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Walt Disney is said to be in preliminary talks with Blackstone about a stake in Disney+. Hotstar, India’s TV Business

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Disney has been looking into selling or partnering with its internet and TV businesses in India

Two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday that private equity firm Blackstone has held early talks with Walt Disney about acquiring a stake in the entertainment company’s Indian arm.

Blackstone is the latest contender for Disney’s assets in the highly competitive Indian market, where the company has been looking for a sale or a joint venture partner for its digital and television businesses.

Disney and Blackstone declined to comment.

According to one of the sources, Blackstone-backed US media firm Candle Media, created by former Disney executives, initiated discussions between the two sides last week.

The conversations were initially reported on Wednesday by the Indian publication The Economic Times. According to Bloomberg News, Disney has also had conversations with Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Sun TV Network owner Kalanithi Maran.

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With subscriber exits on the rise, Disney has attempted to resurrect its streaming business in India by giving free cricket on cellphones, thinking that the tactic will enhance advertising revenue.

Meanwhile, it has lost streaming rights to Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s broadcasting unit for certain key cricket tournaments, including the Indian Premier League and the national cricket team’s bilateral matches.

In an effort to reduce password sharing in the crucial market, it was reported in July that Disney’s India streaming service Disney+ Hotstar planned to begin imposing a rule that would permit its premium members to login from just four devices.

Netflix, a competitor of Disney, began informing its users in more than 100 countries in May that they would have to pay more if they wanted to share the service with individuals outside of their home.

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”Sorry. Not Sorry: Ashneer Grover Responds to the Case Regarding His Remark About Indore’s Cleanliness

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A video of him commenting on Indore’s top cleanliness ranking led to the filing of a non-cognizable crime information report against him

Entrepreneur Ashneer Grover responded to a defamation lawsuit brought against him for remarks he made on Indore’s top ranking in the Center’s cleanliness study with a stern tweet. In response to the argument, he apologized to Indore but said that he was “not sorry to any politician.”

Notably, a video of him commenting on Indore’s high ranking in the Center’s cleanliness assessment and allegedly saying it had been “bought” led to the registration of a non-cognisable offence information report against him on Monday. For six years running, the city has led the Swachh Sarvekshan survey conducted by the Center.

Sorry. No regrets. I’m sorry, Indore. You have a city and wonderful people. Politicians, though, are intolerant everywhere. Making unnecessary politics out of a jokey comment made during a lighthearted discussion on Bhopal vs. Indore. No offense was intended, just where the audience enjoyed it. No one has taken any. No one was even in the room being offended at this point, Mr. Grover said on X.

He continued by saying he doesn’t give a damn about filing a FIR and asserting that he isn’t “a pushover” and “won’t be bullied.”

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Not Sorry to Any Politician, he continued. Ever. No one. any one. Launch a FIR. submit a case. I am not a pushover and won’t be intimidated, therefore it doesn’t matter. Avoid creating a problem where there is none. Despite the fact that it is an election year, people are wise. Indians are quite intelligent. I’ll visit Indore whenever and however often I please.

He ended by declaring that Bhopal is his favorite city and that it is ”India’s best city.”

Mr Grover was heard in the film saying at an event in Indore, “See, there is a concept – playing to the gallery, that is, wherever you go, praise it saying I have never seen such a nice city.” Now my problem is that I’ve been hearing for three or four years that Indore is the cleanest city…you bought the survey. It’s an easy matter.”

Mr Grover, on the other hand, quickly emphasized that he was not referring to dirt in Indore, but rather to the city’s numerous development projects. Pushyamitra Bhargava, the mayor of Indore, called his statement “an insult to the hard work of the city’s people and sanitation workers for cleanliness.”

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The ‘Wanderlust’ event by Apple today: The business can also introduce Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 Watch in addition to the iPhone 15 series

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Today, September 12, marks the largest launch event of the year for tech titan Apple

. The company’s event, which will be held at the “Steve Jobs Theatre” of Apple Headquarters in California this year, has been given the name “Wanderlust.” This event will start at 10:30 p.m., Indian time.

