The day began with grim news for the H-1B economy, as a new legislation seeks to increase minimum wages of H-1B visa holders to $130,000 (roughly Rs. 89 lakhs), a move US President Donald Trump could fast track via executive action. This number is more than the $60,000 (roughly Rs. 40.7 lakhs) minimum wage that was set back in 1989, and has remain unchanged since then. The move is said to increase job opportunities for American citizens while trying to retain the best talent working in US-based companies. If you are wondering what H-1B visas are and can’t figure out what the fuss is all about, read our H-1B visas explainer post. With that, let’s move to the day’s other top stories.
Google employees protest Trump’s immigration ban, Amazon exploring legal options
More than two thousand Google employees across several of their offices protested Donald Trump’s Immigration ban. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Sergey Brin spoke to the crowd, voicing similar concerns. According to Pichai, 187 employees were affected by the President Donald Trump’s executive order.
In related news, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wrote in an email that apart from a declaration of support in the lawsuit against Donald Trump’s immigrant ban, the company is considering “other legal options as well”.
Selfie-focused Oppo A57 launched in India
Chinese phone maker Oppo A57 has been launched in India has launched the A57 in India at a price of Rs. 14,990. As is the case with many phones these days, the Oppo A57 is a pro-selfie phone with 16-megapixel front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture. The Oppo A57 is powered by a Snapdragon 435 chip and 3GB RAM.
Indigo’s Twitter account gets hacked, again
Low-cost airline IndiGo had its Twitter account hacked twice in one week. The company posted on its Facebook about the hack and asked its customers to communicate with the airline on that social network instead.
Apple may continue to add exclusive features to the ‘Plus’ versions of future iPhones
It is reported that the bigger iPhone 7 Plus accounted for 40 percent of all iPhone 7 models sold last quarter. This is a sign that exclusive features like the dual camera setup, among other things like bigger battery and higher screen resolution, worked in forking out more money from customers. This is why it is being speculated that Apple will continue to release two different iPhone models in the future.
In other Apple news, watchOS version 3.2 for Apple Watch brings Android Wear-like Theater Mode and SiriKit for third-party apps, so you’ll soon be able to book rides, make payments etc. just by your voice on the Watch.
Microsoft may announce Windows 10 Cloud to compete with Chrome OS
Chrome OS is said to have gained popularity, especially in the education sector in the US, thanks to its minimal maintenance needs. A new rumour suggests that Microsoft is experimenting with a similar stripped-down, cloud-centric version of Windows 10 to compete with Chrome OS.
Moto G5 to have a Snapdragon 430 chip
Much is known about the upcoming Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus phones by Lenovo. Today, we learnt that while the Plus variant of these Motorola phones may have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chip powering it, the cheaper Moto G5 will have a Snapdragon 430 inside. The latter is also said to have less RAM, inferior camera, and a smaller battery.
Netflix’s experiment may let you control it via your head
Netflix’s Hack Day resulted in its product development team coming up with a project called MindFlix. Using a brain-sensing headband, users can control playback of Netflix just by moving their heads. Apparently it also can start playback of a video if you just think of the word ‘Play’. Of course this is just an experiment and not a commercially-available product, but it’s crazy awesome nonetheless, isn’t it?
India Post becomes a payments bank
The India Post has become a payments bank, with 650 branches set to be activated by September this year. The Indian Post Office has close to 1.55 lakh centers in the country and this infrastructure will be put to use to operate the payments bank facility.
