Forbes India Daily Tech Brief Podcast

In today's episode, Yugal Joshi, a partner at Everest Group, a research and advisory company, talks about how the world of tech services is changing rapidly. The expectation is that what was manual and time-consuming yesterday should be codified and efficient today. Value is to be had at incrementally higher levels of abstraction and outcomes will matter much more than the tech under the hood. The broader message is that the days of sheer human driven tech services are fast numbered.

In this episode, Kamal Karanth, co-founder and CEO of Xpheno, a staffing firm in Bengaluru, explains the modest increase in open IT positions in recent times. Consider that in FY22, the IT sector alone hired some 2,30,000 people, net, according to the industry lobby Nasscom. That fell to 60,000 in FY23 and FY24 was about the same. Not much has changed yet for the IT giants, but non-tech companies rooted in India's economy, as well as a new wave of global capability centres are hiring, Karanth says.

In this episode, Sumeet Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Leadership Boulevard, more popularly known as Leadschool, offers a quick update on the company's latest product. Techbook, as they're calling it, is actually a physical textbook, designed and engineered to comprise scannable pages that link up with an AR solution. This opens up a world of interactive content for students, and, alongside an AI-based reading assistant, makes learning a more personalized experience. Mehta hopes to put Techbooks in the hands of 4-5 million students by 2028.

Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and CEO of Zoho, offers a quick update on the AI investments at India's biggest software products company. In an interview with Forbes India at the company's annual user conference on Sep. 25, Vembu spoke about small models Zoho has commercialized, efforts to ensure enterprise customers' security and privacy in putting such models to use across different functions and customers, and R&D aimed at ensuring reliability of the output from AI models. He also anticipates more energy efficient AI tech will emerge.

AI products and services will likely grow between 40 percent and 55 percent annually, potentially reaching $990 billion by 2027, the consultancy Bain & Company projects in its fifth annual global technology report. In this episode, David Crawford, a partner and chairman of the consultancy's global technology practice, discusses some of the top takeaways from the report – including whether AI is actually delivering value, and the implications of the high cost of development of advanced AI.

In this episode, Sidu Ponnappa, co-founder and CEO of Realfast, unpacks the hype cycle, challenges and opportunities in ‘agentic AI.' Realfast, a Singapore and Bengaluru startup, recently out of stealth mode, is initially offering AI assistants to Salesforce implementation services teams. In this quick chat, Ponnappa also talks about the intangible human experience that's often discounted in conversations about AI, and offers his personal guesstimate on when we might see agents autonomously capable of building their own agents.

The leaders of the Quad nations, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of India, Anthony Albanese of Australia, and Kishida Fumio of Japan, and US President Joe Biden unveiled the Quad Cancer Moonshot, a collaborative effort in the Indo-Pacific region, in a statement called The Wilmington Declaration, on Sep. 21. This partnership will initially focus on cervical cancer, which the leaders note is a preventable disease that continues to affect many. The leaders also announced greater collaboration in critical technologies.

Is the enterprise opportunity on the rise in the world of augmented reality, or AR? Just this week, Microsoft, maker of HoloLens, has announced a partnership with Anduril, the US deep-tech defence startup founded by Palmer Luckey, the inventor of the Oculus headset, now part of Meta, and Snap has released the latest version of its AR Spectacles. To understand the landscape better, we speak with Milind Manoj, co-founder and CEO of Pupilmesh, a head-mounted display systems deep-tech startup that's part of MapMyIndia.

How satisfied are enterprise customers with the results of their outsourcing investments when it comes to generative AI? Mrinal Rai, assistant director and principal analyst at ISG, unpacks what the technology sourcing and advisory company's customers are saying about this. Rai, who leads research for the future of work and enterprise customer experience at ISG, adds that irrespective of current challenges, and less-than-satisfactory results in some specific areas, large businesses plan to keep up their AI investments.

Microsoft has unveiled new AI features in its Copilot product. The features started rolling out this week and Microsoft also announced a large deal with Vodafone Group under which 68,000 or about two-thirds of the British mobile services provider's employees will get licensed access to the new Copilot. Among the features are Copilot Pages, deeper integration of Copilot within Microsoft's Office products, and Copilot agents, which will automate a growing number of business processes.

In today's episode, we bring you an update from Nakul Aggarwal, co-founder and CTO of BrowserStack, a leading SaaS company from India, providing software app and browser testing infrastructure and products. Aggarwal talks about the rationale behind the acquisition of Bird Eats Bug, in Berlin, which BrowserStack announced yesterday. He also talks about evaluating building BrowserStack's own large language model, as the SaaS company progresses on its journey of transforming from a test infrastructure provider to a testing platform.

Ahead of Nvidia's fiscal Q2 earnings results, on Aug. 28 (Aug. 29, 2:30 a.m. local time in India) we look at the stunning rise of the $2 trillion chip maker as the tech backbone for the explosion of generative AI over the last two years. Alvin Nguyen, senior analyst at Forrester Research, and Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, explain Nvidia's dominance and the growing complexities in the broader ecosystem.

Apple, as widely anticipated leading up to its annual Worldwide Developer Conference, announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to the iPhone, iPad and MacBooks. The tie up evoked strident criticism from Elon Musk, the world's richest person, in particular around data privacy. In this episode, Jaspreet Bindra, an independent AI and ethics researcher and former chief digital officer of the Mahindra Group, and Dipanjan Chatterjee, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research unpack the significance of this deal.

Apple's annual Worldwide Developer Conference, WWDC, kicks off later today, and anticipation is high with respect to the iPhone maker's AI roadmap, as it is generally considered to lag Android rivals such as Samsung and Google – especially in the era of generative AI. Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, and Navkendar Singh, associate vice president at IDC India, unpack what they are expecting to see today from Apple's conference.

Access to talent, value and innovation – these are all reasons that multinational companies are either setting up IT and software-driven R&D centres in India or expanding existing facilities. Some, however, are reducing the workforce in such centres and there's also a set of companies considering exiting their GCCs altogether. To understand what's going on, I spoke with Stanton Jones, Distinguished Analyst at ISG, a technology research and advisory firm that tracks outsourcing deals around the world, about their recent survey of GCC activity. Here's what he said.

In this episode, Megha Chawla, senior partner at the multinational consultancy Bain & Company, talks about why India's tech talent has become a non-negotiable part of the global CEO's strategy, discussing the prospects for the nation's tech landscape, as India returns to a coalition government at the centre after a decade. In the age of AI, India's IT services companies have become important partners to global businesses, she says.

Indian voters have denied a majority to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP. However, as Modi is set to remain in power for a historic third term, leading the coalition NDA, three well-known VC investors unpack what this means for India's tech and startup ecosystem. Ninad Karpe, founding partner at 100X.VC, in Mumbai, Abhishek Goyal, co-founder of Tracxn and angel investor, in Bengaluru, and Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner at Speciale Invest, argue that India's economic fundamentals still make it a top destination for global investments.

Agnikul Cosmos, a space launch vehicle startup in Chennai, yesterday successfully tested its first technology demonstrator rocket, Agnibaan, that showed its one-piece 3D-printed engine worked as intended, in a sub-orbital mission. To understand the significance of this success, Forbes India spoke with Narayan Prasad, chief operations officer at Satsearch, a Netherlands headquartered marketplace for the space industry, and co-founder and director of research and operations at Spaceport SARABHAI, a space economy think tank in India.

A year after it first announced the plan, the Reserve Bank of India yesterday launched a Fintech Repository that the regulator hopes will foster innovation by allowing it to stay abreast of the cutting edge of tech in the industry. To get a sense of why fintech entrepreneurs are welcoming this move, Forbes India spoke with Manish Kumar, co-founder and CEO of KredX, a startup specializing in supply chain finance.

The demand for data centres in India is surging, driven by everything from the expansion of the so-called global capability centres to the rise of our digital economy and the laws around localization of data as required under the data protection rules. In this episode, Arjun P Gupta, founder and CEO of Smart Joules, in New Delhi, which provides HVAC management and energy efficiency solutions, offers a quick overview of some of the practical challenges we face in powering India's data centres with green energy.

Google's large investment in Flipkart comes as a pleasant surprise even to seasoned investors in India's digital economy – at a time when late-stage funding is yet to return, and the funding winter continues even as the monsoons will be a welcome relief from record heat waves across the subcontinent.  Abhishek Goyal, co-founder of Tracxn, and an early investor in Flipkart, reckons the deal could be a straightforward bid to win a large account for Google's cloud business. But as the funding turns the spotlight on India's e-commerce, there are several noteworthy developments in the sector, he says.

Google is reportedly ready to make its Pixel phones in India, starting with the Pixel 8 to be assembled at a Foxconn International plant in Tamil Nadu. Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, and Navkendar Singh, associate vice president at IDC India, unpack the big picture here. Google is starting small, but has the heft to scale in a massive market by sheer numbers that is far from saturated. The long-term play is also about tapping the maturing electronics ecosystem in India over the next decade and beyond.

