Tech

Bitcoin surpassed Big Tech firms like Google, Amazon, and Meta to become the fifth-largest asset by market cap on Wednesday. The valuation of the oldest and most expensive crypto asset climbed to $1.86 trillion (roughly Rs. 1,58,87,400 crore) on Wednesday. This takes Bitcoin’s valuation significantly higher than that of silver as well. Bitcoin is behind Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia which are three of the top five assets in the world, according to data by CompanyMarketCap.

A Quick Glance at the Numbers

At the time of writing, Google’s valuation stands at $1.859 trillion (roughly Rs. 1,58,80,690 crore), marginally lower than Bitcoin’s and subject to fluctuations. Gold remains the top-most asset, with a market cap of $22.4 6 trillion (roughly Rs. 19,19,00,869 crore). Apple, which is in second position, is valued at $3 trillion (roughly Rs. 2,56,24,035 crore).

Bitcoin has been through a few rough patches over the past couple of weeks. The asset rebounded after six straight weeks of losses on Wednesday to trade at $93,455 (roughly Rs. 79.8 lakh). Due to the ongoing tariff uncertainty, Bitcoin’s price previously sank to $76,000 (roughly Rs. 65.3 lakh).

At its peak, Bitcoin’s price crossed the $108,000 (roughly Rs. 92 lakh) mark in the middle of December 2024.

Silver and Amazon, which are at sixth and seventh positions on the CompanyMarketCap Index, are presently valued at $1.855 trillion (roughly Rs. 1,58,46,170 crore) and $1.837 trillion (roughly Rs. 1,56,92,388 crore), respectively.

In conversation with Gadgets 360, CoinDCX co-founder Sumit Gupta said this development reflects the growing institutional conviction and a maturing policy environment around crypto assets like Bitcoin. Others from the crypto space lauded the development of seeing value come out of code.

“This alignment of market performance and policy clarity is laying the groundwork for a resilient, integrated financial ecosystem—one where digital assets are not speculative outliers, but foundational pillars of the global economy,” Gupta said. With India’s discussion paper on crypto still due, Gupta said, the country stands at a pivotal crossroads in the digital asset economy.

Tesla sees India’s 100 percent import tariffs on cars making customers anxious, and the carmaker is still assessing when to enter the “very hot” market even as those concerns linger, its chief financial officer said on Tuesday.

Tesla has long wanted to sell in the world’s third-largest car market, but high tariffs, which its chief Elon Musk has said are among the steepest in the world, have been a deterrent.

Even so, Tesla has in recent weeks finalised some showroom space in India and posted more than two dozen jobs, signalling it is getting closer to a launch. Commercially available custom records show that in March, Tesla imported a Model Y car to India from Germany at a shipment value of $46,000 (roughly Rs. 39.2 lakh).

“The same car which we’re sending is 100 percent more expensive than what it is. So that creates a lot of anxiety. People feel OK, they’re paying too much for the car … That’s why we’ve been very careful trying to figure out when is the right time (to enter India),” Vaibhav Taneja said in an earnings call.

“India is a very hot market,” he added.

Tesla posted dismal first quarter earnings on Tuesday, with net profit plunging by 71 percent.

Tesla has been lobbying India to lower import tariffs on cars, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s officials are in talks with US President Donald Trump’s administration to lower the 100 percent levies under a bilateral trade deal.

The United States has asked for elimination of tariffs on cars, but New Delhi is unlikely to bring down taxes to zero immediately even as it considers further cuts.

Any duty cuts that make imported cars cheaper have seen strong opposition from local carmakers such as Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra.

Musk said this week he is planning to visit India this year, after Modi and the billionaire had a conversation about collaboration in technology and innovation.

Last year, Tesla came close, with Musk planning to visit India where he was expected to announce an investment of $2 billion (roughly Rs. 17,081 crore) -$3 billion (roughly Rs. 25,621 crore), including in a factory to manufacture EVs. But he cancelled the trip at the last moment.

© Thomson Reuters 2025

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

Apple was fined EUR 500 million ($570 million or roughly Rs. 4,869 crore) on Wednesday and Meta EUR 200 million (roughly Rs. 1,708 crore), as European Union antitrust regulators handed out the first sanctions under landmark legislation aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech.

The EU fines could stoke tensions with US President Donald Trump who has threatened to levy tariffs against countries that penalise US companies.

