One Thing Today in Tech

Bharat Electronics and Airports Authority of India have entered into an agreement for the joint, indigenous development of systems for air traffic management and surface movement of aircraft at airports in the country, which were hitherto being imported. IBM has announced a collaboration with the Department of School Education, in the northeastern state of Nagaland, to introduce the IBM STEM for G...

A cyberattack in January on Okta, a company that provides network access to its customers, may have been more severe than it originally thought, BBC reports. Oxyzo Financial Services, a tech-enabled smart financing solution provider, has raised $200 million in Series A funding. Plus, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw has been named to Scotland’s Royal Society of Edinburgh. A cyberattack in January on Okta, a co...

Google’s parent Alphabet ’s quantum technology unit, Sandbox, is spinning off into an independent company, the company said yesterday, CNBC reports. A few of Apple’s services experienced another outage yesterday, just one day after various services and online infrastructure went offline on Monday, The Verge reports. Plus, Mfine has added blood pressure and glucose monitoring features to its mobile...

Infosys has been recognised as one of athe World’s Most Ethical Companies for 2022, the second year in a row, by Ethisphere Institute, which works in the area of defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices. A clarification on disallowing offset of loss against profit in crypto transactions in India has caused much consternation among startups, TechCrunch reports. Plus, ecomm...

Reliance Retail, part of the Reliance Industries conglomerate, is acquiring an 89 percent stake in direct-to-consumer brand Clovia for $125 million. Indian Institute of Science has entered into an MoU with Ajit Isaac, founder and chairman of Quess Corp, and his wife Sarah Isaac, for establishing a Centre for Public Health at the IISc campus. Plus, Sri Lankan Cricketer Mahela Jayawardene co-founds...

Wipro and Pandorum Technologies, a biotechnology company working in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, have teamed up to develop technologies that shorten time-to-market and maximise patient outcomes during R&D and clinical trials of regenerative medicine; Walmart Global Tech and IIT Madras will collaborate on research, and continued education for Walmart associates; An...

US President Joe Biden issued a new executive order on Wednesday on regulating cryptocurrencies in America, laying out a broad strategy for how the government plans to balance consumer protection without stifling innovation. Amazon shares surged on its plan for a 20-1 stock split, Bloomberg reports. And Money View, a fintech startup, Jiffy.ai , a B2B automation platform and Atlan, a data managemen...

The Reserve Bank of India yesterday launched additional features on the Unified Payments Interface platform that will allow people to make payments even on basic feature phones, which are still widely used in India. Considering that there are more than 40 crore feature phone mobile subscribers in the country, UPI123pay will materially improve the options for such users to access UPI, it said. Goog...

Amazon is allegedly employing suppliers in China with links to forced labour, according to a report from the Tech Transparency Project, a research group owned by the nonprofit watchdog organisation Campaign for Accountability. The report accuses Amazon of continuing to work with these suppliers, despite evidence of their association with Uyghur labour camps in China, and in one case, continuing to...

Meesho is preparing for an IPO as early as 2023, Reuters reports, citing an internal company document it has seen. According to Reuters, the Bangalore company is working to be ready for a listing by the end of 2022 and is evaluating both Indian and US exchanges. Ninjacart, an agri-tech platform provider, has launched a $25 million fund. And CredAvenue has raised $137 million, tripling its valuatio...

Mfine, a digital health platform provider, has launched a Heart Rate Monitoring Tool on its mobile app that uses the phone’s camera flash. Infosys and Roland-Garros have renewed their partnership for another five years. Filo, Docsumo, and Pocketly raise funding. Plus, Tide, UK, has a plan to support 500,000 women entrepreneurs. Notes: Mfine, a digital health platform provider, has launched a Heart...

Mindtree’s founders have closed the inaugural fund at their early-stage venture capital firm Mela Ventures at Rs. 320 crore, well exceeding their initial target of Rs. 200 crore, Economic Times reports. EV company Ather Energy sold 2,042 scooters in February this year, a 140 percent increase over the same month in 2021. Plus, Sony has released a new wireless headphone for bass enthusiasts. Notes:...

