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Archives for June 2, 2025

Samsung nears wide-ranging deal with Perplexity for AI features

Samsung

Samsung is nearing a major deal to invest in and integrate Perplexity AI’s search technology across its devices, including the Galaxy S26 and Bixby assistant. The partnership may reduce Samsung’s reliance on Google and marks Perplexity’s largest mobile collaboration to date. Samsung Electronics is close to signing a comprehensive agreement to invest in Perplexity AI and integrate the artificial intelligence startup’s search technology at the forefront of the South Korean company’s products. According to people with knowledge of the situation, the two businesses are negotiating to integrate Perplexity’s search capabilities into the Samsung web browser and preload the startup’s software and assistant on future Samsung devices. According to insiders who asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential, the companies have also talked about integrating Perplexity’s technology into Samsung’s Bixby virtual assistant. According to the sources, Samsung intends to make the Perplexity integrations public as early as this year to make the service the default assistant choice for the Galaxy S26 phone line, which is scheduled to go on sale in the first half of 2026. The precise specifics, however, are still subject to change as they have not been finalised. According to the sources, the IT behemoth is also anticipated to be among the largest backers of Perplexity’s upcoming investment round. At a $14 billion valuation, the business is in advanced talks to raise $500 million. The extensive partnership might help Samsung lessen its reliance on Google, a division of Alphabet Inc., and open the door for it to collaborate with a variety of AI developers, much like Apple Inc. does with its products and services. The agreement, which comes after a recent integration agreement with Motorola, would be Perplexity’s largest mobile cooperation to date. Perplexity and Samsung representatives choose not to comment. Earlier this year, in April, the two businesses began talking about a cooperation. According to the persons, the two parties met in South Korea in recent weeks and are now nearing a deal. According to the sources, Samsung and Perplexity have also talked about developing an AI-powered operating system and an AI agent app that can access features from Perplexity and other AI helpers. Apple has expressed interest in collaborating with Perplexity as well. Perplexity has been proposed by the iPhone manufacturer as a Google Search substitute and as a replacement for ChatGPT integration in the Siri voice assistant. During recent testimony at a Google antitrust lawsuit, Apple’s senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, stated, “We’ve started some discussions with them about what they’re doing because we’ve been pretty impressed with what Perplexity has done.” How Perplexity’s relationship with Samsung, one of Apple’s most ardent competitors, might impact that is unknown.

Apple’s ‘Big AI’ problem that Google, Microsoft and Amazon do not have to deal with

Apple's 'Big AI' problem

Apple faces a significant AI disadvantage due to limited infrastructure, delayed investments, and reliance on rivals like Google for AI resources. Meanwhile, competitors like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon lead with robust AI ecosystems, cloud infrastructure, and advanced models. Apple is allegedly at a disadvantage in the AI space, even though IT behemoths like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are making quick progress in this area. According to a recent analysis, the iPhone manufacturer lacks the necessary infrastructure and sustained investment in fundamental AI technologies that its rivals have spent years, if not decades, creating, despite its efforts to advance AI programs. For instance, Apple postponed its intended redesign of Siri earlier this year because the update, which was supposed to bring Siri into the age of generative AI, wasn’t yet complete. According to a Business Insider story, Apple could have to create essential AI components from scratch if it hopes to modernise Siri to the level of its rivals. This would be costly and time-consuming, and it might take years. If not, it might have to rely more on rivals or buy out start-ups in bulk to catch up. Google’s decades-long head start in AI technology Certain AI building elements are necessary for the creation of a successful AI product. While Microsoft and Amazon have some of the fundamental AI building blocks in place, Google already has almost all of them. Google can introduce AI consumer tools like Veo, Flow, and Imagen because it owns the deep stack of technologies that underpin its AI building blocks, including data, chips, data centres, cloud businesses, and ways to distribute the goods. Transformer, the ground-breaking architecture underlying contemporary generative AI, was created by Google in 2017. Since their introduction in 2016, Google’s AI processors, known as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), have become essential components of both Google products and third-party developers’ use of Google Cloud. Decades of data collection and online indexing are also advantageous to Google. In order to make these tools available to clients, the company uses data centres, a cloud business, and a massive dataset to train its potent AI models. How Amazon and Microsoft are thriving in this space while Apple is not Some of these foundational components, such as cloud infrastructure, AI models, specialised AI teams developing the technology, and even relationships, are shared by Amazon and Microsoft. In contrast, Apple does not have this kind of infrastructure or access, and it lacks many of these resources. Apple still depends on Google data centres for services like iCloud backups since it does not have enough large-scale data centres of its own. Apple even asked to use Google’s TPUs for recent AI training, thereby stealing infrastructure from a direct competitor. According to reports, Apple is lagging behind Google by almost seven years in the development of AI chips for data centres. Despite having access to vast amounts of data from its devices, Apple has been cautious about using such data for AI training because of its privacy-first principles. Its capacity to create and improve large-scale models is thus limited.  Additionally, according to the report, Apple has fallen behind in terms of attracting and keeping elite AI talent. How may this be a risk to Apple Apple’s delayed investment in AI infrastructure may become a major issue if generative AI ends up changing how people use computers, including laptops and smartphones. Apple is still putting the fundamentals together, while other tech behemoths are introducing complete, powerful AI systems.

Telangana sees 11 per cent dip in cybercrime cases during January to April period of 2025

Telangana

Telangana saw an 11% drop in cybercrime cases and a 19% reduction in financial losses between January and April 2025, attributed to data-driven enforcement and increased public awareness. Arrests tripled, recovery rates improved, and swift action aided by advanced analytics and inter-agency coordination boosted case closures. Hyderabad: Telangana reported an 11% drop in cybercrime incidents during the first four months of this year, compared to a 28% spike during the same period last year. Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) Director Shikha Goel credited the decrease to swift action, data-driven enforcement, and increased awareness. Shikha Goel stated, “The bureau attributes this progress to a combination of proactive investigations, public awareness campaigns, and strategic operations driven by data analytics and inter-agency collaboration.” Between January and April 2025, Telangana’s overall losses from cybercrimes decreased by 19% compared to 2024. In comparison to the preceding quarter (September to December 2024), this represents a decrease of more than 30%. During the same year, financial losses attributable to cybercrime increased by 12% nationwide. According to the official, Telangana increased its percentage of recovery (POH) of lost funds from 13% in 2024 to 16% in 2025, indicating better complaint handling and collaboration with banks and platforms. While the number of arrests tripled, from 230 in early 2024 to 626 in 2025, the number of FIRs climbed from 6,763 in 2024 to 7,575 in 2025, raising the conversion rate from 18 to 19 per cent. Shikha Goel stated, “The TGCSB’s efforts to adopt data-backed tracking, improve coordination with district police, and streamline processes greatly contributed to higher case closures and quicker action against cyber criminals.” In addition to real-time cooperation with banks and service providers, which enhanced fraud identification and transaction blocking, the official claimed that the state-wide awareness campaigns, the introduction of the 1930 chatbot, and the upgraded IVR system all contributed to a reduction in reporting time. “To assist enforcement teams in effectively identifying and apprehending cybercriminals, advanced analytics, digital profiling, and OSINT tools are being implemented,” the TGSCB Director continued.