Thursday, 2 March 2023

Parliamentary Standing Committee Approved Revised Draft of Data Protection Law: IT Minister

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has given a "thumbs up" for the revised draft of the data protection law.

Vaishnaw, a bureaucrat turned politician who presently handles the IT portfolio, said an advanced copy of the revised bill on data protection was shared with the committee.

"I would like to share some good news that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT and Communications... before this bill is taken to the Parliament, they have given a big thumbs up," Vaishnaw said while speaking at the annual NTLF here.

In 2021, the government withdrew an earlier version of the same bill after a slew of changes suggested by a Joint Parliamentary Committee and promised to come up with a new bill, which it did late last year.

Debjani Ghosh, the president of the IT industry lobby Nasscom, said the bill needs to be passed at the earliest and hoped that it sails through this year itself.

Vaishnaw said when it comes to tech regulations, the world is at a complex moment where every country is looking at the issue in a different way.

India's endevaour will be to keep her aspirations in mind while taking a call on the subject and navigate the environment accordingly, he said, adding that no country should copy the other while formulating its laws.

Vaishnaw, who had attended the World Economic Forum at Davos in January, said there is an increased trust in India at the global stage.

He said Indian companies will have to be careful and not over-promise as they integrate into the global supply chain with their products and services.

"Promise what we can do, never over-promise," the minister told delegates at the summit, asking industry to focus on innovation and people.


The iQoo Neo 7 packs a lot of power at an affordable price. But did the company cut the right corners to keep the price low? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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Reliance Jio Expects to Become Largest Player in 5G Sector in 2023, Says Company's President

India's biggest telecom operator Reliance Jio expects to become the world's largest player having a pure 5G network this year with promise to provide services at affordable rates to the masses, a senior official of the company said here.

Speaking to the PTI at the Mobile World Congress, Reliance Jio President Mathew Oommen said India needs inclusive growth and Jio will continue to support it.

"Jio will be the largest 5G SA (standalone) only network operator in the world in the second half of 2023, ensuring that all advanced services and capabilities are available affordably to the masses," Oommen said.

He was responding to questions around the company's 5G roll out plan and Jio's competitor Bharti Airtel pushing for an increase in mobile call and data services price. Jio has focussed on rolling out 5G SA while Bharti Airtel is rolling out 5G (NSA) non-standalone network which can provide a mix of 5G and 4G services.

"India needs inclusive growth. Jio will continue to support India's inclusive growth," Oommen said.

Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal earlier this week said mobile call and data rates will go up this year as the return on capital in the telecom business is very low.

Airtel had last month increased the price of its minimum recharge or the entry-level for the 28-day mobile phone service plan by about 57 percent to Rs. 155 in eight circles.

Oommen did not elaborate further on the statement.

Jio has rolled out its 5G network in over 300 cities while Airtel has network in over 140 cities. 


Samsung's Galaxy S23 series of smartphones was launched earlier this week and the South Korean firm's high-end handsets have seen a few upgrades across all three models. What about the increase in pricing? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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Wednesday, 1 March 2023

Bitcoin, Ether Record Small Profits, Losses Keep Several Popular Altcoins Down

After days of incurring small losses, Bitcoin managed to retain small profits as it stepped into the trading arena on Thursday, March 2. With a small gain of 0.35 percent, the trading value of Bitcoin stood at $23,485 (roughly Rs. 23.4 lakh) at the time of writing. The market movement trajectory for the world's oldest as well as most expensive cryptocurrency remained the same on international exchanges such as Coinbase, CoinMarketCap, and Binance among others. In the last 24 hours, BTC rose in value by $63 (roughly Rs. 5,201).

At a quick glance, the crypto price chart looked like a mixed bag of profits and losses.

Ether followed Bitcoin and retained small profits. With a gain of 0.59 percent, the value of ETH came to the price point of $1,646 (roughly Rs. 1.35 lakh). Over the past day, ETH rose in value by $11 (roughly Rs. 910).

Stablecoins that recorded losses most days this week, finally reeled-in profits. These include Tether, USD Coin, Ripple, as well as Binance USD.

A group comprising of other popular altcoins also bagged profits. These include Uniswap, Chainlink, Cosmos, Wrapped Bitcoin, and Leo.

Surprisingly, the overall crypto market valuation did not change in the last 24 hours. As per CoinMarketCap, the crypto market cap continued to stay at $1.08 trillion (roughly Rs. 89,26,560 crore).

Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, both of the memecoins settled with losses on Thursday.

They were further joined by Cardano, Polygon, Polkadot, Tron, and Avalanche.

Monero, Stellar, Cronos, and Near Protocol also emerged on the loss-making side of the price chart.

Experts expect to see more stability in the crypto sector in the coming days in the backdrop of several upcoming events.

