Bank of Japan research: offline payments for central bank digital currency - Ledger Insights - enterprise blockchain

#CBDC #centralbank #digitalcurrency #centralbankdigitalcurrency #Japan

The central bank of Japan has announced that it will begin experimenting with a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to check its feasibility from a technical perspective. The central bank expressed its interest in creating a digital version of its national currency yen.

This is the first time that the Bank of Japan as revealed that it would commence a Proof of Concept process with the digital yen, but the bank is yet to reveal a timetable.

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) also published a research paper on central bank digital currency (CBDC). Although it’s a research paper, the Bank recognizes there will be a growing need for a digital currency with the steady decline in the use of cash. However, in Japan, four out of five retail transactions still use cash.

The Bank considers two critical features of a CBDC are universal access and resilience. That means using the digital yen without electricity, especially given Japan’s recent earthquakes and power outages.

The paper very briefly explored the potential for a centralized versus a decentralized CBDC and stated that potentially both could be made capable for offline use.

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Bank of Japan research: offline payments for central bank digital currency - Ledger Insights - enterprise blockchain

Yesterday the Bank of Japan (BoJ) published a research paper on central bank digital currency (CBDC). As with previous papers, the Bank explored a specific topic, in this case, the potential offline use of a digital yen. Although it's a research paper, the Bank recognizes there will be a growing need for a digital currency with the ...

Central Bank Digital Currency: Lithuania to Launch CBDC This Month - Intended for Collection Purposes, Not Trade

#CBDC #centralbankdigitalcurrency #centralbank #digitalcurrency

The Bank of Lithuania, or BoL, will launch a pre-sale of its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), dubbed LBCOIN, on July 9, a representative for the central bank told Cointelegraph. The coin itself will be issued and sold on July 23.

While LBCOIN is technically a CBDC based on the NEM blockchain and issued by the central bank of Lithuania, the financial institution prefers to call it “the world’s first blockchain-based digital collector coin”.

Indeed, LBCOINs will be issued for collectible purposes. This is happening as part of the country’s larger research on blockchain and its capabilities, Pavel Lipnevič, LBCOIN project manager, told Cointelegraph.

The BoL intends to sell 24,000 LBCOINs. They will come in packs of six at a cost of 99 euros. Each token will feature a portrait of one of the 20 Lithuanian historical figures who signed the country’s declaration of independence in 1918. These individuals are divided into six categories: priests, presidents, diplomats, industrialists, academics, and municipal servants.

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Lithuania to Launch CBDC This Month - Intended for Collection Purposes, Not Trade

The Bank of Lithuania, or BoL, will launch a pre-sale of its CBDC, dubbed LBCOIN, on July 9, a representative for the central bank told Cointelegraph. The coin itself will be issued and sold on July 23.

Startup Funding Alert: Voice Filter Startup Voicemod Closes $8M Funding Round - Voicebot.ai

#fundingalert #startupfunding #speechprocessing #voicetech #voicetechnology #gamesindustry #gaming #games

Voice filter startup Voicemod - Voicing Up Gamers & Streamers with Mods! has closed an $8 million Series A funding round led by German Bitkraft Ventures. Voicemod provides AI-powered personalized audio avatars that can alter voices in real-time in video games and digital communication services.

Voicemod combines artificial intelligence with digital signal processing to overlay a different sound to someone’s voice as they speak. Aimed largely at the world of gaming, the Spanish startup’s tech can let players switch around to different voice options and even incorporate effects like echos in a tunnel during a ca racing game, or breathlessness when a character has been running for a while. The tech can also perform more straightforward voice alterations like auto-tuning, pitch change, and making the speaker sound like a different gender.

Voice filters designed by Voicemod are used in popular online games like Fortnight, Lague of Legends, Call of Duty Warzone, and Minecraft. It can also apply to video chat and social platforms like Zoom, Discord, and Skype.

