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Indian streaming giant broke Safari support to deal with security hole
Websites tend to drop support for a particular browser due to obsolescence or just a lack of functionality, but India's biggest streaming service apparently had another reason: a piracy-friendly security hole. TechCrunch sources understand that Disney-owned Hotstar disabled Safari support (both desktop and mobile) on June 7th to limit the effects of a flaw that let people bootleg videos, including premium material.
Proposed rules in India could force Uber to go electric
Uber has been trying to get more electric vehicles to join its fleet for a while now, but it might have to find a way to speed things up if India passes a set of proposed rules for clean mobility. According to Reuters, Indian officials are planning to order taxi aggregators and rideshare companies like Ola and Uber to make sure 40 percent of their cars operating in the country are electric vehicles by 2026.
The fight against childhood blindness could lead to eagle-eyed robots
Imparting vision upon machines has been a massive, multi-decade undertaking by the scientific community. And while the acuity of today's state-of-the-art computer systems can match or exceed a human's high-resolution optical anatomy, training these machines to understand what they're looking at is still a labor intensive task. But thanks to the work of Dr. Pawan Sinha, Professor of Vision and Computational Neuroscience at MIT, and his Project Prakash (Sanskrit for "Light"), we may have stumbled upon a faster and far more efficient method of machine learning. Also, thousands of congenitally blind children in India have had their vision restored, so there's that.
India reportedly opens Android antitrust investigation
India is said to be investigating Google over Android antitrust concerns. The details of the probe are fairly thin for now, because the Competition Commission of India hasn't yet publicized the order. However, it could spell trouble for Google in an important Android market.
India lifts ban on TikTok
An Indian state court moved to lift a nationwide ban on the popular short-form video app TikTok. A nearly week-long ban in India on the app is now reversed, lawyers involved in the case told Reuters on Wednesday. Google and Apple removed the app from its stores in India last week after a high court in Tamil Nadu called for its removal, saying it was exposing children to sexual predators and pornography. The ban in India was a major setback for TikTok, due to India being its largest user base with nearly 300 million users. ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, estimated in a court filing that the ban was losing the company nearly $500,000 a day.
Twitter makes it easier to report election tweets that deliberately mislead people
With a number of high profile elections taking place around the world in the coming months, social media platforms are gearing themselves up for the inevitable onslaught of fake news and misleading information. Twitter has announced that it's doubling down on its efforts in this area with a new feature that will let users report this kind of problematic content directly.
Google blocks TikTok downloads in India over pornography concerns
Today, Google blocked TikTok downloads from its Google Play store in India, and Apple has been asked to do the same. The move comes after India's federal government sent a letter to the companies requesting that they abide by a state court's decision to ban the popular video app. India's concern is that TikTok encourages pornography and makes child users vulnerable to sexual predators, Reuters reports.
Nepal bans 'PUBG' over concerns kids are addicted
Authorities and parents in Nepal are worried kids and teenagers are addicted to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. As such, officials have banned the battle royale game in the Himalayan nation as of today.
WhatsApp wants your help with a fake news study in India (updated)
India's elections begin April 11th, and WhatsApp is determined to use every method it can to fight fake news ahead of the voting. The Facebook-owned company has teamed up with Proto to launch a fact-checking project, Checkpoint Tipline, that verifies messages. Relay a message and Proto will determine whether it's real, bogus, misleading or contested. The team can handle images and video, and it supports four regional languages as well as English.
NASA says satellite that India shot down may threaten the ISS
NASA chief Jim Bridenstine called India's destruction of one of its satellites a "terrible, terrible thing" that could endanger astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Addressing employees, he said a missile that shot down a satellite created at least 400 pieces of orbital debris, including 60 larger than 6 inches in size. While the satellite was well below the ISS, 24 of the pieces were blasted above its apogee, creating a potential risk. "It's unacceptable and NASA needs to be very clear about what its impact to us is," Bridenstine said.
