Apple Supplier Wistron Hiring Up to 10,000 Extra Staff to Build iPhones in India

Apple partner Wistron is reportedly hiring up to 10,000 extra staff to man its iPhone plant in Narasapura, India, claims a new report today.


According to The New Indian Express, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer is expected to start the commercial production of iPhones at its plant in the Kolar district in the next few days.

The manufacturing facility in Kolar is expected to generate around 10,000 jobs. As per the Karnataka Industrial Policy, 70 per cent of jobs should be given to locals. Accordingly, at least 7,000 people from Karnataka are expected to get jobs here. The company is believed to have already recruited about 2,000 people so far.

"We are happy to note that recruitment process has begun," said Gaurav Gupta, Principal Secretary to India’s Industries and Commerce Department. He added that they are “going to start production soon." Wistron has not yet confirmed the news.

The new plant, which came online in April, is about 40 miles outside of Bengaluru, and is believed to specialize in PCB assembly.

A PCB serves as a bed for key ‌‌iPhone‌‌ components like processors, storage, and memory, and usually accounts for about half the cost of a smartphone. That makes PCB assembly in the country a major boon for Apple, as it avoids taxes levied by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to boost local manufacturing and create new jobs.

Apple has been setting up ‌‌‌iPhone‌‌‌ manufacturing hubs in India ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi began promoting his "Made in India" initiative, which requires that 30 percent of products sold by foreign companies be manufactured or produced within the country.

India is also the world's second largest smartphone market, but just one in four Indians are said to own a smartphone, providing Apple with an opportunity to sell iPhones to millions of new customers, while also diversifying its supply chains and moving away from its heavy reliance on China as an operations base.

A report from The Times of India earlier this month claimed an unnamed Apple supplier is planning to move a significant amount of production operations to India, with the aim of accommodating the export of $5 billion worth of devices from India.

Apple suppliers Wistron, Pegatron, Foxconn, and Samsung, are all expected to set up production facilities in India, and Foxconn has already announced that it plans to invest as much as $1 billion in India, and has already established its first manufacturing plant in the country.

Tags: India, Wistron

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Facebook's Merging of Instagram and Messenger Chats Gets Underway

Facebook's long-term plan to integrate Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp chat platforms appeared to kick into gear over the weekend as Instagram users in the U.S. were notified of a "new way to message" on the photo-sharing social network that merges the app's chat feature with Facebook Messenger.

Image via The Verge
As a result of the merging of the chat services, the change means Instagram users will be able to chat with Facebook users and vice versa. After the update is applied, some features previously only available on Facebook Messenger can be accessed in Instagram, including colorful chats, more emoji reactions, and swipe-to-reply.

In addition, the regular paper airplane DM icon in the top-right corner of the Instagram UI is replaced by the Facebook Messenger logo, and the Messenger features noted above are applied.

Image via The Verge
However, as The Verge notes, it's still not possible to message Facebook users from Instagram, but unification is clearly the plan, as Facebook explained back in January 2019.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly wants all the apps to incorporate end-to-end encryption, like WhatsApp does now. When the unification is complete, the services will continue to operate as their own standalone apps, but the company's work will make them interoperable with one another.

Ultimately, by stitching the apps' infrastructure together, Zuckerberg seeks to increase keep their billions of users highly engaged inside the Facebook ecosystem, in an attempt to ward off rival texting apps like Apple's iMessage.

Tags: Facebook Messenger, Instagram

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Telegram Messaging App Gains End-to-End Encrypted Video Calling

Secure messaging app Telegram has announced the launch of a video calling feature for its iOS app that the company says is end-to-end encrypted, just like phone calls and text-based messages conducted over the chat platform. Calls can be started from a contact's profile page.

All video calls are protected with end-to-end encryption. To confirm your connection, compare the four emoji shown on-screen for you and your chat partner – if they match, your call is 100% secured by time-tested encryption also used in Telegram's Secret Chats and Voice Calls.

