Successful implementation of the new mobile phone registration system by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has resulted in a significant increase in the commercial import of mobile phones.

According to statistics from the media, the commercial import of mobile phones has increased by 110 percent in one year. In 2018, 9,564,424 mobile phones were imported, whereas, in 2019, the number stands at 19,834,465 mobiles.

The documents say that a substantial decrease in illegal imports and the smuggling of mobile phones were recorded.

At the local level, the production of mobile devices has been recorded with an increase of 72 percent. Since the introduction of the mobile phone registration, custom duties of more than Rs. 1.27 billion have been collected.

The government has been taking steps to increase domestic manufacturing of mobile phone devices as well.

PTA has blocked millions of devices with unregistered International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers. The new system has helped the government generate revenue from the legal import of cellular phones.

San Francisco: Google is reportedly working on the new 5G smartphone, which the company may announce at its launch event for new products on October 15.

The Google Pixel4 5G could be almost identical to the Pixel 4 XL, but with the next generation of connectivity, Techradar reported on Wednesday.

The US-based search giant will also unveil two new 4G Pixel smartphones, as expected, and possibly a new smart watch and notebook too.

Google Pixel smartphones -- Pixel 4 and 4 XL -- would feature 'Live Caption' that transcribes audio into subtitles and puts them on the screen.

The devices would also feature a new Motion Sense Mode, and it would work with nine applications that have been whitelisted as Supported Apps.

Going by the past leaks and speculation, both the Pixel phones were expected to come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset coupled with 6GB RAM and dual rear cameras consisting of a 12MP main sensor and a 16MP telephoto lens.

The smaller Pixel 4 would likely sport a 5.7-inch 90Hz 1080p+ OLED display and a 2,800mAh battery while the Pixel 4 XL is expected to boast a 6.3 inch 90Hz 1440p+ OLED panel and 3,700mAh battery.

New Delhi: Payment technology major Mastercard India on Thursday said it has elevated Vikas Varma to the position of chief operating officer. In his new role, Vikas will lead initiatives related to new partnerships and development of digital payments solutions in the country, a company statement said.

These initiatives will further accelerate Mastercard's ongoing focus on technology innovation, merchant acceptance, and consumer adoption of digital payments, it added.

Recently, Mastercard announced an investment of USD 1 billion (around Rs 7,100 crore) over the next five years in India. It had committed USD 1 billion investment between 2014-19.

"Vikas will play a critical role in channelizing this investment towards Mastercard's long-term strategy for the India market," the company said.

Given the importance of innovation for a digitally-empowered society, Mastercard has been actively involved in nurturing the fintech ecosystem in India through a variety of partnerships and the infusion of capital into early-stage startups, it added.

With the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) proposing an overhaul in the taxation system for digital companies, cyber experts on Thursday urged the Indian government to speed up necessary changes in domestic laws on internet taxation so that tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon can be asked to shell out taxes they have been evading for years.

The OECD on Wednesday published a proposal to advance international negotiations to ensure large and highly profitable multinational enterprises, including digital companies, pay tax wherever they have significant consumer-facing activities and generate their profits.

According to cyber experts, given the fact that India is not yet a part of OECD, it is imperative that India must be mindful of the way how things are evolving.

"The Indian approach on the Internet taxation has left much to be desired. India has not yet crystal clearly defined its holistic national approach and perspectives on taxation on the Internet," Pavan Duggal, the country's leading cyber law expert and privacy advocate, told IANS.

However, it is essential that India is mindful of the global developments that are taking place in this regard and must come up with its own taxation approaches, which are in sync with the global trends that are emerging.

"Further, India needs to distinctly be walking in the path of ensuring that legal entities who are offering their services via the internet in India, whether they are physically present in India or not, would be subject to Indian taxation," Duggal elaborated.

The new OECD proposal is based on the work of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), which groups 134 countries and jurisdictions on an equal footing, for multilateral negotiation of international tax rules, making them fit for purpose for the global economy of the 21st century.

"We're making real progress to address the tax challenges arising from digitalisation of the economy, and to continue advancing toward a consensus-based solution to overhaul the rules-based international tax system by 2020," said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria.

