For details of the latest launches and news from Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, OnePlus, Oppo and other companies at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, visit our MWC 2025 hub.

The post Canada Regulator to Impose Fee on Google For Online News Law’s Operating Costs appeared first on Tech World.

For details of the latest launches and news from Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, OnePlus, Oppo and other companies at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, visit our MWC 2025 hub.

The post Apple Adds Age Assurance Features for Improved Privacy, Revamps Child Account Setup Process appeared first on Tech World.

India could potentially suffer financial losses reaching roughly Rs. 20,000 crore due to cybercrimes in 2025, as per a recent report by a cybersecurity firm. The report predicted that brand abuse, phishing scams, and fake domains would be the leading methods to conduct cybercrimes in the ongoing year. Despite the rise of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the report claims attackers are likely to use sophisticated social engineering tactics to carry out fraudulent activities. It is said that brand name abuse will account for nearly Rs. 9,000 crore of the total losses.

Brand Abuse, Fake Domains Could Lead to Major Financial Losses in India in 2025

Cybersecurity firm CloudSEK published a white paper on Friday that highlighted that India could suffer an economic impact accounting for Rs. 20,000 crore in 2025. As per the report, brand name abuse could constitute Rs. 9,000 worth of cybercrimes. The firm described brand abuse as “unauthorised use of trusted brand identities for fraudulent purposes,” and said it has emerged as a major avenue for cyber criminals to exploit victims.

CloudSEK claimed that apart from brand impersonation, fraudulent mobile apps and fake website domains could also be exploited by attackers to trick people. Making a sector-wise analysis, the report claimed that brands from the financial sector could bear up to 41 percent or Rs. 8,200 crore of the total losses in 2025. It is said to be followed by the retail and e-commerce sectors with a cumulative 29 percent of financial losses. Government services will account for another 17 percent or Rs. 3,400 crore of losses.

Notably, the cybersecurity firm’s report was based on data from 200 organisations, which includes more than 5,000 domain takedowns observed by CloudSEK and 16,000 incidents of brand-related cyber threats. The report also references official data from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (14C) which noted that the country suffered losses accounting roughly Rs. 11,333 crore in the first nine months of 2024. The incidents are predicted to increase significantly this year.

The cybersecurity firm added that businesses will be significantly affected because of these cybercrimes, as they incur reputational damages due to cyber criminals using their names to carry out frauds. The report claims that companies can incur Rs. 6,000 crore in costs to remediation, legal fees, customer compensation, and security infrastructure improvements.

However, individuals will be hit with the brunt of these losses. The report claimed that their financial losses will reach near Rs. 14,000 crore in 2025. These attacks will be carried out using tactics such as phishing scams, fake job postings, and investment frauds.

The post Cybercrimes Could Cost India Rs. 20,000 Crore Due to Brand Abuse and Fake Domains in 2025: CloudSEK appeared first on Tech World.

US officials are examining whether the UK broke a bilateral agreement by reportedly demanding that Apple build a “backdoor” allowing the British government to access backups of data in the company’s encrypted cloud storage systems.

Apple last week withdrew an encrypted storage feature for UK users, after reports that it had refused to create such a backdoor allowing access to messages and photos even for users outside the country. The Washington Post reported that Apple rejected such a demand by the British government.

In a letter dated February 25 to two US lawmakers, Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, said the US is examining whether the UK government had violated the CLOUD Act, which bars it from issuing demands for the data of US citizens and vice versa.

“My lawyers are working to provide a legal opinion on the implications of the reported U.K. demands against Apple on the bilateral CLOUD Act agreement,” Gabbard wrote to US Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican.

“Upon initial review of the US and UK bilateral CLOUD Act Agreement, the United Kingdom may not issue demands for data of US citizens, nationals, or lawful permanent residents (“US persons”), nor is it authorised to demand the data of persons located inside the United States.”

In 2022, Apple introduced end-to-end encryption for iCloud backups of its iPhones, meaning that only the user – rather than Apple – has the keys to unscramble the data.

