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Netflix India mobile only plan

Netflix to Roll-out a Cheaper Mobile-only Plan to Target More Users in India

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The online video streaming services are taking over the entertainment industry, and there has been the rise of many of them Netflix being the leader of all. But amid the high competition, Netflix is also having some issues in regaining its customers. For the past few months, the company has also been facing slower growth due to the rise in its subscription plan prices, as well as the rise of other companies like Amazon that offering fancy discounts and original content over their platform.

The company has seen the lowest growth in the past few months, and only half of the expected number of new users have subscribed to Netflix in the first quarter of this year that just ended in June.

To be the leader in the filed, the company has to take some serious steps, to begin with, reduced prices. Netflix just announced that it will be starting up a new but cheaper mobile-only streaming plan, India being the first recipient of the new plan. The company revealed the news on Wednesday, adding that India is the biggest growing market, where it will be easier to get to most of the users with lowered prices.

Netflix India mobile only plan
Image Source: magicpin.in

“After several months of testing, we’ve decided to roll out a lower-priced mobile-only plan in India to complement our existing plans. We believe this plan, which will launch in Q3, will be an effective way to introduce a larger number of people in India to Netflix and to further expand our business in a market where Pay-TV ARPU is low (below $5),” said Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix.

According to a report, despite being the biggest population, only 2 million people are subscribed to Netflix in India. The company said that it may gain more subscribers if it reduces the subscription prices for the Indian users, The basic Netflix monthly plan starts at Rs 500 which allows the users to access Netflix on a single screen at a time. With the announcement, the company disclosed that the new plan will only work on mobile devices and will render a 480p picture quality.

While testing the new plan in March, Netflix offered the users a price as cheap as Rs 250 ($3.63) for it, but there has been no revelation on what will be the prices for the original plan. The company will be bringing the plan by the third quarter of this year in India, and later, it may also expand to other countries.

Elon Musk Neuralink

Neuralink : Elon Musk Finally Talks About his Secretive Company’s Brain Control Interface

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Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX founder, is always up to something next level. He has been involved in some really big and unique projects, like an online bank, an electric car, a reusable rocket, etc. The CEO of one of the biggest tech giants also owns the secretive experimental company ‘Neuralinks’. Tuesday evening during an event in San Francisco, Musk gave a presentation on the projects that this company has been working on for the past two years.

The company was founded in 2017, and it mainly works on developing the data transmission system between humans and computers. On Tuesday, CEO Musk, on the behalf of Neuralink, introduced devices that can be implanted to a human brain, so that they can operate devices like computer and smartphones through their thoughts.

Musk explained that there will be threads thinner than a normal human hair, which will be connected with a processor inside the human brain. This processor will make the person able to operate various electronic devices through a Bluetooth connection.

Elon Musk Neuralink
Image Source: ingeniousexpress.com

During the presentation, the company demonstrated a computer receiving information from a rats mind. And, in future, the company seeks to get permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to start clinical trials on the human brains. If the company gets the approval, it will start the experiments by the end of the first half of the next year.

According to Musk, Neuralink is experimenting with such devices so that the paralysed people will be able to control through their mind, but with lesser damage made to their neural system than the other already available devices do.

The process of inserting the processor into a paralysed human’s brain will include drilling four 8mm holes into the patient’s skull and then implant the processor connected to 4 to 6 μm thin polymer threads. This will help them operate various devices only through their thoughts. The company intends to use a laser beam to get through the skull in future.

“We will painlessly laser-drill the holes into the skull, place the threads, plug the hole with the sensor, and then you go home. It’ll be an experience like getting Lasik,” said President Max Hodak.

According to a report by the New York Times, the company will be carrying out the early experiments with the neuroscientists at Stanford University.

“It’s not going to be suddenly Nueuralink will have this neural lace and start taking over people’s brains. Ultimately, the company wants to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence. And that, even in benign scenario humans would be left behind.” said Elon Musk during the presentation.

Earlier in 2006, the scientists from the Brown University developed a similar system named BrainGate that enabled a paralysed person Matthew Nagle play Pong using only his mind. But, this was a way stiffer technology and is prone to cause more damage to the human brain.

But the technology used by Neuralink is more flexible. The company has also developed a robot who will insert those threads into the human brain that too six threads per minute.

