Indian Minister says Amazon’s $1 billion investment ’no big favor’
India’s trade minister Piyush Goyal has said that Amazon hasn’t done India any big favors by investing $1 billion in the country. The comments come following Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos promise of investing $1 billion to bring small businesses online in the country. A probe has been launched in India to look at allegations of deep discounts and whether the companies discriminate against small sellers.
A low power AI startup bought by Apple
Another Seattle based AI startup, Xnor.ai has been acquired by Apple. The acquisition of this startup could allow Apple to bring edge-based AI software to iPhone models in the future as the specialization of this startup is in low-power edge-based tools with which AI can operate on tools rather than on the cloud.
Bose is closing all stores in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan
Bose said it’s closing 119 store locations across North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan in the coming months. The audio equipment company says the move is due to ’the dramatic shift to online shopping.’About 130 stores will remain open in Greater China, UAE, India, Southeast Asia, and South Korea. Hundreds of employees are expected to be laid off. Bose said that it will be offering severance
Mozilla lays off about 70 employees including senior staffers
Mozilla Corporation has laid off about 70 employees on sagging revenues. Mozilla chairwoman Mitchell Baker specifically said the slow rollout of the organization’s new revenue-generating products as the reason for why it needed to take this action. The company’s latest products, which focus on paid subscriptions, reportedly took Mozilla longer to develop and ship than it originally anticipated.
Toyota invests $394 million in Joby Aviation
Toyota has lead the round of investment into Californian aerospace company Joby Aviation’s latest Series C funding round. Of the $590 million raised, Toyota contributed $349 million. The latest infusion has taken Toyota’s total investment into Joby to $720 million. Toyota president and CEO Akio Toyoda, announcing the investment, said ’Air transportation has been a long-term goal for Toyota’.
Google will wind down Chrome apps starting in June
Google said Wednesday that it will begin to phase out traditional Chrome apps starting in June, and winding down slowly over two years’ time. Chrome extensions, though, will live on. On Windows, Mac, and Linux, Google will stop supporting the apps in June, and it’ll do the same on Chrome OS in June 2021.
Microsoft launches Chromium-based Edge browser for all platforms
Microsoft launched the new Edge browser Wednesday. It has been rebuilt from the ground up using the open-source Chromium project, the same codebase that Google Chrome is based upon. It syncs up with Microsoft Account and has customizable tracking prevention features built right in. It’s also enterprise-ready with AAD support, an Internet Explorer mode for rendering legacy websites, and much more.