🕹Social Media companies face another tough week with the Indian govt
This week's tech recap!
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Let’s get a quick recap of this week’s tech news🚀🚀
🕹Social Media companies face another tough week with the Indian govt
This week, the fight between the govt and social media companies intensified.
On Monday, police visited Twitter India's offices after it labeled a tweet from BJP spokesperson as "manipulated media."
On Tuesday, WhatsApp sued the government in Delhi HC to block the new IT rules. The company said that the new rules will lead to mass surveillance.
On Wednesday, the govt reprimanded WhatsApp for its "clear act of defiance" when it comes to following the "law of the land."
And on Thursday, Twitter said it was "concerned" about the safety of its employees in the country.
Both sides have their own reasons- the govt is saying that the new IT rules will help in national security. Social media companies are saying that the IT rules violate democratic principles.
The govt has become a lot stricter on social media companies this year. Although the companies are pushing back, they don't have much choice here. They don't want to risk a complete ban since India is such an important market for them.
That is why yesterday, FB, Google, and WhatsApp agreed to the IT Rules
🕹Zeta raises $250 million to disrupt bank tech
This week, the Indian startup ecosystem got another unicorn- Zeta. The company raised a whopping $250 million in a Series C round led by Softbank.
Zeta's main customers are banks- it provides them with technology for mobile banking, credit card processing, etc. The company counts 10 banks and 25 fintechs in 8 countries as its customers.
Zeta's success highlights an important trend- banks are tired of using antique technology. In fact, 80% of financial transactions use COBOL, a computer programming language developed in the 1950s. This makes COBOL 10 years older than the Internet!!
This is a huge opportunity for Zeta- CEO Bhavin Turakhia plans to use the funding to expand in Europe and the US. 41-year-old Turakhia is a legendary entrepreneur- he started his first company at the age of 18!
🕹Apple vs Epic hearing wraps up
Epic v. Apple came to a close on Monday. Over the course of 3 weeks, both the companies explained their point of view. Epic wants Apple to stop the 30% tax on App Store payments and allow other payment methods. Apple wants Epic to stop being a crybaby and pay the 30% tax.
Both the companies tried very hard to define the relevant market for Fortnite. Apple says its a game, so its market is the entire gaming market. The App Store is a very small part of the gaming market, so Apple doesn't have a monopoly.
Epic says that Fortnite is a metaverse, not a game. This means people can do much more inside Fortnite, not just play games. If Fortnite is a metaverse, the relevant market will be Apple's App Store. And Apple does have a monopoly over its App Store. Epic says Apple is misusing this monopoly to charge the 30% tax.
The judge has to go over thousands of court documents and testimony, and the verdict will come out after a few months.
🕹In Case You Missed It
📌 "I'm definitely very happy that one of the biggest problems of blockchain will go away when proof of stake is complete. It's amazing." — Vitalik Buterin, inventor of Ethereum. Ethereum is shifting to proof of stake, which could drastically cut its energy use.
📌 This week, Google, Snapchat, Facebook, Pinterest- all these companies made big announcements in social commerce. Snapchat launched AR filters to try out clothes before buying. Google allowed merchants to display their products on Youtube and Maps and Search. And FB is starting "Live Shopping Fridays".
📌 Microsoft launched new features for Teams. The goal is to turn Teams into a collaboration tool, like Notion. Right now, Teams is a communication tool, like Zoom or Meet. But Microsoft wants to turn it into a place where we can work.
📌 Amazon bought MGM for $8.4 billion. MGM has a library of 4000 movies and 17,000 TV shows. This will be a huge boost for Prime Video.
📌 Microsoft is using GPT3 to let you code in natural language- https://tcrn.ch/3fHsLhX
📌 Instagram is letting users hide likes. During testing, the company found out that turning off likes didn't have much effect on user experience. But the feature is rolling out anyways.
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