Britain’s competition watchdog outlined a new regime for regulating tech giants such as Google and Facebook, saying it needed new powers to harness the full potential of digital markets and drive competition and innovation. It proposed a new, legally binding code of conduct, pro-competitive interventions in the market and enhanced merger rules, overseen by a
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TV became king of visual entertainment in 2020, thanks to COVID-19. With cinemas, theatres, and concert halls all closed due to the pandemic globally, everything — worthwhile or not — happened on the small screen. That meant movies (even those as big as Wonder Woman 1984 or Disney’s live-action Mulan) were suddenly competing with TV
Amazon Prime Video’s “Watch Party” feature — similar to how the third-party Netflix Party extension works — is now available in India. “Watch Party” allows you to stream a Prime Video title with up to 100 friends and family members (as long as everyone involved also has an Amazon Prime membership) and chat with them
More than 400 lawmakers from 34 countries have signed a letter to Amazon boss Jeff Bezos backing a campaign that claims the tech giant has “dodged and dismissed … debts to workers, societies, and the planet,” organisers said. The Make Amazon Pay campaign was launched on November 27, the annual Black Friday shopping bonanza, by a coalition of over
The Lord of the Rings cast is filling up. Amazon Prime Video has announced 20 new additions to its Lord of the Rings prequel series, including Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Power), Maxim Baldry (Years and Years), newcomer Ian Blackburn, Kip Chapman (Top of the Lake), Anthony Crum (The Wilds), Maxine Cunliffe (Power Rangers Megaforce), Trystan Gravelle (The
Hawkeye — the Marvel Cinematic Universe series at Disney+ Hotstar — has reportedly added six new cast members: Black Widow‘s Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova who was trained just as her sister-figure Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), Vera Farmiga as Kate Bishop’s (Hailee Steinfeld) mother Eleanor Bishop, Fra Fee as the mercenary villain Kazi / Kazimierz
Prominent artificial intelligence scholar Timnit Gebru helped improve Google’s public image as a company that elevates Black computer scientists and questions harmful uses of AI technology. But internally, Gebru, a leader in the field of AI ethics, was not shy about voicing doubts about those commitments — until she was pushed out of the company
Flipkart has introduced a new 2GUD Local feature that looks to bring popular offline retailers and shopping malls online, for customers across India. The 2GUD Local experience is now available on Flipkart’s refurbished goods platform, 2GUD. The new 2GUD Local experience will showcase single brand and multi-brand stores through long-format videos coupled with engaging narratives
The Mandalorian season 2 episode 6 told us that things weren’t going to be fine, right off the bat. Any piece of fiction that begins with a happy protagonist never ends well. And so it was for our beskar-clad hero, whom most of us know simply as Mando (Pedro Pascal), who laughed — for possibly
Flipkart on Thursday announced a partial spin-off of PhonePe in a move that will help the digital payments platform to access dedicated, long-term capital to fund its growth ambitions. PhonePe has crossed the 250 million registered user milestone in just four years with over 100 million monthly active users, generating nearly one billion digital payment
IBM is sounding the alarm over hackers targeting companies critical to the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, a sign that digital spies are turning their attention to the complex logistical work involved in inoculating the world’s population against the novel coronavirus. The information technology company said in a blog post published on Thursday that it had
Apple on Wednesday released the list of App Store’s best apps and games of 2020. Continuing its annual trend, the Cupertino company named 15 apps and games that its App Store editors have found to be the best — on the basis of quality, design, usability, and the technology they use. The “Best of 2020”
Chinese fintech giant Ant Group is considering selling its 30 percent stake in Indian digital payment processor Paytm amid tensions between the two Asian neighbours and a toughening competitive landscape, people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Financial details of the possible transaction have not been firmed up and Ant, the Alibaba-backed payments-to-consumer credit
YouTube’s top trending videos of 2020 in the US have now been shared by Google’s video platform through a blog post. Comedian Dave Chappelle’s impromptu, socially-distanced show titled ‘8:46’ was at the top of the list. The list of top 10 trending videos includes a variety of creators, comedians, comedy sketches, and more. These 10
Amazon said on Tuesday independent businesses selling on its platform crossed $4.8 billion (roughly Rs. 35,400 crores) in worldwide sales from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, an increase of more than 60% from a year earlier. In its first indication of performance for the year’s peak online shopping days, Amazon said more than 71,000 small- and
