New Delhi:

India has overtaken the US to become the world’s second-biggest 5G handset market for the first time, behind China, a report has mentioned.

Global 5G handset shipments grew 20 per cent (year-on-year) in the first half of 2024, according to the Counterpoint Research. Apple led the 5G handset shipments, accounting for more than 25 per cent share.

Apple led the 5G handset shipments globally, accounting for more than 25 per cent share, driven by strong shipments of the iPhone 15 series and 14 series, reported news agency IANS.

5G handset shipments have been growing steadily and with the increased availability of 5G handsets in the budget segment, the emerging markets have witnessed high growth in this segment.

“India became the second-biggest 5G handset market during the first half, overtaking the US. The strong shipments from Xiaomi, Vivo, Samsung and other brands in the budget segment were the main reason for this trend,” said senior analyst Prachir Singh.

Samsung followed in the second position, capturing more than 21 per cent share, driven by the Galaxy A series and S24 series. Apple and Samsung took five spots each in the top-10 list for 5G models in the first half of 2024, with Apple taking the top four spots.

Other emerging markets also witnessed high growth in 5G handsets. Consumers in emerging markets are looking at 5G handsets as an upgrade to their devices, even in the lower price segments.

Asia-Pacific accounted for 63 per cent of the overall global net adds and commanded a 58 per cent 5G shipment share. In Europe and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions also, 5G handset shipments witnessed double-digit growth.

Research Director Tarun Pathak said that as the democratisation of 5G handsets increases with increasing 5G penetration in lower price segments as well as increasing expansion of 5G networks, this trend will further grow.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

India has overtaken the US to become the world’s second-biggest 5G handset market for the first time, behind China, a report has mentioned.

Global 5G handset shipments grew 20 per cent (year-on-year) in the first half of 2024, according to the Counterpoint Research. Apple led the 5G handset shipments, accounting for more than 25 per cent share.

Apple led the 5G handset shipments globally, accounting for more than 25 per cent share, driven by strong shipments of the iPhone 15 series and 14 series, reported news agency IANS.

5G handset shipments have been growing steadily and with the increased availability of 5G handsets in the budget segment, the emerging markets have witnessed high growth in this segment.

“India became the second-biggest 5G handset market during the first half, overtaking the US. The strong shipments from Xiaomi, Vivo, Samsung and other brands in the budget segment were the main reason for this trend,” said senior analyst Prachir Singh.

Samsung followed in the second position, capturing more than 21 per cent share, driven by the Galaxy A series and S24 series. Apple and Samsung took five spots each in the top-10 list for 5G models in the first half of 2024, with Apple taking the top four spots.

Other emerging markets also witnessed high growth in 5G handsets. Consumers in emerging markets are looking at 5G handsets as an upgrade to their devices, even in the lower price segments.

Asia-Pacific accounted for 63 per cent of the overall global net adds and commanded a 58 per cent 5G shipment share. In Europe and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions also, 5G handset shipments witnessed double-digit growth.

Research Director Tarun Pathak said that as the democratisation of 5G handsets increases with increasing 5G penetration in lower price segments as well as increasing expansion of 5G networks, this trend will further grow.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Food and agriculture AI startup Cropin Technology Solutions has unveiled a real-time intelligence solution to forecast future yields for 13 vital crops as artificial intelligence helps overcome bottlenecks in the farming industry.

The Bangalore-headquartered company unveiled Sage, powered by Alphabet Inc.’s Google Gemini AI model, which converts the world’s agricultural landscape into a proprietary grid-based map and then delivers precise predictive intelligence based on historical data. Decision-makers can ask questions about crop performance and life cycle in their native language and get information on productivity, climate, farm practices and soil for the 13 crops that account for 80% of global food demand.

“To predict the future of a particular crop is a major leap, and we see entire industries go into turbulence on account of shortfall in say, cocoa or orange crop,” said Krishna Kumar, Cropin’s founder and chief executive officer.

As the world’s population explodes and food security concerns increase, generative AI and large language models have the potential to transform modern agriculture in a climate-impacted world. That can help a whole range of customers from consumer packaged goods makers and seed manufacturers to financial institutions and governments plan crop production and make informed decisions on cultivation.

The world’s agricultural land spans 4.8 billion hectares, according to Cropin.

The company’s technology fuses generative AI with four decades of climate data, earth data and knowledge graphs to decode each crop country-by-country and predict how a certain crop will behave this season, next year or over the next five years.

“We have the technology to predict, for example, which variety of potato will yield optimally in certain grids in Idaho or in Kenya, helping a prominent chipmaker customer to plan their supply chain,” Kumar said over a video call.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New York:

 A U.S. appeals court said Google must face a revived lawsuit by Google Chrome users who said the company collected their personal information without permission, after they chose not to synchronize their browsers with their Google accounts.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the lower court judge who dismissed the proposed class action should have assessed whether reasonable Chrome users consented to letting Google collect their data when they browsed online.

