Elon Musk's Neuralink cited by FDA over animal lab issues

The inspectors identified quality control lapses at the company's California animal research facility. A similar inspection at Neuralink's Texas facility did not find problems, according to agency records. Those visits took place last year from June 12-22, and represent the FDA's sole inspections of Neuralink facilities on record.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

US consumer watchdog plans to regulate overseas sale of Americans' data

The White House earlier Wednesday announced an executive order intended to help restrict the transfer of personal data to China, Russia and other countries on security grounds.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Bill Gates lauds India's "unique effort" for women's empowerment with new alliance

The Alliance for Global Good – Gender Equity and Equality – is supported by the Gates Foundation, and anchored by the CII Centre for Women Leadership, with the World Economic Forum as a network partner and Invest India as an institutional partner.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

The 10-minute challenge: Quick-commerce becomes the villain for neighbourhood kirana stores

Quick commerce companies now make up 40-50% of all e-commerce sales of FMCG firms and they pose an existential threat to both neighbourhood kirana stores as well as big e-comm players. Here’s what makes them tick.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to generative AI

The Apple car team also has several hundred hardware engineers and car designers. It’s possible that they will be able to apply for jobs on other Apple teams. There will be layoffs, but it’s unclear how many.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

EU set to fine Apple in Spotify music streaming case

The European Commission last year charged the iPhone maker with preventing Spotify and other music streaming firms from informing users of options outside Apple's App Store.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Relook parts of draft cybercrime treaty: Rights groups to UN panel

ET had reported on February 22 that the ad-hoc UN committee had, in a draft treaty on cybercrime, proposed that all member nations introduce and adopt legislative and other measures which allow the preservation of “electronic data including traffic data, content data and subscriber information” for a period of up to 90 days.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Micron starts mass production of memory chips for use in Nvidia's AI semiconductors

Micron Technology has started mass production of its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) semiconductors for use in Nvidia's latest chip for artificial intelligence, sending its shares up more than 5% on Monday.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Moon landing puts new space race startups in spotlight

Declining cost of rocket launches is fueling the boom in the private space industry that could reach about $770 billion by 2027, with some estimating that "New Space" firms could account for a sizable chunk of the market. Here are some firms working toward exploring the opportunities.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

FM Nirmala Sitharaman asks RBI, fintechs to hold monthly meetings in wake of Paytm crisis

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met representatives from the fintech industry on Monday to hear their concerns in the wake of the central bank's order to Paytm Payments Bank to stop accepting fresh deposits in its account or popular wallets from March.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

No foreign remittances licence, no Fema violation: Paytm to ED

Paytm Payments Bank has denied Fema violation as it lacks licence for foreign remittances, said sources to ET. ED has written to RBI. The federal agency recently obtained the "additional" data requested from RBI regarding entities allegedly involved in Fema violations through Paytm Payments bank. However, upon reviewing the data provided by the RBI, the agency has not found any apparent Fema violations by Paytm Payments Bank, according to the sources.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Ground breaking ceremony of VinFast takes place at Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi facility

The ground breaking ceremony took place in the presence of Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin along with the senior representatives of the Vin group. ET had reported on February 10 that the Vietnamese company that is looking to compete with the likes of Tesla was going to have its ground-breaking ceremony on February 25.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Need more women in AI for inclusive development of the technology

A diverse workforce is better tooled to identify and remove biases, while women also bring to the table a different mental toolkit

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Osmania University Result 2024 declared for various semesters at osmania.ac.in, direct link to check

Osmania University (OU) has declared the results for various courses. Students can check and download their Semester 3, 4 and 5 results from the official website using their enrolment number and password. The result will contain student details, exam information, and qualifying status.

from Latest Education news - Board Exam Results, Admit Cards, Exam Paper Analysis and Question Papers | Times of India
via IFTTT

Fintechs and the KYC conundrum; other top tech, startup stories this week

KYC is best understood as the doorway to formal banking channels. So improper KYC can open up banking to the risks of money laundering, fraudulent transactions and such. When customers open bank accounts, they need to submit identity documents, PAN cards to be verified by bank officials as a part of the KYC process.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Generative AI making customer support conversations more human, leading to wider adoption