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Voice Filter Startup Voicemod Closes $8M Funding Round - Voicebot.ai

Voice filter startup Voicemod has closed an $8 million Series A funding round led by German Bitkraft Ventures. Voicemod provides AI-powered personalized audio avatars that can alter voices in real-time in video games and digital communication services. Voicemod combines artificial intelligence with digital signal processing to overlay a different sound to someone's voice as they speak.

Fintech Startup IPOs: Insurtech startup Lemonade sees shares jump 139% on IPO

#ipo #startups #insurtech #fintech #valuation #capital #startupfunding #ai #artificialintelligence #bots

Lemonade (LMND) raised $319m (€283m) with an initial public offering (IPO), signalling high investor demand at a time when markets have been shaken. The New York-based insurtech company sold 11 million shares at $29 on 2 July.

The start-up’s debut was the strongest by a US company in 2020 so far, MarketWatch reported. Shares skyrocketed during the day and finished up 139% at $69.41.

Insurtech IPOs have been garnering a lot of attention in recent years, especially from their more traditional peers.

Venture-backed insurtech startups are beginning to disrupt the incumbent industry, which has been a laggard in their digital transformation, with currently 12 unicorns existing in the global insurtech space, the report found.

Lemonade said it has digitised the entire insurance process. The start-up claimed that it had set “a new world record” when its AI bot was able to approve a claim for a $980 personal item in three seconds, PitchBook notes.

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Insurtech startup Lemonade sees shares jump 139% on IPO

Lemonade (LMND) raised $319m (€283m) with an initial public offering (IPO), signalling high investor demand at a time when markets have been shaken. The New York-based insurtech company sold 11 million shares at $29 on 2 July. The start-up's debut was the strongest by a US company in 2020 so far, MarketWatch reported.

Startup Exits: FMCG firm Marico acquires Beardo; Venture Catalysts exits company

#acquisitions #startups #startupexits #mengrooming #ecommerce

Mumbai-based fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company Marico Limited has acquired Ahmedabad headquartered Zed Lifestyle-run grooming products platform BEARDO . While the former had picked up a 45% stake in the company in 2017, the current deal marks a complete acquisition.

Although the financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, early stage investor Venture Catalysts said it received a nearly eight-fold return on its original investment of $500,000 made in 2016 along with angel investors.

Men’s grooming market is currently valued at Rs 10,000 crore, a jump from Rs 3,200 crore in 2016. The Beardo buy will help Marico, which currently markets the Set Wet brand, boost its own product portfolio in the segment and expand beyond gels and deodorants.

Beardo, which was founded by Ashutosh Valani and Priyank Shah in 2015, sells men’s grooming products such as beard oils, beard waxes, soaps and other facial hair treatments. The company sells its products through online channels, which make up 75% of its revenues, and in physical stores and salons as well.

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FMCG firm Marico acquires Beardo; Venture Catalysts exits company

Mumbai-based fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company Marico has acquired Ahmedabad headquartered Zed Lifestyle-run grooming products platform Beardo. While the former had picked up a 45% stake in the company in 2017, the current deal marks a complete acquisition.

Startup Funding Alert: Returning investor Greenoaks Capital leads $21 mn funding round in Zetwerk

#marketplace #manufacturing #startups #fundingalert #startupfunding

Zetwerk Manufacturing Businesses, a B2B manufacturing services marketplace, has raised $21 million (Rs 160 crore) in a Series C funding round led by returning investor Greenoaks Capital.

Returning investors Accel, Kae Capital, Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital India also participated in the round, as per a statement.

Zetwerk CEO Amrit Acharya founded the company in 2018 with fellow Indian Institute of Technology, Madras alumnus Srinath Ramakkrushnan. The platform connects original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and engineering procurement construction (EPM) companies with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for on-demand manufacturing services. It helps customers with procurement of custom products, real-time tracking and project management services, and assists SMEs to utilise their manufacturing capacities.

