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Facebook Cuts Off Huawei From Pre-Installing its Apps On Phones

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The U.S. has been trying hard to pull out most of the Chinese firms operating in the country, giving the reason of national security threat due to the data breaches, Huawei being the primary target. Recently, the U.S. authority has released a blacklisting of the Chinese tech firms, responding to which, Facebook has announced that it will stop pre-installation of its popular social networking apps on Huawei smartphones and other devices.

This way, Facebook will become the first U.S. company to cut-off Huawei from using its app. Last month, Google had also announced that it would cut ties to Huawei, to make it harder for the company to get access to the U.S. apps. As soon as Google bans Huawei from using its app, firstly Huawei will be isolated from using Google Play Store, which is the single place where all the Android apps can be obtained. So for the company, it can be quite difficult to sustain in other countries as well.

Facebook’s decision has come right after the release of Washington blacklisting, and as a response of President Donald Trump’s orders of barring Huawei from US technology exports.

“We are reviewing the Commerce Department’s final rule and the more recently issued temporary general license and taking steps to ensure compliance.” said a spokesperson from Facebook.

Since Facebook is already banned in China, the barring of Facebook app for Huawei won’t affect much the Facebook’s user base.

On the matter, Huawei has come out with the decision to build its own operating system to run on its smartphone and other cellular devices. And if Google also pulls its support for Huawei, it will also need to build a Play Store kind of marketplace for its users to access the various apps at a single place.

Washington has imposed the U.S. sanction starting from May 15 and has provided the U.S. companies with a stretch of 90 days to follow the same. Since all the U.S. technology companies need to end their partnership with Huawei, the latter would also need to look for reliable hardware suppliers. As it has been dependent on the U.S. companies, like Intel, Qualcomm and Broadcom, for chips and the other hardware supplies.

FedEx to End It’s Express Shipping Service Contract with Amazon

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One of the largest delivery service providers, FedEx, has announced that it is going to end its contract with its longtime partner, and the biggest retail company, Amazon. FedEx has been providing its services to the biggest companies in the world, and with Amazon, it has been working for the past many years. But now it wants to end the relationship with the latter.

For now, the company will be ending its operations for its air shipment services of packages for Amazon within the United States effective from July 1st, as the current contract between the two will be ending on June 30, and it does not have any plans for the renewal of the contract.

“FedEx has made the strategic decision to not renew the FedEx Express US domestic contract with Amazon.com, Inc., as we focus on serving the broader e-commerce market. This decision does not impact any existing contracts between Amazon.com and other FedEx business units or relating to international services,” said the delivery company in a statement released on Twitter.

Recently, Amazon announced its own in-house delivery service, which seems the strongest reason for FedEx pulling out its operations with Amazon. In fact, Amazon has steadily got its hands on all required things to be a delivery service provider, like warehouses, delivery planes, cargo trucks, etc., to fulfil its free shipping promise to its customers.

Reacting to the decision, Amazon said, “We respect FedEx’s decision and thank them for their role serving Amazon customers over the years.”

Though Amazon is partnered with UPS for its two-day delivery service, FedEx took care of the other services and for the ground level deliveries, it will continue to serve Amazon as before. The big client base of FedEx, other than Amazon also includes Target, Walgreens and Walmart, etc., Walmart being particularly the biggest business provider for the former. FedEx has said that with this decision, it will be able to serve them better.

Twitter Will Get a Minority Stake in ShareChat After Investing $50 Million in the Company

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The India-based social networking app ShareChat is becoming more popular and is about to raise over $100 million from different investors, including from the microblogging website Twitter. According to the sources, Twitter is leading a financing round for ShareChat and will be investing $50 million from itself in the company.

It will be the first international investment round for ShareChat, after which the company may value at $600-650 million. Along with Twitter, ShareChat’s existing investors will also be participating in the investment round. Those existing backers include Xiaomi, Shunwei Capital, Morningside Ventures, etc. Another Hongkong based firm named Hillhouse Capital will also be joining the investors for the round. According to sources, Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey will be directly involved in the process.

The investment round will help ShareChat grow as a leading social network against its rival company, and the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, which has got a firm hold on most of the Indian audience through its various subsidiaries, including TikTok and Helo. AMong which Helo is the biggest rival of ShareChat.

Before Twitter, ShareChat was in talks with the Chinese tech giant Tencent for the investment, which proved to be a failure, that too, twice in the period of one year. After Twitter will be leading the investments for ShareChat, it will get a minority stake in the latter’s shares. In fact, we can expect to see an integration of ShareChat into Twitter soon.

“Twitter never makes a minority investment of this kind, it is usually an acquisition. This is very significant for ShareChat looking at how the Chinese players especially ByteDance have been able to wean away users onto their platform,” said an investor tracking the segment.

The round of investment and partnership with Twitter can bring a lot of opportunities for ShareChat. In fact, the usual number of monthly users for ShareChat may rise above 30-35 million. Also, the company may monetise its platform to earn some profits and to improve the app after receiving the investments.

