Forbes India Daily Tech Brief Podcast

Microsoft President Brad Smith has raised concerns about artificial intelligence churning out deep fakes, false but highly realistic content. In a speech in Washington, Smith emphasized the need to address deep fakes and protect against foreign cyber influence operations, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, India didn’t figure in the list of markets as Ope…

Apple yesterday announced a new partnership with Broadcom to develop 5G radio frequency components and wireless connectivity components. Separately, Wistron, a contract manufacturing supplier to Apple, has shut its operations in India, Mint reports. Also in this brief, Infosys Topaz is a new suite of services based on generative AI with specific us…

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has been hit with a record-breaking fine of 1.2 billion Euro ($1.3 billion) by European Union regulators for violating EU privacy laws. Meanwhile, the company’s WhatsApp unit announced that messages on its platform will soon be editable for up to 15 minutes after they are sent. The feature is rolling out worldw…

Leaders of the Group of Seven nations have called for the development of technical standards to ensure trustworthy artificial intelligence, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, OpenAI has introduced an official iOS app for ChatGPT, bringing its popular AI chatbot to mobile devices, according to a blog post from the company over the weekend. Also in this bri…

Apple yesterday announced new software features for cognitive, speech, and vision accessibility. These updates, set to launch later this year, include assistive access, live speech, personal voice, and point and speak in the magnifier app, the company said in a press release. Also in this brief, Infosys and bp signed an MoU to deepen their partners…

In today’s quick take, we teamed up with our own Naini Thaker, an avid IPL watcher and OTT aficionado, to help us make sense of the news that Disney+ Hotstar lost 15-16 percent of its India paid subscriber base between October 2022 and March 2023. Naini also walks us through the news that a substantial portion of HBO’s premium content will now only…

Foxconn, a key Apple contractor, is set to invest $500 million in setting up manufacturing plants in Telangana. This move demonstrates Foxconn's intent to expand its presence in India as Apple pushes its biggest partners to step up efforts to help it reduce dependence on China. The EU has okayed Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, makin…

Apple is likely to unveil a high-end mixed reality headset at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The headset will likely have an internal screen for virtual reality and outward-facing cameras for augmented reality overlays. It is said to be experimental relative to other Apple products, with …

Elon Musk, who is amidst a transition to a new CEO to take his place at Twitter, has come under criticism for allegedly giving in to government pressure to censor tweets ahead of national elections in Turkey, according to multiple reports. Apple’s next more powerful processor, the M3 chip is expected later this year, according to Bloomberg. The com…

After Elon Musk’s tweet that he has found a new CEO for Twitter and that he would take the CTO’s role, the name of Linda Yaccarino, a senior executive at NBC Universal Media in the US, has emerged as the person who is tipped to lead Twitter. In today’s Quick Take, we talk about if this will have any bearing on Twitter’s plans in India and how Yacca…

Hyundai Motor has pledged to invest $2.45 billion in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over the next decade to boost its electric vehicle plans, according to multiple reports yesterday. WhatsApp has rolled out back-end updates to address the surge in spam calls, which have been a major problem for users in India. Also in this brief, Julia pro…

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, yesterday, delivered the keynote address at the 2023 edition of its annual flagship conference, Google I/O, highlighting the company's latest advancements in AI and machine learning. The company is bringing its technology in generative AI to individual users through a new Labs project. Separately, Google Cloud CEO Thomas K…

Researchers at OpenAI, the company that made ChatGPT, have open-sourced datasets from a nascent effort aimed at building an automated tool to explain how large language models work. They discussed their efforts in a paper they published yesterday on their website. IBM, at its annual think conference yesterday released a new AI platform and tools. A…

LinkedIn is cutting 716 jobs, about 3.6 percent of its staff, to streamline its operations. The social media network for business professionals will also phase out its local jobs app in China, InCareers. Google is expected to announce several generative AI updates at its annual developer conference, tomorrow, including the launch of a general-use l…

Tata Steel has warned that its UK business faces “material uncertainty” due to market conditions and the level of government support, BBC reports. That support is related to the need for the company’s steel factories to transition to newer technologies and processes that will result in lowering carbon emissions from the plants. Bengaluru VC firm 3O…

Apple reported its fiscal second-quarter earnings yesterday that beat market expectations, helped mainly by stronger-than-anticipated iPhone sales, but also an increase in its services business. Sales were down overall, however. Sales in India set a March-quarter record, CEO Tim Cook told analysts in a conference. The country, where Apple recently …

Google has started rolling out passkeys as an alternative to passwords for signing into its platform, the internet search giant said in a blog post yesterday. Pando, a supply chain software company, has raised $30 million in its Series B funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $45 million. Also in this brief, Infosys makes an ecosystem …