Artificial intelligence-powered customer care platforms like Exotel, Freshworks, Gupshup, Corover.ai, and Yellow.ai are revolutionizing customer support. Meta's WhatsApp is the leading platform for GenAI-powered customer support conversations. GenAI integration is cost-effective and yields significant savings and ROI. Freshworks' Freddy Copilot significantly improves ticket resolution time and response times.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Jeff Bezos, Nvidia join OpenAI in funding humanoid robot startup

Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, OpenAI, and other big technology names are investing in Figure AI Inc., a startup developing human-like robots. The funding round raised $675 million with a pre-money valuation of $2 billion.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Elevation Capital’s massive gamble on Paytm backfires

The Ravi Adusumalli-led fund’s 15% stake in One 97, which was valued at about Rs 6,100 crore when the post-IPO lock-in expired in November 2022, had shrunk by nearly 40% to Rs 3,800 crore at the end of trading on Thursday.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Face-off likely at EGM over plan to oust Byju’s CEO

Investors demand ouster of Byju Raveendran and family, accuse management of non-compliance, misinformation, and withholding information. They seek details on AESL acquisition, loan terms, investigations, audits, and board restructuring for improved oversight and governance.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

India proposes 24x7 global communication link to curb cybercrimes

The proposal is part of India’s submission to a draft treaty on prevention of cybercrime, which is being deliberated upon by an ad-hoc committee of the United Nations (UN).

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

BigTech lobbying to derail open source GenAI: DeepLearning AI's Andrew Ng

“If the attempts to squash open-source software succeed, almost all nations will simply be losers…the United States as well,” Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning AI, told delegates Wednesday at the Nasscom Technology and Leadership Summit in Mumbai.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Govt eases FDI norms in space sector

The government on Wednesday eased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) norms in the space sector with an aim to attract overseas players and private companies into the segment. The decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Edtech’s AI push has its share of doubting Thomases

Higher education, upskilling platforms likely to benefit more than startups servicing schools and students on large scale

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Govt nudging firms towards EV charging interoperability

Easier rules around power and land usage, as well as specific subsidies for fast-charging infrastructure, could encourage setting up of these facilities and adoption of EVs, senior executives in the EV industry said.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Snap to invest more to continue conversation with young India: Snap India MD Pulkit Trivedi

In a letter to its shareholders, Snap had said it would shift more of its focus during the year to expanding Snapchat’s user base and investing in markets where it makes the most money, including North America and Europe. However, as per Trivedi, the Evan Spiegel-led company remains bullish on the India market.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Byju’s rights issue gets $300 million commitment

Byju's floated a rights issue in January to raise $200 million through equity rights issue at an enterprise valuation in the range of $220-250 million which is a 99 per cent reduction in its peak valuation of $22 billion.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

US divided on TikTok ban even as Biden campaign joins the app, AP-NORC poll shows

President Joe Biden's campaign uses TikTok to court young voters, despite mixed views. Concerns about data sharing, propaganda, children's time on TikTok, and misinformation persist. Fact-checking initiatives are implemented. Former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joins TikTok. Fact-checking hubs are established for the European Union elections.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Experts urge govt to invest in open data, compute for AI leadership

Open data and compute can put India on the world map in the race for artificial intelligence, experts tell ET.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

OpenAI deal lets employees sell shares at $86 billion valuation

The tender offer values the artificial intelligence startup at $86 billion, a price that makes OpenAI one of the most valuable startups in the world. Bloomberg previously reported the value and that Thrive Capital, the venture capital firm led by Josh Kushner, would lead the deal.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

OpenAI completes deal that values company at $80 billion

The company would sell existing shares in a so-called tender offer led by venture firm Thrive Capital, the people said. The deal lets employees cash out their shares in the company, rather than a traditional funding round that would raise money for business operations.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

When Byju’s made its presence felt, in absence; and other top stories this week

Upgrad cofounder Ronnie Screwvala huddled up with a group of founders and edtech leaders to discuss the way forward from the perception hit, which the sector has taken as a result of the doings of just one company.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Fairfax refutes charges that Digit was falsely shown to be profitable in 2021

Toronto-listed Fairfax’s shares have recouped all losses after a short seller report on 8 February alleged asset value manipulation by the company

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

A video star is born: OpenAI’s Sora stuns with AI act

Many believe OpenAI's Sora could transform a swathe of creative industries — from filmmaking and advertising to graphic design and game development — as well as sectors such as social media, influencer marketing and even edtech, while rendering things like stock footage obsolete.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

