By ANI | Updated: 22 March 2023

The Gujarat government on Wednesday signed an important strategic Memorandum of Understanding with global technology major Google, through which they will jointly equip Gujarat’s rural women, school-going children and young entrepreneurs for socio-economic transformation through the use of information technology and internet access.

The memorandum was signed in the presence of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Vijay Nehra, Secretary, Science Technology and Sanjay Gupta, Vice President and Country Head of Google.

Approximately fifty thousand people will be provided training every year.

“Not only this, training sessions will be organized to increase the capacity building-skill of children-students and youth along with increasing digital literacy among rural women,” a release said.

Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said that Gujarat has a strong ICT (information and communications technology) infrastructure which has been developed due to the new IT and ITES Policy 2022-2027. The chief minister said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has brought the best in the world to Gujarat and the state government has realized it through various policy initiatives.

Gujarat CM also assured full support of the state government to Google to associate the name of Google with Gujarat and to ensure that Gujarat, which the CM termed as the growth engine of the country.

It is necessary to point out here that the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of Gujarat has signed 3 MoU with Google in the past and more than 10 thousand women, school children, young developers have benefited from these training programs.

On the occasion, Sanjay Gupta, Country Head and Vice President of Google, appreciated the overall development in the IT sector in the state and especially the activities of Science City.

He said that while Gujarat is a hub for young entrepreneurs, Google is eager to take the world by storm with this partnership with Gujarat.

Gupta called children and women as the foundation of a bright future and also said that IT has extended to the rural level in Gujarat will give a new direction to this strategic partnership.

By Reuters | Updated: 22 March 2023

Microsoft Corp on Tuesday rolled out an image-creation feature for search engine Bing and browser Edge that will use the technology behind OpenAI’s DALL-E to create pictures based on text prompts.

The tool, named ‘Bing Image Creator’, will be available to users of the latest AI-powered version of Bing and Edge preview.

Bing Image Creator will be integrated into Bing chat, rolling out initially in Creative mode starting Tuesday for users on desktop and mobile, Microsoft said in a blog post.

Companies large and small are locked in fierce competition to deploy software that could reshape how people work after a frenzy started with last year’s launch of ChatGPT, the OpenAI-owned chatbot sensation that showed the potential of so-called large language models.

At the center are Microsoft and Alphabet Inc’s Google, touting AI features for their most popular products from spreadsheet software Excel to Gmail.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has sought to outpace peers through investments in OpenAI, which last week released GPT-4 that performs a range of tasks from creating a real website through a hand-drawn mock-up to helping individuals calculate their taxes.

The software giant also launched new features – Visual Stories and Knowledge Cards 2.0 – for Bing users. The features will use AI-generated graphics and more interactive elements such as charts and timelines to provide information and key facts at a glance.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

By Reuters | Updated: 22 March 2023

Indian automaker Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd is in advanced talks with global investors to raise between $1 billion (roughly Rs. 82,659 crores) and 1.3 billion to accelerate the expansion of its electric vehicle unit, Mint reported on Wednesday.

The company plans to raise capital by selling shares in its unit, currently valued at over $9.1 billion (roughly Rs. 75,22,242 crores) in multiple tranches over the next two fiscal years, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Mahindra did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

Shares of Mahindra rose as much as 1.7 percent on Wednesday, but are still down over 6 percent so far this year, compared to a 7 percent rise in rival Tata Motors

The Mumbai-headquartered conglomerate may raise as much as $800 million (roughly Rs. 6,613 crores) to $1 billion (roughly Rs. 82,659 crores) in the first tranche as early as the first half of financial year 2024, the newspaper said.

Mahindra, which is known for its sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and jeeps, has stepped up investments to bolster its EV capacity as the Indian government aims to increase the share of EVs to 30 percent of total annual car sales by 2030 from 1 percent currently.

Shares of Mahindra rose as much as 1.7 percent on Wednesday, but are still down over 6 percent so far this year, compared to a 7 percent rise in rival Tata Motors

The Mumbai-headquartered conglomerate may raise as much as $800 million (roughly Rs. 6,613 crores) to $1 billion (roughly Rs. 82,659 crores) in the first tranche as early as the first half of financial year 2024, the newspaper said.

Mahindra, which is known for its sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and jeeps, has stepped up investments to bolster its EV capacity as the Indian government aims to increase the share of EVs to 30 percent of total annual car sales by 2030 from 1 percent currently.

By Retuers | Updated: 22 March 2023

Microsoft on Monday won the dismissal of a private consumer antitrust lawsuit over its $69 billion (about Rs. 5,70,300 crore) proposed purchase of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, but the plaintiffs were given 20 days to refine their legal challenge.

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the lawsuit from a group of video game plaintiffs “lacks allegations” supporting their claim that the proposed acquisition would harm market competition.

“Plaintiffs’ general allegation that the merger may cause ‘higher prices, less innovation, less creativity, less consumer choice, decreased output, and other potential anticompetitive effects’ is insufficient,” wrote US District Judge Jacqueline Corley. “Why? How?”

