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Realme leads race to embrace 5G

realme aims to launch 100% 5G smartphones in its Number series in 2023

realme was the first brand to introduce a 5G smartphone in India in 2020 when conversations about 5G had just started..reports Asian Lite News

With the 5G auctions concluded and telcos all set with the network infrastructure, India is set to see 5G become a reality for the users. Once the services are rolled out, 5G is poised to bring a host of opportunities and drive greater use of smart technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, the internet of things and much more.

With all of these developments, technology brands have also prepared themselves for 5G, realme being one of the readiest brands with 5 million realme users already equipped with 5G-enabled smartphones.

realme was the first brand to introduce a 5G smartphone in India in 2020 when conversations about 5G had just started. The brand believed that users were ready for the advanced technology and should have easy access to it.

Over the last two years, realme has introduced 23 5G-enabled smartphones across price segments and directed all its efforts into being a 5G democratizer for the country. More than 50 per cent of realme’s portfolio is now 5G-enabled, with realme 9i 5G being one of the latest affordable 5G smartphones.

Not just that, realme took notice of all network bands that were being made available during the auctions and has ensured that its smartphones support all those bands so that no user faces a challenge while accepting the new technology.

realme reckons that 5G has the potential to bring the entire tech ecosystem together and therefore, has dedicated 90 per cent of its research and development efforts to 5G technologies and devices. The results of these investments can be seen as the brand is now also working towards equipping its AIoT devices with 5G – realme PAD X being the first one.

Moving forward, the brand has carved out a detailed plan to further its efforts in 5G and make it more accessible to premium as well as mass users. The brand is rolling out regular OTA updates to its products to make them 5G-ready and aims to have 80 per cent of the users 5G ready before 5G officially rolls out. Being committed to bringing the best 5G experience to its users and supporting global adoption of 5G products, realme plans to establish seven R&D centres worldwide, including one in India.

In order to encourage more users to opt for 5G smartphones, realme is currently providing massive discounts of up to Rs 15,000 on its smartphone range including 5G-enabled smartphones.

Users can enjoy realme 5G phones such as the realme 9i 5G and narzo 50 5G, starting from Rs 10,999 and the realme GT NEO 3T starting at Rs 22,999, among others. By next year, realme aims to expand its current 5G portfolio of 23 devices in India in 2023 and aims to launch 100 per cent 5G models for its Number series next year.

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Business Economy

Layoffs finally hit giants

Cloud major Oracle recently considered laying off thousands of workers to save up to $1 billion in cost-cutting measures…reports Asian Lite News

The economic meltdown has reached Big Tech and Satya Nadella-run Microsoft has become the first tech giant to lay off employees as part of a ‘realignment’.

The layoffs at Microsoft reportedly affect nearly 1 per cent of its 1,80,000-strong workforce across its offices and product divisions.

“Today we had a small number of role eliminations. Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly,” Microsoft told Bloomberg in a statement late on Tuesday.

“We will continue to invest in our business and grow headcount overall in the year ahead,” the company added.

Microsoft has also slowed hiring in the Windows, Teams and Office groups.

Microsoft reported strong earnings in its third quarter, with a 26 per cent jump (on-year) in cloud revenue and overall revenue of $49.4 billion.

However, last month, the company revised its Q4 revenue and earnings guidance downward.

Twitter has also cut 30 per cent of its recruiting team while Elon Musk-run Tesla has been laying off hundreds of employees.

A Twitter spokesperson confirmed these layoffs to TechCrunch, without divulging further details or the number of employees affected.

The sacked employees will receive severance packages and the company will “reprioritise’ remaining recruitment staff.

Twitter had earlier announced to halt most hiring across divisions.

As Twitter paused hiring, the micro-blogging platform last month shifted employees away from audio Spaces, Communities and newsletters verticals for areas that “will have the greatest positive impact to the public conversation”.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in May fired consumer product leader Kayvon Beykpour and head of revenue product Bruce Falck, saying there is a hiring freeze now and Twitter will also pause spending in most areas.

Agrawal had said that the company will also be reviewing all extended offers to determine criticality and those that should be pulled back.

“We are not planning company-wide layoffs, but leaders will continue making changes to their organizations to improve efficiencies as needed,” Agrawal had said in a memo to employees.

Twitter has paused most hiring and backfills, except for business critical roles as determined by ‘Staff’ members.

Other tech companies that have slowed hiring include Nvidia, Snap, Uber, Spotify, Intel and Salesforce, among others.

Cloud major Oracle recently considered laying off thousands of workers to save up to $1 billion in cost-cutting measures, the media reported.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk-run Tesla has laid off 229 annotation employees from its Autopilot team and closed one of its offices in the US.

According to a regulatory filing in California state in the US and seen by TechCrunch, Tesla had laid off workers from its San Mateo office that employed 276 workers.

The remaining 47 employees may be sent to work in Tesla’s Buffalo Autopilot office, according to the report.

“Most of the workers were in moderately low-skilled, low-wage jobs, such as Autopilot data labeling, which involves determining if Tesla’s algorithm identified an object well or poorly,” the report added.

The layoffs are part of the 10 per cent reduction in salaried workforce that Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced last month.

Tesla started laying off salaried employees after Musk’s announcement, which would result in reducing Tesla’s total headcount by roughly 3.5 per cent.

Tesla employs more than 1,00,000 people across its facilities.

A team of lawyers representing former Tesla employees, who were laid off last month, have sought emergency protection from a US court for the fired workers.

In a motion filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, the lawyers asked the judge “to restrict Tesla’s ability to continue seeking releases from employees in exchange for one week of severance”..

As recession fears grow, the US-based autonomous vehicle technology startup Agro AI, backed by Ford and Volkswagen, has laid off about 150 people and slowed the pace of hiring, making it the latest tech auto company to reduce its workforce.

