Tech Bites

Spotify Technology is considering adding full-length music videos to its app, which could help the streaming service better compete with Alphabet 's YouTube and ByteDance 's TikTok. The service has already begun talking to partners about the product, according to people familiar with the plan who asked not to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak about it publicly.  Spotify declined to comment.  The feature would add to Spotify's growing efforts to establish video — which in the streaming media era has tended to be more lucrative than audio — as a core part of its app. Spotify already allows musicians to upload “canvases,” or looping GIFs under 10 seconds long, that populate the screen while music plays. Earlier this year, it debuted a feature called “clips,” which are videos shorter than 30 seconds designed to give artists a storytelling tool to communicate about their music, similar to how they might use TikTok . The company also launched a new,

Vietnam has told cross-border social platforms to use artificial intelligence (AI) models that can detect and remove "toxic" content automatically, the latest requirement in its stringent regime for social media firms, state media reported on Friday. Vietnam has repeatedly asked companies like Meta 's Facebook , Google 's YouTube and TikTok to coordinate with authorities to stamp out content deemed "toxic", such as offensive, false and anti-state content. "This is the first time Vietnam has announced such an order," state-run broadcaster Vietnam Television (VTV) reported from the information ministry's mid-year review event, which was opened to selected newspaper. The report did not give details on when and how cross-border platforms had to abide by the new requirement. During the first half of this year, in accordance with government requests, Facebook removed 2,549 posts, the ministry said in a statement. YouTube removed 6,101 videos

Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg on Friday announced a new feature on the platform's instant messaging app,  WhatsApp . According to the Meta CEO, users will now be allowed to transfer their chat history between devices conveniently and in a secure way. Currently, both the devices need to work on the same OS (operating system) for the transfer to take place. The new feature makes the process easier and faster to transfer messages as well as larger attachments from one device to another. In a post shared by Meta CEO on his official Facebook handle, Zuckerberg wrote, "If you want to move your WhatsApp chats to a new phone, you can now do it more privately without your chats ever leaving your devices." Apparently, now the users will be able to share the chat history with the help of QR code authentication. He also shared a demonstration video to explain the new process.  While WhatsApp already allowed users to transfer their chat history from one phone to ano

A South Korean chip executive imprisoned over industrial espionage charges rejected allegations he had sought to build a copycat chip factory in China with sensitive information developed by Samsung Electronics . In a handwritten letter to Reuters, his first comments to the media since he was detained on May 25, Choi Jinseog elaborated on his defense plan and said the allegations against him regarding the Xian plant were not substantiated. Prosecutors earlier this month indicted the former Samsung executive for illegally obtaining secret information to build a semiconductor plant only 1.5 km (1 mile) from a Samsung factory in Xian, China. Choi is in custody at a detention center in Suwon, a city south of Seoul where Samsung has its headquarters. He previously denied all the charges through his lawyer. In the letter, Choi said the factory was planned for Taiwan's Foxconn , for early test production of DRAM memory chips, while Samsung's plant in Xian was designed to manufactu

Google said on Thursday it plans to block Canadian news on its platform in Canada, joining Facebook in escalating a campaign against a new law requiring payments to local news publishers. Alphabet -owned Google will remove links to Canadian news from search results and other products in Canada when the law takes effect in about six months. Facebook -owner Meta Platforms made a similar announcement last week after the passage of Bill C-18, or the Online News Act. Canada's media industry has called for tighter regulation of Internet giants to allow news businesses to recoup financial losses suffered in the years that Facebook and Google gained a greater share of the online advertising market. The independent budgetary watchdog in Canada estimated last year that news businesses could receive about CAD 330 million (roughly Rs. 20,436 crore) per year from deals mandated under the legislation. Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, who introduced the bill last year, has said the pla

We heard you have a generous budget of Rs 75,000 for a new smartphone, and are looking for a flagship product with excellent cameras, extremely powerful processors, high-quality display and the works. If that’s the case, you have come to the right place. We have just shortlisted five smartphones from a large pool that we believe are the best under 75K in India this month. Come, let’s take a look. Best phones to buy under Rs 75,000 in India OnePlus 11 5G Marble Odyssey  The top variant of the OnePlus 11 5G can be easily purchased in this budget. But if you are willing to spend another Rs 3,000 for elegance, style and a certain degree of exclusivity, we would recommend the Marble Odyssey edition of the same phone. While the overall shape and design are very much like other OnePlus 11 variants, the company has worked its magic on the back panel which does look and feel like a slab of polished marble. The champagne gold metal frame complements it to perfection and makes the phone look i

