Amazon is the biggest tech company, and it has spread its arms in almost everything. And now, the company is planning to expand into the telecom industry, too. According to a report by Reuters, Amazon is planning to acquire the prepaid cellphone wireless service Boost Mobile from its parent company Sprint.
The deal with Sprint not only will make Amazon fourth largest telecom services in the US but also may provide it with the access to the T-Mobile’s wireless network for a long period of time, as both Sprint and T-Mobile are under the process of a merger. The deal between T-mobile and Sprint will be a $26 billion merger if Sprint will be able to convince antitrust regulators for the merger.
But
according to a recent report from Bloomberg, the regularity authority
does not want that the number of wireless carriers be less than four,
and the merger is actually, leading to that. So the two companies are
working towards bringing an entirely new carrier, such that they
might be giving away some of their spectrum to the new company and
finalise the merger.
Boost is a subsidiary of Sprint, but is out of the merger contract, as Sprint has already decided to sell the company. So there are no chances that after the deal, T-Mobile can own it. In fact, the company that will own Boost will have access to the Sprint’s wireless network, but not T-Mobile’s. But according to the report from Reuters, acquiring Boost will provide Amazon with access to both the company’s combined network for a span of six years.
Since the news has been making rounds, there is a questing hitting everyone’s mind, “Why Amazon would want to enter the telecom business?” It is quite simple. The company has been expanding into almost every field. It is the biggest eCommerce platform and has got its cloud computing arm. The company has got its retail stores, streaming service, and now it is also off to start its own delivery service. So why not expand into telecom?
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
Netflix is the top most loved streaming service in the world, and maybe, this is the reason that it has decided to raise prices for its monthly streaming plans. According to a report from The Guardian, the company has announced that it is going to increase the subscription fees for its UK users. Earlier, in January, the company had even raised the prices for its US subscribers.
Currently,
Netflix has got three different plans for its subscribers, including
the £5.99 per month plan applicable only for a single screen, £7.99
per month HD plan to stream on two devices at a time and the £9.99 a
month Ultra HD plan available to stream on four devices at a time.
According
to the report, the basic plan, applicable for a single screen will
remain the same, whether the company will hike the price for both the
HD and Ultra HD, i.e. for the two screens and the four screen plan.
After the change in the price, the HD plan with a rise of £1 will
cost £8.99 per month, and the price of Ultra HD will be increased by
£2, i.e. £11.99 per month.
After
the US, Netflix has raised the prices for the UK, giving the reason
that it is working on new projects to bring original content to the
platform. The company is also pushing hard to get the license for the
popular shows to be streamed on Netflix, including Friend.
Noticeably, Netflix is already streaming Friends on the platform
under a $100 million deal, which will be over by the end of 2019.
Amid the risen competition from the contemporaries like Disney, Amazon, BBC, and the other emerging streaming services, Netflix is well aware of the steps that it needs to take in order to stay ahead of the competition.
The
company has already invested hundreds of millions of pounds into UK
content, so by raising the price, it is only trying to get a stable
position in the market and bring more good content to the platform.
The price rise has already come into effect, as the old subscribers
will be charged with the new prices on the renewal of their plans,
and the new users will need to pay the new subscription fee for
joining the plans.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
In this era, where the world is
getting transformed into a global village, every single individual
wishes to stay updated about all aspects of development, including
the latest technologies, new trends in the scientific world,
start-ups, new gadgets, in fact, about every news related to
technology. Since it is contributing to most of our expansion, the
technology seems to catch most of the attention from every community
and nation.
TechCrunch is one online publisher
that has created a firm base on the sphere of technology reporting on
the latest trends of the Sci-Fi world. Well, undoubtedly it does more
than just displaying news, and is a hotspot of knowledge for every
tech lover.
TechCrunch is an America-based business, which was founded in June 2005 by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. The company has its headquarters in the Bay Area, United States.
Michael Arrington
J. Michael Arrington was born on 13th March 1970, in California. He has a major in economics and is a former lawyer, graduated from Stanford Law School in 1995.
Image Source: thenextweb.com
Before founding TechCrunch, he was involved with many other endeavouring businesses. He was a part of RealNames that raised $100 million in funding as a startup. He was the co-founder of Achex, an online payment company. Zip. Ca, Pool.com, Razorgator, Edgeio and Folders are some of his biggest achievements, apart from TechCrunch. He also invested in Uber, Airbnb and Pinterest.
