Bill Gates lauds India's "unique effort" for women's empowerment with new alliance

The Alliance for Global Good – Gender Equity and Equality – is supported by the Gates Foundation, and anchored by the CII Centre for Women Leadership, with the World Economic Forum as a network partner and Invest India as an institutional partner.

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Premium for AI jobs cools as talent supply increases

According to staffing firms, Average pay hike for a new job in AI — including AI/ML engineer, robotics engineers, natural language processing engineer, ethics engineer and data architect — has reduced to 15-25% from 50-60% a year ago.

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Startup Mahakumbh to tell the world that spring is coming

Three-day congregation of new economy ecosystem to highlight the promise of Indian startup sector.

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The 10-minute challenge: Quick-commerce becomes the villain for neighbourhood kirana stores

Quick commerce companies now make up 40-50% of all e-commerce sales of FMCG firms and they pose an existential threat to both neighbourhood kirana stores as well as big e-comm players. Here’s what makes them tick.

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Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to generative AI

The Apple car team also has several hundred hardware engineers and car designers. It’s possible that they will be able to apply for jobs on other Apple teams. There will be layoffs, but it’s unclear how many.

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EU set to fine Apple in Spotify music streaming case

The European Commission last year charged the iPhone maker with preventing Spotify and other music streaming firms from informing users of options outside Apple's App Store.

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Relook parts of draft cybercrime treaty: Rights groups to UN panel

ET had reported on February 22 that the ad-hoc UN committee had, in a draft treaty on cybercrime, proposed that all member nations introduce and adopt legislative and other measures which allow the preservation of “electronic data including traffic data, content data and subscriber information” for a period of up to 90 days.

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Micron starts mass production of memory chips for use in Nvidia's AI semiconductors

Micron Technology has started mass production of its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) semiconductors for use in Nvidia's latest chip for artificial intelligence, sending its shares up more than 5% on Monday.

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Moon landing puts new space race startups in spotlight

Declining cost of rocket launches is fueling the boom in the private space industry that could reach about $770 billion by 2027, with some estimating that "New Space" firms could account for a sizable chunk of the market. Here are some firms working toward exploring the opportunities.

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FM Nirmala Sitharaman asks RBI, fintechs to hold monthly meetings in wake of Paytm crisis

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met representatives from the fintech industry on Monday to hear their concerns in the wake of the central bank's order to Paytm Payments Bank to stop accepting fresh deposits in its account or popular wallets from March.

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Kalaido.ai paints a pretty picture from local language text prompts

Fractal is now in the league with companies such as OpenAI’s Dall-E, Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and Runway. However, the text-to-image model Kalaido is the first Indic language image model which can create images and also enhance user prompts automatically to suggest better descriptions, cut the time spent on iteration, and increase creative output.

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Ground breaking ceremony of VinFast takes place at Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi facility

The ground breaking ceremony took place in the presence of Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin along with the senior representatives of the Vin group. ET had reported on February 10 that the Vietnamese company that is looking to compete with the likes of Tesla was going to have its ground-breaking ceremony on February 25.

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When the third-party cookie crumbles: A new privacy-centric internet emerges

Third-party cookies, which are used to track the online movement of users, are being phased out by Google. How will it transform the internet?

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Need more women in AI for inclusive development of the technology

A diverse workforce is better tooled to identify and remove biases, while women also bring to the table a different mental toolkit

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Generative AI making customer support conversations more human, leading to wider adoption

Artificial intelligence-powered customer care platforms like Exotel, Freshworks, Gupshup, Corover.ai, and Yellow.ai are revolutionizing customer support. Meta's WhatsApp is the leading platform for GenAI-powered customer support conversations. GenAI integration is cost-effective and yields significant savings and ROI. Freshworks' Freddy Copilot significantly improves ticket resolution time and response times.

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Jeff Bezos, Nvidia join OpenAI in funding humanoid robot startup

Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, OpenAI, and other big technology names are investing in Figure AI Inc., a startup developing human-like robots. The funding round raised $675 million with a pre-money valuation of $2 billion.

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Elon Musk gets some guidance from a Delaware judge on how to ditch the state

Tesla CEO Elon Musk receives favorable news from Delaware Chancery Court regarding the company's potential move to Texas. Moving companies out of Delaware is allowed under certain circumstances, and Tesla may be able to rely on the cleansing process. However, opposition from shareholders, including institutional investors, is a possibility.

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Elevation Capital’s massive gamble on Paytm backfires

The Ravi Adusumalli-led fund’s 15% stake in One 97, which was valued at about Rs 6,100 crore when the post-IPO lock-in expired in November 2022, had shrunk by nearly 40% to Rs 3,800 crore at the end of trading on Thursday.

