Chinese Venture Capital firm Shunwei Capital has exited Bombinate Technologies, the parent company of Koo, after existing investors and a clutch of prominent individuals bought out its minority stake, the company said on Wednesday.

Prominent Indians including Former Indian Cricketer Javagal Srinath, BookMyShow Founder Ashish Hemrajani, Udaan Co-Founder Sujeet Kumar, Flipkart Chief Executive Officer Kalyan Krishnamurthy and Zerodha Founder Nikhil Kamath participated in the round to buy out shares of Shunwei Capital.

Shunwei Capital had held a little over 9 per cent in Bombinate Technologies.

“Existing investors along with a bunch of individuals have bought out Shunwei Capital’s minority stake in Bombinate Technologies, the parent company of Vokal and Koo,” the statement said but did not divulge financial details of the transaction.

Commenting on the development, Javagal Srinath, former Indian cricketer and fast bowler described Koo as “one of India’s most talked-about social media platforms”.

“I am very happy to be backing Koo…The fact that they are building a platform to bring the voices of Indian language audiences onto the internet is commendable and as an Indian, I extend my support to them wholeheartedly,” Srinath said.

Koo had seen a massive surge in user base as Union ministers and government departments endorsed the homegrown microblogging platform amid a spat with Twitter, earlier this year.

Aprameya Radhakrishna, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Koo said, “As earlier stated, we had been in discussion with Shunwei Capital to enable a smooth exit after it invested in our company 2.5 years ago while we were raising funds for Vokal and have now fully exited the parent company Bombinate Technologies.”

Read Complete Article

Expanding its successful Galaxy A series, Samsung on Wednesday unveiled Galaxy A52, A52 5G and A72, saying that the devices will enable people to experience awesome technology at a price that suits their needs.

The new Galaxy A Series with Super AMOLED display will be available in Awesome Violet, Awesome Blue, Awesome Black, and Awesome White colours globally, and Galaxy A52 and A72 will arrive in India soon.

“Samsung strives to give consumers what they want and need most. That’s why we set out with a vision for the Galaxy A series to democratize Galaxy innovations for everyone,” said Dr TM Roh, President and Head of Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics.

“The Galaxy A52, A52 5G and A72 encapsulate the Galaxy brand philosophy with cutting-edge innovations, services and features at an accessible price,” he added.

The devices have a versatile quad camera with 64MP high-resolution. The users can turn their favorite moments from 4K videos into 8MP high-resolution images with 4K Video Snap tool.

While A52 has 4,500mAh battery, A72 sports 5,000mAh battery with long-lasting capacity.

The Galaxy A52 and A72 are equipped with the Galaxy essentials including stereo speakers and external memory up to 1TB.

“Also, the redesigned One UI 314 helps enable more intuitive experiences and consistent interactions by increasing speed, reducing distractions and highlighting important information,” the company said.

The Galaxy A52, A52 5G, and A72 will support software upgrades for three generations, and regular security updates for a minimum of four years.

Read Complete Article

Redmi India, a sub-brand of Mi India, on Wednesday announced the brand’s foray into the Smart TV category with the launch of Redmi Smart TV X series.

The smart TV series by Redmi includes the Redmi Smart TV X65, Smart TV X55 and Smart TV X50. All three smart televisions feature the same specifications but come in three different screen sizes.

The Redmi Smart TV X series starts at Rs 32,999 for the 50-inch variant, Rs 38,999 for the 55-inch option and Rs 57,999 for the 65-inch variant. The new Smart TV X series will go on sale on Amazon and Mi.com, Mi Home and Mi Studios from March 26 at 12 noon and it will also be made available in offline retail stores later on.

“India today has 170 million households with a television but less than 20million homes own Smart TVs. We launched our range of Mi TVs over three years ago and have been leading the Smart TV market since the past 10 consecutive quarters,” Raghu Reddy, Chief Business Officer, Mi India said in a statement.

The Redmi Smart TV X series comes with 4K HDR technology and Dolby Vision and also support HDR 10+.

The audio output is 30W with support for DTS Virtual: X, DTS-HD, Dolby Audio, Dolby Atmos Pass through via e-ARC. It runs the 64-bit quad-core A55 CPU coupled with Mali G52 MP2 and has 2GB RAM + 16GB Storage.

The TVs run on Android 10 out of the box and also come with Xiaomi’s PatchWall UI.

The Redmi TV comes with three HDMI 2.1 enabled ports all of which bring ALLM. One of the HDMI ports also supports eARC to connect Dolby Atmos soundbar or home theatre to the TV.