Facebook May Come Out with its New Digital Currency this Month

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Cryptocurrency is the current hot topic, and how, one of the biggest tech giant, Facebook, could resist itself from trying its hands on cryptocurrency. Though it has already developed its own Blockchain platform, now after much of rumours, finally, the company is prepping up to introduce its own cryptocurrency, GlobalCoin, this month.

Reported by The Information, Facebook is working on its first cryptocurrency project, ‘Libra’, that will bring a digital currency that would work internationally, providing the Facebook users with the facility to make purchases and transfer money across the borders, online.

Facebook, initially, will be using those crypto tokens to pay the employees working on Libra projects, if they choose tokens over fiat currency for the payments. Also, it will be the marketplace of the developing countries that Facebook will be targeting with its new cryptocurrency. It will also be offering bonuses for those merchants who would adopt Facebook’s digital currency for their transactions. The crypto from Facebook will also be integrated to use with Facebook’s other arms, like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, etc.

Facebook is already working towards integrating eCommerce to its current ventures, and in F8, its annual tech conference, the company introduced new eCommerce features, like users’ ability to buy goods directly from their favourite influencers, businesses to put up their product catalogues on WhatsApp, and letting the Facebook marketplace sellers ship their products through the Facebook app. Now, as Facebook is to bring its own cryptocurrency, this can be another move for the company in the same regard.

The company will charge the third party marketers with a fee of $10 million for the licensing to run a node for the GlobalCoin network. The company is planning to test the crypto at a global level by the end of 2018, and it will be launching the same, in 2020, in a dozen selected countries.

Azim Premji the Founder of Wipro to Retire Next Month; Will be Replaced by His Son

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The Czar of the Indian IT industry and the founding chairman of one of the biggest Indian tech company, Wipro, Azim Premji, has announced his retirement from the company. Premji, currently, is serving as the executive chairman and managing director of Wipro, and according to a BSE statement, he will retire from his post on 31st July 2019.

Azim Premji Wipro Founder
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A great philanthropist and the second richest person of India, Premji has been leading Wipro for the past 53 years. On his retirement, Premji will be replaced by his son Rishad Premji, who is serving as the chief strategy officer and a board member at Wipro. Rishad will be the next whole-Time director for a period of 5 years, starting from 31 July 2019 till 31st July 2024.

“It has been a long and satisfying journey for me. As I look into the future, I plan to devote more time to focus on our philanthropic activities. I have great confidence and trust in Rishad’s leadership to steer Wipro in its next phase of growth as we move forward,” said Azim Premji in a statement, “Rishad’s understanding of the global technology industry, strong strategic orientation and diverse leadership experience make him the right person to guide Wipro. He is also best positioned to represent the interests and fundamental social purpose of the largest shareholder of Wipro”, he added.

Wipro revealed in the filing to BSE that even after the retirement, Premji will continue to serve on the board as a non-executive director and as the founder chairman of Wipro. In fact, he will continue to serve Wipro Enterprises Limited as its chairman and remain chairperson for the board of Wipro-GE Healthcare.

After Premji retiring from his post, there will be a shuffle in the posts of other employees as well. As Abidali Z. Neemuchwala, the company’s CEO and the executive director, will be appointed as the managing director of the company while he will continue to serve as the CEO.

Amazon Launches New Sorting Robot to Increase the Efficiency

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At the ongoing Mars Conference hosted by Amazon, the company unveiled a new breed of robots for its distribution centres at the conference. The Mars Conference is an annual event, which Jeff Bezos hosts every year, inviting great inventors to the event. This year’s event kicked off on 4th June and is being hosted at Las Vegas.

Amazon robot
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The event, this time, is focussed on the robotic works that the company has been doing for the past few years. Brad Porter, the VP at Amazon Robotics, in his keynote, showcased newly designed robots to work along with the staff at the Amazon warehouses and distribution centres, in order to automate the sorting operations.

The latest robot, by the company, is an orange coloured compact sorting robot, named Pegasus drives, which will be joining the ranks of Amazon’s Kiva robots and will render a similar capacity. These robots will be part of Amazon’s new package sorting system. The robots are programmed to carry packages from one place to another within the warehouse, through various channels associated with predefined destinations.

The robots are attached to a conveyer belt, through which they stay on a specific path and move around the warehouse, making a highway-like view. The employees at the centre put the packages on the three feet wide tray on the top of the robot, and the robot takes the package to the specified destination.

The system will involve hundreds of such robots, that will automate the process of sorting and will reduce a lot of workload for the Amazon staff, increasing the accuracy, and the efficiency of the work. The company has already installed the sorting system with 800 robots at its Denver sorting centre, and according to Amazon, Pegasus drive has successfully cut down the sorting related complexity by 50%.

Amazon has said that over 2,00,000 robots are already working efficiently along with 3,00,000 of its employees at various sorting centres internationally. And now, it intends to expand its robotic unit with new Pegasus drives to reduce the workload for its employees. The company also claims that it has no intentions to replace its human manpower with robots. The robots are only to help their employees with their work. Moreover, the company is focussed on in-house production of the robots with its robot manufacturing arm, Kiva Systems, which Amazon had acquired in 2012.