Business

San Francisco, Oct 14 (IANS) Tech giant Apple's recently launched iPhone 14 Plus is garnering low traction as a new report said it has "unexpectedly low sales," media reports say.

The report from DigiTimes claims that sales of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are considerably overshadowed by an "enthusiastic" response to the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, reports MacRumors.

Sources speaking to DigiTimes said that despite differences in sales performance between the Pro and non-Pro iPhone models this year, total Phone 14 model shipments will likely be around the same as those for the iPhone 13 lineup in the second half of 2021.

If sales of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus "remain flat" soon, Apple purportedly may cut parts orders to make the devices in the second half of October, the report said.

If Apple cuts orders more aggressively than expected, then the total iPhone 14 lineup shipments by the end of the year may even fall compared to the iPhone 13 series in the same time frame last year, it added.

Meanwhile, Apple recently announced the availability of the iPhone 14 Plus, featuring a 6.7-inch display, an upgraded dual-camera system, Crash Detection, Emergency SOS via satellite, A15 Bionic, and improved battery life, in India.

The customers in India can purchase iPhone 14 in colours like midnight, blue, starlight, purple, and (PRODUCT) RED in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB storage starting from Rs 89,900.

--IANS
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BY VISHAL GULATI
New Delhi, Oct 14 (IANS) India has already extended critical help to debit-ridden Sri Lanka as an expression of support to brotherly people. The economic situation in the island nation is still very dire, but the wheels have started rolling again. In the future, Indian companies have a major role to play investing in renewables with Adani already announcing important wind energy investments.


These were the assertions of Erik Solheim, who has been appointed President Ranil Wickremesinghe's International Climate Adviser along with former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed.

In an exclusive virtual interview, Solheim told IANS on Friday that India has already extended critical help to Sri Lanka as an expression of support to brotherly people.

"The economic situation is still very dire in Sri Lanka, but the wheels have started rolling again, not least thanks to the Indian support. In the future Indian companies have a major role to play investing in solar, wind, electric transport and a lot more. Adani has already announced important wind energy investments," he said.

On August 16, Sri Lanka's Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera announced to grant provisional approval to Adani Green Energy for an investment of over $500 million in two wind projects in the island nation.

Solheim, who described his meeting with Wickremesinghe on October 12 as "good", said the President has a great vision for green economic recovery and for Sri Lankan climate leadership.

"It is hard to think of any politician with a better grasp of economic realities than President Wickremesinghe," remarked Solheim, who worked as the UN Environment Program (UNEP) Executive Director.

"Wickremesinghe will provide the leadership needed to take Sri Lanka out of the crisis. But his job is thankless because the only way out of the crisis is hard work. There will be higher taxes and probably cuts in unnecessary public expenditure. There will be pain in the short run, but in the long term the opportunities for Sri Lanka are very positive," an optimistic Solheim, who acted as the main facilitator of the peace process in Sri Lanka from 1998 to 2005, told IANS.

With India being Sri Lanka's third-largest trading partner after the US and the UK, it plays a crucial partner by extending unprecedented bilateral assistance amounting close to $4 billion this year for ameliorating the difficulties faced by the people of the island nation.

India has also advocated to other bilateral and multilateral partners supporting Sri Lanka expeditiously in its current economic difficulties, said the Indian embassy in Colombo on September 20.

"We continue to be supportive of Sri Lanka in all possible ways, in particular by promoting long-term investments from India in key economic sectors in Sri Lanka for its early economic recovery and growth.

"In addition our bilateral development cooperation projects in Sri Lanka, which cumulatively total about $3.5 billion, are ongoing," it adds.

According to Solheim, green development is a very important pathway out of the crisis for the island nation.

"Renewable energies as solar, wind and hydro, electric mobility, tree planting, green agriculture and environment-friendly tourism all provide massive opportunities for jobs and prosperity. These are win-win policies, good for environment and economy at the same time."

As his role as President's International Climate Advisor, he remarked, "I will help him and his staff formulate the right policies to attract green investment from domestic and international business, not least Indian. I will try to help making international connections and help Sri Lanka learning from best environment practices in China, India, Europe and other places."

"Yes, exactly," remarked the former UN Environment chief when asked for remarks on climate change literally an existential threat to the nation.

"The dry north of Sri Lanka may be dryer, the wet south wetter. We may see more extreme weather and more landslides. But taking climate action is also a major opportunity for Sri Lanka to create jobs and prosperity, to make cities greener and improve health by reducing pollution," added Solheim.

During his tenure at UNEP, he played a crucial role in 2018 in convincing India to phase out single-use plastics from July 1, 2022, a major achievement in his crusade against plastic pollution.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)

--IANS
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New Delhi, Oct 12 (IANS) Microsoft has disclosed 85 vulnerabilities across its products in its October security update, including one that has been exploited in the wild and the other listed as publicly known.

