It is necessary to understand the impacts of AR/VR on psychological wellbeing and addiction
How big is Apple?
Apple is 20 times bigger than the net worth of the two wealthiest narcotic dealers combined
Emerging Agritech Revolution in India
The agritech revolution has empowered farmers to get better quality inputs, timely information ,
access to markets and thereby the potential to yield higher income levels.
India’s Media & Entertainment report 2020 by KPMG
Gaming was the fastest-growing segment with a rapid increase in consumption translating partially into monetization, although from a lower revenue base
Market value of big fintech rises to $1 trillion, more than the largest banks
Square, Visa, PayPal and MasterCard are collectively worth $1.07 trillion, while the “big six” banks, which include JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are worth less than $900 billion in total
China becomes the largest 5G market in terms of user size
China has sold over 93 million units of 5G mobile phones this year so far
Slack’s customer acquisition
While customer growth amounted to 30% year-over-year overall, the number of organizations spending over $1 million annually was up 78% over last year’s July quarter
Google releases Android 11
Extend your apps with conversation notifications and bubbles, try one-time permissions, surface devices and media in the controls
Tencent loses $34 billion since the PUBG ban in India
India was one of the biggest markets for PUBG with the game earning Rs 22,500 crore from the Indian market till July 2020
Facebook Watch gets 1.25 billion+ visitors every month
Facebook Watch launched in 2018. Back in June of last year, the company said that 720 million people were watching at least one minute of Watch content every month.
Facebook updates hate speech detection ahead of Myanmar election
The social media firm will limit message forwarding, and use its improved AI to remove hate speech
State Of Retail Tech (H1’20)
Covid-19 has reeled in retail tech funding in 2020. Investors particularly scaled back funding in Q2’20 as the impact of the pandemic set in.
Xiaomi unveils under-display camera technology
Xiaomi announced that it will officially kick-start mass production of smartphones equipped with the 3rd Generation Under-Display Camera next year
Microsoft introduces Hindi and English to Neural Text-to-Speech
Neural TTS is a part of the Azure Cognitive Services and converts text to lifelike speech for a more natural interface
44.8 Gigapixel Image of ‘The Night Watch’
A museum in Amsterdam has uploaded a scan of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch painting that’s so detailed you can see individual brushstrokes and cracks in the paint
Principles of App Design
UX work happens “behind the scenes”. You are not bothered by it unless it is deficient.
Disruptive Innovation Theory
An innovation that is disruptive allows a whole new population of consumers at the bottom of market access to a product or service that was historically only accessible to consumers with a lot of money or a lot of skill
Facebook to Pay $650 Million to Settle Facial Recognition Suit
Lead plaintiff Nimesh Patel sued Facebook in 2015 in one of three consolidated class actions, claiming the social network started mapping users’ faces for its “Photo Tag Suggest” function in 2011
Google’s Kormo Jobs to help job seekers in India
In addition to helping users identify open calls for entry-level roles, the Kormo Jobs app is also designed to help them learn new skills, and easily create a CV.
10/20/30 Rule of Presenting
A presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.
US Bankruptcies at 10-year high
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy, bankruptcies are on track to hit the highest level in at least 10 years
Did Fortnite just kill the App Store as we know it?
Epic Games’ Fortnite offered a direct in-app payment system bypassing apple’s (with 30% cut) & google’s; violating their rules and got itself removed. Fortnite has now charged them for being anti-competitive, claiming that app stores are monopolies. The gaming giant’s move is ‘revolutionary’ because it may disrupt the app-store business of Google and Apple. •… Continue reading Did Fortnite just kill the App Store as we know it?
India’s online food delivery sector update
After about a decade since online food ordering through aggregators began in India, the space today is at an interesting juncture.
Megatrends 2020 and beyond
Primary forces are the root causes of disruption: technology, globalization, demographics and
environment
Russia registers world’s first coronavirus vaccine
Russia first to register coronavirus vaccine worldwide, Putin claims, saying his daughter has had it
Canada’s Last Fully Intact Arctic Ice Shelf Collapses
The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days at the end of July
Google introduces people cards
Google said the more information a user provides, the easier it would be for others to find them on Google Search.
