Meta Platforms said it has disrupted the first known China-based influence operation targeting users in the United States (US) with political content ahead of the midterm elections in November.
The network created fake accounts across Meta’s social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter, but was unsuccessful and did not attract much of a following, Meta said in a report summarizing its findings.
Still, the report noted that the discovery was significant because it suggested a shift toward more direct interference in US domestic politics than previous known Chinese propaganda efforts. The Chinese operations Meta has taken down before talked mainly about America to the world, primarily in South Asia, and not to Americans about themselves.
Meta global threat intelligence lead Ben Nimmo said at a press briefing that the message was ‘America bad, China good.’ The new operation pushed messages targeting Americans on both sides of divisive issues like gun rights and abortion. Another Meta executive said the company did not have enough evidence to say who was behind the activity in China.
According to the report, the fake accounts have been masquerading as liberal and conservative Americans in different states, posting memes and lurking in the comments of public figures’ posts since November 2021. The same network also created fake accounts that posed as people in the Czech Republic criticizing the Czech government’s approach to China.
The report said Meta intercepted the biggest and most complex Russian-based operation since the war in Ukraine started, describing it as a sprawling network of over 60 websites, social media accounts, and petitions on sites like Avaaz.
Despite a recent upgrade, Tesla plans to hold production at its Shanghai plant at about 93% of capacity through the end of the year, two sources with knowledge of the matter said, in a rare move for the US EV maker.
Since the plant opened in its second-largest market in late 2019, Tesla has sought to run the facility in China’s commercial hub at total capacity and recently upgraded its weekly output by 30% to a maximum of 22,000 vehicles.
The sources, who spoke on anonymity as the matter is not public, did not give a reason for the decision of not running the plant at full tilt, though one said the figure was lower than they had expected. Tesla did not immediately respond to the request for comment.
The company’s move comes during the growing competition from domestic manufacturers of electric vehicles in a sharply weakening economy, as consumption continues to fall amid strict COVID-19 curbs.
The sources added that the upgraded factory could produce 14,000 Model Ys and 8,000 Model 3s. Tesla has decided to keep it running at total capacity, except during the upgrade and a full-fledged COVID-19 lockdown for two months this year. The sources said that Tesla now plans to turn out 20,500 units a week for the rest of the year for 13,000 Model Ys and 7,500 Model 3s.
Figures from the China Passenger Car Association showed that Tesla’s China sales rose nearly 60% in the initial eight months of this year. But that pace is much slower than the overall market for new energy vehicles over a similar period, which saw sales more than double.
A New York City-based artist has been given the first registered copyright for artwork created utilizing latent diffusion artificial intelligence (AI).
Kris Kashtanova, a former programmer, announced on their Instagram post last week that Zarya of the Dawn, an AI-generated graphic book, has been registered for U.S. copyright. It could be the first content produced utilizing AI-art generators to get such recognition from the US Copyright Office, taking into account other authors’ previous inability to achieve this milestone.
On the graphic novel’s cover page, Kashtanova claimed that Midjourney, a commercial image synthesis service, was used in its creation. They said a legal acquaintance gave them the idea to register their creation as a “visual arts work” in an effort to set an example.
According to their announcement, Kashtanova pursued the registration by claiming that the artwork was not totally generated by AI but rather with AI assistance. The plot for the comic book was written by Kashtanova, who also designed the layout and made the creative decisions for the image montage.
The history of generative art is not new, as artists have previously registered works produced using machines or code-based algorithms. However, this is the first occasion that we are aware of that an artist has filed a copyright for work produced using the most latest trend of image synthesis models driven by latent diffusion, a topic that has proven controversial among artists.
Although this can be deemed to bring a radical transformation, legal experts and copyright holders still have a lot of work to do. Since AI lacks the human authorship essential to establish a copyright claim, the U.S. Protect Office has thus far rejected all requests to copyright the work it produces. However, it appears that the US office is aware that there is, except in this instance, a human artistic contribution.
At the very least, this allows for future discussion on joint work, including humans and AI, rather than just dismissing all discussions of AI-generated art.
This development takes place in the midst of continuous debate concerning AI programs like Midjourney, DALLE, Imagen, and Nightcafe. Recently, Getty Images notified users via email that it will no longer accept any submissions built using AI generative models like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion and that any previously submitted AI-generated artwork will be removed.
Several artists and photographers have attacked the art-making platforms for breaching their own copyrights. The AI-generative art tools comb through stock photos and artworks protected by the intellectual property to produce new artworks by replicating styles, prompting concerns about digital theft.