HR companies find many GenAI use cases to raise efficiency

Global tech leader Service Now partnered with Hugging Face to roll out the Now LLM, an instruction fine-tuned version of a model in the StarCoder model family, for HR leaders to drive productivity and operational efficiency by reducing redundant and manual tasks. Global captive centre (GCC) scaler company ANSR has built the Nova LLM trained using Vicuna 7B model based on the Llama 2 series, trained on public and proprietary information.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Bitcoin's renewed euphoria as price keeps rising

Bitcoin is forecast to keep on rising after hitting fresh two-year highs above $50,000 on Thursday, leaving analysts to wonder whether investors have moved on from recent cryptocurrency setbacks, including scandals. The world's biggest cryptocurrency reached $52,749, a high since December 2021.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Notion to up India presence, to hire more

This comes as the company officially opened its new office in Hyderabad, earlier this week, in line with its plan to increase its headcount in the region. Notion's India team will house employees under engineering, product management, data, customer support and people functions.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

P2P companies go easy on partnership business as RBI sounds alert

According to the founders of several of these lending platforms, given that the Reserve Bank of India is scrutinising the sector, they are adopting a “wait-and-watch” policy before stitching these deep integrations. P2P platforms LenDenClub and Liquiloans led the partnership game by working closely with fintechs like Cred and BharatPe to source borrowers and lenders.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

OpenAI gets partial win in authors' US copyright lawsuit

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin on Monday granted most of Microsoft-backed OpenAI's motion to dismiss many of the writers' claims for now, rejecting their arguments that the content generated by ChatGPT infringes their copyrights and that the company unjustly enriched itself with their work.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Petcare startup Supertails raises $15 million led by RPSG Capital Ventures

Bengaluru-based startup Supertails will use the funds for offline expansion, scaling up products, acquiring new customers and expanding its healthcare service, Supertails Pharmacy. The company plans to launch trial stores in a mix of metropolitan and tier-I cities like Bengaluru, Mysore or Ahmedabad.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Arm Holdings extends blistering rally in wake of earnings

The chip designer’s shares soared as much as 42% on Monday on volume that was more than six times the average over the past three months. The advance briefly pushed the stock’s gains to more than 100% in the three trading sessions since Arm’s results were released after markets closed on Feb. 7.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Uber, Lyft, DoorDash drivers in the US to strike on Valentine's Day for fair pay

The strike call is the first since Uber and Lyft went public in 2019. Drivers will picket outside airports and Uber offices, two of the groups said. The strikes are set to take place about a week after Lyft said it would pay the difference if drivers made less than 70% of what riders paid after external fees each week.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Bitcoin hits $50k level for first time in more than two years

The cryptocurrency has risen some 15.7% so far this year, on Monday touching its highest since Dec. 27, 2021. At 1721 GMT, bitcoin was up 4.8% on the day at $49,826, having oscillated around the $50,000 mark.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

ET Interview | AI to speed up India’s growth on road to 2047: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, believes that India's strong market and growth rate make it well-positioned to benefit from artificial intelligence-led growth. Nadella emphasizes the role of AI in driving productivity and sees it as a competitive advantage for India. He also addresses concerns about job losses and the impact of macroeconomic factors on technology spending.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Humanoid robots can be a way to bridge AI to human experience: David Hanson

From large foundation models to new computing tools and authoring tools, these emerging technologies allow us to explore what it means to be alive, he said.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma discussed exiting board, removing Paytm from bank name

Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma wanted to remove ‘Paytm’ from its name to quell mounting regulatory and compliance pressures on the fintech firm. However, did not carry out his plan and remains on the board of Paytm Payments Bank.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Cisco to lay off thousands of employees to focus on high growth areas

The San Jose, California-based company has a total employee count of 84,900 as of fiscal 2023, according to its website. The company is still deciding on the total number of employees to be affected by the layoffs, one person said.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Startup employees look for exits amid crises; outside talent reluctant to join

People do not want to put their reputations at risk, and that is now becoming the case when working at such companies. According to recruiters, many of those who moved to startups from traditional sectors at eye-popping hikes at the height of the startup boom are now eager to return even taking upto 20-30% pay cuts

