Illustration: Rahul Awasthi A lot has changed in the life of Vinaya Katre over the last six months. Until the Covid-19 pandemic began spreading in March, the 59-year-old Jamshedpur-based schoolteacher had never imagined that she would have to learn to do anything “online” except perhaps chat through WhatsApp. However, overwhelmed by an increased workload during […]

Facebook said on Thursday it would start promoting content from public Facebook Groups in users’ news feeds and in search engine results, defying calls by watchdog groups to limit algorithmic recommendations ahead of U.S. elections next month. In a blog post, Facebook app chief Fidji Simo said the company would surface recommendations in news feeds […]

The central government will consider requests from technology entrepreneurs to launch an Indian digital application store, two senior officials told ET, responding to the growing outcry against the dominance of US technology giants Google and Apple in the country’s digital services market. India already has an app store for governance-centric apps, which can be scaled […]

Alphabet’s Google plans to pay $1 billion to publishers globally for their content over the next three years, its CEO said on Thursday, a move that could help it win over a powerful group amid heightened regulatory scrutiny worldwide. News publishers have long fought the world’s most popular internet search engine for compensation for using […]

Illustration: Rahul Awasthi Six months into the lockdown, after the initial flush of success servicing orders from friends and family, home chefs are establishing themselves as small businesses. The Yummy Idea, a platform to discover home chefs, has seen more than 1500 registered home chefs in five months. Another aggregator FoodCloud said over 1000 licensed […]

L-R: Praveena Rai, TR Ramachandran, Sameer Nigam, Ravindra Pandey, Mihir Gandhi The coronavirus pandemic has brought about a permanent shift in the way consumers approach digital payments. The contactless nature of the digital modes — enabled by innovative technologies and regulatory flexibility — has given millions of Indians a choice to practice social distancing while […]

Illustration: Rahul Awasthi The mass adoption of ecommerce and boom in online shopping have been the single biggest push for digital payments during the Covid-19 pandemic, panellists at an ET webinar said, as restrictions on physical businesses forced Indian consumers to redefine their spending behaviour. “I cannot pass this point without highlighting the boom in […]

Food delivery apps Swiggy and Zomato have received notices from Google stating that the in-app gamification feature used by both platforms violate its Play Storeguidelines, multiple sources told ET. Zomato confirmed the development to ET and termed the notice “unfair”. “We are a small company and have already realigned our business strategy to comply with […]

Source: YouTube/Cred On Monday, financial services startup Cred was trending on Twitter for its IPL ad campaign which, based on social media chatter, seems to have emerged as one of the most-loved TV commercials of the ongoing IPL ad season. Cred is also the official partner of the T20 cricket league this year. Featuring actors […]

China is preparing to launch an antitrust probe into Alphabet‘s Google, looking into allegations it has leveraged the dominance of its Android mobile operating system to stifle competition, two people familiar with the matter said. The case was proposed by telecommunications equipment giant Huawei last year and has been submitted by the country’s top market […]