Of the 85 new patches released, 15 are rated critical, 69 are rated important and one is rated moderate in severity.

The publicly disclosed vulnerability is in Microsoft Office which can put user tokens and other potentially sensitive information at risk.

"What may be more interesting is what isn't included in this month's release. There are no updates for Exchange Server, despite two Exchange bugs being actively exploited for at least two weeks," said Dustin Childs for the Zero Day Initiative.

Microsoft revealed earlier this month that it was investigating two new zero-day vulnerabilities affecting the company's Exchange Server which is actively being exploited by hackers.

The company said an attacker would need authenticated access to the vulnerable Exchange Server, such as stolen credentials, to successfully exploit either of the two vulnerabilities.

With no updates available to fully address these bugs, the best IT administrators can do is ensure the September 2021 security update is installed.

Last year, Microsoft released an emergency security update for its Exchange email and communications software as at least 30,000 organisations across the US were hit by hackers who stole email communications from their systems.

The next Microsoft Patch Tuesday falls on November 8.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Oct 12 (IANS) Triggered by the growing use of digital wallets, the total cost of e-commerce fraud to merchants is likely to exceed $48 billion globally in 2023, from just over $41 billion in 2022, a report showed on Wednesday.

This growth will be accelerated by the increasing use of alternative payment methods, such as digital wallets and BNPL (buy-now-pay-later), which are creating new fraud risks.

In India, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) reported another record high in August, with 6.57 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 10.72 trillion.

In FY23 (till August) UPI recorded over 30 billion transactions worth Rs 51.74 trillion.

Online payment fraud includes losses across the sales of digital goods, physical goods, money transfer transactions and banking, as well as purchases like airline ticketing.

Fraudster attacks can include phishing, business email compromises and socially engineered fraud.

"To combat this fraud, e-commerce merchants must implement simple steps such as address verification, combined with risk-based scoring on transactions, which will allow merchants to best mitigate the massive fraud threats present," suggested research author Nick Maynard.

The report recommended that fraud prevention vendors focus on building platforms providing AI-powered risk-based scoring, which can be payment method agnostic, to best suit changing market conditions.

Additionally, the research found that the potential of fraud with BNPL is a major risk going forward.

Given the delayed nature of BNPL payments, fraudsters can make several illegitimate payments using stolen card details before the fraudulent activity is identified, creating significant risk.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS) Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday urged the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) to create an interface with the startup ecosystem. This will help them grow faster and encourage domestic capital into the startups, he said.

Goyal said this while attending the listing celebration of the 400th company in BSE SME platform in Mumbai.

With the listing of eight new companies in the exchange's SME platform, the BSE SME platform has achieved the milestone of 400 listed companies.

The minister also rang the ceremonious bell to mark the special occasion.

Speaking on the occasion, Goyal said: "Indian investors are able to hold the Indian market strong. This has demonstrated the equity culture and that capacity of Indian investors to take risks has increased."

BSE could also offer technology services to the companies which could add lustre to the SME exchange, he added.

BSE Ltd had set up the BSE SME platform in March 2012 as per the rules and regulations laid down by SEBI.

It offers an entrepreneur and investor friendly environment, which enables listing of SMEs from the unorganised sector scattered throughout India, into a regulated and organised sector.

The listed SMEs step into the threshold of BSE SME Platform and foray in to the world of finance for further growth and development.

BSE SME assists small and medium enterprises in raising equity capital for their growth and expansion, which would help them turn into full-fledged companies.

In due course, this would enable such entities to migrate into the Main Board of BSE as per the existing rules and regulations.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday said that a bank loan rating by rating agencies not having lenders' names won't be considered for capital computation by banks.

Such loans will have to be treated by banks as unrated and they will assign risk weights to them.

In a circular issued to all banks on Monday, the RBI noted that disclosures relating to lenders' details are not available in a large number of Press Releases (PRs) issued by external credit assessment institutions (ECAIs) due to the absence of requisite consent by the borrowers to the ECAIs.

"It is, therefore, advised that a bank loan rating without the above disclosure by the ECAI shall not be eligible for being reckoned for capital computation by banks... They (banks) shall treat such exposures as unrated and assign applicable risk weights," the RBI said.

It cautioned that if the relevant information is not provided, then banks would have to assign risk weights to such unrated exposures.

This could further lead to lowering of provision for capital and underpricing of risks, the central bank cautioned further.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS) MG Motor India and its consortium members on Monday launched the fourth edition of its Developer Programme and Grant (MGDP) to accelerate, mentor and incubate innovative Indian startups in the field of electric mobility, as the country aims to obtain 50 per cent of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030.

Over the course of its previous three editions, the programme received entries from over 830 auto-tech startups. Out of these, around 180 startups including Koinearth, Electreefi, Voxomos, Redbot Technologies, and Mihup were identified, encouraged, and mentored by MG and its consortium members.