They follow a year-long investigation by the European Commission, the EU executive, into whether the companies comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that seeks to allow smaller rivals into markets dominated by the biggest companies.

The fines signal that the EU is sticking to its guns in enforcing the new rules, which were introduced in 2023. That is despite Trump citing the DMA while vowing in February to “defend American companies and innovators from overseas extortion”.

Alphabet’s Google and Elon Musk’s X are also facing potential fines from European regulators.

The EU will be encouraged by a US court judgment earlier this month which found that Google illegally dominates two markets for online advertising technology, Commission sources say. That ruling could pave the way for US antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its ad products.

Apple said it would challenge the EU fine.

“Today’s announcements are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free,” Apple said in an emailed statement.

Meta also criticised the EU decision.

“The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards,” its Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said in an emailed statement.

“This isn’t just about a fine; the Commission forcing us to change our business model effectively imposes a multi-billion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service.”

The fines are modest compared to the penalties meted out by the previous EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager during her term. Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said this is due to the short period of the breaches, a focus on compliance rather than sanctions, and a desire to avoid possible retaliation from Trump.

Pay-or-Consent Model

The EU competition watchdog said Apple must remove technical and commercial restrictions that prevent app developers from steering users to cheaper deals outside the App Store.

It said Meta’s pay-or-consent model introduced in November 2023 breached the DMA in the period up to November 2024, when it tweaked it to use less personal data for targeted advertising.

The model gives Facebook and Instagram users who consent to be tracked a free service that is funded by advertising revenues. Alternatively, they can pay for an ad-free service.

Meta is discussing with the EU the new version introduced in November last year to see if it is DMA compliant. The companies have two months to comply with the orders or risk daily fines.

Apple avoided a fine in a separate investigation into its browser options on iPhones after making changes that allow users to switch to a rival browser or search engine more easily. Regulators said these comply with the DMA and closed the investigation on Wednesday.

The iPhone maker was still charged with breaching DMA rules on the grounds it hindered users from sideloading, a practice that involves downloading alternative app stores and apps from the web.

Regulators criticised Apple’s conditions, which include a new fee called Apple’s Core Technology Fee, saying these serve as a disincentive for developers to use alternative app distribution channels on its mobile operating system iOS.

The EU regulator also dropped Meta’s Marketplace’s designation as a DMA gatekeeper because the number of users fell below the required threshold.

“We have taken firm but balanced enforcement action against both companies, based on clear and predictable rules. All companies operating in the EU must follow our laws and respect European values,” EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said.

EU lawmaker Andreas Schwab urged the Commission to maintain its investigations against Google’s lucrative adtech business and Elon Musk’s X and not delay decisions.

“There can be no leeway in enforcement as this may also impact the importance of competition policy in general,” he said, adding a decision that was apparently linked to trade policy issues was “dangerous for the whole European Union construction”.

Reuters had flagged the EU decisions on Apple and Meta last month.

© Thomson Reuters 2025

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

Apple’s new Siri engineering chief is overhauling the management team leading development of the beleaguered voice assistant, taking a step he assured employees would set the company up for success.

Mike Rockwell, head of engineering for the assistant, is replacing much of Siri’s leadership with lieutenants from his Vision Pro software group, according to people with knowledge of the matter. He’s also restructuring teams related to speech, understanding, performance and user experience, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the changes are private.

Rockwell was named head of Siri engineering last month in a management shake-up that involved stripping away some responsibilities from AI chief John Giannandrea and former Siri head Robby Walker. The move followed project delays and engineering snags, prompting Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook to seek new leadership.

Fixing Siri has become one of the highest-profile challenges at Apple, which first unveiled the voice assistant in 2011. The technology has fallen behind that of rivals like Alphabet‘s Google, and OpenAI — and it’s come to represent Apple’s struggles to find its footing in the fast-growing artificial intelligence field. 

In one of Rockwell’s first moves, he enlisted Ranjit Desai, a longtime top deputy from the development of the Vision Pro. Desai will now be in charge of much of Siri’s engineering, including the underlying platform and systems groups. Rockwell told staffers that the executive’s background in “high-performance, low-latency systems” would help Siri performance reach a “new level.” 

Olivier Gutknecht, a senior Vision Pro software executive, is taking over the team in charge of Siri’s user experience. Nate Begeman and Tom Duffy, veteran Apple software engineering managers, are also joining the Siri team to run underlying architecture. Rockwell says that will lead to “world-class” and “scalable” technology. 