Michael Arrington had a huge
contribution to the creation and growth of TechCrunch, even though,
he is no longer the CEO of the company. Arrington is well known both,
as a blogger and an entrepreneur. He has absolutely changed the idea
of blogging for people who are passionate about it. According to him,
‘if you have to maintain a blog you need to update it every day,
which makes it very tiresome. But if it is user-generated, it will
make your blog even more informative as contribution will be much
higher as compared to you alone.’
Michael Arrington believes in writing posts on stories that can easily go viral without putting so much hard work. Since blogging is what changed the fate of TechCrunch, Arrington can be considered as one of the most efficient tech bloggers in the entire world. Arrington’s passion and tenacity are what brings TechCrunch at the pinnacle of its power. He has even been selected as one of the most influential people in the world by TIME magazine.
The story and evolution of TechCrunch
It all started in 2005 when
Arrington posted a very informative blog about the companies that
were progressing expeditiously and gaining immense success. It turned
out that his blogs were gaining popularity in no time and changed the
entire outlook of business reporting.
The first blog of TechCrunch was
posted on 11th June 2005, which eventually led to the establishment
of one of the prominent site for start-ups and gadgets. Apparently,
Arrington wasn’t too much involved in blogging as he was busy
starting a new company, but a few months, he was totally engrossed in
it and gave it a head start.
The future of the company turned its
wheel in 2006 when Arrington was the first to post about the news of
Youtube being Google’s new asset. Apart from this, the newsfeeds
about the gadgets added to its gaining popularity.
In 2007, the company formed Crunchbase, a platform where anyone can conduct researches on start-up companies. It maintains a database which has information of start-ups, investors, total funding, acquisitions; money rose by acquisitions, upcoming events and featured stories about latest businesses. Initially, the company had more than 50,000 contributors which crossed 2 million in 2013. The companies or even a single individual registered and accessed the facilities of CrunchBase and submitted to the database.
In 2008, the company started The
Crunchies, an award ceremony that gave away awards to the best
start-ups, best mobile app, and in many other categories. They
thoroughly analyzed the progress of the companies throughout the
year, the funding they received, and thus awarded them annually.
Apart from TechCrunch, the Crunchies was sponsored and hosted by
blogs like GigaOm, VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb. This helped the
company grow even rapidly as it lured start-up companies from around
the globe to see where they stand, study their competitors and not to
mention the desire to win awards. In 2017, the company announced the
discontinuity of Crunchies.
In 2010, the company was taken over
by AOL which wield the sceptre from 2010-2017 followed by Verizon
Media which is the current owner of the company.
In 2011, Arrington made his mind to
resign from the position of the editor of the company as he faced
disagreement with his decisions of starting Crunchfund (to invest in
tech start-ups).
In 2015, the company declared that
the Crunchbase is no longer a part of TechCrunch.
One of the most powerful tools of
TechCrunch is the Startup Battlefield, a platform provided to the new
start-ups at the annual tech conference, TechCrunch Disrupt hosted by
the company. It allows all the new minds to sign in and share their
innovative ideas with the investors, media and other parties to gain
money and publicity. Now, who doesn’t want that? The exposure
gained through it is priceless, and moreover, the winner receives
prize money of $50,000.
Thus, TechCrunch is the ultimate
destination for all those who aspire to be a successful businessman,
learn more about technology and blogging or anything about
entrepreneurship. They post the most compelling and inspiring stories
of start-ups with utmost transparency and high quality. It can also
be considered as a study guide (Extra Crunch) for those who want to
learn more about start-ups.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more
The Taiwan based semiconductor company, MediaTek, has announced a 5G processor at Computex event, currently happening in Taiwan. The company has become the first to be launching a 7nm System-on-a-Chip (SoC) with an integrated 5G modem. In fact, the new chip will also have the company’ newly announced Cortex-A77 cores and new Mali-G77 GPU.
Image Source: mediatek.com
The
announcement seems to be quite unusual and un-prepared one, as the
company did not give any details on the name, price, or its
specifications, rather it focussed on how fast the chip is going to
be. According to the company, the chip will be able to support
4.7Gbps download as well as 2.5Gbps speeds. It has also got support
for Standalone (SA) and Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G infrastructure along
with sub-6GHz spectrum.
The
SoC is integrated with MediaTek Helio M70 5G modem and provides
intelligent power management as well as support for all 2G, 3G, 4G,
5G. It also renders dynamic power sharing to offer the best
connectivity. The chipset is also enabled to provide support for
camera up to 80MP and is able to encode/decode 4K videos at 60fps.
