One quick thing: Samsung workers' protest continues, pressure mounts on TN chief minister MK Stalin

In today’s newsletter: 

• Samsung, Apple dominate India’s festive smartphone sales
• On IT panel's agenda: AI, fake news, OTTs
• UPI Lite gets an upgrade

P.S. It’s a big week in the world of AI. Why, you ask? Scroll down for more details!

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The festive season is upon us, and for many, that means one thing: upgrading their smartphones to take advantage of attractive discounts.

Any guesses on who has taken the early lead in this year’s first wave of festive smartphone sales? It’s none other than Samsung and Apple!

Smartphone brands collectively sold $3 billion of devices during the initial phase of the 2024 festive season sale, which lasted for 11 days (September 26 - October 6)

• Samsung led both in terms of volume and value with aggressive offers across price segments in both Flipkart and Amazon's sale events, according to market trackers Counterpoint Research and TechInsights. 

Samsung saw a 17% jump in sales compared to last year, thereby cornering a 20% market share during the festive sales, according to TechInsights.

• Apple was a surprising second with a 16% share of the market pie, growing 44% in volume sales on the back of demand for the iPhone 15.

This sales growth comes as more customers are opting for premium smartphones. Sales in the ultra-premium category of Rs 70,000 and above crossed a million units for the first time.

Overall, smartphones worth $2-2.3 billion were sold online, with Amazon leading the first wave of sales with over 55% of the share, while the remaining was sold on Flipkart, as per preliminary estimates by TechArc. 

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Also read:

• Festive day sales cross Rs 26,500 crore in three days

• Online festive sales to rise to Rs 1 lakh crore led by quick commerce growth

• Festive sale frenzy: 5 online shopping traps to avoid this season

Image source: Meta.ai

It looks like the growing influence of AI and social media is set to take centre stage in the Parliament!

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology will discuss a broad range of issues for 2024-25, including the impact of AI, regulation of social media platforms, and tackling fake news.

• This comes as AI’s influence on society continues to grow rapidly, prompting the government to consider regulating the nascent technology.

On the agenda is:

• Regulation of digital platforms
• Mechanisms to curb fake news
• The rise of new currencies
• Cybercrimes

The committee will also review the implementation of media-related laws and discuss OTT platforms and related issues.

• The government’s previous attempts to regulate OTTs faced pushback from industry players, political parties, and civil society groups, suggesting a complex road ahead.

The committee, chaired by BJP’s Nishikant Dubey, includes notable members like TMC’s Mahua Moitra, Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi, Rajya Sabha MP Ilaiyaraaja, and actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut, marking her first official parliamentary role.

• Trinamool Congress’ Saket Gokhale has replaced Jaya Bachchan, who opted out of the committee.

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If you use UPI Lite, it’s time to rejoice!

At the RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), the regulator has raised the transaction limit of UPI Lite from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000.

• The per transaction limit has also gone up from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000.

UPI Lite allows users to make payments without the need for a pin, thereby drastically reducing the transaction time as well as potential payment failures.

This is a much-needed relaxation for users as many restaurant bills or taxi bills can often go above Rs 500. 

The gradual increase in the limits of UPI Lite indicates an effort at making consumers comfortable with the idea of PIN-free transactions for higher ticket transactions as well.

• UPI123 Pay, another offline payment method also has seen its transaction limit go up from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000.

UPI Lite is currently available across all prominent payment apps such as PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, and BHIM.

Speaking of Google Pay…

The country’s second-largest UPI player does not believe in aggressive monetisation, Google Pay executive Sharath Bulusu told us. 

Just like its other popular products—Search, Chrome, and Maps—the idea is that sustainable monetisation will happen if cross-selling is not in your face. 

He believes that it is too early for the tech giant to aggressively monetise its large user base.

• Google Pay has 37 % market share in UPI by volume

“This is still only the middle chapter for UPI with a lot more growth and competition happening in the space. The shape of the ecosystem will probably keep evolving,” Bulusu says.

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On October 4, a US district court not only found the IT firm Cognizant guilty of discriminatory practices against non-Indians, but it said the company is on the hook for punitive damages.

So what are these practices? We were able to obtain a copy of the complaint, which sheds light on many unpleasant details.

• From Indian managers speaking in Hindi to not inviting them to group lunches, the list is long.

Other accusations include submitting visa applications for fictitious jobs, as well as non-Indians being promoted less frequently and facing a hostile work environment created by Indian employees.

• The IT major has denied the allegations, and plans to “vigorously defend” and appeal at the appropriate time.

Read our story

• OpenAI has accused Elon Musk of harassment in a legal dispute as it considers transitioning to a for-profit business model. It is also opening offices in Singapore, Paris, Brussels to accelerate global expansion.

• Meta announced that new generative AI video creation tools are being rolled out for advertisers on Facebook and Instagram, with wider availability planned for early next year.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking the world by storm, so it was only a matter of time before it conquered the most prestigious honor in the world - the Nobel Prize. 

For the first time ever, a scientific breakthrough made possible by AI has earned a Nobel Prize.

• Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis, along with fellow scientist John Jumper, have won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. They are sharing the honor with biochemist David Baker. 

Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model, called AlphaFold 2, to crack a 50-year-old problem of predicting the complex structures of proteins in 2020. 

• Since then, over two million researchers globally have used the AI model to make discoveries in areas such as malaria vaccines, cancer treatments, and enzyme design. Google DeepMind announced AlphaFold 3 in May. 

This award comes on heels of AI pioneers John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton bagging the Nobel Prize in Physics for their "foundational discoveries" in machine learning. 

P.S. It seems that Geoffrey Hinton, who is also referred to as 'The Godfather of AI,' is not a fan of Sam Altman, the poster boy of the current AI boom. Here’s why

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