According to TechCrunch, the layoffs account for about 5 per cent of its more than 2,000 global workforces, according to sources familiar with the company’s actions.

The layoffs were widespread, affecting talent recruiters, digital media and communications employees as well as members of its operations teams, a review of LinkedIn profiles shows, the report said.

“With incredible growth and progress made in our mission to deploy driverless vehicles, we are making prudent adjustments to our business plan to best continue on a path for success,” the startup said in an email statement while confirming layoffs.

A close source, who remained anonymous because they are not authorised to speak on behalf of the company, told TechCrunch that Argo AI had hired too quickly, overshooting where it should be.

The company is still hiring and has dozens of engineering, legal, technical programme management and fleet operations positions open, the report said.

Argo AI, which is based in Pittsburgh, launched driverless testing operations in May 2022 in Miami and Austin, marking the company’s progress towards commercialising its technology.

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-Top News USA

US lawmakers introduce bills to curb powers of big tech firms

The bills, which mainly target the four giants, would require dominant platforms to prove their acquisitions are lawful….reports Asian Lite News

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the US House of Representatives on Friday introduced a package of bills aimed at curbing the power of tech giants.

The move comes amid growing criticism that tech firms such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, known collectively as GAFA, are undermining competition by taking advantage of their market dominance, reported NHK World.

In October last year, a House subcommittee released a report calling for stricter regulations on these firms, including the possibility of breaking them up.

The bills, which mainly target the four giants, would require dominant platforms to prove their acquisitions are lawful. They would also prohibit them from giving preference to their own products.

One lawmaker said the four firms have become too big to care, and that the bipartisan bills would rein in monopolistic practices and restore fairness and competition.

US media outlets are reporting the legislation could force the tech giants to overhaul their business models.

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Categories
-Top News China Technology

Beijing clamps down freewheeling tech firms

Every week, Chinese regulators have been calling out tech companies for alleged offences…reports Asian Lite News

Claiming a crackdown on anti-competitive practices among Chinese internet giants, Beijing has ramped up a broader effort to clean up the operations of the country’s fast-growing and freewheeling tech sector.

Every week, Chinese regulators have been calling out tech companies for alleged offences, including inconsistent pricing, user privacy concerns and difficult working conditions, reported The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

In May, China’s cyber regulator accused 105 apps, including short-video and job-recruitment apps, of illegally collecting and using personal data and ordered the companies to fix their problems within three weeks or risk legal action.

Chinese regulators have also met with ride-hailing services for potential mistreatment of drivers, while internet firms have been ordered to reform their data and lending practices. Delivery platforms in China have also come under the scanner over what the authorities view as deceptive trading practices.

China continues to crack down on social media content it deems ‘controversial’. Xiaohongshu, a popular e-commerce startup, is the latest to be probed by internet regulators after it posted a message on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and had its account shut down, WSJ reported.

Beijing has been infamous for using antimonopoly rules to curb the market influence of foreign firms, As it sought to nurture its own tech company, the scenario changed when financial-technology giant Ant Group’s initial public offering (IP) was canceled last year, days after businessman Jack Ma made a speech that infuriated the government leaders.

In April, regulators imposed a whopping USD 2.8 billion fine upon Alibaba, stating that it had abused its dominant market position by engaging in a controversial practice,. Such accusations have dogged China’s e-commerce industry for years, resulting in several public complaints and lawsuits.

For some companies, placating Chinese authorities is a matter of tweaking some app features, while others could suffer more if much of their profits rely on data collection and sharing, WSJ reported citing employees of five app companies.

Some employees said they have grown more cautious about compliance and anything that could be seen as going against regulation. ByteDance, whose short-video app Douyin was among those targeted for improper data collection, has been hiring compliance and legal experts, tasking them with reviewing user terms and various app features to check for rule violations.

Chinese regulators have also called on the nation’s citizens to help supervise the behaviour of tech companies Tech companies have responded with pledges to be good corporate citizens. (ANI)

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Categories
-Top News Tech Lite

Tech firm pleads guilty to H-1B visa fraud

It said that under the scam, in order to obtain the H1-B visas, Cloudgen submitted “forged contracts” showing that third companies had work for the persons it wanted to bring over…reports Arul Louis.

A technology company has admitted to committing fraud to bring Indians on the coveted H1-B visas to the US, according to a federal prosecutor.

Jomon Chakkalakkal, the corporate representative of Cloudgen, made the admission before a federal court in Houston, Texas, on behalf of the company on May 28, said acting federal Prosecutor Jennifer B. Lowery.

The prosecutor’s office in a news release circulated on Monday described the scam as a “bench and switch” ruse.

It said that under the scam, in order to obtain the H1-B visas, Cloudgen submitted “forged contracts” showing that third companies had work for the persons it wanted to bring over.

But once the employees came to the US there was no job for them and they were housed in different locations across the US, while Cloudgen would try to find work for them, according to the office.

“Such action gave Cloudgen a competitive advantage by having a steady ‘bench’ or supply of visa-ready workers to send to different employers based on market needs when the true process actually takes some time. Once workers had obtained new employment, the ‘switch’ would occur when the new third-party company filed immigration paperwork for the foreign workers,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Cloudgen took a percentage of the worker’s salary, which amounted to nearly $500,000 from 2013 to 2020 when the scam took place, it said.

Chief Judge Lee Rosenthal of the Southern Texas federal court is to impose a sentence in September and it could be a fine of as much as $1 million and probation for five years.

The prosecutor’s office said that Cloudgen was based in Houston, but on its website, the company lists an address in Manassas in Virginia.

It also shows offices in Hyderabad, Canada and Romania.

Chakkalakkal is described on the website as the senior vice president for sales.

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