Technology news

Crypto exchange Gemini to soon operate in the UAE

The organization has visited stakeholders across the area to find out more about regional regulatory needs, as Gemini would begin the procedure of purchasing a crypto license as soon as possible to begin operations in the (UAE) United Arab Emirates, the digital currency trading platform declared late on Wednesday.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of Gemini & identical twins, are pushing for the adoption of cryptocurrency worldwide all through 20 nations.

Also Read: Google quietly ends support for decade-old Chromecast

Its promotion in the United Arab Emirates coincides with the nation’s attempts to create virtual asset regulations to draw in emerging business models as economic rivalry in the Gulf area intensifies.

“By applying for a license, we will be taking another step towards making Gemini a truly global company,” the exchange said in a blog post.
Source: nasdaq.com

When they intend to begin conducting business in the United Arab Emirates is not stated.

Most of the digital currency exchanges are healing from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX and other downturns in the field and businesses are aiming to increase their international reach despite increasing conflicts between the US cryptocurrency industry and the regulators.

Gemini also introduced a derivatives service for trading perpetual futures contracts beyond the United States’ legal system previously in May.

The exchange debuted in 2014 and was accessible to users in the US in October 2015. The company began expanding internationally by the middle of 2016, primarily in Canada & the UK.

To serve the rapidly growing number of Asian cryptocurrency aficionados, Gemini quickly branched out in Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan. More than 60 different nations around the world use the exchange.

All current cryptocurrency exchanges now use the daily Bitcoin auctioning system that was first launched by Gemini in September 2016. In July 2017, daily ether bids were started.

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Safety for users is Gemini’s main priority. While ready-to-use money is kept in an authorized hot wallet, the majority of user cryptocurrency is kept in offline cold storage.

Similar to various other digital money exchanges, Gemini lets you purchase and trade a variety of digital assets using fiat money or alternative digital currencies such as using bitcoin for purchasing bitcoin.

Gemini initially gave the impression that it was intended more for traders in institutions than for individual investors. Undoubtedly, it was also largely a Bitcoin exchange. That’s altered. On Gemini, you can buy and sell over 120 different cryptocurrencies, and all kinds of investors, as well as traders, are permitted.

Suhani Jain

I am a student pursuing my bachelor’s in information technology. I have a interest in writing so, I am working a freelance content writer because I enjoy writing. I also write poetries. I believe in the quote by anne frank “paper has more patience than person

WhatsApp to bring screen sharing to Android phones

Throughout the past few years, WhatsApp has progressively added a large number of upgraded as well as new functions.

Being able to enter into the same WhatsApp user account on a maximum of four devices and also, the capability to share WhatsApp data within iOS and Android mobile phones are just a few of the most significant improvements it has lately added.

The business is currently working on new functionality which is screen sharing, a significant intriguing feature.

Based on an article from WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is developing an update that will let people make video calls while simultaneously sharing the screen of their device with other people.

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Those who are using the most recent beta version of WhatsApp which is 2.23.11.19 on their Android phone are able to utilize this function through the Google Play Store.

Through a video call, the functionality makes it simpler for people to demonstrate anything on their smartphones to other people. In addition, it can be utilized to solicit assistance from others while using the phone.

During a video call, a new symbol is displayed at the bottom of your screen. When you tap that symbol, a brand-new display menu notifies you that everyone on the video conversation will be able to see everything on the display of your smartphone and asks for your approval to reveal it.

You have full command over screen sharing as well can halt it at any time throughout the call by using the Stop Sharing option.

This functionality and the Live Sharing functionality of Google Meet, which was introduced a few years back, are extremely similar.

On gadgets using iOS, iPadOS, as well as macOS, Apple offers a comparable capability called SharePlay. Plenty of users, mainly the elderly or kids who may require assistance operating their phones, will find WhatsApp’s newest screen-sharing capability to be very beneficial.

Also Read: Australia hits buy-now-pay-later sector with consumer credit law

People may soon be able to add a username to their WhatsApp account. WABetaInfo discovered the updated feature in WhatsApp for the Android beta version which is v2.23.11.15.

A WhatsApp username would function similarly to how it does on other social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, as well as Snapchat. It will therefore be a distinct name associated with a single profile that you can use for a variety of purposes within the app.

Suhani Jain

Google quietly ends support for decade-old Chromecast

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Sandhya Gupta

Almost ten years after the $35 streaming stick’s launch in 2013, Google has discontinued support for the original Chromecast.

A support page that lists the firmware versions for each Chromecast model indicates that the end of support occurred at the end of April.

