Technology News

WhatsApp Reportedly Testing Events Scheduling Feature in Individual Chats for iOS and Android Users WhatsApp will likely to bring its Events feature to personal chats soon. The Meta-owned messaging platform first brought this feature to WhatsApp Communities in May 2024. Reports now suggest that the company is testing the functionality in individual chats for both Android and iOS users. It may roll out to global users in the upcoming days.

Mistral Small 3 Open-Source AI Model Introduced, Outperforms OpenAI’s GPT-4o Mini Mistral, the Paris-based artificial intelligence (AI) firm, released the Mistral Small 3 AI model on Thursday. The company, known for its open-source large language models (LLMs), has also made the latest AI model available on Hugging Face as well as several other platforms. Mistral claimed that the latest model was built with processing speed, efficiency, and perform...

Vivo Partners With Zepto to Offer Quick Door Stop Delivery of Its Phones in India Vivo has joined hands with quick commerce service Zepto to offer doorstep delivery of its smartphones. Customers can order select Vivo smartphones on the instant delivery platform now for quick delivery. The handsets are claimed to be delivered in less than 10 minutes of receiving the order. Customers buying Vivo smartphones on the Zepto app or website can also avail ...

Gemini in Google Sheets Gets Updated With Data Analysis and Visualising Tools Gemini in Google Sheets is getting a major upgrade that will allow the artificial intelligence (AI) tool to analyse and visualise user data. Announced on Wednesday, the new features are currently being rolled out to the Google Workspace subscribers and those subscribed to the Google One AI Premium plan.

Netflix Brings 'Season Download' Button to iPhone, iPad Users Netflix has introduced a 'Season Download' button on its app for iPhone and iPad, allowing users to download an entire season with one tap. This feature has been available on the Android version for some time, but iOS users can finally use the button to automatically download all episodes of a season to their mobile devices.

Recent iPhone, Mac Models Susceptible to Side Channel Exploitation, Putting Sensitive Information at Risk: Report Security researchers have discovered new vulnerabilities in Apple’s in-house Silicon chipsets which may leave it exposed to exploitation, according to a report. The Cupertino-based technology company’s A and M-series chipsets, which power the iPhone/iPad and Mac, respectively, are said to be susceptible to side channel attacks which may allow threat actors to acce...

Hugging Face Is Trying to Build a Fully Open-Source Version of DeepSeek-R1 AI Model Hugging Face announced a new initiative on Tuesday to build Open-R1, a fully open reproduction of the DeepSeek-R1 model. The hedge fund-backed Chinese AI firm released the DeepSeek-R1 artificial intelligence (AI) model in the public domain last week, sending shockwaves across Silicon Valley and NASDAQ. A big reason was that such an advanced and large-scale AI model, t...

X Money Digital Payments Service Unveiled; Platform Partners Visa to Introduce P2P Payments X Money was introduced by Elon Musk's X platform on Wednesday as a new digital wallet and payments service. The new X Money service will allow users to send and receive P2P payments, transferring funds from their bank to a digital wallet and then to another wallet, or directly using their debit card. Partnering with Visa, X Money aims to compete with apps like Cashapp...

Signal to Allow Synchronisation Across Multiple Devices Like Desktop, iPad Soon for iOS, Android Users Signal, the popular messaging app, allows users to link additional devices like desktops or iPads to their primary Android or iOS smartphone. The company now says that users will soon be able to transfer and synchronise messages and media of one account across different devices. 

Windows 11 Could Offer Quick Options to Send Files, Evidence Spotted in Latest Preview Build Microsoft released a preview build of Windows 11 last week and it appears to include a new method to share files from File Explorer to your phone or email. The new feature dubbed “Drag Tray” works like file sharing in smartphones and lets users share files by dragging them to the top of the screen.

OpenAI to Release o3-Mini AI Model to ChatGPT Free Tier, Plus Subscribers to Get Higher Rate Limits OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made several announcements for ChatGPT users on Sunday. The o3 series of artificial intelligence (AI) models, which were unveiled in December 2024 for public safety testing, will now witness its first global release. Altman stated that the o3-mini AI model will be rolling out to both the paid subscribers as well as those on the free tier of its p...

