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Google Fined $275m for Anti-Competitive Practices

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Umar Javeed, Aaqib, and Sukarma Thapar, three young informants, finally forced Google to pay a whopping Rs 1,338 crore fine for abusing its dominant position in different markets itself with Android mobile operating system.

google
Image Source: pragativadi.com

Although Sukarma Thapar and Umar Javeed were working as research experts for the CCI at the time, younger brother of Umar, Aaqib, was studying law at the University of Kashmir.

The CCI, India’s national competition regulator, is in charge of encouraging competition and attempting to prevent activities that have a significant adverse effect on competition in the market. Umar and Aaqib are Valley residents. The three young informants filed a complaint in 2018 alleging that Google was misusing its dominant position in various markets.

The Competition Commission of India fined Google Rs 1,337 crore for anti-competitive practices in the Android mobile device ecosystem.

The three young subjects are all lawyers by profession now, with Umar working for a government agency, Aaqib a practising advocate in Delhi, and Sukarma an independent law and policy consultant. Umar stated that gathering evidence was difficult because they only had direct exposure to customer information to back up their case.

“We can look at an Android phone and say there are some Google-owned apps that cannot be deleted even if we wanted to, but besides that, as consumers, we have little information on how exactly Android smartphone manufacturers and app developers are affected by the role Google plays in the Android ecosystem,” he explained.

Source: latestly.com

Aaqib stated that the three of them were already interested in how India’s digital market was shaping up and how technology policies and laws influenced consumers and tech companies.

“There were many late nights and early mornings where we would just work throughout the night. “I was still a law student then and helping these guys meant I was juggling research along with studying for exams and assignments,” Aaqib said.

Compiling a comprehensive documentation of information was a difficult task that took about two months. “We had to focus on our day jobs and then research for this later in the day. That is when we would have some free time,” Sukarma said. After that, events which were related to Google attracted the trio’s attention in Europe. “In July 2018, the European Commission (the EU’s competition watchdog) imposed one of its largest fines on Google of 4.34 billion Euros for violating EU antitrust rules,” Umar said.

Source: latestly.com

After reviewing the information provided by the three informants, the CCI began an investigation into Google’s behaviour in the Android mobile device ecosystem in April 2019, which resulted in the October 20 CCI judgement and fine. Google responded by saying it would look into the competition watchdog’s decision.

“CCI’s decision is a major setback for Indian consumers and businesses opening serious security risks for Indians and raising the cost of mobile devices for Indians.”

Source: latestly.com

CCI has tightened its knot about other big technology firms such as Apple and Facebook following their hauled up by European and Australian regulators, thanks to the whistleblowing of these three informants. CCI, on the other hand, has not been successful in going all in on such anti-competitive activities by these companies.

Aside from the current penalties, Google is also under investigation by CCI in two other cases. CCI hopes that these cases will serve as a “guideline note” for other businesses that may be breaking competition laws.

Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail is soon coming to PC and Nintendo Switch

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As per a recent announcement from Gameloft, The Oregon Trail will be made available for PC and Nintendo Switch.

Oregon Trail
Image Source: gameindustry.com

The Oregon Trail, a beloved classic game, will be coming to PC and Nintendo Switch in November. The Oregon Trail is expanding to additional platforms, and Gameloft is excited to announce that it will soon be available on Windows, Steam, and Nintendo Switch.

The Oregon Trail was the most downloaded game on Apple Arcade in 2021 when it was first released in April. On November 14th, 2022, gamers will be able to play Gameloft Brisbane’s updated version of the original game on PC and Nintendo Switch.

David MacMinn, Game Manager, noted, “We’re incredibly excited for even more players to experience The Oregon Trail. We’re pleased to see our game expand to multiple new platforms, and we hope PC and Nintendo players will enjoy their time on the trail as much as we did making it.”

Caroline Fraser, Head of HarperCollins Productions, noted, “The gameplay in our new version of The Oregon Trail has proven to be as exciting and sticky as it was in the ‘90s. The stunning graphics will grab players as they journey west and confront new dangers, meet a wide cast of historical figures, and overcome challenging obstacles on their way to Oregon.”

In The Oregon Trail game, players are put in the middle of all the difficulties encountered on the westward voyage. They must make difficult decisions in perilous and unexpected circumstances in order to fill their wagon, select their traveling group, and ensure that they all arrive in Oregon safely. In a first for the franchise, players will also learn about the real history of the path, such as the Native American experience.

The Oregon Trail, which will be released in November, was developed with assistance from Gameloft Lviv and will be an exact replica of the Apple Arcade edition. The most recent new features provide further accessibility settings, activities, and visual filters to view the game in a completely new way, and it includes all five prior content upgrades.

The Oregon Trail offers “a modern twist on the trials and tribulations of the road to Oregon.” According to the publisher, the game’s 15 playable trips and seven missions will “immerse players in exhilarating journeys ranging from the historically accurate to the totally extreme.”

In the game, there will be a new fishing minigame including over 80 species, as well as the traditional perils like damaged limbs, river fording, moving gunpowder through the wilderness, blizzards, snakebites, famine, tiredness, and dysentery.

