Amazon woos consumers with insurance & gold products. Makes India centre of fintech push

To boost online payments, Amazon launched its Amazon Pay digital wallet in 2016. It has since introduced a credit card, signed up to a state-backed payments network, and processes payments for movie and flight tickets as well as telephone and utility bills. https://ift.tt/3lIxP7V https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Tiger & Kora in $250M Zomato funding round

Follows halt on Ant funding; company valued at $3 billion https://ift.tt/2DnSaxU https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

SpaceX targets another Starlink launch Thursday to continue record pace

• 

  Falcon 9 B1060 and 60 Starlink satellites standing on LC-39A in preparation for launch at 9:29an EDT on September 1, 2020. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]

SpaceX launched three missions in August—two carrying its own Starlink satellite payloads, and the SAOCOM 1B mission for Argentina. Now, beginning as early as Thursday morning, SpaceX may go for three more launches this month to continue building out its Starlink satellite-Internet constellation.

A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off at 8:46am EDT (12:46 UTC) Thursday from Kennedy Space Center while carrying a payload of 60 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. This will be the 12th launch of a large batch of Starlink satellites, although the first 60 satellites launched in May 2019 were, to some extent, a test bed for future iterations. After this mission, the company will have placed more than 700 of its satellites into orbit to provide broadband service.

The need to build out a constellation of thousands of satellites, with the eventual goal of providing broadband Internet across the globe, has allowed SpaceX to fly its Falcon 9 rocket frequently this year. So far in 2020, the company has launched 15 missions, including the suborbital Crew Dragon in-flight abort test on January 19. Of those, nine have been Starlink missions.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

https://arstechnica.com

Livspace, an online home interior design and renovation service in Singapore and India, says it has raised $90M, bringing total raised to ~$200M (Yoolim Lee/Bloomberg)

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
Livspace, an online home interior design and renovation service in Singapore and India, says it has raised $90M, bringing total raised to ~$200M  —  - Livspace's $90 million round led by Kharis Capital, Venturi  — Six-year-old startup connects homeowners, designers, vendors

FCC says Verizon, Dish, Charter, and Comcast were the 4 highest bidders in a ~$4.6B 3.5GHz band auction; Dish secured the most 3.5GHz licenses with nearly 5,500 (Monica Alleven/FierceWireless)

Monica Alleven / FierceWireless:
FCC says Verizon, Dish, Charter, and Comcast were the 4 highest bidders in a ~$4.6B 3.5GHz band auction; Dish secured the most 3.5GHz licenses with nearly 5,500  —  As widely expected, Verizon showed up at the auction of 3.5 GHz Priority Access Licenses (PALs) in a big way …

Redmi Note 9 Pro series to go on sale today at 12pm via Amazon

Xiaomi has launched three variants of Redmi Note 9 Pro. Its base model packs 4GB+64GB and is priced at Rs 13,999. https://ift.tt/3jCK43Q

Google expands AI-driven flood forecast to all of India, Bangladesh

For several years, the Google Flood Forecasting Initiative has been working with governments to develop systems that predict when and where flooding will occur and keep people safe and informed. https://ift.tt/3bloCgM https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

India's supreme court gives telecom operators 10 years to clear government dues totaling $19B, a significant concession from the original 3-month deadline (Upmanyu Trivedi/Bloomberg)

Upmanyu Trivedi / Bloomberg:
India's supreme court gives telecom operators 10 years to clear government dues totaling $19B, a significant concession from the original 3-month deadline  —  - Bharti shares benefited from company's stronger balance sheet  — Government, telcos sought 20 years for clearing all dues

Nvidia announces Broadcast for enhancing video calls/streams with noise cancellation and digital green screens, and Reflex for reducing latency in esports games (Matthew Buzzi/PCMag)

Matthew Buzzi / PCMag:
Nvidia announces Broadcast for enhancing video calls/streams with noise cancellation and digital green screens, and Reflex for reducing latency in esports games  —  Nvidia Broadcast will empower users to enhance their calls and streams with noise cancellation and all-digital green screens …

10 highest-selling smartphones in the world

https://ift.tt/3jCy56o

Zee Entertainment Enterprises to launch film distribution platform for DTH, OTT

ZEE will partner with producers and offer films on a pay-per-view (PPV) model on Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, and Dish D2H in India and key distribution platforms in the international markets, along with its homegrown OTT service, ZEE5. https://ift.tt/3gROm5R https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Twitter to add context to trending topics

The change comes as Twitter and other social media companies struggle to respond to disinformation surrounding the U.S. presidential election. https://ift.tt/2EVNpw4 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Pakistan blocks five dating apps including Tinder and Grindr

This is the latest move by the Pakistan government to curb online platforms deemed to be disseminating "immoral content". https://ift.tt/3biPw97 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

An average Indian saves Rs 5,500 per month with WFH: Survey

Around 20% of the respondents are saving Rs 5,000-10,000 per month while working from home while 19% are saving over Rs 10,000 https://ift.tt/2QLckF9 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Apr-Aug sees 32% dip in PE-VC deals

​​Industry trackers said deals during the period were largely those sealed from discussions prior to the pandemic, and the ecosystem is still working on the capability to pitch for funds and close deals over video conferences. https://ift.tt/3lHDCdK https://ift.tt/eA8V8J