As a result, some creators wonder if AI will foster or stifle creativity, especially considering the fact that copyright rules in the United States and the European Union do not expressly include AI-generated art. The increasing use of AI to create magazine covers, posters, and logos raises the significant and tricky question of whether AI will slowly replace artists.
The recent advancements in diffusion models have led to state-of-the-art results for the majority of image generation Artificial intelligence tools like DALL-E. The use of diffusion processes in latent space as opposed to pixel space while taking into account the semantic input from the Transformers is known as latent diffusion modeling (LDM) – a concept used in making AI-generated artwork for Zarya of the Dawn.
Apple is expanding the Apple App Store’s support of NFT-based apps by standardizing their acceptability. However, the company is imposing its usual 30% transaction charge on all transactions, a move many NFT companies claim is unfair and just not practical for them as it would drain them out.
Transaction fees in a typical NFT marketplace range from 2 to 3 percent, however, apple charges 30% for all transactions, including in-app purchases. This prompted NFT company Magic Eden to discontinue trading on its app, even when Apple dropped its commission to 15% for enterprises making less than $1 million yearly. This is due to the fact that, despite the reduction, NFT companies will still lose money on every sale due to Apple’s App Store restrictions. Additionally, since the iPhone manufacturer does not wish to conduct transactions utilizing cryptocurrencies, in-app purchases made through the App Store must be made in US dollars. Setting a translated dollar amount is extremely challenging because of the intrinsically unstable nature of cryptocurrencies and their value.
Even the CEO of Rarible, Alexei Falin, is concerned about how unfairly Apple handles fixed pricing for in-app purchases. According to Falin, the tech giant “doesn’t really want App Store customers” to purchase or sell non-fungible assets.
Hence, it is safe to assume that Apple could attract more investors and firms to its marketplace if it stops charging NFT purchases on the App Store. Additionally, this would allow for some market experimentation by developers.
At the time this article was being written, the Magic Eden app was still available on the app store. Apart from Magic Eden, NFT marketplace apps on the app store currently include OpenSea, Rarible, and marketplaces in crypto trading apps include Binance, Crypto.com and Coinbase Wallet.
While this is happening, some NFT traders alleged that Apple is biased against them due to the slow approval processes for NFT and Crypto applications in contrast to the speedy approval processes on the Google Play store.
It should be noted that not everyone disagrees with Apple’s choice to introduce NFTs to the market. According to Gabriel Leydon, CEO of Web3 game company Limit Break, this could conceivably include an Ethereum wallet in any mobile game. Leydon remarked, “I’m happy to give Apple a 30 percent commission on a free NFT.”
It’s not the first time companies have fought with Apple about its commissions. For instance, Epic Games has filed legal action after its flagship game Fortnite was removed from the App Store in August 2020 after the publisher tried to market in-game transactions that avoided Apple’s fees.
As industries are generating a large amount of data, there is a demand for skilled data professionals. However, while taking your initial steps toward a career as a data analyst, it is essential to know the basic concepts, ideas, and trends of data. You can learn the basic concepts of data analytics with some of the top books on data analytics listed in this article.
Data Analytics using R
Written by Seema Acharya, Data Analytics using R is a perfect book for students who want to pursue a career in data analytics. This book is also helpful for IT professionals, data analysts, and decision-makers responsible for strategic initiatives.
With this book, you can learn the potential of the R language as statistical data analysis and visualization tool. Seema Acharya also introduces readers to several data mining algorithms and charts. She has explained many real-life case studies in the book, such as fraud detection, customer insights analysis, sales forecasting, and more.
Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, Numpy, and IPython
This book by Wes Mckinney is the perfect book to learn data analysis with Python programming language. You will learn to use the latest version of Pandas, IPython, and Numpy in the data analysis process.
This book is a practical and modern introduction to data science tools in Python. With this book, you can learn to use the IPython shell and advanced features in Numpy. You can also learn to use the data analysis tools in Pandas library and other flexible tools to clean, transform, merge and reshape data.
While reading this book, you can analyze and manipulate regular and irregular time series data and solve real-life data analysis problems with detailed examples.
Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, Numpy, and IPython Third Edition
Written by Wes Mckinney, Python for Data Analysis: Third Edition is a hands-on guide through practical case studies, showing you how to solve real-life data analysis problems. This book is an updated version of Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, Numpy, and IPython.
This book is updated with Python 3.10 and Pandas 1.4. The code examples and the datasets used in this book are readily available on GitHub.