Geoffrey Hinton, a leading figure in artificial intelligence (AI), has resigned from Google, warning of the dangers of the field; Samsung has temporarily restricted the use of generative AI, including ChatGPT, for its employees due to cases of misuse of the technology; and IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has announced that the company expects to pause hirin…

India accounts for an insignificant share of patents worldwide, an analysis by Nasscom, the country’s top tech lobby, shows. In a report titled Unpacking Indians IP landscape, Nasscom yesterday pointed out that China accounted for 46.6 percent of all patents filed in 2021, as applications returned to pre-Covid levels. The US, Japan and South Korea …

Microsoft and Google both surprised the street yesterday, beating analysts’ estimates. Google also saw its cloud business turn a profit for the first time since the unit’s launch. Also in this brief, Microsoft’s Anant Maheshwari is named Nasscom chair; WhatsApp can now be used on multiple phones; Xerox to donate PARC to SRI; and Capria Ventures ann…

Apple opens its second company-owned retail store in India today, in New Delhi. CEO Tim Cook who’s visiting India after seven years, shared a picture on Twitter from a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday and said the company is committed to the country’s tech vision. Also in this brief, JLR is to invest $15.7 billion more in its EV …

Elon Musk, once a large backer of OpenAI, is planning to launch an artificial intelligence startup of his own, CNBC reports, citing an article in the Financial Times from Friday last that is behind a paywall. The company is called X.ai, according to the Wall Street Journal, which also reported the news, citing a filing in the US state of Nevada. Mu…

Tata Consultancy Services kicked off the Indian IT services sector’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings yesterday, reporting that clients in the US, the sector’s biggest market, were holding back on discretionary spending and that an expected pickup from the previous quarter didn’t materialise. Growth was led by a strong performance in the UK, and the …

Apple, after years of anticipation, is finally ready to open its own stores in India. The first two are coming up in Mumbai and New Delhi. They are set to open on April 18 and April 20, respectively. China’s powerful Cyberspace Administration has released draft rules to regulate generative AI products as companies such as Alibaba and Baidu launched…

Worldwide IT spending is projected to touch $4.6 trillion in 2023, increasing by 5.5 percent over 2022, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, widely seen as the top IT market forecaster advising enterprise CIOs. While the devices segment is expected to contract the most among the various categories, the IT services segment is now expected to…

India yesterday notified changes to its information technology rules that now require all intermediaries – such as social media platform providers and internet services providers – to rely on a government-backed fact check unit concerning any content related to “government business,” according to an official statement. Also in this brief, Q1 of cal…

Capillary Technologies, one of India’s first-generation software-as-a-service companies, earlier this week, announced its second US acquisition as part of a strategy to step up its operations in the world’s biggest technology market. Speciale Invest, a Chennai VC firm known for backing deep-tech startups, has raised a fund aimed at series A or high…

India’s Skyroot Aerospace, yesterday announced it had conducted a long-duration test of a 3D-printed cryogenic engine, firing it for 200 seconds – an important milestone in developing the private space venture’s higher payload capacity rockets. The test also yielded vital data for advancing the company’s use of LNG – a greener alternative to the mo…

Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest technology services and consulting company, announced a surprise change at the top yesterday. CEO Rajesh Gopinathan has resigned to “pursue his other interests,” and K Krithivasan, another company veteran will take over in the coming months, the Mumbai-listed IT giant told the stock exchanges after the mar…

Venture capital funding for India’s startups fell from $38.5 billion in 2021 to $25.7 billion in 2022, according to the latest report on the sector by Bain and Company, a consultancy, and Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association. However, more early-stage deals were struck in 2022, helping the overall deal volume to be marginally higher, ac…

Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms will lay off 10,000 more workers and incur restructuring costs ranging from $3 billion to $5 billion, the company announced Tuesday, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg warning economic instability could continue for “many years,” CNBC reports. Also in this brief, OpenAI releases GPT-4, the latest version of its large …

The year 2022 saw women-led startups in India increase their share of venture capital investments and do better than the overall startup ecosystem in the country, even as the so-called funding winter descended on the sector amid worsening global macroeconomic conditions. Marquee investors such as Sequoia Capital and Accel as well as accelerators an…

Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest contract manufacturers, said on Saturday that there was no definitive agreement about investment in India, the French news agency AFP reported. This came after a report from Bloomberg on Friday last that Foxconn will invest about $700 million to build a new plant near India’s tech capital Bengaluru. Also in this brie…

