🕹RBI's new rule for digital wallets
A new giant competitor to Netflix and much more. This week's tech news recap!
Hi friends I’m Shreyans👋 and welcome back to another edition of my newsletter, Integral!
I’m sorry I couldn’t send the newsletter for the past 2 weeks- end sem exams ate up too much of my time😔
Today’s newsletter is a recap of the tech news of this week. But don’t worry- I'm still writing the detailed weekly articles. I’ll send it out tomorrow at 11 AM, so stay tuned!
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Let’s get a quick recap of this week’s tech news🚀🚀
RBI's new rules for Digital Payment Apps:
On 19th, RBI announced new rules for digital payments companies:
All digital wallets need to be “interoperable”. People who use mobile wallets will be able to send and receive money from various mobile wallets.
Just like you can withdraw money from ATMs, you can withdraw money from your wallets as well.
The wallet limit has been increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh.
The new rules come into effect from April 2022.
2 Giants team up to fight the streaming wars:
We got a bombshell announcement on 17th May- WarnerMedia is merging with Discovery to create one big streaming giant. Their goal is simple- compete with Netflix.
This new giant already has lots of high-quality content- HBO, Warner Bros, CNN, Discovery, Animal Planet, TLC, etc. They also have their own streaming services- HBO Max, and Discovery+
This story has a 5G angle too: the parent of WarnerMedia, AT&T is a telecom company, like Airtel or Jio. It had bought TimeWarner for $85 billion, just 3 years back. No one really understood why a telecom company needed to buy an entertainment company. And the acquisition was a major flop.
Now that AT&T has realized its mistake, it is selling the entertainment division away. They are getting $43 billion from selling WarnerMedia to Discovery. They will use this money to invest in 5G, the hottest trend in the telecom industry right now.
Amazon also wants to fight with Netflix:
Amazon is buying MGM for $9 billion, The Information reported. The logic behind this deal is simple- any streaming service needs lots of good content to succeed.
Earlier, streaming companies like Netflix and Prime Video used to license movies from big studios. But slowly, these studios have realized that streaming is very lucrative. So instead of giving their content to Netflix and Prime Video, the studios are launching their own streaming services. Some examples are Paramount+ and HBO Max.
This is a problem for Netflix and Prime Video- how will they grow without the content from these studios? So Netflix started investing in its own content- Netflix Originals. Even Prime Video is making its own content.
The deal with MGM will supercharge Prime Video’s content library- MGM has lots of classic movies like James Bond, The Handmaid’s Tale, Rocky, Stargate, Robocop, Legally Blonde, Vikings.
Updates from Google’s tech festival:
This week marked the beginning of Google I/O, the annual festival in which Google shows off its new technologies.
Android powers 3 billion devices now!!!!!!
Futuristic announcements: 3D video calling booth
Photography announcements: better smartphone camera, AI curated albums.
Tech announcements: New features for Android 12, new Android Studio, Flutter update, Firebase update
Smart canvas: Docs + Productivity + Video calls
Gojek + Tokopedia = GoTo
2 of Indonesia’s biggest startups, Gojek and Tokopedia merged this week to form a single company- GoTo.
Gojek is a super-app. Think of it as a combo of Paytm and Swiggy and Zomato and Ola and Bigbasket. Tokopedia is an e-commerce company. Check out this diagram below to better understand the range of these companies.
The merger will allow them to compete with another super-app, Grab, and e-commerce company Shoppee.
After gaming, Discord wants to conquer music:
Discord has always been seen as an app for gamers. Even the founder agrees that they launched the app after seeing that gamers didn’t have a good way to communicate.
We felt there really wasn't any great way for people to talk and hang out before, during and after playing games
As we can see, Discord has become the go-to app for gamers. Now, it wants to expand beyond gaming into other fields. And the company has chosen music as its target. Lots of musicians have chosen Discord to build their online communities. They like the fact that Discord doesn't use ads or user data to make money. Instead, it uses a premium service called Nitro to make revenue.
They launched a new feature called “ticketed events” aimed specifically at music fans. Ticketed events = buy tickets to attend a (virtual) event.
Twitter Blue: Twitter’s new premium subscription
Rumors are that the premium version of Twitter won’t have ads, will have an “undo tweet” button, and a Collections feature. It will be priced around $2.99 per month.
Amazon + Tile vs Apple
Recently, Apple launched a new device called AirTag. It can be used to locate missing objects. A small company called Tile has already been doing this for several years. But Apple’s network is better than Tile’s, which means finding devices using Airtags will be easier. So, Amazon has teamed up with Tile to improve its network and make it better than Apple’s.
Google is opening its first store:
The “Google Store” will debut in New York City, and it will be just like the Apple Store- but there will be Google products like Pixel phones, Pixel laptops, Nest devices, and Fitbit smartwatches.
I hope you found this recap informative✌
Please share it with your friends- I’m sure they’ll also find this informative!
I’ll see you tomorrow with the detailed article💡
Bye-bye and thanks for being a supporter!
Awesomeee.
Love your weekend mails! Thank you for imparting these facts :)