Begeman worked on the Vision Pro operating system, and Duffy previously oversaw fundamental elements of the iPhone software as part of a group known as Core OS. They’re considered top software engineering talent who helped bring some of the company’s toughest projects to market. 

Stuart Bowers, who has led data, training and evaluation teams, will get an expanded role working on Siri’s ability to figure out how to respond to a user. David Winarsky, a longtime Siri leader, is taking over a new group responsible for all voice and speech-related components. 

The moves show that Rockwell is either demoting or replacing the prior managers in charge of Siri engineering. At the same time, he is turning to the people behind the Vision Pro to fix the long-plagued voice assistant. 

While Rockwell has taken over Siri, he remains in charge of the visionOS operating system — software that runs on current and future Vision devices. The Vision hardware team is still part of the broader hardware engineering group, reporting to senior executive John Ternus. 

A spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple declined to comment.

Apple is moving over the former visionOS software teams belonging to the executives joining Siri to Geoff Stahl, a longtime Rockwell deputy who helps manage software engineering for Vision devices. Rockwell is keeping other visionOS managers in place, including apps head Jeff Norris and software program management lead Haley Allen.

Apple’s artificial intelligence and machine learning team — mocked as “AI/MLess” by some employees — had been struggling for months with management issues, philosophical disagreements and execution problems.

When the company unveiled its Apple Intelligence platform last June, it announced a series of Siri upgrades, including the service’s ability to tap into a user’s personal data and analyze on-screen content to fulfill commands. The iPhone maker also showed an upgraded version of App Intents, a system for more precisely controlling actions and applications. 

Earlier this year, quality and engineering issues forced Apple to postpone the release of that technology to May from April. By March, the company delayed the trio of features indefinitely in a rare retreat. In an internal meeting, the prior head of Siri told staffers the system didn’t work properly as often as a third of the time. He said employees may feel “embarrassed” due to the “ugly” situation. 

The current Siri essentially has two brains. One handles longstanding commands, such as setting a timer and other basic tasks. The other one is based on large language models — the core technology behind generative AI — and can execute more advanced jobs.

It’s been a struggle to have both parts of Siri operate at the same time, contributing to quality problems. So Apple is now revamping its architecture to use a single LLM-based system. The approach should enable a more conversational user interface, though the upgrade is expected to take a couple of years.

To bring the new App Intents feature to market — an effort now overseen by Gutknecht — Apple is planning to work directly with large third-party app developers so that the technology works smoothly with their software. It’s also integrating the capabilities deeply into its own apps. The feature should eventually allow a user to trigger a complex series of tasks with a single voice instruction: Siri could, say, find a photo, edit it and send it off via email or iMessage.

The management shuffle began early this year, with Apple moving Kim Vorrath — a veteran software engineering manager known for handling difficult projects — over to the Siri team. She had previously been in charge of project management for the Vision Pro under Rockwell. Now, just months later, she was moved with Rockwell under Craig Federighi, the company’s software engineering chief. 

Giannandrea remains Apple’s head of artificial intelligence, reporting directly to Cook. He oversees core AI initiatives, including large language model development, infrastructure teams and testing operations, as well as a “measurement” group focused on improving AI performance. Walker still reports to Giannandrea and remains involved with Siri, although he lost hundreds of engineers to Rockwell.

Given the sales struggles and early bugs tied to the Vision Pro, some employees and industry watchers have questioned the Rockwell takeover of Siri. But while the Vision Pro hasn’t hasn’t been a commercial hit, Rockwell has shown an ability to take on major projects and persuade top leadership to invest heavily. He also created an operating system and product that are considered strong from a technology standpoint. 

© 2025 Bloomberg LP

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

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom testified that his fledgling photo-sharing app could have succeeded without being acquired by Meta Platforms Inc., and that eventually Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg treated Instagram’s growth as a “threat” and starved it of resources.

The claims could bolster the US government’s monopoly case against the social networking giant as lawyers for the Federal Trade Commission push to unwind the 2012 acquisition of the photo app, which today is used by almost three billion people worldwide and is projected to contribute roughly half of Meta’s US ad sales this year.

Systrom, testifying Tuesday at Meta’s antitrust trial in Washington, recounted how quickly Instagram was growing before Zuckerberg’s purchase offer. “The users, they just kept coming,” Systrom recalled under questioning by FTC lawyer Bob Zuver. The government displayed a chart of Instagram’s growth before the acquisition that showed registered users increased 13-fold in 2011, the year before the deal. 

