One Thing Today in Tech

In today’s episode I bring you the gist of Qualcomm’s latest State of Sound report, but first a few headlines. 

Headlines

India’s department of telecommunications has used facial recognition to disconnect more than 6.4 million illegal phone connections over the last six months, Moneycontrol reports. It detects when a photograph has been used multiple times to procure SIM cards and flags instances where an individual has acquired more than the nine SIM cards allowed per Aaadhaar number under Indian telecom rules, according to Moneycontrol.

Apple yesterday announced the next iteration of its computer processors, the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max, chips featuring technologies that the company says deliver dramatically increased performance and make new capabilities possible on the Mac computers.

These are the first personal computer chips built using the 3-nanometer process technology, Apple says. The iPhone maker also released new Macbook Pro laptops with these chips and finally, offered a refresh of the iMac all-in-one desktop computer, which up until now was only available with the M1 chip.

One thing today

In one thing today, for those of you who particularly care about a good audio experience – from music to podcasts to the audio that actually makes video look good – I stumbled upon an opportunity to bring you the gist of an interesting report from Qualcomm.

The smartphone chip giant recently released its latest State of Sound report, and here’s a summary.

One finding is that consumers want to use the same device across all use cases, from listening to music, or gaming, while commuting, and for work. As premium devices expand in capabilities and features, this year’s responses suggest that consumers will be willing to spend more on one device which is optimized for multiple purposes, Qualcomm notes in its report.

The 2023 study, conducted in July, surveyed 7,000 smartphone users, covering the US, UK, Germany, China, India and Japan, and South Korea included for the first time. The report examines the factors that influence audio device purchases and interest in present and future usage scenarios, among consumers in the age group of 18 years to 64 years.

The focus of this year’s research is on how consumer use of wireless audio devices is evolving to include more complex use cases, from traditional uses like music, voice calls and watching video to the use of devices in the workplace, for gaming and hearing enhancement. 

Earbuds and headphones are now considered crucial for activities such as working, commuting, gaming, and exercising, according to the report. Globally, the demand for true wireless earbuds and headphones is growing, with listeners using devices more often daily, and for longer periods of time.

Therefore, comfort in the ear has become the top purchase driver for the first time, according to this report. The typical length of time that people are wearing true wireless earbuds is increasing, across multiple use cases, which is making comfort much more important.

Consumers are also looking for increased device range, particularly around the home. And, there is also increasing demand for more premium sound experiences. For example, 73 percent of the respondents said they make sure that sound quality on their devices gets better with every new purchase, up from 67 percent in 2022.

Demand for good quality audio in music is at an all-time high, with 69 percent of consumers listing lossless audio quality as a likely purchase driver. This shift is paired with a growing interest in premium audio features such as spatial audio, clear voice calls and lower audio latency.

In today’s episode H1B visa rules will soon change significantly, but first a few other headlines caught my attention.

Isro, announced last week the successful test of “In-flight Abort Demonstration of Crew Escape System (CES)” at Mach number 1.2 with the space agency’s newly developed Test Vehicle, followed by Crew Module separation & safe recovery. This is in an important milestone in India’s Gaganyaan human space flight effort.

VC firms are doubling down on AI and deep tech. TechCrunch reports today that these are the prevailing themes in the latest early-stage cohort from Peak XV Partners, formerly Sequoia Capital India, the largest India and Southeast Asia-focused VC fund.

One thing today

Big changes are coming to H1B visa rules, that could have significant impact for India’s $245 billion IT services industry.

In a move aimed at enhancing the H-1B specialty occupation worker program, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in conjunction with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on Oct. 20, according to a press release on the department’s website.

The proposed rule intends to streamline eligibility requirements, boost program efficiency, provide more benefits and flexibility for both employers and workers, and reinforce integrity measures.

The H-1B program is pivotal for US employers, allowing them to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations, a classification that mandates highly specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or higher in a specific field, the press release notes.

It has also been used extensively by India’s IT services providers such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services to send software engineers and others to work on client sites.

“DHS continues to develop and implement regulations that increase efficiency and improve processes for employers and workers navigating the immigration system,” US Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in the press release.