Amazon announced on February 24 that it will integrate its logistics network and SmartCommerce, a suite of SaaS products built on Amazon Web Services, with the government of India-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Ericsson has announced the largest layoff in the telecom sector in the current economic slowdown, Reuters reports. Also i…

Google has started to support third-party billing for Google Play Store purchases in India as the Android maker begins to comply with local rules, after its challenge to a diktat from India’s Competition Commission was initially rejected by the country’s top courts, but remains pending, TechCrunch reports. Meanwhile, C.E. Info Systems, better known…

India and Singapore have linked their digital payments systems, UPI and PayNow, to support instant and low-cost cross-border payments. The system went live yesterday. Capgemini forecast weaker revenue growth and said it would slow down hiring in 2023 amid a global economic slowdown, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, Wipro is asking some recruits to join …

Tata Group’s Jaguar Land Rover said on Tuesday it is opening three new engineering hubs in Europe to develop autonomous vehicle technologies as part of its partnership with Silicon Valley artificial intelligence company Nvidia, Reuters reports. Also in this brief, several countries, last week, agreed on a call to action over the use of AI in warfar…

Microsoft’s announcement of its Bing AI last week was received with much fanfare, which even prompted Google to rush through its botched announcement. The experience of some early testers, however, hasn’t been very good, and the whole thing could backfire. Also in this brief, Tesla is recalling more than 360,000 cars over safety concerns related to…

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took a vacation to French Polynesia to “detox” himself from gadgets and other digital distractions, the entrepreneur told The New York Times, Business Insider reports – the original piece is behind a paywall. Benioff took a vacation after firing 10 percent of the cloud-based CRM provider’s staff. Meanwhile, fintech darli…

Blue Origin, the aerospace company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has developed the technologies needed to make solar panels on the Moon, with zero carbon emissions and no water, the company said in a blog post on Friday last. Twilio, yesterday, announced plans to cut another 17 percent of its workforce or roughly 1,500 jobs, CNBC reports. A…

Shell’s board of directors are being personally sued over their alleged failure to properly manage risks associated with the climate crisis, Euronews reports. The lawsuit, brought by Environmental law charity ClientEarth says the British oil giant’s 11 directors have breached their legal duties under the UK’s Companies Act by failing to bring their…

Microsoft has re-launched its search engine Bing with artificial intelligence features, the company said in a blog post yesterday. The new search engine is available for preview at bing.com. Microsoft is a large investor in Open AI, the research lab and company whose ChatGPT bot has taken the tech world by storm for its ability to deliver human-lik…

The naval version of India’s light combat aircraft made a successful landing on the INS Vikrant, India’s indigenous aircraft carrier, the ministry of defence said in a press release yesterday. Separately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yesterday, opened India’s largest helicopter factory at Tumakuru, near Bengaluru. The facility, established by Hind…

As India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the country’s budget today for the coming fiscal year that starts April 1, expectations are high on all fronts, especially as India is widely seen as the one major economy that will grow strongly during a period when the global economy is expected to slow down. Here’s what some of India’s tech…

The International Monetary Fund yesterday revised upward its global growth projections for the year, after better-than-expected data on spending by American households and businesses, and in other countries, and Europe’s handling of its energy crisis, CNBC reports. Also in this report, pet fish apparently changed their owner’s Nintendo username, do…

The US Justice Department yesterday accused Google of abusing its dominance in digital advertising, and said the internet giant should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, Reuters reports. Venture capital funding of startups fell more than 38 percent in 2022 versus 2021, GlobalData finds. Indian software-as-a-service companies, however, were a r…

Amazon has launched Amazon Air, its dedicated air cargo fleet in India, partnering with Quickjet, the ecommerce giant said in a press release yesterday. It will start with Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Activist investor Elliott Management’s next target is Salesforce, Wall Street Journal reports. Also in this brief, Microsoft invests more …

India’s Supreme Court yesterday rejected Google’s ask that an order by the Competition Commission imposing a fine and changes to its market practices with respect to Android software be stayed. Google had approached the top court after the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, earlier this month, had refused to stay the Competition Commission’s …

GoMechanic, a car service startup backed by VC investors including Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management and Chiratae, will cut 70 percent of its staff and undergo an independent audit of its books, the company’s co-founder Amit Bhasin said in a post on LinkedIn yesterday. Also in this brief, Microsoft yesterday confirmed the 10,000 job cuts tha…

Microsoft will likely announce thousands of job cuts soon resulting from a decision to cut 5 percent of its global workforce, Sky News reported yesterday. With more than 220,000 employees at Microsoft, that could mean more than 10,000 layoffs, The Verge pointed out. Also in this brief, Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptops with the M2 chips, Google’s pla…