According to advocate Virag Gupta, in the K.N. Govindacharya petition before Delhi High Court in 2012, taxation of Internet companies was first raised when the government of India gave "Double Tax Avoidance Agreement: as reason to not tax foreign Internet companies.

The OECD proposal "may strengthen the case for taxation where these companies are having huge business or presence. But how can tax haven countries can be compelled to follow the OECD guidelines?" Gupta told IANS.

Countries like China, France and Germany have shown political will-power to tax Internet companies but India has miserably failed to tax Internet giants despite being the biggest market.

"India's Parliament is supreme and sovereign to tax these companies for which necessary amendments are to be made in the Income Tax Act, Companies Act and Information Technology (IT) Act etc," he suggested.

According to him, India was always free to tax these companies.

"In this current economic slowdown, OECD decision may enable government to bring new tax regime by which digital companies may be taxed," Gupta added.

New Delhi: Shares of telecom companies on Thursday rose up to 7 per cent in the wake of Reliance Jio deciding to levy call connect charges from customers, a move that is likely to be followed by rivals. Bharti Airtel shares jumped 7.19 per cent to touch a 52-week high of Rs 385 apiece on the NSE. In afternoon trade, it was up 4.88 per cent up at Rs 376.95.

Similar trends were witnessed on the BSE too. The scrip rallied 6.65 per cent to hit a 52-week high of Rs 384.85 apiece. After shedding some gains, the shares were trading 4.91 per cent higher at Rs 376.90 in afternoon session.

Vodafone Idea were trading 6.34 per cent higher at Rs 6.21 on the BSE and was up nearly 6 per cent at Rs 6.20 on the NSE.

Unlisted Reliance Jio Infocomm is part of Reliance Industries, whose shares gained 2.70 per cent at Rs 1,361.55 on the BSE. On the NSE, the scrip went up 2.78 per cent to Rs 1,361.55.

According to a Kotak Institutional Equities research report, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea can take this as an opportunity to become more competitive.

The report noted that Jio's move would dilute the pricing architecture, one of the most critical changes Jio brought to the industry.

"If Jio gets Rs 15 ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) uplift, we believe Airtel and Vodafone Idea could see a Rs 8-odd and Rs 6-odd ARPU uplift, respectively, as well," the report said.

In a research note, UBS said it remains to be seen whether Bharti and Vodafone Idea would follow Jio in introducing similar charges for off net calls, "although we see high chance that they follow Jio".

On Wednesday, Reliance Jio said it would charge 6 paise per minute for voice calls made by its users to mobile phones networks of rivals after indications that call connect charge may not end by the previously mooted deadline of December 31.

Bharti Airtel raising USD 750 million (about Rs 5,330 crore) from investors based in Asia, Europe and the US, also helped boost the company's shares.

New Delhi: Food delivery platform Zomato has paid more than $100,000 (over Rs 70 lakh) to 435 hackers till date for finding and fixing bugs on its platform.

In fact, $12,350 (over Rs 8.7 lakh) in bounties were paid in the last 90 days alone, said HackerOne, hacker-powered bug bounty platform.

With the help of HackerOne's bug bounty programme since July 2017, Zomato has successfully resolved 775 vulnerabilities report, HackerOne told IANS on Thursday.

"Zomato security team is tasked with protecting sensitive information for over 55 million unique monthly visitors," it added.

For the critical bug discovery on its platform, Zomato pays $2,000 to security researchers, $700 for bugs with high-severity impact, $300 for medium and $150 for low-impact vulnerabilities.

In May 2017, hackers broke into the online food delivery service, stealing email addresses and hashed passwords of nearly 17 million records of its registered users.

Zomato had said that no payment information or credit card data was stolen or leaked. It had reset the passwords for all affected users and logged them out of the app and website.

According to the company, it takes security seriously.

"We're committed to protecting our community. If you are a security researcher or expert, and believe you've identified security-related issues with Zomato's website or apps, we would appreciate you disclosing it to us responsibly," the company said in blog post.

