Business

San Francisco, Oct 14 (IANS) Tech giant Sony Electronics has announced the availability of its first over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids for the US market.

The company said it is re-imagining the hearing device space with a focus on innovation, accessibility and personalization.

"With the unique products, developed in partnership with WS Audiology (WSA), a leading innovator in hearing aid technology for more than 100 years, Sony will enhance the lives of consumers by combining its unique premium technology, ultimate ease of use, and uncompromised comfort and wearability," it said in a statement.

The first two products to debut from the partnership are the CRE-C10 and the CRE-E10 self-fitting OTC hearing aids, designed to understand that one size does not fit all and that people deserve options that best fit their unique needs, situations, and lives.

Utilizing the app, the CRE-C10 and CRE-E10 intuitively adapt to each user's speech and surroundings, blending the latest technology with comfort to meet each individual's hearing goals.

Created for daily use, Sony's goal with these new devices is to break down the current barriers faced by those with signs of mild to moderate hearing loss and provide a simple, app-enabled, do-it-yourself solution that can allow for a better hearing experience.

While each device features an easy-to-navigate app interface with customizable options for the wearer's specific hearing needs and preferences, the two models coming to market will provide more choices regarding the look and capabilities of high-end hearing devices.

Each device can be used soon after purchase by following an easy set-up with the Sony | Hearing Control App. Users are guided through a step-by-step process, answering a few brief questions to quickly set up and start using either device in a matter of minutes.

The user-friendly app allows each device to communicate with the user's smartphone, letting them quickly personalise settings, including volume control and more to ensure the wearer hears exactly what they intend, in multiple environments.

The app also allows the wearer to "self-fit" each device. During the in-app self-fitting process, each Sony device self-adjusts to the most appropriate of pre-defined hearing profiles, which are based on thousands of actual, real-life audiogram results.

--IANS
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Singapore, Oct 14 (IANS) The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Friday tightened its policy stand by re-centering the mid-point of the Singapore Dollar Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (S$NEER) policy band up to its prevailing level, leaving the slope and width of the policy band unchanged.

This was the fourth time for the MAS to consecutively tighten the monetary policy this year, but the move was not as aggressive as widely expected, reports Xinhua news agency.

The Global Economics and Markets Research team of UOB (United Overseas Bank) said in a report that the majority of market consensus had expected a further rise in the slope of the policy band beforehand.

The MAS said in its newly-published Monetary Policy Statement that the policy shift, building on past tightening moves, will further reduce imported inflation and help curb domestic cost pressures.

The policy stance will help dampen inflation in the near term and ensure medium-term price stability, providing the basis for sustainable economic growth.

The MAS said that the global economy faces high inflation and lower growth next year.

Singapore's GDP growth is projected to come in at 3 to 4 per cent in 2022. In 2023, the economy is forecast to grow at a pace that is below the trend, which could cause the current mildly positive output gap to reverse.

At the same time, MAS core inflation, which excludes the costs of accommodation and private transport, is expected to remain elevated over the next few quarters, with risks still tilted to the upside.

For 2022 as a whole, MAS core inflation is estimated to average around 4 per cent and CPI-All Items inflation around 6 per cent.

In 2023, taking into account all factors including the Goods and Services Tax increase, MAS core inflation is estimated to come in at 3.5-4.5 per cent on average over the year, and CPI-All Items inflation at 5.5-6.5 per cent.

The authority added that it will continue to closely monitor global and domestic economic developments amid heightened uncertainty on both the inflation and growth fronts.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Oct 14 (IANS) Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday underlined the significance of technology transformation, which she said, was the main reason behind ensuring good governance in India.

Speaking on the topic "Technology, Finance and Governance: The Multiplier Effect" at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, the Finance Minister said, "Good governance in India is being achieved through technology transformation, especially in the last two years."

It has also helped in scaling and integration of micro, small and medium enterprises in India, the Finance Minister said.

She told the gathering that after overcoming initial hesitation, people in India and especially in rural areas, adopted technology.

In India, Sitharaman said, electricity supply is erratic, however, between 2014 and 2019, the (NDA) Government worked on providing electricity in villages and also to each rural household.

Once this was achieved, Sitharaman said that the next step was providing optic fibre to all panchayats across the country.

Today, she informed 80 per cent of panchayats have optic fibre connectivity.

The open source network created by the Government had helped small businesses, Sitharaman informed the select gathering of students and faculty members.

She also explained how the open network for digital commerce (ONDC), had helped in transforming trade and commerce and bank account aggregators have changed the dynamics of digital banking and commerce.

Digital payment interfaces like UPI are now being accepted in several countries, the Finance Minister said and even tax assessment as well as tax collection is being done online.

"These (UPI interfaces) are public goods and are affordable," Sitharaman said, while highlighting the technological transformation in India.

--IANS
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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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