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Paytm

Paytm Suffers Almost Tripled Losses in FY19 due to Additional Expenses on Promotions

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Online banking and payment apps have made life a lot easier, and the rewards we get on the payments are a plus. Paytm being the earliest and the biggest player in the country has been the most used payment app. But with the arrival of other payment apps, the former has to face some good losses. Reportedly, Paytm’s parent company has suffered a 165% extended loss for the financial year that ended on 31st March.

The company reported a total of Rs 3959 crore ($549 million) loss which is triple times up its last year’s losses, i.e., 1490 crore ($206 million). Going further, collectively, One97 Communication, including its other business, had to suffer a loss of Rs 4217.20 crore ($584 million), which is way above its last year’s losses, and that is Rs 1604.34 crore ($222 million).

“The company has incurred huge capital expenditure in creating a brand and establishing its business activity. We have incurred a considerable amount in various capital & operational expenditures which resulted in losses during the financial year,” said the company in the annual report.

Paytm
Image Source: forbes.com

Despite the losses, even the revenue of the company is up from its last year’s, i.e., Rs 3232 crore ($448 million) from Rs 3052 crore ($423 million). And, the company is even planning to invest a $3 billion for the growth of its business. According to its previous announcement, the company is even looking forward to going public with the next two year. But seeing its past expenditures, the company had spent a lot in the promotion of its app than it earned from it. So amid the raised competition, it has to be careful about its spendings in the coming future.

“For the last two years, we have been investing $1 billion each year to expand the digital payments ecosystem in our country. We will further invest about $3 billion in the next two years to scale the same,” said a Paytm spokesperson.

There has been a tough competition for Paytm as there are not less than ten payments (national and international) apps that are offering people exclusive offers along with the easy payments. Most of the big companies have brought their payments app, Google Pay and PhonePe, being the ruling party among of all. In fact, UPI-based apps like PhonePe are backed by the government and are even more flexible for the payments than Paytm. So it has become quite difficult for the company to stay firm in the market.

But according to the company, it is safe and is already spending on expending and strengthening its business and has claimed that the next year, there won’t be such losses. For now, the company is entirely focusing on its payments bank, insurance and insurance broking, travel ticketing, hotel and mobile wallet services, etc.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 and 6 Series

The Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 and 6 Series will be the Low-Budget 5G Chipsets

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4G has made life a lot faster, and now, 5G is the next big thing the people are looking forward to. Till now, only a few companies have been able to get their hands on this technology, including Oppo Reno, Samsung Galaxy S, One Plus 7, etc., Qualcomm being the biggest chipmaker to provide them with the 5G modem.

Till now, Qualcomm had been offering the handsets makers with the separate 5G modem. But recently the company had announced that it will be including the 5G technology in its upcoming 8xx series 5G platform. That means, no separate modems but the 5G technology integrated to the processor itself. Adding to that, now the company has announced that the mid-range Snapdragon 6xx and 7xx chipsets will also have the 5G technology included into them.

The company announced its new Snapdragon 7xx and 6xx series 5G processors at the ongoing IFA event in Berlin, Germany. The announcement also revealed that there will be an extended range of 5G technology that will offer the support for technologies like the sub-6Ghz and mmWave spectrums, TDD and FDD modes, 5G multi-SIM, and Standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) network architectures, etc.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 and 6 Series
Image Source: techblog.comsoc.org

Also, the new Qualcomm chipsets will make a large range of devices, mid-price or expensive, support 5G.Which is kind of the main purpose behind the release of the new chipset, i.e., to make the 5G technology available to almost everyone, not to the ones with expensive devices. “The transition to 5G is going to be faster than earlier transitions. Now we have to bring it to everyone,” said the Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon.

According to the announcement, the company has already partnered with twelve smartphone makers for integrating the new Snapdragon 7 series 5G chipset into their upcoming 5G smartphones. This list of partners includes names like Oppo, Vivo, Nokia, LG, etc.

