TECHNOLOGY
Twitter reveals 6 key consumer insights in India amid pandemic
According to the 'Twitter Trends Report 2021', the six trends that dominate conversations in India are -- Wellbeing, Creator Culture, Everyday Wonder, One Planet, Tech Life and My Identity. To reach this conclusion, Twitter studied millions of Tweets from January 2020-June 2021 and compared them to Tweets from the previous 18 months to learn more about what conversations people were having on Twitter in India.
Twitter shuts US offices, tech giants in huddle after new CDC rules
The microblogging platform reopened the offices just two weeks ago on July 12. "Twitter has made the decision to close our opened offices in New York and San Francisco as well as pause future office reopenings, effective immediately," a company spokesperson told TechCrunch on Wednesday. "We're continuing to closely monitor local conditions and make necessary changes that prioritise the health and safety of our Tweeps,".
Samsung sells 60 million phones in Q2, eyes growth via foldables
The South Korean giant said it sold 60 million units of handsets in the second quarter, down from 81 million units in the previous quarter, with the portion of smartphones reaching the mid-90 percent range. Its tablet sales reached 8 million units, same as the first quarter. Overall, Samsung's IT and Mobile Communications (IM) division had a relatively tepid performance due to the resurgence of Covid-19 in major markets.
Facebook expects significant growth slowdown for rest of 2021
The social network, which reported $29.08 billion in revenue for the second quarter with daily active users (DAUs) at 1.91 billion, said that it expects slower growth in the third and fourth quarters of 2021. "We expect year-over-year total revenue growth rates to decelerate significantly on a sequential basis as we lap periods of increasingly strong growth," the company said in a statement late on Wednesday.
Spotify now has 165 million premium subscribers
It's a year-over-year increase of 20 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively, and up from the 158 million subscribers and 356 million MAUs reported in the last quarter. "Q2 was a strong quarter for Spotify overall, with the majority of our major metrics performing better than expected," Daniel Ek, Spotify CEO and founder, said in a statement.
Dell topples Samsung Mobiles as India's most desired brand: TRA Research
It has risen, from previous year's sixth position, to beat four-time leader Samsung Mobiles. Mi from Xiaomi became the second most desired brand in India gaining ten ranks from the 2020 report. Home-bound consumers showed a high preference for televisions and ranked LG Televisions third with a climb of twelve ranks over the previous year, closely followed by Samsung (television) at fourth rank.
Google announces new bug bounty platform
Jan Keller, technical programme manager for Google's VRP, wrote on a blogpost that the company is now unveiling a new platform -- bughunters.google.com -- for bug hunters to submit issues. "This new site brings all of our VRPs (Google, Android, Abuse, Chrome and Play) closer together and provides a single intake form that makes it easier for bug hunters to submit issues," Keller said.
LG to finally sell iPhones at S Korean stores: Report
The company is expected to start selling iPhones at some of its stores in August. It is also expected to sell other products made by Apple, such as the Apple Watch, among other gadgets. "LG was initially met with resistance from local phone distributors over the plan, which considered it to be a violation of an agreement that prevented anti-competitive behaviour from LG and Samsung," the report said.
Twitter tests notification banner for suspended, locked accounts
The notices, announced on Tuesday, will show up as a banner at the top of your feed. These are currently in testing across a small percentage of Twitter users on iOS, Android and the web, a Twitter spokesperson was quoted as saying by The Verge. "The company is testing this feature after getting feedback from users that they realised they were suspended or locked and in read-only mode only after trying to tweet or follow new accounts," the spokesperson added.
Microsoft aiming to tap 3 billion gamers globally: Satya Nadella
Nadella said that gaming is the largest category in the entertainment industry and the company is aiming to reach the world's 3 billion gamers wherever and whenever they play. "We are all-in on games. At E3 last month, we unveiled our biggest games lineup ever, announcing 27 new titles, which will all be available to Game Pass subscribers," Nadella said during an earnings call on Tuesday.
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