Canada's Department of Justice has concluded that Microsoft's deal to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard "is likely to" lead to less competition in some aspects of gaming, according to a court filing on Thursday. In a letter dated Wednesday to Microsoft's US lawyers, the department said it had communicated to Microsoft's and Activision's lawyers in Canada that the deal would likely lead to less competition in "gaming consoles and multigame subscription services (as well as cloud gaming)." On Thursday, the letter was put on the docket of a US federal court proceeding in which the US Federal Trade Commission is asking a judge to temporarily stop the proposed transaction so that an FTC judge will have time to assess it. Closing arguments in the proceeding are set for later on Thursday. Microsoft has pressed for a decision in the court fight before the July 18 termination date for the deal. A ruling could come as early as next week. I

Edtech major Byju's  is growing slowly but sustainably and is close to achieving profitability at the group level, the company's CEO Byju Raveendran said on Thursday. The company organised a town hall with Raveendran to allay apprehensions about the uncertainty around the company's growth and its future. According to sources, who attended the town hall, Raveendran said that issues with $1.2 billion (nearly Rs. 9,852 crore) Term Loan B lenders are being resolved through discussion and hopeful of a positive outcome in the next few weeks without the court's intervention. "Byju shared that Byju's is close to achieving profitability at the group level, demonstrating the company's commitment to financial management and optimization of operations," a source said. He said that despite the challenges faced by tech companies globally, Byju's has made substantial progress towards this significant milestone. Byju's had set a timeline to achieve profit

ChatGPT creator OpenAI  is stealing “vast amounts” of personal information to train its artificial intelligence models in a heedless hunt for profits, a group of anonymous individuals claimed in a lawsuit seeking class action status. OpenAI has violated privacy laws by secretly scraping 300 billion words from the internet, tapping “books, articles, websites and posts — including personal information obtained without consent,” according to the sprawling, 157-page lawsuit. It doesn't shy from sweeping language, accusing the company of risking “civilizational collapse.” The plaintiffs are described by their occupations or interests but identified only by initials for fear of a backlash against them, the Clarkson Law Firm said in the suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco. They cite $3 billion (roughly Rs. 24,611 crore) in potential damages, based on a category of harmed individuals they estimate to be in the millions. A different approach: Theft “Despite establis

Oracle is spending "billions" of dollars on chips from Nvidia as it expands a cloud computing service targeting a new wave of artificial intelligence (AI) companies, Oracle founder and Chairman Larry Ellison said on Wednesday. Oracle's cloud division is working to gain ground against larger rivals such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. To get an edge, Oracle has focused on building fast networks that can shuffle around the huge amount of data needed to create AI systems similar to ChatGPT . Oracle is also buying huge numbers of graphics processing units (GPUs) designed to crunch that data for AI work. Oracle is also spending "billions" of dollars on Nvidia chips but even more on central processor units (CPUs) from Ampere Computing, a chip startup it has invested in, and Advanced Micro Device , Ellison said at an Ampere event. "This year, Oracle will buy GPUs and CPUs from three companies," Ellison said. "We will buy GPUs from Nvidia,

Binance's European banking partner Paysafe Payment Solutions will stop supporting the US cryptocurrency exchange from September 25, CoinDesk reported on Wednesday. The crypto exchange will be changing the provider for euro deposits and withdrawals through the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), while the current partner — Paysafe — will no longer be providing these services to Binance users, the report said, citing Binance's spokesperson. Binance typically accesses SEPA via payment intermediaries. Paysafe and Binance did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The report comes as Binance faces scrutiny from regulators keen to clamp down on money laundering. Earlier this month, Binance and its US affiliate had entered an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to ensure US customer assets remain within the country until a sweeping lawsuit filed by the regulatory agency is resolved. Binance had tied up with Paysafe last year so that its use

Twitter's new chief executive, Linda Yaccarino , is working on a slew of measures to bring back advertisers who left the platform under Elon Musk's ownership, including introducing a video ads service, pursuing more celebrities and raising headcount, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Wednesday. Yaccarino, who started as CEO on June 5, is planning to launch full-screen, sound-on video ads that will be shown to users scrolling through Twitter's new short-video feed, the newspaper reported, citing three people familiar with the situation. She is in talks about a broader partnership with Alphabet-owned Google that would include advertising and access to some of Twitter's data, the report said, citing someone familiar with the matter. Twitter also hopes to renegotiate multiple contracts with tech companies such as Amazon.com , Salesforce and IBM into single broader partnerships, according to the newspaper. Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request f