DeepSeek Releases Janus Pro 7B Image Generation AI Model, Said to Outperform OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm, released an open-source image generation model on Monday. The company has generated a buzz in the AI space by releasing multiple fully open-source frontier foundation models, including the reasoning-focused DeepSeek-R1. The new model, dubbed Janus Pro 7B, comes days after the R1 model and the company claims it out...

Hugging Face Introduces Compact Versions of SmolVLM Vision Language Model That Can Run on Consumer Laptops Hugging Face introduced two new variants to its SmolVLM vision language models last week. The new artificial intelligence (AI) models are available in 256 million and 500 million parameter sizes, with the former being claimed as the world’s smallest vision model by the company. The new variants focus on retaining the efficiency of the older two-billion parameter mod...

DeepSeek’s iOS App Overtakes ChatGPT on App Store, Tech Leaders React to the Open-Source AI Model’s Rise DeepSeek for iOS has overtaken OpenAI’s ChatGPT to top the App Store’s “Top free apps” chart in the US. The eponymous Chinese company released the open-source DeepSeek-R1 artificial intelligence (AI) model last week, which outperforms OpenAI’s o1 AI model in several benchmarks. This release has made the company and its AI chatbot the talk of the town, with s...

OpenAI Updates Canvas With o1 AI Model Support, Expands to ChatGPT App for macOS OpenAI announced several upgrades for its Canvas feature on Saturday. The sandbox-styled pop-up window that allows users to work alongside the chatbot to make inline edits, formatting, and coding was first released in October 2024 in early beta. It was then rolled out to all users in December 2024. Now, the AI firm has added support for the o1 artificial intelligence ...

Meta to Begin Testing Ads on Threads in the US and Japan Meta announced on Friday that it will start testing ads on its Threads platform with select brands in the US and Japan, as the app surpasses 300 million monthly active users. The company will closely monitor the tests before a wider rollout, allowing businesses to extend their existing Meta ad campaigns to Threads.

Anthropic Introduces a Citations Feature to Make Claude’s Responses More Reliable Anthropic introduced a new application programming interface (API) feature on Thursday to let developers ground the responses generated by artificial intelligence (AI) models. Dubbed Citations, the feature allows developers to restrict the output generation of the Claude family of AI models to source documents. This is aimed at improving the reliability and accuracy o...

Uber Denies Implementing Phone Model-Based Pricing in India Uber said it does not set ride prices based on a user's phone model. India's consumer affairs minister Pralhad Joshi said on X on Thursday that the Central Consumer Protection Agency (CCPA) had sent notices to the companies over the alleged price disparity or "differential pricing".

Airtel Satellite Telecom Services Ready for Rollout, Awaiting Centre's Go Ahead: Rajan Bharti Mittal Rajan Bharti Mittal, Vice Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, has said that its satellite telecom service is ready for rollout in India. Reiterating Bharti Airtel's stance, he said satellite companies should be required to pay licensing fees and acquire spectrum through auctions, just as traditional telecom operators do.

OpenAI Partners Nvidia, Microsoft, SoftBank and Others for New 'Stargate Project' to Build AI Infrastructure OpenAI announced the formation of a new company dubbed The Stargate Project on Tuesday. The new venture of the firm will focus on building artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the US. The company announced that it will spend a total of $500 billion (roughly Rs. 43 lakh crore) to build the capacity.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Crawler Can Be Used to Trigger DDoS Attack on Websites, Researcher Claims OpenAI’s ChatGPT application programming interface (API) has a vulnerability that can be exploited to initiate a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on websites, claimed a cybersecurity researcher. As per the claims, the issue results in sending thousands of network requests to a website using the ChatGPT crawler. The researcher claimed that the bug exists d...

Character AI Reportedly Testing a New Games Feature, Adds Two Word-Based Games Character AI, the California-based artificial intelligence (AI) platform, is reportedly testing a new ‘games’ feature. As per the report, the company has released two word-based games to the paid users of the platform. While users can create game-focused AI characters and play a wide range of story-driven games, these are said to be the first games to be added dir...

Microsoft Unveils Open-Source MatterGen AI Model That Can Generate Inorganic Material Designs Microsoft researchers unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) model last week that can design new inorganic materials with desired properties. Dubbed MatterGen, the open-source large language model (LLM) is currently available in the public domain. The researchers have also published a paper highlighting that the technology can be used to accelerate the material d...

