23 Million Students & Teachers in Maharashtra to Get Google's Digital Learning Platform

Manish Singh, writing for Techcrunch:

The company, which recently announced plans to invest $10 billion in India, said it had partnered with the government of the western state of Maharashtra that will see 23 million students and teachers access Google’s education offering at no charge.

I recently learned from my cousin sister living in the small village of Matheran that their tiny school was now conducting online classes via Google Meet and how she had to keep convincing her dad to add mobile data plans to their single smartphone in the house.

Google deserves all the shit it gets for their privacy-invasive practices, but no other technology company has come close to localization and grassroots efforts in India. Google’s products are universal.

August 7, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Podcast Appearance: Waditech Podcast #5

Episode 05 of the Waditech Podcast is out today where the big topic is about TVs. We chat about the launch of 9 TVs on a single day by Thompson, Hisense’s long-anticipated entry into the Indian TV market and Ameya shares his thoughts on how to choose the right TV for your home.

August 6, 2020 ✚ Permalink

A Guide to Organizing Your Gmail Inbox

Over the official Spark Email blog, I’ve just published this detailed guide to decluttering and organizing your Gmail inbox.

In this article, I’ll tell you the tips and tricks to organize your Gmail inbox and also explain some hidden or lesser-known features that help you organize your emails in Gmail. And for those of you who have thousands of unread emails in your Gmail inbox, I’ll help you bring some sanity to your inbox.

Gmail is arguably the most common email provider today and thus, it is very common to see Gmail inboxes that are just left unattended. I’ve outlined some pretty simple steps that can help you clean up your Gmail inbox in minutes.

August 6, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Podcast Appearance: Wadicast #6

We just released Episode 06 of the Wadicast and this is a fun one. We discuss the prevalent culture of fake WhatsApp messages & forwards in India, chat about the origins of our own surnames and some other interesting and funny Marathi surnames, and later everyone reminisces about the music they used to listen to back in the day.

We’re confident that you’ll thoroughly enjoy this one, and if you do, please consider subscribing to Wadicast.

July 25, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Pastel is a Fantastic App for Working with Colors

Steve Troughton-Smith has just released his new app ‘Pastel‘ on the App Store. Available for iPhone and iPad, with a Mac app coming later, Pastel lets you create your very own library of colors and color palettes. It’s a fantastic app for anyone working with colors and I highly recommend you try it out.

I have been relying on sites like Coolors and Color Hunt for inspiration, but having something native and handy is so much better.

Pastel App

Pastel is a modern iOS app, meaning it supports many of the new features of iOS. You can drag & drop any color from Pastel onto any iPad app that supports dropped colors, which makes it super easy to quickly use a particular color in your work.

All your colors in the library seamlessly sync over iCloud across all your devices, so your favorite colors are always handy.

Pastel is available for Free on the App Store and you can add up to 20 of your own colors. To unlock unlimited colors, there’s a simple $4.99 IAP.

Get Pastel from the App Store →

June 10, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Ipsita Dasgupta Hired to Lead Apple India's Streaming Services

Writankar Mukherjee, writing for ETtech:

Apple has roped in Ipsita Dasgupta as India country manager for its streaming services like Apple TV+, Apple Music and the App Store.

Dasgupta has joined the iPhone maker from Hotstar where she was president of strategy and new ventures.

She has succeeded Khushboo Ponwar who had last year moved on as head of business development for Apple in India, Middle East, Turkey and Africa. Dasgupta, who is an MBA from Harvard, took charge this month.

Apple needs to focus heavily on some good content in the coming months if it’s serious about Apple TV+ here in India. But I also hope that there’s a good developer evangelism plan for the apps coming out of India. There’s no dearth of shitty apps here with suboptimal experiences.

June 3, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Telegram Instructured to Provide Info on Users Pirating E-Papers

Aroon Deep, writing for MediaNama:

In a case filed by Jagran Prakashan group, the Delhi High Court ordered messaging service Telegram to remove several channels distributing the Dainik Jagran newspaper’s PDF versions. The order also instructs Telegram to reveal the identity of the individual(s) distributing the paper illegally.

Telegram has far bigger issues than users sharing just e-papers, and I just hope the Indian government doesn’t choose the WeTransfer route to handle this.

June 1, 2020 ✚ Permalink

WeTransfer Blocked in India

Sameer Desai, writing for Mumbai Mirror:

In an order dated May 18, the telecom department directed internet service providers (ISP) to ban three specific website URLs. The first two are specific pages of WeTransfer, while the third is the entire website. It is unclear as to what is contained in the first two URLs as the website is currently banned by several ISPs, but banning WeTransfer entirely is a perplexing decision.

What a bunch of morons.

May 30, 2020 ✚ Permalink