Faced with delays or cancellation of orders of essential items, customers have taken to social media to criticise Amazon India in the past one week, after India imposed a 21-day nationwide lockdown to counter the Covid-19 virus outbreak.
A group of seven top industry associations representing internet and technology giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Adobe has sought withdrawal of the new equalisation levy that comes into force from April 1, due to its widespread negative impact on American companies.
“Data consumption on mobile networks has increased by about 10-12% and in fact in places like Delhi, it has inched by 3% while in some areas of the capital, it has actually fallen,” a senior government official told ET, asking not to be named.
They had to ensure that most employees worked from home and simultaneously achieve deliverables on projects for clients across geographies. As the new financial year starts however, they will be faced with a third and more uphill task.
Social media platforms including YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram are reaching out to their creators in India to continue to make engaging videos during the lockdown as users turn to social media for entertainment.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Tuesday set up a dedicated Twitter handle for sharing news and updates about the novel coronavirus. The account is named #IndiaFightsCorona and uses the handle @CovidnewsbyMIB.
The company had transitioned to a work from home model almost a week before the 21-day national lockdown was announced. 99% of its IT services and 75% (by revenue) of the BPO operations were currently being run from home, with no impact on client delivery.
Industry insiders said usage and engagement rates of TikTok and Instagram's live videos have gone up significantly during the lockdown with more content and views being generated by users. But, despite digital usage going up, brands and advertisers are holding on to digital spends fearing a backlash.
“Xiaomi will donate INR 10 crores to the honorable PM’s relief funds and CM’s relief funds across various states,” Xiaomi Global VP and India MD Manu Kumar Jain said in a statement. The company will continue to donate lakhs of face masks and protective suits to hospitals across States.
CEO and MD of IT major, Infosys Ltd, Salil Parekh has said it's imperative for businesses to join hands with the governments, civil society and healthcare institutions in the battle to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus.
BPM companies are caught between mobility curbs and client protocol that disallows work-from-home. Experts are of the view that the Indian BPO industry faces significant challenges in the short and medium term due to the Covid-19 related restrictions. Analysts say companies face challenges in organising thousands of computers and internet connections to employees at short notice, impacting work.
The contribution will primarily be utilized across three broad areas. To expand hospital capacity for treatment and enable hospital stays for Covid-19 patients, especially the poor, across India. To provide ventilators, testing kits, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) like masks, and other protective gear for frontline healthcare workers.
Jay Chen, Huawei India CEO, told ET, “We are working on solutions to apply our learnings and experience from China to the current situation in India and help combat Covid-19 with new technology such as remote temperature monitoring.”
From a vertical perspective, HCL's exposure to verticals which have seen a major disruption due to the CorovaVirus like Oil & Gas, Travel & Hospitality, High-End Retail is in single digits. HCL said that its business model is a healthy mix of recurring product revenues, managed services and discretionary spend led professional services.
"You can no longer send videos to WhatsApp Status if they are longer than 16 seconds: only videos having a duration of 15 seconds will be allowed. This is happening in India and it's probably an initiative to reduce the traffic on the server infrastructures," WABetaInfo tweeted on Sunday. India has over 400 million WhatsApp users.
Not just Chhattisgarh, a report in Times of India stated that a team of researchers from Madras Institute of Technology is helping the Tamil Nadu government in spraying disinfectant over large areas.
Industry bodies Manufacturers’ Association of Information Technology (MAIT) and India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA) have written to the government seeking concessions in the delivery of smartphones among other electronics devices and removal of restrictions on the movement of components for inland and export purposes.
Talking to ET Online, in a telephonic interview Lt Gen.Pant said, “In the past two months almost 4000 fraud portals related to Corona Virus have been created across the globe by cyber criminals and other mafia organisations.”
Imagine sitting in your room, wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset and getting the feel of walking into a conference, or an expo, or watching a product demo. This isn’t science fiction as the Covid-19 outbreak grounds millions of people worldwide.
The technologies being used against the pandemic are raising questions about excessive surveillance.
Tech companies are helping institutions smoothen their sudden transition to an online-only teaching format.
This plan comes with a speed of 10 Mbps. For higher speed you will have to opt for other recharges available on Jio.com & MyJio.
The Tech Mahindra culture draws heritage from the core purpose and values that drive the Mahindra Group as a whole. It remains rooted in the business and social ethos that the three Mahindra RISE tenets – accepting no limits, alternative thinking, and driving positive change – instill in every member of the Mahindra family.
With the young discovering old ways to connect and the old connecting with the new, the Covid-19 outbreak has turned some assumptions about technology and the demographics of the Internet on its head.
On Thursday, there was social media outrage after the employee, a senior architect at Infosys, had put a post that promoted spreading the virus. Infosys had said it had begun a probe. The Bengaluru police has also lodged an FIR accusing him of creating alarm and fear among the public.
With most employees working from home, the agency said, enterprise VPN servers have now become paramount to a company's backbone, and their security and availability must be the focus for IT (information technology) teams.