Amazon India Cyber Monday sale is underway with discounts across categories and brands. You can get discounts on headphones, game controllers, drawing tablets, projectors, and more. Cyber Monday sale, as the name suggests, will only be valid for today, and marks the last day of the Black Friday deals that started on November 27. Customers
Flipkart Flipstart Days sale will kick off starting tomorrow, December 1, till December 3, 2020. The sale will offer up to 80 percent off on electronic accessories and up to 50 percent off on TVs, ACs, and refrigerators. The sale is across categories and includes discounts and offers in clothes, footwear, accessories, beauty, sports, furniture,
Some 2,500 Amazon workers in Germany started a three-day strike Thursday timed to disrupt the online retailer’s “Black Friday” sales bonanza. The strike, called by the powerful Verdi union, is set to last until Saturday and marks the latest escalation in a years-long battle with Amazon for better pay and working conditions. “We estimate that
December may be the final month of the year, but it’s going to have a lot of firsts too. Netflix’s first animated movie from India; Apple TV+’s first animated feature film; George Clooney’s first movie in four years; David Fincher’s first movie in six years; Shonda Rhimes’ first series at Netflix; and lastly, Wonder Woman
The Mandalorian season 2 hasn’t had much to do for Baby Yoda, except look cute and steal some precious eggs, but episode 5 — titled Chapter 13: The Jedi — made up for that thanks to the introduction of Anakin Skywalker’s Jedi Padawan, Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), whom we finally got to meet in the
Instagram seems to have blocked the hashtag #sikh on its platform for a short period of time, some users have complained on Twitter. The blocking comes just over five months after Facebook and Instagram were seen restricting the #sikh hashtag for a number of users. Instagram at that time responded to user complaints and stated
Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency is readying to launch as early as January, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing three unidentified people involved in the project. The Geneva-based Libra Association that will issue and govern Libra plans to launch a single digital coin backed by the dollar, the FT said, citing one of the people. The
Tech giant Google is gradually rolling out a new feature to Google Chrome 87 that allows the user to type commands in the address bar that perform specific browser actions. According to Mashable, this new feature is called Chrome Actions and allows the user to type in a command, causing an action to be displayed in
Google Hangouts group video calling has been killed on the Android and the web version with the latest update. Users are being redirected to Google Meet instead. Hangouts is a cross-platform messaging app launched by Google in 2013. The new development comes amidst a series of steps taken by Google to replace Hangouts with Meet and Chat.
Google Pay received a major update in the US last week that brought a list of new features to deliver an enhanced payments experience. However, with the arrival of the updated Google Pay, the search giant has decided to do away with the older Google Pay app for Android and iOS devices and discontinue support
India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) privately warned Future Retail it risked regulatory action for not making timely market disclosures about efforts by Amazon.com to block a disputed asset sale, according to e-mails reviewed by Reuters. Future Retail, one of country’s top retailers, has been locked in a bitter dispute with Amazon over its $3.4 billion (roughly Rs.
What is the best streaming service in India for watching movies and TV shows? A few years ago, there were too few to matter, but the launch of Reliance Jio changed everything. Asia’s richest man entered the telecom business and launched India’s mobile network wars, which saw the price of 4G data slashed to a
Paytm postpaid users can now pay back their dues in Equated Monthly Instalments (EMIs), the company has announced. According to Paytm, the service will add a new level of flexibility to the users’ shopping experience and is available in different categories. With this, Paytm aims to encourage customer to purchase without any budget constraints as
Google Search is getting improvements based on language understanding to deliver a conversational experience. This new experience will use context from your recent activity on the search engine to suggest relevant queries you were looking to ask next. The update will also enable Google to provide an easier-to-use experience for people who want to utilise
Bitcoin rose to a nearly three-year high on Friday, as investors continued to scoop the virtual currency on expectations it could well exceed its all-time peak of just under $20,000. Bitcoin surged to $18,766.79 (roughly Rs. 13.9 lakhs), the highest since December 2017, and was last up 4.9 percent at $18,696 (roughly Rs. 13.86 lakhs).