One of the central changes proposed in the rule is the alteration of the H-1B registration selection process to reduce the potential for misuse and fraud. Currently, the odds of an individual being selected in the lottery system increase with the number of registrations submitted on their behalf.

The new proposal, however, would change this by ensuring that each unique individual is entered into the selection process only once, regardless of the number of registrations submitted for them. This modification aims to enhance the chances of a legitimate registration being selected while minimizing the advantage of submitting multiple registrations for the same beneficiary.

Important provisions of the proposed rule include the following:

Streamlining Eligibility Requirements: The criteria for specialty occupation positions would be revised to reduce confusion and clarify that a position may encompass a range of degrees as long as there is a direct connection between the required degree field(s) and the position's duties.

Improving Program Efficiency: The rule would codify that adjudicators should generally defer to a prior determination when no underlying facts have changed in a new filing.

Providing Greater Benefits and Flexibilities: Certain exemptions to the H-1B cap would be expanded for non-profit entities, governmental research organizations, and beneficiaries not directly employed by qualifying organizations. Additionally, students on an F-1 visa seeking to change their status to H-1B would receive extended flexibilities. The rule would also introduce new eligibility requirements for rising entrepreneurs.

Strengthening Integrity Measures: The rule would prohibit related entities from submitting multiple registrations for the same beneficiary, thus reducing misuse and fraud in the registration process. USCIS' authority to conduct site visits would be codified, and non-compliance with site visits could result in the denial or revocation of a petition.

In today’s episode, I ask if we are headed for a talent crisis in core engineering streams, but first a couple of headlines.

Headlines

Agnikul Cosmos, has raised $26.7 million in Series-B funding from investors including Celesta Capital, Rocketship.vc, Artha Venture Fund and Artha Select Fund, the Chennai startup said in a press release on Oct. 17.

IBM yesterday announced the signing of three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with three entities engaged with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to advance and accelerate innovation in AI, semiconductor and quantum technology for India, the company said in a press release.

One thing today

It’s that time of the year when the last of the admissions in India’s massive engineering education market get nailed down. And once again, despite the ongoing slowdown in the IT services sector, computer science remains the hottest area.

Reports from states known for their engineering schools, such as Maharashtra and Karnataka show that traditional streams such as civil and mechanical engineering are running a large number of vacancies. Over the next decade, will this translate to a talent crisis in India, just when the country’s manufacturing and infrastructure efforts need to shift to high gear.

In Karnataka, at least 10 engineering streams that have had little or no demand for the last few years may be removed from the pool of seats available for students to choose from, Deccan Herald reports today.

In alignment with the ongoing trend of low demand for certain streams, the Karnataka state government’s department of higher education is planning to write to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to discontinue such streams, the paper reports.

Deccan Herald reports that 60 colleges in the state have not enrolled more than three students in some courses, with some colleges even seeing only one admission in core streams like Civil Engineering, according to data from the Department of Technical Education.

M C Sudhakar, the state’s minister for higher education, has said that the government is collecting college-wise details about low admissions and streams that had no admissions. And this will be communicated to the AICTE, according to the paper.

The AICTE has extended the deadline for admission to engineering colleges to October 30. And the Karnataka government is in collecting details from private engineering colleges, the paper reports.

Computer Science remains the most popular branch of engineering in Maharashtra with preference for allied new-age technology courses such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning and Cyber Security, The Indian Express reported on Sep. 11, citing data from the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell.

Some 1,17,000 students already having confirmed their preferences, the paper reports. Of the close to 50,000 seats in computer science and the allied new-age courses, nearly 45,000 have already been filled, the paper reports.

Traditional core engineering branches such as mechanical and civil engineering are running 50 percent vacancies this year, according to the Express.

And allied courses of civil engineering such as Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil and Infrastructural Engineering, Civil Engineering and Planning also recorded very low admissions. Out of a combined intake of 341 seats, only 104 seats have been filled so far.

Consider this. Next year, it will be the 10th anniversary of the launch of the ‘Make in India’ campaign.