Hands-On Data Analysis with Pandas: A Python data science handbook for data collection, wrangling, analysis, and visualization, 2nd Edition
Hands-On Data Analysis with Pandas: A Python data science handbook for data collection, wrangling, analysis, and visualization, 2nd Edition by Stefanie Molin is another good book learning efficient data analysis and manipulation tasks using Pandas 1. x.
With this book, you can learn to use Pandas in different real-world problems with the help of step-by-step explanations. This book helps you analyze data, start with machine learning algorithms, and work with Python libraries such as Numpy, Matplotlib, Seaborn, and Sci-kit learn.
While reading this book, you can learn to use Pandas library to perform data wrangling for reshaping, cleaning, and aggregating data. You will also learn how to conduct exploratory data analysis with statistics and visualization of data patterns.
This book is suitable for data science beginners, Python developers, and data analysts who want to explore every data analysis stage with various datasets.
Data Analysis and Machine Learning with Kaggle: How to compete on Kaggle and build a successful career in data science
Written by Konrad Banachewicz, Luca Massaron, and Anthony Goldbloom, Data Analysis and Machine Learning with Kaggle is one of the most recommended books for data analysis.
With this book, you can learn how Kaggle works and sharpen your skills with ensembling, AutoML, feature engineering, and adversarial validation. You will also be exposed to general techniques for approaching tasks based on image, text, tabular data, and reinforcement learning.
This is one of the best books for anyone new to Kaggle who wants to study data analysis or to perform better in Kaggle competition and secure jobs in data analysis.
SQL for Data Analysis: Advanced Techniques for Transforming Data into Insights (Grayscale Indian Edition)
SQL for Data Analysis: Advanced Techniques for Transforming Data into Insights (Grayscale Indian Edition) by Cathy Tanimura is the perfect book to learn data analysis with SQL. It provides different ways to improve your SQL skills and solve real-life data analysis problems.
With this book, you can learn the basic steps to prepare your data for analysis. Using the SQL’s date and time manipulations, you can perform a time series analysis. While reading this book, you can also explore SQL’s powerful functions and operators that are useful for text analysis.
This book is suitable for people interested in learning data analysis with SQL language by using functions like joins, subqueries, regular expressions, and window functions.
Microsoft Excel 2016 Data Analysis and Business Modelling
Written by Wayne L. Winston, the Microsoft Excel 2016 Data Analysis and Business Modelling book enables you to master data analysis and business modeling with Microsoft Excel 2016. With this book, you can also transform data into bottom-line results.
This book helps you use Excel’s new tools to ask the right questions and get accurate or actionable answers. It contains over 150 data analysis problems with solutions and a chapter of basic spreadsheet models to help you get started.
Data Analysis with Open Source Tools: A Hands-On Guide for Programmers and Data Scientists
Philipp K Janet’s book is one of the best resources for working with data in a business environment. With this book, you can learn what data contains, how to capture conceptual ideas in data, and then use this understanding in organizations with the help of business plans, metrics dashboards, and other applications.
This book uses graphics for describing data with one, two, or many variables. This book can teach you to create conceptual models using calculations and probability arguments.
With this book, you can learn to mine data using computationally intensive clustering and simulation. You also learn to use dimensionality reduction techniques and predictive analytics to conquer data analysis solutions.
Pandas for Everyone: Python Data Analysis, First Edition
Written by Daniel Y. Chen, Pandas for Everyone: Python Data Analysis, First Edition is one of the best books for learning data analysis with Python. Daniel Y. Chen explains every concept with relevant examples from modern data analysis.
With this book, you can learn the open-source Pandas library and use Python for rapidly automating and performing any data analysis task virtually, no matter how large or complex.
Pandas library helps you ensure your data’s accuracy, visualize it for effective decision making and reliably reproduce analyses across many datasets.
The Data Analytics using Python book by Bharti Motwani aims to make students understand analytics applications in different domains with proper code and explanation. This book explains the basics of Python to machine learning concepts. It mainly focuses on deep learning models like MLP, RNN, and CNN to train models for text and image data and to develop chatbots. The book consists of different chapters, such as core libraries in Python, programming in Python, tools, and techniques used for data analysis in Python.
Dr. Bharti Motwani has over 22 years of experience in research, teaching, corporate, and consultancy. She has written many data analytics books and demonstrated proficiency in helping Ph.D. candidates, editing books, and reviewing journals.