China has the highest mobile payment adoption
Average Chinese consumer is projected to spend around US$1,600 with payment apps in 2020
Mukesh Ambani now world’s 4th richest person
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest people
Video Game sales shine amid pandemic
Aside from watching Netflix, playing video games is one of the few activities perfectly suited for life in a pandemic
India FinTech Report
India has the highest FinTech adoption rate globally of 87% which is significantly higher than the global average rate of 64%
Google Music begins shutdown
Google is making these big moves now that its YouTube Music service is in full swing as its replacement
Delhi’s EV Policy 2020
The Delhi government launched electric vehicle policy in an effort to promote EVs in the national capital and reduce air pollution.
586 startup unicorns in the world
E-commerce, Fintech, AI and SaaS are top 4 core competence sectors of world’s unicorns, making up 45.9% of the sectoral universe of these unicorns
Digital around the world in 2020
The average internet user now spends 6 hours and 43 minutes online each day. That’s 3 minutes less than this time last year, but still equates to more than 100 days of connected time per internet user, per year.
How to decide whether a project is worth pursuing
Interest: do you think about it in your free time and bring it up in random conversations? Importance: will it benefit others? Contribution: do you have something novel to add? Source: AdamGrant
Digital 2020: India
The number of internet users in India increased by 128 million (+23%) between 2019 and 2020
Lockdown could have caused more deaths than it saved
Michael Levitt is a Nobel Prize-winning structural biology professor at Stanford who has been tracking the coronavirus consistently for the past six months.
Python, R, and SQL are the most required data science skills
Boasting a median base salary of $110,000, as well as a job satisfaction score of 4.4 out of 5, data scientist role had claimed the top spot on Glassdoor’s Best Jobs in America list in 2017 and 2016.
Alphabet revenue dropped in Q2 2020, the first decline since going public
Google parent Alphabet’s quarterly sales fell for the first time in its 16 years as a public company, but the decline was less than expected as many advertisers stuck with the most popular online search engine during the pandemic. Shares of Alphabet fell 1.2% to $1,518.85 after it released the second-quarter results.
Apple tops Saudi Aramco as the most valuable public company
Last up 6.2% at $408.78 in midday trading, Apple’s market capitalization stood at $1.748 trillion. After Apple bought back $16 billion worth of shares in the June quarter, it had 4,275,634,000 outstanding shares, as of July 17
UPI payments at record high in July
United Payments Interface (UPI) transactions in July surged to highest ever tally of 1.49 billion, with the total value of transactions carried out also touching a lifetime high of Rs 2.9 lakh crore
Apple buys startup to turn iPhones into payment terminals
Apple has acquired Mobeewave, a startup with technology that could transform iPhones into mobile payment terminals, according to people familiar with the matter.
Russian Crypto Scams Triple in First Half of 2020
Cybersecurity firms have identified an exponential rise in crypto-related scams in Russia during the first half of 2020. Researchers identified 23,000 sites involved with crypto scams that are still online and targeting new victims.
Rafale Still Playing Catchup With European Competitors
Despite the success of the India deal, the Rafale is still trailing its major European competitors in sales. Along with India and France, the jet is also in service with Egypt and Qatar
eToro Plans to Launch Debit Card in UK Ahead of Robinhood
Investment app eToro is to launch a debit card, following its acquisition of Marq Millions Ltd, the U.K. based e-money business. Marq Millions will now trade as eToro Money and will be the issuer for eToro’s card. The acquisition was for an undisclosed amount, and the Marq Millions management team stays on.
Iran Permits Power Plants To Mine Bitcoin
Iran has reportedly issued permits for 14 bitcoin mining farms and will cut up to 47% off of the electricity tariff in order to support authorized cryptocurrency mining centers. Crypto miners will soon have to register with the government.