And as India looks to step up its efforts in areas ranging from electric vehicle battery cells to ships, planes and space rockets, not to mention bridges, ports and smart cities, perhaps it’s time to figure out how to build the talent pool in the core engineering streams that we’ll need in the coming years.

There’s been a surge in children’s sexual abuse and exploitation online since the Covid pandemic, experts agree, and lawmakers around the world are trying to grapple with this threat with new policies and rules. Online businesses should be pushed to design their products and services to be age appropriate, Google proposes, but opposes stringent use of ID based verification on the grounds that such a practice can also deny useful access to all users in a digital world, and lead to more data collection on all users.

In today’s episode find out why TCS sacked 16 employees, but first a few headlines.

Headlines

After losing the IPL streaming rights, which has contributed its loss of some 20 million subscribers, Disney Hotstar set a new world record for concurrent viewers on Saturday when 35 million people logged on to the digital platform to watch the India-Pakistan cricket match in the ICC World Cup.

Apple may announce new iPads tomorrow, 9to5Mac reported over the weekend. The iPad Air, iPad mini and the base model iPad are expected to be refreshed with incremental improvements to their specifications, according to 9to5Mac.

One thing today

Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company, has concluded an internal investigation into complaints of jobs-for-bribes with respect to hiring contract workers, the company told the stock exchanges in a statement yesterday. TCS has sacked 16 employees and moved three others, based on the findings of the probe, the company said in its statement.

Many of you will remember an investigative piece by Mint Newspaper from June that brought to light a jobs-for-bribes investigation within Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company.

And you’ll remember that a week later, at the company’s annual general meeting of shareholders, Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran confirmed that an investigation was on, based on two whistle blower complaints that had been received in February this year – one pertaining to India and the other in the US.

We learned that this was about certain company executives favouring certain firms that supplied ‘business associates’ in return for bribes, which at that point had not been quantified.

We’d also learnt that the staff involved were from a team called the resource allocation group or the resource management group – dealing with some 1,000 staffing firms that provided business associates in 55 markets.

Yesterday, the company reported that its investigation found 19 employees to be involved. Of those 16 employees have been separated from the company for code of conduct violations, and three have been removed from the Resource Management function. TCS hasn’t provided details about the involvement of the three who remain with the company but have been moved to different roles.

And six vendor entities, their owners and affiliates have been debarred from doing any business with TCS. The company is putting in place additional governance measures including regular rotation of personnel holding key roles in the Resource Management function; better analytics on supplier management; periodic declarations by vendors on compliance to the Tata Code of Conduct and a know-your-supplier process to cover additional declarations, and audits of the company’s vendor management process.

In its statement to the stock exchanges yesterday, TCS said again that there’s been no fraud by or against the company and there is no financial impact, reiterating its first statement on the issue, after the Mint newspaper article on June 23.

According to TCS, what happened was a breach of the company’s code of conduct by certain employees and vendors supplying contractors. No key managerial person of the company has been found to be involved.

It’s been something of a bumpy ride for TCS this year. First, Rajesh Gopinathan, Chandrasekaran’s protégé, abruptly resigned from the post of CEO in March, and then this investigation became public.

TCS will be looking to put this chapter firmly behind it. K Krithivasan, who replaced Gopinathan as CEO, is a company veteran of 30 plus years. Previously he led TCS’s biggest business unit – banking, financial services and insurance.

He may now get a chance to look ahead and focus on growth at a time when the crisis in the Middle East has made the outlook for the sector even more uncertain amid a global economic slowdown, while concerns about a US recession seem to be easing.

In today’s episode I take a quick look at how applications development and maintenance, which is about two-thirds of India’s IT sector revenues, is changing, but first a few headlines.

Beyond Next Ventures, a Japanese fund focused on early-stage deep tech startups in Asia, is targeting up to ¥25 billion (about $168 million) for BNV Fund 3, its third fund, TechCrunch reports. And yesterday, BNV said it completed a first close of ¥10 billion ($68 million), which it will invest in ventures in areas including robotics and biotech, according to TechCrunch.

