Eid Mubarak to all our readers! We're taking a break today, so there won't be a regular edition of Tech3. But we didn't want to leave you hanging. So, here are the top stories of the day.

But first...

Yesterday night, Apple sent out threat notifications to iPhone users in 92 countries, including India, with a serious warning.

What, you ask? The Cupertino tech giant has warned some of its users that they may have been victims of mercenary spyware attacks, similar to those used by the NSO Group's Pegasus. 

• Apple has notified users of such threats in over 150 countries since 2021, the company said in the notification

• Apple has also dropped the term 'state-sponsored' attacks from its threat notifications and support page, replacing it with 'mercenary spyware attacks'

The change comes after the iPhone maker was caught in a political firestorm in October last year, after the opposition accused the government of spying. The IT ministry later sent a notice to Apple and also initiated an investigation, with the company even sending its technical and cybersecurity experts to the country.

Apple's growth market: India is emerging as a key market for Apple, both in terms of sales and manufacturing capabilities. The company has been seeing record revenue growth from iPhone sales in India for the past several quarters.

• Also, about 1 in 7 iPhones assembled in the world are reportedly being done in India. This move is also resulting in the company reportedly looking to boost its workforce in the country to 500,000 in 3 years

Picture credit: Microsoft Copilot

• Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is all set to kickstart the IT earnings tomorrow with the announcement of its Q4FY24 results. All eyes and ears will be on the company’s commentary on demand, the business environment, hiring plans, and, most importantly, Generative AI updates for FY25. According to our estimates, revenue will be flat sequentially at around Rs. 60,559 crore, while net profit will see an increase of 6.16% QoQ to nearly Rs. 11,739 crore.
  
  
• Amazon appointed Andrew Ng, the former head of AI projects at Google and Baidu, to its board amid increasing competition among tech giants for users of their AI products. This move comes as Amazon's cloud unit faces pressure from Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI and integration of AI technology into Azure, while its Alexa voice assistant competes with AI chat tools from OpenAI and Google.
  
  
• Bengaluru South BJP Lok Sabha candidate Tejasvi Surya seems to be a firm believer in 'Mutual Fund Sahi Hai'. Surya’s election affidavit revealed a 30-fold increase in total assets over the last five years, from Rs 13.46 lakh in 2019 to Rs 4.10 crore in 2024. The 33-year-old leader sees the soaring Indian economy as the ultimate catalyst, multiplying returns for investors nationwide. "No gold, no land, no fancy cars for me—my investments? All in the capital markets," he said.
  
  
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with a group of Indian gamers and engaged with them exploring the burgeoning landscape of the gaming industry. During the interaction, PM Modi raised concerns about the perception of gaming as gambling, prompting a discussion on the need for clear differentiation between real money and skill based games from other games.
  
  
• Google said that starting May 15, everyone using Google Photos will have access to their AI editing tools, including Magic Editor and Magic Eraser.  There is a limit of 10 edits per month for free users, but users can upgrade to the premium Google One plan for more edits.
  
  
• Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has unveiled a range of safety measures aimed at protecting users from sextortion and other forms of intimate image abuse, including a new nudity protection feature in Instagram DMs that blurs images containing nudity and prompts users to reconsider before sending such images.
  
  
• McKinsey & Co. is beginning to eliminate roughly 360 jobs as the consulting giant deals with a slowdown in demand for its services. The reductions are global and will affect employees across a variety of divisions including design, data engineering, cloud and software. The cuts are expected to impact about 3% of the 12,000 staffers who are considered specialists or have technical expertise that work alongside the firm’s traditional consultants
  
  
• Oppo and OnePlus have announced that Google’s Gemini Ultra will be integrated in their smartphones. The two smartphone brands are aiming to be the first to launch features based on the Gemini Ultra platform on smartphones later this year. Oppo and OnePlus also confirmed that they will be working to ensure they get the right mix of hardware, operating system, and ecosystem for better integration of AI.