Arvind's Newsletter-Weekend edition

1.Apple supplier Foxconn to lead production of iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max to be assembled in India

In a significant shift, California-based Apple Inc. is poised to make a groundbreaking move by manufacturing the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max models in India from the start, according to a recent report from MoneyControl. 

As per the publication, this ambitious plan aims to ensure that the 'Made in India' iPhones are available for purchase on their global release date.

Meanwhile, the Economic Times reported that, Foxconn is also evaluating plans to assemble Apple’s flagship tablet iPad in India, marking a significant expansion of its current operations focused on making only iPhones.The Taiwanese contract manufacturer may begin assembling iPads at its facility in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur.

However, assembly of the “Mac range of laptops may take some time as the production volume is very small”.

2.Streaming video biz in India generated 174K direct, indirect jobs in 2023:Vanita Kohli-Khandekar in Business Standard

This will rise to 331,000 by 2028. It is now pulling more talent from cities other than Mumbai, Hyderabad, or Chennai as myriad shows are shot and created in other parts of India. For instance, Kohrra (Netflix) was shot in Punjab, The Last Hour (Prime Video) was shot entirely in the northeastern states and in West Bengal.

Panchayat (Prime Video), the most popular show online, has been shot in Madhya Pradesh. The diversity in locations and languages has produced some good storytelling and improved opportunities for talent across the board for actors, writers, and technicians. And the entry of global players such as Netflix or Prime has meant workshops and industry practices that help the video business integrate better with the rest of the world. Streaming has also been a catalyst for several other businesses such as tourism and telecom. Data revenues brought 85 per cent of telecom revenues in 2022: video drives over 70 per cent of data traffic.

Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) latest piece of research, Beyond Screens - Streaming VOD’s Impact on India’s Creative Economy, is a nicely done deep dive on the impact of the growth of online video. “Streaming has been around in India for long; SVoD (subscription video on demand) came in 2015 with Hotstar. We have always looked at it from an ad and pay revenue projection perspective. The idea this time was to go beyond this to take a look at the socio-economic impact, the multiplier effect,” says Mihir Shah, vice president, MPA.

3.Indian Solar Players Including Tata Power Turn To China In Bid To Expand Capabilities

Indian solar module manufacturers, including Tata Power Solar Ltd., ReNew Photovoltaic Pvt., and Avaada Electro Pvt., are turning to Chinese expertise to help scale up operations and meet India's ambitious renewable energy targets. Since January, these firms have sought government assistance to secure 'business visas' for 36 Chinese engineers and technicians crucial for their projects, PTI reported.

4.Google Maps to roll out 'much requested' flyover callout, narrow roads features in India
Days after slashing the price of Google Maps application programming interfaces for developers by 70%, the American technology company is set to launch the ‘flyover callout’ feature in Google Maps for Android users in 40 Indian cities later this week, said a company executive, adding that it is the “most requested feature” by Android users.

The feature will be available for iOS users on a later date.
Google will also launch a ‘narrow roads’ feature to help four-wheeler drivers avoid narrow roads, said Lalitha Ramani, general manager, Google Maps, India.

5.Sabotage hits French railways hours before Olympics opening ceremony

France has suspended high-speed rail services across much of the country after the network was hit by sabotage attacks hours before the Olympic Games opening ceremony. The co-ordinated arson attacks on Thursday night will alarm organisers of the Paris summer games as they prepare to host hundreds of thousands of spectators in the capital for the opening ceremony to be held on the Seine river. Eurostar — which runs trains between London and Paris as well as high-speed services between cities in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany — said it was cancelling a quarter of its services on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The perpetrators are unknown, although a Russian national was recently arrested on suspicion of plotting “destabilisation.” 

6.DeepMind’s new artificial intelligence models achieved a silver medal score at the International Mathematical Olympiad.

AlphaProof and AlphaGeometry II learn by a trial-and-error approach like DeepMind’s AlphaGo, which played billions of games of Go against itself to become superhuman. But they do not understand problems written in English, so they were linked to Google’s ChatGPT-like AI Gemini, which translated the questions into programming language.

The system answered four out of six questions, behind just 58 out of 609 of the best human mathematicians in the world. It’s a “substantial step” towards AI breaking new frontiers in math, Nature reported, and shows that generative AI can be used to guide specialist models to help them understand natural-language problems.

7.Let the Search Wars Begin:OpenAI is working on SearchGPT.

That is an AI search engine, and it definitely has its eyes on Google.

OpenAI announced Thursday it is testing SearchGPT, a temporary prototype of artificial intelligence-powered search features it plans to integrate with ChatGPT. SearchGPT can provide users with faster answers that include links to relevant sources, according to OpenAI. The prototype is currently being launched to a small group of testers and publishers for feedback, and the company has a waitlist for interested users.

Meanwhile Google — its AI chatbot Gemini just got faster. The latest upgrade means users will get “quicker and more helpful responses.”

Google announced Thursday its fastest, most cost-efficient model, 1.5 Flash, is now available in the unpaid version of its Gemini chatbot in over 40 languages and more than 230 countries and territories. Gemini 1.5 Flash was announced in May at Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference, and has only been available through a limited public preview and to developers using Google’s API.

8.Robots are finally becoming more useful

And it’s all thanks to AI.

Over the past three years, Péter Fankhauser’s industrial robots went from being able to climb stairs, to jumping between boxes, doing backflips and performing other parkour-style tricks. The robots were not programmed to perform these new actions, instead adapting to their environment powered by new artificial intelligence models.

“These are the moments where you think this is the next revolution,” said Fankhauser, chief executive of ANYbotics, a Zurich-based robotics start-up. “These things started to move really artistically, and it’s almost scary because the robots play with physics.”

Over the past decade, the $74bn robotics sector has accelerated in capabilities due to significant leaps in AI, such as advances in neural networks, systems that mimic the human brain.

The world’s biggest tech and AI companies, from Google, OpenAI and Tesla, are among those racing to build the AI “brain” that can autonomously operate robotics in moves that could transform industries from manufacturing to healthcare.

In particular, improved computer vision and spatial reasoning capabilities have allowed robots to gain greater autonomy while navigating varied environments, from construction sites to oil rigs and city roads.

Read on

9. Can Kamla Harris win ?

The real battle for the White House will be between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and it has only just begun. When Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy on July 21st, Mr Trump was in a commanding position. With a bit over 100 days to turn around his lead, Ms Harris still has enough time to win the presidency. The question is whether she has the ability opines the Economist. Read on