The decision does not affect the US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) regulatory challenge to the largest-ever gaming industry deal. Microsoft announced its bid last year, and it also faces competition scrutiny in the EU and UK. Microsoft has denied the deal would harm video game competition.

US antitrust law allows private consumers to challenge mergers and acquisitions apart from government actions. An evidentiary hearing before the FTC is scheduled in early August.

A spokesperson for Microsoft and lawyers for the company did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Joseph Saveri, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told Reuters they planned to submit an amended lawsuit “with additional factual detail” to “address all of the ways in which the judge indicated we need to allege more.”

Corley scrapped a planned hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. A status hearing is scheduled for April 12.

The case is Demartini v. Microsoft Corp, US District Court, Northern District of California, 3:22-cv-08991.

For plaintiffs: Joseph Alioto of Alioto Law Firm; and Joseph Saveri of Joseph Saveri Law Firm

For Microsoft: Rakesh Kilaru of Wilkinson Stekloff, and Valarie Williams of Alston & Bird.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

By Reuters | Updated: 22 March 2023

Alphabet Inc’s Google on Tuesday began the public release of its chatbot Bard, seeking users and feedback to gain ground on Microsoft Corp in a fast-moving race on artificial intelligence technology.

Starting in the U.S. and the U.K., consumers can join a waitlist for English-language access to Bard, a program previously open to approved testers only. Google describes Bard as an experiment allowing collaboration with generative AI, technology that relies on past data to create rather than identify content.

The release last year of ChatGPT, a chatbot from the Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI, has caused a sprint in the technology sector to put AI into more users’ hands. The hope is to reshape how people work and win business in the process.

Just last week, Google and Microsoft made a flurry of announcements on AI, two days apart. The companies are putting draft-writing technology into their word processors and other collaboration software, as well as marketing-related tools for web developers to build their own AI-based applications.

Asked whether competitive dynamics were behind Bard’s rollout, Jack Krawczyk, a senior product director, said Google was focused on users. Internal and external testers have turned to Bard for “boosting their productivity, accelerating their ideas, really fueling their curiosity,” he said.

In a demonstration of the site bard.google.com to Reuters, Krawczyk showed how the program produces blocks of text in an instant, different from how ChatGPT types out answers word by word.

Bard also included a feature showing three different versions or “drafts” of any given answer among which users could toggle, and it displayed a button stating “Google it,” should a user desire web results for a query.

Accuracy, however, is still a concern. “Bard will not always get it right,” a Google pop-up notice warned during the demo. Last month, a promotional video for Bard showed the program answering a question incorrectly, helping shave $100 billion off Alphabet’s market value.

Google highlighted a couple mistakes during this week’s demo to Reuters, for instance saying Bard wrongly claimed ferns required bright, indirect light in response to one query.

Bard also produced nine paragraphs of text when asked for four in another question. After that answer, Krawczyk clicked a thumbs-down feedback button in response.

“We know the limitations of the technology, and so we want to be very deliberate at the pace at which we roll this out,” he said.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

By Reuters | Updated: 22 March 2023

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will tell lawmakers the Chinese-owned short video app with more than 150 million American users has never, and would never, share U.S. user data with the Chinese government amid growing U.S. national security concerns.

“TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made,” Chew will testify on Thursday, according to written testimony posted on Tuesday by the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.

He added that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is not owned or controlled by any government or state entity. “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew will say to the committee.

TikTok’s critics fear that its U.S. user data could be passed on to China’s government by the app and prompted growing calls to ban the app U.S. lawmakers. Last week, TikTok said the Biden administration demanded that its Chinese owners divest their stake in the app or it could face a U.S. ban.

“Bans are only appropriate when there are no alternatives. But we do have an alternative,” Chew’s testimony said.

TikTok has said it has spent more than $1.5 billion on what it calls rigorous data security efforts under the name “Project Texas.”

Chew said when the process is complete “all protected U.S. data will be under the protection of U.S. law and under the control of the U.S.-led security team. Under this structure, there is no way for the Chinese government to access it or compel access to it.”

The company said it had started this month to delete U.S. user protected data in data centers in Virginia and Singapore after it started routing new U.S. data to the Oracle Cloud last year. Chew’s testimony said it expects this process to be completed later this year.

Chew’s testimony says 60% of ByteDance is owned by global institutional investors including Blackrock, General Atlantic,

and Sequoia, about 20% by the company’s founders, and about

20% owned by its employees “including thousands of Americans.”

TikTok said on Monday that more than 150 million people in the United States use TikTok on a monthly basis after saying in 2020 that 100 million Americans used the app. Chew’s testimony says the average user today is an adult well past college age.

“While users in the United States represent 10% of our global community, their voice accounts for 25% of the total views around the world,” Chew’s testimony says.

Chew says current versions of the app do not collect precise or approximate GPS information from U.S. users.