Why are some of India's best-known fintech startups, but also others, engaging in what is popularly called a “reverse flip” to move their holding parent entities back to India from countries such as the US, Singapore and so on. It can be a fairly complex, time-consuming process, but these companies – Groww, PineLabs and Razorpay are in the news – feel it's worth the trouble. In this episode, Keyur Shah, Partner and Leader – Financial Services Tax, EY India, succinctly unpacks this trend.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella offered a glimpse into his plan for how the company will bring AI to everyone – via its Copilot stack on its Azure cloud platform, keynoting the company's 14th edition of its annual developer conference, Build, on May 21. In this episode, Sidhant Rastogi, president for technology services and platforms at Zinnov, a management consultancy, and Deepika Giri, associate vice president and head of research – big data and AI, at IDC Asia Pacific, unpack the big picture from Nadella's speech.

A report last week from Tata Consultancy Services on “AI for Business” revealed some of the barriers to achieving the so-called “transformation” that large companies seek, in implementing new tech and processes – especially generative AI in this case. So where does the IT services industry really stand with respect to generative AI as an opportunity for serious growth. Yugal Joshi, a partner at Everest Group, an IT outsourcing consultancy, gives us a glimpse into the nuances involved.

India's efforts to build core AI technologies is at best at a nascent stage. At the country's biggest tech industry lobby Nasscom's annual flagship conference last week, we caught up with Debjani Ghosh, the organisation's  president, for a quick chat on the topic. Ghosh spoke about how India's tech services companies are approaching the AI opportunity, including lessons from India's experiment with its digital public infrastructure.

India's top IT companies might benefit as their biggest customers look to sunset legacy applications that are only being maintained for the critical data they hold, but first a couple of other headlines that caught my attention:  One97 Communications Ltd., which operates the Paytm wallet and payments network, has formed a committee, headed by Meleveetil Damodaran, the former chief of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the country's capital markets regulator, to help the company meet compliance requirements. On Jan. 31, the Reserve Bank of India, ordered the company's Paytm Payments Bank unit to cease most of its operations after Feb. 29 for various regulatory violations. The three-member committee includes Mukund Manohar Chitale, a former president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), and Ramachandran Rajaraman, a member of the Advisory Board at Central Vigilance Commission. Meanwhile, India's parliamentary committee on communications and IT has urged the central government to support the growth of domestic fintech players as alternatives to the duopoly of PhonePe, a unit of Walmart, and Google Pay which accounts for more than 83 percent of India's digital payments transactions via the unified payments interface, TechCrunch reports. PhonePe leads, with 46.91 percent of the UPI market share by volume for the period of October to November 2023, the committee notes in its report. Google Pay held a market share of 36.39 percent in the same period. One thing today India's IT services companies will likely benefit as their customers take a hard look at outdated software applications in the age of AI. Many of these applications are being maintained only for the data they hold, the consultancy ISG points out in a recent newsletter. Enterprises have large volumes of critical data locked in legacy applications, ISG's Stanton Jones, Sunder Sarangan and Alex Bakker, note in the company's weekly newsletter, Index Insider, with the tagline what's important in IT. AI will be a forcing function for businesses to overcome the reasons that have been preventing them from sunsetting or modernizing these applications, which will serve as an important driver for ADM activity this year, they write. ISG's most recent Application Development and Maintenance Buyer Behavior Study showed that about one in every ten enterprise applications has been classified as “end of life.” Most large enterprises have thousands of applications, so in most cases, this means that hundreds of applications are at the end of their life for any one company, they point out. And, the primary reason companies continue to support these legacy applications is because of the data they hold. According to ISG, 10 percent of enterprise applications being at end of life translates to more than 150 applications on average per company. Half of all enterprises ISG surveyed continue to support these applications because of the data stored in them. ISG, which tracks all IT outsourcing contracts worth $5 million or more, expects enterprises to double the number of AI-enabled applications in their portfolios by the end of 2024. This means that application optimization will be an important attribute of ADM activity in 2024. Companies will rely on their outsourcing providers for the resources required for these legacy transformation programs as well as their ability to combine cost optimization with modernization, according to the consultancy. Even in regions like the Asia Pacific, where companies currently lag their North American counterparts in GenAI spending, for example, Infosys, India's second biggest IT services provider, forecasts a bigger increase than in any other region – 140 percent in the next year. This translates to an estimated $3.4 billion to be invested across Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, India, and Singapore, according to Infosys's Generative AI Radar APac Report, released two weeks ago.

Google is retiring Bard, with the launch of a more capable chatbot, Gemini Advanced, but first a couple of other headlines. Reserve Bank of India, the country's central bank, yesterday, stood by its actions imposing restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank, stating that its order barring the small finance bank from most activities after Feb. 29, including taking any fresh deposits, was issued only after “persistent non-compliance” with rules. The action taken by the powerful banking regulator “is always proportionate to the gravity of the situation,” the bank's Governor Shaktikanta Das, said in a media briefing, TechCrunch reports. Amazon Web Services India has started a space accelerator programme that will offer technical, business, and mentorship help to startups focused on space technology, with support from, T-Hub, and Minfy, an AWS systems integrator partner. This is AWS's first accelerator program in India focused on startups in the space sector, and follows the MoU it signed with ISRO and IN-SPACe in September last year, to nurture startups in space-tech, and support innovation in the sector. One thing today A year after introducing Bard, Google is retiring the name and rebranding its AI products and features under its Gemini brand. It is also launching Ultra 1.0, its most capable large language model yet. “AI is also now central to two businesses that have grown rapidly in recent years: our Cloud and Workspace services and our popular subscription service Google One, which is just about to cross 100 million subscribers,” Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, writes in a blog post. “Gemini is evolving to be more than just the models,” Pichai writes. “It supports an entire ecosystem — from the products that billions of people use every day, to the APIs and platforms helping developers and businesses innovate.” The largest model Ultra 1.0 is the first to outperform human experts on MMLU (massive multitask language understanding), which uses a combination of 57 subjects — including math, physics, history, law, medicine and ethics — to test knowledge and problem-solving abilities. Gemini is available in 40 languages on the web, and is coming to a new Gemini app on Android and on the Google app on iOS. The version with Ultra will be called Gemini Advanced, which is more capable at reasoning, following instructions, coding, and creative collaboration. “In blind evaluations with Google's third-party raters, Gemini Advanced with Ultra 1.0 is now the most preferred chatbot compared to leading alternatives,” Sissi Hsiao, vice president and general manager for Gemini and Google Assistant, wrote in a blog post. With the Ultra 1.0 model, Gemini Advanced is more capable at complex tasks like coding, logical reasoning, following nuanced instructions and collaborating on creative projects, Hsiao writes. Gemini Advanced allows you to have longer, more detailed conversations, and it also better understands the context from your previous prompts. Gemini Advanced can be a personal tutor, help with more advanced coding scenarios, or generate fresh content. Gemini Advanced is available today in more than 150 countries and territories in English, as part of a new Google One AI Premium Plan for about $20 a month, with all the existing features of the Google One, including the 2TB of storage. In addition, AI Premium subscribers will soon be able to use Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Slides, and Sheets. And Google is offering a two-month free trial. “To mitigate issues like unsafe content or bias, we've built safety into our products in accordance with our AI Principles,” Hsiao writes in her post. You can find more details in Google's updated Gemini Technical Report. Gemini and Gemini Advanced are being rolled out on smartphones via a new app on Android. And in the Google app on iOS in the coming weeks.

Layoffs at tech companies have continued into 2024, but first, a couple of other headlines that caught my attention. Hyundai Motors is planning to list its Indian unit to raise at least $3 billion in what would be the country's biggest IPO, Reuters reported yesterday, citing two people it didn't name. Hyundai, the second-biggest automaker in India with a 15 percent market share, is in early talks with several banks for the fund raising, which would value the Korean automaker's Indian operations at up to $30 billion, which is more than half its market capitalisation of $42 billion in Seoul, according to Reuters. As Paytm reels under the Reserve Bank of India's tough stance over the fintech company's non-compliance issues, some founders of startups in India have written to Governor Shaktikanta Das and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, urging them to “review” and “reconsider” the regulatory directive asking Paytm's payments bank unit to shut its main banking services after February 29, Economic Times reported earlier today. Policybazaar's Yashish Dahiya, Bharat Matrimony's Murugavel Janakiraman, Makemytrip's Rajesh Magow and Ritesh Malik of Innov 8 are among the signatories to the letter. They've said the punitive measures against Paytm would have a far-reaching impact on India's fintech ecosystem, according to ET. One thing today Tech companies have already shed about 32,500 jobs in 2024, according to layoffs.fyi, which tracks job cuts at 5,000 tech companies. Snap, which operates the photo and video sharing app, Snapchat, is the latest internet company to announce job cuts in 2024. The company said in an SEC filing on Feb. 5 it would reduce its headcount by 10 percent worldwide. Snap expects it will incur charges ranging from $55 million to $75 million, according to its filing, from this latest round of cuts. The company previously laid off 20 percent of its staff and restructured its business lines in August 2022, CNBC notes. Several other well-known tech companies have reduced their staff strength this year, including Paypal, Microsoft, Zuora, Zoom, and Okta. Indian food delivery unicorn Swiggy, ahead of its IPO plans, recently cut another 400 jobs, TechCrunch reported on Jan. 25. And India's top IT services companies entered the year with their collective workforce lower by tens of thousands of employees. Tata Consultancy Services, India's biggest IT company, for example, reduced its workforce by close to 11,500 people in the nine months through December 2023. Infosys, the second biggest, has reduced its workforce by more than 20,500 staff in the same period. Tech and IT companies around the world recruited aggressively as the world came out of the Covid pandemic. Since then, the combination of the global economic slowdown and the rise of AI and AI-based automation, has changed the world. Now, even as things are beginning to look up in the world's biggest tech market, the US, hiring will increasingly reflect investments in AI.

