There’s a lot that happened in the tech world this week. Apple killed its decade-long smart car project. Government gave green signal to three chip plants in the country, Tata Group to set up two of these. Google removed some prominent Indian apps from Play Store over policy violation. Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a strongly-worded letter to company employees over the recent embarrassing errors in its image generation tool that showed many white celebrities as dark or those of Asian origin.Two phones from Redmi and Samsung witnessed a price cut. All this and more in TOI Tech’s weekly wrap.

Government approves 3 semiconductor units in India, Tata Group to set up two

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the setting up of three semiconductor units under ‘Development of Semiconductors and Display Manufacturing Ecosystems in India. The three semiconductor units will be established at Dholera in Gujarat, Morigaon in Assam and Sanand in Gujarat. Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw said that all three units will start construction within next 100 days and also highlighted the importance of setting up of a semiconductor unit in Assam.
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Apple cancels the Apple Car project: What it means for employees, other products and more

There’s bad news for Apple fans waiting for a car from their favourite brand. Apple has cancelled the Apple Car project. The iPhone maker’s plan to take on Tesla with its self-driving car is officially off the table. The secret project called Project Titan is widely said to be in the works for nearly a decade. Apple is reported to be building an artificial intelligence system that was powerful and energy-efficient enough to make a car fully autonomous.
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Google has removed these Indian apps from Play Store for “policy violation”

Google on Friday, March 1, began removing the apps of 10 Indian companies over non-payment of service fees. The app removal followed a blog posted by Google earlier in the day, where it said that 10 companies in the country, some of them “very established”, had not paid fees even though they used the platform. Google did not disclose the names of the companies, but matrimonial apps.
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai to employees: …Completely unacceptable and we got it wrong

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has sent a strongly-worded memo to employees across the company on the recent controversy regarding its AI chatbot Gemini’s image generation tool. In the internal memo to Google employees, which first appeared on Semafor, Pichai called the Gemini chatbot’s responses around race unacceptable and vowed to make “structural changes to fix the problem”.
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Cognizant asks India employees to work from office

According to a report, Cognizant has instructed its employees in India to work from the office at least three times a week. This decision marks the end of remote work enforced by the Covid-19 pandemic for the US-based IT company. Quoting a memo from Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S last week, Reuters stated that the company informed all its associates in India that they should “aim to be present in the office for an average of three days per week, or as determined by their team leader.”
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Pakistani hackers deface Burger Singh website; read hackers’ message and the company’s response

Team Insane PK, a Pakistani hacking collective, has launched a cyberattack against the domestic fast-food chain Burger Singh. The company announced via the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that the group not only breached the burger franchise’s security but also redesigned its website on February 27. The cyberattack resulted in the creation of a digital graffiti wall, showcasing the group’s mischievous actions on the company’s site.
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Elon Musk texts Satya Nadella about his ‘problem’ with Windows PC

Elon Musk contacted Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella via text message to address his concerns about the new Windows laptop PC he recently purchased. Musk disclosed this in a post on X, after a user suggested he contact Nadella for “customer support”.
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IBM to employees: Raise your hand if you want to leave the company

IBM announced in January that it would lay off 3,900 employees and, reportedly, it is now preparing for more job cuts. However, it seems that this time the company is adopting a new method for thinning its staff. A report has said that IBM has asked its employees who want voluntary redundancy (want to leave the company) to come forward.
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Redmi 13C receives a price cut in India

Xiaomi launched its budget smartphone — Redmi 13C in India in December last year. The affordable Redmi smartphone comes in three variants— 4GB+128GB, 6GB+128GB and 8GB+128GB. Now, the Chinese smartphone maker has slashed the price of the 4GB+128GB variant of the smartphone.

WhatsApp rolls out ‘Search by Date’ feature: What is it and how to use it

Soon after introducing the Numbered list feature, WhatsApp is getting yet another feature that appears to be in development forever. Nonetheless, it’s a search feature that comes as an extension to the existing chat search option that already lets users search by files, documents, text, etc. The only difference here is that this is meant for in-chat search and not the entire WhatsApp chat search.
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Reliance, Disney India merger: What it means for Reliance Jio users

Reliance Industries and Walt Disney have announced the merger of their India TV and streaming media assets, creating a joint venture (JV) that will serve shows and sports to users in India and abroad. The $8.5 billion entertainment juggernaut will be led by Nita Ambani. She will chair the board of the combined entity and former top Disney executive Uday Shankar would serve as vice chair.
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Expedia to layoff 1500 employees

Online travel platform Expedia is the latest company to join the list of tech layoffs. Expedia has announced that it will cut 1500 job globally. The company revealed that the fresh round of layoffs will affect 9% of its workforce and the exercise is part of organisational and technological transformation.
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EA lays off over 650 employees, cancels Star Wars

Electronic Arts (EA) announced widespread layoffs on Wednesday, cutting over 650 jobs across the company. The reductions represent around 5% of EA’s total workforce and are part of a major restructuring effort to refocus the video game giant.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/ea-lays-off-over-650-employees-cancels-star-wars-game/articleshow/108105429.cms
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