More evidence has come to light that Microsoft is planning some kind of dual-screen device, with another patent relating to such a piece of hardware having been spotted, hot on the heels of yesterday’s ‘video calling on hinged multi-screen device’ patent.

The fresh patent was also discovered by Windows Latest and was published by the Patent and Trademark Office over in the US last week, and it again illustrates a dual-screen folding mobile device, with both displays connected by a hinge.

The patent shows the device’s various modes of usage, including a ‘laptop’ mode whereby one screen becomes a virtual keyboard. If both screens are placed down flat, the interface – i.e. the operating system UI, web browser, or whatever software you happen to be using – will expand to fill both displays, and the resolution can be increased appropriately.

Just like a hybrid notebook, this product would also be deployable in a ‘tent’ mode for watching videos and the like, and the patent actually cites an example whereby the device would display the time and act as an alarm clock (with both screens showing the time, so as to potentially be visible from more points around the room).

And of course the hardware can be folded up (closed) to a very compact size for portability. Obviously the hinge would be designed to be sturdy enough to maintain the position of the device when in laptop or tent mode, so the hardware wouldn’t be prone to toppling over when used in either of those fashions.

Patent not product

As ever, we must bear in mind that patents aren’t necessarily filed with the expectation that such a device will eventually exist – these are often rather speculative things, and projects are often abandoned.

And the latest buzz on the grapevine concerning Microsoft’s rumored dual-screen Andromeda device is that it isn’t in the pipeline for the near future by any means, and there’s still a good deal of work to do on both the hardware and software front.

It seems the company wants to get this piece of hardware right before putting it in front of the public, which is certainly understandable. Microsoft has made many serious mistakes in the mobile phone arena, so it makes sense that the firm would want to get its crack at a supposedly new category of mobile computer (or ‘pocketable’ PC, as has also been previously rumored) spot-on.

We certainly keep hearing plenty about a dual-screen device, and as we mentioned at the outset, we reported yesterday on another patent on such a product designed for video calls and to better facilitate three-way conversations (using the device for two people, having a screen and camera each, with a third person on a remote PC).

Top image credit: US Patent and Trademark Office

• These are the best laptops of 2018

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Auto major Tata Motors on Tuesday reported a consolidated loss of Rs 1,863.57 crore for June quarter on account of Rs 1,125.70 crore deferred tax credit against ET Now poll estimate of Rs 1,500 crore profit.The auto major had reported Rs 3,199.93 crore profit in the year-ago quarter.Revenue for the quarter came in at Rs 65,956.78 crore compared with Rs 58,766.07 crore in the year-ago quarter. As far as Indian operations (standalone) were concerned, revenue jumped 83 per cent YoY to Rs 16,830 crore. Profit after tax stood at Rs 1,188 crore.The luxury unit of the Indian auto firm, Jaguar Land Rover, reported a loss of 210 million pounds in June quarter.JLR's revenues fell 6.7 per cent YoY for the quarter to 5.2 billion pounds due to lower wholesales and increased incentives in China in advance of the July 1 duty reduction.65214170 The lower wholesales and higher China incentives combined with unfavourable balance sheet currency revaluation and higher depreciation and amortisation resulting from continuing investment led to a pre-tax loss for the quarter of 264 million pounds, the company said."With regards to JLR, we faced multiple challe4nges including issues like China duty impact as well as the market issues like diesel concerns in UK and Europe," said Chairman natarajan Chandrasekaran.JLR's total investment spending for the quarter stood at 1.1 billion pounds. This investment spending and seasonal working capital outflows of 1 billion pounds led to negative operating cash flow of 1.7 billion pound, the company said.The company said its closing net debt soared to Rs 62,436 crore as of June 30 from Rs 39,977 crore as of March 31 due to negative free cash flow at both Tata Motors and JLR, and continued investments. Net Automotive debt rose to Rs 32,977 crore for the quarter compared with Rs 13,889 crore in March quarter.

