Two years ago, 25-year-old Animesh Panwar was fretting over how to cough up next month’s rent for the Andheri flat he shared with three others and even debating whether to return to Ajmer, the hometown he left two years earlier to make it big in the fickle world of entertainment. The work the aspiring director […]
Archives for February 2019
Emails, hashed passwords of 18m Ixigo users stolen
User data of 18 million, largely email IDs and hashed passwords, were allegedly stolen from online travel aggregation platform Ixigo. This is part of a broader data steal that saw user information being leaked from seven other global sites, including home improvement website Houzz. Ixigo founder and CEO Aloke Bajpai told TOI the company will […]
Infosys offers digital courses for engineering students
Infosys has launched a digital learning platform, offering curated content targeted at engineering students in their third and fourth years. The idea is to create more industry-ready talent among fresh graduates. The InfyTQ (talent quotient) app, as it is called, was rolled out on Friday in Mysuru with 300 colleges participating in the event. Students […]
E-commerce companies may adapt to new FDI Rules: Doug DeVos
“Ecommerce marketplaces are just going to have to find some new ways to operate and adjust their business models,” said Amway Corp co-chairman Doug DeVos, referring to India’s revised guidelines on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the sector that took effect on February 1. “Ecommerce isn’t going to stop.” Online sales for the maker of […]
Amazon, Flipkart in talks for minority stake in Hopscotch
E-commerce majors Amazon and Flipkart are in talks with Hopscotch to buy a significant minority stake in the six-year-old company that sells kids’ apparel online, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Hopscotch has appointed Barclays as the investment banker to raise up to $60 million (Rs 428 crore) to fund its expansion […]
Facebook taps user data to defend network, workers from threat
Facebook gathers intelligence from its platform to identify people who threaten the firm or its workers, the social network said on Thursday in response to media reports of the security tactic. CNBC reported that it interviewed more than a dozen former Facebook security employees, some of whom questioned the ethics of what was portrayed as […]
Brightcove to acquire Ooyala’s online video platform business
Nasdaq-listed Brightcove, a leading provider of cloud services for video, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the online video platform (OVP) business of Ooyala, a provider of cloud video technology. Brightcove is acquiring Ooyala’s OVP technology, including video content management and publishing platform Backlot, analytics, live, and underlying IP and associated patents. As […]
Alibaba-backed Paytm wants to cash in on Amazon’s India distress
By Saritha Rai India’s online retail industry has been in turmoil since the government implemented stringent new rules to rein in major players like Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart. Amid the uproar, Vijay Shekhar Sharma — whose two-year-old Paytm Mall is backed by Alibaba Group — is quietly devising ways to outstrip his rivals. The new […]
Paytm parent pledges all assets to borrow from ICICI Bank
One97 Communications, which owns digital payments major Paytm, has pledged all it current assets and mutual fund investments to ICICI Bank in order to be able to borrow up to Rs 1,400 crore for working capital, according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies. Working capital is needed for every corporate entity to function, […]
China ride-hailing giant Didi to lay off 15% employees this year: Source
Didi Chuxing will lay off 15% of its staff or about 2,000 people this year, a source said, marking the ride-hailing firm’s first major cut back as it grapples with regulatory scrutiny and public backlash over the murder of two of its users. Didi CEO Cheng Wei said at a meeting with management that the […]