Breaking: Amazon plans to lay off around 9,000 individuals in its second round of layoffs. The majority of these job cuts will be in departments such as AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch. 

One quick thing: Bitcoin has surged past $28,000, marking its highest level since June and signalling the return of Bitcoin bulls.

• The rally coincides with speculation that the Federal Reserve could halt or slow the pace of interest rate hikes this week in response to contagion caused by the collapses of major banks.

In today’s newsletter: 

• IIT Madras to take on ChatGPT
• WinZO’s $50M global gaming fund
• BluSmart takes on Ola-Uber duopoly at Bengaluru airport

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The language divide in the country is a reality, especially in technology, where English has always been the dominant method of communication. This makes modern technological breakthroughs like ChatGPT inaccessible to a large portion of India's population.

• This, however, appears to be an opportunity for IIT Madras

In the fourth and latest installment of our Inside IIT Madras series, we bring you the institute's plans to develop a ChatGPT alternative that focuses on regional languages in India.

• Institute director V Kamakoti said that it may be possible to develop an alternative to ChatGPT by leveraging data from the government's e-learning platform, Swayam

Kamakoti has suggested that a translation-aided platform similar to ChatGPT could be a significant innovation. However, it is crucial to note that the institution is already developing AI-powered translation platforms for text-to-text, speech-to-text, and text-to-speech as part of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's Bhashini initiative.

In our interview with Kamakoti, he also informed us that the company which developed the indigenous operating system for smartphones, BharOS, is close to striking deals with a few organisations.

• The operating system is designed in a way that enables organisations to set up a network for themselves, without having to worry about data going to a third party.

Read the full interview with the IIT Madras director, in which he discusses his vision for the institute, what distinguishes it from other educational institutions in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship, work on artificial intelligence, and more.

Social gaming and interactive entertainment platform WinZO has set its sight on growing its global footprint and scaling its offerings.

WinZO has unveiled a new $50 million fund to back gaming startups across the world, of which at least $10 million would go to US-based startups. 

• This is WinZO's fourth such fund in the past four years - following a $1.5 million maiden fund in July 2019, a $5 million fund in November 2020, and a $20 million fund in September 2021

WinZO plans to back game developers and publishers in a variety of genres, including casual, action, sports, and mid-core multiplayer games such as tennis and golf. It will also fund startups in gaming economies, content creation, live-ops, and security.

• WinZO can commit a cheque size of up to $10 million in a startup, it said

This will allow WinZO to add more games to its platform, which boasts a portfolio of over 100 games spanning multiple genres and 12 languages. This will also result in an increase in its current user base of over 100 million users.

The idea also appears to be to attract international gaming companies to expand and monetise in India, by offering them its localisation and monetisation engine. 

• WinZO helps developers earn revenue through a microtransaction-based monetisation model ranging from Rs 1- Rs 10, instead of the traditional in-app purchases and advertisement-based models

Dream11 parent Dream Sports had set up a $250 million fund in August 2021, while skill-based gaming company Games24x7 announced a Rs 400 crore corporate venture fund in November 2022.

BluSmart Mobility, a Gurugram-based company that operates an all-electric fleet, has taken on Uber and Ola in the airport taxi market by launching a cab-pickup zone at Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport (KIA). 

The airport, which previously only had two designated cab pickup zones for Ola and Uber, has now opened its doors to BluSmart.

It is a common sight to see passengers at Bengaluru airport waiting in long queues to get a cab, especially at night. Unfortunately, there have also been several complaints by passengers regarding taxi drivers not turning on the air conditioning due to the escalating fuel costs.

Passengers travelling to and from Bengaluru airport are seeking an alternative to Ola and Uber, especially eco-friendly options

• BluSmart claims to have no surge pricing

The Bengaluru airport is located about 40 kilometers away from the city's Central Business District and lacks Metro connectivity. Additionally, the frequency of suburban trains at the KIA halt railway station remains quite poor.

On March 16, an unexpected announcement caught everyone off guard: the resignation of TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan, marking the first time a top executive had quit the nation's largest IT company.

In a press conference the following day, a usually reserved Gopinathan was affable, made quips and attributed his exit to the fatigue of doing something for 40 quarters. He said that while all was well, his mind had started to wander, which meant that it was time to leave despite having four more years in his current tenure.

However, as we dug deeper, we discovered that not all was well behind the scenes. A confluence of factors — leadership unhappy with the company's growth rate, and most importantly, an unpopular organisational restructuring exercise — led to his resignation.

Read our scoop that brings you the inside details on the events that led to the big surprise exit.

On March 20, 2005, Yahoo! acquired internet software and services company Flickr for approximately $25 million. The service has since changed hands and is now owned by SmugMug, a cloud storage service that focuses on professional photographers and entry-level photo enthusiasts.

Quick Trivia: Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield started the workplace messaging app Slack after leaving Flickr. Salesforce later acquired Slack for $27.7 billion in January 2021.

• Signature Bank's deposits will be sold to Flagstar Bank, a New York Community Bancorp subsidiary. However, crypto-related deposits are not part of the agreement. 
  
  
• FTX wants to strip the company's Bahamas arm of any claim to company assets, arguing that it is merely a shell created to further Sam Bankman-Fried's alleged fraud, the company’s US leadership said.

In the quest for the ultimate scent-sensing machine, scientists have looked to the natural world for inspiration.

A team of scientists at Tel Aviv University have combined the power of the natural world with electronic sensing devices to create a new biohybrid sensing device. 

They used the antenna of the desert locust, artificial intelligence, and electroantennogram technology to develop a robotic device that can distinguish between eight pure odours and two mixtures. 

Watch the video to know more

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