One Thing Today in Tech

Twitter on Tuesday asked an Indian court to overturn some government orders to remove content from the social media platform it offers, in a legal challenge that alleges abuse of power by officials, Reuters reports. The EU approved two landmark sets of rules that regulate big tech companies. And Indian entrepreneurs Darshan Bathija and Sanju Kurian’s crypto lender Vauld, which is in a financial bi...

Tata Consultancy Services , told the stock exchanges yesterday that a US court, which was hearing the latest appeal in a case in which EPIC Systems, a US company, has accused India’s biggest IT services company of stealing intellectual property, has passed an order reducing the jury award of punitive damages to $140 million. TCS is legally advised that it has strong arguments in its favour before...

Google will delete location data of users who have visited personally sensitive places, including abortion clinics, the internet search giant said in a blogpost on Friday, a week after the US Supreme Court struck down a landmark 1973 judgement — now widely known as Roe V. Wade — that had ensured a woman’s right to an abortion in America. The reversal has polarised opinion world over. “Some of the...

Zendesk has agreed to be acquired by a group of buyout firms for $10.2 billion, bringing back a deal that will be one of the biggest private-equity takeovers of the year, Wall Street Journal reports. IT services employees are in no hurry to get back to the office, according to a survey by CIEL HR, Economic Times reports. And Intel has expanded its design and engineering capacity in Bengaluru by 20...

Apple’s iPhones and Android smartphones were hacked by an Italian company's spyware in Italy and Kazakhstan, Google said in a report on Thursday, according to Reuters. Flipkart has committed to decarbonising its operations by 2030 and that of its entire supply chain by 2040, the Walmart company said in a press release. And Fundamental VC, an early-stage Bengaluru investor, is raising $130 million...

Accel, one of the top global venture capital firms, best known in India for backing Flipkart and Freshworks, has raised a $4 billion fund to invest in what it calls later-stage ventures. Britain has declared a ‘national incident’ after a rare discovery of a ‘vaccine-derived’ polio virus in sewage samples in London. And the cost of raw materials needed for EVs has doubled during the pandemic, accor...

US President Joe Biden yesterday announced his intent to nominate Indian American engineer, Dr Arati Prabhakar, to serve as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and once confirmed to this position, also as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. Google ended a two-year fight against France, agreeing to a fine and stipulations over deals with news publisher...

Tata Consultancy Services, which recently extended its contract to operate India’s passport services, expects to roll out chip-based e-passports by the end of the year, Economic Times reports. Volvo Trucks is testing hydrogen fuel cells that could offer ranges up to 1000 km, CNBC reports. And scientists have shown that machine learning can help detect autism in children by studying their speech. N...

Apple is facing another claim of nearly a billion dollars, that it knowingly throttled the performance of older iPhones, this time in Britain. Telegram, a messaging app rival to WhatsApp, said it now had 700 million monthly active users and launched a premium subscription plan. And Khumbu glacier, on which Mt. Everest’s base camp is located, is melting away at an alarming rate, BBC reports. Notes:...

Tata Consultancy Services rose 12 positions from last year to rank number 46 on Kantar BrandZ’s annual list of global brands. Rival Infosys debuted on the list, joining the top 100, ranking at number 64 on the widely followed ranking of the world’s biggest brands every year. Accenture improved its ranking by one spot to place at number 26. Microsoft, Zara and IBM, however, lead the list on a new s...

SatoriXR, a tech startup in Chennai that offers 3D and augmented reality technologies for engineering design and manufacturing, has won Grameen Foundation India’s first Tech4Inclusion challenge. And entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala’s UpGrad has doubled its private valuation in new funding round, ET reports. Notes: SatoriXR , a tech startup in Chennai that offers 3D and augmented reality technologies...

Coinbase is laying off almost a fifth of its workforce amid a collapse in its stock and crypto prices, CNBC reports. The cryptocurrency exchange will cut 18 percent of full-time jobs, according to an email sent to employees on Tuesday. Coinbase has roughly 5,000 full-time workers, translating to a head count reduction of around 1,100 people, according to CNBC. Google , has suspended an A...