The Indian government met large global firms such as Foxconn , Samsung Electronics and Reliance Industries to find ways to boost manufacturing in the country with its production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. The meeting, addressed by India's Trade Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday, comes amid concerns that some of the businesses were facing delays in availing the incentives from New Delhi amid complicated procedures. The discussions included ways to improve local manufacturing at competitive costs, higher domestic value-adds in production, and quick grievance redressal, the government said in a statement on Wednesday. The meeting was also attended by executives from iPhone maker Wistron , laptop maker Dell , telecommunications firm Nokia Solutions and others that benefited from the scheme's incentive payouts. The PLI scheme, introduced in late 2020, is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's main industrial policy to boost manufacturing. The government has so far announced i

Activision Blizzard said its studio that developed Call of Duty  would set up shop in Barcelona, putting into action its pledge to invest in Europe after Brussels approved Microsoft 's $69 billion (nearly Rs. 5,66,000 crore) acquisition of the company in May. The US company said on Wednesday its game developer Infinity Ward, which created the blockbuster first-person shooter game, would join its Digital Legends mobile games unit in the Spanish city. The decision comes after Britain blocked the Microsoft takeover, prompting Activision, which has studios in Guildford and Warrington in England, to say it would "reassess" its growth plans in the country. In contrast, it said it would "meaningfully expand" its investment and workforce in the European Union after the deal received the green light there. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are battling antitrust regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to clinch the deal, the biggest ever in video gaming. Activisio

Shares of US chipmakers fell on Wednesday following a report that the Biden administration was planning new curbs on export of computing chips for artificial intelligence to China as early as July. Companies such as Nvidia , Advanced Micro Devices and Intel , which rely on the world's second largest economy for at least a fifth of their revenue, fell between 0.8 percent and 1.8 percent, caught in the US-China crossfire. The Philadelphia chip index dropped 0.9 percent. Last year, US officials had ordered Nvidia to stop exporting its top two AI chips to China to limit the country's technological capability. Months later, Nvidia launched a new advanced chip called A800 in China to meet export control rules. The new restrictions being considered by the Commerce Department would also include a ban on the sale of Nvidia's A800 chip without a special US export license, the Wall Street Journal report said. Curbs on sales of datacenter graphics processing units to China wou

Apple on Wednesday released the visionOS SDK, a set of tools that will enable developers to build apps for the Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset. The Cupertino company's first spatial computer will go on sale in the US next year and Apple is providing app developers with the tools required to build apps for the device. Unlike other Apple products, the company's upcoming mixed reality headset will use a combination of three different modes of interaction using a person's eyes, hands, and voice. The visionOS SDK will allow developers to tailor their apps around this functionality while making use of the specialised hardware on the device.   The company announced  on the Apple Developer website that the visionOS SDK is now available to developers. In order to create spatial computing apps for the Apple Vision Pro, developers will have to download Xcode 15 Beta 2 that includes the latest visionOS SDK along with a tool to visualise and preview 3D content for the headset

The Indian government is preparing a new multibillion-dollar subsidy scheme for companies making electricity grid batteries as part of its transition to clean energy, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing a power ministry proposal. The draft proposal for a production-linked incentive subsidy scheme would offer Rs. 216 billion ($2.63 billion) from this year through to 2030 for companies to set up manufacturing capacity for battery cells in India, the FT reported . The draft plan seen by the FT acknowledged there was a limit to how much more coal power India could build. "International opinion" and "environmental concerns . . . make expansion of coal-based thermal generation beyond a limit, an infeasible option," according to the draft plan. India's power ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Apart from energy transition, domestic battery cell manufacturing is also essential to reducing the country's dependence on riva

Apple on Wednesday released the visionOS SDK, a set of tools that will enable developers to build apps for the Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset. The Cupertino company's first spatial computer will go on sale in the US next year and Apple is providing app developers with the tools required to build apps for the device. Unlike other Apple products, the company's upcoming mixed reality headset will use a combination of three different modes of interaction using a person's eyes, hands, and voice. The visionOS SDK will allow developers to tailor their apps around this functionality while making use of the specialised hardware on the device.   The company announced  on the Apple Developer website that the visionOS SDK is now available to developers. In order to create spatial computing apps for the Apple Vision Pro, developers will have to download Xcode 15 Beta 2 that includes the latest visionOS SDK along with a tool to visualise and preview 3D content for the headset