The Oregon Trail is a series of various instructional video games. Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger created the initial game in 1971, and the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) produced it in 1974. The original game’s purpose was to educate 8th-grade students about the reality of living as a pioneer on the Oregon Trail during the 19th century. In 1848, the player takes on the role of a wagon leader who is transporting a group of settlers by covered wagon from Missouri to Oregon.

Mate Xs 2 foldable smartphone

Huawei Mate Xs 2 Foldable Smartphone to Support Satellite Communication

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Huawei Mate Xs 2 foldable smartphone will support Beidou satellite communication. It will be unveiled on November 5, 2022, during the Huawei Developer Conference 2022.

Mate Xs 2 foldable smartphone
Image Source: pocket-lint.com

On October 31, Huawei revealed that the Mate Xs 2 folding smartphone, which debuted in April, will feature Beidou satellite communications. Huawei Mate Xs 2 is an amazing smartphone with a huge folding display screen and an outwards folding mechanism.

Given that Apple introduced a similar technology with its iPhone 14 devices, this technology has received widespread praise as an industry innovation. The Beidou Navigation Satellite System offers complete global coverage for time and navigation. Short message transmission is its most notable feature.

It is a distinctive innovation of China’s Beidou satellite navigation system and will provide a significant advantage to Huawei. Using satellite communication one can send an SMS to a recipient without the need for a mobile network. Such a technology, nevertheless, is still developing and needs time to expand.

According to a previous report, Huawei is trying to add further features including two-way communication so that users can also receive SMSes and even make brief voice calls in an emergency.

Professional satellite phones, however, are frequently large, heavy, and expensive. The recently released Huawei Mate 50 series was the first smartphone supporting Beidou satellite connectivity. It’s noteworthy that the Meta Xs 2 will be the first foldable smartphone to support satellite communication.

The Huawei Mate 50 series can send text messages, provide location updates, stay in contact with the outside world, and assist in generating trajectory maps even when the user is in a desert or other emergency situations without network signal coverage.

Huawei has revealed that the Xs 2 would only be able to link to satellites run by the dominant provider of AI and data services, Beidou. Despite being offered in certain other areas, like the UK, the new feature might only function on foldable smartphone models sold in China.

Mate Xs 2 foldable smartphone is Huawei’s most recent foldable phone. It also introduced the use of tri-band Wi-Fi. Due to its tri-band WiFi connectivity, the phone can easily handle even the most demanding network tasks. The phone comes with a Qualcomm SM8350 Snapdragon 888 4G Octa-core processor. 

It boasts a 7.8-inch foldable display that can be folded into a 6.5-inch screen. The smartphone has an OLED panel with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz, high-frequency PWM dimming at 1440 Hz, and touch sampling at up to 240 Hz. The phone is available in two storage options: 8GB + 256GB or 12GB + 512GB.

The phone has three cutting-edge design features thanks to hardware innovation: ultra-fat, ultra-reliable, and ultra-thin. Roughly weighing 250g the smartphone is even lighter than the iPhone 14 Pro. The device’s strengthened screen and double-rotor hinge technology produce an almost unnoticeable crease and increase resistance.

Huawei is a Chinese global technology company with its headquarters in Shenzhen, China. It creates, develops, manufactures, and markets consumer electronics, telecommunications equipment, and diverse smart devices.

Chrome OS 107 update

Google Rolls Out Chrome OS 107 Update With ‘Save Desk for Later’ Feature

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In an effort to enhance user experience, technology giant Google has unveiled the Chrome OS 107 update with a “Save Desk for Later” feature.

Chrome OS 107 update
Image Source: indulgexpress.com

In the past few months, Google has vowed to continuously update its ChromeOS operating system. The search engine giant has just released an upgrade called ChromeOS 107 that includes a number of new features.

Users now have the option to save their Desks for afterward in addition to merging them. When a user saves a desk, all of the open tabs on that Desk are also saved so that one can return to them later.

As per 9to5Google, the new release brings two enhancements to Desks. The first enhancement will allow a user to quickly “Save desk for later” from the overview screen by clicking the button located above the leftmost window. When a user clicks the button the “Saved for later” screen, which can be found to the right side of “New desk,” appears.

Users may give it a name, view the creation date, and quickly see the icons. It is now simpler to close open desks from the Overview menu, and if you accidentally close a desk and wish to undo it, a brief “Undo” prompt appears. 

A merge feature that enables a user to consolidate opened Desks into a single one is apparently also being tested by Google. One of the most widely used productivity tools to appear in ChromeOS in recent times is Virtual Desks, which has gained popularity swiftly. The max number of virtual desktops is now eight, but Google is working to extend it to sixteen.

With so many areas to manage, Google has included a helpful function that allows users to merge one desk with the desk adjacent to it with just one click. In ChromeOS 107, users will see an icon to the left of the “X” used to close a desk when viewing a desk in overview mode. Users can delete that desk from their lineup and relocate its content to the desk just to the left by using this merge icon.