Apple's Vision Pro headsets are now available for sale at stores in the US, but first a couple of other headlines that caught my attention. A UK minister on a trade mission last year assured Infosys that he would do what he could to help the company grow in the country, where founder NR Narayana Murthy's son-in-law Rishi Sunak is prime minister, The Mirror reported. The paper obtained details of the April 2023 visit of Dominic Johnson, a minister in PM Sunak's cabinet, using Britain's freedom of information laws. Sunak has faced intense scrutiny over his wife Akshata Murty's ownership of close to 1 percent of Infosys.  Freshworks, a Chennai-to-Silicon Valley software company, will report its fiscal fourth quarter and full year earnings results tomorrow, according to the investor page on the company's website. The Nasdaq-listed provider of cloud software for customer engagement and IT services management expects to end the year with revenue of about $595 million, a growth of about 20 percent. Analysts will also be watching Freshworks's net dollar retention, an important SaaS metric, that the company has projected at 105 percent. One thing today Apple, on Feb. 2 announced that its Vision Pro AR headsets were available for sale in stores in the US. Apple calls the headset a spatial computer, which works by tracking natural hand gestures and movement of your eyes. Last year, after Apple unveiled this, I'd spoken with Milind Manoj, an AR expert and founder and CEO of a company called PupilMesh here in Bangalore. I thought a quick recap of the features of the Vision Pro from that conversation might be interesting, so here goes. The first takeaway was that, like with any other Apple product, there's a lot that's gone into the design and specs. Especially given that they have a dedicated processor, the R1 chip, that helps to make functions like the display rendering seem like near real time although it's a pass-through headset, is remarkable. In a pass-through headset, one is not really seeing the world around directly, but through the cameras on the headset, and then being streamed to the display. This is an interesting, and important, question according to Milind, because the user is seeing what the device sees. Therefore, the question is if you'd be okay with a device controlling what you are actually seeing because you are essentially blocking out one of your senses and relying on cameras – this might be okay or not, depending on what you're using the device for. This is the biggest difference versus what are called optical see-through headsets which don't block off your vision. These kinds of headsets will become increasingly important as the sophistication of AR applications that overlay digital information on top of the real world that we can see and touch and feel increases – think of applications like surgery, for example, where precision is critical and therefore what you're seeing through the headset has to be accurate. The original Apple Glass project probably had such ambitions, where one could see through. Apple must surely be continuing to work on that technology, but we don't know anything about a commercial product. The second takeaway from my chat with Milind was that unlike other Apple products so far, the Vision Pro still feels a little bit experimental, especially because it has a waist-mounted external battery pack that connects to the headset via a cable. This is obviously the best trade off that Apple's engineers could think of with respect to the design and how long people could use the headset at one go, but it does make the Vision Pro a somewhat inelegant gadget in my view – you may be perfectly fine with an outside battery pack. The headset costs about $3,500 and its success will depend on the applications that developers come up for it. It's unlikely to be in India any time soon, but Apple will probably show off the headset at its own stores in Mumbai and Delhi – just to pique your curiosity.

Apple's focus on India is paying off and the company also captured the top position in revenue in a calendar year for the first time, due to strong demand for both its latest iPhone and older models, according to market research provider Counterpoint. Overall, Samsung maintained its lead with the biggest market share, at 18 percent, in the predominantly Android market, and Vivo took the number two spot with 17 percent share.

Ahead of the union government's budget for the year 2024-25, the well-known expectations remain, such as tax breaks and incentives, but India's tech startups are also hoping the government will sharpen its focus on supporting them to develop more intellectual property within the country, which is crucial for our long-term security. They want more R&D spends, deeper partnerships with public labs, and simpler rules to help them go after global customers.

An important conference is to take place tomorrow in New Delhi on India's international role with respect to technologies that are considered dual use, meaning for civilian and industrial use, but also for defence and military applications. India's Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Department of Commerce in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and other Government Agencies is organising the National Conference on Strategic Trade Controls (NCSTC), tomorrow at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi, the nation's capital. The conference will focus on India's Strategic Trade Control related to SCOMET and export controls system and international best practices on export of dual-use (meaning industrial and military) goods, software and technologies, according to a government statement circulated by the Press Information Bureau yesterday. SCOMET stands for Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies. Registrations for the conference have been invited by DGFT through its website. International speakers including the Chair of 1540 Committee of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the Chair of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), senior government officials including the Commerce Secretary, Member (Customs) of CBIC, Director General of DGFT, and others would be participating. DGFT expects that more than 500 industry representatives will attend the conference. The thematic sessions planned during the day-long conference will focus on various aspects of India's Strategic Trade Control system, including the legal and regulatory framework, the steps taken to streamline the SCOMET policy and licensing processes, the enforcement mechanism and supply chain compliance programs. India published its first Scomet list as part of its Foreign Trade Development and Regulation Act of 1992. In 2010, the Act was amended to add a new chapter, including a section that deals with controls on exports of specified goods, services and technologies – giving the central government the power to monitor and amend the list of such goods, services and technologies. Currently the list includes goods, services and tech under nine categories, ranging from nuclear technologies to aviation and aerospace to electronics to chemicals and biotech.

Those of you who caught Samsung's Unpacked event two days ago would have seen a Google vice president of search coming up on stage to describe a new AI feature on the latest Galaxy phone, developed by Google. Google calls it circle to search, and that's exactly what it is. See something you're browsing that you want to know more about? Well, now just circle it, and you'll get what the geeks would call multi-modal search results, meaning across text, images and so on.  Android users would be familiar with Google Lens, where you can use the phone camera and search for more information on a picture or how you can hum a song and ask Google what song it is. Circle to search is the latest in Google's stable of AI and machine learning based features for end users on their smartphones that are making such interactions ever more human. “With a simple gesture, you can select what you're curious about in whatever way comes naturally to you — like circling, highlighting, scribbling or tapping — and get more information right where you are,” Cathy Edwards, a Google VP and GM for Search, writes in a blog post, explaining how easy it is to use this feature. Edwards first presented this feature at Samsung's event. An important aspect of this feature is that it allows you to search on whichever app or website you are on, without having to leave it, making it a minimally distracting task so you can continue to go on and finish what you were doing on the app in the first place. The possibilities are endless. It could be just about searching for more on a new pair of running shoes you saw on some website, for example. Or imagine just circling a dish on a food delivery app and getting more info on how healthy it is for you. This will be first available on Samsung's latest Galaxy S24 smartphone that's just been released, and on Google's own Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones. Just long press on the home button, and instead of the Google Assistant, you'll now bring up circle to search. You can then circle, or scribble or highlight or tap … “and just like that, your curiosity is satisfied,” Edwards said in her presentation at Galaxy Unpacked. “And when you are done you can just swipe away, and you're right back where you started.” One last point. For Samsung fans, apart from the latest flagship phone, a more important release is Galaxy AI, Samsung's own new AI system for its phones aimed at making the devices much more intuitive to use. Among the features Samsung has released are live transcript, and a bunch of AI assistants.