Dubai Debuts Nationwide Data Platform Powered by Blockchain
Dubai’s Department of Economic Development, or DED, and state-run bank Emirates NBD are rolling out their so-called UAE KYC Blockchain Platform
Top Machine Learning Algorithms, Frameworks, Tools and Products used by Data Scientists
• Top algorithms used were linear/logistic regression, decision trees/random forests and Gradient Boosting Machines • The most used machine learning frameworks were Scikit-learn and TensorFlow • Top tools for machine learning automation were related to model selection and data augmentation • The top products used were Google Cloud ML Engine, Azure ML Studio and Amazon… Continue reading Top Machine Learning Algorithms, Frameworks, Tools and Products used by Data Scientists
Bird’s eye view of the Indian IT industry
• In FY20, Indian IT-BPM industry generated $191bn revenue (75% from export) and employed >4.3mn people • Indian IT industry provides IT services, Engineering R&D, Products and Business Process Management services • Geography-wise, the USA contributes around 2/3 of India’s IT revenue followed by Europe • Indian IT industry, which flourished during Y2K crisis, has… Continue reading Bird’s eye view of the Indian IT industry
Investors have deserted Intel, piled into TSMC
• Like 10nm chipsets earlier, Intel’s 7nm designs may also face delays while AMD moved to 7nm chips this year, and Qualcomm has moved to even smaller 5nm designs • After CEO Bob Swan said Intel is considering outsourcing, the company’s shares slumped 16% • Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) produces more than a billion… Continue reading Investors have deserted Intel, piled into TSMC
Towards the Giant India SaaS Opportunity
Key highlights of ‘RIDING THE STORM- Towards the Giant India SaaS Opportunity | July 2020’ by Nasscom: Indian SaaS Revenues at $3.5 Billion in FY2020, growing at 30% with global sales accounting for 75% of revenues Chennai has emerged as the “SaaS capital” (generating $1+ billion in revenue) due to the presence of leading SaaS… Continue reading Towards the Giant India SaaS Opportunity
Wealth exodus from China continues
Australia has been named the top destination for migrating millionaires Australia and the US were consistently named at the top of the world’s immigration “wish lists.” Australia was named the top destination for millionaires because of its low crime rate, strong school system, first-class healthcare system and growing economy Source: VisualCapitalist
Ethereum futures open interest reaches an all-time high of $1 billion
The open interest, or total value of contracts that have not yet been settled, on Ethereum futures has passed the $1 billion mark, according to market analytics firm Skew.
Incremental working-age population
• By 2030, close to 1/5 of the world’s working-age population will be Indian. • An average of 10 million Indians will join the working-age population each year until 2030 (110mn cumulative; close to the population of the Philippines). • China’s working-age population, peaked in 2015 and is on track to decline by 27mn by… Continue reading Incremental working-age population
Highlights of the PLI Scheme by Department of Pharmaceuticals
The Department of Pharmaceuticals launched a ‘Production Linked Incentive Scheme’ on 21st July 2020, to address the constraints in the manufacturing of medical devices in India.
