One Thing Today in Tech
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India PM Modi's Twitter account 'briefly compromised'; EU may okay Microsoft-Nuance deal; 'Ubiquitous' software flaw found
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter account was "briefly compromised," according to a statement from his office, on Sunday. It has since been secured. The EU may okay Microsoft's planned purchase of Nuance, Reuters reports. Plus, cyber experts around the world have warned of a widely accessible software vulnerability in a popular piece of code, Log4j 2, written in the Java language
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Biden signs order for the US to buy electric; Amazon fined $1.3 bln in Italy; Architect Balkrishna Doshi named for RIBA gold medal 2022
US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on December 8 outlining a multi-billion-dollar plan for the federal government to achieve 'net zero' by 2050, The Verge reports. Amazon has been fined $1.28 billion in Italy for anti-competitive behaviour. Tim Berners-Lee's startup raises funding. Plus, Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi has been named for the RIBA gold medal for 2022
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General Bipin Rawat—India mourns death of first Chief of Defence Staff in a helicopter crash
General Bipin Rawat (63), India's first Chief of Defence Staff, his wife Madhulika, and 11 other military personnel were killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday. The Russian-made Mi-17V5 helicopter crashed near Coonoor municipality, in the Nilgiri hills, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The exact cause of the crash, which happened in foggy weather around noon, isn't clear yet, and an investigation is on
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Facebook sued by Rohingya for $150 bln; AWS had an outage; Microsoft adds dark mode to Notepad; 5G may interfere with aeroplane altimeters
Facebook, now called Meta, is being sued for more than $150 billion by dozens of Rohingya refugees in the UK and US, accusing the social media giant of allowing hate speech against them to spread, BBC reports. Amazon Web Services, the world's biggest cloud services provider, had an outage on Tuesday centred around its US-East-1 region (data centre). Plus, for Notepad lovers, Microsoft has added a dark mode
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BBC investigates Byju's sales and culture; Jeff Bezos Earth Fund makes more grants; Pinterest buys Vochi; WhatsApp adds auto-delete feature
The BBC reports that an investigation has revealed allegations made by parents as well as employees against Byju's India's most valuable startup. Byju's has denied the allegations. Jeff Bezos's Earth Fund has made $443 million in fresh grants; Pinterest expands video capabilities, buying Vochi and WhatsApp adds auto-delete functionality to chats
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Elon Musk 'making the rules', ESA chief warns; Clearview's face tech closer to US patent; Zomato invests in Curefit; Spider-Verse sequel's first trailer out
Elon Musk is being allowed to "make the rules" himself for the world's space tech industry, Josef Aschbacher, European Space Agency's new chief, warns in an interview with Financial Times. In the US, Clearview AI's controversial facial recognition tech is only some fees away from a federal patent, Politico reports. And, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One), is the title of the next Miles Morales adventure
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LinkedIn is now also available in Hindi; Big Tech may challenge India's data law; $120mln drained in a crypto heist; plus, Google is making a smartwatch
LinkedIn has started supporting Hindi, the first Indian regional language on the professional network, with the goal to support 600 million Hindi language speakers globally, the company said in a press release. Big Tech is preparing to challenge India's data protection law, ET reports. Another crypto heist happened, this time, draining $120 million. Google, the internet search giant, is planning to launch its smartwatch next year
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Amazon starts $10mln Machine Learning scholarship; US to quiz crypto executives; Microsoft releases Teams for SMBs; CRED buys Happay
At its re:Invent conference, Amazon Web Services announced two new initiatives to make machine learning more accessible—including a $10 million scholarship programme to make AI and ML education accessible to poor students around the world. US lawmakers will quiz some of the biggest crypto companies next week. Microsoft has released a cheaper, standalone version of its Teams collaboration software, Teams Essentials, aimed at smaller businesses. Kunal Shah's CRED buys Happay—which provides corporate expense management in India
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UK orders Meta to sell Giphy; Twitter tightens privacy rules; Microsoft shareholders ask for a report on sexual harassment; Xiaomi Note 11 5G launches
Facebook's parent company, Meta, has been ordered to sell Giphy by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, BBC reports. Meta, until recently known as Facebook, bought the GIF-sharing search engine last year in a deal reportedly valued at $315 million. Separately, Facebook's crypto chief is leaving. Twitter has banned sharing private media without permission. And Xiaomi's latest budget 5G to be available in India soon
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Special briefing: Mark Papermaster—CTO at AMD—on high-performance computing, AI, India, and his passion for engineering
Mark Papermaster wears multiple hats within AMD—where he is chief technology officer and executive vice president—and in the semiconductor industry and forums such as the IEEE. Papermaster is one of the people credited with AMD's turnaround over the last decade—a turnaround for which CEO Lisa Su became a widely acclaimed business leader. In conversation with Forbes India, Papermaster talks about what helped AMD, the future of semiconductors, the company's work in India, and his advice to aspiring engineers
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India says don't preorder Starlink yet; Australia mulling 'anti-trolling' law; and Prakash Ramamurthy on staying true to the customer at Freshworks
India's telecom ministry has advised people to not buy Starlink connections because the company doesn't have a license yet to sell its satellite internet connections in the country. Australia's prime minister has proposed an 'anti-trolling' law for social media. Plus, Prakash Ramamurthy—CPO at Freshworks—talks about never losing sight of what customers want in product development