Ankita | Pixr8 News

2Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

Tech

Facebook’s Oculus Ordered Pay $500 Million in Suit on Stolen Tech

A US jury has ordered Facebook and creators of its Oculus Rift to pay USD 500 million to gaming software firm ZeniMax in a lawsuit that claimed the virtual reality technology was stolen. The Texas jury made the award yesterday in a trial in which Oculus was accused of basing its Rift headset on technology stolen from ZeniMax's virtual reality software, court documents showed. The lawsuit claimed Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and his colleagues developed the virtual reality gear using source code illegally obtained from the gaming firm. Luckey was ordered to pay USD 50 million of the award and another former Oculus executive, Brendan Iribe USD 150 million. The two executives were accused of violating a non-disclosure agreement with ZeniMax and copying the source code and other do...

Facebook’s Quarterly Revenue Surges 50.8%, Generate $29.71 Billion in 2017

2Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Facebook’s Quarterly Revenue Surges 50.8%, Generate $29.71 Billion in 2017

Facebook Inc's quarterly revenue surged 50.8 percent as the world's largest social network continues to benefit from its aggressive push into mobiles and video. Mobile ad revenue accounted for 84 percent of company's total advertising revenue of USD 8.63 billion in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with 80 percent a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected total ad revenue of USD 8.31 billion, according to research firm FactSet Street Account. The strong results allay some concerns after the company warned in November that ad growth would likely slow "meaningfully" due to limits on "ad load" - the total number of ads Facebook can show to each user. Facebook is expected to generate about USD 29.71 billion in mobile ad revenue in 2017, according to research firm eMarkete...

Facebook to Develop App For Television Set-Top Boxes: Report

1Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Facebook to Develop App For Television Set-Top Boxes: Report

Facebook is creating an app for television set-top boxes, including Apple's Apple TV, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The world's biggest online social network is also in discussions with media companies to license long-form, TV-quality programming, the report said on Tuesday. Facebook declined to comment. An app for set-top boxes would bring Facebook closer to live video and video advertisements. Getting advertisers to buy more video ads is key to Facebook's continued revenue growth as such ads fetch higher rates from advertisers than text or photo-based ads. Live video is also becoming a highly competitive feature on social platforms, with companies competing to stream major sports events and exclusive video components from high-profi...

TK Kurien named Managing Partner & CIO of Premji Invest

27Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

News

TK Kurien named Managing Partner & CIO of Premji Invest

Premji Invest, the investment arm of Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, on Thursday said it has appointed TK Kurien as its Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) with effect from February 1. Kurien is Wipro's Executive Vice-Chairman and is set to retire from that post at the end of this month. He succeeds Prakash Parthasarathy who has decided to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations, a release said. "I am delighted to announce the appointment of TK Kurien as Managing Partner and CIO of Premji Invest," Premji Invest Chairman Azim Premji said. "TK, with his decades of experience in running startups and established enterprises and deep financial acumen, is best positioned to take Premji Invest to the next level." "Prakash has built an excellent organisation at Premji Invest as...

25Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

INDIA

Apple Ready With Blueprint For Manufacturing Unit in India

Apple Inc today indicated to the government that it is ready with a blueprint to begin manufacturing iPhones in India, but wants fiscal concessions, including Customs duty waiver on import of components. Apple executives made a detailed presentation on its road map for setting up a manufacturing unit in India to an inter-ministerial group headed by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Secretary Ramesh Abhishek, sources privy to the development said. The presentation was made by senior executives of the company, including Global Vice-President (iPhone operations) Priya Balasubramanian. It cited the country's business friendly ecosystem for keenness to start local manufacturing. With sales tapering in the US and China, Apple is eyeing India the fastest growing smartphone marke...

Unacademy Collaborates With TapChief to Help Students Land Their First job

24Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

BUSINESS

Unacademy Collaborates With TapChief to Help Students Land Their First job

Employment opportunities have boomed over the years which have left fresh graduates with more than enough options to choose from. However, that has not sweetened the deal for them. Fresh graduates today, and even experienced professionals, find themselves confused about the career path they should embark upon. To make matters worse, no substantial professional help is available. India's leading online learning platform - Unacademy, in collaboration with leading career advice platform - TapChief , has launched courses on job preparation for freshers, recent graduates, and working professionals. The scopes of courses on offer include career counselling, skill development, switching jobs, and other related aspects. What sets these courses apart from the other content available online is th...