Cybersecurity experts told Reuters that if Apple had chosen to build a backdoor for a government, that backdoor would eventually be found and exploited by hackers.

Apple has sparred with regulators over encryption as far back as 2016 when the US government tried to compel it to build a tool to unlock a terrorism suspect’s iPhone.

© Thomson Reuters 2025

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

The post US Examining Whether UK’s Encryption Demand on Apple Broke Data Treaty appeared first on Tech World.

Alibaba released a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) video generation models on Wednesday. Dubbed Wan 2.1, these are open-source models that can be used for both academic and commercial purposes. The Chinese e-commerce giant released the models in several parameter-based variants. Developed by the company’s Wan team, these models were first introduced in January and the company claimed that Wan 2.1 can generate highly realistic videos. Currently, these models are being hosted on the AI and machine learning (ML) hub Hugging Face.

Alibaba Introduces Wan 2.1 Video Generation Models

The new Alibaba video AI models are hosted on Alibaba’s Wan team’s Hugging Face page. The model pages also detail the Wan 2.1 suite of large language models (LLMs). There are four models in total — T2V-1.3B, T2V-14B, I2V-14B-720P, and I2V-14B-480P. The T2V is short for text-to-video while the I2V stands for image-to-video.

The researchers claim that the smallest variant, Wan 2.1 T2V-1.3B, can be run on a consumer-grade GPU with as little as 8.19GB vRAM. As per the post, the AI model can generate a five-second-long video with 480p resolution using an Nvidia RTX 4090 in about four minutes.

While the Wan 2.1 suite is aimed at video generation, they can also perform other functions such as image generation, video-to-audio generation, and video editing. However, the currently open-sourced models are not capable of these advanced tasks. For video generation, it accepts text prompts in Chinese and English languages as well as image inputs.

Coming to the architecture, the researchers revealed that the Wan 2.1 models are designed using a diffusion transformer architecture. However, the company innovated the base architecture with new variational autoencoders (VAE), training strategies, and more.

Most notably, the AI models use a new 3D causal VAE architecture dubbed Wan-VAE. It improves spatiotemporal compression and reduces memory usage. The autoencoder can encode and decode unlimited-length 1080p resolution videos without losing historical temporal information. This enables consistent video generation.

Based on internal testing, the company claimed that the Wan 2.1 models outperform OpenAI’s Sora AI model in consistency, scene generation quality, single object accuracy, and spatial positioning.

These models are available under the Apache 2.0 licence. While it does allow for unrestricted usage for academic and research purposes, commercial usage comes with multiple restrictions.

The post Alibaba Releases Open-Source Wan 2.1 Suite of AI Video Generation Models, Claimed to Outperform OpenAI’s Sora appeared first on Tech World.

India’s Tata Group and Bharti Group are close to merging their satellite TV businesses, creating a nearly $1.6 billion (roughly Rs. 13,918 crore) entity with the aim of tiding over the sustained migration of subscribers to digital streaming, Economic Times reported on Tuesday.

The merged entity is expected to be run by Bharti Airtel, which will likely hold between 52 percent-55 percent with the remaining held by Tata Play shareholders, including Walt Disney, the report said, citing sources.

Bharti Airtel, Tata Play and Disney did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comments.

Tata Play, a 70:30 venture between Tata Sons and Disney, and Airtel had a combined 35 million paid subscribers as of last September, more than half the 60 million subscribers industry-wide at the time, according to a government report.

The two businesses are being approximately valued between 60 billion rupees ($690.76 million)-70 billion rupees ($805.89 million) each, with their revenue exceeding 70 billion rupees in fiscal 2024, ET reported.

The deal is the second major one in the sector since Dish TV merged with Videocon d2h in 2016 and follows the $8.5 billion (roughly Rs. 73,946 crore)-merger of Reliance Industries streaming media assets with Disney’s Indian media assets last year.

Bharti Airtel shares were last up 1.7 percent on the day.

© Thomson Reuters 2025

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

The post India’s Tata Play, Airtel Digital TV Reportedly Near Merger appeared first on Tech World.

