Tech Bytes – Week of Jun 27

📰 Recent Top Tech News

1. Microsoft launched Windows 11 with Android app support

2. Jio and Google to launch “Ultra-Cheap” smartphone

3. $3.6 Billion in Bitcoin Stolen in South Africa

The Takeaways

1. Microsoft launches Windows 11, with a fresh glass style user interface, performance improvements, and support for Android apps. Microsoft partnered with Amazon to bring their Android store to Windows.

🔎 Our Take

• Microsoft has been positioning itself as the Anti-Apple, as Apple has recently been in the US Supreme court defending its policy against opening up iOS to 3rd party app stores. By partnering with Amazon, Microsoft avoids ringing the same alarms as Apple, while also instantly getting access to a modestly large Android app store ecosystem. The ability to install Android apps also helps Windows compete directly with Google’s Chromebooks, increasing Window’s attractiveness

🧁 Your Takeaway

• Build partnerships, even with potential competitors. Today’s competitor might be tomorrow’s powerful ally.

2. India’s top mobile telco, Reliance Jio, announced a partnership with Google to launch JioPhone Next, a new “ultra-cheap” budget smartphone. Google said the JioPhone Next would run an optimised version of Android. The specs and cost are to be announced in September 2021.

🔎 Our Take

• A low-cost smartphone would unlock millions of potential new users, with over 300 million users in India still using 2G on cheap feature phones. With Google’s track record of good performance on limited hardware and Jio’s scale, they could even offer the phone at a loss. The main objective would be to get customers onto Jio’s ecosystem of services including Jio mobile services, including streaming, movies, and many more in the future.

🧁 Your Takeaway

• Find a product or service you can deliver at scale, and make it as affordable as possible (if not free). Use this to get customers onto all your other services that you (or your partners) can deliver.

3. An alleged $3.6 Billion in Bitcoin was stolen from the bitcoin exchange Africrypt, in South Africa. This would be the largest single cryptocurrency loss in history. Africrypt is run by two young brothers, who initially went into hiding, and now deny that they stole it.

🔎 Our Take

• With the growth and hype of Cryptocurrency, there are more scams than actual cryptos. It can be very easy to get caught up in the hype of bitcoin. While the cryptocurrency is a decentralised network whose value can go in any direction, the platform you use to trade crypto would need a real company with humans operating it, prone to mistakes, or malice.

🧁 Your Takeaway

• Do your research into the crypto platform you use to avoid a fly-by-night situation. Also, you can move the keys to a physical disk or ‘crypto wallet’ so that a server hack doesn’t cause you to lose your coin. Be extremely careful though, to never forget the password or lose that disk.

Jargon Buster

• APK – Android Package – This is the application file used by Android, like the .EXE executable file used in Windows.

• With the upcoming Windows 11, .apk based Android apps like Instagram, Tiktok, and Android games will also be supported on desktops along with .exe