Google support pages noted, “Support for Chromecast (1st gen) has ended. These devices no longer receive software or security updates, and Google does not provide technical support for them. Users may notice a degradation in performance.”

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A little, a surprisingly well-liked gadget the size of a key, the first Chromecast allowed you to stream video from your phone, tablet, or laptop to your TV via an HDMI connector. In an era when many consumers had not yet made the switch to smart TVs, it was an affordable workaround for putting video streaming apps onto your TV, costing only $35.

Although Google has officially stopped supporting the first-generation Chromecast, the gadget hasn’t exactly received regular updates. According to reports, the device’s most recent update, which was also the first to be provided for it in more than three years, was made available last November.

Over the years, Google created a number of other Chromecasts, including a 4K variant in 2016. The 2020 Chromecast with Google TV, however, brought its own controller into the mix. The streaming stick marked a significant change in the Chromecast series because it featured its own UI instead of only receiving video from your smartphone.

The original Chromecast was released in 2013 and offered a simple and affordable way to stream content to a TV. It plugged into the HDMI port of a television and connected to the user’s Wi-Fi network. By using compatible apps on their mobile device or computer, users could cast or mirror content onto the TV screen.

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Over the years, Google has released several iterations of Chromecast, including the Chromecast Ultra, Chromecast with Google TV, and Chromecast (3rd generation). These newer models offered additional features like 4K Ultra HD resolution, a dedicated remote control, and a built-in user interface for navigating content.

Chromecast devices work with a wide range of streaming services and apps, including Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, and many others. They have gained popularity due to their simplicity, affordability, and compatibility with various devices and platforms.

Chromecast was once a popular choice for streaming media content due to its affordability, simplicity, and cross-platform compatibility.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Grab co-founder Tan Hooi Ling to step down from operational roles

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Sandhya Gupta

Tan Hooi Ling, a co-founder of Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd, announced on Thursday that she will leave her operations position at the ride-hailing business by the end of this year. Hooi Ling, who started Grab in 2012 alongside CEO Anthony Tan, will move into an advising position, the business announced.

Tan stated in an internal message to staff that Hooi Ling will also give up her board directorship and that her succession plan has been in place for some time. An idea for a 2011 Harvard Business School venture challenge inspired Tan and Hooi Ling to create Southeast Asia’s largest ride-hailing and food delivery company.

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Hooi Ling won’t be replaced right away, according to CEO Tan’s memo. Later this year, the nominating committee will consider individuals to strengthen the board. She has been a board member since the company’s public listing in December 2021 and presently serves as the head of Grab’s technology section.

Tan Hooi Ling is one of the co-founders of Grab, a Southeast Asian ride-hailing and on-demand delivery company. She, along with Anthony Tan, launched Grab (originally known as MyTeksi) in 2012. Tan Hooi Ling served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Grab until 2020.

As COO, she was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the company, ensuring smooth service delivery, and driving strategic initiatives. She was known for her operational expertise and played a pivotal role in expanding Grab’s services beyond ride-hailing to include food delivery, digital payments, and more.

Throughout her tenure at Grab, Tan Hooi Ling made significant contributions to the company’s success and helped shape its growth trajectory. She played a crucial role in building strategic partnerships, securing funding, and driving Grab’s expansion into new markets.

She has been recognized for her contributions to the industry and has received several accolades, including being named in Forbes Asia’s 2017 list of “30 Under 30” and Fortune’s 2018 “Most Powerful Women International” list.

Grab operates primarily in Southeast Asia, serving over 400 cities in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. It has become one of the leading super-app platforms in the region, offering various services through a single mobile application.

Also Read: Australia hits buy-now-pay-later sector with consumer credit law

Over the years, Grab has secured significant funding from investors and has engaged in strategic partnerships with other companies. It has also acquired several businesses, including Uber’s Southeast Asian operations in 2018. Grab has attracted significant funding from various investors, including SoftBank, Toyota, and Didi Chuxing, among others.

In 2021, Grab went public through a merger with Altimeter Growth Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The merger valued Grab at around $39.6 billion, making it one of the largest SPAC deals in history.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Australia hits buy-now-pay-later sector with consumer credit law

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

Australia said that it would govern buy-now-pay-later assistance as customer credit under the new legislation, requiring providers of BNPL to conduct history checks before providing what it said is expected to be one of the strictest regulations worldwide for the emerging sector.

With this change, Block by Jack Dorsey Inc (SQ.N)-owned Afterpay as well as Zip Co would fall under the jurisdiction of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), putting Australia second only to the United Kingdom among nations that have attempted to monitor buy-now-pay-later as a normal credit product.