Best Offers on Wireless Routers During Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 Amazon's Great Republic Day Sale started on January 13 with deals on a wide range of electronic products. If you are planning to upgrade your Wi-Fi router, this sale offers products from popular brands like TP-Link, D-Link, Netgear, and more with discounts. They come with multiple antennas for improved bandwidth and wireless connectivity ideal for everyday browsing, ...

Perplexity AI Said to Be Considering Merger with TikTok US Perplexity would merge with TikTok US and create a new entity by combining the merged company with New Capital Partners, the person said. Perplexity AI's search tools enable users to get fast answers to questions, with sources and citations.

TikTok Restores Service After US Ban, Thanks Incoming President Donald Trump TikTok began restoring its services on Sunday after President-elect Donald Trump said he would revive the app's access in the US. TikTok’s public thanks to Trump, the day before he takes office, comes at a tense moment in US-China relations. Trump has said he intends to place tariffs on China but has also indicated he hopes to have more direct contact with China’s...

OpenAI Could Reportedly Launch Advanced AI Agents Soon as CEO Schedules Meeting With US Officials OpenAI might be getting close to releasing its first artificial intelligence (AI) agent. Sam Altman, the company CEO, has reportedly scheduled a briefing with US officials on January 30 where he might showcase the capabilities of its AI agents. The AI firm has been rumoured to be working on an AI agent called the Operator for quite some time now, and it is believed th...

Best Deals on AI PCs During the Amazon Great Republic Day Sale Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 will conclude in two days on January 19. The e-commerce giant’s first sale of the year began on January 13 and before it ends, individuals can get discounts on a wide range of products. During the sale, buyers will be able to find deals on the recently launched artificial intelligence (AI) PCs and Copilot+ PCs that come equipped w...

WhatsApp Targeted by Russian Hackers Seeking Data on Ukraine Attackers associated with Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, sent emails to specific targets asking them to join WhatsApp groups, Microsoft researchers said in a blog post Thursday.

Coldplay's Music of the Spheres Ahmedabad Concert to Be Streamed Live on Disney+ Hotstar on January 26 Disney+ Hotstar has joined hands with Coldplay to broadcast the music band's concert live to audiences across India. The performance which is set to take place in Ahmedabad in January fourth week is part of Coldplay's “Music of the Spheres World Tour". The live stream is confirmed to be presented in collaboration with Cisco.

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025: Best Deals on TWS Earbuds from JBL, Sony and More Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 has entered its fourth day in India. So, if you’ve been scouring the market for a great pair of TWS earbuds with good sound quality, battery life and design, then Amazon’s first sale of the year is a great avenue to do so. You can find offerings from brands such as boAt, JBL, Samsung, and Sony at considerably lower prices than t...

Google Partners The Associated Press to Bring Real-Time Information to Gemini Google announced a new partnership with the US-based not-for-profit news agency Associated Press on Wednesday. The new collaboration is focused on the Mountain View-based tech giant’s artificial intelligence (AI) products and services, which are powered by its Gemini AI models. The company highlighted that with this partnership, AP will deliver “a feed of real-tim...

Top Deals on Smartwatches, Fitness Trackers During Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 began earlier this week, offering discounts on consumer tech and electronics. Deals on wearables, including smartwatches and fitness trackers from brands like Apple, Samsung, Garmin, Amazfit, Redmi, and OnePlus, are available. You can use credit card and EMI offers to further reduce your purchase costs.

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025: Best Deals on Smart Home Products Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025, the e-commerce giant’s first sale of the year, kick-started on Monday. The sale will continue till January 19 and offers both native discounts and bank deals on a wide range of products. Individuals can find heavy discounts on select products across categories such as smartphones, home appliances, laptops, smartwatches, earphones...

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025: Best Deals on Xiaomi Smartphones Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 went live for all users on Monday and will continue till January 19. The e-commerce giant’s first sale of the year is being held on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of India’s Republic Day, which will be celebrated on January 26. During the sale, buyers can find deals on a wide range of consumer tech devices such as smartpho...

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025: Best Deals on Room Air Purifiers Air purifiers are slowly becoming a must-have product in Indian households due to wildfires, extreme weather conditions and bad air quality. If you are planning to get one for your home, this year's Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 has plenty of options to choose from. Popular brands like Xiaomi, Sharp, and Dyson are selling air purifiers with varieties of cleanin...

