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Apple and  Google  on Wednesday released the first version of exposure notification (earlier called contact tracing) Application Programming Interface (API) to select developers associated with public health authorities (PHAs) around the world. This is a developer-focused release and is consistent with both the companies deliver beta copies of their software at the same time. Aimed at helping developers begin testing in anticipation of the API's release in mid-May, another goal of the release is to encourage feedback that will help improve the various features, the tech giants said in a statement. "Collaboration and transparency have been two key principles of the project for both companies. Additional details will be announced on Friday," they added. Read Complete Article

In partial relief to Vodafone Idea, the  Supreme Court  on Wednesday ordered the Income-Tax (I-T) department to refund the telecom company Rs 733 crore, pending for the assessment year (AY) 2014-15, within four weeks. The court also asked the department to conclude proceedings relating to the firm's demand of refunds in respect of AY 2016-17 and 2017-18 as early as possible. Vodafone Idea, which is facing a financial crisis after the apex court ordered it to pay  adjusted gross revenue  (AGR) dues and penalties totalling Rs 53,000 crore, will, however, have to wait for other refunds, worth Rs 4,579 crore, from the I-T department. The court order said that for AY 2014-15, Vodafone's then Indian entities filed income-tax returns (ITRs), claiming a refund of Rs 1,532 crore. In November 2015, Vodafone filed returns for AY 2015-16, claiming a refund of another Rs 1,355.51 crore. A year later, the company claimed a refund of Rs 1,128.47 crore for AY 2016-...

Microsoft  Corp on Wednesday beat Wall Street sales and profit expectations, powered by sharp demand for its Teams chat and online meeting app and Xbox gaming services as the world shifted to working and playing from home because of the novel  coronavirus  pandemic. The company's shares, up over 12 per cent this year, rose about 5 per cent in extended trading. The results reflect Chief Executive Satya Nadella's focus over his six-year tenure on cloud computing, in which  companies  tap Microsoft's data centres for computing power - a growing business dominated by Amazon.com Inc's Amazon Web Services. For the fiscal fourth quarter,  Microsoft  gave business-unit forecasts that were below analyst estimates, predicting tough times for LinkedIn and some small-business software sales. "Ultimately,  Microsoft  is not immune from what is going on broadly in the world in terms of GDP growth," Nadella said on a conference call with i...

. CBSE exam 2020:  The Central Board of Secondary  Education  (CBSE) on Wednesday said it was considering sticking to the earlier plan and conducting CBSE 10th and CBSE 12th board exams for main subjects only after analysing the situation when the  coronavirus  lockdown  would end on May 3. The statement came amid speculation over the date of the remaining  CBSE board exams. CBSE tweeted, "Recently, there has been a lot of speculation regarding 10th  CBSE Board exams.  It is reiterated that the board's decision to hold board exams for 29 subjects of class 10 and 12, stands the same as mentioned in circular dated April 1, 2020." The Board added that all stakeholders would get 10-day notice before the exams are conducted. Meanwhile, Delhi  Education  Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday recommended CBSE exams be cancelled. He said CBSE 10th and  CBSE class 12  students should be promoted on the basis of inter...

HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s original video streaming service, will be available on Apple devices at its launch on May 27. The service will be fully integrated with the  Apple TV  app on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and  Apple TV. Customers who are billed through the App Store or through  Apple TV  Channels for HBO Now will be upgraded automatically to HBO Max at no additional charge, reports AppleInsider. New customers who want to subscribe to HBO Max will be able to do so via an in-app purchase, priced at $14.99 per month. HBO Max will be available as a native app only for the fourth-generation Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K. However, subscribers with older Apple TV second and third generation set-tops can stream HBO Max content from their iPhone or iPad to their TV with AirPlay. Read Complete Article

Cloud major  Oracle  on Tuesday announced that the video meet app  Zoom  is turning to  Oracle  Cloud Infrastructure to support its growth and evolving business needs. Zoom  has grown exponentially in recent times due to Covid-19 pandemic. The company said it now connects around 300 million-plus user on daily basis. “We recently experienced the most significant growth our business has ever seen, requiring massive increases in our service capacity. We explored multiple platforms, and  Oracle  Cloud Infrastructure was instrumental in helping us quickly scale our capacity and meet the needs of our new users,”  Zoom  CEO Eric S. Yuan said in a statement. Read Complete Article

Facebook-owned instant messaging platform,  WhatsApp  now allows up to eight people in a group video call. The number of total participants allowed in a video call were earlier limited to four. The change has been done in view of increasing number of people turning to digital platforms to connect with friends and family amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Last month,  WhatsApp  said that people on average are spending over 15 billion minutes talking each day on  WhatsApp  calls, well above a typical day before the pandemic. "...we see that people all over the world are turning to voice and video calling on WhatsApp more than ever before. Group calling has been particularly useful and our users have asked to connect with more people at once," WhatsApp said in a blogpost. Starting Tuesday, the company is doubling the number of participants one can have on a WhatsApp video or voice call from 4 to 8 people at a time, it added. Read Complete Article...