Global Startup Ecosystem
• Asia-Pacific went from having 20% of all top ecosystems in 2012 to 30% today • Silicon Valley remains the top performer in value creation and exits, with ecosystems like London, New York and Beijing also performing strongly • São Paulo, Salt Lake-Provo and Delhi punch above their weight in translating successful startups into subsequent… Continue reading Global Startup Ecosystem
5G patents
• Huawei has the largest declared 5G portfolio, followed by Samsung and ZTE • Qualcomm and Intel are the largest US companies holding declared 5G patent families • Sharp and NTT DOCOMO are the largest Japanese 5G declaring companies • When counting granted 5G patents, Samsung owns the largest 5G portfolio, followed by Nokia and… Continue reading 5G patents
How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users
1. Just 7 strategies cover every consumer apps’ early growth. 2. Most startups found their early users from just a single strategy. 3. The most popular strategies involve going to users directly — online, offline and through friends. 4. To execute any of these strategies, it is important to first narrowly define the target users. 5. The tactics to get your first… Continue reading How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users
Time on social media
• On average, global internet users spent 2 hours and 23 minutes on social media sites everyday • Emerging markets spend the most time on social networks, perhaps due to younger demographics • With a comparatively older population, the Japanese spend less than an hour staying connected digitally
Robotics-as-a-service
What is RaaS (Robotics-as-a-service)?Performing tasks by robots/ embedded electronics/ IoT, connected via cloud; benefited by tech like Data Analytics, ML, etc. Why RaaS?Robots made an impact in the automotive and manufacturing sectors, but RaaS can enable IoT and robotic automation for SMEs at a lower cost. Platform Examples:– Google Cloud Robotics Platform– AWS Robomaker by… Continue reading Robotics-as-a-service
Evolution of Digital Payments
• 1994: First online purchase.• 1997: First mobile payments and first contactless payments.• 1999: Paypal launches electronic money transfer service.• 2003: Alibaba launches Alipay in China.• 2007: M-PESA created the first payments system for mobile phones.• 2009: Bitcoin enabled secure and untraceable payments.• 2013: WeChat Pay introduced, which by 2018 surpassed 800 million monthly active… Continue reading Evolution of Digital Payments
5 years of Digital India
• The world’s largest digital literacy program, PMG Disha, has already trained around 3 crore candidates. • JAM (JanDhan, Aadhaar and Mobile) trinity facilitated the direct benefit transfers worth more than ₹11 lakh crores, directly into the bank account of beneficiaries. • MyGov, with 1crore+ users ensured active participation of people. • Formulation of 796… Continue reading 5 years of Digital India
Instagram Reels in India
• Instagram Reels is currently being tested in India that lets users record 15-second videos with music and audio clips. • Facebook had recently shut down its TikTok clone app Lasso and was concentrating on ‘Reels’. • Facebook recently partnered with Indian music label Saregama to give access to music library for Instagram music. Source:… Continue reading Instagram Reels in India
TagHive announced pre-seriesA investment
Edtech startup TagHive has announced a pre-seriesA round of investment that takes its valuation to $10 million.
Progressive Web App (PWA)
A middle ground between a mobile-friendly website and a mobile app, PWAs deliver a mobile app-like experience.
Contribution of Smartphones to Digital Governance in India
Key highlights of Contribution of Smartphones to Digital Governance in India by ICEA and KPMG (July 2020): • India is expected to get 829 million smartphone users by 2022. • India is the fastest growing app market in the world; the top country in terms of app downloads as of 2019. • Data usage has… Continue reading Contribution of Smartphones to Digital Governance in India
Middle East FinTech Study
Key highlights of ‘Middle East FinTech Study’ by Deloitte: • The average usage of P2P money transfer solutions among banking customers in the Middle East is 42% • 22% of customers use FinTech solutions/features with money transfers the most popular one • Qataris with a medium-range income constitute the core market of consumers • Peer-to-peer… Continue reading Middle East FinTech Study
Reliance India’s 2020 AGM
Key announcements at Reliance India’s 2020 AGM include: • Jio5G: India’s first 5G network• Google’s investment for 7.7% stake in Jio• Google-Jio to develop an Android-based platform for an affordable 5G phone• JioMeet to expand into edutech and healthtech• Expansion of JioMart with WhatsApp as a platform• JioGlass: Affordable MR headset for commercial applications Source:… Continue reading Reliance India’s 2020 AGM
Percentage of countries in each region offering online services (2020)
• Asia: 90% of countries offer business registration and business license application services online. • Oceania: The most commonly offered online service is applying for government vacancies (86%) and the least prevalent is registering a motor vehicle (14%). • Americas: The most popular online services (up to 94% countries) include registering a business, paying for… Continue reading Percentage of countries in each region offering online services (2020)
More than half of the world now uses social media
• Social media users have grown by more than 10% over the past year, taking the global total to 3.96 billion by the start of July 2020. • An average of 1 million+ people started using social media for the first time every single day over the past 12 months, equating to almost 12 new… Continue reading More than half of the world now uses social media
Global Landscape of Data Centres
• 463 exabytes (1 Quintillion bytes) of data will be created each day globally by 2025 • Global data centers market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 15.1% over the forecast period from 2019-2025 • Americas lead with 40% of market share or $68 billion in investments followed by Europe and Russia together… Continue reading Global Landscape of Data Centres
EGovernance international best cases
Germany offers the public employment service that places people in the labor world every year without independent mediation by a staff member. This is made possible by “Arbeitsamt online”, the placement service of the public employment services on the Internet. Each day roughly 250,000 people use the multifaceted offerings of this system.