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025: Best Deals on Gaming Accessories Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 is currently live for all users in India. A wide range of products like electronic devices and personal gadgets, including smartphones, tablets, headphones, and gaming laptops are offered at considerably lower prices than usual during the sale. Here, we have compiled a list of the best deals on gaming accessories that you can c...

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025: Best Deals on Premium Laptops Products from brands such as HP, Microsoft and Apple are available with price cuts, bank offers and coupon discounts in the Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025. Apple's MacBook Pro with M3 chip under the hood is listed for Rs. 3,69,900, down from the original price of Rs. 3,99,900. Similarly, the Asus Zenbook 14 is selling for Rs. 87,990, instead of Rs. 1,22,99...

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025: Best Deals on Budget Smartphones Amazon Great Republic Day 2025 sale has started in India with several deals and discounts on smartphones, ranging from top iPhone 16 Pro Max to the budget-friendly Lava O3. The sale started today at 12pm (noon)after offering 12 hours of early access for Prime subscribers.

Brazil Gives Meta 72 Hours to Explain Changes to Fact-Checking Program Brazil will give Meta until Monday to explain the changes to its fact-checking programme. On Thursday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the changes were "extremely serious" and announced he had called a meeting to discuss the topic.

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025: Best Deals on TWS Earphones Under Rs 10,000 Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 started for all users in India on January 13. A wide range of items, including home furnishing items, electronic devices, personal gadgets and more, are offered at discounted rates during the sale. Over and above the lowered sale prices, customers can enjoy additional benefits with bank and exchange offers, as well as coupon discou...

Best Offers on Premium Smartphones During Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 Amazon Great Republic Day 2025 sale is now live for all shoppers in India. The sale brings offers and discounts for products across different categories including mobile phones, accessories, laptops, wearables, kitchen products, TVs and other electronic appliances. The yearly sale started 12 hours early for Prime members. Amazon's Republic Day special sale offers addi...

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 Goes Live for Prime Members: Best Deals on Mobiles, Electronics Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 has gone live for Prime members, 12 hours ahead of the sale opening up for everyone else. Amazon's Republic Day special sale in January 2025 brings exciting discounts on popular mobile phones, electronics, Amazon devices, and other other gadgets.

OpenAI Might Have Briefly Added New Custom Instruction Options to ChatGPT OpenAI might have added several new options to its Custom Instructions feature for ChatGPT on Thursday. Several netizens shared screenshots of these new options in custom instructions that allow users to further personalise the responses generated by ChatGPT. These new options include options to add the user’s nickname, profession, as well as personality traits.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Allegedly Permitted Llama AI Models’ Training on Copyrighted Materials Meta is facing a copyright lawsuit over allegedly using copyrighted works to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. The lawsuit was filed by multiple complainants that also include several bestselling authors. The primary allegation against the tech giant is that it used pirated e-books and articles to train the older versions of its Llama AI models, violating...

Blinkit Announces 10-Minute Delivery of Laptops, Monitors and Printers in These Cities Blinkit will now offer quick deliveries of laptops and its peripherals in select Indian cities, the company announced on Thursday. The company is expanding the range of electronic devices it sells and has partnered with leading brands such as Canon, HP, Lenovo, and MSI to list their products on its quick commerce app.

Elon Musk’s Grok AI Could Soon Get an ‘Inappropriate and Offensive’ Unhinged Mode Elon Musk-owned xAI could soon add a new ‘Unhinged’ mode to its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok. The AI firm recently updated its frequently asked questions (FAQ) page and added mentions of this new mode which is designed to be “objectionable, inappropriate, and offensive.” If this new mode is added, it would join the regular and Fun modes available ...

Flipkart Monumental Sale Begins on January 13; iPhone 16 Series, iPhone 16 Pro Series Deals Revealed Flipkart Monumental Sale is set for January 13 in India, offering early access to Flipkart Plus and VIP members. This Republic Day special sale will feature discounts on mobile phones, smart TVs, and home appliances. Apple's iPhone 16 series will be available at a reduced price during the event.

Google Must Face Mobile Phone Privacy Class Action, Possible Trial Google failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a privacy class action claiming it collected users' personal data. Users of Android and non-Android mobile devices accused Google of invading their privacy and violating a California law against unauthorised fraudulent computer access by intercepting and saving their personal browsing histories without consent.