New TVs come with two USB ports, one optical port and a 3.5mm port. It also supports Bluetooth 5.0 and dual-band Wi-Fi.

Read Complete Article

Google’s next internet-connected home device will test whether consumers trust the company enough to let it snoop on their sleep.

New sleep-sensing technology will be a key feature on Google’s latest version of its Nest Hub, a 7-inch smart screen unveiled Tuesday.

But the latest Nest Hub can also perform a new trick. If you allow it, the device will also monitor your sleeping patterns from your bedside, negating the need to wear a fitness device or any other potentially bothersome gadget in bed.

The feature, which Google intends to offer for free through at least this year, relies on a new chip Google calls Soli, which uses radar to detect motion, including the depth of a person’s breathing.

The USD 100 Nest Hub can display pictures and video in addition to fielding questions and handling household task through Google’s voice-activated assistant. It doesn’t feature a camera.

The Nest Hub is supposed to generate weekly sleep reports with easy-to-understand breakdowns on the length and quality of sleep, how frequently the user gets up at night and snoring and coughing frequency, along with tips developed in consultation with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Google says it honed the technology by studying 15,000 sleeping people over a combined 110,000 nights.

That kind of help may sound appealing to the millions of people who have trouble sleeping. But the feature may also raise privacy concerns especially given Google’s long history of online surveillance to collect personal details such as interests, habits and whereabouts to help sell the digital ads that generate most of its revenue.

Read Complete Article

Tata Group-owned electronics store chain Croma has entered into a partnership with Amazon to launch a new range of smart TVs with built-in Fire device for customers in India.

The new smart LED TV range will come with a built-in Fire TV device and through this strategic partnership, Croma aims to offer an intuitive, simple, and customised experience, the companies said in a joint statement.

It brings together all streaming content from across over 5,000 apps, including Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube, Disney + Hotstar, Zee5, SonyLiv and many more.

“The proliferation in OTT apps and the consequent fragmentation in viewership is creating a demand for a more seamless browsing experience. The Alexa voice search and the intuitive soft-touch remote control supported by the Fire TV OS offers a different and to my mind, better browsing experience than other Smart TVs,” Croma CMO Ritesh Ghosal said.

Amazon and Croma have a history of working together and offering Amazon Devices to customers across India through their offline stores, Head of Amazon Devices India, Parag Gupta said.

“Today, we take this partnership to a new level. The new range of Fire Edition Smart TVs by Croma delivers an incredible user experience, excellent picture quality and immersive sound experience that gets better every day with Alexa,” Gupta added.

Prices for Croma Fire TV Edition Smart LED TVs start at Rs 17,999 and are available in sizes ranging from 32 inch to 55 inch in HD and 4K option.

Read Complete Article

Only one in 250 people understood how end-to-end encryption secures the privacy of their chats on messaging apps and are willing to pay some amount to protect their conversations, a study has found.

“Understanding Consumers Perspective on Encryption in India,” by Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS International), had 2,113 respondents aged between 18 and 65.

All respondents– an almost equal number of males and females–used WhatsApp, 20 per cent used Telegram, 8 per cent used iMessage, 2 per cent used Signal, 1 per cent used Viber, and 2 per cent used Line. People are willing to pay Re 1 per day, on an average, to secure their conversations, said the study.

Encryption is the practice of scrambling data to make it unintelligible for even the service providers. It keeps conversations private but has equally been abused for the spread of fake news and criminal activity. Technologists and privacy experts have always argued that breaking encryption is the first step towards government surveillance on its own citizens.

The new social media rules, notified by the government last month, also ask platforms like WhatsApp to identify the originator of content. Even though IT minister Ravi Shanker Prasad said the government would only want intermediaries to identify the originator and not the content of problematic messages, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has earlier said that attributing messages on the platform would undermine the end-to-end encryption, and its private nature, leading to possibilities of being misused.

As many as 45 per cent respondents claimed to have wondered whether instant messaging service providers can access their messages, while 75 per cent of the respondents perceived the likelihood of unintended recipients accessing their chats increased by 75 per cent, if end-to-end (E2E) encryption is removed.

However, even though all the respondents were WhatsApp users, which swears by its end to end encryption, only 61 per cent of the respondents believed that their chats are end to end encrypted.

Respondents perceived privacy as the third most important benefit of using instant messaging services. Ease or convenience of use and the option of sending audio, video, GIFs and other forms of content on chat were the first two reasons.

Read Complete Article

Photo-messaging app Snapchat on Tuesday launched its new entertainment platform ‘Spotlight’ for user-generated content in India.