The announcement by the company did not reveal the actual dates of availability of these new chipsets in the market but has given us the time slot when the markets can have them. Qualcomm has already talked about releasing the 8xx series 5G platform by the end of this year, whereas we can expect the Snapdragon 7xx series 5G platform to roll out by the fourth quarter of this year, and the release of the 6xx series 5G platform may take place in the second quarter of 2020.

Samsung Klaytnphone

Samsung is Launching a Blockchain Smartphone Named KlaytnPhone

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Samsung is releasing its foldable smartphone today in its home country, and along with that, the company has come with another announcement that includes a new blockchain-based smartphone. Yes, a post from Wall Streat Journal has revealed that Samsung is working on a new flagship smartphone that will support cryptocurrency and will be called as “KlaytnPhone.”

The company has already got about ten smartphones’ release this year, including the Samsung Galaxy Fold, Galaxy S10s, Galaxy Note 10s, and now, it looks like the company is not stopping on them only. Samsung has chosen the name KlaytnPhone for its blockchain smartphone, which is inspired by a South Korean cryptocurrency built by the subsidiary company, Ground X Corp, of Korean internet company Kakao.

The smartphone actually belongs to the Galaxy Note 10 series and has got most of the features similar to the smartphones in this series. But there will be an inbuilt crypto wallet and support for blockchain included in it. Like the foldable smartphone from Samsung, for the time being, KlaytnPhone will also be available only in South Korea. According to the WSJ, the early buyers will also get a specified amount of cryptocurrency coins, i.e., Klay from Ground X Corp.

Samsung Klaytnphone
Image Source: digitaltrends.com

Klay is a newly launched cryptocurrency that Kakao released last year in October through its spin-off arm Klaytn. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain have been a topic of discussion for all. And, even being around for the past decade, there have been many questions about the authenticity of these technologies. But most of the big tech companies have always stood in favour of it. So the main purpose of Samsung to develop such a smartphone may be to get people familiar with this very technology and make it more user-friendly.

According to the reports, the prices for the new KlaytnPhone will start at $1000. There have been no comments from the company as yet, and if believed, according to Cointelegraph’s reports, Samsung has already launched a blockchain supporting smartphone in March this year, which is Galaxy S10. The company was also planning to build its own cryptocurrency and has invested $2.9 million into the French cryptocurrency company Ledger.

samsung galaxy fold

Samsung Galaxy Fold Finally Ready for its First Launch in Korea

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The much anticipated Samsung Galaxy Fold have been quite in trouble since the company had announced the very smartphone. There were problems with its screen as it was prone to damage when folded, but after all, it is a foldable phone. So the company had to delay the launch of the smartphone to make improvements to make its screen stronger. And, after five months of its actual release date, the company is ready for the very smartphone’s first release.

The company has finally set 6th September as its launch date, and the first country, to be getting its hands on the smartphone, is Korea. Though the company had already mentioned that the smartphone will be arriving in September, there was no announcement about the actual date.

“The category-defining Galaxy Fold is a device that defies the barriers of traditional smartphone design. Now, we’re excited to release this pioneering mobile technology, and allow consumers to experience it for themselves,” said DJ Koh, President and CEO of IT & Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics.

samsung galaxy fold

The new smartphone will take a bit longer to reach the other countries, including the US, the UK France, Germany, Singapore, etc. Some of the “select” countries will also get the 5G version of the same. The smartphone will be available in two colours, i.e., Silver and Black.

Along with the new Samsung Galaxy Fold, the company is also launching a new service named “Galaxy Fold Premier Service,” which will help the users on how to use and handle the new smartphone. It is expected the service will be free of cost and offer an in-person consultation for the users, and Samsung will be appointing experts for the task. These experts will guide the users on how to protect and carefully use the smartphone.