Cash-strapped consumers who take on debt, often more than they can handle, frequently employ BNPL firms, which usually provide on-the-spot free-of-interest loans for short periods with minimum verification of credit which disperse payments throughout weeks or months.

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Since BNPL service providers refrain from charging interest, they are now immune from customer credit regulations. As a result, their company has soared during the e-commerce craze sparked by COVID-19 stimulus funds and extremely low-interest rates.

However, as Australia faces rising prices, which are currently at close to 30-year peaks, worries about repaying have grown. According to Australia’s center-left Labour administration, BNPL needs to be deemed credit as it exerts the same effect on debtors.

“BNPL looks like credit, it acts like credit, it carries the risks of credit,” Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones said in a speech in Sydney on Monday.

“Our plan prevents lending to those who cannot afford it, without stopping safe, prudent BNPL use.”
Source: reuters.com

Australia, which has approximately a dozen registered BNPL service providers, had roughly seven million operational BNPL user accounts throughout 2021–22, generating A$16 billion which is $11 billion in dealings, an increase of 37 percent.

Shopping industry data reveals that Australians made A$63.8 billion in transactions via the Internet in 2022, with 26 percent of Australians claiming to have paid using buy-now-pay-later.

The majority of the money made by BNPL companies comes from costing merchants a share of their earnings in return for sending customers to them. They impose late fees on borrowers but claim that by promising increased credit limits, they promote timely returns.

Although BNPL companies claim to carefully track the debtor’s behavior, a recently enacted Australian law would oblige these individuals to adhere to “responsible lending” constraints, which involve carrying out credit checks before lending, informing clients when their credit limits are increased, and adhering to legally mandated settlement procedures.

Also Read: Meta announces AI training and inference chip project

Later in the year, government officials will make the draught law available for comment, and by the finish of the year, the measure will have been submitted to parliament.

“The buy now, pay later business model is still a structural growth model,” said Shaun Ler, a Morningstar analyst.

“You end up in a situation where everyone is suffering but your competitors are suffering even more and the demand is still there,” Ler added.
Source: reuters.com

Suhani Jain

Meta announces AI training and inference chip project

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

To further assist artificial intelligence work, Meta Platforms (META.O) revealed additional information on its data centre initiatives on Thursday. This information included a proprietary chip “family” that is being developed internally.

In a collection of blog articles, the owner of Instagram, as well as Facebook, said that as an element of the Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) programme, it would be developing a first-generation microprocessor in 2020. The goal was to make suggestive models, which are used to distribute adverts and other material in news feeds, more effective.

It was previously reported by Reuters that the company was already working on an upgrade and did not have intentions to fully use its first internal AI processor. In the blog posts, the very first MTIA chip was advertised as an educational tool.

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The articles claim that the early MTIA chip focused exclusively on the inference AI method, which uses computers educated on massive amounts of data to decide what should be displayed.

Software developer Joel Coburn from Meta stated amid a talk on the new processor that the company had first used GPUs, for inference operations but had discovered that these devices were not the best option.

“Their efficiency is low for real models, despite significant software optimizations. This makes them challenging and expensive to deploy in practice,” Coburn said. “This is why we need MTIA.”
Source: reuters.com

A Meta representative did not provide details on the forthcoming chip’s release schedule or go into further detail about the organization’s plans to create chips that might additionally train the models.

Since executives realised, the chip needed the technology and software to handle requirements from product teams developing AI-powered innovations, Meta has been working on a significant effort to update its AI architecture.

Consequently, the business abandoned intentions for a wide-scale release of an internal inference chip and began developing a more ambitious chip that could conduct training as well as inference, according to Reuters.

Although Meta’s original MTIA chip struggled with high-complexity artificial intelligence (AI) models, it tackled low- & medium-complexity models more effectively than rival chips, according to Meta’s blog entries.

The MTIA chip also utilised an open-source chip structure known as RISC-V and consumed only 25 watts of power, which is significantly less than that of renowned chips in the market from suppliers like Nvidia Corporation, according to Meta.

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The company Meta said it would start construction on the company’s initial structure this year as well as offered further details on intentions to restructure its data centres towards more advanced AI-focused networking along with cooling technologies.

In a video describing the improvements, a staff member claimed that the updated layout would be 31 per cent less expensive and could be constructed twice as rapidly as the company’s present data centres.

To assist its developers in writing computer code, Meta claimed to have a system driven by artificial intelligence, which is comparable to that provided by Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., alongside Microsoft Corp.

Suhani Jain

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