It’s Monday morning and yet again time to do a quick wrap-up of the posts published on trak last week. If you were offline for any reason, this is a great way to catch up with all the tech buzz!
Meru has unveiled three new vehicle categories – hatchback, sedan & SUV as separate services from before. Before the entry of Uber and Ola, Meru operated mostly as a cab-aggregator with steep tariffs, meant mostly for the corporates.
To find the cause of the Galaxy Note 7 explosion incidents, Samsung examined every aspect of the phone, including hardware, software and related processes over the past several months. Samsung’s investigation, as well as the investigations completed by three independent industry organizations, concluded that the batteries were the cause of the Galaxy Note 7 incidents.
Hugo Barra, the Brazilian computer scientist who had become the face of Xiaomi as the Global Vice President, has suddenly announced his exit from the company. He announced this news via an emotional Facebook post.
‘Pay by Amazon’, Amazon’s own payment solution which now includes their own wallet, has been expanded to pay for 3rd party transactions as well. As per a recent push to increase its usage, Amazon India has tied up with 25 digital services and startups, for which Amazon users can now use Amazon Pay balance to complete the transactions.
Popular standalone food-delivery service, uberEATS is finally making its way to India. Launched in San Francisco in 2014, the service has grown to 50 cities now around the world, mainly in the Americas, Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, Dubai and Johannesburg.
Vodafone India has decided to invest Rs 3,000 crore over the next three years in capacity augmentation and new business initiatives in West Bengal. A Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) was signed between Vodafone India and the Government of West Bengal on Monday, 23rd January at the Global Business Summit 2017.
Two big news surfaced regarding the usage and implementation of Aadhaar based authentication. While one of them concerns protecting the privacy of all Aadhaar users, the second is related with Aadhaar based KYC process, for all mobile users. Existing and new, both.
Both BSNL and Vodafone have launched newer plans which provide the same: unlimited calling along with free internet for both 3G and 4G users. However, there are some minor differences in both of these plans.
As per the study, it was found that 60% of vehicles in India are uninsured, which means that only 4 out of 10 vehicles plying on Indian roads are insured against accident or theft. As per the data shared, during 2015-16, there were a total of 19 crore registered vehicles in India, and out of this, only 8.26 crore vehicles were actually insured.
Currently, ‘Instant Tethering’ is being rolled out to select Android devices bundled with Google Play Services 10.2 update. The feature works by detecting whether all your devices are online or not. If one of your devices loses internet access, then it automatically enables the hotspot in the other device that has access to mobile data.
According to a report by Counterpoint Technology Market Research, the smartphone shipments in India grew a healthy 18% annually in CY 2016 compared to the global smartphone market which grew a modest 3%.
Predatory and aggressive pricing (read free offers) by Jio, wherein calls and Internet is free for all users, has created havoc across Airtel’s financial sheets last quarter. As per recent numbers shared by them, they have reported a massive drop of 54% in their consolidated profits.
For iOS users, WhatsApp has finally added queue messaging to the latest version of its app. The latest WhatsApp version 2.17.1 is now available to all iPhone users (running iOS 7 or higher), with a huge update size of 91.2MB as it brings some new features.
Google has clearly understood the apps problem, and has developed a system called “Instant Apps” which can actually change the whole concept of app downloading. In fact, such are the possibilities, that it can revolutionize entire mobile ecosystem.
In an anti-globalization stance, Tamil Nadu trade associations and unions have declared war against foreign beverages. Effective March 1st, these Unions, and Associations representing thousands of traders from Tamil Nadu will stop selling Pepsi and Coca-Cola to the general public
A day before Republic Day and a week before the presentation of Union Budget, a powerful panel comprising of Chief Ministers of India have suggested strong proposals, which, implemented, can have a long-term implication on the Digital India and Cashless movement.
Karnataka has deemed carpooling option illegal in the state. According to the laws, the cab should pick up the customer from one point and drop him/her to the destination, with no additional stops to pick up extra customers in the middle.
Two pioneers of digital wallets in India, FreeCharge and Paytm have some exciting news for their users. Android users will now be able to recharge their Google Play Store accounts with coupon codes from FreeCharge and Paytm.
A startup in India, especially a hotel aggregator, takes time to become profitable but OYO has proved everyone wrong. Taking its business a step further, OYO Rooms founder – Ritesh Agarwal – has announced the launch of a new category, OYO Townhouse. These hotels will be operated by OYO itself, giving it full control of the operations.
As per research data by Smartapp, 42% of all Indians having 4G handsets are using Jio as the primary source for data connection. This is quite evident from Airtel’s financial results which we had shared last week, wherein we had reported that Jio’s tsunami has eaten away 54% of Airtel’s profits.
Team Indus, which was India’s first and only startup to have received $1 million from Google Lunar XPrize last year for landing their spacecraft on Moon, is now all set to create a unique history. By next Republic Day, that in January 26, 2018, they would land their first spacecraft on the moon, travel at least 500 meters on the Moon’s surface and sent back images and videos.
While last year’s budget focused a lot on healthcare, education and social sector, Budget 2017 is being seen as one that will bring personal finance to the center stage. Here’s what you can expect from the Budget 2017
India’s 3rd largest telecom player, Idea Cellular, has finally decided to take the plunge into the on-demand entertainment sector. As per reports emerging, Idea is planning to challenge the might of Jio with their own suite of on-demand TV, videos, music and games.
And, before you leave, do check out our new web series called Trakin Tech Talks – If you are too lazy to read through our weekly wrap-ups, just play this video and you will get Tech highlights of last week in Video format. You can subscribe to get talks directly in your inbox every week. ( We also have a Marathi version coming up from next week)
And finally, do check out our Up-To-Date Indian Startup Funding and Investment Chart, that offers you funding details of over 2500 Tech startups!