Amazon Prime Day Sale strike

Amazon Prime Day Sale: Over 2000 German Employees Protests on the First Day of Sale

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Amazon is hosting its two days Prime Day sale, probably the biggest sale of the year, which started on Monday 15th July, but amid this biggest shopping discount extravaganza, many of its employees have gone on strike. As soon, the sale started, the Amazon workers from Germany started their strike against the company with the motto, “No more discounts on our incomes”.

There has been always an issue for the Amazon workers on the wages the company offers them. According to the employees, the company offers new discounts and free deliveries to its customers by cutting off their salaries, and they can no more handle this. These workers from Germany had already announced that they will stop working during the Amazon Prime Day sale, and employees from the two distribution centres in Bad Hersfeld, as well as sites in Werne, Rheinberg, Leipzig, Graben and Koblenz, went on strike on the same day the sale started.

“We know Prime Day is a big day for Amazon, so we hope this strike will help executives understand how serious we are about wanting real change that will uplift the workers in Amazon’s warehouses,” striker Safiyo Mohamed said in a release.

Amazon Prime Day Sale strike
Image Source: cnbc.com

According to another striker, over 2000 Amazon workers went on the strike on the first day of the sale. But Amazon being aware of the strike to take place on its very important day had said that the strike won’t affect the operations of the sale. In fact, on Monday, the company even made the announcement that it will create another 1,000 jobs in Poland. This announcement by the company also reflected double salary for its Poland workers.

This is not the first time that Amazon workers are on strike, in fact, last year there were over 50 strikes in Europe only. Employees from some of the other countries also took part in those strikes. And, in April this year, the representatives of the worker union of 15 countries had a meeting in Berlin concerning the same issue.

Along with Germany, this time the employees from Minnesota, U.S. also joined the strike during the first six hours of the sale. The Amazon workers from the UK also had planned to strike during the sale.

Along with the low wages, the employees often complain about how the company treats them at their workplace. But as the company had already claimed that the Prime Day sale won’t get affected by the strike, the company still does not seem to be doing anything for the employees. Amazon has clearly said that it won’t be accepting the demands of the employees who have gone on the strike.

FORD-VW autonomous and electric vehicles

Ford-Volkswagen Alliance will Now Focus on Development of Autonomous and Electric Vehicles

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January this year, the two major automobile companies, Ford and VolksWagan, joined their forces to manufacture pickup trucks and vans, and now almost seven months later, the two wants to expand their partnership by adding a few more services in their list that they will be developing together. The two companies have confirmed that they will now be working together to build autonomous and electric vehicles.

In the past few years, many of the major automobile companies have shifted their focus to autonomous and driver-less cars. Those companies have realised the scope of such vehicles and are investing a lot of money in the field.

In fact, Ford is already working towards developing autonomous taxis and has partnered with Argo AI, a self-driving-car developer. Noticeably, Ford announced in 2017 that it will be investing over a billion dollar in the startup (Argo AI) in the coming five years, in order to bring its own autonomous and electric vehicles on the roads.

FORD-VW autonomous and electric vehicles
Image Source: autoblog.com

According to the reports, under the deal between Ford and VW, the latter will also be putting a huge sum of $2.6 billion in Argo AI, as the startup will be playing a significant part in the development work. VW will be paying a $1 billion in cash and the rest of the sum will be paid in the form of assets. The VolksWagso’s Munich-based Autonomous Intelligent Driving team will be joining Argo AI for the development work as one of the assets.

Argo AI is an independent company that has been developing autonomous and electric vehicles for the cities with well-marked roads and which are properly geo-fenced. The company has successfully tested its driver-less vehicles in five U.S. cities, including Pittsburgh, Palo Alto, Detroit, Miami and Washington, D.C.

“Ford and VW will remain ‘independent and fiercely competitive’ in the marketplace. Unlocking the synergies across a range of areas allows us to showcase the power of our global alliance in this era of smart vehicles for a smart world.” the CEO Ford Motor Company, Jim Hackett, said in a statement.

The reports say that with the deal, Ford will get the access to VW’s electric-vehicle MEB platform. The company plans to launch over 60000 self-driving cars, based on the MEB architecture, in a span of six years in the various cities in Europe and will start the mass production from 2023.

Though the companies will be building their own self-driving and autonomous cars on their own, the two will be using the same software and architecture for the development work. The collaboration between the two will help both in speeding up the development and will push the governments to add their support in such projects.