Nvidia Cosmos AI Platform to Train and Develop Autonomous Vehicles and Robots Launched at CES 2025 Nvidia launched Cosmos, a new artificial intelligence platform that contains multiple generative world foundation models (WFMs), on Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2025. The platform does not only contain these AI models but also include advanced tokenisers, accelerated video processing pipeline, and guardrails that enable the platform to develop physica...

Internet-Connected Devices Can Now Have a Label that Rates Their Security The Cyber Trust Mark, a stylised shield logo with microchip-style detailing, is meant to give American consumers a quick and easy way to evaluate the security of a given smart product, much like US Department of Agriculture labels on food or Energy Star ratings on appliances.

Amazon Great Republic Day Sale 2025 Dates Announced: These Smartphones to Get Discounts The Amazon Great Republic Day sale 2025 will begin on January 13 at noon for everyone, and 12 hours prior for Prime users. The end date of the sale has not been announced yet. Amazon has joined hands with SBI to offer a 10 percent instant discount for credit cards and EMI transitions. Buyers can also avail of ICICI Amazon Pay credit card-based offers, exchange discou...

Meta Shelves Fact-Checking Program in US, Adopts X-Like ‘Community Notes’ Model For Meta, this move is its biggest overhaul of its approach to managing political content on its services in recent memory and comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been signaling a desire to mend fences with the incoming administration.

Getty Images to Acquire Shutterstock to Create $3.7 Billion Firm Getty Images Holdings Inc. agreed to acquire rival stock-photo provider Shutterstock Inc.. Getty Images offers to pay about $28.85 (roughly Rs. 2,476) in cash, or roughly 13.67 Getty Images shares for each Shutterstock share, according to a statement on Tuesday.

Draft Data Protection Rules Mandate Due Diligence, Explicit Consent for Processing Children's Data The recently released draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules specify that parent's verifiable consent will have to be obtained by social media or online platforms before children can create any account.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says the Company Is Now Focusing on Superintelligence OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed that the company now has a fundamental understanding of how to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) and is shifting its focus towards superintelligence. Altman highlighted that superintelligence could reshape the world and accelerate scientific discovery and innovation to a point beyond human capabilities. While the CEO did not sha...

OpenAI's o3 Model Claims Human-Level Intelligence on Benchmark, But It Might Not Be That Smart OpenAI unveiled the reasoning-focused o3 series of artificial intelligence (AI) models last month. During a live stream, the company shared the benchmark scores of the model based on internal testing. While all of the shared scores were impressive and highlighted the improved capabilities of the successor to o1, one benchmark score stood out.

Hugging Face Introduces Smolagents Library to Build AI Agents With Open-Source LLMs Hugging Face introduced a new code library last week to enable developers to easily build artificial intelligence (AI) agents. Dubbed smolagents, the tool defines the basic logic for general purpose simple AI agents that can perform actions by executing them in code. Smolagent can be connected with any open-source large language model (LLM) or a select number of cloud...

China Proposes Further Export Curbs on Battery, Critical Minerals Tech China is mulling over proposed export restrictions on some technology used to make battery components and process critical minerals lithium and gallium. If implemented, they would be the latest in a series of export restrictions and bans targeting critical minerals and the technology used to process them, areas in which Beijing is globally dominant.

AI Agents in 2025: What Are They and How Can They Revolutionise Industries Across the Globe This year should mark the entry of AI agents in consumer electronics, mobile and desktop applications, as well as websites and platforms. Google’s Project Mariner, for example, can be integrated with Google Chrome and assist users in making purchases and finding files from the web by the end of this year.

eBay and Beazley Reportedly Being Targeted by Advanced AI-Generated Phishing Scams eBay, the ecommerce giant, and several other companies are reportedly witnessing an increased volume of personalised phishing attacks aimed towards high-level employees. As per the report, these phishing scams are being carried out using artificial intelligence (AI) systems to make them appear human-like and avoid the telltale signs of a typical scam email.

OpenAI’s AI Training Opt-Out Tool for Creators Not Releasing Anytime Soon: Report OpenAI, in May, announced a new machine learning (ML) tool that could enable creators to specify whether they wanted OpenAI to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models on their content or not. Dubbed Media Manager, the tool was said to identify copyrighted text, images, audio, and videos across multiple sources and could reflect creators’ preferences.