Getty Images, a company that provides photographs and illustrations to news organizations and businesses, has prohibited the sale of AI-generated artwork on its website out of concern about copyright infringement. The upload and sale of illustrations created with AI art tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, Craiyon, and Stable Diffusion are therefore prohibited for users.
Since last year, DALL-E and other AI art generators have grown in popularity because they make it simple for nonprofessional artists to produce stunning digital art. In addition to being displayed in galleries all around the world, AI art has been auctioned at Christie’s auction house. Unfortunately, the repercussions of selling it to customers are causing several image distribution websites to struggle.
Getty Images CEO Craig Peters expressed reservations about the legitimacy of AI images in an interview with The Verge. With systems like Stable Diffusion blatantly ripping off artists’ styles, generative art sits in a legal gray area. According to Peters, the individuals who license the content are also in trouble because of the use of these photographs. In light of this, it is safer to solely license user-created photos in the near future.
Whether Getty Images has faced legal problems for selling AI-generated content is a question Peters has declined to answer. He reiterated that the firm was merely implementing this policy to prevent danger to customers’ reputation, brand, and bottom line and that such content was very rare on the site.
Although Shutterstock, Getty’s main rival, appears to be limiting the photos in search results, it has not yet prohibited AI-generated material. Other photo distribution websites, such as Newgrounds, PurplePort, and FurAffinity, have also banned AI-generated content.
Peters acknowledged that it could be impractical to outright prohibit all AI content. The company will rely on users to report any content that appears to have been produced using AI. In other words, there won’t be an automated filter for the time being.
The Verge notes that scraping is permitted in the US, and it appears that the “fair use” theory also applies to the software’s output. However, fair use affords less protection to commercial activities such as selling photographs, and several artists whose work has been scraped and reproduced by AI image generators, thus, original artists are calling for new regulations to govern this realm.
James Earl Jones has bid farewell to Darth Vader after 45 years of portraying one of the most iconic figures in cinematic history. The 91-year-old actor, who has been providing the voice of Darth Vader since “Star Wars: A New Hope” premiered in 1977, handed over the rights to his archived voice recordings earlier this year, allowing Vader’s dialogues to now to be produced by artificial intelligence. After being shown the work done by Ukrainian start-up Respeecher on the most recent Disney+ series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Skywalker Sound presented Jones with the choice, and Jones approved it.
Respeecher employs “archival recordings and a proprietary AI algorithm to construct fresh conversation using the voices of artists from a bygone era. According to Lucasfilm supervising sound editor Matthew Wood, the company also ensures that the results sound at par with the human voice. James Earl Jones acknowledged that the startup’s technological prowess in restoring his voice for Obi-Wan Kenobi left him amazed.
In the newly released miniseries “Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi,” actors Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen have reprised their roles as Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker, respectively. Although Christensen donned Vader’s famed costume in the series, Respeecher delivered his voice during his battles with his former mentor and the Sith Inquisitor Reva Sevander.
Wood claimed that James Earl Jones acted as a mentor for Respeecher, which mainly relied on recordings of his voice to train their AI program to mimic the terror in his voice that he had in 1977 when he originally played Darth Vader. They also used recordings from Jones’ more recent performances in the “Star Wars” movies “Rogue One” and “The Rise of Skywalker” to train their AI software to reproduce his voice but not as much as the first movie. This explains why Vader sounds a lot like he did in the previous films in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. The same algorithm was used to reproduce Mark Hamill’s youthful voice as Luke Skywalker in another Disney+ series, “The Book of Boba Fett.”
India’s finance ministry is reportedly working on a comprehensive goods and services tax (GST) regime regarding crypto assets.
A source said that the authorities are still discussing the applicability of GST for crypto assets. Currently, it is levied on services, so they need to see if crypto assets are declared as a service or good. Previously, the government was considering imposing either an 18% or a 28% GST on crypto assets.
Another source said that a better understanding of how cryptocurrencies fit into our legal system is the prerequisite for deciding the GST rate. The GST will only be applied on the service fees or margin and not on the entire asset value, the publication conveyed, adding that the government is also examining the treatment of specific transactions, like mining or airdropped crypto tokens.
An Indian ministerial panel allegedly met at the end of June to discuss the GST taxation on crypto transactions. However, the officials did not come up with any decision from the meeting.
The Indian government has already begun taxing crypto income and transactions. A 30% tax on income from cryptocurrency assets came into effect on April 1. Moreover, a 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) on payment of crypto assets begun applying on July 1.
Meanwhile, the Indian government is also discussing the country’s crypto policy. The government plans to decide its stance on the legality of cryptocurrencies by early next year to qualify as Financial Action Task Force (FATF) compliant.
