My Brand Book - First Brand Book on ICT Industry

India Government orders WhatsApp to withdraw its new policy terms in seven days: The Ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) has issued a seven days’ notice to Facebook-owned company to withdraw its new Privacy Policy, which came on effect from May 15. Failure to do so, the ministry warned, will prompt lawful measures.

SAP Labs India announces to onboard around 1,600 people in 2021: SAP Labs in India has announced a ₹500 crore investment to speed up India's digital agenda and support its customers' transformation in the cloud. In an interview, Sindhu Gangadharan, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, SAP Labs India, talks about the company's hiring plans, the India growth strategy, and key business drivers.

Indian data center sector to require $3.7 billion of investment by 2023: JLL: India’s data center sector will require investment of $3.7 billion over the next three years in order to fulfill the 6 million sq. ft greenfield development opportunity for the industry, a JLL report titled ‘2020 India Data Center Market Update’ stated.

Government nods for production of oxygen concentrators by IIT K-incubated Startup: The production of oxygen concentrators by IIT Kanpur-incubated Indeema Fibres has received a nod from the Department of Science and Technology. The startup along with its sister concern ChemDist Membrane Systems will come up with its first batch of concentrators by May 25. The concentrators are for COVID-19 patients whose oxygen saturation levels have dipped to between 80%-90%.

Twitter to roll out new service 'Twitter Blue' @ $2.99 per user: According to news reports, Twitter Blue may soon roll out as a paid subscription for the microblogging site with exclusive features such as “undo tweet”. App researcher Jane Manchun Wong who often tests and tweets about upcoming features of popular apps, said the paid service may also get a new “Collections” section that will allow users to save and organise their tweets. The Twitter Blue subscription is said to cost $2.99 (roughly Rs. 220) per month. Twitter in February announced a “Super Follows” feature that will allow creators to charge their followers for exclusive content.

HARMAN comes up with end-to-end 5G Testing Lab: Samsung Electronics’ subsidiary, HARMAN announced the introduction of a new end-to-end 5G Testing Lab for 5G CP devices. This will equip technology providers like device manufactures, chipmakers, Telcos and more with the ability to execute a variety of protocol and functional tests, along with validating and examining applications in a real 5G radio environment.

Amazon unveils miniTV, a free video streaming service: Amazon has launched a new video streaming service, called miniTV. The service offers users “professionally” created and curated content across web series, comedy shows, tech news, food, beauty, fashion and more. It is free of cost, but users will witness ads. It is available within the Amazon shopping app.

Realme unveils Realme 8, 5G Smartphone at Rs 13,999: Realme has launched Realme 8 5G, the cheapest 5G smartphone in India at a price of Rs 13,999. The Company has launched Realme 8 5G 4GB+ 64GB variant in India. Earlier the smartphone was available in two variants of 4GB RAM +128 GB Storage and 8GB RAM +128 Storage. The new variant will be available for sale from May 18 (12pm) via online on Flipkart and Realme.com.

ASUS India stands with the Nation : ASUS, a Taiwan-head-quartered, multinational computer hardware as well as consumer electronics, has postponed the launch of new ASUS smartphones in India due to the recent surge in COVID 19 cases in the country. Standing in solidarity with the nation during these testing times, ASUS India has delayed the launch that was originally slated during May, until the current situation improves.

Google Pay users in the US can now directly send money to India: Google Pay users in India and Singapore can now receive money from users in the USA. With this, the company has expanded its Google Pay features to now include remittance services. Google has partnered with Western Union and Wise (formerly known as TransferWise). Thanks to this, Google Pay users in the US will be able to send money directly to Google Pay users in India and Singapore. At the time of sending, they can choose either of the two options available – Western Union or Wise.

Critical WiFi vulnerability Frag attacks to impact millions of devices: Belgian security researcher specializing in Wi-Fi bugs has unearthed a clutch of new ones, which he called FragAttacks, that affect the Wi-Fi standard itself. The name is short for “fragmentation and aggregation attacks.”

Facebook ban from processing WhatsApp user data by German regulator : The data protection regulator of Germany for Facebook (FB.O) has banned the social media platform from processing personal data from WhatsApp users in the country as the regulator views the messaging app's new terms of use as illegal.

India PC Market Sustains Growth Streak : The India traditional PC market continued its growth streak with shipments growing 73.1% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2021.

ServiceNow to take over next-generation observability company Lightstep: ServiceNow has signed an agreement to acquire observability company Lightstep.

IBM's brings LineChaser app to help visually disabled users stand in socially distanced lines: After the spread of Coronavirus, mask-wearing and social distancing has become a norm among people. People with disabilities may have difficulty observing social distancing in public places. So a team of researchers from IBM have come up with a new application – LineChaser which leverages AI to help visually impaired people maintain a safe distance from others around them.

Adobe fixes Reader in zero-day vulnerability: Adobe has released a massive Patch on the security update release that fixes vulnerabilities in twelve different applications, including one actively exploited vulnerability Adobe Reader. Adobe warns that one of the Adobe Acrobat and Reader vulnerabilities tracked as CVE-2021-28550 has been exploited in the wild in limited attacks against Adobe Reader on Windows devices.

Jack Ma visits Alibaba headquarters on its Annual day: Jack Ma made a rare visit to its Hangzhou campus during the e-commerce giant's annual

Pipeline: More high-profile infrastructure attacks are likely to follow the hack of the Colonial Pipeline and a key part of the problem is weak IT Asset Management of computing devices and software, according to the International Association of IT Asset Managers (IAITAM), the leading authority on IT Asset Management (ITAM).

IBM continues investment in partner ecosystem, announces Hybrid Cloud and AI capabilities @ 2021 Think Conference: IBM (NYSE: IBM) IBM announces advances in artificial intelligence (AI), hybrid cloud, and quantum computing at the company’s Think conference today. The innovations highlight IBM’s role in helping its clients and partners accelerate their digital transformations, return to work smarter, and build strategic ecosystems that can drive better business outcomes.

Apple awards Corning $45 million for creating Ceramic Shield: Today, Apple is awarding $45 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund to Corning Incorporated, a supplier of precision glass for iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad. The funding will expand Corning’s manufacturing capacity in the US and drive research and development into innovative new technologies that support durability and long-lasting product life, building on both Apple and Corning’s deep commitment to protecting the environment.