Here in India, SaaS startup SuperOps.ai, which provides software tools for managed services providers to simplify their IT management and workflow process, has raised $12.4 million in Series B funding led by Addition and March Capital, the Chennai company said in a press release, with participation from existing investor, Matrix Partners India.

One thing today

Tata Consultancy Services kicks off of Q2 results for India’s IT sector today. Infosys reports its earnings tomorrow.

So, instead of the usual curtain raiser on their outlook, I wanted to draw your attention to a trend in the industry, touched off by the rise of generative AI, that is already looking like the beginning of the end of the applications development and maintenance model – or at least ADM as we know it today, which accounts for two-thirds of the $245 billion sector’s revenues.

First, customers are taking various software services back in-house, according to Bernard Charles, CEO and soon-to-be Chairman of Dassault Systemes. Last week, during his latest India visit, I got a chance to speak with Bernard, a 40-year veteran of the French 3D software giant, with India’s biggest conglomerates as customers, and deep partnerships within India’s IT sector.

India’s IT services industry has a very strong engineering R&D segment, but companies like Tesla, for example, want to “control the destiny of their end products themselves,” he said, when it comes to the mix of software, electronics and hardware.

And this is happening in biotech and pharmaceuticals, smart manufacturing, mechatronics systems and so on – areas that are relevant to Dassault, but also important vertical practices for India’s IT sector.

So, on the flip side, are companies like Infosys taking on more full-product level work, I asked. Yes and no, Bernard says, because there’s another dimension to this, which is to help them to transform themselves, so they can provide a lot more consultancy than before and play a bigger role.

“So, I think there will be a new adjustment,” he says. “A lot of this industry has been sustained with the massive development of code to integrate legacy systems. And they have made their money on that. But I think the future, when it comes to our platform, is low code, no code, used natively to produce your own code, not with programmers but with a generative AI.”

And this is inevitable. “It's happening. And this is what I call low code no code, to generate code with robots as opposed to programming them manually,” Bernard says.

A couple of days ago, I got a chance to meet Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, India’s largest software products company, and he has similar views in relation a related area – software developer productivity, which he sees as very large opportunity for his company.

He says it’s a really big deal and is investing heavily into R&D in this area. “I believe that productivity in software development itself can be easily tenfold, maybe 20-30-fold in the long term,” he told me.

Generative AI use cases are emerging at light speed, Stanton Jones and Olga Kupriyanova wrote in a newsletter recently, at ISG, a consultancy that tracks outsourcing contracts around the world. “This will have an outsized impact on the biggest service line within the sector – applications development and maintenance,” they say.

What do customers want from their SaaS vendors? Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of Zoho Corp., weighs in on this question, speaking with Forbes India at the company’s annual Zoholics conference on Oct. 9 in Bengaluru. Zoho remains steadfastly bootstrapped, but for the VC funded ventures, Vembu speaks about how a new funding cycle will eventually return and hopes that this time there will be more focus on important tech R&D and not just the “crowded train” that SaaS has become.

In today’s episode, Acumen, last week, announced the first Indian cohort of sustainability and renewable energy focused startups it will train, with support from Apple, but first a few headlines. 

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said he believes an artificial general intelligence (AGI) that surpasses human intelligence in most areas, will arrive within 10 years, Reuters reports.

Google yesterday released its Pixel 8 phones with a camera feature that uses an on-device algorithm to create a blended image to combine the best visuals from a series of shots – like getting the best look of everyone in a picture, for example.

The new phones will get seven years of software updates, according to Google.

One thing today

Now some of you might remember, earlier this year, Apple made a small announcement about partnering Acumen, a New York headquartered non-profit impact venture capital fund, to support social enterprises in India to improve livelihoods through clean energy innovation.

Apple hasn’t disclosed any financial details, but what we do know is that it is supporting the Energy for Livelihoods Accelerator that Acumen operates. And Acumen, last week, announced the first Indian cohort of startups it will train at this accelerator.

Through this accelerator, Acumen’s experts lead a 12-week programme designed to help social entrepreneurs scale and refine their businesses to more efficiently and effectively help the poor that they were trying to reach, while also sharpening the focus of their efforts towards protecting the environment.

