One Thing Today in Tech

Apple yesterday revealed its long-anticipated mixed reality headset, called Vision Pro, which the company describes as a spatial computer that merges digital content with the physical world. The pricey device will only be available next year in the US. Apple also announced a slew of other updates, including the M2 Ultra chip, new Mac computers and iOS 17. Meanwhile, Kerala has kicked off a project...

Apple's annual flagship meet, the worldwide developer conference starts today at 10:30 p.m. India time. On day one of the week-long events, almost everyone is expecting the iPhone maker to finally reveal its version of an extended reality headset. Apple is also widely expected to release the next iterations of its Mac computers as well as the beta version of iOS 17 operating software for its i...

US President Joe Biden’s administration is preparing to approve a deal that would allow General Electric (GE) to manufacture jet engines for Indian military aircraft in India, Reuters reports exclusively. Meanwhile, after setbacks to two major proposed projects, The India Semiconductor Mission is reopening its application window for semiconductor fab proposals starting today, Mint reports. Also in...

India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) has announced plans to invest Rs. 1 trillion ($12.1 billion) by 2030 to increase its renewable energy capacity and reduce direct emissions. The company aims to scale up its renewable energy capacity to 10 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, a significant increase from the current 189 megawatts. The world’s biggest AI experts have captured in one sentence...

JioCinema set a new global record for concurrent views during a live-streamed event, yesterday attracting more than 33 million simultaneous viewers for the Indian Premier League cricket tournament finale, surpassing the previous record held by Disney's Hotstar, TechCrunch reports. Apple is expected to introduce new Mac models at its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), according to...

OpenAI has expanded the availability of its ChatGPT app for iOS users in 33 countries, including India, where a subscription costs just under Rs. 1,000 a month. Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has stated that the upcoming Digital Personal Data Protection Bill in India will bring about significant changes in the behaviour of platforms that have exploited or misused personal data, according to a...

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 OpenAI expanded its iOS app to 11 countries. Snapchat...

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 use cases in different industry verticals; Microsoft...

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 worldwide. Also in this brief, TCS announced a generativ...

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 brief, Amazon Web Services, the world’s biggest cloud...

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 partnership. This helps Infosys “solidify” its 20-year-old...

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 be available on Jio Cinema. She unpacks what this...

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, making it a direct competitor to Sony and Nintendo....

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 a waist-mounted external battery pack, and a price...

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 company is also expected to unveil its long-anticipat...

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 Yaccarino, a top marketer, might bring her perspective...

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 programming language’s version 1.9 is out, and Google...

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 Kurian provided an update on how the company is...

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. And for fans of the Nintendo Switch, the eponymous...

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 large language model called PaLM 2, which incorpo...

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 3One4 Capital has raised $200 million for its fourth...

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 opened two of its brick-and-mortar stores, was a “...

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 play in banking and financial services with a new...

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 hiring for certain roles, as approximately 7,800 jobs c...

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 are other major patent filers. India had a dismal...