India blocks more ByteDance services.
According to Business Insider , ByteDance will shut down its Resso music streaming app in India by the end of January 2024.
Previously, in December 2023, the Indian government requested that Apple and Google remove Resso from their app stores.
India is the last market Resso will operate in after ByteDance ceased offering its music service in Brazil and Indonesia to launch TikTok Music in those countries. TikTok Music is also available in Australia, Mexico, and Singapore, operating independently from Resso.
ByteDance has not yet announced plans to launch TikTok Music in India.
Previously, TikTok had been banned in India since 2020 when the South Asian nation's government removed hundreds of Chinese apps amid geopolitical conflicts between the two countries at their border.
Apple surpasses Samsung for the first time.
Apple became the world's largest smartphone manufacturer for the first time, surpassing Samsung by 0.7% in 2023.
According to a report by analytics firm International Data Corporation (IDC), Samsung has lost its dominance for the first time since 2011, being overtaken by Apple by a negligible margin.
Specifically, data from IDC shows that Apple sold 80.5 million phones in Q4 2023, achieving an 11.6% growth compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, Samsung experienced a disappointing quarter with just over 50 million products shipped, a decrease of nearly 11%.
Throughout 2023, Apple shipped a total of 234.6 million iPhones, surpassing Samsung for the first time in terms of smartphone sales, with a difference of nearly 8 million units.
Apple holds a 20.1% market share, while Samsung holds a 19.4% market share. The top five companies with the highest smartphone shipments worldwide include Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Transsion.
Thus, among the top 3 manufacturers, only Apple achieved positive growth compared to the same period last year.
The surge in growth during the second half of 2023 suggests the smartphone market could see a recovery this year, driven by foldable devices and increasing interest in artificial intelligence (AI) integration.
Google announces trans-Pacific undersea fiber optic cable.
Google has just announced Project Humboldt, aimed at improving trans-Pacific internet connectivity. This is a $400 million underwater fiber optic cable project, a collaboration between Google, government organizations, and investment funds.
The Humboldt Project established the first direct underwater fiber optic cable between South America and the Asia-Pacific region, stretching 14,800 km across the Pacific Ocean, connecting the coasts of Australia and Chile.
According to Analysys Mason, Google's previous submarine cable projects in Latin America and the Caribbean contributed up to $178 billion in GDP growth and 740,000 new jobs to the region between 2017 and 2027.
Microsoft offers ChatGPT Plus for free.
Microsoft has updated its Copilot AI assistant (available across many Microsoft products and services) with the latest version of OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo big language model, which was previously only available on ChatGPT Plus.
Another significant change in GPT-4-Turbo is its improved image analysis capabilities and enhanced reasoning ability.
According to Tom's Guide , by bringing GPT-4 Turbo to Copilot, Microsoft appears to be offering ChatGPT Plus to users for free.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT Plus is offered by OpenAI for $20 per month. Microsoft has not officially announced anything about this.
Source
Comment (0)