Meta Platforms plans to cut off access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada once a new law requiring internet giants to pay news publishers takes effect, arguing news has no economic value to the company and that its users do not use the platform for news. Canada drafted new rules after legacy media companies complained about internet companies elbowing news businesses out of the online advertising market. Why are technology companies against the law?  The Canadian parliament passed "Bill C-18" into law, requiring internet giants to pay news publishers. The Online News Act forces platforms like Facebook and Alphabet 's Google to negotiate commercial deals and pay news publishers for their content. Both Meta and Google had warned they would withdraw access to news articles on their platforms in Canada if the legislation is passed into law without amendments. Facebook says links to news articles make up less than 3 percent of the content on it

Google has urged India's Supreme Court to quash antitrust directives against it for abuse of the Android market, two sources said, as its presses its legal battle against the competition watchdog in one of its most important markets. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said in October that Google, whose Android mobile operating system powers 97 percent of the 600 million smartphones in India, had exploited its dominant position. It ordered Google to remove restrictions imposed on device makers, including those related to the pre-installation of apps , and fined the US firm $163 million (nearly Rs. 1,300 crore), which it paid. In March, an Indian tribunal gave partial relief to the Alphabet  unit by setting aside four of the 10 directives in the case. The tribunal said CCI's findings of Google's anti-competitive conduct were correct, but gave Google some relief by quashing some of the directives that forced it to alter its business model. Google is now asking

Xiaomi Pad 6  was recently  launched in India as the successor to the Xiaomi Pad 5 that made its debut in 2022. Just like last year's model, Xiaomi has attempted to equip its latest tablet with a range of features and a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, while keeping the price of the device under Rs. 30,000. The Xiaomi Pad 6 sports a 11-inch LCD display, runs on Android 13 out-of-the-box, and Xiaomi claims it can offer up to two days of battery backup. It is equipped with a 13-megapixel primary camera and an 8-megapixel selfie camera. This week on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast, resident device expert  Pranav Hegde , who has spent some time with Xiaomi's latest tablet, talks to guest host Sheldon Pinto  about the device. Pinto reviewed the Xiaomi Pad 5 last year, and the duo discuss some of the changes and upgrades that have made their way to this year's model and how it fares against the competition. The Xiaomi Pad 6 isn't exactly a new device — it was launched in Ch

Motorola Razr 40 and Motorola Razr 40 Ultra India launch date was announced by the company on Thursday. As per a teaser on Amazon India, the foldable flip phones will launch on next month. Both handsets were launched in China on June 1 and sport 6.9-inch pOLED displays. The Razr 40 Ultra is equipped with a large 3.6-inch outer display with a 144Hz refresh rate, while the Razr 40 has a smaller 1.5-inch cover screen. The Motorola Razr 40 and Motorola Razr 40 Ultra are powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chips, respectively. Unveiled in China earlier this month, the Motorola Razr 40 and Razr 40 Ultra are set to debut in India on July 3, a Motorola spokesperson confirmed to Gadgets 360. The listings for the handsets do not reveal details such as pricing or availability, which are expected to be announced on the launch date. Pricing for the handsets in China starts at CNY 3,999 (roughly Rs. 46,000) for the Motorola Razr 40 and CNY 5,699 (roughly Rs. 66,00

OnePlus Nord Buds 2R are expected to. be launched in India soon. The device's microsite has gone live on Amazon, hinting the timeline for revealing of various information regarding the earbuds. OnePlus Nord Buds 2R could debut in India on July 5, alongside OnePlus Nord 3. The earbuds' design and colour specifications have already been revealed via the Amazon product listing page. The earbuds are teased to come in two colour options and sport an in-canal design. There were unofficial reports about the earbuds arriving in India in June, but this seems to have been delayed for July. Amazon has made the product page live for OnePlus Nord Buds 2R in India, confirming the launch timeline of the upcoming. device. The earbuds are said to debut in India on July 5. Several tipsters have shared the image from Amazon microsite which confirmed the date. However, it seems like the date has now been removed. The product page has also revealed the design and colour options of the upcoming