The reason for launching such a service is that the company do not want to take any risks. Though Samsung was ready to launch the smartphone in the spring-time frame, it had to delay the launch due to the wrong went testing of the smartphone. Many of the reviewers whom the company had sent the smartphone for the tests, returned it back damaged. But after Samsung has done some tough work on the same, it wants to train people how to handle it, so that the blame of any sort of damage does not go entirely to the company.

firefox etp

Mozilla Turns the ETP (Enhanced Tracking Protection) By Default On for Every Users

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The users’ privacy has always been the biggest concern of all the browsers working out there. Safari from Apple has been at the top when it comes to maintaining the user’s privacy, and slowly, the other browsers are also taking a step forward in the same regard.

Another browser maker, Mozilla, has also announced that the Firefox will now have by default privacy from the third-party tracking software, through its Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) feature. Though the company had introduced the very privacy feature last year in October, and even, made it official in June this year, the users had to manually turn on the feature. But from today onwards, the feature will be by default on for everyone.

The feature is integrated with the new version of Firefox, i.e. Firefox version 69. And, users who will upgrade their browser, whether on desktop or over their Android smartphones, they will also get the feature turned on by default. With ETP, the browser will also be blocking the cookies that are set by websites that want to steal the information, like user behaviour to send ads to the users or to sell the information further to other companies.

firefox etp
Image Source: mozilla.org

The new ETP feature will also take an action on the crypto mining or cryptojacking by blocking it by default for every user. Cryptomining is a type of malware that is capable of taking over the resources of a computer, draining the CPU as well as the battery. Cryptomining that runs in the background is responsible for ruining the user experience.

The company announced the news through a blog post, where it also said, “Currently over 20% of Firefox users have Enhanced Tracking Protection on. With today’s release, we expect to provide protection for 100% of ours users by default. Enhanced Tracking Protection works behind-the-scenes to keep a company from forming a profile of you based on their tracking of your browsing behaviour across websites — often without your knowledge or consent.”

Since the release of the feature in June, the company have been testing it in different use cases, and according to it, the feature is ready to provide complete protection to its users. From now on, with the latest version of Firefox, the users will see a shield icon beside the address bar on the left. By clicking on the shield they can see which of the companies have been blocked by ETP.

Android 10

Canadian Telco Rogers Says Android 10 is Coming to Pixels on 3rd September

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People are currently waiting for the launch of new iPhones and iOS 13, and there comes the launch date of Google’s Android Q (Android 10). Yes, two Canadian mobile operators, i.e. Rogers and Telus, has revealed the rumoured release date for the OS, and that too, for everyone’s surprise is today. Yes, news that both the operators had posted on their websites say that Google is releasing its latest OS, i.e. Android 10 on 3rd September.

Though there has been no confirmation from Google, and even Rogers has removed the news from its website, Telus has still got the date printed on its website. It was the leading news hosting website, 9to5Google, that spotted the posts over the webpages of both the carriers. The company also took the screenshot of the same on the website. So the mobile operators are not in the state to deny it.

The post on Telus’s website has got the mention of the release date of the OS as well as the new security updates that the OS will be bringing with it. Believing the news, the new OS will arrive on the eight of the Pixel series Google smartphones. These smartphones include the original Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL.

Android 10
Image Source: cybermagonline.com

People were already expecting the release of the Android OS to be in August. As, for the past few years, the company has been releasing its OSs, including the Android 7 “Nougat”, Android 8 “Oreo”, and Android 9 “Pie”, in the month of August.

Google released the final beta of Android 10 for the testers at the beginning of August. And with the release, Google had also said that the “public release is a few weeks away.” But till now there has been no news from Google in this regard. The beta was available for all companies’ smartphones, including Samsung, Nokia, LG, OnePlus, Huawei, etc., but the original release will still be on the Pixel phones first. So the other companies’ smartphones yet need to wait a few more weeks or months to get the OS. But we cannot say that even the Pixels will get the OS today until Google confirms it.

The latest OS from Android will cover a few security patches as well as new features. The expected features for the Android Q includes the improved gesture controls, dark mode, as well as some accessibility features.