Looking to expand inorganically, social media start-up  ShareChat  has acquired meme platform Memer for an undisclosed amount. With the acquisition, the eight-member team at Memer has joined ShareChat, which will be contributing towards making the Bengaluru-based portal a more robust platform with a stronger regional connect. The company is actively looking to partner with more such start-ups in areas such as AI, ML, computer vision, online gaming, live streaming and other such technologies. “We are looking for inorganic opportunities to complement our organic efforts and power the growth engine. We are on active lookout for startups that complement our product capabilities and share the vision of serving diverse content and social needs of Indian masses. Memer happens to be the first step towards this approach,” said Manohar Charan, VP, Corporate Development and Strategic Finance,  ShareChat. Read Complete Article

Samsung  is now seeding a software update for its first-generation Galaxy Buds true-wireless earphones that brings new connectivity features, which the company introduced in the upgraded Galaxy Buds+ earphones. The update has a size of around 1.39MB and it is available for download though  Samsung  Wearable app.  Here are the new features that the update brings: Adds Microsoft Swift Pair support    The Galaxy Buds now support Microsoft Swift Pair feature, which allows easy and instant pairing of Bluetooth-based earbuds with Windows 10-based computers. Enhanced Ambient Sound The update brings Ambient Sound automatic to Galaxy Buds. With this feature enabled, you can now hear your surroundings and remain aware of the world around you, even when you are watching movies or listening to your favourite tunes with the volume up. In addition, you can now experience Ambient Sound even with only one earbud in, giving you options for how you t...

After testing on public roads, Tesla is rolling out a new feature of its partially automated driving system designed to spot stop signs and traffic signals. The update of the electric car company's cruise control and auto-steer systems is a step toward as CEO Elon Musk's pledged to convert cars to fully self-driving vehicles by this year. But it is against recommendations from the US National Transportation Safety Board that instructed Tesla to limit where the Autopilot driving system can operate because it has failed to spot and react to hazards in at least three fatal crashes. In a note sent to a group of Tesla car owners who were picked to test the stoplight and sign recognition feature, the company said it can be used with the Traffic Aware Cruise Control or Autosteer systems. The feature will slow the car whenever it detects a traffic light, including those that are green or blinking yellow. It will notify the driver of its intent to slow down and stop, a...

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's  Reliance Industries  has started testing WhatsApp to connect customers to grocery stores, days after  Facebook  decided to invest $5.7 billion in digital assets controlled by the company. JioMart, an e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail, "has already started interacting with customers on WhatsApp for grocery orders" in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan, Credit Suisse said in a report. "The customer initiates the interaction on WhatsApp, checks out the grocery order on JioMart webpage, gets connected with a retail store on WhatsApp and then customer picks up the order from Kirana and pays in cash," it said, adding the model is likely on delivery and completion of the transaction on one app. The  Facebook  deal will help Ambani set up a digital platform to take on  Amazon  and Walmart's Flipkart in an e-commerce market that KPMG says is likely to grow to $200 billion by 2027. The deal benefits  Faceb...

Shares of  Reliance Industries  (RIL) gained 4 per cent to Rs 1,475 on the BSE on Monday in the early morning deal. The stock has surged 19 per cent in the past four trading days after the company announced $5.7 billion equity deal with  Facebook.  In comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex has gained 4.1 per cent during the same period. RIL on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 announced that  Facebook  would invest Rs 43,547 crore ($5.7 billion) in the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary Jio Platforms to expand its presence in India. A sharp rally in stock price has seen the market captialisation (market-cap) of RIL increase by Rs 1.5 trillion in four trading days. The company’s market-cap stood at Rs 9.35 trillion in the intra-day trade today, from Rs 7.83 trillion on April 21, 2020, the exchange data shows. The stock hit a two-month high today and has recovered 68 per cent from its last month low of Rs 876 touched on March 23, in an intra-d...

Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  on Monday conveyed to chief ministers that the country will have to give importance to the economy as well as to continue the fight against  coronavirus. The prime minister interacted with chief ministers as in a video conference and highlighted the importance for states to enforce prescribed guidelines strictly in the hotspots, the government said in a statement. The prime minister also underlined that the  lockdown  has "yielded positive results as the country has managed to save thousands of lives in the past one and a half months." ALSO READ:  Coronavirus LIVE: 4 CMs tell Modi they want lockdown extended after May 3 "Prime Minister said  that the country has seen two Lockdowns till now, both different in certain aspects, and now we have to think of the way ahead. He said that as per experts, the impact of  coronavirus  will remain visible in the coming months," the statement added. ...

The  Reserve Bank of India  (RBI) will open a special liquidity window of Rs 50,000 crore to ease pressure on mutual funds, which are facing liquidity strains due to heightened volatility in capital  markets  in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. The liquidity strains have intensified amid redemption pressures related to the closure of some debt MFs and potential contagious effects. The stress was, however, confined to the high-risk debt MF segment at this stage; the larger industry remained liquid, RBI said in a statement on Monday. Banks will draw funds under the Special Liquidity Facility-Mutual Fund (SLF) exclusively for meeting the liquidity requirements of MFs by extending loans. Bank could also make outright purchase of investment-grade corporate bonds, commercial papers (CPs), debentures and certificates of Deposit (CDs) held by MFs. Read Complete Article

Twitter  CEO Jack Dorsey, who has made absolutely no secret of his love for cyrptocurrency over the years, says  Bitcoin  for him is like poetry. Praising 'The Bitcoin' whitepaper that was published in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto (a name used by the presumed pseudonymous person or the group who developed bitcoin) that outlines what  Bitcoin  is and how it works, Dorsey said he sees ample opportunity for  Bitcoin  to bring about a sea change in the world. The Bitcoin whitepaper is "one of the most seminal works of computer science in the last 20-30 years. Bitcoin is like poetry," he said during an Artificial Intelligence (AI) podcast with MIT research scientist Lex Fridman via The Daily Hodl. "I think it was smart not to do it anonymous, not to do it as a real identity, but to do it as a pseudonym because I think it builds tangibility and a little bit of empathy that this was a human or a set of humans behind it. There's this natural iden...

Cricket Australia  (CA) chief executive Kevin Roberts on Thursday hinted at a possible change in dates for the T20 World Cup, saying "we are exploring all other options" to stage the event, which is originally scheduled for October-November. Like other sports, cricketing action too has come to a complete halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic with the IPL indefinitely postponed and the T20 World Cup, to be held in Australia, facing an uncertain future. " Cricket Australia  is working closely with the ICC, the Local Organising Committee and the Australian government so we have a comprehensive understanding of exactly what it will take to be able to pla y the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2020 in October in Australia as planned," Roberts said. Read Complete Article

State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest lender, has set a target of disbursing Rs 700 crore to  MSMEs  in the Mumbai circle by the end of June, to help them tide over liquidity crisis due to the Covid-19  lockdown. Among all banks, SBI controls a market share of 22 per cent in the MSME lending. "SBI will boost flow of credit to  MSMEs  (micro, small and medium enterprises) in this challenging period by reassessing their working capital limit and also by extending Covid-19 emergency loans. "Overall, we expect to lend Rs 700 crore to  MSMEs  in four districts of Mumbai circle — Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad — by the end of June," the World Trade Centre said in a statement quoting Suresh Nair, deputy general manager (SMEs and financial inclusion) at SBI, as saying after a webinar.   Read Complete Article

The ICC Chief Executives Committee on Thursday unanimously agreed to revamp the Future Tour Programs (FTP) till 2023, conceding that the "scale and complexity" of getting cricket started again "cannot be underestimated" in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.   The CEC meeting, held via tele-conference, decided that a decision on the World Test Championship (WTC) and the proposed ODI league, scheduled in June, can be taken at a later date. However, it is a given that the WTC final is unlikely to be held in June, 2021 as per the current FTP cycle and a four-month lag is expected. ICC Test championship points table   But the T20 World Cup is on course even though Cricket Australia CEO Kevin Roberts said that his board is ready for any eventuality.   "There was agreement that the disrupted FTP programme would need to be collectively reviewed through to 2023 with a view to rescheduling as much of the cricket that has been postponed due to  coronavirus  ...