In August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi voiced his desire that on August 15, 2022, when we celebrate our 75th Independence Day, ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav,’ every Indian should hoist a flag from the rooftops of their homes. In addition, he encouraged people to take selfies with the national flag at their residences during the exercise from August 13 to August 15 and upload them on the “Har Ghar Tiranga” official website.
Thanks to aggressive campaigning government’s Har Ghar Tiranga campaign received unprecedented participation nationwide, according to the BJP party’s official statement on August 12, 2022. The Ministry of Culture reported that by August 15, approximately 60 million Indian citizens had posted images of themselves holding the national flag on the website, describing it as a “stupendous achievement.” About 50 million people have geotagged their homes with images and provided their phone numbers to register on the platform.
Digital rights advocates questioned the initiative at the same time, claiming that what appeared to be a simple voter outreach exercise could actually be an elaborate plan to gather personal information from residents. Earlier, the Har Ghar Tiranga website claimed data would be deleted after the campaign. However, the geotagged selfies have been online for over a month now. The images are still available on the internet, they can be zoomed and could be saved too. Further, according to the website, it doesn’t intentionally gather any personally identifying data from users under the age of 18. However, the publicly available selfies on the website prove otherwise.
Srinivas Kodali, a researcher with the Free Software Movement of India, expressed reservations about the Indian government’s extensive use of geotagging of its own populace. The magnitude of response for Har Ghar Tiranga was unmatched, despite several earlier attempts to geotag citizens to cash in data. This information can be used to fabricate votes, thereby influencing the outcome of elections.
Adding fuel to the fire, last week, a viral news story published by the international non-profit journalism group, Rest of the World, penned by Srishti Jaswal, highlighted digital rights advocates could be right in stating the Bharatiya Janata Party’s voter outreach project, was a veiled scheme to gather data from citizens, which might now be exploited by commercial corporations looking to sell personal data.
She claimed that their initial plan was to compile information on nearly 200 million Indians and that Independence Day celebrations offered the perfect opportunity to carry out this notorious plan because the majority of the public is susceptible to manipulation due to nationalist sentiment, patriotism, and zeal. The alleged pro-BJP propaganda gained momentum when well-known celebrities and athletes, including Amitabh Bachchan, Rajnikanth, Anupam Kher, Sachin Tendulkar, and Rohit Sharma, increased traffic to the website by taking part in the initiative. Even the caller tones have been replaced with a voice requesting telecom customers to sign up for the Har Ghar Tiranga initiative. The Ministry of Culture awarded “Har Ghar Tiranga Certificates” to anyone who registered on the website, revealed their location, and uploaded a selfie. This certificate played a huge role in catalysizing participation from the citizens.
The union government had hired around 200 manufacturers, including small and medium-sized firms and self-help organizations, to manufacture the flags. According to the ministry, the program was designed to encourage both a physical and emotional connection to the flag within a personal setting. Before, Indian people could only hoist the National Flag on specific occasions.
This changed when Naveen Jindal, an industrialist, won a decade-long legal battle that resulted in the historic Supreme Court ruling of January 23, 2004, which stated that the freedom to fly the national flag with respect and dignity is a fundamental right of an Indian citizen under the terms of Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution.
The Har Ghar Tiranga portal is hosted on Amazon web servers, in contrast to the majority of Indian government websites, which are housed on nic.in’s official servers. Tagbin, a private firm located in India, Singapore, and Dubai, is behind the website, according to a press release released by Asian News International (ANI). The location of where the website stores the data it collects is unclear. Additionally, the website shares your IP address with over 15 other websites, some of which have country code extensions from other regions of the world, leaving Indian people’ sensitive information prone to exploitation.
Ayushman Kaul, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Logically, a technology company that specializes in monitoring and combating disinformation, told Rest of World that the website also employs cookies to track users’ surfing patterns. Kaul thinks this is a baldfaced sign whoever is behind the website wants to collect more user data. Furthermore, linking a Google sign-in with the website might possibly allow the website creators to gather extra personally identifiable information from Indian citizens who used the website. This will allow user privacy abusers to build a complete demographic and psychological profile of the entire population by combining a variety of such information and personal markers.
A BJP member told Rest of World that individuals often post their photos on Facebook or Instagram without worrying about privacy issues in response to a question regarding the possible exploitation of these images. They dismissed the privacy concerns surrounding the data present on the website. The representative also denied the presence of sensitive information on the website and pointed out that users themselves consented to use the selfies while taking part in the Har Ghar Tiranga initiative.