“Everything about this chip is designed for the first wave of flagship 5G devices. The leading-edge technology in this chipset makes it the most powerful 5G SoC announced to date and puts MediaTek at the forefront of 5G SoC design. MediaTek will power rollouts of 5G premium level devices.” said Joe Chen, the President at MediaTek.
The chipset is going to be its kind and will challenge one of the biggest semiconductor company Qualcomm in the premium smartphone market. Though the latter has been the leader in the chipset manufacturing industry, empowering both modems and processors for computers and mobiles, with the new SoC, MediaTek has become quite confident on the challenging part. It also expects to power the first wave of high-end 5G smartphones to be released in 2020.
According
to the company, it will release the samples of the new chipset for
its client by Q3 2019, and it may be empowering many commercial 5G
smartphones in the first quarter of 2020.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
Metro cards are over twenty years old, and it seems the time has come to say goodbye to them. From the time metro trains have been in existence, people have been using those cards and tokens to pay for their subway rides. But now it won’t be the only method for payment, as Apple has announced that people will be able to transit through metro by paying using Apple Pay instead of the MetroCard.
Image Source: techhnews.com
Yes! To initiate the usage of Apple Pay for paying for the subway rides, Apple has announced that the very payment method is coming to Organizations Transportation Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). The new terminals have already been installed at a different New York City subway stations, including Union Square and Grand Central, such that for now, the riders will be able to pay for their rides on the subway’s 4, 5, 6 line through the Apple Pay app.
Starting from Friday this week, the passage where usually the metro card and the tokens are scanned, people will see a digital rectangular panel enclosed in blue light attached to the bottom part of the turnstile. Over the panel, instead of the metro card, the riders can scan their iPhone and even the Apple watch.
There
are some compatibility criteria that one would need to fulfil in
order to use the Apple Pay for the transit. First of all the OS for
the iPhone must be updated at least up to iOS 12.3, and the watchOS
must be 5.2.1 version. Apple Pay will reflect the Express Transit
feature which will be available for iPhone 6s and SE or later. Same
for the Apple watch, only the Apple Watch Series 1, 2 and 3, using
NFC will be able to offer the feature. The user needs to authenticate
their debit or credit card with the Express Transit features, such
that to make payment through the Apple Pay app.
The
method to use iPhone and Apple watch is quite simple and similar to
the usage of MetroCards. The rider needs to place their iPhone or the
Apple watch against the digital screen on the turnstile, and when the
light turns green, a message of ‘Go’ is flashed on it, and the
metal arm will be unlocked for the rider to pass through.
The same feature has also been announced by the other tech giant Google on its payment app Google Pay, that too will start operating from 31 May in select subway stations for the specific subway lines. In fact, for the Google Pay, the riders just need to download the app and attach the payment methods to it, and they can easily pay through their phones without opening the app or even unlocking their phones.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
A veteran from Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, Suresh Kumar now holds the post of CTO at Walmart. Walmart announced today that it has hired Suresh Kumar, who is an ex-Google executive, for the position of chief technology officer and chief development officer.
Suresh Kumar is a former IITian and has got a B.Tech degree from IIT Madras. He also holds a PhD degree in Engineering from Princeton University. His work history has been quite terrific, as he has already worked with the biggest tech giants in the world, Google, Amazon and Microsoft in his 25 years long career.
Suresh Kumar worked as the corporate vice president of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations at Microsoft for over three years. He recently left Google, where he was working as VP and general manager of the display, video, app ads and analytics, for past one year. He has also been a research staff member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center.
The most important job role that he did hold in the past was while working with Amazon, the biggest rival for Walmart. He has worked with Amazon for over 15 years, holding the various positions in this long span of time. Before leaving the company, he worked as Vice President of the Worldwide Retail Systems and Retail Services department at Amazon.
At Walmart, as the CTO, Suresh Kumar has replaced Jeremy King, who has now joined as the head of engineering at Pinterest. Suresh Kumar will be reporting to the Walmart CEO Doug McMillon directly, and all the Walmart’s major wings including the Walmart U.S./WalmartLabs, Sam’s Club, International technology and Global Business Services, will be under his charge. With the help of Suresh Kumar’ vast experience, Walmart wants to enhance its eCommerce business and utilize the investment it has done in the past few years in the same field.
“Suresh
has a unique understanding of the intersection of technology and
retail, including supply chain, and has deep experience in
advertising, cloud and machine learning. And, he has a track record
of working in partnership with business teams to drive results,”
said McMillon in the announcement.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