Even as Maharashtra grapples with rising COVID-19 cases, cyber fraudsters have devised a malware called "coronavirus map" to steal confidential data, including bank account details and passwords.
The Teaneck, New Jersey-headquartered company said the additional payout for employees in India and the Philippines will be up to the Associate designation level. The company said the payout would be made in the April salary, and would be reviewed each month as the situation required.
Indians, stuck at home due to the lockdown induced by the Covid-19 pandemic, are turning to podcasts to keep themselves entertained as they go about their daily chores, giving a boost to the fledgling industry.
Due to increased hacker activity, phishing attempts have gone up by three times, and the work from home infrastructure is also under attack.
Infosys on Thursday said it is deeply concerned with an "inappropriate post" on social media related to the coronavirus outbreak being attributed to a company employee, and vowed to take necessary action based on its investigation.
The company said that certain teams are being moved offshore from client locations and global centres, which will drive offshore volume up and adversely impact FY21 dollar revenue. Lower offshore realisations and travel restrictions are also likely to impact revenue. It expects to have better clarity in 30-60 days as the situation is fluid and constantly changing.
With limited activity out of home, Indians are reportedly reading, contributing and influencing on social media. According to Nielsen, the total volume of Covid-19 related conversations reached 22.3 million on March 24 in the country.
Most Tech Mahindra employees had started working from home in view of the Covid-19 outbreak and the consequent nationwide lockdown, but staff supporting critical and essential services had to be present in its offices. Soin said Tech Mahindra was working to ensure that the transition to work from home would be smooth.
Using this, corporate employees can do all the works for which otherwise they have to come to office. It will be just extension of office up to their home. There will be no access limitations. MTNL will be extending this facility for one month without any additional charge, just to enable smooth work from home, said MNTL.
People are searching the web for new information on the Covid-19 outbreak to protect themselves and their families. The cybercriminals are taking advantage of this situation and trying to hack into people's accounts.
"The move is a part of the several measures that the company has taken to ease the trouble of its employees and ensure their safety and well-being. Lava paid around 20 per cent of the salary in advance yesterday (Wednesday), almost 12 days ahead of the scheduled date," the company said in a statement.
TCS is said to be shipping nearly 6,000 laptops to employees every day to enable them to work from home (WFH). The numbers are up from 1,000 a day about 10 days ago.
Coming soon — a Covid tracker app from the government in English and all major Indian languages. The government is likely to launch a smartphone application to help users check if they crossed paths with patients who tested positive for coronavirus.
Foxconn, Flex and Wistron, which together make the bulk of the smartphones sold in India, are closing operations, government and industry officials said.
Customer relationship management firm Zendesk has entered into a strategic alliance with Tata Consultancy Services to provide enterprise grade CRM solutions for large enterprises.
An intelligence firm that tracks the smartphone market has cut this year’s growth estimate to 5.5% from 8% earlier. Realme has estimated that phone prices could go up by 12-15% for reasons including fluctuation in rupee-dollar exchange rates, impact of Covid-19 on the supply chain for components, an increase in memory prices of smartphones, and higher GST.
Asserting that Microsoft is financially strong despite the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, its India-born CEO Satya Nadella has voiced confidence that the company will come out of the crisis "pretty strong".
Prabin Kumar Das of Lovely Professional University (LPU) has developed a device named 'kawach' (shield) which vibrates and glows in case someone breaches the user's safe space of one metre. The device which can be worn as a pendant comes equipped with a 'hand wash reminder' feature that beeps every 30 minutes to remind the user to wash his/her hands.
Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., is suspending operations until April 14, it told Bloomberg News. It intends to resume India production based on further government announcements. A Wistron representative said the company is also adhering to the order, while declining to comment on exactly what products are affected.
Tata Consultancy Services’ Rajesh Gopinathan and Infosys CEO Salil Parekh defended their companies’ move highlighting the need to restrict work-from-home in the case of employees who support critical functions of global clients
The FT report said Google had also been talking to Jio separately, citing one of the people above. Microsoft had said last year that it would provide cloud-computing services to businesses along with Jio. India is the biggest market for Facebook with 328 million monthly users and the company’s WhatsApp messaging app has 400 million users in the country, also the most in the world.
Cybersecurity experts warn that the ongoing situation has made cybercriminals more active as they are increasingly targeting both the bank employees with malware attacks, and the unwitting customers using digital channels with scam messages, to defraud them and gain remote access to secure networks.
Government services such as tax administration, egovernance, cloud operation, passport services; healthcare and insurance-related processing; support to utilities such as gas, electricity, mobile network, broadband, etc and ecommerce services and support to banking and payment services have been identified as “essential services”.
After the bill was introduced in Parliament in December last year, it was referred to the joint parliamentary committee, which had asked stakeholders to send their feedback by February 25. The committee had also expressed its willingness to allow stakeholders to express their concerns in person. However, the process to do so has yet to begin.from Technology News, Latest Gadget Reviews, Gaming & Tech Videos | Times of India https://ift.tt/o3b1NzK