According to the company, Spotlight surfaces the most entertaining snaps from the Snapchat community all in one place and will become tailored to each Snapchatter over time, based on their preferences and favourites.

With over 5 billion snaps created each day, Spotlight aims to empower the Snapchat community to express themselves and reach a larger audience in a new way.

Spotlight has been designed to entertain the Snapchat community while living up to the snaps’ values, with their wellbeing as a top priority. Spotlight content is moderated and doesn’t allow for public comments. Snaps submitted to Spotlight must respect the content guidelines to receive distribution.

Snap’s $1m a day programme will also be available in India, celebrating and rewarding the creativity of local Snapchatters and offering a chance for creators to earn a share of a $1 million daily fund.

Apart from India, Spotlight is now available in Mexico and Brazil, having launched in 11 countries previously (the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France).

Read Complete Article

Indian gamers spend more than eight hours and 36 minutes each week playing, according to a report by Limelight Networks Inc.

Binge gaming has emerged as a phenomenon with over 60 per cent of Indian gamers have spent more than three hours consecutively playing games, said findings of the report released on Monday.

From 2020 to 2021, the average for binge gaming in India increased from 4.1 hours to 5.5 hours — largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic as people are forced to stay at home for long hours due to subsequent lockdowns.

Three quarters (74 per cent) of gamers are interested in purchasing a new console due to updated technology (32 per cent) and faster gameplay (31 per cent). Gamers in India are among those who are most likely to consider upgrading their console (88.4 per cent), said the report.

More than 94 per cent of Indian gamers say the process of downloading games is frustrating and that it needs to be improved. Moreover, gamers who spend anywhere between five to 15 hours in binge gaming account for a whopping 54 per cent of gamers.

Three in five (62 per cent) gamers say they prefer to play video games versus watching a movie or television show. India leads the chart in this case with more than 75 per cent preferring to play games over watching or streaming shows and movies on television or OTT platforms.

“Social interactions improved game performance and latency-free environments are expected by Indian gamers as it gives them an opportunity to connect with gamers across the world and remain engaged for longer durations,” said Ashwin Rao, Country Director of Limelight Networks in India.

Read Complete Article

Tech giant Google will lower its planned commission rate for app developers, following complaints from software makers over steep fees.

Google said it will levy a 15 per cent rate on in-app purchases to all developers for annual sales up to $1 million and take a 30 per cent commission from revenues over the $1 million mark.

The new policy will take effect in July.

A company official said 99 per cent of developers log less than $1 million annual revenue on the Play store, reports Yonhap news agency.

Google earlier announced a plan to introduce the 30 per cent commission to all in-app digital goods purchases in South Korea while making it mandatory to use its own payment system for app purchases on its platform, starting January 2021.

The new billing policy caused fierce opposition from tech firms and politicians and the company later delayed its implementation to September.

Last year lawmakers proposed bills that would ban app market operators from imposing certain payment methods in mobile content transactions.

The tech giant has said that the service fee is crucial to reinvest in its platform.

“We will do our best so that South Korean developers can provide their products and services to over 1 billion users from some 300 countries around the world and achieve success in the global market,” a Google official said.

Read Complete Article

CarDekho, an auto-tech firm on Monday launched UPLINK, an advanced and compact GPS Vehicle Tracking System.

The device is available at Rs 4,999 along with a one-year subscription and a GPS device with one year warranty.

UPLINK is powered by a compact plug-and-play device that can be connected to any vehicle allowing users to gain real-time access to a host of information such as live tracking, rash driving alerts, trips history, driving analysis, geofence alerts, usage stats, and much more. So vehicle owners can ensure round-the-clock safety, security and surveillance of the vehicle with Uplink.

“Uplink enables vehicle owners to stay connected with their vehicle 24X7 ensuring total peace of mind. Being true to our name “Cardekho”, you can keep track of your vehicle on your device,” Sushant Bhatt, Business Head, Tech Solutions, CarDekho Group, said in a statement.

According to the company, Uplink Telematics Unit i.e. GPS device is one of the most compact devices in its segment, ensuring easy and hidden installation and being plug and play means that it does not require any technician for installation and there is no fear of wire cutting during installation.

Further, it paves the way for advanced connectivity, ensuring continuous communication between the customer with well-designed and User friendly Mobile Apps available on both Android and iOS Platform along with a web portal as well.

The device can be easily installed by the user in the 12V port or the OBD port (depending upon the variant) of the car. It comes pre-installed with a SIM along with the product with an annual plan. Customer support service is the backbone of any offering at CarDekho and UPLINK also comes with a dedicated call centre team that is available to support the customers.

Read Complete Article