South Korea to Sanction Meta Over Violation of E-commerce Law

• South Korea to Sanction Meta Over Violation of E-commerce Law
• X Introduces Long-Form Article Feature for Premium+ Subscribers
• Indian Cabinet Greenlights $1.25 Billion Investment in AI Initiatives
• TikTok Faces Uncertain Future as US House Considers Ban or Divestiture
• IBM and C-DAC Join Forces for High-Performance Computing to Boost India
• Newcomers Shake Up India's Smartwatch Market Against Top Brands

South Korea to Sanction Meta Over Violation of E-commerce Law

The South Korean antitrust agency plans to sanction Meta for failing to protect South Korean users of online marketplaces on Instagram and Facebook against fraudulent transactions.

Following its investigations, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) accused Meta of failing to implement sufficient measures to protect and resolve disputes for users of Facebook and Instagram marketplaces when disputes arise over sales transactions, as required by the country’s e-commerce law. South Korean agencies believe this to be a step in the right direction before a meeting is held to decide on the best possible measures to take concerning Meta.

Currently, there are over 44 million South Koreans on Facebook and Instagram combined. Considering that these two social media giants are subsidiaries of Meta, this sanction if implemented, could significantly impact the tech giant, which is valued at $512.9 billion. – Henry Chikwem

X Introduces Long-Form Article Feature for Premium+ Subscribers

Premium+ subscribers on X can now take advantage of the platform even more, as the social media giant recently introduced a long-form article feature that allows verified organizations and premium+ subscribers to write and publish long-form articles.

The "Article" feature offers additional support, such as text formatting options and a text editing interface. Also, these articles can contain as much as 100,000 characters, or about 15,000 words, surpassing the 25000 character limit in place for the long post feature available to premium subscribers.

X, currently valued at $12.5 billion, has since been working on this feature with an early version called “Notes,” shown in 2022 before Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. – Henry Chikwem

Indian Cabinet Greenlights $1.25 Billion Investment in AI Initiatives

India’s Union Cabinet has given the nod to a $1.25 billion investment in AI projects over five years. The cabinet believes that by making these investments, India could witness more robust technological development and an improved environment for advanced tech activities.

The AI project called “IndiaAI Mission” will bring about a developed ecosystem that will encourage AI innovation and promote healthy partnerships across India’s public and private sectors. The Indian government also believes that this would serve as an employment opportunity for highly skilled individuals in the country.

India, currently the most populous nation with a mind-blowing figure of 1.4 billion people, also plans to introduce “IndiaAI FutureSkills,” which will help break down barriers into AI programs and increase AI courses at the undergraduate, master's, and PhD levels. – Henry Chikwem

TikTok Faces Uncertain Future as US House Considers Ban or Divestiture

The popular short-form video platform TikTok with almost 150 million users in the US, is bracing for a potential upheaval as the US House of Representatives prepares to vote on a bill next week. 

The bill, prompted by national security concerns surrounding TikTok's Chinese ownership under ByteDance, a company valued at over $100 billion, offers two stark options. Either ByteDance divests ownership of TikTok within six months, or the app faces a ban in the US.

The situation presents a dilemma where a ban could cripple TikTok's US operations, potentially costing the company billions in revenue and affecting the livelihoods of its American creators and employees. On the other hand, a forced divestiture could lead to a completely new ownership structure, impacting user privacy and content moderation policies. – David Adubiina

IBM and C-DAC Join Forces for High-Performance Computing to Boost India

Information Technology giant IBM signed a memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing to collaborate on the creation of a joint working group to accelerate high-performance computing in India.

This is intended to spur and support the growth of India's developer community with over 1.4 billion in population by focusing on processor design, system design, firmware, and application development which also includes contributing to open-source initiatives.

To fuel this growth, IBM with a value of over $170 billion will establish a joint working group with C-DAC collaborating in several key areas such as spanning, skilling, competency, and ecosystem building to promote power processors for high-performance computing (HPC) applications across Indian start-ups, MSMEs, research organizations and academic institutions. – David Adubiina 

Newcomers Shake Up India's Smartwatch Market Against Top Brands

As the world's second-largest smartphone market with over 600 million users, India is witnessing a boom in its wearable market. However, the established players in the Indian smartwatch market like Fire-Bolt, Noise and boAt with 60% total market share are facing a new challenge.

This influx of unfamiliar names is impacting the market driving down prices. Analyst reports suggest a staggering 90% decline in the average selling price (ASP) of smartwatches leaving big players like Samsung and Apple to further fall from 4.5% to a little over 2% share combined.

While this might seem like a win for budget-conscious consumers in India's vast 1.4 billion population, it raises questions about quality and after-sales service, that could potentially impact the overall revenue of the market negatively. Unlike established players with brand recognition and reliable support networks, these newcomers could offer lower-quality products with limited customer service leaving users frustrated and hesitant to invest in the smartwatch market. – David Adubiina

– Editing by Emmanuel Oyedeji and Loy Okezie

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