Friday, 11th September ’20
Good morning, welcome to TMT Friday. As we welcome the awesome weekend, we want us all to be stronger, and at our best performance ever. Shed all inhibitions, free from all shackles, and sing out loud in nature. Don’t let man-made rules stop you from enjoying the moment. It is your life and you should live it the way that makes the happiest. That’s the mantra. In news, India-China continues to discuss avenues to alleviate the border tensions. A huge fire was seen in Beirut port again and reminded us all of the massive tragedy in the port a few days back.
Let’s end the week with words of immense wisdom from Carlos Castaneda,
All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between an average man and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this, and one of his tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when his cubic centimeter pops out he has the necessary speed, the prowess, to pick it up.
MIND MONK
Staying connected
Research suggests that starting a day with gratitude increases your life by a few hours. I’m only guessing. Should be right though?
But here are a few emails you could send to start your day on a positive note.
- Every morning send a friend, family member or co-worker an email to say thanks for something.
Might sound silly but it’s actually excellent advice on how to make your life better.
- At the end of the week, send your boss an email and sum up what you’ve accomplished.
They probably have no idea what you’re doing with your time. They’re busy. They’ll like it to be in the know.
- Once a week email a potential mentor. This can be a person you’ve started following on LinkedIn.
Doesn’t have to be related to your job. Who do you admire that you could learn from? Tell them how much you liked that post of theirs.
- Write to yourself. On your other email account of course. Tell yourself that you did well to get through the week.
Pat yourself for doing your work, helping a colleague, committing to a just cause or anything else that comes to mind.
MARKETS
Markets: The market turned strong on Thursday after 5 days of consolidation and jumped over 1.5 percent. Reliance Industries with 7 percent rally, and buying in select bank, IT, and FMCG stocks lifted sentiment. Global cues and macroeconomic data is going to drive the market in the upcoming days. India-China tensions are also going to play a major role in market sentiments. US stocks fell lower as tech stocks dipped. Also, the European shares fell low as the banks fall.
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
- Zomato has around $250 million cash in the bank and has roped in Tiger Global, Temasek, Baillie Gifford, and Ant Financial in a round where they expect to raise up to $350 million. Zomato is expected to go public in the first half of 2021, according to their CEO.
- Mukesh Ambani-led Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries is looking to sell a roughly $20 billion stake in its retail arm to Amazon. The technology giant has considered investing in Reliance Retail Ventures and is willing to sell up to a 40% stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd.
- Facebook is getting back to its roots as a college-focused social network. The company announced today the launch of a new social networking platform, Facebook Campus, which offers college students a private place to connect with classmates, join groups, discover upcoming campus events, get updates from their school’s administration.
WHAT ELSE IS COOKING
- Highways Ministry releases over ₹10,000 crores under the Atmanirbhar Bharat scheme: A sum of ₹10,339 crores has been released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways during the COVID-19 period under the simplified payment process as envisaged in the Atmanirbhar Bharat scheme. Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has simplified the payment process under the Atmanirbhar Bharat scheme and contractors’ payments are being made every month instead of a milestone achievement basis
- Reliance Industries offers Amazon $20 billion stakes in the retail arm: Reliance Industries Ltd. is offering to sell a roughly $20 billion stake in its retail business to Amazon.com Inc. Amazon has held discussions about investing in the conglomerate’s Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. unit and has expressed interest in negotiating a potential transaction. Reliance Industries is willing to sell as much as a 40% stake in the subsidiary to Amazon.
- India to launch 11th city gas licensing round soon: India will soon launch a bid round to give out licenses for retailing gas in cities to help extend the coverage of environment-friendly fuel to about 500 cities. The push for city gas expansion is part of the government plan for raising the share of natural gas in the country’s energy basket to 15% by 2030 from the current 6.3%.
BUSINESS LOUNGE
Lucid incoming
Some of Lucid’s employees previously worked at other car companies such as Tesla and Mazda, including Peter Rawlinson, the former VP of Engineering at Tesla, and Derek Jenkins, the former Head of Design at Mazda North America Operations. When Rawlinson left Tesla, Tesla shares fell as much as 20 percent following the announcement.
Rawlinson has held several positions in the UK automotive industry, including Principal Engineer at Jaguar Cars, Chief Engineer at Lotus Cars and Head of Vehicle Engineering at Corus Automotive. Rawlinson was instrumental in Tesla’s meteoric rise in the EV industry, playing a pivotal role in the development of the Model S.
In 2016 Lucid announced its intent to develop a 1000hp 400-mile range luxury vehicle. State and company officials announced the planned construction of Lucid’s US$700 million manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, which was projected to employ up to 2,000 workers. Israeli company mobileye provided Lucid with their industry-leading Advanced Driving Assistance Systems or ADAS.
Lucid Air was revealed in its production-ready form with a 500-mile range. The company showcased its significantly higher efficiency battery technology, with a cool vehicle to vehicle charging option, which not only set blistering 0-60m and quarter-mile times but industry-beating range as well. The company has partnered with Electrify America giving 3 years of free charging at their stations.
When Peter Rawlinson left Tesla and claimed that he would create a luxury car that would best Tesla in every aspect EV industry purists scoffed at him. But he had a world of experience to back him and institutional investors too. He has done it now and Lucid isn’t going to be a one-trick pony with many different models including the Gravity in the pipeline. If the future of mobility is electric, Lucid has stamped its mark in the vanguard of the transition.
TMT VARSITY
Black Hat Marketing
Imagine that you’ve just started a new company, and you’re looking to the Internet to grow your business. You entrust your Internet marketing efforts to a firm that promises immediate results in online traffic. A week later, you discover that your company website is already showing up on the first page of Google’s search results. Great!!
But a week later, Google bans your website from its search results entirely, citing unethical web practices. What did you do? – What you did was entrust your Internet marketing to a “black hat” marketer. Black hat strategies use deception and manipulation to accomplish their objectives. Black hats promise immediate results, and often obtain them; however, such results can cost a business its reputation.
Black hat marketing tactics most commonly refers to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. Search engine optimization involves designing a website so that it can be easily found on search engines, achieving a high ranking on those search engines. They try to “trick” the search engines into awarding a higher ranking—even when that means giving users something entirely different from what they want. For example, a user searching for a “five-star restaurant” hopes to get results showing those exceptional restaurants. But a black hat SEO company can get a completely different type of website to show up on page one of the search results—such as one selling cars, media, or anything else (including restaurants).
Several related Internet marketing strategies can also be referred to as black hat, such as:
Cookie stuffing: A black hat affiliate marketer will secretly load users’ computers with fraudulent cookies even when they do not click on a link. The tactic is illegal, and can result in huge fines—but until that time, it results in thousands of referrals.
Scraper blogs (splogs): Blogs can be created with no original content, by “scraping” (copying) content from other websites. Basically, this requires stealing articles and other content from other publishers, in order to create a blog that can generate traffic to command more advertising revenue.
Social media manipulation: Websites can install widgets that force visitors to automatically “like” or share the website on their Facebook or other social media accounts. Users who have their accounts so hijacked are generally upset; but by that time, all their contacts have already received the advertisement.
All we can say is Black Hats off !!
Written by Kumar Sourav Mohanty, Akansh Bhatt, and Shashank Dobhal
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