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By: P R SanjaiIndia is on the greatest toilet-building spree in human history, and it’s a windfall for companies.Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s $20 billion “Clean India” mission aims to construct 111 million latrines in five years. Besides promising to improve the health, safety and dignity of hundreds of millions of Indians, the national hygiene drive has spurred an 81 percent jump in sales of concrete building materials and 48 percent increase in bathroom and sanitaryware sales, according to Euromonitor International. That’s benefiting firms from Tata Group, the nation’s largest conglomerate, to cleaning-products maker Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc.Almost 80 million household toilets are estimated to have been built since Modi’s 2014 pledge to ensure universal sanitation coverage by October 2019, which will mark 150 years since the birth of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. The scale-up of latrines and a nationwide campaign to encourage their use is driving a market for toilet-related products and services that’s predicted to double to $62 billion by 2021.“It’s the biggest, most successful behavior-change campaign in the world,” said Val Curtis, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Environmental Health Group, who has worked on the program in India. “Every time I go there, I feel like I can’t sit down for weeks after because I’m excited about what they’re doing. It’s incredible.”Bollywood StarBollywood celebrity Akshay Kumar, star of the sanitation-promoting movie “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha” (or “Toilet: A Love Story”), was appointed brand ambassador this month for Harpic, the bowl-cleaner made by Reckitt Benckiser. The Slough, England-based company, which also sells the disinfectant Dettol, dominates the toilet-care market in India, with sales climbing 11 percent to $105.7 million last year, Euromonitor data show.“We are one of the most trusted brands in India, and we’ve always managed to outperform the market with Dettol,” Rakesh Kapoor, Reckitt Benckiser’s India-born chief executive officer, said on a conference call in April. The company has been able to increase awareness of its cleaning products by working with open-defecation-free communities and households to promote sanitation and hygiene. 65207056 That’s a common theme across suppliers of home-care products, according to Sowmya Adiraju, a research analyst at Euromonitor in Bengaluru. For example, Hindustan Unilever Ltd. entered the low-cost toilet cleaner market with a new powdered product, and has been trying to make toilets accessible and affordable through its Domex Toilet Academy.Hygiene AwarenessCompanies are investing heavily on spreading awareness about better hygiene products, aiding the penetration of home care products in India, which is still low by global standards, Adiraju said in an email.The “Clean India” mission has had a “largely positive” impact on suppliers of sanitaryware and tiles, sales of which are predicted to expand about 11 percent annually through 2022, according to Adiraju. The sanitation campaign was anticipated initially to provide a bigger sales boost, but some companies have partnered with governments more as a social initiative than a business opportunity, she said. 65207061 Before Modi began the Clean India program, known locally as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan mission, the country accounted for more than half of the world’s 1.1 billion people who routinely relieve themselves in fields, beaches and other open spaces.Economic ImpedimentSo-called open defecation contaminates food and drinking water, and spreads diarrheal diseases that cause chronic malnutrition and childhood stunting -- a burden the World Bank estimated costs India 6.4 percent of its gross domestic product.“Sanitation is a basic need that is denied to a majority of the Indian population,” said Rajeev Kher, chief executive officer of SaraPlast Pvt Ltd., a closely-held manufacturer, supplier and cleaner of restrooms, including portable toilets for rent. Kher has also converted aged buses into mobile toilets to provide a “clean and safe toilet experience” for women in a collaboration with municipal authorities in the western city of Pune. 65207066 For individual households, Japan’s LIXIL Group has supplied tens of thousands of twin pit toilet systems that costs $10 or less apiece to facilitate the safe management of excreta in the absence of a sewage connection.$300 Million OrdersIncreased government spending on toilets and sanitation augers well for Indian Hume Pipe Co., according to Pallav Agarwal, an analyst with Antique Stock Broking Ltd. in Mumbai, who rates the pipe company a buy. It secured a dozen major work orders for water supply and sewerage projects across six states in the 2018 fiscal year, totaling 20.9 billion rupees ($300 million), Agarwal said in a July 5 report.Mumbai-based Tata Group’s steel division makes Nest-In, a modular toilet that comes with an option for a bio-digester. The company has been focusing on products for end-users, including modular housing and toilets, and in March opened public toilet blocks at rest stops along a national highway.“Private sector enterprises have to pitch in to make the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan successful,” said Prabhat Pani, head of partnerships and technology at Tata Trusts, which owns two-thirds of Tata Sons, the apex company of Tata Group.

