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Reliance Jio JioFiber Trials, IRCTC Cash on Delivery, Infosys Layoffs, and More: Your 360 Daily

Reliance Jio JioFiber Trials, IRCTC Cash on Delivery, Infosys Layoffs, and More: Your 360 Daily

By Gadgets 360 Staff | Updated: 10 May 2017 21:52 IST

Highlights

JioFiber trails going on in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Ahmedabad, and more cities
Infosys to lay off hundreds of employees
IRCTC now offers cash on delivery option for buyers

With Reliance Jio's 4G services being widely adopted by consumers, the company is now focusing its attention towards improving broadband services, with JioFiber home broadband. The company has been teasing the service for a while, but has not revealed many details, until now. Replying to a Twitter user from @JioCare handle, the Reliance Jio customer care team said the JioFiber Preview Offer is being launched in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Ahmedabad, Jamnagar, Surat, and Vodadara.

The wired JioFiber connections will not be for home users only though, as Mukesh Ambani had mentioned in the 2016 AGM that the multi-gigabyte service will be launched for enterprises as well, and will cover the top 100 cities of India. Several users who have had early access to the JioFiber Preview Offer have tweeted about the service in the past. One such user in Mumbai had reported in January speeds between 70Mbps and 100Mbps on the 1Gbps connection.

While the service is said to be free for the first 90 days, users will have to pay a one-time, refundable sum of Rs. 4,000-4,500 for the JioFiber router.

IRCTC starts cash on delivery service for railway tickets
IRCTC is the go-to place for booking train tickets in India and now, and has introduced a pay-on-delivery service allowing passengers to book train tickets online and pay at the time of delivery.This move comes in the hope that by delivering tickets at the consumer's doorstep and by offering the cash-on-delivery (CoD) option will facilitate those consumers who book through travel agents to move to the online medium. The charges is said to be Rs. 90 plus sales tax for transactions up to Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 120 plus tax for transactions over Rs. 5,000.

After Cognizant and Wipro, now Infosys to lay off employees
In a new development, Infosys could be in the process of handing out pink slips to hundreds of mid-and senior-level employees as it carries out bi-annual performance review amid a challenging business environment. Interestingly, Infosys has said it will hire 10,000 Americans in the next two years and open four centres in the US as it seeks to counter moves by the US to tighten visa norms. A spokesperson for Infosys did not divulge the number of people to be impacted, although reports peg the number to be in hundreds.

Windows 10 on 500 million active devices, reveals Microsoft at Build 2017
Microsoft has announced at the ongoing Build 2017 developer conference that the Windows 10 operating system runs on 500 million active devices a month. This is a significant jump of 100 million devices over September, when the company revealed 400 million monthly active devices for the OS. The monthly active users of commercial Office 365 now stand at 100 million, Microsoft said at Build 2017. The world's biggest software maker also said the Cortana Skills Kit for developers is now in public preview (in the US only); the Skills Kit will allow developers to create bots for the Cortana channel of the Microsoft Bot Framework.

OnePlus 5 beats Samsung Galaxy S8+ Snapdragon 835 variant, suggest leaked benchmark score
The rumours for the OnePlus 5 are flying in thick and heavy as we near closer to debut, which should be sometime in summer. A leaked GeekBench screenshot suggests that the upcoming flagship outperforms two other smartphones that also feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC. The OnePlus 5 got itself an impressive score of 1963 (single-core) and a gigantic 6687 score (multi-core). In terms of single core performance, the phone only lagged behind Apple's iPhone 7 Plus and the Exynos 8895 processor variant of the Samsung Galaxy S8+ smartphone.

Asus ZenFone Go 5.5 (ZB552KL) with 13-megapixel camera launched at Rs. 8,499

The new Asus ZenFone Go (ZB552KL) with 13-megapixel rear camera and 4G LTE has been launched in India, exclusive to Amazon. The new Asus smartphone is priced at Rs. 8,499, but the company has not released its availability details yet. Running Android 6.0 Marshmallow with ZenUI 3.0 skin on top, the ZenFone Go (ZB552KL) has a 5.5-inch HD screen, quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, up to 256GB storage expansion support, and 3000mAh battery. The new smartphone's 13-megapixel rear camera is backed by a dual-LED real-tone flash, while the front camera has 5-megapixel resolution.

Aircel's new app-only offer for prepaid users
Aircel on Wednesday announced its new data and calling pack that gives 1GB 3G data at Rs. 76 with a validity of 10 days. Customers will also get additional 100MB data on any data pack recharge of Rs. 50 value or more. All of this is only valid provided you use the Aircel app when recharging your account. The company has also announced another app-only recharge offer where customers get full talktime value on a recharge of Rs. 86.

SoftBank Logs Over $1.4 Billion Loss From Indian Investments
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group on Wednesday said it has recorded loss from investments to the tune of $1.4 billion, or over Rs. 9,000 crores, for 2016-17 in Indian startups like Snapdeal and Ola. SoftBank Group (SBG) registered loss from financial instruments at FVTPL (fair value through profit or loss) of JPY 160,419 million in consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended March 2017, SoftBank said in a statement.

Government issues directives to curb online child sexual abuse material
In a bid to curb online child sexual abuse material (CSAM), the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday asked all Internet service providers (ISPs) to prevent the distribution and transmission of such content into India by adopting and implementing Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) resources on or before July 31. In December 2016, the central government had constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) to recommend specific solutions to address the issue of such material online. IWF has been adopted by many countries and is already being implemented by leading online service providers in other jurisdictions.

Amazon India's new Experience Zone to showcase Kindle and Fire TV Stick
Although Amazon is mostly known as a marketplace to sell other people's products, the company has its own devices as well, such as the Kindle ebook reader and the recently-launched Fire TV Stick. The first Amazon Experience Zone has opened in Bengaluru with the idea to increase visibility of Amazon's devices. The company plans to set up multiple such experience zones around the country, although the exact cities and locations has not been finalised yet.

Amazon Great Indian Sale Starts May 11: Five Tips to Ensure You Get the Best Offers

In other news, Amazon India's sanitation of American TV shows continue and this time, it's the new show called American Gods. However, unlike The Grand Tour, Amazon India will be offering two versions of the episodes from American Gods, one censored and the other left untouched. However, you'll have to manually search for the uncut version as Amazon will only be advertising the modified version to account for Indian “cultural sensitivities”.

Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom now available for purchase
The Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom made its debut at CES this year and now, the phone has finally been made available in the US at $329 (roughly Rs. 21,300). The Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom smartphone also gets a lower price than its previously advertised price of $399 (roughly Rs. 25,800) in the US. Notably, the company has launched the 3GB RAM + 32GB built-in storage variant in the US while the 128GB inbuilt storage variant with 4GB of RAM was launched in China earlier this year. The highlight feature of Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom is the dual rear camera setup, where the second 12-megapixel rear camera has a 2.3x optical zoom.

In other launches, Coolpad has launched the Cool Play 6 with dual rear cameras at CNY 1,499 (roughly Rs. 8,900) in China. The phone sports a metal frame with the fingerprint scanner and the dual camera setup situated at the back. Furthermore, Coolpad has reportedly embedded an 'intelligent temperature control technology' which ensures that the smartphone doesn't heat up during intense game sessions.

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Further reading: Infosys layoffs, IRCTC CoD, Reliance JioFiber, OnePlus 5 leak, Aircel offer, SoftBank losses, Indian Government IWF, Amazon Experience Zone, Asus ZenFone 3 US launch, Coolpad Cool Play 6 launch