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Returning investor Greenoaks Capital leads $21 mn funding round in Zetwerk

Zetwerk Manufacturing Businesses, a B2B manufacturing services marketplace, has raised $21 million (Rs 160 crore) in a Series C funding round led by returning investor Greenoaks Capital. Returning investors Accel, Kae Capital, Lightspeed and Sequoia India also participated in the round, as per a statement.

Startup Mergers & Acquisitions: Affle To Acquire 8 Stake In Indigenous App Store Indus OS For Rs 21 Cr

#startups #appstore #apps #vernacular #aatmanirbharbharat #selfreliantindia #mobileapps

Mobile advertising organization Affle on Thursday said it will procure an eight per cent stake in cell phone working framework firm Indus OS.

Indus OS works India's biggest free indigenous application store, with key speculation from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. As indicated by an administrative recording, Affle will pay $2.86 million or about Rs 21 crore, to Indus OS for the stake.

Indus OS has'Indus App Bazaar', which contains more than four lakh applications open in English and 12 Indian dialects — Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Odia, Punjabi, Malayalam, Bengali, Assamese and Kannada.

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Affle To Acquire 8 Stake In Indigenous App Store Indus OS For Rs 21 Cr

Mobile advertising organization Affle on Thursday said it will procure an eight per cent stake in cell phone working framework firm Indus OS. "Affle (India), through its auxiliaries, declared the consenting to of an authoritative arrangement to procure eight per cent possession in OSLabs Pte Ltd, Singapore, (Indus OS).

Startup Funding Alert: Artha Venture Fund Announces New Investment Of Rs 3.50 Crore In Piggy Ride

#startups #startupfunding #fundingalert #kidsmobility #mobility #education #schools

Artha Venture Fund (AVF), India's first early-stage micro-VC fund, has invested Rs 3.50 crore in a Pre-Series A funding round in PiggyRide, an easy to use hassle-free service for the parents of kids between 2-18 years of age. PiggyRide, co-founded by Manish Tewari and Rohan Kaushal in 2019, leverages technology and AI/ML tool to provide mobility solutions for schools and children. It offers tuition fee financing, which allows parents to pay school fees through easy EMIs. They are also building a discovery platform for kids, developing after school activities and hobbies.

Apart from PiggyRide’s 16-point certification process, there are varied safety features in all the vehicles such as GPS trackers, cameras to provide live video surveillance to parents, panic buttons, and car immobilizers to alert the PiggyRide team, and much more. Each driver is assigned a "PiggyRide Score", which serves as a performance benchmark, and a deduction of 50 points on each policy violation. A driver is removed from the platform if the score falls below 600.

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Artha Venture Fund Announces New Investment Of Rs 3.50 Crore In Piggy Ride

Artha Venture Fund (AVF), India's first early-stage micro-VC fund, has invested Rs 3.50 crore in a Pre-Series A funding round in Piggy Ride, an easy to use hassle-free service for the parents of kids between 2-18 years of age. Piggy Ride leverages technology and AI/ML tool to provide mobility solutions for schools and children.

SaaS software popularity charts: impact of the global pandemic [SaaSworthy's Report]

#SaaS #videoconferencing #telemedicine #video #covid19

SaaSworthy’s first-ever report measures the impact of COVID-19 on #SaaS software popularity.

It’s important to look at the categories and software that grew the most to acknowledge the shifts in the #SaaS industry, and understand what people are looking for during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are some highlights:

1) Virtual classroom, webinar and video conferencing, and telemedicine are the three categories that saw the biggest jump in popularity

2) When it comes to software that grew the most in search volume, webinar and video conferencing software like Cisco Webex Meetings, Airmeet, and Google Meet (formerly Hangouts Meet) dominate the list.

3) URL shorteners, video editing, and photo editing are the most popular software categories.

4) Tally is the most popular ERP software, and is 7x larger than the next software in the category (Fulcrum).

5) Remote access software as a category grew in popularity, and the software that grew the most were AnyDesk and TeamViewer which are massively popular, especially when compared to others in the category.