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NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday sought parliament approval to inject Rs 980 crore ($142.87 million) in ailing national carrier Air India during the current fiscal year, after efforts to find a buyer for its 76 per cent stake in the carrier failed.The government has "sought funds for infusion of equity in Air India under (its) turn around plan," a statement tabled in Lok Sabha said.To fund the capital infusion in Air India and other sectors, the government has sought parliament's approval for an additional net spending of 59.51 billion rupees, on top of the budgeted Rs 24.42 lakh crore for 2018/19.India last month shelved a plan to sell a majority stake in the beleaguered airline due to lack of interest from bidders, in the latest setback in its ambitious efforts to rescue the carrier that has been kept afloat for years using taxpayer funds.The sale was also key to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plans to help keep the fiscal deficit at 3.3 per cent of GDP, a goal already under pressure from giveaways to farmers and other welfare benefits ahead of the 2019 national elections.An Air India source told Reuters on Monday that it had sought Rs 2,121 crore ($309 million) of additional equity from the government for 2018/19 to make pending payments to its vendors.Junior Civil Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha had said last month the government will continue to support the loss-making airline's financial requirements while it works on alternatives. The minister didn't give a specific timeline for a new plan.Air India, which employs some 27,000 staff, said this month it was seeking a short-term loan of Rs 1,000 crore ($148 million) so it can continue day-to-day operations.The carrier had debt worth Rs 48.781 crore ($7.16 billion) as of March 31, 2017.

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Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) today bagged 20 per cent of the Rs 2,500 crore global tender by the Indian Railways to supply long rails, its Chairman Naveen Jindal today said.The national transporter had invited the global tender for procuring around 4.87 lakh metric tonnes of rails to meet the shortfall of supply from the state-run Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL).This is the first time in three decades that rail procurement has been opened for the private sector.JSPL Chairman Jindal, during a conference here on 'Steel Scenario: Today and Tomorrow', informed that his company has won 20 per cent of the tender floated by the Railways."We got the order for the rail.... We have been in business since 2003. After 15 years, for the first time, we are amongst the one ... As only the second Indian producer (after SAIL), we have got 20 per cent of the order," Jindal said during the conference where Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh stressed on the need for participation of Indian companies in major infrastructure projects.Sources said that the value of the order bagged by JSPL comes to about Rs 536 crore.The financial bids for the order were opened last week in which seven foreign steel companies and JSPL from India had submitted its bids.JSPL was the only Indian steel maker in the fray, and was expected to get an assured order of 20 per cent under the 'Make in India' clause."It is a historic moment for the company. We were trying for long. It is a proud moment for India. We will start supplying soon," Jindal said after the conference.N A Ansari, CEO, JSPL Steel Business said the company would dispatch the first consignment in August.JSPL is the only private company that produces rails in India. It was already supplying rails to various countries like Iran and Bangladesh.The company has a capacity to produce about 1 million tonne per annum (MT) of rails at its Raigarh facility.The foreign entities, which participated in the global tender are Sumitomo Corporation, Angang Group International, Voestalpine Schienen, East Metals, CRM Hong Kong, British Steel France Rail and Atlantic Steel.Till now, the national transporter was procuring rails from government-owned SAIL.It decided on an extra global tender after anticipating that SAIL would not be able to supply the 7,17,000 tonnes required for 2017-18 and 2018-19, as estimated at that time.The Indian Railways is looking at 4,000 km of track renewal in each of the next two financial years, 2018-19 and 2019-20. Its estimated cost for 2018-19 is a little above Rs 10,000 crore.