Perplexity teased a new web browser with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities on Monday. Dubbed Comet, the browser is teased to include a feature dubbed agentic search. While the AI firm has not revealed any potential launch date for its new product, it has opened a sign-up waitlist where those who register will likely receive more information about the browser closer to its launch. Notably, the AI-powered search platform rolled out a new Deep Research capability earlier this month. The feature allows users to get a comprehensive report on complex topics, using the test-time compute method.

Perplexity Teases Comet Web Browser

In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), the official handle of Perplexity shared a teaser video about the upcoming browser. It is a seven-second-long video that does not contain any information about the web browser and just contains a new logo animation for the product. The company also touted the phrase “agentic search” for the Comet browser but did not explain what new agentic features users might get.

A new microsite for the browser is also live, but for now, it is just letting people sign up for a waitlist. It is likely that Perplexity will share more details about the browser closer to the launch. Those registering might also get early access to the new platform.

The agentic search suggests that the browser will natively support AI agents that can perform tasks on behalf of the user. While it is difficult to say how Perplexity plans to use it, OpenAI’s Operator AI agent — which also works on a dedicated browser — can book online tickets, make reservations at restaurants, and purchase products from an e-commerce platform.

Additionally, Perplexity is also hiring people who can “join us in building Comet”. While multiple roles in the company are currently open, one job opening in particular is seeking “Browser C++ Engineer”. Its description says, “Perplexity AI is looking for an experienced C++ Chromium Engineer to join our small team revolutionising the way people browse the Internet. You will be responsible for building and expanding Comet – Perplexity new browser.”

The job role further highlights that Perplexity is building a Chromium-based browser for both desktops and smartphones. Notably, Chromium is an open-source browser project developed and maintained by Google.

The post Perplexity Teases Comet Web Browser With Agentic Search, Opens Waitlist appeared first on Tech World.

Alphabet’s Google internet search engine is eroding demand for original content and undermining publishers’ ability to compete with its artificial intelligence-generated overviews, a US educational technology company said in a lawsuit filed on Monday.

Chegg, an online education company that offers textbook rentals, homework help, and tutoring, said in the lawsuit filed in Washington, DC, that Google is co-opting publishers’ content to keep users on its own site, erasing financial incentives to publish.

This will eventually lead to a “hollowed-out information ecosystem of little use and unworthy of trust,” the company said.

The Santa Clara, California-based company has said Google’s AI overviews have caused a drop in visitors and subscribers. The company is now considering a sale or take-private transaction as a result, the company’s CEO Nathan Schultz said on Monday.

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda called the claims meritless.

“With AI Overviews, people find Search more helpful and use it more, creating new opportunities for content to be discovered. Every day, Google sends billions of clicks to sites across the web, and AI Overviews send traffic to a greater diversity of sites,” Castaneda said.

Chegg shares closed at $1.57 (roughly Rs. 136) on Monday, down more than 98 percent from its peak price in 2021. The company announced it would lay off 21 percent of its staff in November.

Schultz said Google is profiting off the company’s content for free.

“Our lawsuit is about more than Chegg – it’s about the digital publishing industry, the future of internet search, and about students losing access to quality, step-by-step learning in favor of low-quality, unverified AI summaries,” he said.

Publishers allow Google to crawl their websites to generate search results, which Google monetizes through advertising. In exchange, the publishers receive search traffic to their sites when users click on the results, Chegg said.

But Google has started coercing publishers to let it use the information for AI overviews and other features that result in fewer site visitors, the company said.

Chegg argued the conduct violates a law against conditioning the sale of one product on the customer selling or giving its supplier another product.

The lawsuit is believed to be the first where a single company accuses Google of violating antitrust law through AI overviews. An Arkansas newspaper made similar claims against Google in a class action on behalf of the news industry in 2023.

US District Judge Amit Mehta, who ruled in a case brought by the US Department of Justice that Google holds an illegal monopoly in online search, is overseeing the news publisher case.