Indian health agency exposes details on millions of pregnant women
A health department in India exposed more than 12.5 million medical records for pregnant women after it failed to secure a database. The records span five years for a state in the north of the country, and include sensitive data such as family medical history, the mother's age, details of other children, doctor information and court case details.
Facebook removes over 1,000 pages ahead of India's election
Facebook announced today that it has removed 1,126 Pages, groups and accounts ahead of India's general election. Most of the accounts, which were based in India and Pakistan, were flagged for "coordinated inauthentic behavior." In total, Facebook removed 702 Pages, groups and accounts linked with two networks in India. Another 103 Pages, groups and accounts (across Facebook and Instagram) were deleted in connection with a network in Pakistan, and 321 Facebook Pages and accounts in India were removed for violating the company's rules against spam.
Netflix is testing a $3.64 mobile plan in India
Netflix is testing a less expensive mobile-only plan in India, which may help it expand its userbase in the world's second most populous nation. A small number of users are reportedly trying the plan, which, at 250 rupees (around $3.64) per month, is half the cost of its typical entry-level subscription there. They can only watch shows and movies in standard definition and on a single phone or tablet at once, according to the Economic Times.
YouTube adds fact checks to search results on sensitive topics
YouTube is launching new information panel that will appear when users search for controversial topics. The text boxes will appear at the top of search results and will offer fact checks from verified partners to help combat the spread of misinformation. For now the feature is launching first in India and will be available in Hindi and English, but will be coming to other regions and languages in the future. YouTube confirmed the feature to Engadget.
Google made a learn-to-read app for schoolchildren in India
Google has kept its education initiatives, ranging from Chromebooks for schools to teaching software, within the confines of the classroom. But it's now branching out with a consumer-facing learning app in India. "Bolo" (Hindi for "speak") is essentially a reading assistant for elementary school children that harnesses Google's speech recognition and text-to-speech smarts.
Recommended Reading: Arrivo's unfulfilled promise to end traffic
How Arrivo got Colorado to back a wild-eyed highway scheme Aaron Gordon, Wired Futuristic transportation company Arrivo, cofounded by Brogan BamBrogan and Andrew Liu, sold Colorado Department of Transportation on a plan to build a system that would move pods and cars on sleds at hundreds of miles an hour along the medians of the state's highways. The company said it could do so without Hyperloop-esque vacuum tubes. It never happened. In fact, the project never really started. No feasibility study. No proof of concept. And then Arrivo shutdown at the end of 2018 due to a lack of funding with a lot of unanswered questions.
Spotify launches in India
Spotify has had its eyes set firmly on the Indian market for some time. Now, after a messy legal dispute with Warner Music Group, the music-streaming service has officially launched in the country. With a population of 1.3 billion people, it's considered to be one the fastest-growing music markets in the world.
India wants to keep online shopping data close to home
India published a draft e-commerce policy that could have a big impact on major players like Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, as well as foreshadow regulations for social media companies like Facebook Inc. and Google. The policy calls for "consumer protections, data privacy and maintenance of a level playing field" -- in other words, data localization, improved privacy safeguards and measures to combat counterfeits.
Verily's algorithm helps prevent eye disease in India
Verily's efforts to spot and prevent eye disease through algorithms are becoming more tangible. The Alphabet-owned company has revealed that its eye disease algorithm is seeing its first real-world use at the Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India. The clinic screens patients by imaging their eyes with a fundus camera (a low-power microscope with an attached cam) and sending the resulting pictures to the algorithm, which screens for diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema. Doctors could prevent the blindness that can come from these conditions by catching telltale signs they'd otherwise miss.
India opens its first center for human spaceflight
Crewed spaceflight is still limited to a handful of countries, but India is close to changing that. The Indian Space Research Organization has formally opened its first facility devoted to human spaceflight. The appropriately titled Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru will be responsible for key aspects of Gaganyaan, the country's crewed orbital vehicle (shown in replica form above). The location will develop crew survival systems, train crew members, plan missions and "pursue activities" for sustained flights.
