It’s Monday morning and yet again time to do a quick wrap-up of posts published on Trak.in last week. If you were offline for any reason, this is a great way to catch up with all the Tech Buzz.
Contents
Internet/Tech
In a major push for seamless cashless transactions, Govt. of India has launched Bharat QR Code, which is world’s first interoperable payment platform. Here are 7 interesting facts about Bharat QR Code payment system, which every debit/credit holder (who is also a bank account holder) should be aware of..
Facebook-owned WhatsApp too is getting into this business with WhatsApp Status – a new feature to share temporary photos and videos with friends and contacts in your phone. With a motive to let people know what is up with you, WhatsApp Status will try to reinvent the way you connect with others.
As per reports emerging, EPFO is all set to embrace technology in a major way, which will not only bring down the time required to settle claims but also enable online withdrawal of PF funds – a fantasy which so many employees had since so long.
In one of the first such partnerships ever announced in India, Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce portal has joined forces with Microsoft for using their Azure Cloud platform.
In one of the most useful missions ever launched under Digital India and Swatch Bharat, Govt. has launched a specialised hub called Bot Cleaning & Malware Analysis Centre, named as Cyber Swachhta Kendra in India.
Microsoft-owned Skype has also joined this league by launching Skype Lite, a simpler, cleaner and lighter version of its original telephony service. Exclusively launched for India on 22nd February, Skype Lite is a little under 13mb in size, the app includes all services – video calling, texting, voice calling and skype bots.
While hearing arguments to a case pertaining to ‘loss of dignity for women and children’ due to the objectionable content being uploaded online, Supreme Court posed an interesting challenge to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet companies: How can you stop uploading ‘obscene content’ on the Internet.
In a bid to promote digital transactions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier announced that biometric-based payment system Aadhaar Pay will be functional soon. The government is ready to go live with the said payment solution incorporating five banks that include the country’s largest public sector bank, State Bank of India.
Business/Startups
In an interesting judgement by a Govt. designated tribunal, it has been declared that Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth will not pay any income tax, because it is a public charitable trust related with the education of Yoga.
Two of India’s largest cab aggregators, Ola and Uber, clocked over 500 million rides in 2016, according to a report by RedSeer Management Consulting. Even though the two companies faced a lot of challenges in India, they managed to rake in half a billion rides.
Capgemini India, which employees around 1 lakh employees, is pretty pessimistic when it comes to the existing quality and standard of Indian IT employees. While speaking at Nasscom Leadership Summit in Mumbai, their Indian head dismissed 65% or around 20,00,000 IT employees, saying they are simply not trainable.
Paytm has always had QR codes for payments but they never really got famous because the company also has a phone-to-phone number transaction method which witnessed much higher adoption. Somehow, the company has felt the need to improve the usage of QR codes and is investing Rs. 600 crore to expand this feature.
The bubble of Indian e-commerce seems like finally bursting as Snapdeal, India’s 3rd largest e-commerce portal, and the poster-boy of Indian internet success story, as officially announced mass layoffs.
Stayzilla – The Godzilla of homestays born and made in India with over 55,000 homestays, hotels, guest houses, jungle lodges and boat houses under its armour across 900 cities and towns across India, has decided to shut down.
Google is foraying its existing messaging app to Rich Communication Services (RCS) app, which would change the default SMS app “Messenger” to “Android Messages”.
Telecom/Mobile/Gadgets
For the month of January, TRAI has discovered that Jio’s average download speed has decreased by 50%, whereas Airtel’s has increased by 50% for the same period.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is examining the limited fixed-mobile telephony (FMT) services of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). Earlier, when BSNL was relaunching its FMT service which virtually turns mobiles into cordless phones, several telecom operators had revolted against it.
Reliance Jio, another competitor for Paytm, has just partnered with Uber to allow cashless payments for its customers. JioMoney is Reliance Infocomm’s answer to Paytm, MobiKwik and FreeCharge and has been working on creating strong ties for some time now.
Last week, Mukesh Ambani, the Chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), took to the stage and announced what we all have been hoping for; Reliance Jio has achieved a subscriber base of 100 million, who he calls as “the co-founders” of Jio. He also announced Jio Prime along with few other announcements.
Jio’s upcoming Android-based feature phones are tipped to be priced as low as Rs 1,000, and will provide unlimited voice and video calling, besides digital content. As per another report, Reliance is looking forward to make two feature phones priced at about Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500 that are likely to be launched in coming months.
In an attempt to recover the dented image of its flagship smartphone Note 7, Samsung is planning to sell refurbished Galaxy Note 7 handsets in India and Vietnam. The newly manufactured phones will be featuring a smaller battery.
HTC has said that they will now focus on high-end and mid-range smartphones and will exit the entry-level smartphone space. They also launched two new premium segment smartphones – U Play and U Ultra.
Bharti Airtel has entered into a definitive agreement to buy Telenor’s operations in India. Airtel has over 269 million subscribers in the country, in all of its circles, and a 33% market share which is threatened by Jio and Vodafone-Idea merger.
The top-end processors, Ryzen 7 have been touted to defeat Intel in performance by a huge margin, while also being cheaper by almost 54%. AMD is launching the Ryzen 7 chips first, including the Ryzen 7 1800X for $499, the Ryzen 7 1700X for $399 and Ryzen 7 1700 for $329. These processors will be available in the US starting March 2, and sales outside the US will follow subsequently.
LG has announced its comeback into the low-cost entry-level smartphone market in India. The South Korean giant will reenter this extremely competitive mobile phone market by July-August this year with a couple of models.
Mohit Goel, the founder of Ringing Bells, was detained by Ghaziabad police after a case of ‘fraud’ was lodged against his company. The complaint was filed by Ayam Enterprises, a company that was based in Ghaziabad, and the allegation was that Ringing Bells defrauded them of Rs 16 lakh.
Launched as a Private Recharge Mode, Vodafone’s new feature will allow users to maintain the secrecy of their phone number so that they are not misused for other purposes. This offer is being rolled out to only West Bengal users, and the company has not announced any plans to roll it out nationally.
Airtel Payments Bank has decided to jump into the lucrative financial products niche and will be soon selling mutual funds and insurance policies.
Others
Mohit Goel, the founder of Ringing Bells, was detained by Ghaziabad police after a case of ‘fraud’ was lodged against his company. The complaint was filed by Ayam Enterprises, a company that was based in Ghaziabad, and the allegation was that Ringing Bells defrauded them of Rs 16 lakh.
If you a fresher, and seeking a job in IT industry, then take this information with a pinch of salt: There is very high chance that you will get a salary which won’t satisfy you, and the reason behind this is a deep-rooted conspiracy by leading IT firms.
Mumbai, the City of Dreams, has once again proved why it attracts people who want to become wealthy. With $820 billion wealth, 46,000 Millionaires and 28 Billionaires, Mumbai is India’s most wealthiest city as per a recent report by New World Wealth.
Govt. of India has decided to go full throttle for pushing solar power generation in the country. As per reports coming in, massive increase in budget has been allocated to double solar power generation, even as plans for putting 7000 railway stations under 100% solar power is rapidly underway.
Reliance has named this service as Reliance Jio Cabs, and initially, they had planned to launch the service in the month of April. However, due to Jio’s telecom services’ commercial launch, they have postponed the launch to year end.
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