Systrom said he believed Instagram was capable of launching several important features, including support for videos and private messages, even if the company hadn’t been acquired by Meta, then called Facebook. He said that Instagram didn’t need infrastructure help — it used Amazon Web Services to keep the site operational — and the startup could have successfully combated spam and other harmful content as a standalone company. 

“We would have been able to scale our problematic content screening fairly well,” he said. “It wasn’t rocket science.” During cross-examination from Meta’s lawyers later in the day, Systrom acknowledged that Instagram’s success was no sure thing. “It could have gone either way,” he said. “The probability of us failing was low, but it could have failed.”

Systrom, who remained with Instagram after the acquisition, said Zuckerberg was hot and cold on the photo app during the time that he worked there, and grew to view Instagram as a threat to Facebook. Systrom said Instagram rarely got the resources that he requested, including headcount for companywide initiatives like video and integrity efforts around data privacy. Following the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, Systrom says Instagram got no new employees despite a broad effort to shore up Meta’s data practices. 

“I thought that that was not appropriate given the scale of Instagram,” he said. 

FTC lawyers also showed emails from Systrom where he was frustrated about Meta’s investment in Instagram. In one to former Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer, Systrom wrote that “we also have areas that are ‘starving’” for investment. In another email to Instagram leaders in 2017, Systrom complained that Instagram got no additional workers despite a wide investment to increase the company’s video ambitions. 

“We were given zero of 300 incremental video heads, which is an unacceptable and offensive outcome,” Systrom wrote.

At the trial, Systrom acknowledged that all teams fight for resources and headcount, but that given Instagram’s role in driving revenue and growth for the company he felt offended by the lack of support.

“I was working very hard for the company to make this a success and not getting resources back,” he said. “It was in stark contrast to the effort I was putting in.”

Later, Systrom said the resources Meta provided were still key to the app’s success and incredible growth. “Yes, they gave us many resources that allowed us to thrive,” he said. 

Lawyers for the FTC are seeking to prove that by purchasing Instagram in 2012, and WhatsApp in 2014, Meta created an illegal social networking monopoly, and the agency wants US District Judge James Boasberg to undo the deals. After agreeing to sell his company for $1 billion, Systrom continued to run it within Facebook until 2018.

The government has sought to establish that Instagram was an up-and-coming rival to Meta that would have been a formidable competitor had it stayed independent. During the trial’s first week, the FTC displayed dozens of internal emails from Zuckerberg and other top executives fretting over Instagram’s rapid growth and superior photo products. It is also aiming to show that Meta’s purchase of the popular app led to harm for users by increasing ads and decreasing safety and security. 

Meta, meanwhile, has argued that Instagram became a massive success thanks in large part to the support it provided the photo app following the acquisition. Lawyers for the company spent several hours Tuesday afternoon highlighting the myriad ways Meta helped Instagram grow, including hiring and paying for employees, enhancing the photo app’s advertising system and helping promote it via Facebook. Instagram, which had about 30 million registered users when it was acquired, now has more than 2.8 billion monthly users, a Meta lawyer said. 

“When we acquired Instagram, it had about two percent of the users it has today, just 13 employees, no revenue, and virtually no infrastructure of its own,” Meta General Counsel Jennifer Newstead wrote in a blog post earlier this month before the trial started. “Many of the features that are now central to the Instagram community — direct messaging, live video streaming, shopping and stories — were built on Meta’s core technology infrastructure after the acquisition.”

Roelof Botha, an early Instagram investor from Sequoia Capital, suggested during a video deposition that was played Monday in court that Instagram benefited from Meta’s data centers and other technical infrastructure. He pointed out that several other photo-sharing apps from that time — including a few that Sequoia also invested in — ultimately failed. 

On the stand Tuesday, Systrom also acknowledged that Facebook helped the app grow before the acquisition because many Instagram users also posted their photos to their Facebook account. At the time, Instagram users were also encouraged to share their photos to other social networks, including Twitter — an option that was shut off shortly after the acquisition.

Facebook also drove significant user traffic to Instagram following the acquisition by adding tabs in the Facebook app that directed people to Instagram and sending users push notifications. An internal Meta report estimated that these efforts led to nearly 38 million more monthly users per year in 2018. Meta also spent more than $130 million (roughly Rs. 1,109 crore) in advertising on Instagram, both on and off Facebook, around that time, documents show. 