"The scope of issues is limited to technical vulnerabilities in the Zomato website or mobile apps. Please do not attempt to compromise the safety or privacy of our users (so please use test accounts), or the availability of Zomato through DoS attacks or spam," Zomato told security researchers.

Zomato currently operates in 24 countries like the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, Turkey, UAE, Qatar, Portugal, South Africa, New Zealand and more.

Zomato on October 1 said its India revenue for the first half of the financial year 2019-20 saw a massive three-fold jump -- from $63 million in the same period in 2018-2019 to $205 million this time.

It is now present in over 500 cities across the country.

Apple has just introduced the latest iOS 13 update for iPhones and it turns out that devices running iOS 13 are not ‘safe’ enough. This is because hackers have found a way to bypass Apple’s FaceID to access the phone address book. Not just that, hackers can even get to know the recent contact list. Thankfully, this hack is only possible, if a hacker physically gets to have the iPhone running iOS 13 in his hands as it is not possible to do this remotely.

Interestingly, a new report claims that Apple had known about this vulnerability back in July and the company had done nothing about it. A cybersecurity enthusiast named Jose Rodriguez had approached Apple with “passcode bypass” that can bypass Face ID. Rodriguez had asked Apple whether this “passcode bypass” discovery would make him eligible for Apple Security Bounty.

Researchers at Apple were quick to get in touch with him and Rodriguez had explained the proof of concept of this vulnerability in the beta release of the iOS13. Having demonstrating the vulnerability, he was unsure whether Apple would actually consider the flaw and fix it before the official release of iOS 13. It was then that he had decided to go public with his “passcode bypass”. Rodriguez even went to CNN to share his conversation with Apple on this matter.

Soon after the “passcode bypass” went public and media started to report about it, Apple confirmed that the exploit would be fixed in the next release of iOS 13-- iOS 13.1. The update is expected to be released on September 24. Interestingly, Apple had earlier planned to release the update on September 30 but it did not confirm whether Rodriguez going public with the exploit was one of the reasons for the company to bring the release date if iOS 13.1 ahead of the scheduled date.

MUMBAI: Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that spectrum auctions will take place at the end of this year or early next year.

“By year end or beginning of next year, we propose to go for auction of spectrum and we have ensured India’s auction of spectrum in a clear and transparent manner,” Prasaid said at an industry event on Friday.

The DoT had initially in June outlined plans to hold the next spectrum sale — first since 2016 — by December 2019. But ET, in its August 27 edition reported that the sale is likely to be delayed to early 2020.

The government plans to hold the largest spectrum auction where some 8,293.95 MHz of airwaves at an estimated total base price of Rs 5.86 lakh crore. The auctions will see the debut of 5G spectrum, which will propel the telecom industry towards next phase of growth, besides sale of 4G spectrum

The sector regulator has suggested a base price for 5G airwaves at Rs492 per MHz and proposed a sale of a minimum 20 MHz blocks, which would mean a telco spending close to Rs10,000 crore for 20 MHz, and Rs50,000 crore for 100 MHz, rates which have been described as very expensive by telcos, who are under severe financial pressure, including high debt.

Prasad said that the Department of Telecommunications has noted the problems faced by the industry, reeling under a debt of almost Rs 8 lakh crore.

“Department will look into the problems of the telecom sector. All the initiatives taken in spectrum sharing and trading and communication policy is already in place,” said the minister.

However, he added that while the government will give its support, telecom service providers (TSP) too need to get their act together.

“We have to work as a team. The government will be open to assist, and facilitate, guide , and motivate. Government in turn expects TSPs to reinforce their own management, technology and services,” said Prasad.

The telecom sector’s debt is nearly Rs 8 lakh crore, with that of Bharti Airtel at Rs 1.16 lakh crore and Vodafone Idea’s at Rs 99,300 crore at the end of the June quarter. Reliance Jio Infocomm is the only company registering profits in the telecom industry after having unleashed a tariff war on its rivals that left them bleeding.

The telecom minister on Monday launched maritime communications services by VSAT provider Nelco.

The Indian e-commerce marketsize is likely to reach $230 billion in a decade as it's outpacing the offline retail segment's growth, according to a report released on Tuesday.