Apple has a new office in India in the heart of Bengaluru, the iPhone maker said in a statement. The country's tech capital is already home to so many of Apple's teams, including in software engineering and hardware technologies, operations, customer support, and other functions, according to Apple. This new workspace, which Apple hopes will be a powerful hub for innovation, creativity, and collaboration, is located at Minsk Square in the center of the city, a stone's throw from Vidhana Soudha, the state parliament, the high court, central library, Chinnaswamy cricket stadium, and Cubbon Park, one of the largest green parks within Bengaluru. The proximity to Cubbon Park metro station means public transit is an option for Apple staff and visitors. The new office will house up to 1,200 employees, on 15 floors, and it features dedicated lab space, areas for collaboration and wellness, and Caffe Macs, which comprises Apple's food-ordering app and service and physical space.  Apple currently has nearly 3,000 employees in India. The new office's interior features locally-sourced materials, including stone, wood, and fabric in the walls and flooring, and the office is filled with native plants. The office will run on 100 percent renewable energy, and aims to achieve the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum rating — the highest level of LEED certification. Apple has been carbon neutral for its corporate operations since 2020, and has run all Apple facilities using 100 percent renewable energy since 2018. The office is the latest addition to the company's corporate office footprint in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Gurugram, and represents another important milestone in Apple's more than 25-year history in India. Apple is stepping up efforts to boost sales and manufacturing in India, which it sees as a long-term strategic market, as it seeks to reduce its dependence on China. Apple has faced both disruptions to its supply chain due to Chinese Covid related restrictions, and a resurgent competitor in Huawei, which has also released its own semiconductor chip for smartphones. Meanwhile, Apple has ended Samsung Electronics 12-year run as the world's largest seller of smartphones by number of units, after achieving a 20 percent market share in 2023, according to data from International Data Corp. Samsung ended the year with a 19.4 percent share, followed by China's Xiaomi, Oppo and Transsion, preliminary data from IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker showed. Apple and Transsion were the only brands in the top five to record growth in shipments last year, when the market declined 3.2 percent to 1.17 billion units and hit a decade low.

VinFast, an electric vehicle manufacturer from Vietnam, plans to invest $2 billion dollars in India, but first a couple of other headlines that caught my attention. Japanese media and tech giant Sony Corp. is planning to call off the merger of its Indian unit with Zee Entertainment, more than two years after the deal was announced, over a disagreement on who will lead the $10 billion entity, Reuters reports, citing a Bloomberg News report from Monday that's behind a paywall. Sony plans to file a termination notice before the extended Jan. 20 deadline to close the merger, while discussions between Sony and Zee were still ongoing. Wipro's lawsuit against former chief financial officer Jatin Dalal with respect to a non-compete clause in his employment contract was referred to arbitration by the Bengaluru City Civil Court in a hearing on January 3, Moneycontrol reports. The court's decision, thereby, allows the admission of a counter petition moved by Dalal, who's joined Wipro's larger rival Cognizant Technology Solutions, according to Moneycontrol. One thing today In one thing today, VinFast, an electric vehicle manufacturer from Vietnam, plans to invest up to $2 billion, to set up an EV plant in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, the company said in a press release on Jan. 6, coinciding with the state's global investor summit. Vinfast, plans to invest $500 million in the first phase of the Project, spanning five years from the commencement date, later this year. The India expansion will help VinFast to seize growth opportunities in the world's most populous nation and rapidly expanding EV market, the company said in the release. This initiative forms a crucial part of VinFast's strategy to establish a strong presence in vital markets and strengthen its supply chain for global expansion, the company said.  The integrated EV manufacturing facility is to be set up in Thoothukudi, in Tamil Nadu. It is envisioned as evolving into a first-class electric vehicle production hub in the region, with an annual capacity of up to 150,000 units. Construction of the plant is anticipated to begin in 2024. The project is expected to generate between 3,000 and 3,500 jobs, according to VinFast. VinFast also expects to set up a nationwide dealership network in India.

Several multinational electronics and manufacturing companies including Apple's supplier Pegatron and Korean auto giant Hyundai have committed to large investments in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, but first, a couple of other headlines that caught my attention. The US Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday ordered the grounding and immediate inspection of about 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft worldwide after a mid-flight emergency late Friday involving a plane operated by Alaska Airlines, NPR reports.  The US aviation regulator announced this order after an Alaska Airlines flight was forced to abruptly land in Portland, Oregon after a door plug blew out in midair, leaving a hole in the aircraft next to two unoccupied seats. Unicommerce eSolutions Limited, a software provider to ecommerce companies for transaction processing, has filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with India's capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board, seeking an IPO. The proposed listing comprises of an offer for sale aggregating up to about 29.84 million equity shares of face value of Rs. 1. This includes up to 11.46 million shares by Unicommerce's promoter AceVector Limited (formerly known as Snapdeal Limited), up to about 2.21 million shares by B2 Capital Partners and up to about 16.17 million shares by SB Investment Holdings (UK) Limited. One thing today In one thing today, Apple suppliers Tata Electronics and Pegatron, and automaker Hyundai Motors have signed investment pacts worth more than $4.39 billion with the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Reuters reports, citing a statement from the state government at a global investor summit. Industry analysts estimate India could account for as much as a third of Apple's iPhone production in the coming years, as the tech giant steps up its efforts to reduce dependence on China. Apple is also looking at India as its next big market, where it has seen quarterly records in sales over the last two years. Pegatron is setting up a second factory in India, Reuters notes, and the Tata Group, which last year began to assemble iPhones, has also purchased a factory on the outskirts of neighbouring Bengaluru from Wistron, another Apple supplier. Tata Electronics has committed to investing Rs. 12,080 crore for mobile phone assembly operations, the state government said during the signing of the agreements, according to Reuters. Taiwan's Pegatron expects to invest Rs. 1,000 crore to expand production, the government added. South Korean Auto giant Hyundai Motors plans to invest Rs. 6,180 crore, a part of which will go towards electric vehicle battery and car manufacturing. Vietnamese EV maker VinFast is setting up its first manufacturing facility in India and expects to invest up to $2 billion in Tamil Nadu, according to Reuters. The semiconductor giant Qualcomm yesterday, announced what it called a significant expansion in Chennai with a new facility for its design centre, with an investment of about Rs. 177 crore. The Design Centre is expected to generate jobs for up to 1,600 skilled professionals. It will specialize in wireless connectivity solutions, with a focus on innovations that complement Wi-Fi technologies. It will contribute to Qualcomm's global research and development in 5G cellular technology, Qualcomm said in a press release. Separately, Tata Power is exploring investments of up to Rs. 70,000 crore in Tamil Nadu over the next several years, including investments in some existing projects, the company's chief executive officer Praveer Sinha said at a press briefing at the investors meet, Reuters reports. And JSW Energy has announced plans to invest Rs. 12,000 crore to develop renewable energy projects.

Discord has rolled out a bunch of improvements to its mobile app on both Android and iOS, but first: Byju Raveendran is contemplating using his 10-12 percent direct shareholding in the test-prep chain Aakash to raise about Rs. 600 crore to shore up his beleaguered ed-tech venture, Think & Learn, The Arc reported yesterday, citing sources it didn't name. Thing & Learn, which operates the loss making BYJU'S online education platform, is under government scrutiny for a host of lapses. ZestMoney, a buy now pay later fintech startup in Bengaluru, is shutting down, and has informed its 150 remaining employees that it's done, according to multiple media reports. The company was founded in 2015 and provided loans to those without credit cards or any other formal financing options. One thing today: In one thing today, Discord, which is where you'll find many of the Gen Z, apart from Instagram, has overhauled its mobile app to work more like, well, a mobile app  “When we launched the Discord mobile app in 2015, our focus was on building great products for people who play games on PC, with mobile serving as a companion app for when you were away from your keyboard,” Francesco Polizzi, group product manager at Discord, says in a blog post on Dec. 5, announcing the new updates. “Now, with more users spending time using Discord on the go, we're excited to roll out a faster, more reliable app than before, designed specifically for mobile,” Francesco says. The updated app, on both Android and iOS, brings faster app loading, better navigation, improved media sharing and voice and video experience, and an updated night mode. Discord has previously implemented features such as the global DM search on the app. After yesterday's update, which is available in India also, app-open time is reduced by 43 percent on iOS and 55 percent on Android, and users can access more messages when offline, according to the company. Free users can now upload files of up to 25MB in size. Discord, which started as an online hangout for PC gamers has evolved into a wider platform where one can find groups of users with varied interests. Today the company says it has 150 million users around the world.  You can find the full list of improvements and updates on Discord's website. Or you can use the link to the blog post in our show notes. One area where Discord has faced criticism is with respect to how it dragged its feet on protecting youngsters, according to multiple media reports. The company implemented some limited parental controls since only July this year, when it added an opt-in feature called family center. This feature requires the consent of your child to set up the family center on both the teen's app and on the parents' smartphones. Once done it will provide some high-level information to parents on the teen's Discord activity. I would highly recommend reading a post titled A Parent's Guide to Discord by the Social Media Victims Law Center in the US. The center warns that Discord requires users to be 13 years of age but does not ask for any documentation for proof of age. Like many other internet platforms, Discord can also be used by youngsters to access pornography and even drugs. And if you are parents to young teens, especially, this might be a good time to find out if they use Discord, talk about it, and agree on using the Family Center feature.