In the fourth edition, the carmaker has partnered with Invest India and Startup India as lead partners and Jiobp, Exicom, Fortum, CESL, Attero, MapmyIndia, and Bosch as the technology partners.

"MGDP Season 4 aims to facilitate a positive change in the industry by creating a space for EV innovators from across the country to collaborate and develop novel solutions. This is a platform that seeks to unite the best brains of the industry to come together and innovate ideas that have the potential to change the EV landscape," said Rajeev Chaba, President, and Managing Director of MG Motor India.

This year's MG Developer Programme will focus on areas such as charging infrastructure, fleet management, electric components, electric batteries, green energy solutions, EV battery life cycle management, connected car solutions, and Battery-as-a-service (BaaS).

"Furthermore, it will stimulate the development of innovative concepts in the Indian automotive industry, leading to further progression and growth. We look forward to uncovering some innovative solutions through this initiative," said Deepak Bagla, Managing Director and CEO of Invest India.

--IANS
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San Francisco, Oct 8 (IANS) Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that he finds it vaguely therapeutic to express himself on Twitter and the platform is a way to get his messages out to the public.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the world's richest man said: "I play the fool on Twitter and often shoot myself in the foot and cause myself all sorts of trouble."

"Aren't you entertained?" Musk replied with a roar of laughter when asked why a serious guy with serious ideas indulges in silly Twitter games that could also cost his followers dearly.

According to the report, he is a serial tweeter to his more than 108 million followers "who flouts convention, revels in outrageous outbursts, fights with regulators and staff, and taunts competitors".

"It is fair to say that Musk is obsessed with Twitter, so much so that he's been embroiled in an epic on/off buyout of the platform that has captivated Wall Street and the tech industry for months," the report said.

According to Musk, "Twitter is certainly an invitation to increase your pain level."

"I guess I must be a masochist".

Musk, however, said that "I'm not doing Twitter for the money. It's not like I'm trying to buy some yacht and I can't afford it".

"But I think it's important that people have a maximally trusted and inclusive means of exchanging ideas and that it should be as trusted and transparent as possible," said the Tesla CEO.

A US judge in the Twitter-Elon Musk case has now put the trial on hold till October 28, as both the parties deliberate on how to close the $44 billion takeover deal.

The stay was granted over the protests of Twitter's lawyers.

Twitter has received a letter from Musk to go ahead with their original deal of $54.20 per share (or $44 billion).

In a new filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk's legal team has also asked the court to adjourn the trial and all other proceedings.

However, the deal still may not go through.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Oct 7 (IANS) The Finance Ministry on Friday invited expression of interest (EoI) for strategic disinvestment in IDBI Bank, a move which would allow sale of a joint stake of the government and LIC of up to 60 per cent in the bank.

As per the bid details issued by the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), LIC will cut its stake in IDBI Bank to 19 per cent from 49.2 per cent, while the government will cut its share to 15 per cent from 45.5 per cent at present.

According to the conditions of the EoI, private sector banks, non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), foreign banks and even alternative investment funds registered by SEBI can bid for IDBI Bank.

The successful bidder has been mandated to scale down equity to 26 per cent in 15 years.

However, in the first five years starting from the date of acquisition, 40 per cent of equity capital would remain captive or locked, according to RBI guidelines.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Oct 7 (IANS) Almost 35 per cent of small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India are spending over 10 per cent of their revenue on technology (in comparison to global counterparts) and 26 per cent of SMBs are early adopters of new technologies, a Microsoft report said on Friday.

At least 27 per cent of SMBs are all or mostly cloud-based, a percentage that is expected to be global average in two-three years, according to the Microsoft's 'SMB Voice and Attitudes to Technology Study 2022' prepared by Analysys Mason.

SMBs are contributing approximately 30 per cent to India's GDP and providing employment to over 114 million people in the country.

"It is evident that linking technology investments and adoption with business strategies, as well as close collaboration with partners are crucial to deliver success for SMBs," said Samik Roy, Executive Director, Corporate Medium, and Small Business, Microsoft India.

Organisations, big or small, that are rooted in technology and committed to harnessing its full potential, will be able to stay ahead of the curve by becoming more agile, resilient, future-ready businesses," he added.

According to the report, SMBs in India look to technology to help them to grow their customer base (39 per cent) and improve customer retention (38 per cent).

SMBs in middle-income markets (27 per cent) are more concerned about cloud migration than their counterparts in high income markets (22 per cent).

"SMBs in India are the most likely to view competition intensity as a major obstacle (35 per cent)," the findings showed.

At least 25 per cent of SMBs surveyed in India prefer working with application developers/independent software vendor (ISVs).

SMBs in India (45 per cent) are most likely to want to improve environmental sustainability in comparison to SMBs across the markets, the report mentioned.

--IANS
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