"The Indian e-commerce market is outpacing the offline retail growth and is expected to touch $230 billion by 2028. India is at the cusp of a massive online boom, fueled by low data tariffs, affordable smartphones and growing Internet usage," the report by the E-Commerce Council of India (TECI) and ChannelPlay said.

According to the report, another 40-50 crore shoppers are expected to come online in 10 years, joining the nearly 10 crore online shoppers in India.

 "E-commerce in India has grown beyond the first wave of metro consumers in tier-I cities. It is now rapidly adding millions of buyers from tier-II, III cities and beyond," it said.

According to the report, 89 per cent respondents said neutrality of the marketplace was important as a core principle and it should not have any of its own or related party sellers on the platform.

"Around 94 per cent respondents felt sellers controlled by the marketplace (through various arrangements) hurt the business of independent sellers on the platform," it said.

Further, 90 per cent respondents felt private labels by the marketplaces create a conflict of interest and the marketplaces should not be allowed to sell their private labels on the platform, the report said.

"Sellers recounted that platforms use pricing and demand insights from their platform to introduce private labels, which puts competing third-party sellers at a disadvantage," it said.

PARIS - Online retail giant Amazon was fined 4 million euros ($4.5 million) by the Paris commercial court on Monday for introducing abusive clauses in its contracts with third-party vendors, French website Nextinpact reported.

 The decision by the Paris commercial court was not immediately available. Neither Amazon France, nor the French anti-consumer fraud office at the finance ministry, which had taken the matter to court, returned requests for comments.

NEW DELHI: Global telecom giant Huawei will continue to go ahead with its India strategy related to artificial intelligence technology as planned, unfazed by the pressure tactics by America through ban and escalating US-China trade war

However, it maintained silence on 5G roll-out plans in the country.

"As for our AI (artificial intelligence) strategy in India, it's no different from our overall strategy. We are going to develop Atlas card and servers based on the standard processors, and we are also going to work on MDC (mobile data centre) based on standard processes as well," Huawei Rotating Chairman Eric Xu said.

Xu was responding to a question on what will be the company's India strategy following the looming uncertainty over 5G roll-out, at the launch of its AI processor Ascend 910 and AI computing framework MindSpore in Shenzhen recently.

The Chinese telecom equipment maker has caught itself in a bitter battle with the US, which has provided a 90-day reprieve to continue doing business as usual with the US suppliers. The US imposed the ban on the company over concerns of security.

Washington has also been putting pressure on other countries to restrict operations of the Chinese telecom firm.

Restricting the replies around the company's AI plans, Xu said, "Our AI strategy is not necessarily tied to 5G. For, you see, 5G is 5G and AI is AI."

Elaborating on the AI strategy for India, Xu said the AI products can be provided to universities, partners and enterprises in the country as they address industry-specific issues and challenges.

Similarly, training and cloud services are also based on standard processors, which can be made available in the Indian market. Universities, research organisations and enterprises can use these AI cloud services for their research in application development needs, to address requirements and challenges of various industry verticals, he said at the launch.

"It ensures we are going to provide personal services and work together and be partners. So, we are taking different industry verticals, aiming to serve them and have them be more efficient so that we together can work towards the development of the society," Xu said.

"The company will continue investing in AI processors to deliver more abundant, affordable and adaptable computing power that meets the needs of a broad range of scenarios (e.g, edge computing, on vehicle computing for autonomous driving and training)," Xu said.

MindSpore AI computing framework supports all development for AI applications in all scenarios, the company said.

"MindSpore marks significant progress towards these goals. As privacy protection grows more important than ever, support for all scenarios is essential for enabling secure, pervasive AI. This is a key component in the MindSpore framework, which can readily adapt to different deployment needs," the company had said at the launch.

SHANGHAI: ZAO, a new Chinese app that lets users swap their faces with celebrities, sports stars or anyone else in a video clip - racked up millions of downloads on the weekend but swiftly drew fire over privacy issues.

The app's surge in popularity and sudden backlash from some users highlights how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies bring about new concerns surrounding identity verification.

