Education on technology

Fintech major Paytm on Tuesday said it disbursed $667 million (Rs. 5,517 crore) loans through its platform and deployed 87 lakh devices for offline payments in August.  The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led fintech platform said in a regulatory filing that on an average 9.4 crore users transacted through Paytm monthly during July and August this year, which was 20 percent higher than the average number of users recorded during the same period last year. "Our loan distribution business (in partnership with our lender partners) continues to gain scale with disbursements of Rs. 10,710 crore (y-o-y growth of 137 percent) and 88 lakh loans (y-o-y growth of 47 percent) disbursed in quarter to date for the month of July and August 2023 combined, through the Paytm platform," the company shared in its operating performance report for August. The number of merchants paying subscription for payment devices stood at 87 lakh as of August 2023, which is an increase of 42 lakh devices year-on-ye...

Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it will discontinue the " Facebook News " feature on its social media app in the UK, France and Germany, later this year. Users will still be able to view links to news articles and European news publishers will continue to have access to their Facebook accounts and pages after the change is implemented in December, Meta said. However, Facebook will not form new commercial deals for news content on "Facebook News", nor offer product innovations for news publishers in these countries. "Facebook News", which curates a feed of news articles, is a dedicated tab in the bookmarks section of the Facebook app. "News makes up less than 3 percent of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed, so news discovery is a small part of the Facebook experience for the vast majority of people," Meta said in a blog post . Along with Big Tech peer Alphabet , the company has come under increasing pressure from lawmake...

Oppo A38 has silently debuted in UAE. The latest smartphone from Oppo is listed on the company's UAE website, revealing its design, colour options and detailed specifications. The handset sports a 6.56-inch HD+ LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 720 nits. Available in a single storage variant, the new handset from Oppo is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio G85 SoC, paired with up to 4GB of RAM and 128GB of inbuilt storage. It ships with a dual rear camera. Oppo A38 price The Oppo A38 has been listed on Oppo's UAE website , but the phone's price and sale date are yet to be announced by the company. However, a recent report tipped that the smartphone could be priced around EUR 159 (nearly Rs. 14,200) for the 4GB RAM + 128GB storage variant. The handset is also speculated to debut in Europe as well as India and other Asian markets soon. Meanwhile, the phone comes in two colour variants, namely Glowing Black and Glowing Gold. Oppo A38 specifi...

Meta sees India as a "priority market" with "limitless" possibilities buoyed by macroeconomic growth, digital infrastructure and the popularity of its apps like Facebook , WhatsApp and Instagram , the social media giant's India head Sandhya Devanathan said.  In an interview with PTI, Devanathan, who took over the leadership role in January this year, said India's new Digital Personal Data Protection legislation has provided a framework and clarity for tech companies and marks a "great step in balancing user protection with innovation". Meta, she emphasised, "welcomes constructive regulations", and will wait to see the detailed rules. Devanathan, who is the Vice President of Meta in India, also spoke of the company's determination to crack down on misinformation on the platform and outlined how it is harnessing AI (Artificial Intelligence) to pro-actively curb hateful content. Meta will continue with its election integrity effor...