IN-SPACe has announced a new seed fund to support startups working the areas of urban development and disaster management using space tech, but first: Spotify fired 1,500 staff, cutting its workforce by 17 percent, a measure that CEO Daniel Ek said was needed to face the challenges ahead. This is the company's third round of layoffs this year, TechCrunch noted. “I recognize this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions. To be blunt, many smart, talented and hard-working people will be departing us,” Ek said in a company blogpost. Venture capital funding for India's startups sank to the second-lowest level in almost seven years, Moneycontrol reported last week, citing data from Venture Intelligence. Indian startups recorded $223 million in funding from 35 deals in November, a fall of about 66 percent from $655 million in 52 deals in the previous month. The last time funding was lower than this was in January 2017 at $207 million in 43 deals, according to Moneycontrol. One thing today IN-SPACe, or the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre, the nodal agency of India's Department of Space responsible for commercialization of space tech in private industry, or among Non-Government Entities, has announced a Seed Fund for startups in the areas of Urban Development and Disaster Management by using space technology. The scheme, launched in collaboration with the National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO will help NGEs that use space technology for societal benefits to “graduate to the next level,” IN-SPACe said in a press release yesterday.  Selected start-ups will receive seed funding for transforming an original idea into a prototype using space technology, ISRO facility support including Earth Observation data for validation of the concept, mentorship support, and access to data algorithms as transfer of technology from the Department of Space. “The role of the space sector is crucial to the overall development of the national economy … this scheme is designed to support Indian space startups that aim to develop innovative space products and services that can improve the quality of life for communities in India and around the world,” Pawan Goenka, chairman of IN-SPACe said in the press release. Under this fund, selected startups can get up to Rs. 1 crore in funding, in addition to mentorship support, training and networking opportunities.   For urban development, there are several opportunities for startups in areas including urban planning, monitoring and infrastructure management, telecommunication, navigation, broadband connectivity, water resources management, energy efficiency, climate and weather monitoring, disaster risk reduction, public health, and healthcare, In-space noted in the press release. Similarly, disaster management offers opportunities for startups specializing in the domains including Geographical Information Systems (GIS), early warning and monitoring systems, insurance and risk assessment, communication and navigation systems, climate change monitoring, search and rescue operations, space-borne sensors, and instruments. Cyclone Michaung pounding Tamil Nadu currently is another reminder that such technology solutions are urgently needed as the effects of climate change worsened in 2023. The funding scheme details can be downloaded from IN-SPACe's website, inspace.gov.in and the last date to apply for funding under this scheme is Dec. 20.

Even when Freshworks was a much smaller startup, Girish Mathrubootham just beginning his foray into the US market, one thing reporters like me would always hear about was Girish's ability to surround himself with exceptional colleagues and soak up everything he could learn from them.  As many of you know, he likes to call them people who've “been there done that,” whether it's someone who's helped take a software company in US to its IPO or someone who's already seen what a global technology business looks like with $20 billion in revenue. The appointment of Mika Yamamoto as the company's new chief customer and marketing officer looks like another win for Girish in that tradition that he's established. Mika, who will be responsible for leading the company's global marketing and customer experience teams, comes to Freshworks from F5, also a Nasdaq-listed company, where she most recently served as the Executive Vice President and the Chief Marketing and Customer Engagement Officer, according to Freshworks's press release from Nov. 28. At F5 she led the company's data, marketing, digital transformation, and customer experience efforts for products, segments, channels, and geographies. Mika joined the executive team at Freshworks on Nov. 20 and reports to Girish, founder and CEO, and President Dennis Woodside. “Mika's combined CMO and CXO roles have given her a unique perspective that has ultimately led to innovative, measurable changes for employees, customers, and prospects,” Woodside said in the press release. “She has a long-standing track record of leading global and diverse customer experience teams and delivering exceptional go-to-market results at large public technology companies with multi-domain businesses serving customers big and small,” he added. Before F5, Mika was president at a company called Marketo, which was acquired by Adobe, and then she was a senior VP at Adobe for a bit. She has previously served as Chief Digital Marketing Officer and CMO of SMB at SAP, and held senior leadership roles, working approximately six year each at Amazon, in the books business, Microsoft, in the Windows and Stores businesses, research at Gartner, and as a manager at Accenture where she started her career in 1994. Mika has a BCom (Honours) degree in Economics and Marketing from Queen's University in Canada, according to her LinkedIn profile. The Freshworks press release says she holds a B.A. in Commerce, with a focus on Economics and Marketing. “My whole career has been spent on transforming go-to-market approaches and customer experiences within global companies to steepen the growth curve,” she says in the press release. I truly believe that bringing the end-to-end customer experience with marketing and customer success teams together at Freshworks will help accelerate growth while keeping our customers at the heart of all we do.” She also serves on the boards of BlackLine, another Nasdaq-listed cloud software company that specializes in finance and accounting, where she chairs the compensation committee; and the Rainier Valley Food Bank and the United Way of King County. Yamamoto, by the way, is a well-known Japanese surname. In fact, another Mika Yamamoto was an award-winning Japanese photo and video journalist who died in the line of duty while she was covering the conflict in Syria in 2012. Perhaps the most well-known Yamamoto was Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese admiral, who is widely believed to have been opposed to war, but when he was overruled, ended up as the decision-maker behind the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, which united the Americans in the decision to enter the second world war. The name Yamamoto, in Japanese, means one who lives in the mountains or one who dwells at the foot of a mountain.

The first trans-Atlantic flight using 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel was made between London and New York yesterday by Britain's Virgin Atlantic, bringing the industry another small step closer to sustainable aviation. Test flight VIR100, which did not carry paying passengers, took off from London's Heathrow Airport at 11:49 am UK time (6:49 am ET and 5:19 pm in India) and landed at New York's JFK airport at 2:05 pm ET, CNBC reported, citing Flightradar24. The flight, which the airline named Flight100, demonstrated that sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) was a safe drop-in replacement for the current fossil-fuel based jet fuel, compatible with today's engines, airframes and fuel infrastructure, Virgin Atlantic said in a press release yesterday. Shai Weiss, CEO of Virgin Atlantic said in the press release, “Flight100 proves that Sustainable Aviation Fuel can be used as a safe, drop-in replacement for fossil-derived jet fuel.  SAF is made from non-fossil-derived fuels, including biofuels derived from plant or animal waste, municipal waste and agricultural residues. That it can be a drop-in alternative means that it can be used with the existing commercial aircraft without any costly modifications to their engines and so on. Virgin's Flight100 was made by a Boeing 787 widebody aircraft, flying on Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines, according to the press release. Simon Burr, Group Director of Engineering, Technology & Safety, at Rolls-Royce said: “Rolls-Royce has recently completed compatibility testing of 100 percent SAF on all our in-production civil aero engine types and this is further proof that there are no engine technology barriers to the use of 100 percent SAF.” SAF also produces emissions, but overall emissions from it are considered to be lower than emissions from fossil fuels. In 2021, a group of 60 companies from the airline, transport and cargo industries promised to ensure that 10 percent of all the jet fuel they used was SAF. And last year, the aviation industry set itself the target of reaching net zero status by 2050. SAF is made from waste products, and delivers CO2 lifecycle emissions savings of up to 70 percent, whilst performing like the traditional jet fuel it replaces, according to Virgin's press release. Today, SAF represents less than 0.1 percent of global jet fuel volumes and fuel standards allow for only 50 percent SAF blend in commercial jet engines. CNBC notes that other airlines have used SAF on commercial flights, although generally on shorter journeys and in up-to-50 percent blends with regular fuel, which was previously the regulatory limit. Tuesday's Virgin Atlantic flight was approved by the UK's Civil Aviation Authority earlier this month. The SAF used on Flight100 is a dual blend comprising 88 percent hydro-processed esters and fatty acids (HEFA), supplied by AirBP and 12 percent synthetic aromatic kerosene, supplied by Virent, a subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum Corporation. The HEFA is made from waste fats while the SAK is made from plant sugars, with the remainder of plant proteins, oil and fibres continuing into the food chain. The kerosene is needed in 100 percent SAF blends to give the fuel the required aromatics for engine function  In 2022 aviation accounted for 2 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions, having grown faster in recent decades than rail, road or shipping, the International Energy Agency notes in its assessment of the industry. As international travel demand recovered following the Covid-19 pandemic, aviation emissions in 2022 reached almost 800 million tonnes of CO2, about 80 percent of the pre-pandemic level. Earlier this year, the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of sciences, published a report assessing a variety of alternative fuels, including biofuels, and found that availability and accessibility are big problems, Mongobay, a US-based non-profit conservation and environmental science news platform, notes in a July report.