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We would not like to give any particular guidance but the 14% growth in Q1 is in part driven by the effects of a lower base, Vivek Gambhir, MD & CEO, Godrej Consumer, tells ET Now.Edited excerpts:Volume growth of 14% is very impressive. How much of that is because of the GST base effect and how much is real demand? We are very happy that the recovery is underway and the platform is set for a much stronger growth for the remaining quarters. On a two-year CAGR basis, our volume growth was in the highest single digits and on a one year basis, it is 14% growth. Even if you strip away the effects of a low base quarter, growth is trending towards the right direction and our hope is that if this momentum continues, this will be a year of double digit volume growth. Do you think you can do better than 14% on domestic volume growth? We would not like to give any particular guidance but the 14% growth is in part driven by the effects of a lower base. That impact would no longer be then the quarter’s head. Certainly, our hope would be that the industry should get to a low double digit volume growth and our efforts would be to try and get towards 13% to 14% volume growth for the year as a whole. Though it has not been as robust when it comes to Africa, Middle East or US regions, what would you attribute that to? Is it just a fraction of the currency movement or is it something more to that? We have been very pleased with the recovery in Indonesia, The recovery is underway. We regained some of the share that we had lost over the course of last year. A lot of good building blocks have been put into place. While the economy remains challenging, we are hopeful of a much stronger year from Indonesia this year. In Africa, the first quarter was relatively on the softer side, primarily driven by very weak macroeconomic conditions in South Africa. Our West Africa business and our East Africa business did quite well. Having said that, though the team is putting in a lot of corrective actions in place to deal with the macroeconomic flux and the second half of the year should be much better for Africa both on a top line and a bottom line basis. We always tend to focus on growth and volume dispatch numbers and where the volume growth is coming from but look at the other side of the equation. What has been the cost savings and what has been the margin expansion which you have enjoyed because of GST? Do you think that one-time GST margin expansion is in the price or is that an ongoing process and incrementally will keep on increasing every quarter? We have seen some very good benefits from GST as we have passed on some of the pricing benefits to our consumers. That has led to a better demand and better operating leverage. At the same time, we are also seeing benefits in terms of logistics and transportation. But it is still early days. There is still more work to be done in terms of reconfiguring a supplier and a manufacturing network. Over the next one or two years, we do expect to see continued benefits from the GST implementation. Also as ease of business improves and the playing field gets more levelled, some of the smaller, less organised players will find it difficult to do business. We do expect share gains to be derived by the larger players and over the next one or two years, GST will continue to provide us with more incremental benefits. Which are some categories where you have gained market share because of unorganised sector moving towards organised sector? Which are categories where you would say that you have gained a market share purely because of your product profile? Across the board, our share gains have come from a combination of various factors new innovations, product launches, effective micro marketing and genuinely stronger execution. Having said that, it is anecdotal largely because the data is difficult to fully capture our belief whether some of the share gains in the soap segment in particular have come from share shifts from smaller unorganised players to more organised players. Are you optimistic because we will get into the festive season come October. Diwali being in November this year, from a demand perceptive, things will only look up then, especially consumption driven by the rural economy? We are very optimistic that demand will look better in the quarters ahead. A lot of the indicators in building blocks are in place. As you mentioned, in Q1, our urban growth was about 13%, rural growth was around 17%. We expect rural growth at about 1.4 to 1.5 times urban growth on the back of remonetisation. With the settling of the GST implementation and the impact of some of the government’s efforts to stimulate the economy, we are quite hopeful that demand will further improve in the quarters ahead.

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BMW is joining Daimler and Audi, both of which have car plants in Hungary.

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By Harshal Dewangan

OnePlus 6 was the best-selling model in premium segment followed by S9 Plus and OnePlus 5T.