On the company’s website apple.com or through the Apple TV app, you may watch this event live online. Along with the iPhone 15 series, Apple may also introduce the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 during this event. The corporation has not, however, made any official announcements regarding the products that will be introduced at the event.

The business can release iOS 17

The launch date for the iOS 17 operating system can potentially be revealed by the business at the Apple Wanderlust event. Three months ago, during the WWDC23 event, the firm introduced the features of iOS 17. iOS 17 will include features including live voice mail transcription, the capacity to record FaceTime communications, and a customizable contact poster.

Users will be able to send recorded FaceTime messages after installing the iOS 17 update on their iPhone if someone is not answering the call. As a result, users can now access the voice command capability by just saying “Siri,” rather than “Hey Siri.” Users can now use offline maps as well. iOS 17 is currently undergoing beta testing.

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In India, Foxconn is producing the iPhone 15

The iPhone 15 is produced by Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics company, at its Tamil Nadu plant in India. Foxconn has expanded the number of production lines at the Chennai plant to speed up output. Along with the new iPhone series, Apple releases a number of additional goods every September.

India has been producing iPhones since 2017

With the release of the iPhone SE in 2017, Apple began producing iPhones in India. Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron are its three Electronics Manufacturing Service (EMS) partners. Following the iPhone SE, India also produced the iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and iPhone 14. The Foxconn plant located in Sriperumbudur, which is close to Chennai.

Apple is a participant in the Indian government’s PLI program.

The Production-Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) of the Government of India, which has a budget of Rs 41,000 crore, includes all three of Apple’s contract manufacturers (Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron). The growth in iPhone production in India has only occurred since this initiative. The PLI Scheme was introduced in 2020 by the Indian government.

Through this program, businesses from other nations have the chance to profit from regional manufacturing and receive incentives for doing so.

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Anthropic, An AI Startup, Will Receive Up To $4 Billion From Amazon

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To strengthen its position in generative artificial intelligence, Amazon has announced a strategic investment of up to $4 billion for a minority share in Anthropic, an AI firm

The world’s largest online retailer, Amazon.com, has made a big move to increase its position in generative artificial intelligence by announcing a strategic investment of up to $4 billion in the AI firm Anthropic. According to Bloomberg (a software business), this agreement not only entails a large cash investment but also gives Anthropic access to Amazon’s powerful computer capacity.

Amazon’s AI-Related Strategic Move

This substantial $4 billion investment in Anthropic shows Amazon’s dedication to strengthening its position inside the AI industry. Despite the fact that it might not have an immediate financial effect on Amazon’s cloud-services division, it shows the company’s resolve to compete with market leaders, particularly Microsoft, in the field of artificial intelligence.

A Safer Approach to AI using Anthropic

Anthropic, which was established by former employees of OpenAI, has attracted a lot of interest and money for its goal of creating safer AI systems. The business wants to develop chatbots and AI programmes that put safety and dependability first while carrying out coding, searching, question-answering, and summarising duties. Notably, Google, a significant participant in the IT sector, has already invested close to $400 million in Anthropic, illustrating the broad interest in the firm’s vision for AI safety.

Increasing Amazon’s Internal Chip Production

This alliance will have a big impact on Amazon’s own chipmaking operations in addition to the financial expenditure. For use in machine learning applications, Amazon has been creating its own processors, such as Trainium and Inferentia. Through the partnership, Anthropic will use AWS chips to develop and train the fundamental models needed for upcoming AI applications. This represents a collaborative strategy for enhancing the AI capabilities of both businesses.

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Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, on the Collaboration

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, expressed enthusiasm for the partnership and said, “Through our deeper collaboration, we can help improve many customer experiences, short- and long-term.” He also emphasised Amazon’s enthusiasm for Amazon Bedrock, a new managed service offered by AWS that enables businesses to use a variety of foundation models to create generative AI applications.

Jassy emphasised that the partnership with Anthropic would increase the value offered to clients through products like Amazon Bedrock and the AI training chip AWS Trainium.

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