India's EV landscape is changing, with startups emerging across the value chain – from all-electric cabs to e-bikes and innovative purchase options. But first, some headlines: Facebook and Instagram's parent company Meta Platforms knowingly employed methods that lured children on to these platforms, The New York Times reported on Nov. 25, citing un-redacted court documents from a federal lawsuit in the US, filed last month by California, Colorado and 31 other states in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Apple contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology will invest more than $1.5 billion in an Indian construction project to fulfill “operational needs,” CNBC reports, citing company filings in Taiwan yesterday. Tata Consultancy Services has launched its AWS generative AI practice, with an extensive catalog of use-cases for the technology, the company said in a press release yesterday. One thing today India's consumer EV landscape is changing. Startups are emerging offering new products like e-bikes and slow-speed scooters that don't require users to obtain a driving licence, and new purchase options are also being innovated to reduce the upfront cost of these vehicles to make them more competitive with their petrol burning counterparts. Yulu Bikes, for example, has started directly selling a consumer version of its low-speed moped Miracle, which it calls Yulu Wynn and which is being manufactured by Bajaj Auto. With a top speed of only 25kmph, one doesn't need a license to use this scooter on Indian roads.  Yulu Wynn costs about Rs. 55,000 to buy, and then you will also have to sign up for one of Yulu's subscription plans to use the scooter. The purchase price doesn't include the battery or the software, which are included in the subscription plans, and you get access to the company's Yuma battery swapping network.  This is similar to how Ather Energy or Tata Nexon users pay to use premium features on those vehicles, Amit Gupta, Yulu's co-founder and CEO told me recently. And you can find that detailed conversation on Forbes India's website.  Kunal Khattar, a prolific VC investor in the EV space, points out that if we find ways to take out the cost of the battery, then that's practically half the cost of the electric vehicle. So models more like Yulu's will surely emerge, where a bank might finance the battery and the consumer gets an affordable subscription plan. Yesterday, TechCrunch reported that EMotorad Ventures, an electric bicycle maker in Pune, has raised $20 million in a Series B round. EMotorad's electric bicycle models feature self-diagnostics, removable batteries, dual disc brakes, portable chargers, and retractable aluminum frames.  TechCrunch reports that the company offers a 48-hour resolution of customer complaints. Founded in 2020 by Kunal Gupta, Rajib Gangopadhyay, Aditya Oza and Sumedh Battewar, EMotorad today exports its e-bikes to more than 18 countries through white labeling and selling its own brand in the US, Europe, Australia, Japan, and some Middle Eastern markets. Of its 14 e-bike models, seven or eight are available in India and the rest are sold overseas, priced between $600 to $1,200 in the US, according to TechCrunch. Emotorad has raised more than $22.5 million in total funding, from investors including Singapore's Panthera Growth Partners, Alteria Capital, xto10x Technologies, and Green Frontier Capital. Economic Times reported yesterday that Gensol will make electric “reverse trikes,” which have two wheels in the front and one in the back, starting February, citing co-founder Anmol Singh Jaggi, who is also the managing director of Gensol, a solar engineering procurement and construction company. Jaggi expects to soon start production at a factory in Chakan, India's biggest auto manufacturing hub, with capacity to turn out 30,000 vehicles. So cheaper Blusmart rides may be on offer next year.

US space agency NASA's Administrator Bill Nelson is in India today to meet top government and ISRO officials, as both countries look to deepen their space exploration and scientific research partnership.  The visit by Nelson, a former US senator, “fulfills a commitment through the US and India initiative on critical and emerging technology spearheaded by President Joe Biden,” Nasa said in a press release on Nov. 24. Nelson was appointed as the 14th Nasa administrator in May 2021. During this visit to India, he is expected visit several locations, including the Bengaluru-based facilities where the NISAR spacecraft, a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), is undergoing testing and integration for launch in 2024. NISAR is short for NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar. It is the first satellite mission between NASA and ISRO. It is an Earth-observing instrument, the first in the Earth System Observatory, which was announced by NASA last year. The observatory will be put in space via five satellite missions, including Nisar, which is set for launch next year. The observatory will measure Earth's changing ecosystems, dynamic surfaces, and ice masses providing information about biomass, natural hazards, sea level rise, and groundwater, key information to guide efforts related to climate change, hazard mitigation, agriculture, and so on. Senator Nelson is also expected to meet students to discuss STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and how they can participate in the Artemis program, Nasa's initiative to return humans to the Moon and make it a launchpad for missions to Mars. The Nasa chief is also expected to travel to UAE during this trip to participate in the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Over the last few years, India has opened up its space efforts to private industry and startups and established the institutional infrastructure and policies to foster this ecosystem. The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) is tasked with expanding the commercialization of India's space tech capabilities. In April, the government also released India's space policy, to promote a comprehensive approach to the space economy opportunity ahead. The government's estimate projects India's space market to be worth $40 billion in 2030. This could go as high as $100 billion, the consultancy Arthur D. Little says, if investments and efforts in certain focus areas are stepped up. Meanwhile, OneWeb India, the local subsidiary of low-earth orbit operator Eutelsat OneWeb, said last week, it had become the first company to receive India's go ahead to launch its commercial satellite broadband services. Bharti Airtel owns about 21 percent of UK-based OneWeb, which was recently merged with Europe's Eutelsat. Other multinational companies including billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite broadband business, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's project Kuiper, which are all putting large low earth orbit satellite constellations in space are also expected to offer to their services in India. And JioSpaceFiber, part of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, is also in the race to offer its own satellite based internet services in the country soon.  On the startups front, Indian space tech startups have gone from raising only $35 million in funding between 2010 and 2019, to $28 million in 2020 to $96 million in 2021 and $112 million in 2022, according to Tracxn, a private markets intelligence provider. This year the sector has attracted $62 million in funding as of August, according to Tracxn. Indian space startups are developing a range of technologies and products, including hyperspectral imaging, 3D-printed rocket engines, satellite propulsion systems and sustainable less toxic rocket fuels.

NVIDIA, which has a near monopoly on computer chips for AI applications, reported its fiscal third-quarter numbers yesterday that beat street expectations.  The semiconductor company's Q3 revenues of $18.12 billion is a 206 percent year-on-year jump, reflecting the extent to which big tech companies are ramping up AI investments. Sales to the data centre segment, which accounted for 80 percent of the company's Q3 revenues, was even more impressive, rising 279 percent. Sales rose 34 percent sequentially over Q2, and data centre sales, 41 percent. NVIDIA expects this scorching growth to continue. Q4 revenues are expected to touch $20 billion, plus or minus 2 percent, representing a 231 percent increase year on year. “Our strong growth reflects the broad industry platform transition from general-purpose to accelerated computing and generative AI,” Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, said in the company's Q3 earnings press release. “Large language model startups, consumer internet companies and global cloud service providers were the first movers, and the next waves are starting to build,” Huang said. Nations and regional communications services providers are investing in AI clouds to meet local demand, enterprise software companies are adding AI co-pilots and assistants to their platforms, and enterprises are creating custom AI to automate the world's largest industries, he said. “NVIDIA GPUs, CPUs, networking, AI foundry services and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software are all growth engines in full throttle. The era of generative AI is taking off,” he said. Meanwhile, at the very company that made generative AI mainstream with its ChatGPT bot, we await the final word on whether Sam Altman will return to the company he co-founded, or make his rift with the it permanent. Altman was abruptly fired from the company on Nov. 17 and two days later, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Altman was joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research unit. Microsoft, expecting to welcome any of the 770 OpenAI researchers who leave to join it, is said to be readying workspaces at its LinkedIn office, complete with Macbook laptops, Axios reported earlier today. About 95 percent of OpenAI staff have threatened to leave and follow Altman if the board of OpenAI doesn't resign, making way for his return. What's happened “highlights the growing rift between the proponents of a more measured rollout of the technology, that emphasizes safety guardrails above commercialization and monetization of solutions. This could have deep-reaching implications for the market,” Beatriz Valle, Senior Technology Analyst at the UK based consultancy GlobalData, said in an email yesterday. The events also shine a light on the legal structure of OpenAI, which was founded in 2015 as a non-profit company and adopted a new structure in 2019, following Microsoft's involvement, Valle writes. The company's founding charter still allowed the four-person board to fire Altman. OpenAI is controlled by its non-profit board, which has no fiduciary obligations towards stakeholders or investors, she points out. “This was a very immature board with members who had never built companies, never moved from ideology to commercialization, nor had any pragmatic board experience,” Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research in San Francisco, writes in a blog post. The board's big worries included ownership of training data, impact of untested models and detection of unwanted bias, Wang writes. OpenAI's biggest challenge is making the economics work, and Altman's move to accelerate commercialization was the right thing, he says.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella moved swiftly to recruit OpenAI's co-founder Sam Altman after his shocking ouster as CEO last week from the company responsible for the ChatGPT bot which has made AI a household term. Microsoft also hired Greg Brockman, who resigned as president of OpenAI after Altman's ouster. Wall Street cheered, and Microsoft shares rose on the Nasdaq stock exchange, ending more than 2 percent higher yesterday. “We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners,” Nadella wrote in a post on X. “We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OpenAI's new leadership team and working with them. And we're extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.” Emmett Shear is co-founder of Twitch, the games streaming service that Amazon acquired, and interim CEO of OpenAI. And then, a letter signed by more than 95 percent of the employees at OpenAI called for the resignation of the company's board and Altman's return, Wired reports. The employees threatened to quit and join Microsoft if their demands were not met. Among the signatories to the letter are company board member Ilya Sutskever as well as Mira Murati, who briefly served as interim CEO after the departure of Altman. The letter, addressed to OpenAI's board of directors, says: “Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI,” ABC News reports, citing a copy of the letter. “We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman,” the letter reads. Altman was pushed out after a review found he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with the board of directors, which had lost confidence in his ability to lead the company, OpenAI said in a statement on Friday, according to an Associated Press report carried by PBS. Emmet Shear said yesterday in a post on X that he would hire an independent investigator to look into what led up to Altman's ouster and write a report within 30 days, according to Associated Press. He wrote that the reason behind the board removing Altman was not a “specific disagreement on safety.” This could be a reference to the debates around OpenAI's mission to safely build AI that is “generally smarter than humans,” AP reports. With billions of dollars in investments from Microsoft and other investors, OpenAI has moved to commercialise its AI technology, chiefly through ChatGPT, which can generate essays and poems and other human-like text. OpenAI's board includes Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner of the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology, AP notes. Casey Newton, whose tech newsletter Platformer is widely followed, pointed out in his latest letter today that Toner has the power under the company's charter to halt OpenAI's efforts to build an artificial general intelligence. As to what is being seen as something of a coup for Nadella, he didn't really have a choice, according to one analyst. “If Microsoft lost Altman he could have gone to Amazon, Google, Apple, or a host of other tech companies craving to get the face of AI globally in their doors,” Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, said in a research note, according to AP. For example, Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce.com posted on X that “Salesforce will match any OpenAI researcher who has tendered their resignation full cash & equity” including unrealised open trade equity to immediately join his company's AI team.