A new “Documents” filter has been added to the “Recent” view in the Files app, and the list underneath has been arranged by time to make it simpler to navigate. Users can now access “accent letters” by simply long tapping on the virtual keyboard. U By, users of Chrome OS 107 update will be able to perform the same action by pressing down on physical keys. Users might need to manually enable it if that fails.

Chrome OS 107 update also introduces auto-framing to the platform, enhancing the productivity toolkit of the platform. When auto framing is activated while using the camera on a device that supports it, the camera will intelligently zoom on the user’s face to keep one in front and center in the frame.

ChromeOS is a Linux-based operating system developed by Google. Its primary user interface is the Google Chrome internet browser, and it is adapted to the open-source ChromiumOS operating system.

Twitter Blue

Twitter Blue to charge $20 Per Month for Blue Tick

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Elon Musk has instructed Twitter employees to start charging more for Twitter Blue, which is the firm’s optional 4.99 USD per month subscription that provides some additional features for authenticated users. Musk has directed that the new Twitter Blue subscription, which also offers verified customers with a blue tick on the social networking platforms, cost approximately 19.99 USD, according to The Verge. The news comes as the “Chief Twit” presses to increase subscription revenue from the microblogging site.

Twitter Blue
Image Source: businesstoday.in

Furthermore, verified consumers will have 90 days to sign up or subscribe to the new plan or their blue checkmark would be removed. Besides that, On Sunday, Twitter staff members who were working on that project were told that they would be fired if the feature was not launched by November 7, according to The Verge.

On Sunday, Elon Musk tweeted, “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.” At present, Twitter Blue is operational in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Source: yourstory.com

Elon Musk dismissed some of Twitter’s top executives last week, after acquiring the social media company for 44 billion USD. These top executives included CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, legal executive Vijaya Gadde and General Counsel Sean Edgett.

According to The New York Times, Musk has “planned to begin laying off workers” at Twitter as soon as on Saturday. Citing people with knowledge of the situation, the report said that some managers were asked to “draw up lists of employees to cut.”

Source: yourstory.com

Along with plans to bring back banned accounts, including that of former United States President, Donald Trump, Elon Musk hosted a poll on Monday to reinstate Vine.

Musk has acted fast to implement changes at Twitter, beginning with changing the homepage for logged-out users. He’s also planning mass layoffs of intermediate managers and developers who haven’t recently made a significant contribution to the code base with the help of Tesla technicians he’s brought in as advisors at Twitter.

Managers are already curating lists of employees to lay off, and the cuts are anticipated to begin this week. Employees tasked with carrying out Musk’s projects since his takeover Thursday evening have been operating late into the night and throughout the weekend.

The Twitter Blue Tick subscription became widely available almost a year ago as a way to see ad-free articles from selected publishers and make other changes to the app, such as changing the colour of the home screen icon.

Advertising stayed the large majority of Twitter’s revenue in the few quarters following its initial public offering. Elon Musk wants account subscriptions for half of the company’s whole revenue.

Paid Subscribers

Apple’s Paid Subscribers Doubled to 900 Million in 3 years

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Apple has about 900 million paid subscribers on its platform, which has more than doubled in just three years, according to company CEO Tim Cook.

paid subscribers
Image Source: business-standard.com

According to the company, paid subscribers are rising exponentially than transacting accounts, so paid account penetration is increasing.

“We have a great subscription business, 900 million paid subs now on the platform and growing very fast. We doubled in 3 years. This is the part that is really interesting to us because we really believe that the engine for services growth is there, foreign exchange is a temporary thing and the fundamentals are very good,” Tim Cook said during the company’s earnings call for the September quarter.

Source: business-standard.com

Services as well set a new high in the September quarter, with 19.2 billion USD in revenue.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, also said that they have reached one more record on their installed base of active devices which is all thanks to a quarterly upgraders’ record and double-digit development in switchers on iPhone, and they also reached the latest revenue record for said quarter throughout nearly every geographic segment.

In terms of silicon supply constraints, he stated that they were not noticeable in the quarter.

He also stated that he wants to admit that we are still living in unprecedented times, from the war in Eastern Europe to the tenacity of Covid-19 and also from environmental disasters all around the world to a growingly difficult economic environment.

Also, he added that, through it all, they have aimed to help their customers navigate the challenges while also providing them with the tools they need to continue driving progress for both their organizations.

Apple iPhone revenue increased 10% year on year to a September quarter record of $42.6 billion, according to the company, as the Indian market perceives bumper iPhone sales led by the new 14 series.

Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that customer demand was “stronger and more favorable than they anticipated. According to a report, the Apple iPhone 15 Series will have a USB-C charging port and four models with significant feature differences.

“Customers are loving our iPhone 14 line-up. Loaded with camera upgrades for sharper photos, Action Mode for smoother videos and new safety features like Crash Detection and Emergency SOS via Satellite, iPhone is even more indispensable to our daily lives,” Cook told analysts during the company’s quarterly earnings call late on Thursday.

Source: latestly.com