ZAO was uploaded to China's iOS App Store on Friday and immediately went viral. According to a post from the app makers on China's Twitter-like Weibo, ZAO's servers nearly crashed due to the surge in traffic.

According to App Annie, a firm that tracks app downloads all over the world, ZAO was the most-downloaded free app in China's iOS App Store as of Sept. 1.

Consumers sign-up for ZAO with their phone number and upload images of their face, using photographs taken with their smartphone.

They can then choose from a range of videos of celebrities on which to superimpose their face, and share the videos with their friends.

In addition to Chinese celebrities, other famous faces on the app include Leonardo DiCaprio and Marilyn Monroe.

Gu Shi, a 21-year-old student in Shanghai, downloaded ZAO after seeing her friends post clips on their WeChat feeds.

"I've never tried using Japanese makeup and hairstyles because it's too complicated to do all by myself," she told Reuters.

"This app gave me a chance to try a totally different style from my normal life."

As the app went viral, some users complained that its privacy policy could endanger them.

One section of the user agreement stated that consumers who upload their images to ZAO agree to surrender the intellectual property rights to their face, and permit ZAO to use their images for marketing purposes.

Zao said on Weibo that it would address those concerns.

"We thoroughly understand the anxiety people have towards privacy concerns," the company said. "We have received the questions you have sent us. We will correct the areas we have not considered and require some time."

ZAO was published by Momo Inc, best-known as makers of a dating app that later transformed into a livestreaming service. The company listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014.

Momo did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Seoul: South Korean tech giant Samsung is going to introduce yet another phone in the A-series - the Samsung Galaxy A90 - and this could become the companys most affordable 5G handset, the media has reported.

An official-looking poster and image of its retail box have surfaced online. The retail box shows the device would come with an Infinity U-display at the front with slim bezels around while the back features a triple camera setup, GSMArena reported.

The rear packaging shows an unspecified octa-core chip matched (possibly a Snapdragon 855) with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of on-board storage which can be expanded.

The device is reported to be a 6.7-inch smartphone with an AMOLED display with FHD+ resolution.

The triple camera setup is likely to include a 48MP primary sensor coupled with a 5MP and an 8MP sensor. The smartphone is said to pack a 32MP selfie camera.

While the retail box confirms the handset will get Super-Fast Charging, it doesn't reveal the battery size.

The company is yet to announce an official launch date for the Galaxy A90 5G.

Earlier this week, a rare Toy Story poster autographed by the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs  was up for auction. Nate D Sanders Auctions , the auction house that had the poster, started the bidding at $25,000 (approximately Rs 17,93,000). The poster was sold at $31,250 (Rs 22,40,000) revealed the auction house on its website.

For those unaware, Jobs was the chairman and majority shareholder of the Pixar  Studios and Toy Story that released in 1995 was the first movie produced by it and became a worldwide hit. The poster measures 24-x 36-inch and features the famous Toy Story characters Woody and Buzz. The poster comes with a letter of authenticity as well.

“Extraordinarily scarce Pixar Animation Studios poster signed by its co-founder Steve Jobs, sometime after 1995 when ''Toy Story'', the first computer-animated feature film, debuted. Jobs' legendary vision is evident in his backing of Pixar, whose potential was immediately realised in the success of ''Toy Story'', earning three Academy Award nominations, breaking box office records and securing its reputation as one of the finest animated movies of all time. Poster measures 24'' x 36'', signed by Jobs in black fiber-tip marker. In near fine condition. With JSA COA,” wrote the auction house on its website.

Earlier in June, a 10-year employment plaque signed by Jobs was also up for auction for as high as $15,000 (approximately Rs 10,30,000). In 2000, Apple employee Suzanne Lindbergh was given a plaque to commemorate her 10-year association with the company. The poster is “signed in black felt tip” by Jobs and reads, “This ten-year plaque recognizes those who have contributed a decade of personal achievement to Apple’s phenomenal success. Apple honors you not only for your talent, enthusiasm, and energy, but also for your ten years of creativity and career commitment. We hope you continue to believe, as we do, that the journey in itself is the best reward.”