Infosys is setting up four more delivery centres in India’s tier-2 cities to allow staff to work closer to their hometowns, and tap a wider talent base, Economic Times reports, citing Krishnamurthy Shankar, the IT services company’s head of human resources. Sequoia raises its largest India fund yet. And Spotify adds a voice AI team and tech via an acquisition. Notes: Infosys is setting up four mor...

Google has agreed to pay $118 million to settle a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit with around 15,500 women, according to a statement from the law firms representing the women. Meanwhile, The UK’s competition regulator wants to investigate how Apple and Google use their mobile phone dominance to kill competition. And an ed-tech company’s co-founder wants to blacklist teachers if they see...

Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank has proposed allowing integration between India’s Unified Payments Interface and credit cards, TechCrunch reports. “UPI facilitates transactions by linking savings or current accounts through users’ debit cards. It is now proposed to allow linking of credit cards on the UPI platform,” Shaktikanta Das, the governor of Reserve Bank of India said at a...

European Union countries and EU lawmakers on Tuesday have reached a ‘provisional agreement’ on a single mobile charging standard for devices in 15 different categories including mobile phones, laptops, tablets and cameras, TechCrunch reports. This will make the USB-C charger the EU standard, and equipment makers will have to comply by 2024. And Infosys has been asked, again, to fix new glitches in...

India’s central government is planning to create an appeals body where people can complain against social media posts, instead of having to go to the courts, according to a press release on Monday by the country’s ministry of electronics and information technology. The appeals body will be called the ‘Grievance Appellate Committee’. Users will have the option to appeal against the grievance redres...

India’s digital payments industry will triple to touch $10 trillion in total transaction value by 2026, according to a report by PhonePe, Walmart’s Indian fintech unit, and BCG. Coinbase is extending its hiring freeze indefinitely. NASA is outsourcing its Lunar spacesuit development to two companies including Axiom Space, which is backed by investors including India’s Sanjay Mehta. Notes: India’s...

Sheryl Sandberg said in a post yesterday that she is stepping down from her role as Chief Operating Officer at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, after 14 years at the company. Javier Olivan, the company’s chief growth officer, will take over as COO. Sandberg will remain on Meta’s board of directors. And some startups continue to find funding amid the current slowdown. Notes: Sheryl Sandberg said i...

Tata Digital has partnered with Mad Street Den, an AI platform provider, to make Tata Neu, the so-called ‘super app’ it is developing for retail consumers, a more personalised and connected experience for users. Apple supplier Foxconn says the impact of March Covid lockdowns in China is lower than expected on production. And crypto startup Liminal raises more funding. Notes: Tata Digital has partn...

Amid a funding slowdown, Sharechat’s parent Mohalla Tech is expected to announce a $300 million funding round led by Google, India’s Times Group and Singapore’s Temasek, Reuters reports. Airbus has set up an R&D facility in the UK for cryogenic fuel technologies for its proposed hydrogen planes. One AI, an Israel and Silicon Valley NLP company has come out of stealth mode, raising $8 million i...

Broadcom has agreed to pay $61 billion for VMware, as the semiconductor giant looks to expand into cloud software for enterprises, making it the biggest tech deal this year after Microsoft’s $68 billion deal to buy games maker Activision Blizzard in January. Facebook parent Meta is updating its privacy policies. And Google is exploring ways to join India’s open network for digital commerce, Econom...

Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s best-known venture capital firms, has warned founders of its portfolio companies that the flow of cheap money is over, and investors now have a distinct preference for ventures that can generate cash today. In a 52-slide presentation, the company advises startups to conserve cash, cut any flab, and prepare for the long haul, because it doesn’t expect a quick rec...

42 US lawmakers from the Democratic party have urged Google CEO Sundar Pichai in an open letter on Tuesday to stop collecting and keeping unnecessary or non-aggregated location data that could be used to identify people seeking abortions, CNBC reports. The letter comes ahead of the anticipated reversal of a US Supreme Court decision in a case, widely known in the US as Roe v. Wade, that protected...

Broadcom is in talks to pay around $60 billion for VMware as the semiconductor giant looks to expand into cloud software for enterprises, Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter. This would be one of the biggest takeover deals of the year. The two technology companies are aiming to announce a cash-and-stock deal worth about $140 a share on Thursday, assuming the talks d...