The feature is an alpha version, so there's more work to do on it before it's fully robust, but it already includes support for switching from audio to video and vice versa at any time, as well as picture-in-picture mode, which means users can read and respond to other messages while they're chatting to the person on the other end of the call.

Telegram originally announced in April that it planned to introduce group video calls later this year. In its latest post, the company said group video calls will arrive in the coming months, offering users an alternative to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, WhatsApp, and other rival video-conferencing enabled platforms.

Telegram is a free download for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Telegram

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New Mac Malware Found to Infect via Xcode

Security researchers at Micro Trend have discovered a new kind of Mac malware which can "command and control" a target system.



The researchers described the malware, which is part of the XCSSET family, as "an unusual infection related to Xcode developer projects." The malware is unusual because it is injected into Xcode projects, and when the project is built, the malicious code is run. A developer's Xcode project was found to be able to contain the malware, which "leads to a rabbit hole of malicious payloads."

The discovery poses a significant risk for Xcode developers. Micro Trend identified developers affected by the malware who share their projects via GitHub, leading to a potential supply-chain attack for users who rely on repositories for their own projects. Google's VirusTotal scanning software managed to identify the malware, which indicates the threat is at large.

The malware spreads via infected Xcode projects because it can create maliciously modified applications. Specifically, the malware was found to be capable of abusing Safari and other browsers to steal data. It can use a vulnerability to read and dump cookies, create backdoors in Javascript, and in turn modify displayed websites, steal private banking information, block password changes, and steal newly modified passwords. It was also found to be able to steal information from apps such as Evernote, Notes, Skype, Telegram, QQ, and WeChat, take screenshots, upload files to the attacker's specified server, encrypt files, and display a ransom note.

Affected developers may unwittingly distribute the trojan to their users in the form of compromized Xcode projects and built applications. The malware is particularly dangerous because verification methods, such as checking hashes, would not identify infection as the developers would be unaware that they are distributing malicious files.

To protect against this type of threat, Micro Trend encourages users to only download apps from official marketplaces and consider multilayered security solutions.

Tags: Xcode, malware, GitHub

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App Recap: Heart Reports, HibiDo, and Weather on the Way

In this week's App Recap, we've highlighted health and fitness app "Heart Reports," productivity app "HibiDo: To-Do List & Notes," and weather app "Weather on the Way" as three apps that are worth checking out.

Apps to Check Out

• Heart Reports (iOS, $1.99) - Heart Reports is an app that lets users generate reports based on data from the Health app. Several forms of data can be aggregated into a report like heart rate, number of steps, sleep time, calories burned, blood sugar and pressure (if entered into the Health app), and more. As for privacy, all data is handled offline within the app. Heart Reports provides an easy way to export data, as all generated reports can be created and stored in either a PDF or a CSV file.


• HibiDo: To-Do List & Notes (iOS, Subscription) - HibiDo features an easy way to manage tasks and notes together in a single app. Reminders can be customized with a deadline, priority flag, checklist, note, or by being designated as a recurring task. Users can subscribe to the app's premium version priced at $1.49 per month or $15.99 per year to access collaboration and sharing features, a sync across multiple devices, automatic note backup, and the creation of an unlimited number of tasks and notes.


• Weather on the Way (iOS, Subscription) - Weather on the Way lets users enter a start and end point for a trip, and the app will intelligently display detailed weather information like temperature, precipitation, and wind speed at any point. This can be useful when planning for the best possible time to travel. Once trip details have been entered, users can select a route with the best weather. The app's developers have emphasized the importance of user privacy, as the app doesn't collect any personal information as well as location or driving route data. Weather on the Way is free to download, but some features like alternative routes, road visibility, wind speed, and UV index are limited subscribed of the app's Pro plan. The Pro plan is available in monthly and annual subscription options as well as a lifetime purchase priced at $0.99, $9.99, and $29.99 respectively.

Are you using a great new app we've missed? Let us know in the comments and we'll check it out for next week's App Recap. Are you a developer of a unique app you'd like us to consider? Send us a message through our tip line at the top of the page and we'll check it out.

Tag: App Recap

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