World Economic Forum ‘Data Flows’ Project Hopes To Globalize Information Exchange !!

Countries have stock exchanges, commodities markets and various types of bourse systems to enable the formalized trading, pricing and exchange of corporate stocks, securities, goods and services. Although traditional of these commodities markets are likely to exist for many years to come (trading everything from tea to tin as they do), we’re now at a point on the digital evolution curve when data itself has become a marketable product, a tradeable entity and a thing of value. Surely we need some kind of exchange system for data then? If not…

Artificial Intelligence Is Experiencing Growing Pains !!

Is Artificial Intelligence(AI) ready to move out from the labs and proofs of concept and into the mainstreams of enterprises? Leading industry observers say yes, it’s ready — but organizations may still need some preparation. “We’ve to moved beyond the phase of ‘Is AI a shiny object?’ toward an broader mainstream adoption and actual value creation,” says Bryce Hall, associate partner with McKinsey, noting that data from a survey of 2,300 executives shows a nearly 25% year-over-year increase in the use of AI in basis of standard business processes. Hall…

Chrome OS to run Steam starting with 10th Gen Intel Chromebooks !!

Google has been working on bringing Steam support to Chrome OS(Operating System) for a while now and reports have it now that Chrome OS will run Steam and it is going to start with Chromebooks. For almost over a year now, Chrome OS has supported Linux apps under a project called Crostini. Crostini runs an entire Linux distribution under its hood in a virtual machine – much like a developer running an Android emulator on the desktop. Adding to that, there is a new project within the Chromium open-source code,…

Google hosts Chrome web.dev LIVE: Here’s what it’s all about !!

Today is the last day for web.dev LIVE, a digital event held by Google for developers to connect, share ideas and build networks while learning new web techniques, something they couldn’t do while sitting at home. Usually, this happens every year at Google IO conference but since the event didn’t take place this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Google came up with web.dev LIVE. It was a three day digital event that started on June 30th and included short 3 hours content streams (in English) hosted on web.dev/live website….

World UFO Day: Here are five of the most famous ‘flying saucer’ sightings !!

Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) have captured people’s imagination for thousands of years. There are myths and legends, stories and folklore all woven around the experience of sighting “something” in the sky. Because it is merely “something”— a disk, a flash of light, an object the shape of nothing ever seen before— it is classified as a UFO. UFOs are more often than are not associated with aliens, since legends have it that these flying objects are being flown by, again, “someone” or “something”. This mystery surrounding UFOs has endured since…

LIC made fresh investment in 16 stocks, bought additional stake in 43 counters in Q4 !!

After hitting a record of high in January 2020, Indian equity benchmarks crashed 40% to hit around 4 year low level on March 24. The indices have recovered since then on the back of liquidity (by global central banks) and gradual re-opening of economies despite virus risk. The BSE Sensex and Nifty50 as well as Midcap and Smallcap indices plunged 29% each during the March quarter. Sectoral indices also witnessed double-digit decline. Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), one of the major equity investors, made fresh investments in 16 stocks…

Indians flock to desi apps after ban on TikTok, 58 other China-linked apps !!

Desi TikTok rivals like Chingari, Mitron, Bolo Indya and Roposo are seeing huge surge in downloads ever since the ban on TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps. Chingari app registered 500,000 downloads in just 72 hours. Even before the India ban on Chinese apps, homegrown alternatives to TikTok were making news. With the ban in effect these desi TikTok rivals are seeing huge surge in downloads and users. TikTok was massively popular in India especially since it catered to even the smallest places across the country. TikTok has been removed from…

UK regulators take aim at Apple’s search engine deal with Google !!

The payments by Alphabet Google to Apple to be the default search engine on Apple’s Safari web browser create “a significant barrier to entry and expansion” for Google’s rivals in the search engine market, the UK markets regulator said in a report released on Wednesday. The UK Competition and Markets Authority, in its final report investigating online platforms & digital advertising, said the arrangements between Apple and Google create “a significant barrier to entry and expansion” for Google’s rivals in the search engine market. Those rivals include Microsoft Corp’s Bing,…

GST faces challenge to meet higher revenue expectations !!

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was passed in a joint session of parliament on 1 July, 2017. It is the biggest tax reform in the history of the country. GST’s rollout abolished a plethora of regional taxes and ushered in a unified indirect tax regime across the country. This change was expected to cut red tape, facilitate movement of goods and services across state borders and widen the tax base by bringing erstwhile evaders into the system via the input tax credit radar. It was a radical reform. Reforms…

UPI payments hit all-time high of 1.34 billion transactions in June !!

UPI payments had fell to 999.57 million in terms of volume with transactions worth of  Rs 1.51 lakh crore in April, following the coronavirus-induced lockdown that halted almost all services, except essentials. Payments on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in June hit an all-time high of 1.34 billion in terms of volume with transactions worth nearly Rs 2.62 lakh crore, as per National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) data. On a month-on-month basis it registered a 8.94% growth from 1.23 billion in May. UPI payments had fell to 999.57 million in terms…