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By Harshal Dewangan

The MacBook Air is expected to pack a Retina display and be priced in line with current variants.

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By Harshal Dewangan

Twitter to remove suspicious accounts which repeatedly post abusive comments on livestreams.

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By Harshal Dewangan

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Chairman R S Sharma — who accepted the dare on Twitter to make his Aadhaar number public and then challenged hackers to show how they could harm him due to this — says he hopes this would put an end to the scaremongering so that the common people could benefit from the technology and go about their lives in peace. "Would it be too much to expect an honest admission of these facts from the so-called hackers or critics of Aadhaar?" Sharma wrote in an article in The Indian Express. "One interesting hack was to deposit one rupee in my account through the marvel of a system called UPI, which has been built by our country to enable financial inclusion on the scale we need. The world is in awe of this technology. But if you define crediting a rupee to an account as hacking, well more people might be happy to be hacked. In the last two days, there have been hundreds of attempts at false authentication from UIDAI servers and not even a single one of them has succeeded. Thus far I have not lost the challenge and I’m very confident that I will not. Yes, some distress may be caused to me by the concerted effort of so many people. However, for that Aadhaar is not to blame," he wrote.Sharma, former UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) director general, has been an ardent supporter of the Aadhaar programme, vouching for the safety of the system, and dispelling privacy concerns over Aadhaar even during his current tenure as Trai chief. While many on Twitter claimed victory over 'leaking' Sharma's personal details post the challenge, the Trai chief asserted through multiple tweets and replies that the challenge had never been about phone numbers and other information but for causing harm using knowledge of his Aadhaar number. "The truth is that people are proving their identity today through the Aadhaar online platform. This is empowering millions of people who get subsidies into their account or obtain other benefits. (People are also providing a copy of their Aadhaar cards to various service providers, though this is neither required nor desirable.)," Sharma wrote in the article. On Sunday, ethical hackers — including Elliot Alderson, Pushpendra Singh, Kanishk Sajnani, Anivar Arvind, and Karan Saini — pointed out that nearly 14 items had been leaked so far. This includes Sharma's mobile numbers, residential address, date of birth, PAN number, voter ID number, telecom operator, phone model, and Air India frequent flyer ID.But Sharma says the hackers got the details through Google search and 'social engineering' and not with the knowledge of his Aadhaar number. "You have found information about me that other users could have obtained by a determined Google search without the benefit of knowing the Aadhaar number. Having failed to penetrate the UIDAI’s system, you have tried to hack my email accounts (unsuccessfully) and to subscribe me to a large number of services. Many of these services take reasonable precautions and have sent me innumerable OTPs in their attempt to authenticate my ID. That’s been a waste on their part and a waste of my time. Your time is wasted too, but apparently you don’t care," Sharma wrote.