Tuesday’s 3-0 decision followed Google’s agreement last year to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming the Alphabet unit tracked people who thought they were browsing privately, including in Chrome’s “Incognito” mode.

Neither Google nor its lawyers immediately responded to requests for comment.

Matthew Wessler, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he was pleased with the decision and looked forward to a trial.

The proposed class covers Chrome users since July 27, 2016 who did not sync their browsers with their Google accounts.

They said Google should have honored Chrome’s privacy notice, which said users “don’t need to provide any personal information to use Chrome” and Google would not receive such information unless they turned on the “sync” function.

The lower court judge concluded that Google’s general privacy policy allowing data collection governed, because the Mountain View, California-based company would have collected the plaintiffs’ information regardless of which browsers they used.

In Tuesday’s decision, Circuit Judge Milan Smith called that focus misplaced.

“Here, Google had a general privacy disclosure yet promoted Chrome by suggesting that certain information would not be sent to Google unless a user turned on sync,” Smith wrote. “A reasonable user would not necessarily understand that they were consenting to the data collection at issue.”

The appeals court returned the case to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, who had dismissed it in December 2022.

Google’s settlement related to Incognito let users sue the company individually for damages. Tens of thousands of users in California alone have since done so in that state’s courts.

The case is Calhoun et al v Google LLC, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-16993.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

San Francisco:

OpenAI on Thursday said it was putting its artificial intelligence engine to work in a challenge to Google’s market-dominating search engine.

The startup behind ChatGPT announced that it is testing a “SearchGPT” prototype that is “designed to combine the strength of our AI models with information from the web” to answer online queries quickly and to provide relevant sources.

SearchGPT is being made available to a small group of users and publishers to get feedback, OpenAI said in a blog post.

Search features refined in the prototype will be woven into ChatGPT in the future, according to the San Francisco-based company.

Users will be able to interact with SearchGPT through conversational queries, and can ask follow-up questions as they might if speaking to a person, OpenAI said.

Google recently added AI-generated query result summaries — referred to as “Overviews” — to its search engine, causing worries among some that the move would result in fewer opportunities to serve up money-making ads.

This new feature offers written text at the top of results for Google searches, ahead of the traditional links to sites, which summarizes information that the engine believes answers the user’s search query.

OpenAI’s description of SearchGPT sounded similar to Google’s Overviews.

Since the release of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, companies in the sector have been engaged in a frantic race to deploy generative AI programs for producing text, images and other content through prompts in everyday language.

“We are innovating at every layer of the AI stack,” Google chief Sundar Pichai said this week during an earnings call for parent company Alphabet, which he also heads.

OpenAI said it was working with some publishers to refine SearchGPT, which is being kept separate from the training of its generative AI foundation models.

“AI search is going to become one of the key ways that people navigate the internet, and it’s crucial, in these early days, that the technology is built in a way that values, respects, and protects journalism and publishers,” The Atlantic chief executive Nicholas Thompson said in the OpenAI blog post.

“We look forward to partnering with OpenAI in the process.”

OpenAI has invited users to sign up on a waitlist to try SearchGPT.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Google is planning to keep third-party cookies in its Chrome browser, it said on Monday, after years of pledging to phase out the tiny packets of code meant to track users on the internet.

The major reversal follows concerns from advertisers – the company’s biggest source of income – saying the loss of cookies in the world’s most popular browser will limit their ability to collect information for personalizing ads, making them dependent on Google’s user databases.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority had also scrutinized Google’s plan over concerns it would impede competition in digital advertising.

“Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time,” Anthony Chavez, vice president of the Google-backed Privacy Sandbox initiative, said in a blog post.

Since 2019, the Alphabet unit has been working on the Privacy Sandbox initiative aimed at enhancing online privacy while supporting digital businesses, with a key goal being the phase-out of third-party cookies.

Cookies are packets of information that allow websites and advertisers to identify individual web surfers and track their browsing habits, but they can also be used for unwanted surveillance.

In the European Union, the use of cookies is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which stipulates that publishers secure explicit consent from users to store their cookies. Major browsers also give the option to delete cookies on command.

Chavez said Google was working with regulators such as the UK’s CMA and Information Commissioner’s Office as well as publishers and privacy groups on the new approach, while continuing to invest in the Privacy Sandbox program.

The announcement drew mixed reactions.

“Advertising stakeholders will no longer have to prepare to quit third-party cookies cold turkey,” eMarketer analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf said in a statement.

Lena Cohen, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said cookies can lead to consumer harm, for instance predatory ads that target vulnerable groups. “Google’s decision to continue allowing third-party cookies, despite other major browsers blocking them for years, is a direct consequence of their advertising-driven business model,” Cohen said in a statement.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Bengaluru:

Google said today that it is working with MeitY ‘Startup Hub’ to train 10,000 startups in artificial intelligence (AI), as the tech giant expanded access to its AI models and introduced new language tools for the developers in the country.

At its ‘I/O Connect’ event here, the company unveiled a range of tools, programmes and partnerships to empower Indian developers and startups to be at the forefront of the global AI revolution.