Key highlights of the report on ‘How India Shops Online’
• A visitor spends less than 9 minutes per visit on an e-retail platform. • 1 in 2 visitors browse the image gallery and only 1 in 15 click the detailed product description. • Google India saw 270% year on year growth in voice search. • 500M Indian language internet users expected by 2021 (vs.… Continue reading Key highlights of the report on ‘How India Shops Online’
The billion-dollar quantum gold rush
Private investors had funded at least 52 quantum-technology companies globally since 2012, many of them are from university departments.
The Machine Justice: Rise of China’s Internet Courts
Within one year from its establishment (from August 2017 to August 2018), the Court accepted 12,103 cases and concluded 10,626 cases; more than 88% of cases were filed online and all cases were heard online with the parties’ agreement.
India’s Edtech Opportunity
The heart of EdTech surge is the US, with 43% of the world’s EdTech enterprises having their headquarters located in the USA. India has the second-highest number of EdTech startups, with 10% being located in the country. Brazil (9%), the UK (8%), and China (3%) all make it into the top 5 countries leading the way in EdTech.
Voice and vernacular language inclusion
In India, 10 Million new internet users were added every
month in the year 2018. It was also found that 90% of the
new internet users preferred regional language.
Digital Lending: A $1 Trillion opportunity for India
By the year 2023, it is estimated that MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) digital lending may increase 10-15 times to arrive at INR 6-7 Lakh Crore ($80-100 billion) worth of annual disbursements, creating a window for traditional lenders to go digital. With the growth of API based data distribution patterns and the technical know-how… Continue reading Digital Lending: A $1 Trillion opportunity for India
Growth of Digital Payments and the emergence of FinTech in India
The government of India has proved to be a catalyst in the growth of the digital payments ecosystem in the form of modernization of payment infrastructure, digital literacy and offering ease of setting up a business. The government pushed a surge of digital inclusion in the country with subsidies, programs and incentives including: BHIM cashback… Continue reading Growth of Digital Payments and the emergence of FinTech in India
Digital Tax in India: 2% Equalisation levy
Introduced in the Finance Act 2016, an “equalisation levy” at the rate of 6% (on the nonresident companies indulged in the digital advertisement space) sought to address the tax-related challenges by the growing digitization of the Indian economy. Effective from 1 April 2020, the scope has been widened to cover the levy of 2% on… Continue reading Digital Tax in India: 2% Equalisation levy
How Kerala flattened the covid curve?
Public health infrastructure:Kerala has at least two primary health centers for every three villages, which is one every 3.95 kilometers against the national average of 7.3km. Efficient contact tracing:Through contact tracing, the team was able to track nearly 98% of all primary and secondary contacts, as reported for one district. Early calamity declaration:Kerala government declared… Continue reading How Kerala flattened the covid curve?
RFID in Postal and Courier Services
RFID tags are inserted in the parcel label and when the parcels approach an RFID scanner at the carrier, the RFID label is automatically read and updated with EDI messages about the parcel via antennas. By doing so, the carrier does not have to hand scan the parcel. When the label is RFID scanned the carrier may add events to the parcel, for example sending ‘your parcel is on its way’ notification to the customer.
How can India benefit from the current shifts in demand and economic parameters?
