One Thing Today in Tech

China has imposed strong rules to curb gaming addiction among minors in the world’s most populous nation that is also home to some of the world’s biggest tech companies. On Monday, Chinese regulators slashed the time period players under the age of 18 can spend on online games to an hour of gameplay on Fridays, weekends and holidays. In our tech conversation, we discuss how India’s new drone rules could be a game-changer

Girish Mathrubootham never went to one of India’s premier technology schools—the IITs—nor did he attend one of its hallowed business schools—the IIMs. But, he’s just made corporate and tech history in India, with Freshworks, the company he founded more than 10 years ago, becoming the first cloud software venture started by an Indian founder to start an IPO in the US. Freshworks filed its initial registration prospectus for a listing on the Nasdaq, on August 27. Here’s a conversation with Mathrubootham, from February, shortly after Freshworks hit $300 million in annual revenue. He spoke about shifting to the US, his billion-dollar revenue ambition, thoughts on a US listing, and how Covid-19 gave him a chance to take better care of himself

Drones will now be much easier to operate in India. The central government has notified new rules that do away with several onerous requirements for those in the sector, paving the way for startups to ramp up the use of drones for everything from delivery of medicines and ecommerce purchases to aerial surveys for agriculture and conservation. In our tech conversation, Abhinav Aggarwal talks about staying bootstrapped and highly profitable at Fluid AI

Five members of an all-girl robotics team from Afghanistan have arrived in Mexico, along with several media workers, fleeing an uncertain future at home after the recent collapse of the US-backed government and takeover by the Taliban. Infosys is planning a new AI centre in Canada staffing 500. In our tech conversation, Amit Somani talks about Prime Venture’s fourth fund and hunt for a new partner

Google and Apple may no longer be able to charge their lucrative app store fees in South Korea if a plan to ban the practice in the country goes ahead. South Korea—home to Samsung Electronics—could become the first among the world’s major economies to bar Google and Apple from charging software developers commissions on in-app purchases. In our tech conversation, a peek into Zoho’s new Canvas, a no-code CRM personalisation tool

India may record an unprecedented 600,000 new infections a day if the country fails to boost the pace of vaccination and avert a third coronavirus wave, according to a new study. The National Institute of Disaster Management—which falls under the interior ministry—predicts a surge in cases as early as October. In our tech conversation, Rahul Chowdhri of Stellaris Venture Partners discusses the VC firm’s new $225 million fund

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh has been summoned by India's finance minister to explain why the new income tax portal the IT services giant developed for the country remains glitch-ridden. Infosys had to undertake emergency maintenance over the weekend and the site even went offline until Sunday night. In our tech conversation, Ajay Mandlekar—a researcher at Stanford AI Lab—unpacks 'Robomimic' a new framework to improve robots' ability to learn from humans

Amazon has rolled out India’s first celebrity voice feature on Alexa with the country’s best known movie star Amitabh Bachchan. Indian customers can choose to add Bachchan’s voice to their Alexa voice assistant on Echo devices or by pressing the mic icon on the Amazon shopping app (Android only) for an introductory price of Rs 149 for one year. Samsung has signed Alia Bhatt as brand ambassador or its Galaxy Z. And in our tech conversation today, Neil Shah of Counterpoint Research analyses Google’s smartphone strategy

Amazon has invested in Smallcase Technologies, a Bangalore startup that is making it very easy for people to invest in baskets of stocks and exchange traded funds, which it calls, well, smallcases. Amazon has joined a $40 million investment in Smallcase led by Faering Capital and Premji Invest, IT billionaire Azim Premji’s family office. And today’s conversation is a hark back to chat with Abhinav Asthana, whose company Postman has just become one of the most valued SaaS startups to be led by Indian founders anywhere

Google has announced its Pixel 5a smartphone with 5G wireless support, for $449. The latest A-series Pixel phone from Google arrives on August 26 in the US and Japan, and includes IP67 water resistance, a bigger battery than the Pixel 5, and a dual camera system. No word on availability in India yet. And in our tech conversation today, Harsh Rajat unpacks his Ethereum Push Notification Service