The company said that developers in India now have expanded access to Google’s powerful AI models with the two million token context window in Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemma 2, the next generation of open models.

“We’re committed to empowering Indian innovators to harness AI’s full potential, creating solutions that not only address India’s unique needs but also shape the future of AI globally,” said Ambharish Kenghe, Vice President, Google.

The opportunities with multimodal, mobile, and multilingual AI are immense, and we’re thrilled to be a part of India’s AI journey, he added.

“The fastest way to build with Gemini is through its developer platform Google AI Studio, and India has one of the largest developer bases on Google AI Studio today,” said the company.

The Google DeepMind India team has expanded Project Vaani, in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), which provides developers with over 14,000 hours of speech data across 58 languages, collected from 80,000 speakers in 80 districts.

The team also introduced IndicGenBench, a comprehensive benchmark to evaluate the generation capabilities of LLMs on Indic languages, and open-sourced CALM (Composition of Language Models).

The company said it is introducing Google Wallet APIs to simplify the integration of loyalty programs, tickets, and gift cards.

For developers using the Google Maps Platform, India-specific pricing is being introduced with up to 70 per cent lower costs on most APIs.

Google is also collaborating with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), offering developers building for ONDC up to 90 per cent off on select Google Maps Platform APIs.

“From consumer experiences to agriculture, to social enterprises, AI has the power to address some of the biggest challenges of our time across many sectors and industries,” said Seshu Ajjarapu, Senior Director, Google DeepMind.

The company will also soon launch the Agricultural Landscape Understanding (ALU) Research API, a limited availability tool designed to make agricultural practices more data-driven and efficient.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tech giants Google and Microsoft each consumed 24 TWh of electricity in 2023, surpassing the consumption of more than 100 countries, new research claims.

Analysis by Michael Thomas, shared on X, states that both Google and Microsoft used the same amount of energy as Azerbaijan, which has a GDP of $78.7 billion. In 2023, Google’s revenue was $307.4 billion, and Microsoft’s was $211.9 billion, Tech Radar reported. 

This massive energy usage underscores the significant environmental impact of these companies but also highlights their potential to lead more sustainable initiatives.

For comparison, Iceland, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, and Tunisia each consumed 19 TWh, while Jordan consumed 20 TWh. Libya (25 TWh) and Slovakia (26 TWh) used slightly more power.

The comparison between entire countries and two single companies emphasizes the colossal energy demands of Big Tech. It also points to the environmental impacts of data centers that power cloud services and the new generation of artificial intelligence.

The significant electricity consumption of these companies calls for ongoing discussions around sustainability and renewable energy adoption. Both Google and Microsoft have pledged to be carbon-free or carbon-negative by the end of the decade and have significantly scaled up investments in cleaner energies and energy matching.

With market caps of $2.294 trillion and $3.372 trillion respectively, Google and Microsoft are currently the world’s fourth and second-most valuable companies. Given the scale of their operations, comparable to entire nations, their actions in preventing and reversing environmental damage are closely watched.

New Delhi:

Amid the growing debate over artificial intelligence (AI) models, Google on Tuesday launched its AI assistant Gemini’s mobile app in India.

The Gemini app is now available in India, supporting English and nine languages — Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

The app allows users to type, talk, or even add an image to get the assistance they need.

“We’re also adding these local languages to Gemini Advanced, plus other new features, and launching Gemini in Google Messages in English,” Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted on X social media platform.

According to the company, Gemini Advanced users in India can now access the power of Gemini 1.5 Pro, its most advanced model, in nine languages.

“Additionally, we’re unlocking new features in Gemini Advanced such as new data analysis capabilities and file uploads, and also launching the ability to chat with Gemini in Google Messages, starting in English,” said Amar Subramanya, Vice President, Engineering, Gemini Experiences.

On iOS, Gemini access is rolling out directly from the Google app over the next few weeks.

With a 1 million token context window, Gemini Advanced now has the longest context of any widely available consumer chatbot worldwide.

“We’re also introducing Gemini in Google Messages to give you another way to collaborate with Gemini on your phone,” said the company.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Alphabet’s Google paid $26.3 billion to other companies in 2021 to ensure its search engine was the default on web browsers and mobile phones, a top company executive testified during the Justice Department’s antitrust trial, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.

The amount of payments Google made for the default status has more than tripled since 2014, according to senior executive Prabhakar Raghavan who is responsible for both search and advertising, the report added.

Google’s revenue from search advertising came in at $146.4 billion in 2021, while the payments for the default setting were its biggest cost, Mr Raghavan was mentioned as saying in the Bloomberg report.

Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The company has argued the revenue share agreements are legal and that it has invested to keep its search and advertising businesses competitive. It has also argued that if people are dissatisfied with defaults that they can, and do, switch to another search provider.

Google had objected to revealing the numbers, saying they would harm the company’s ability to negotiate contracts in the future. Judge Amit Mehta, who is overseeing the case, ruled that the numbers should be disclosed, the report added.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)