Sustainable energy has the potential, over time, to more than double incomes by saving time, improving yields, and enhancing resilience, according to Acumen.

Electricity access among the poorest 20 percent of households increased from 53 percent to 86 percent in the five-year period between the fourth and fifth rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the Economic Times reported in January this year. The fifth round of the survey concluded in 2021. And in 19 states and union territories, this proportion was more than 95 percent.

That said, we still have millions of poor in India without access to reliable and affordable energy.

The 15 entrepreneurs in the first cohort are working to change that in agriculture, e-mobility, and hydropower, trying to provide the enabling technologies to improve livelihoods through better use of energy.  

“This cohort represents a diverse mix of innovators working at the intersection of sustainable energy and poverty reduction,” Mahesh Yagnaraman, Acumen’s India Director. “We are excited to support them in partnership with Apple to develop their business models with the ultimate aim of scaling their impact.” 

Acumen will also use the accelerator programme to learn directly from the entrepreneurs to refine its own work, Yagnaraman says.

Let me give you three examples. In a category called business facilitators, Nimisha Tiwari, at LinkITBlueCollar, is building a mobile-first tech-enabled platform providing Electric Vehicle (EV) skills and guaranteed jobs for low-income communities of women and youth.

In the agriculture and allied Sector category, Vanya Environmental Services, is helping small farmers to use satellite data, remote sensing and blockchain, to check carbon levels in their soil, farm sustainably, trap carbon, and generate income from selling carbon credits. 

Under business sector category, Nikky Kumar Jha, at Saptkrishi Scientific Private Limited is offering small-marginal farmers and street-hawkers, his Sabjikothi cart and e-cart models, which are microclimate-based storage solutions. The carts maintain freshness and extend the shelf-life of fruits and vegetables up to 30 days without chemicals, preservatives, or refrigerants. This storage solution requires minimal wattage, has battery backup, and can be solar powered.

In today’s episode we take a quick look at an expanded partnership between NVIDIA and Infosys that seeks to equip an army of AI specialists trained in the AI chip giant’s technologies, but first one other headline that caught my attention yesterday.

WhatsApp continues to roll out new features in India that will allow users in its largest market by userbase to do much more without leaving the instant messaging app. Coinciding with its Conversations event yesterday in Mumbai, WhatsApp announced new payments options for users.

Users in India can add items to their cart and send a payment using the method of their choice from all supported UPI apps, debit and credit cards, WhatsApp said in a blog post. The Meta Platforms company has partnered India’s Razorpay and PayU to provide these services.

One thing today

Now, as many of you know, Infosys has made several announcements this year around its AI investments, including the launch of Infosys Topaz, a comprehensive suite of services, solutions and platforms around generative AI.

Yesterday, Infosys and NVIDIA said that they are expanding the scope of an existing partnership under which the Indian IT services company helps its customers deploy the semiconductor giant’s AI chips and technologies.

The expanded partnership will see the two companies work on building generative AI solutions for global customers, according to an Infosys press release.

The broadened alliance will bring the NVIDIA AI Enterprise ecosystem of models, tools, runtimes and GPU systems to Infosys Topaz. Through the integration, Infosys will create solutions customers can adopt, to easily integrate generative AI into their businesses, according to the press release.

Infosys also plans to set up an NVIDIA Centre of Excellence, where it will train and certify 50,000 of its employees on NVIDIA’s AI technologies as demand for such skills is expected to skyrocket in the coming years.

“Infosys is transforming into an AI-first company,” co-founder and Chairman Nandan Nilekani said in the release. Clients are looking at complex AI use cases to get more business value across their operations, he said.

Infosys Topaz is complementary to NVIDIA’s core stack, Nilekani said. Combining the IT services company’s strengths, training 50,000 professionals on NVIDIA’s AI technologies, Infosys aims to create end-to-end industry-leading AI solutions for its customers, he said.

“Generative AI will drive the next wave of enterprise productivity gains,” Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO, NVIDIA, said in the press release. Huang was in India recently, meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and high-ranking Indian officials.

