Weekly Wrap-up: Paytm Mall, Airtel & BSNL Plans, Jio BOGO Offer, Hyperloop One India Vision & More…

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.

Internet/Tech/E-Commerce

Paytm has finally launched their separate e-commerce app called Paytm Mall, which is being described as a strategy for Alibaba’s grand entry into the competitive e-commerce marketplace in India. Already listed with 68 million products from 14,000 sellers, Paytm Mall has been launched as an Android app as of now.

During the on-going Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings has made a very daring prediction: Soon, every telecom operator across the world will provide unlimited video streaming services via data plans.

Gmail has now eased up problem of attachment limit, by allowing users will be able to receive emails of up to 50 MB directly in their inboxes. As per the announcement by the company, Google Drive allows a comfortable way of sharing files of any size, as opposed to earlier when the users had to link heavy attachments to Drive.

To increase the incidence of people picking Snapdeal’s calls, the company has partnered with Truecaller to create a specific tag for calls from Snapdeal’s representatives. Truecaller does the best job in sourcing phone numbers and offering users the name and location of the caller.

In a major embarrassment, Ministry of Commerce has jumped in to investigate complaints against them Snapdeal, made by online vendors and sellers. As per the complaints made, an association of online sellers’ have claimed that Rs 300-400 crores are at risk with Snapdeal, and they are afraid that their money will not be recovered.

Business/Startups

In a major development which can set a standard for cashless transactions in India, oil marketing companies have agreed to bear and absorb MDR or Merchant Discount Rate fees applicable on cashless transactions at petrol pumps.

In a twist of events, Europe, which is perceived as less open to foreign workers, have opened their doors for Indian techies, and even described them as the best. After IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad urged European nations to work with India, EU has positively responded, and even welcomed Indian IT professionals.

Goods and Services Tax (GST), which has been hailed as the biggest and most influential tax reform since 1947, is all set to be implemented by July 1st, 2017. This has been confirmed by Shaktikanta Das, who is the Economics Affair Secretary, and coordinating with various states for GST’s smooth implementation.

Zomato is working on a project called ‘Cloud Kitchen’ as a part of Zomato Infrastructure Service that will allow restaurants to improve their efficiency. Essentially, Zomato will work with current restaurant business owners to expand their business to more locations without incurring any fixed cost.

Two major banks in the country, HDFC & ICICI have decided to charge a fees for cash transactions, after a specific number of transactions. Charges upto Rs 150 per cash transaction has been announced, making cash an expensive affair.

Based in San Francisco, University of California has decided to fire their entire IT department, and outsource the jobs to HCL in India. Around 79 employees from the IT Dept., has been given pink slips, out of which 49 were permanent employees.

Telecom/Mobile/Gadgets

The Nokia 3310 retains the basic design but looks more elegant and 2017. The custom designed user interface brings a fresh look to a classic, whilst the 2.4-inch polarized and curved screen window makes for better readability in sunlight.

Reliance Jio Infocomm has now expanded its outfit by signing a deal with AirWire Technologies (AirWire) to offer the latter’s Connected Car IoT device to customers in India.

In an official blog post, Google elaborated its plans to release the Assistant to other phones, running Android 7.0 Nougat and Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Starting this week, the company will be rolling it out to the smartphones running on these OSes.

Airtel, India’s largest telecom company, has decided to kill the very concept of roaming, once for all. Hence, 26 crore Airtel customers across India can now seamlessly use their mobile phones anywhere in the country, and there won’t be any roaming charge applicable.

The pack from BSNL called ‘Dil Khol Ke Bol’ is priced at Rs. 599 (a month) and is currently only available for its postpaid customers across India’s 22 telecom circles. It offers unlimited calling with national roaming and is clubbed with 6GBs of data

Blackberry KEYone comes with a touchscreen and a qwerty keypad at the bottom, just like the Passport. However, unlike Passport, it feels more like a smartphone than an awkward-shaped phone. From some angles, the overall shape reminds of the iPhone.

This year at MWC 2017 a lot of new smartphone were launched from known and small companies alike. We have summarized the major releases from large manufacturers in the part 1 of the roundup.

India’s largest telecom operator Airtel has just slashed 4G data rates by massive 80%. We are calling it a war and a bloodbath because after Airtel, other telecom players will have to lower their data charges, which will result in huge losses for these companies.

Xiaomi, in a series of elaborative tweets, unveiled its own completely in-house developed chip – Surge S1. This means that Xiaomi will also move most of its smartphones, if only partially, to its own chips instead of relying on vendors.

Airtel and Nokia has signed a deal to deploy 5G in 9 circles across India, and now the duo is back again to work on the strategic roadmap for the implementation of 5G. This is also the first time a telco has taken interest in getting 5G to India, as and when it is available globally.

As per the Jio official, Mukesh Ambani had made it very clear in the speech during the launch that voice calls would never be charged on their platform and no form of FUP will exist on Jio Voice calls. For data usage, Jio has already announced various plans under their Prime membership.

TeamF1 Networks, a subsidiary of D-Link, a global leader in business networking, has partnered with Reliance Jio to offer digital services at home through fixed line network. These services include Media, Television (IPTV, STB), Telephone (VoIP), Gaming and Internet.

Jio, at the time of announcement of Jio Prime, also said that it will continue to announce “a line of attractive deal and offers” only for ‘Jio Prime’ members. According to sources, the company is launching the first of such offers, titled ‘Buy One Get One Free’.

After the success of Super Mario Run last year, Nintendo has finally launched its much talked about gaming console- Switch, which is on sale from today. At its debut launch, the console comes with a price tag of USD 299, which is to compete with Sony’s flagship console PlayStation 4.

Vodafone and Idea have launched similar tariff plans priced around Rs. 350. These plans offer unlimited voice calls to any network in the country along with a certain high-speed data.

LeEco, the Chinese business conglomerate is reportedly closing down Indian operations. Founded by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, LeEco has actually fired 370 employees, which form 85% of their overall strength in India.

‘Motorola’ will be the new name of Lenovo by Moto series, for all the smartphones that will be produced going forward will be under the brand name Motorola. During the Mobile World Congress 2017, the company told CNET that the reason for going back to the original name is because Lenovo didn’t have clarity to present the new brand.

Others

Axis Bank, which is India’s 3rd largest private bank, has received a major set-back and a big blow to its reputation because UIDAI has banned all Aadhaar based transactions on their platform. This is a temporary ban, executed because of mis-using biometric data, and carrying on illegal transactions using Aadhaar data.

Elon Musk led Hyperloop One presented the India Vision at an event in Delhi, which was attended by Ministers as well. As per the proposal submitted, Hyperloop One will attempt something which has never been attempted before: Connected major cities in India at a speed of 1200 km/hr.

Taskworld is one such project management platform that lets you derive more productivity out of your team. Taskworld combines the goodness of Kanban and traditional task management practices for getting the best results. [Sponsored]

With a sudden surge in E-hailing cab services, the government is drafting a scheme to encourage the use of commercial electric vehicles in city transportation. The scheme is said to let go the necessary permits that are required to run commercial E-vehicles. This move has the potential to transform the electric mobility sector in the country, as per the government.

It seems that the decks have been cleared for making Aadhaar Card as a necessity for booking train tickets, albeit only for online bookings as of now. So ensure that you have Aadhaar when you visit IRCTC website next time.

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