“The Ethereum blockchain has come closer to its highly anticipated Shanghai upgrade. The Shanghai upgrade will be marking the complete transition to a fully functional PoS (Proof of Stake) network. Also, Goldman Sachs has said that it is ‘hugely supportive' of blockchain applications and plans to hire around 70 people in its digital asset group in 2023. Several major Japanese manufacturing and finance firms have joined hands to create the infrastructure for an open metaverse to boost the nation's Web3 strategy,” noted Parth Chaturvedi, Crypto Ecosystem Lead, CoinSwitch, indicating better days ahead for the crypto sector.

“Closer home, CRE8, an Indian Rupee denominated Virtual Digital Asset (crypto) index was up 0.85 percent in the past 24 hours. The Index value stood at Rs. 2,989.26 at 8 AM, March 02, 2023,” Chaturvedi added.


After facing headwinds in India last year, Xiaomi is all set to take on the competition in 2023. What are the company's plans for its wide product portfolio and its Make in India commitment in the country? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.



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EU Antitrust Regulators Extend Deadline for Verdict on Microsoft’s $69 Billion Activision Deal to April 25

EU antitrust regulators have extended their deadline for a decision on Microsoft's $69 billion (roughly Rs. 5,71,800 crore) acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision to April 25, according to a European Commission filing on Wednesday.

The Xbox maker announced the Activision Blizzard deal in January last year to help it compete better with leaders Tencent and Sony but has encountered regulatory hurdles in Europe, Britain and the United States.

It is expected to offer remedies to the EU competition enforcer soon.

Last month, Microsoft struck a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty and other Activision games to Nvidia's gaming platform if the Xbox maker is allowed to complete its much-contested $69 billion acquisition of Activision.

Regulators and competitors like Sony have come out hard against the proposed Microsoft-Activision tie-up. The move may allay concerns by ensuring more ways for consumers to get games controlled by Microsoft, but regulators around the world have been sceptical about the acquisition.

Britain, earlier in February, said the deal could harm gamers by weakening the rivalry between Xbox and PlayStation, resulting in higher prices, fewer choices and less innovation for millions of players, as well as stifling competition in cloud gaming.

Sony has led opposition to the Microsoft-Activision deal, saying last year it was “bad for competition, bad for the gaming industry, and bad for gamers themselves.”

Apart from Sony and Nvidia, other companies including Alphabet's Google had expressed concerns to the FTC about the deal, according to media reports.

Microsoft has pledged to keep Call of Duty on Sony's PlayStation. The popularity of the first-person shooter franchise is undimmed nearly two decades after launch, with the latest instalment achieving $1 billion in sales in its first 10 days in October.

The US tech giant has said the deal is about more than Call of Duty. It has said buying the company that also makes Overwatch and Candy Crush would charge its growth in mobile, PC, and cloud gaming, as well as consoles, helping it compete with the likes of Tencent as well as Sony.

Last month, Microsoft President Brad Smith sought to convince EU antitrust regulators at a closed hearing that the company's bid for Activision Blizzard would boost competition.

Smith led a delegation of 18 senior executives, including Microsoft Gaming Chief Executive Officer Phil Spencer, while Activision was represented by its CEO Robert Kotick, a European Commission document seen by Reuters showed.

© Thomson Reuters 2023


After facing headwinds in India last year, Xiaomi is all set to take on the competition in 2023. What are the company's plans for its wide product portfolio and its Make in India commitment in the country? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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Layoffs in Crypto Industry Drop in February, Messari and Elliptic Most Recent to Slash Staff

The wave of layoffs that has severely impacted the tech industry in recent months, also hit the crypto sector around the beginning of this year. As the year progresses into its third month, the layoffs in the crypto sector have recorded a significant dip. While the layoffs saw a drop in February, at least twelve cryptocurrency companies announced staff cuts in recent weeks. Messari, the crypto market intelligence firm, and Elliptic, the crypto compliance firm, are the latest firms to lay off some of their staffers.

In January this year, the crypto industry witnessed a high rate of job cuts. Around 2,850 people working in the crypto sector lost their jobs in the month, figures compiled by CoinTelegraph reportedly showed.

On the other hand, an estimated number of 570 professionals engaged with the digital assets sector lost their jobs in February — marking a notable decline in job cuts.

Most places, that did decide to trim their respective teams, did so in double digits throughout February's 28-day period.

Messari for instance, announced layoffs for 15 percent of its workforce. As per its founder Ryan Selkis, these job cuts were due to market turmoil which caused the firm to organise a restructuring of its internal teams.

Elliptic, which laid off 10 percent of its workforce comprising of ten people, cited cost-cutting requirements for the company as the reason behind its decision.

“The spike in layoffs is a macro event not just in Web3 but tech in general fuelled by fears of an extended recession,” CoinTelegraph quoted Neil Dundon, an Australia-based crypto recruiter as saying.

As per Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech layoffs since COVID-19, the overall staff cuts across the IT sector impacted over 108,900 people from 129 companies including Google, Microsoft, and KPMG among others between January and February.