Systrom said that Zuckerberg eventually shut off much of that support for Instagram inside the Facebook app — including the notifications and some links that sent people back to the photo-sharing app — starting in 2018.

“He believed we were hurting Facebook’s growth,” Systrom said, adding that Zuckerberg believed that slowing Instagram’s growth would simultaneously slow Facebook’s decline. Emails showed that Systrom believed that these changes would cut Instagram’s growth by as much as 100 million new monthly users per year. 

When asked whether Zuckerberg was ultimately happy to have Instagram as part of the company, Systrom said it was “a complex question.”

“He was always very happy to have Instagram in the family because it was growing so quickly and we did great product work,” Systrom said. “But also I think as the founder of Facebook he felt a lot of emotion around which one was better, meaning Instagram or Facebook.”

© 2025 Bloomberg LP

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

Sony revealed the release date, new story details and new gameplay for Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei in a surprise announcement on Wednesday. The action-adventure title, a follow-up to 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima, is coming exclusively to PlayStation 5 on October 2. The second trailer for the game details the protagonist Atsu’s quest for revenge against six masked outlaws who killed her family and left her for dead, and shows off stunning visuals, new weapons and more.

Ghost of Yotei Release Date Announced With New Trailer

The new trailer, titled “The Onryō’s List,” features a mix of gameplay and in-game cinematics and charts Atsu’s path of vengeance. A gang of outlaws, known as the Yotei Six, killed her family and left her dying, pinned to a burning tree. But Atsu survived, left home and trained to fight and hunt. Sixteen years later, she’s back in Ezo with a list of six names — The Snake, The Oni, The Kitsune, The Spider, The Dragon and Lord Saito.

The premise is a familiar revenge story, seen in films like Kill Bill, or the recently released Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The game will track Atsu as she hunts down the Yotei Six one by one and strikes off their names from her list. On her way, she’ll also explore the Ezo region surrounding Mount Yotei and forge new allies.

The trailer also showed a new spear weapon for Atsu, stunning environments and a new gameplay mechanic that lets players step into Atsu’s past.

“In Ghost of Yōtei, we’ve built upon and evolved the way you explore the open world, offering even more freedom and variety than in Ghost of Tsushima,” Sucker Punch said in a PlayStation Blog post announcing the release date and new details for the game. “You’ll choose which leads to follow as you pick which Yōtei Six member you want to hunt down first.”

In addition to the main quest, Atsu can also hunt down bounties, seek out weapon sensei to learn new skills and explore the wilderness. Some of the side activities from Ghost of Tsushima will return, Sucker Punch said — perhaps the Haiku writing? Atsu will also be able to put down a campfire anywhere in the open world and rest, much like Red Dead Redemption 2.

Ghost of Yotei will come in standard, digital deluxe and collector’s editions
Photo Credit: Sony/ Sucker Punch

Ghost of Yotei Pre-Order Details, Editions

Finally, Sucker Punch also revealed pre-order details for Ghost of Yotei. The game will be available to pre-purchase starting May 2 at 10am local time. Players can choose between a standard edition, a digital deluxe version and a collector’s edition.

Pre-ordering any edition will grant players a unique in-game mask and a set of seven PSN avatars featuring concept art of Atsu and each member of the Yotei Six at launch. PlayStation Store pre-orders will get the avatars immediately.

The digital deluxe edition will include in-game bonuses like The Snake’s armor set and an alternate dye for the starting armor, a unique horse color and unique saddle dye, an in-game Charm, gold Sword Kit and an early unlock of Traveler’s Maps.

The collector’s edition can only be pre-ordered on direct.playstation.com in supported regions, or at select retailers in other markets. In addition to all pre-order bonuses and digital deluxe edition benefits, the collector’s edition will come with replicas of Atsu’s Ghost mask, her sash, and the Tsuba from her katana; a pouch of coins and instructions to play Zeni Hajiki, a skill-based game in Ghost of Yotei; a foldable papercraft ginkgo tree with a wolf at its base; and a set of four 5 x 7-inch art cards featuring the sash, the wolf, Atsu’s Ghost mask and key art from the game.

Ghost of Yotei arrives exclusively on PS5 on October 2 and is available to wishlist on the PlayStation Store.

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