a simplified manner.
Who actually manages PM Narendra Modi’s social media profiles? How does he manages to remain so active and vigil on social networks, tweeting, sharing and liking posts every few minutes? Here are the answers and more
Going green isn’t always the easiest thing to do – especially for those of us living in huge, urban cities. Take a look at these 5 apps that can help us all be a little kinder to the planet:
Home grown mobile instant messaging app ‘Hike’ is going multilingual with support for 8 Indian languages that includes Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu. The multilingual version of the app will be launched tomorrow (23rd December).
Indian handset maker, Micromax, has partnered with TranServ to pre-install a native digital wallet on all Micromax smartphones from January 2016. For pre-2016 smartphones, a software update will be released soon to install the e-wallet.
TRAI has asked Reliance Communication to stop offering Free Basics by Facebook as a service to end-users. Reliance Communication is the only telecom partner which has teamed up with Facebook to offer Free Basics service in India.
Vivo has just inaugurated a manufacturing plant in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh and has become to first Chinese handset maker to start manufacturing locally. Supporting the ‘Make in India’ campaign, Vivo has pledged to invest Rs 125 Crores in making phones in the country
Reports have emerged that Anil Ambani led Reliance Communication may soon acquire Aircel, which is controlled by Malaysia based Maxis Communication. This merger will create India’s 2nd largest telecom behemoth, replacing Vodafone which is right now India’s second biggest telecom player after Bharti Airtel.
Series B round of financing involves VC’s or PE investors, usually after your company has achieved certain credibility or success. Successive rounds of funding as you grow and expand will lead to Series C and beyond. Here are pre-requisites to Attract Series B Funding and Beyond
Tech Mahindra, the Tech & Software development arm of Mahindra Group, today announced launch of MoboMoney, a NFC based, contactless digital payment ecosystem. MoboMoney will be the first commercial roll-out of NFC (Near Field Communication) for an ecosystem.
Idea Cellular, India’s 3rd largest telecom company, has shocked everyone with their 4G launch across 750 towns in 5 southern states: Andhra Pradesh & Telengana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. With this, Idea has become the 3rd telecom company to offer their 4G services.
YuppTV, an Over-The-Top (OTT) provider for Indian content, has launched a new service YuppTV Bazaar to attract independent video content creators in the country to make their videos reach a wide audience.
Delhi Govt. will offer free WiFi on DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) buses on a trial basis. First 10 minutes of WiFi would be free, after which the users would be asked to share their feedback with the transport department.
A German website, Macerkopf, has released a series of screenshots showing WhatsApp’s video chat feature considering they have been working on some new features for the past few weeks. The beta version of the application for iOS is being tested right now
Large companies like Microsoft, and Unicorns like Paytm are vehemently opposing Free Basics. Kunal Shah, Founder of Freecharge has Facilitated Reddit AMA with Internet.org VP Chris Daniels
Government plans to reduce tax burden for startups and VCs in India; a move which has trigger a wave of development and progress. In fact, as per some analysts, this decision by Indian Govt. can recreate Silicon Valley in India.
In one of the rarest instances of an ecommerce initiating investigation against fraud, police have arrested two techies from Hyderabad who had duped Flipkart of an iPhone worth Rs 51,590.