The BJP-led Indian government has attempted to gather data unfairly before. The Aadhar identity database allegedly released all registered citizens’ personal information in 2018 including names, bank information, and biometric information. Last year, WhatsApp sued the Indian government to stop the implementation of new regulations that called for platforms for instant messaging to reveal the “originator” of communications upon request from law enforcement.
At least 1500 persons who took the COVID-19 test in 2021 had their names, birth dates, testing centers’ locations exposed on official websites. Interestingly, the data was freely accessible via Google indexing but was not sold on the dark web.
The government had also introduced the contact tracing app Aarogya Setu as part of its frantic attempts to tackle COVID-19. The goal was to locate users using geolocation and alert them if they had contact with an infected individual. The Indian government was already tracking potential illnesses and locating hand-stamped individuals who had vowed not to travel using airline and train reservation data. The Aarogya Setu app used a range of technology strategies to make contact tracking and location monitoring possible. These include real-time geotagging-enabled selfie-based hourly check-in(s), and face recognition software systems for those who are being isolated at home. However, it was often noticed that the app lacked accuracy!
The government assured that all contact and location tracking information was removed from the phone on a rolling 30-day period. Unless you test positive, in which case all contact tracing and location information was erased 60 days after being certified healed, the identical data on the server was deleted 45 days after the upload.
However, the Aarogya Setu Data Access and Knowledge Sharing Protocol specifies that de-identified data could be shared with any government institution, provided that it is done so in order to combat Covid-19. The protocol specifies that any received data shall be permanently erased after 180 days. However, privacy advocates claim there is no way to determine if that has actually occurred.
While it is undeniable that these technological interventions were essential for locating hotspots, coordinating efforts between relief organizations, allocating resources, and facilitating quick decision-making, they also pose the risk of systematic mass surveillance, so it is important to be aware of these risks. This suggests that the information from Har Ghar Trianga might be used for widespread monitoring and geo-targeted political advertisements.
Although the location data is not made publicly accessible, the Har Ghar Tiranga website retains it, according to Kodali, which could result in theft, hacking, and stalking. People may become more susceptible to geo-propaganda when siloed data, such as phone numbers, photos, and location, is combined with other data sets, such as constituency demographics and voting preferences. This Orwellian possibility draws parallel to the mass abuse of user data privacy using US Presidential elections. While Cambridge Analytica’s activities are widely known, during the 2020 US Presidential elections, Catholics who regularly attended church services were identified via geotagging. The Donald Trump campaign subsequently targeted these individuals with personalized advertisements.
India presently lacks data protection legislation that may protect its citizens from cyber risks. Just days after the Har Ghar Tiranga initiative was introduced, the Indian government abruptly withdrew a draft of Personal Data Protection Bill that had been making its way through parliament for over three years on August 3. The 2019 bill suggested strict controls on international data transfers and allowed the Indian government to request user data from businesses.
With the lack of data privacy laws, considering past attempts to misuse user data, it is probable that the geo-tagged data from the Har Ghar Tiranga website can see similar risks. Not only that, the use of such data can enable the government to nip any public dissent with measures ranging from lawsuit, unlawful monitoring, and social media account suspension!
Ecommerce giant Flipkart is planning to announce its interactive and Metaverse-themed virtual shopping platform, Flipverse, during the ongoing ‘Big Billion Days Sale.’
Flipkart has partnered with Ethereum Layer-2 and social media giant Meta, scaling startup Polygon for the project. They also said the Metaverse project could be launched as soon as this year’s Diwali (around October).
Flipverse will deploy a host of Web3.0 technologies to elevate the everyday user experience to include a virtual reality experience. The new offering will enable users to walk through the virtual shopping center and interact with digital storefronts. According to the report, Flipverse will host games, NFTs, product launches, and other contests.
This comes after weeks of overt and covert teasing of the Metaverse platform by a clutch of media reports and digital bloggers. Earlier this week, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal also tweeted about ‘Flipverse by Flipkart’, saying that Polygon and eDAO powered it.
Flipkart has been experimenting with Web3.0 technologies for some time now. In April this year, the eCommerce major launched Flipkart Labs to mark its foray into the world of Web3.0 technologies. The project plans to leverage Flipkart’s in-house capabilities to create technology-based solutions to redefine eCommerce.
The company also unveiled FireDrops earlier this year to explore NFT-related use cases and to bring Web3.0 to a broader audience.