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Face-off likely at EGM over plan to oust Byju’s CEO

Investors demand ouster of Byju Raveendran and family, accuse management of non-compliance, misinformation, and withholding information. They seek details on AESL acquisition, loan terms, investigations, audits, and board restructuring for improved oversight and governance.

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Google upgrades AI product for advertisers with Gemini models

Google said Gemini will improve a product called Performance Max, which automatically finds the best placements for a brand's ads across Google services including email, search and YouTube.

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BigTech lobbying to derail open source GenAI: DeepLearning AI's Andrew Ng

“If the attempts to squash open-source software succeed, almost all nations will simply be losers…the United States as well,” Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning AI, told delegates Wednesday at the Nasscom Technology and Leadership Summit in Mumbai.

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Govt eases FDI norms in space sector

The government on Wednesday eased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) norms in the space sector with an aim to attract overseas players and private companies into the segment. The decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Edtech’s AI push has its share of doubting Thomases

Higher education, upskilling platforms likely to benefit more than startups servicing schools and students on large scale

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DaaS catches on as nations focus on digital public infra

A group of technologists is proposing digital public infrastructure (DPI)-as-a-service model for faster adoption of digital public goods (DPGs), especially in countries with a population of less than 1 million.

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Govt nudging firms towards EV charging interoperability

Easier rules around power and land usage, as well as specific subsidies for fast-charging infrastructure, could encourage setting up of these facilities and adoption of EVs, senior executives in the EV industry said.

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Funding winter or not, startups loosen purse strings to reward top talent

Giving high increments, stock options, bonuses, global roles and accelerated promotions to ringfence people who are critical to business.

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Snap to invest more to continue conversation with young India: Snap India MD Pulkit Trivedi

In a letter to its shareholders, Snap had said it would shift more of its focus during the year to expanding Snapchat’s user base and investing in markets where it makes the most money, including North America and Europe. However, as per Trivedi, the Evan Spiegel-led company remains bullish on the India market.

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Byju’s rights issue gets $300 million commitment

Byju's floated a rights issue in January to raise $200 million through equity rights issue at an enterprise valuation in the range of $220-250 million which is a 99 per cent reduction in its peak valuation of $22 billion.

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US divided on TikTok ban even as Biden campaign joins the app, AP-NORC poll shows

President Joe Biden's campaign uses TikTok to court young voters, despite mixed views. Concerns about data sharing, propaganda, children's time on TikTok, and misinformation persist. Fact-checking initiatives are implemented. Former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joins TikTok. Fact-checking hubs are established for the European Union elections.

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Experts urge govt to invest in open data, compute for AI leadership

Open data and compute can put India on the world map in the race for artificial intelligence, experts tell ET.

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OpenAI deal lets employees sell shares at $86 billion valuation

The tender offer values the artificial intelligence startup at $86 billion, a price that makes OpenAI one of the most valuable startups in the world. Bloomberg previously reported the value and that Thrive Capital, the venture capital firm led by Josh Kushner, would lead the deal.

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Paytm's parent One 97 Communications Ltd shifts nodal Account to Axis Bank

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OpenAI's Sam Altman seeks US government nod for AI chips venture: report

Altman, who is reportedly working on a new business that could boost global chip manufacturing, has told potential investors and partners that he cannot move forward without a green light from Washington, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

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All you need to know about the EU's landmark digital content law

The EU's milestone legislation known as the Digital Services Act demands that digital companies crack down on illegal and problematic content. These large platforms must assess the risks linked to their services with regards to the spread of illegal content and privacy infringements.

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Karnataka plans to levy cess on online transactions to fund welfare of gig workers

The State Government plans to levy a cess on online transactions to fund the welfare of gig workers. The government will introduce the Platform-Based Gig Workers Fund and Welfare Fee Bill to provide livelihood security and insurance. Bengaluru has an estimated 200,000 plus gig workers.

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Mumbai emerging as preferred startup destination, say founders, investors

The financial capital's fast pace of infrastructure development and increasing access to capital and talent is attracting startup founders and investors.

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US Senate hearing: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologises for social media impact on children

Under prodding from Republican senator Josh Hawley, Zuckerberg stood up and addressed families who held up pictures of their children who they said had been harmed by social media.

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Udaan FMCG biz head Vinay Shrivastava quits; fourth senior exit since Sept’23

Udaan's FMCG business head, Vinay Shrivastava, has resigned amid a series of senior exits at the B2B e-commerce firm. Shrivastava, with nearly four years at Udaan, contributed to significant growth in market share and business. Udaan is restructuring its teams and business verticals, merging essentials with discretionary business. Shrivastava's departure follows the exits of the group CFO and other senior executives since September 2023. The company recently raised $340 million in Series E, but its valuation reportedly fell to around $1.8 billion in a down round.

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