Biocon Biologics has struck a $3.335 billion cash-and-stock deal with US pharmaceuticals company Viatris to acquire its global biosimilars business including rights in the partnered in-licensed portfolio. Infosys has launched a ‘metaverse foundry’ to fast-track its customers’ adoption of the online environment. And Prime Venture Partners, a Bangalore VC firm focused on early-stage startups has clo...

Hasura raises $100 million to expand SaaS product, becomes a unicorn Hasura, which provides software for developers to connect disparate sources of data, has secured $100 million in funding in a round led by Greenoaks with participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures, the company said in a press release. The Series C round brings the...

India is formulating rules to get all its states to share data via a common searchable database, according to a draft policy document released on Monday by the country’s Ministry of Electronics and IT, Economic Times reports. Eka Software is in talks to be acquired by PE firms. Plus, AI can’t claim its own art, US officials copyright officials decide

Vedanta, Foxconn to invest $7.4 billion to build India chip foundry In a move that could give India at least a toehold in the global semiconductor fabrication market, Vedanta Group and Foxconn are partnering to build a chip foundry in India that could be ready as early as 2024, Economic Times reports . The fab will focus on 28nm technology to make chips that could go into smartphone components, am...

Uniphore, a conversational automation tech company, yesterday announced its Series E funding round of $400 million, led by NEA, at a valuation of $2.5 billion. IBM has acquired Neudesic, a cloud consultancy. And the top 10 percent of the global population, by consumption, are responsible for almost half of the carbon emissions on the planet, a new study has found. Notes: Uniphore raises $400 milli...

Twitter is making its Safety Mode auto-blocking feature available to a wider set of users in its beta version, to help people protect themselves from abuse on the microblogging platform, the company said yesterday. Microsoft has a new powerful laptop aimed at professionals. Plus, Offgrid Energy Labs, a battery tech startup, has launched its first product ZincGel Notes: Twitter expands the reach of...

Warrant Buffett bought a billion dollars worth of Activision Blizzard shares weeks before Microsoft announced its deal to acquire the gaming company, according to a regulatory filing by the billionaire investor’s company Berkshire Hathaway. Jio Platforms, the digital services unit of Reliance Industries, has formed a satellite internet JV. Separately, Jio will also invest $200 million in Glance. N...

N Chandrasekaran has been reappointed as the chairman of Tata Sons for a further five years, the salt to steel conglomerate said in a statement after its board met on February 11. Freshworks crossed the $100 million quarterly revenue milestone in its fiscal fourth quarter ended December 31. UK regulators have warned the country’s banks on the use of AI for lending decisions. Tata Sons reappoints C...

Binance Holdings, the parent company of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is making a strategic investment of $200 million into the 105-year-old media company Forbes, Bloomberg reports . Patrick Hillmann, Binance’s chief communications officer, and Bill Chin, head of Binance Labs, its venture capital arm, will join the Forbes board when the transaction closes. “Forbes editorial...

James Murdoch, Uday Shankar return to India with $1.5 billion from QIA James Murdoch and Uday Shankar have launched a new company called Bodhi Tree, with $1.5 billion from Qatar Investment Authority, to focus on opportunities in India and Southeast Asia. Bodhi Tree would be “designed to invest in media and consumer technology opportunities in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on India,” Murd...

Two arrested in connection to 2016 crypto heist worth $4.5 billion today The US Department of Justice has arrested two people in connection to a crypto heist in 2016. The two, Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, are accused of conspiring to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during a hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange, in 2016, presently valued at approximately $4.5 bill...

Polygon raises $450 million in fresh funding Polygon, a blockchain startup, has raised about $450 million through a private sale of its native MATIC token in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Galaxy Digital, Galaxy Interactive, Tiger Global, Republic Capital and prominent angel investors, the company said in a blogpost yesterday. SatSure...

Vitamin D deficiency linked to Covid-19 severity and mortality There is a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 severity and mortality, according to a study conducted by Israeli researchers at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University in Safed and the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. They published their results on February 3 in the journal PLOS ONE, Scitechdaily re...