Diwali crackers are about to add to the already dangerously polluted air in the national capital region. So how would it be if you could fly over the smog for an important meeting, in a tenth of the time it would take to go from Gurugram to Connaught Place, say, and pay about the same as what an Uber ride would cost. InterGlobe Enterprises, the company that operates India's top airline Indigo, and Archer Aviation Inc., a Silicon Valley company that's close to commercialising its electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, said yesterday they have partnered to launch and operate an all-electric air taxi service in India. Rahul Bhatia, Group Managing Director of InterGlobe, and Nikhil Goel, Chief Commercial Officer of Archer, signed an MOU to form a proposed partnership to do this, according to a press release yesterday. Based on Archer's all-electric aircraft, called Midnight, they aim to bring a low-noise electric air taxi service that is cost-competitive with ground transportation, according to the press release. The two companies aim to work with select in-country business partners to operate Archer's aircraft, finance and build vertiport infrastructure, and train pilots and other personnel needed for these operations. The partnership also plans to finance the purchase of up to 200 of Archer's Midnight aircraft for the India operations. Midnight is a piloted, four-passenger electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft designed for quick back-to-back flights with as little as 10 minutes of charging in between flights, according to the company's website. Archer is working to get certification for Midnight's commercial readiness by late 2024 and start operations in 2025. In India, which would the second international market for the company after the UAE, the goal is for a passenger on an InterGlobe-Archer flight to be able to fly the 27-km Delhi trip from Connaught Place to Gurugram, typically taking 60 to 90 minutes by car, in approximately 7 minutes. InterGlobe Archer will also explore other use cases for the electric aircraft in India, including cargo, logistics, medical and emergency services, as well as private company and charter services. “India is one of, if not the largest opportunity for eVTOL aircraft utilization in the world, as it is home to the world's largest population, and its largest cities face some of the greatest congestion challenges in the world,” Adam Goldstein, Founder and CEO of Archer said in the press release. Founded in 2018, Archer is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and has about $461 million in cash reserves currently. Its investors include automotive giant Stellantis, ARK Investment Management, United Airlines and Boeing. InterGlobe and Archer expect to start with operations in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru first, Nikhil Goel, Archer's chief commercial officer said in the press release. Meanwhile, India's hope for a made-in-India eVTOL is pinned to the success of the e200, being developed by ePlane Company in Chennai. The e200, in comparison with Midnight, is expected to be one of the world's most compact two-seater planes – carrying one pilot and one passenger – and capable of vertical take-off and landing in an area not much bigger than what it takes to park a mid-sized sedan. The plane is designed to be light enough, at around 600 kg, and have a range of 200 km per charge, and also be able to land on the average urban concrete rooftop. ePlane's founder and CEO, Professor Satya Chakravarthy, envisions hundreds of these air taxis flying over our cities. This involves achieving the safety levels of airplanes and cost economics of cars. And he thinks ePlane will get there. The company is also in talks with potential strategic investors, including some large automakers, to raise more money. “Where we are today is we have shown flight tests of a subscale prototype, which we are now going to commercialise for cargo applications,” Satya said.

Razorpay, a leading fintech name in India, providing a payments platform and banking-as-a-service software to some 10 million businesses, in the country, yesterday elevated Rahul Kothari to the position of chief operating officer for India and Malaysia. Kothari was previously chief business officer at the company. He will report to founder and CEO Harshil Mathur, the Bengaluru company said in a press release yesterday. This appointment sharpens Razorpay's focus on the Southeast Asia region, where it's looking to expand. The company also aims to implement a deeper integrated strategy to step up growth by improving customer experience across its different lines of business and products. In January, I wrote that Razorpay was at an inflexion point. About a month before that Shashank Kumar, the other founder, and Murali Brahmadesam had spoken about sustaining the culture of engineering at the company as it became bigger. Brahmadesam came in from AWS, earlier last year, and he'd taken on the CTO's role from Kumar, who was looking to free himself up from day-to-day engineering to focus on products strategy. The company has about 1,000 engineers among its 3,500 staff, or “Razors” as they're called internally, including several senior engineering leaders. Kumar had talked about how over the next five years, Razorpay would seek “tremendous scale.” And imports such as Brahmadesam will be playing a critical role on the engineering front.  Razorpay is stepping up its expansion into a broader financial services platform, from its flagship payments business—it accounts for most of its revenues and is making money on a standalone basis—to facilitating loans, and banking software. The company is expected to go deeper into the emerging hot area of ‘banking as a service,' which accounting giant Deloitte defines as provisioning of banking products and services through third-party distributors. This opens up the possibility that a large number of new niche finance startups can partner large, established banks and financial services companies, and help each other tap a significantly larger market than they could individually. Razorpay could emerge as a facilitator of this growth, and benefit from it. To throw the story forward, while Razorpay has made a name for itself in India, “We want to see how we can create a global engineering brand while we are working out of Bengaluru and India,” Kumar had told me a year ago. Organizational changes such Kothari's appointment are important incremental steps in that direction on the business front. Kothari has a degree in chemical engineering from IIT Kanpur, and an MBA from Indian School of Business.  Over the last 20 years or so, he's worked in the US, Europe and Australia. Currently based in Pune, he's into his fifth year with Razorpay. Previously, Kothari played a critical role in making the payments business profitable at PayU, according to Razorpay's press release. He's also worked at security software company Symantec, BPO company WNS, and Boston Consulting Group. Next year, Razorpay will be 10 years old. Technically, it was started in 2013 in Jaipur, but Mathur and Kumar, alumni of IIT Roorkee, moved base to Bengaluru quickly, and the company is widely considered to be founded in 2014. They were one of the first Indian startup founders to be part Y Combinator. Investors including Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, TCV, GIC, Tiger Global, Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India), Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, and Salesforce Ventures have invested a total of $741.5 million in the company in six rounds of funding. In December 2021, the company was privately valued at $7.5 billion, making it one of India's most valued startups. The company reported close to Rs. 1,500 crore in FY22 revenues, a 75 percent growth over the previous fiscal, and it was profitable on a standalone basis, for the flagship payments business.

Bumble yesterday announced that Lidiane Jones, who currently serves as chief executive at Slack, will succeed founder and current CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, on Jan. 2. Wolfe Herd will become Executive Chair at that time, the company said in a press release yesterday.  Nasdaq listed Bumble, which will report its fiscal third-quarter earnings later today, is expected to cross a billion dollars in revenue this year.  “Early in my career, I was the target of online abuse and harassment. I lived in a perpetual state of anxiety; the internet felt like the Wild West, dangerous and toxic. I knew there had to be a better way: A kinder, more respectful internet,” Herd wrote in an exclusive blog for Forbes India in March this year.  With that as the founding principle, Herd started Bumble in 2014, with a four-member team and a two-bedroom apartment, my colleague Naini Thaker wrote in her awesome piece on Bumble's India plans in July. Before Bumble, Wolfe Herd was a co-founder of Tinder, which she sued for sexual harassment, according to Forbes magazine. Bumble went public in February 2021, raising $2.15 billion in a listing that saw the company's stock soar to $76, versus the listing price of $43, before closing at $70.31. That made Wolfe Herd, who was 31 at the time, the world's youngest self-made woman billionaire, worth $1.5 billion. She owns about a fifth of the company, according to Forbes. Since then, the stock has plummeted well below the listing price and currently trades at around $13. Under Wolfe Herd's leadership, Bumble has built itself brand recognition as a dating app that is serious about women's safety online, according to the company's press release yesterday. Jones, who will take on the CEO's role, has a B.S. in computer science from University of Michigan. She's had a stellar record, which started as an intern at Apple in 2002, according to her LinkedIn profile.  She then spent close to 13 years at Microsoft, where she was Group Product Manager for Azure Machine Learning when she left for Sonos, the high-end speaker maker. She was there for close to four years, including through the company's IPO, and was VP of software product management when she left for Slack. Last year, she was named to replace Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield, who left Salesforce in January this year. Salesforce acquired Slack in a $27.7 billion deal in 2021. Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, told TechCrunch that Jones's move to Bumble makes a lot of sense, and would be a better fit for her skillset. It's not about moving from enterprise software to a dating app product, but rather that “Slack is no longer a growth play, but an integration play for Salesforce, and Lidiane's talents are better at Bumble for turnaround and growth,” Wang told TechCrunch. When she was named CEO of Slack, Fortune Magazine, after an interview with her, described Jones as a rare Brazil-born, Latin American tech CEO. She's also a mother, according to Bumble's press release yesterday. “As a woman who has spent her career in technology, it's a gift to lean on my experience to lead a company dedicated to women and encouraging equality, integrity and kindness, all deeply personal and inspiring to me,” Jones said in the press release.