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SaaS software popularity charts: impact of the global pandemic [Report]

That the COVID-19 crisis has shifted the way the world works is no surprise. The pandemic has transformed industries overnight and has made remote work the norm. And to enable companies and employees to manage remote working comfortably, SaaS software played an essential role.

AatmaNirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge to identify the best Indian Apps to become world class Apps in their respective categories

Digital India AatmaNirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge

INDICATIVE LIST OF SUB CATEGORIES AND PROBLEM STATEMENTS

A mobile application harnessing the most accurate facial and / or body mapping technology to allow for a true-to-life virtual try out of products like spectacles, clothes, etc.

Mobile application for real-time speech-to-speech translation and camera translation of multiple languages.

An automated web-based application that handles business-to-business lead generation and cold emailing and is completely manageable from a mobile device itself.

Application to use mobile devices as image scanners with features like on the fly image correction, image editing, text recognition, etc.

Application to provide cloud storage integration, cross-platform file transfer via FTP or LAN, and a root browser on mobile device

A robust indigenous anti-virus software for mobile devices.

Application to optimize mobile device's performance by cleaning junk/cache files, optimizing device memory and optimizing battery usage.

A mobile based live streaming platform for hosting webinars, lectures, etc.

A mobile based messaging and video calling application

A mobile based microblogging application

A mobile based news application that uses cutting-edge technology to recommend the most relevant and interesting news individually to each use.

A mobile application offering satellite imagery and street maps, as well as functions such as a route planner for traveling by foot, car, or with public transportation.

A mobile based online gaming platform which also functions as a social hub for gamers

A mobile based photo-editing application with all standard image editing features

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App Challenge

MeitY in partnership with Atal Innovation Mission - Niti Aayog launches Digital India AatmaNirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge to identify the best Indian Apps that are already being used by citizens and have the potential to scale and become world class Apps in their respective categories.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Let us Code for an Aatmanirbhar Bharat!

A great message from our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for startups to develop apps for Aatmanirbhar Bharat!

For promotion of existing Apps and Platforms across the categories of E-learning, Work-from-Home, Gaming, Business, Entertainment, Office Utilities, and Social Networking, Government will provide mentoring, hand-holding and support. Track-01 will work in mission mode for identifying good quality Apps for the leader-board and shall be completed in around a month.

For incubating new Apps and Platforms, Track-02 initiative will work to help create new champions in India by providing support in ideation, incubation, prototyping and roll out along with market access.

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Let us Code for an Aatmanirbhar Bharat!

India has a very vibrant tech and start up ecosystem, which has done India proud nationally as well as globally. Our youngsters have excelled in providing tech solutions across sectors.

Technology: Amazon rolls out AWS Snowcone for portable, ruggedized edge computing

#edgecomputing #technology #distributedsystems #startups #drones #computing #distributedcomputing #healthtech #remotecomputing

Amazon rolls out AWS Snowcone for portable, ruggedized edge computing. Snowcone is part of lineup of AWS Snow edge-computing devices designed to collect data from remote, disconnected locations, process the data locally, and then move the data to an AWS data center. The rugged AWS Snowcone measures 9' x 6' x 3' and weighs just 4.5 pounds, making it small enough for a backpack or mailbox.

While many edge-computing environments are connected to either the Internet or a 4G/5G wireless network, some are not because of capacity or access limitations, for example. These environments may capture and process data, but until they send it up to the network, it's of little use. With AWS' Snow devices, enterprises can move the data to an AWS data center either by shipping the device to AWS or using AWS DataSync to send the data to AWS over the network.

Snowcone features two CPUs, 4GB of memory, 8TB of storage, and USB-C power (or optional battery). AWS says it can run in the roughest of remote sites – such as oil rigs, first-responder vehicles, military operations, and factory floors – as well as remote offices, hospitals, or movie theaters.

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Amazon rolls out AWS Snowcone for portable, ruggedized edge computing

Snowcone is the newest and smallest addition to the lineup of AWS Snow edge-computing devices, which are designed to collect data from remote, disconnected locations, process the data locally, and then move the data to an AWS data center.