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

UK-based Ciklum acquires Infogen, aims to double down on India

Ciklum is one of the portfolio companies of Recognize, a technology investment platform, led by IT industry veterans including former Cognizant CEO Frank D’Souza along with Raj Mehta, Charles Phillips, and David Wasserman.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Consumer awareness, social media put healthy snack brands on growth path

However, scaling these businesses beyond the niche markets while staying profitable presents a major hurdle. While their operating revenue might be booming, these brands, which sell products such as chocolate and protein bars, millets and dry fruits-based snacks, granola bars, oats, and breakfast cereal, also widened their losses during the year.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Kitchen appliances startup Upliance AI raises Rs 34 crore in funding led by Khosla Ventures

Bengaluru-based Upliance AI said it will utilise the the funds will be used to accelerate product expansion by investing in tooling and advanced manufacturing techniques, building the team, and collaborating with content creators for marketing.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

ED probe into Paytm on horizon; Vijay Shekhar Sharma knocks at authorities’ doors

Paytm founder and chief executive officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma Tuesday met finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the backdrop of the banking regulator’s action against the fintech firm. He had met top RBI officials on Monday. A comprehensive investigation could be initiated in view of the reference after ascertaining relevant details, said one of the persons.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

BharatPe gets fresh notice from MCA

BharatPe confirmed receipt of the notice and in a reply to ET’s questions, said it is related to an inquiry that started in 2022. The Registrar or Companies, an arm of the ministry, has sought additional information in a letter to the company, a spokesperson said.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Meta oversight board calls company's deepfake rule 'incoherent'

The board, which is funded by Meta but run independently, took on the Biden video case in October in response to a user complaint about an altered seven-second video of the president posted on Meta's flagship social network.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Microsoft partners with Semafor for AI-assisted news content

Through these collaborations, Microsoft will help the organisations to identify and refine the procedures and policies to use artificial intelligence (AI) responsibly in newsgathering and business practices, the tech giant said in a blog post.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Why is Big Tech still cutting jobs?

Google started the year with layoffs of several hundred employees and a promise of more cuts to come. Amazon followed by trimming hundreds of jobs in its Prime Video department. Meta quietly thinned out middle management. Microsoft also cut 1,900 jobs in its video game division.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Bengaluru-based Calligo Tech to receive first silicon with posit computing capability this month

The semiconductor startup Calligo Tech is expecting its first silicon for general-purpose computing with an alternative number system Posit this month. When used in silicon, Posit claims to deliver better performance and accuracy for high-performance applications.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Paytm crisis brings 30% market share cap plan back in focus

Following the RBI's order barring Paytm Payments Bank from offering banking services after February, a debate over implementing a 30% market share cap for unified payments interface platforms has been reignited.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Blue Tokai revenue surges 70%in FY23; loss up 3.5 times as firm expands footprint

Specialty coffee brand Blue Tokai saw its total expenses balloon to Rs 166 crore in FY23 from Rs 90 crore in the previous fiscal primarily on account of an increase in costs pertaining to raw materials, employee salaries, and rents.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Graduates with preparatory prog from open univs eligible for Maharashtra LLB-3 yr course

from Latest Education news - Board Exam Results, Admit Cards, Exam Paper Analysis and Question Papers | Times of India
via IFTTT

How Instagram reels are transforming Indian weddings and shaping the industry

Reels have transformed the landscape of nuptials, dictating not just how weddings are captured, but how they are conducted

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

The week that was: Hope and despair on Startup St., and other top tech stories

But if there’s one thing that has come to the fore this week, it's compliance and governance issues at startups. When companies are in the nascent stage they can get lax on setting up internal controls, but once you scale it becomes a different proposition altogether.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Paytm in talks to migrate payments, settlements from Paytm Payments Bank

Paytm is in talks with three banks - HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Yes Bank - that can take on the payments and settlements load from Paytm Payments Bank. However, the process is yet to start since the Reserve Bank of India has not said anything yet.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

Inclusive Budget lays strong foundation for viksit Bharat

Reflects commitment to sustainable growth, in harmony with people and environment

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT

ETtech Explainer: how will RBI move impact customers

Unlike the curbs on Yes Bank or several cooperative banks, the latest series of RBI restrictions were not a fallout of the dire finances of the entity concerned.

from Tech-Economic Times
via IFTTT