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In most cases, it has been a win for the incumbents who have been alive to the risk and have grabbed the opportunity, Aditya Narain, Head of Research, Institutional Equities, Edelweiss Securities, tells ET Now. 65209324 65191921 65175874 Edited excerpts: Is it looking good for corporate banks or is this looking good because of the base? After one quarter, we realise that the hole only has got deeper. There are two ways of looking at it. One is in terms of the current asset quality cycle and this is reflective of the fact that you have reached the bottom or are reaching the bottom and that incremental stresses have already been captured or they are diminished. In that sense, this is very illustrative of what has happened. The second part is when are these guys are going to be ready to go and put out money. When they have the risk appetite to go and lend is really the next phase that you need to look at and the jury is out on that. Most of these people have had a really rough ride over the last couple of years and risk appetite often comes back a little slowly. That is going to be the challenge rather than the numbers suddenly deteriorating in any material manner going forward. Did you think that they would manage to get that gumption because someone on the Street believes it may not be PSBs because they are going to tighten their purse strings further and that share could actually be taken away by NBFCs? That is absolutely my point. It is one thing to say that the asset cycle is ending. There is a story there. You have seen some response in terms of stocks. You will see more of it. The second bit is do they have the appetite to go out and lend? Also, where do they lend? They obviously have some appetite but if it is going to be completely at the top end where there is no margin, it is not going to have the same impact in terms of stocks. You have to think about how you are going to play rather than that the asset quality cycle is done. A large part of that will depend on corporates wanting to borrow and which has not come through? Yes in any case, you are right. But that is something where the change in risk appetite has been more gradual. Risk appetite has tended to build up a little bit. There is a little bit more appetite there but the reality is it has to be matched from a supplier side also. If they are going to stay out, then it is the private banks who have the appetite and who are actually going to get a disproportionate share. In two-wheelers, the cycle may be great but there is fight for market share. Within the four-wheeler space, there is talk of electric vehicles and the disruption it could have. For the commercial vehicles, there are axle loading norms which in the short term will ensure that demand will remain subdued. Is the near and medium-term outlook looking slightly shaky for the sector across the board? If you were to look at an extended cycle, where you need to be really watchful about competition is when you have new entrants or people who want to change their positioning entirely. That is not the case as far as two-wheelers is concerned. It is a fairly consolidated market. You had this problem three-four years ago when Honda was coming in. As far as the four-wheelers is concerned, Maruti continues to be dominant. There is simply not enough disruption going on in that space. As far as the CV space is concerned, you could see a little bit of it again but it is basically a two-player or a three-player market. While you can have a quarter or two in terms of disruptive pricing or disruptive strategies, these disruptions do not sustain for too long in an oligopolistic kind of structure. They happen when the market is tending to widen. In the NBFC space and housing finance space, you could have a lot of distortion. There is a possibility that you have new players who are going from zero to wanting to get to two or four. They can try and sustain it a lot. In segments where you have a fairly well entrenched competitive landscape, disruptive pricing seldom goes on for an extended period of time. Bajaj Auto historically has been a profit- and margin-conscious company. They have gone on record saying they were not there for market share. They wanted to be India’s most profitable two- wheeler company. Rajiv Bajaj in the past has said that his margins at 21% were very good. The same guy comes out and says sorry I would do whatever I can to regain market share. Eicher has been the darling of everyone and now Harley says that I am going to come and hit you on the same turf, even BMW. So, within the two-wheeler space, there is competition and there are new entrants. But as I said, when you have relatively limited players, it is unlikely that two players are going to drag themselves completely down into a ditch… Will you be a buyer in autos? Yes. In the two-wheeler space we are more neutral. We want the dust to settle down but if you ask me whether it is going to be as competitive four to eight quarters down the line as it is expected to be upfront, first of all, I would say no. Second, in these spaces, because brands and products are more entrenched, the impact can be somewhat limited and is going to be a test of the brand and the product. So, obviously, the next couple of quarters is going to be a little tense. But I will be surprised if this extends for an extended period of time. You will have a two-four quarter period when they will try. If it works, then you will have some kind of a base reset. If it does not, then they revert to normal.One of the darlings of the market, the hottest sector till about six months back was aviation. We always talk about the fact that irrespective of what crude is doing, some of these aviation companies have not been able to adjust pricing