Google has said it will appeal that decision, and has asked the judge to dismiss the newspaper’s case.

© Thomson Reuters 2025

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

The post Google’s AI Overviews Erode the Internet, US EdTech Firm Chegg Says in Lawsuit appeared first on Tech World.

Google will drop support for SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA) for Gmail, according to a report. The company will reportedly introduce support for quick response (QR) codes to replace SMS codes that are currently sent to Gmail users. The move is expected to increase the security of Google accounts, as malicious users can trick users into sharing their login codes received over SMS, bypassing the security offered by the 2FA system that is old, but still supported on several platforms.

Gmail to Drop SMS Authentication Codes to Combat SMS Abuse

According to a Forbes report, Google will roll out QR codes as a replacement for its SMS authentication codes in the coming months. The company currently sends users a six-digit code via SMS, which must be entered after providing the correct password when logging into a Google account. It was the first form of 2FA introduced by the search giant in 2011, and more secure options have been introduced in subsequent years.

Once the company phases out support for SMS-based 2FA codes, Gmail users will be presented with a QR code, which must be scanned using the camera app on their smartphone. The company believes that these QR codes will offer a more secure way to authenticate a user, after the correct password has been submitted.

“SMS codes are a source of heightened risk for users. We’re pleased to introduce an innovative new approach to shrink the surface area for attackers and keep users safer from malicious activity,” Gmail spokesperson Ross Richendrfer told the publication on Sunday.

Supporting access to SMS-based 2FA presents several security challenges — scammers can trick users into sharing SMS codes, or target specific users with “SIM swapping” attacks to get access to their phone number. Like X (formerly Twitter), Google is also looking to crack down on SMS fraud, where scammers prompt companies to send texts to specific numbers to receive money when each message is delivered.

Google currently allows users to receive the code via a phone call, instead of an SMS, and it is currently unclear whether this option will also be retired. The company usually displays a login prompt on a user’s smartphone as a form of MFA, and users can tap a button to complete the login process. Google also supports time-based one time passwords (TOTP) supported on password managers or apps like Google Authenticator.

The post Gmail to Replace SMS Authentication With QR Codes for Two-Factor Authentication appeared first on Tech World.

Alphabet unit Google is set to be charged with breaching EU rules aimed at checking the power of Big Tech after proposed changes to its search results failed to address the EU antitrust regulator’s concerns and those of its rivals, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The move by the European Commission comes amid tensions with US President Donald Trump who has sided with US tech giants lobbying against EU regulations and criticising fines as a form of tariff. That has in turn triggered concerns that the EU watchdog may ease up on Big Tech.

The European Commission has been investigating Google for potential breaches of the Digital Markets Act since March last year.

One probe focuses on whether Google favours its vertical search engines such as Google Shopping, Google Flights and Google Hotels over rivals, and whether it discriminates against third-party services on Google search results.

The imminent charges concerned this issue, the people said.

The EU competition watchdog declined to comment. Google referred to a December blog post by its director, EMEA competition, Oliver Bethell, who said the company is working to find a balanced solution with the Commission.

Bethell said more changes in Google’s search result format to appease rivals could result in the removal of certain helpful features.

The US tech giant has in recent months announced a series of changes to search result formats in a bid to address conflicting demands from price-comparison sites, hotels, airlines and small retailers. The majority of them have dismissed the proposals as not DMA-compliant.

EU antitrust regulators are also not happy with Google’s threat to bring back blue links in search results if it cannot resolve rivals’ demands, one of the sources said.

The DMA prohibits Google from favouring its own products and services on its platforms or face fines of as much as 10 percent of its global annual revenue.

The DMA charges are likely to be sent to Google following decisions in the coming months into separate investigations into Apple and Meta Platforms, which are more advanced, one of the sources said.

The other DMA investigation into Google takes aim at potential limitations that hinder app developers from informing users about offers outside the Google App Store free of charge.

© Thomson Reuters 2025

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

The post Google Said to be Facing EU Charges of Breaching Big Tech Rules appeared first on Tech World.