HBO Max

WarnerMedia Names its Next Streaming Service ‘HBO Max’

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The subscription video services are soon going to ditch the conventional cable connection, and shortly, people will be confused as to which subscription they should opt for, and which one they should leave, as after Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and a few other such services, WarnerMedia will be bringing HBO Max as the new streaming service for people.

The company revealed the name of its upcoming streaming service on Tuesday, along with the name of a few programs that the company will be streaming through the service, including Dune: The Sisterhood, Tokyo Vice, The Flight Attendant, Love Life, Made for Love, etc. And, the company will be producing new shows under the lineup of HBO Originals to stream through the service. It will also include the collection of movies (old and new) to it.

The company has already signed a contract of four movies with Director and writer Greg Berlanti, and Reese Witherspoon will be producing at least two movies for the Max Originals.

HBO Max
Image Source: variety.com

HBO Max will also be including almost all the HBO TV series, its films as well as documentaries to it. The company even revealed that content from CNN, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, truTV, TBS and TNT, will also be the part of the HBO Max video library.

WarnerMedia said the new service “is anticipated to premiere with 10,000 hours of premium content.” Among those new shows and movies, ‘Friends’, will also be a part of this service.

The company had been licensing Netflix for streaming Friends over it, and the former even paid $80 million to include the show into its library only for 2019. But the license will be over by the end of the year, and HBO Max will be among the few platforms that stream this iconic sitcom.

There are already a few streaming services operating in the name of HBO, including HBO Go and HBO Now. The AT&T acquired company, WarnerMedia, earlier wanted to launch a three-tiered service by the end of 2019. But the company dropped the idea, and now, will focus entirely on HBO Max, which the company will be introducing in the first quarter of 2020.

The company has not revealed on the prices of the packages it will be providing for the streaming service. Currently, HBO Now costs $14.99 for a month’s subscription, which is already expensive than its rivals Netflix and Hulu. So to bear with the competition, the WarnerMedia should keep the prices for the HBO Max subscription, a bit affordable.

ibam red hat

Red Hat is Finally IBM’s Subsidiary After Closing the World’s Second Biggest IT Deal

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The much-rumoured deal has finally come to a conclusion, as IBM has finally acquired Red Hat for a sum of $34 billion. The rumours of the acquisition had been making rounds for the past couple of months, and now, with Red Hat, IBM will be moving forward to extend its expertise in cloud computing. The company paid $190 a share for all the Red Hat’s issued and outstanding shares in cash, completely overtaking all the operations of the company.

Since the past few years, the cloud has become the biggest thing, and IBM has been trying its hands in the field but had been falling against other cloud service providers like Amazon and Microsoft. Through the deal with Red Hat, the company will be now working as one of the partners in both Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure. Together the companies will be experimenting on the hybrid cloud computing.

As the name suggests, the hybrid cloud technology will allow the companies to run their programs over their own servers as well as on the public servers, simultaneously. In this case, AWS and Azure will be the public clouds, and IBM will be closely working with its rivals.

ibam red hat
Image Source: techcrunch.com

On the acquisition of Red Hat Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO, said, “This is about hybrid cloud. It is the future, it is the destination of the cloud. This market is a trillion dollars. It’s emerging, and it’s very interesting to me that since our announcement, now you hear everybody else talking about it too.”

This agreement between IBM and Red Hat not only will make the rival companies work together, but the deal is the one largest tech acquisitions of all time.

The company revealed its interest in buying the Red Hat last October and obtained the stamp of approval from the U.S. Department of Justice in May this year. And, finally, after getting the unconditional approval from the EU, IBM purchased the company.

The acquisition of Red Hat is a positive sign for IBM moving towards stabilization, as it has been facing some much losses for the past six years. And with taking over the company, and its work in cloud computing, there are high chances for IBM to get through the losses it has faced in the past.

According to IBM, Jim Whitehurst, CEO Red Hat, will continue to head the company and will be joining the senior management of IBM. Whitehurst will be working under IBM CEO Rometty and will directly report her. Despite the acquisition, the company will be operating independently.

“We think open source has become the de-facto standard in technology because it enables these solutions. Joining forces with IBM gives the company the opportunity to bring more open source innovation to an even broader range of organizations,” said Jim Whitehurst, “You’ve heard me say this before, but it bears repeating, Red Hat is still Red Hat. IBM is committed to preserving Red Hat’s independence, neutrality, culture and industry partnerships”, he added.