according to the spike in crude prices. What happens to aviation now which was being looked at as a quasi consumption play? Aviation is something that is very influenced by the external environment. It is a volatile consumption play rather than a pure consumption play as seen in the Indian context. To that extent, you have to be watchful about the external developments.If you compare the competitive landscape in aviation vis-à-vis two wheelers, it is very different. Here the competitive landscape is such that it allows you to go down a lot but caps how much you can effectively charge. This is more a volatile kind of consumption play and you have to be cognisant of the external environment. Is it avoidable right now? Right now, those prices have taken a beating but unless you have a greater sense of where crude is going, it does become a little bit of a challenge. If this was a two-player market, it would be a different story. The demand has actually been very resilient even as prices have gone up a little bit. The traffic numbers have actually continued to be good but people are taking it on the jaw when it comes to the profitability that is there. This is something that is a little bit more cyclical. Consumption is a demand side, profitability is the external side for this one. We Have a Preference for IT LargecapsAre IT and pharma the definitive alpha opportunities right now in the market? We have been very bullish on the IT space for the last two quarters or so. This is really a three-four year trend and it is going to sustain. We are very clear that what will happen within the sector is that business will tend to shift to the larger businesses and the large caps and the smaller ones. We have a distinct preference for larger ones like Infosys over midcap stocks where we believe there is a certain amount of overvaluation. You prefer Infosys to TCS as well? Why? There is a valuation gap, there is a catch up game that is effective. Purely on valuation parameter? Valuation and a certain amount of catch up in terms of business momentum. To some extent, IT is a little bit more of beta simply because the whole sector has got a huge amount of tailwind and there we prefer the larger caps to the midcaps. As far as pharma is concerned, it is a little bit more alpha there. I do not think it is necessarily a sectoral tailwind. There still remains fundamental challenges as far as the US market is concerned, but there are specific stock opportunities like Dr Reddy’s where they are lined up in terms of their product profile.Reliance is up more than 10% after the AGM and now everyone is saying they are trying to achieve what Tencent has achieved globally by becoming an AI company. Are markets right in giving the extra PE multiple or the perception benefit to Reliance? In many senses, Reliance is falling in a very sweet spot and we have been pretty bullish on the stock for the last year and a half. That has played through but the interesting thing is the old business is not getting rusty. The cash is coming and at an incremental pace from the older businesses that are continuing to expand on new platforms. The sweet spot lies there. In between, the cash that had been invested in telecom is now actually looking after itself fairly well. Getting on to that oil data in a new oil kind of economy, AI is the option on it. If you get that backbone going, it looks after itself and doing everything that they promised.It is a sweet spot if you say that the move is on the back of all the AI talk. I would say it has run ahead of itself but if you were to combine the fact that the old business, even though a lot of it is new, is generating a huge amount of cash; if you look at the invested business which is telecom and that is getting decent revenue numbers and traction. AI is more in the option value that they are seeking having created the platform as far as the data economy is concerned.Leaders Get All Growth & Profitability Right now, there is a disproportionate amount of premium which some of the consumer names and private banks are enjoying. The second one is a mega trend. About 15 years ago, if you bought into private banks, you hit a homerun. 10 years ago, it was retail managed NBFCs that made you rich. What do you think will work for next three years and what is the mega trend in the making for next five years? Market leadership is really going to be the defining feature of businesses that do better and generate higher profitability. Largecaps or midcaps, wherever you have market leadership, you are going to get disproportionate growth and profitability. That is really the mega trend. Give me an example. All the market leaders – be it consumer, banks or automobiles are market leaders and tend to grow faster. It is being able to do so on its own profitability. You attribute that to scale, brand and efficiency, but effectively a lot of that is coming through and that is the key that you really need to look at over the next couple of years. But you yourself are betting on Infy not TCS? Aditya Narain: Between large businesses, you have to balance between valuation and between… Number one and two? Yes. By market leadership, I do not mean number one. The top three or four in every sector are what really going to count, and it is not whether it is a largecap or it is a smallcap. You can have a lot of smallcaps that look very attractive but are number 15th in their sector. Be a little more watchful about the valuation. Even if they get a lot of growth rather than a number two who is actually a very small player. But the fact is he is meaningful in that market. Are L&T and ACC examples of that? Absolutely. L&T is a classic case that business will move towards there. Why is not the market giving them value then? It is giving them a fair amount of value relative