While over 82,400 people were laid off from the IT industry in January, over 24,500 people lost their IT jobs in February.


After facing headwinds in India last year, Xiaomi is all set to take on the competition in 2023. What are the company's plans for its wide product portfolio and its Make in India commitment in the country? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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Realme C55 Tipped To Launch on March 7 Globally, Specifications Leaked

Realme has recently made headlines for reportedly working on designing a front-facing display notch component that looks to be similar to the Dynamic Island element on the iPhone 14 Pro series. According to the latest rumour, Realme could be one of the first brands to create its own version of Apple's Dynamic Island. Alongside this "Mini Capsule," Realme is also reportedly working on a new device called the Realme C55. A teaser video of the same was leaked recently and now a tipster has suggested the likely launch date and expected specifications of the purported device.

Tipster Paras Guglani (@passionategeekz) suggested in a tweet that the Realme C55 is expected to launch globally on March 7 and go on sale starting March 8. He added that the model is likely to launch in India later this year. He also hinted at a few key specifications that the purported Realme device may arrive with.

As per the tipster, the Realme C55 could feature a 64-megapixel AI Camera as its primary sensor among the likely dual rear camera setup of the device. The model is expected to launch in a single configuration of 8GB RAM + 256GB storage, according to the leak, which added that the upcoming Realme C55 may also feature 16GB Dynamic RAM.

Tipped to be powered by a MediaTek Helio G88 chipset, the rumoured Realme C55 is also expected to support 33W SUPERVOOC charging and come equipped with a 5,000mAh battery.

Attached to the tweet, is a leaked promotional image of the Realme C55 handset, which suggests that the device will be available in a Sunshower colour. Another leak by Price Baba suggests that the Realme C55 smartphone will also be available in a Black colour variant.

The second leak also offered design renders of the upcoming smartphone, and suggests that the Realme C55 may be the company's first C-series phone with a punch-hole display. As seen in the leaked images cited in the report, the back of the model mostly has a matte finish with only a glossy bit around the dual-camera unit. The handset is also seen sporting a side-facing fingerprint scanner.

A promotional video, recently leaked by the same tipster, also showed the two separate rear camera modules of the purported Realme C55. The short 10-second clip also showed the power button on the left edge of the device as having a fingerprint scanner. Overall, the design appears similar to that of the Redmi 10 4G smartphone that launched in February 2022.

Another earlier leak from YouTuber Official Complete Selular, cited in a report by Gizmochina suggests a lot of important specifications of the Realme C55, which is said to have a thick top and bottom bezel, with a USB Type-C port at the bottom with a 3.5mm audio jack and speaker grille.

This report suggested that the Realme C55 will feature a 6.52-inch LCD display with Full-HD+ resolution and a refresh rate of 90Hz. It was also the first to hint that the device will likely be powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio G88 processor and could come with 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB eMMC 5.1 storage.

The smartphone was also expected to feature a dual-rear camera system in this report led by a 64-megapixel primary sensor and a 2-megapixel auxiliary sensor, paired with an 8-megapixel selfie camera. The report added that the phone is expected to run Realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13.


Where did Realme go wrong with the 10 Pro+ 5G? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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Tuesday, 28 February 2023

Google to Introduce eSIM Transfer Feature for Android Phones Later This Year: All Details

Google has announced several new features for Android at this week's Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. While some of the features have already rolled out to users, Google has also promised to bring eSIM transfer support to Android later this year. This will make it easy for users to transfer their mobile plan to a new device. Built on GSMA's global standard, the new feature will remove the need for swapping a physical SIM card to transfer the mobile plan to a new phone.

Google in its blog post has shared that the new eSIM transfer feature will be rolled out to Android devices later this year. Though it hasn't confirmed the exact rollout timeline, but it said that Deutsche Telekom will be the first carrier to get this support. It also noted that the new eSIM transfer ability will be built on GSMA's global standard. It will let users transfer their existing mobile plan to a new phone, without having to swap a physical SIM card.

In addition to the eSIM announcement, Google also shared the latest android abilities on the newly launched smartphones from its partner brands like Samsung, OnePlus, Oppo, and Xiaomi. While Xiaomi 13 and 13 Pro have been launched with support for digital car keys, OPPO Find N2 Flip and OnePlus 11 have received the Nearby Share feature.

The company also announced a set of new Android features like the Google Keep single note widget on the home screen, Wear OS' new shortcuts to create notes and to-do lists from the watch face, audio enhancements, and new emoji packs. While the new note widget lets users manage notes and to-do lists from the home screen, the new shortcuts for Wear OS enable users to create notes or to-do lists with just one tap on their watch face.

The audio enhancements to Google Meet on mobile bring a noise-cancellation feature during calls.


After facing headwinds in India last year, Xiaomi is all set to take on the competition in 2023. What are the company's plans for its wide product portfolio and its Make in India commitment in the country? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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