Flipkart Launches Mobile Wallet and Other News

It’s the last day of the week, and we’ve got a lot to cover. Let’s get right down to business.

Flipkart Launches Mobile Wallet

India’s leading ecommerce company, Flipkart, has launched its own digital mobile wallet to give competition to the likes of PayTM, FreeCharge and MobiKwik. Called Flipkart Money, the service has been launched on the Android platform.

The move comes 6 months after Flipkart acquired FX Mart Pvt. Ltd., a payments company that holds a license for Semi-Closed Pre-Paid Payment Instruments. Although the company initially intended to launch the service in October during the Big Billion Day sale, apparently, things got delayed due to technical issues with the final product.

Users can top up the wallet with a maximum amount of Rs.25000 using credit or debit cards, mobile banking or net banking. However, at a single time, the wallet can hold a maximum of Rs.10000. Cash can be transferred back to the bank as well.

San Bernardino DA claims Attacker’s iPhone has Cyber Pathogen

As top companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook, amongst 14 others file briefs in Apple’s fight against the FBI related to encryption and privacy, San Bernardino DA Michael Ramos has reported in a filing that the iPhone used by the attacker in the San Bernardino attacks may house a cyber-pathogen.

“The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino’s infrastructure,” Ramos said.

Security professionals doubt that a malware or virus spread through the IT networks of San Bernardino County, and even the existence of such an entity.

IBM Begins Laying Off One Third of Workforce

Just as 2015 started, IBM was to start Project Chrome – a plan to lay off around 111,000 people in an effort to restructure the company. Well, just recently, the program appears to have started.

IBM has begun to lay off massive numbers of employees from its U.S. workforce. Many expect over one third of its staff to leave the company. The layoff was first reported on a Facebook page of IBM employees.

"It is bad, really bad. It's a mass lay-off today. It is a sad day for IBM. People are being told not to talk about it. I was told by a manager in getting the news, who was reading off of a script, that one third of the US workforce is being 'rebalanced,' which is what they call it," an employee commented.

In 2015, IBM had around 378,000 employees worldwide. The company hired 70,000 people as part of its strategic restructuring initiative. Currently, the company claims to have 25,000 open positions.