Govt to build data & analytics platform; FaceApp in new row

The government is planning a new data platform. Microsoft shares rally on cloud show. FaceApp is facing a new challenge.

NITI plans to build a data-analytics platform

Government policy think-tank National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog is inviting bids from private sector entities to build the National Data and Analytics Platform (NDAP), The Economic Times reported.

Most large IT companies like IBM, Wipro and TCS are likely to bid for the project, the report said.

The NDAP will be set up through the DBOT (design, build, operate and transfer) model via a public-private partnership.

The estimated cost of developing NDAP is around Rs 50-100 crore.

Cloud computing helps Microsoft beat estimates

Microsoft registered fourth-quarter revenue and profit number that exceeded analysts’ estimates due to increasing sales in its cloud vertical, The Economic Times reported.

Azure’s revenue growth was 64% in the fourth quarter, a decline from 89% a year earlier, the report said.

In April, largely thanks to growth in the cloud vertical, Microsoft’s market value crossed $1 trillion for the first time in its history.

In an effort to upstage Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft paired Azure to its traditional software offerings like Office but Azure still trails AWS’s 32.8% market share in cloud computing with Microsoft’s share pegged below 15%.

FaceApp’s conditions could trouble users

Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven camera software FaceApp has been caught in a controversy after Silicon Valley-based lawyer Elizabeth Potts Weinstein tweeted that agreeing to the app’s terms and conditions entails granting FaceApp’s developers the rights to the consenting user’s photographs, likenesses, name and voice among other things for commercial use, NDTV Gadgets 360 reported.

It has also been found that FaceApp’s privacy policy suggests that the app developers can relocate the consenting user’s data without any obligation on the developers’ part to inform the user, the report said.

The Russia-based developers of the AI-driven app have been embroiled in many controversies. In 2017, the developers were forced to do away with a filter that allowed users the option to change skin tone and facial features in order to change their ethnicity.