Apple, last week, reported another quarter of revenue decline, on a year-on-year basis, but also one where the decrease was significantly narrower than nine months ago, amid heightened global uncertainties. The three months to Sep. 30, which is Apple's fiscal fourth quarter, was also the iPhone maker's best quarter in India, ever. “We achieved an all-time revenue record in India,” CEO Tim Cook told analysts and investors in a conference on Thursday last week. Apple shipped a record 2.5 million iPhones to India in the three months ended Sep. 30, according to an estimate from Hong Kong based market researcher, Counterpoint Technology Market Research, last week. After more than a decade of hits and misses, that's the best quarter Apple has seen in India, ever. Counterpoint and other well-known market researchers such as IDC estimate that Apple could end calendar year 2023 with sales of 8-9 million iPhones in India, which would represent a growth of between 19.4 percent and 34.3 percent versus the 6.7 million units sold here in 2022. The company also saw September quarter records in several countries, including Brazil, Canada, France, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE and Vietnam, Cook added. It was a significant quarter for Apple, for it switched to the type-C USB port from its proprietary lightning connection. The company also rolled out its latest generation of iPhones, new software across products, and reported significant progress on its journey towards making its products planet friendly. Overall, in addition to the all-time record in India, “iPhone, revenue came in ahead of our expectations, setting a September quarter record,” Cook said. iPhone sales also set quarterly records in many markets, including China Mainland, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, he said. That, and the sustained strong performance of services, were what helped revenues in a quarter that saw a significant drop in the sale of Mac computers and iPads as well, while Apple continues to lead the tablet market. “In services, we set an all-time revenue record with double-digit growth and ahead of our expectations,” Cook said. iPhone revenue was $43.8 billion, up 3 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. Overall, Apple posted quarterly revenue of $89.5 billion, down 1 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.46, up 13 percent year over year. The sales decline has narrowed from the 5 percent fall in the company's fiscal first quarter. Apple senior VP and CFO Luca Maestri added that the company's total installed base of active devices, reached an all-time high across all products and all geographic segments. While Apple doesn't call out region-specific numbers, Cook responded to a question by an analyst on the call by saying iPhone sales in India “grew very strong double digits,” in the three months ended Sep. 30.  He provided some additional qualitative commentary: “It's an incredibly exciting market for us and a major focus of ours. We have low share in a large market and so it would seem that there's a lot of headroom there.” The two physical retail stores in India have continued to better than expected. “It's still early going but they are off to a good start,” he said.

In today's episode we take a quick look at news of US President Joe Biden's executive order to regulate AI, but first one other headline that's caught everyone's attention at home. Headlines Several politicians from various opposition parties in India have been sent notifications by Apple that they were being targeted by “state-sponsored attackers,” according to multiple media reports. Among those who may have been targeted are members of parliament including TMC's Mahua Moitra, Shiv Sena (UBT's) Priyanka Chaturvedi, Congress's Pawan Khera and Shashi Tharoor, AAP's Raghav Chadha, and CPIM's Sitaram Yechury, Moneycontrol reports, citing the politicians as saying they have received notifications from Apple stating that their devices were being targeted by state-sponsored attackers. One thing today US President Joe Biden yesterday issued an executive order outlining new regulations and safety requirements for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, as the pace at which such technologies are advancing has alarmed governments around the world about the potential for their misuse. The order, which runs into some 20,000 words, introduces a safety measure by defining a threshold based on computing power for AI models. AI models trained with a computing power of 10^26 floating-point operations, or flops, will be subject to these new rules. This threshold surpasses the current capabilities of AI models, including GPT-4, but is expected to apply to next-generation models from prominent AI companies such as OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others, Casey Newton, a prominent technology writer who attended the Whitehouse conference at which President Biden announced the new rules yesterday, notes in his newsletter, Platformer. Companies developing models that meet this criterion must conduct safety tests and share the results with the government before releasing their AI models to the public. This mandate builds on voluntary commitments by 15 major tech companies earlier this year, Newton writes in his letter. The sweeping executive order addresses various potential harms related to AI technologies and their applications ranging from telecom and wireless networks to energy and cybersecurity. It assigns the US Commerce Department the task of establishing standards for digital watermarks and other authenticity verification methods to combat deepfake content. It mandates AI developers to assess their models' potential for aiding in the development of bioweapons, and orders agencies to conduct risk assessments related to AI's role in chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. Newton references an analysis of the executive order by computer scientists Arvind Narayanan, Sayash Kapoor and Rishi Bommasani to point out that despite these significant steps, the executive order leaves some important issues unaddressed. Notably, it lacks specific requirements for transparency in AI development, such as pre-training data, fine-tuning data, the labour involved in annotation, model evaluation, usage, and downstream impacts. Experts like them argue that transparency is essential for ensuring accountability and preventing potential biases and unintended consequences in AI applications. The order hasn't also addressed the current debate surrounding open-source AI development versus proprietary tech. The choice between open-source models, as advocated by Meta and Stability AI, and closed models, like those pursued by OpenAI and Google, has become a contentious issue, Newton writes.  Prominent scientists, such as Stanford University Professor Andrew Ng, who previously founded Google Brain, have criticised the large tech companies for seeking industry regulation as a way of stifling open-source competition. They argue that while regulation is necessary, open-source AI research fosters innovation and democratizes technology.

In today's episode I bring you the gist of Qualcomm's latest State of Sound report, but first a few headlines.  Headlines India's department of telecommunications has used facial recognition to disconnect more than 6.4 million illegal phone connections over the last six months, Moneycontrol reports. It detects when a photograph has been used multiple times to procure SIM cards and flags instances where an individual has acquired more than the nine SIM cards allowed per Aaadhaar number under Indian telecom rules, according to Moneycontrol. Apple yesterday announced the next iteration of its computer processors, the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max, chips featuring technologies that the company says deliver dramatically increased performance and make new capabilities possible on the Mac computers. These are the first personal computer chips built using the 3-nanometer process technology, Apple says. The iPhone maker also released new Macbook Pro laptops with these chips and finally, offered a refresh of the iMac all-in-one desktop computer, which up until now was only available with the M1 chip. One thing today In one thing today, for those of you who particularly care about a good audio experience – from music to podcasts to the audio that actually makes video look good – I stumbled upon an opportunity to bring you the gist of an interesting report from Qualcomm. The smartphone chip giant recently released its latest State of Sound report, and here's a summary. One finding is that consumers want to use the same device across all use cases, from listening to music, or gaming, while commuting, and for work. As premium devices expand in capabilities and features, this year's responses suggest that consumers will be willing to spend more on one device which is optimized for multiple purposes, Qualcomm notes in its report. The 2023 study, conducted in July, surveyed 7,000 smartphone users, covering the US, UK, Germany, China, India and Japan, and South Korea included for the first time. The report examines the factors that influence audio device purchases and interest in present and future usage scenarios, among consumers in the age group of 18 years to 64 years. The focus of this year's research is on how consumer use of wireless audio devices is evolving to include more complex use cases, from traditional uses like music, voice calls and watching video to the use of devices in the workplace, for gaming and hearing enhancement.  Earbuds and headphones are now considered crucial for activities such as working, commuting, gaming, and exercising, according to the report. Globally, the demand for true wireless earbuds and headphones is growing, with listeners using devices more often daily, and for longer periods of time. Therefore, comfort in the ear has become the top purchase driver for the first time, according to this report. The typical length of time that people are wearing true wireless earbuds is increasing, across multiple use cases, which is making comfort much more important. Consumers are also looking for increased device range, particularly around the home. And, there is also increasing demand for more premium sound experiences. For example, 73 percent of the respondents said they make sure that sound quality on their devices gets better with every new purchase, up from 67 percent in 2022. Demand for good quality audio in music is at an all-time high, with 69 percent of consumers listing lossless audio quality as a likely purchase driver. This shift is paired with a growing interest in premium audio features such as spatial audio, clear voice calls and lower audio latency.