Interventions by the Indian government in the following subjects may help benefit the business amid Coronavirus:
Investment Policy Monitor: UNCTAD (April 2020)
The economic effects of the pandemic are expected to pull FDI flows by 40%, to its lowest level of the past two decades.
Phases of response to the coronavirus epidemic
Implementations of travel restrictions, declaration of it being a pandemic by the WHO, testing of international passengers with mandatory quarantining, etc. are some of the measures that indicate that a region or a country has entered the phase of precaution. Stock market is expected to take a large hit due to the sentiment of fear.
YCombinator’s Winter 2020 Batch
Y Combinator is typically a 2-3 month programme where startup founders get to interact with industry experts as well as other founders and investors while building their business.
Digital projects’ (India): Present situation (observation) and the way forward
It can be noticed in various projects that ‘data analytics’ is often presented as just the ‘visualization of data’ with no or less ‘data science’ being involved in the analysis of data, to draw conclusions. Currently, data is not helping in making rigid future predictions but only displaying current progress.
Economic Times Global Business Summit
With the MUDRA scheme, more than Rs 11 lakh crores of loans were disbursed to first-time entrepreneurs and youth without a bank guarantee.
Fuel the growth with Market Intelligence
Market intelligence studies the external and internal sources of useful information to script an accurate prospect of market parameters that may help understand the direction of focus, for the overall growth of existing or new products and services in terms of business strategy and modeling.
Highlights: Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy 2019
• Purchase incentive of ₹5,000 per kWh of battery capacity.
• Ride-hailing service providers will be allowed to operate electric two-wheeler taxis.
10th India Investment Conference by CFA Society India.
Key points from the talk by Sir Howard Davies (Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the former Director of London School of Economics): ⁃ More cash has gone into shadow banking which is less regulated and transparent. ⁃ Big tech (like Google) is keen on fintech. The question is whether fintechs can get… Continue reading 10th India Investment Conference by CFA Society India.
Discussion on India’s Data Protection Law
MediaNama’s Discussion on India’s Data Protection Law; Jan 9, 2020, Delhi
$70B Social Commerce opportunity for India
It all started with social media giant Facebook investing an undisclosed amount in Meesho in June. Meesho is a marketplace for resellers and connects them with customers via social media channels like WhatsApp and Facebook. With this investment in Meesho, we want to fuel a business model that can result in rapid job creation and… Continue reading $70B Social Commerce opportunity for India
Digital Consciousness
The idea that digital identity can be a conscious-being operating under the digital mechanism, taking in case the philosophies of Transhumanism is not something unimaginable. The concept has been visualized by visionaries for years and is no longer a science fiction story.
HSBC settlement and the pseudo drug war
HSBC was guilty of a “blatant failure” to implement anti-money laundering controls and wilfully flouted US sanctions, American prosecutors said, as the bank was forced to pay a record $1.9bn (£1.2bn) to settle allegations it allowed terrorists to move money around the financial system.
Actions of the World Health Organisation and the real powers that control it
“H1N1 caused worldwide concern but later the declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) raised concern. Many countries including Germany, Italy, France and UK concluded secret agreements with pharmaceutical companies before the swine flu incident which obliged them to purchase swine flu vaccinations but only if the WHO issued a pandemic level 6 alert.
Distribution tactics and the imbalance of insurance premium by Valeant Pharma
Valeant Pharmaceuticals is a Canadian multinational pharmaceutical company that might have somehow been responsible for the extremely high prices on medicines in the U.S. market and have possibly manipulated the insurance system (and thus increased the cost of the insurance premium for all).
AI influencing the present and future
A quote from Ray Kurzweil says that “Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold.”
The Long Tail business theory
Long tail is a phrase popularized by Chris Anderson, former editor of WIRED Magazine, in 2004. Anderson compared Long Tail to the blockbuster or hit-driven business models of media and retail companies. Long-tail sellers change the shape of demand from “blockbuster” or “superstars” to selling large numbers of unique, niche items.