to a lot of the others. It is a question has a stock moved enough or not? Has it been valued up for a while? Are they getting a disproportionate share of every business that they are entering? I think they are. Instead of market leadership, we are using the word disruption that is challenging the market leaders. A lot of market leadership patterns which are intact and where we thought they had a moat around them and nothing is going to change are getting disrupted by a range of products, services and technology offerings. That is very valid but disruption by a new player entirely, whether in entertainment (Netflix, Balaji) or consumption goods (Patanjali), most of the market leaders are agile and have actually gone into these spaces themselves.They have the basic flow, they have the cash and it is not very hard to get into a disruptive business when you can hire people and technologies off the floor. It can be a Tesla kind of a product but all the auto manufacturers are also getting into the same thing. Tesla might have changed the way the world looks at things, there may have been disruptors but other than a few global guys, for the rest, it has been a win for the incumbents who have been alive to the risk and have grabbed the opportunity. Look in the media space. Anything that is net based or YouTube based, all the existing guys have become very strong or have entered new segments very aggressively. Patanjali was big but the Ayushs of the world are all coming back very aggressively. It is true. Volume growth is back for Lever’s and Britannia. Yes. Do you think Airtel has managed to do it in the telecom space? Effectively they have also come back very strongly in that space. So, there is not a standalone differentiator who has been able to disrupt the whole business in a meaningful manner. Disruptors end up being monocline and invariably they are back to some extent with cash but not by the same amount of cash and to some extent they invariably lack the experience in that space.The peak of disruption by a new player has more or less happened. You are getting plenty of existing guys who do not want to necessarily disrupt and kill their own business at the possibility of a new business but all of them are there in that new business space. That is why you are tending to see that the big boys are continuing to get a little bigger and market shares have not changed in a lot of these spaces. Nor have opportunities gone up. You have a Paytm, which has come up in a particular manner but again there are those three-four names in most of the other spaces where the incumbent, who has been ready to change and has managed to make a reasonable foray into these areas. A lot of businesses are thinking like this now. When you talk about Reliance’s AGM being about AI, it gives you a sense of the fact that this is a refining company which is talking AI because that is why they see the disruption. They see that they have made the investments and they should be leading it or at least being part of it in a meaningful manner. What about the overall market construct? The micro is definitely improving. Besides earnings, there has been a recent bout of correction as well. But the macros continue to be challenging -- be it currency, be it crude. Tomorrow is policy day and we may have an interest rate hike as well? We see the market in a range of about 10500 to 11500 on the Nifty. We have visualised it as a half circle because the micro has come half circle from being bad to beginning to look good and the macro has actually tended to reverse and is somewhere in the middle.At some level, it is very well balanced and that can explain why the markets have been weak a month ago because the macro was looking like it was going to go full circle right and has actually arrested itself and it is hanging around somewhere there whereas the micro actually is getting more convincing.In the backdrop of elections, this is a fair range for the market. For the range to change, the macro has to fall back quite a bit and start heading much lower. For it to hit much higher, you got to have the macros suddenly saying okay this is it, the currency pressure is over, the interest rate pressure is over and a year and a half down the line, you are going to be where you were six months down the line. Otherwise, it is reasonably well balanced.In the last couple of weeks, there was a little bit of a tailwind from the micro and again a couple of weeks back, there was a little bit of tailwind or at least the easing of headwinds on the macros.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2LFGHgg

It looks like Google is in a fighting mood, as it’s just released a new video that attacks Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s macOS operating systems, while claiming that Chromebooks are the only laptops you can rely on.

The video (which you can watch below) highlights a number of annoyances that people have complained about through the years when using laptops running Microsoft or Apple software.

These include numerous error messages, annoying pop-up windows and even the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.

Fighting words

According to Google, Chromebooks are free from all these issues, with its ChromeOS operating system relatively virus-free. It's also constantly updated, so you’re not bugged about downloading updates when you’re trying to work.

It’s certainly a provocative video, and one that may resonate with anyone who has been frustrated by Windows or macOS, but will it be enough to make people ditch their Windows laptops and MacBooks and switch to Chrome? That may take more work.

• If you want to change, check out our list of the best Chromebooks

Via Neowin

from TechRadar - Mobile computing news https://ift.tt/2M5BDhh
By Harshal Dewangan