Ola Appoints Vishal Kaul as Chief Operating Officer

23Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Ola Appoints Vishal Kaul as Chief Operating Officer

Ola, India’s most popular mobile app for transportation, today announced the appointment of Vishal Kaul as its Chief Operating Officer. Vishal is a PepsiCo veteran, who has been with the company since the start of his career in 1999. He has held key leadership positions across operations, sales and marketing in his career spanning 18 years within the company. Vishal was most recently the General Manager of PepsiCo Foods for Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. As COO, Vishal will head Ola’s operations, strengthen Ola’s market leadership, expand its reach to nooks and corners of the country and widen the base of Ola's customers and driver-partner fraternity, in line with its mission to build mobility for a billion Indians. The mobility opportunity is massive with over 300 million trips happening ...

23Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Ex- Googler Amit Singhal Joins Uber

Amit Singhal, the father of google search ranking system now joining Uber as SVP of Engineering. The news itself was published by Amit Singhal on his blog, After 15 wonderful years at Google working on search, I wasn’t sure that I would find an opportunity as exciting or potentially world-changing. But having spent hours with Travis and many others at the company, I can confidently say Uber fits the bill. First and foremost, I am a huge fan of Uber’s product. Like many people, I can’t remember life before you could push a button and have a car show up in minutes. But what’s most exciting to me is the real-world impact this simple idea—push a button, get a ride—is having in cities around the world. Uber’s technology is transforming urban mobility. My children may never need to own ...

Mumbai Based Home Services Startup Taskbob Shuts Shop

20Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Mumbai Based Home Services Startup Taskbob Shuts Shop

Mumbai-based home services startup Taskbob has shut shop without specifying any particular reason. In an internal communication, Taskbob co-founder and CEO Aseem Khare said the company shut down its operations as of January 19 due to unforeseen circumstances. "...Due to unforeseen circumstances, Taskbob will be shutting down its operations as of 19th January. All the orders already placed in the system will be duly processed," he said. The number of employees impacted could not be ascertained. While Khare did not spell out the reason for the closure, he indicated that the company was unable to build scalability and profitability. "Even though, we could create a significant difference in customers', service providers' and teams' lives, a solid business is created only by buil...

Google Acquired Twitter Mobile App Developer Platform Fabric

20Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Google Acquired Twitter Mobile App Developer Platform Fabric

Google is acquiring Twitter's mobile application developer platform Fabric, a move which could give some breathing room for the social network after charting an independent path without a suitor. Terms of the deal were not announced. Twitter last year was in talks to sell itself with several firms including Google parent Alphabet, but without a deal decided to continue on an independent path, cutting jobs and refocusing on its core services. The sale of Fabric will shift to Google the platform used by developers for mobile apps. "When we launched Fabric in 2014, our goal was to provide the best tools to help developers create amazing apps," the Fabric team said in a blog post. "Today we enter the next chapter for Fabric and are pleased to announce that we've signed an agreement for ...

19Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

CHINA

China May Allow Foreign Company’s and Startups to Launch IPOs

China may allow foreign companies to launch IPOs on its stock exchanges and issue corporate bonds, the government said, after President Xi Jinping promised the world his country was committed to opening its markets. The State Council, China's Cabinet, issued a notice yesterday saying it had granted approval in principle for foreign companies to launch IPOs and issue corporate debt and other financing instruments in order to "support the widening of foreign companies' financing channels". The announcement was the latest in a series of broad liberalisation pledges from China as it braces for the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump. Trump has repeatedly blamed China, and globalisation, for the loss of millions of US jobs, raising fears of a trade war between the w...

Mobikwik Looking to Hire 1000 People From Ahmedabad, Lucknow & Others Cities

6Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Mobikwik Looking to Hire 1000 People From Ahmedabad, Lucknow & Others Cities

Digital payments firm MobiKwik said it will invest over Rs 50 crore and hire 1,000 people during this quarter as it looks to expand its footprint across cities like Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Vijayawada among others. Aimed at enabling 150 million users in India to transact on its platform by early 2018, MobiKwik is setting up offices in 13 cities by the end of the first quarter of 2017. "We will be investing over Rs 50 crore in setting up new offices to cater to regional requirements and will be hiring over 1,000 employees, pan India, across technical and non-technical requirements," MobiKwik co-founder Upasana Taku said in a statement. These cities include Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Noida, Lucknow, Vijayawada, Kochi, Jaipur and Chandigarh. "Po...