He announced a slew of investments, including partnerships with India’s Tata Group and Reliance Industries, spanning data centres that will use NVIDIA’s chips to a collaboration on India-specific large language models.

“The NVIDIA AI Enterprise ecosystem is ramping quickly to provide the platform for generative AI. Together, NVIDIA and Infosys will create an expert workforce to help businesses use this platform to build custom applications and solutions,” Huang said in the press release.

Infosys uses the full-stack NVIDIA generative AI platform, including hardware and enterprise-grade software in its own business operations, and it is helping customers create generative AI applications for business operations, sales and marketing.

With NVIDIA AI Enterprise frameworks, pre-trained models and toolkits — including the NVIDIA NeMo LLM framework, NVIDIA Metropolis for computer vision and NVIDIA Riva for speech AI — Infosys has already developed some solutions.

In today’s episode it’s all about Apple. And of course, the company didn’t disappoint with the many incrementally faster, better features with innovations that combine both hardware tech and software ingenuity, as it launched the iPhone 15 series of smartphones and the Apple Watch 9 series, yesterday.

For example, a double tap of your thumb and your index finger, of the hand on which you’re wearing an Apple Watch, will now let you do a bunch of new things, from answering and ending phone calls to bringing up various apps and notifications.

Or take the iPhone 15 Pro models, which have titanium bodies, making them tougher and lighter. I’ll do a deep dive into this in the coming days, and you can of course just check out all the new features on Apple’s website. Oh and the switch to USB-C happened.

What caught my imagination, however, was the iPhone maker’s progress towards its 2030 goal of being carbon neutral across its supply chain.

And yesterday, Apple provided updates on several fronts on its progress – from increased use of recycled materials across its products to energy and water use in its operations to more supply chain partners committing to making their own operations carbon neutral, to the end results – products that don’t leave a carbon footprint or whose carbon footprints are offset by the company’s overall efforts.

For the Apple Watch Series Nine, the aluminium used in the watch cases is 100 percent recycled. The company is also increasing the proportion of recycled metals including gold, tin, copper, tungsten and other materials.

And for the first time, there is 100 percent recycled cobalt in the battery. Apple has also redesigned one of its most popular watch bands, the Sport Loop, to use more recycled materials. It is now made with 82 percent recycled yarn.

Starting this year, all Apple Watch manufacturing is powered by 100 percent clean electricity. For Series Nine, Apple will match 100 percent of your expected electricity use by investing in renewable energy projects around the world.

To cut emissions from transportation, Apple has redesigned Series 9 packaging to be 100 percent fibre based and more compact. It has a new, smaller shape that lets Apple ship up to 25 percent more watches per trip. And more of those trips will be made with low carbon shipping modes like Ocean freight, which emits one 20th of shipping by air.

Overall, these efforts reduced the carbon footprint on the Apple Watch by 78 percent. The rest is being offset by high quality credits from projects like forests and wetlands that actively remove carbon from the atmosphere. This last step brings the net carbon footprint of Apple Watch Series Nine down to zero, making it Apple’s first ever carbon neutral product.

The iPhone 15, overall, is one of the most durable smartphones that will the market next week. Apple is also making these phone incrementally more repair friendly, allowing people to use them for longer. And as we know, Apple’s software updates support its products for several years.

The iPhone’s enclosure uses 75 percent recycled aluminium for the first time, 100 percent recycled cobalt in the battery and 100 percent recycled copper foil in the main logic board and MagSafe charger.

The entire aluminium substructure is made with 100 percent recycled aluminium, a first for the iPhone.

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max now use 100 percent recycled gold in the USB‑C connector as well as the gold plating and tin soldering in multiple printed circuit boards. Both models meet Apple’s high standards for energy efficiency and are free of mercury, PVC, and beryllium.

One last point. For the first time, Apple is releasing the iPhones in India at the same time as in the US, starting this Friday, Sep. 15, 5:30 p.m. local time in India. Pricing starts at Rs 1,34,900 for the 128GB version of the iPhone 15 Pro, and Rs. 1,59,900 for the iPhone 15 Pro Max 256GB version.