One Thing Today in Tech
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India's e-rupee pilot to begin from tomorrow; RBI rejects PhonePe, Razorpay NBFC bids — report; Vikram Kirloskar dies at 64
India will conduct the first pilot of the e-rupee for retail digital currency on December 1, Reserve Bank of India, the country's central bank said yesterday in a statement. Meanwhile, the central bank has rejected the NBFC licence applications of some well-known fintech startups, The Hindu Businessline reports. And Vikram Kirloskar, the well-known industrialist, widely seen as being responsible for bringing Toyota to India, died yesterday, reportedly of a heart attack. He was 64
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AWS pledges to go water positive by 2030; iPhone rumour: no physical buttons next; Table Space raises $300 mln
Amazon Web Services at its annual re:Invent conference, which began yesterday, said it will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations, according to a press release. Table Space, a co-working space provider, has raised $300 million in fresh funding, Economic Times reports. And the high-end versions of next year's iPhones may not have physical buttons and use haptic tech, according to some of the latest rumours
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Dhruva, Pixxel, send satellites to space; Paytm asked to resubmit payments aggregator papers
The Reserve Bank of India has asked Paytm Payments Services Limited to resubmit the application to operate a payments aggregator business, barring it from adding online merchants while the approvals remain pending, Mint reports. Satellite ventures in India step up their efforts in India. Pixxel in Bengaluru and Dhruva in Hyderabad together sent three more satellites on an ISRO rocket last week, adding capabilities from amateur radio to hyperspectral earth imaging for climate change mitigation
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Amazon Academy to wind down; Ultraviolette launches performance bike F77; Transition VC targets Rs. 400 crore first fund
Amazon will be shutting down Amazon Academy, an online learning platform it launched in India for high-school students last year, TechCrunch reports. Ultraviolette Automotive, an EV technologies company, yesterday announced the commercial launch of its first product, a high-performance motorcycle called F77, starting at an ex-showroom price of Rs. 3.8 lakh. And Transition VC plans to raise Rs. 400 crore for its first fund
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AWS opens Apac region in Hyderabad; UK to investigate Apple, Google browser 'stranglehold'; Amagi acquires Streamwise
Amazon Web Services yesterday announced the launch of its second Indian data centre facility in Hyderabad, called the AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region. The first was opened in Mumbai in 2016. Britain's top competition authority will launch an investigation into the Apple-Google duopoly in the web browser market after many developers and businesses in the country complained of harmful restrictions imposed by the tech giants. And SaaS broadcast tech provider Amagi has acquired Streamwise, a company in the US
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HCL Tech launches climate change learning for employees; Pixxel's third satellite to launch on November 26
India has released a framework to curb fake and misleading reviews on ecommerce platforms and portals offering tour and travel services, restaurants, eateries and consumer durables, TechCrunch reports. HCL Technologies is launching a climate change course to get its 220,000-strong workforce to reduce its carbon footprint. And hyperspectral imaging satellites company Pixxel plans to send its next satellite up on an ISRO PSLV later this week
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India releases data protection bill for feedback; Target 10,000 deep tech startups by 2030 — Nasscom
India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has released a draft bill, titled 'The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022' for public feedback. The last date to provide feedback, via the ministry's website, is Dec. 17. This brings India a step closer to formulating rules that will govern the individual rights of the 'digital citizen' and the need to process data for lawful purposes. And deep tech startups in the country need much more money at various levels to thrive, Debjani Ghosh, president of Nasscom, India's main tech lobby, said last
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India rises in climate performance rankings; Meta names Sandhya Devanathan as VP for India
India ranked eighth on the annual climate change performance index, jumping two positions since last year, Carbon Copy reports. India is among the high-performing countries in the index, preceded by Denmark, Sweden, Chile, and Morocco, while the first three positions for "very high" performance remained empty, according to the report. And Meta Platforms is appointing Sandhya Devanathan — with 22 years in the industry with multinational experience from finance to gaming — as the Vice President of Meta India.
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Tatas to employ 60,000 at iPhone plant; SoftBank to sell partial stake in Paytm — report; Microsoft, NVIDIA team up on supercomputer
Tata group's iPhone components factory in Hosur, near Bengaluru, is set to employ 60,000 workers, with a large proportion being women, Press Trust of India reports, citing Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. SoftBank Group is set to sell part of its 12.9 percent stake in Paytm in a transaction that will fetch the Japanese telecom and internet investor at least $200 million, Mint reports. And Microsoft and NVIDIA have teamed up to build a supercomputer to train AI models
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TCS to add airline digital centre in Portugal; Google adds UPI Autopay on Play; ContentStack raises $80 mln
Tata Consultancy Services has won a contract from TAP Air Portugal to modernise the airline's IT systems and business processes to improve customer experience, as part of which it will establish a digital centre for innovation that will eventually serve other airlines in the region as well. Google has added UPI Autopay as a payments option for subscriptions on its Play app store. And content management system provider ContentStack nearly doubles its funding
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Amazon to layoff 10,000 staff — report; Adani a step closer to acquiring NDTV; LTI, Mindtree merger approved
Amazon plans to lay off approximately 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting as early as this week, in what would be the largest job cut in the company's history, New York Times reports, citing people who know about the plan. Billionaire Gautam Adani's conglomerate has received the go-ahead for an open offer for broadcaster NDTV's shares. And LTI and Mindtree became LTIMindtree, India's fifth biggest IT company by market cap, yesterday