Binance Launches “Build For Bharat”; First DeFi-Focused Digital Hackathon in Indian Market

Binance, the global blockchain company behind the world’s largest digital asset exchange, today launched ‘Build for Bharat’, a twofold program with a hackathon and acceleration opportunities for blockchain developers and startups in India.

The hackathon is sponsored by Google Cloud, along with leading technology companies Matic Network, Marlin Protocol, Band Protocol and Ankr cloud infrastructure, while the acceleration comes under Polaris, an initiative by the Blockchain for India 50M fund, launched by Binance and WazirX in March 2020.

Spanning over a few months  -- from 24th August to 31st October 2020 -- the Build for Bharat hackathon will be open to creators, innovators, startups, and BUIDLers from all over India working on unique and creative products utilizing digital assets and blockchain technology. The solutions will be centered around decentralized finance (DeFi) such as mini-Tokens, micro-financing products, blockchain datasets, blockchain-AI solutions and more.

“India has been one of the most interesting countries Binance has tapped into!” said Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). “We’ve seen entrepreneurs create robust blockchain-based solutions from scratch and scale it. With the second-largest blockchain developer base in the world - India has already kickstarted the revolution of decentralization and we’re here to fuel it!”

Selected participants will undergo three stages of filtration with 100 teams shortlisted in the first cohort, 20 teams in the second, and five teams in the final cohort. The finalists will receive rewards from a pool of 30,00,000 INR while the winning teams stand a chance to secure additional investment and mentorship opportunities under the Polaris accelerator, an initiative by the Blockchain for India fund.

To apply for Build for Bharat program, head over to the event registration website. Registrations for the program are open from today till 11th September 2020.

[The event is managed by Lumos Labs (Formerly known as IBC Media) - A Singapore-based innovation management platform.]

About Binance

Binance.com is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. Binance Exchange serves users from 180+ countries and regions. Binance’s dual-chain architecture comprises Binance Chain & Binance Smart Chain that empowers the developer community to build their own decentralized apps and digital assets on one blockchain, while also taking advantage of the fast trading performance offered on the Binance Decentralized Exchange (DEX).

Snapchat Launches In-App Meditation Experience with Headspace

Summary

* First announced at Snap Partner Summit last month, Snap Minis are a new way for developers to bring bite-sized experiences to Snapchat.

* Snap Minis are miniature experiences that make a big impact. Each Mini can change the way friends interact with each other.

Snapchat announces the launch of their latest feature Snap Minis and the partnership with an in-App meditation experience with Headspace! The newest feature launched today provides Snapchatters with expert resources related to emotional and physical well-being, while offering daily meditations and tools to help Snapchatters check-in with their friends and stay healthy. By putting resources where friends already meet and share, Snap x Headspace Mini will provide a safe space for friends to practice meditation and mindfulness exercises, and use these new tools to send encouraging messages to check in and positively boost friends in need.

During times of stress, connecting with friends and having moments of relaxation and mindfulness, have never been more important -- and by putting resources front and center where friends already meet and share, Snapchat hopes that the Snap Mini X Headspace feature will provide a safe space for friends to practice meditation and mindfulness exercises, and use these new tools to send encouraging messages to positively boost friends in need.

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What are Snap Minis?

Snap Minis are utilities designed to integrate within conversations on Snapchat, so coordinating between friends is faster than ever. 

Other Snap Minis included at launch:

* Let’s Do It (Snap Inc.) -When you and your friends need to make a decision as a group, Let’s Do It helps pick your next move.

* Prediction Master - From Mammoth Media, Prediction Master serves timely questions on everything from the Stock Market to sneaker drops, so Snapchatters can see which of their friends is the true psychic.

* Tembo - Create flashcard decks with friends on Snapchat, to help cram for your next exam.

Snap Minis Value to Partners and Developers

* Reach & Distribution: With Minis, developers get reach & distribution among Snapchat’s audience of over 229 Million daily users. Minis plug directly into the existing Snapchat global audience.

* Friends by default: Minis have close friends by default, so developers can focus on creating new social experiences to help friends create experiences together.

* Easy to build: Developers have limited eng & time resources: Minis are HTML 5, easy to build and work instantly on iOS and Android.

* Developers can apply to create a Snap Mini at https://minis.snapchat.com/

About Snap Inc.

* Snapchat offers brands one of the most effective ways to engage with a large, growing, unique and unduplicated Millennial and Gen Z audience.

* Snapchat has 229 million daily active users, +20% and +39 million YoY.

JFrog Launches First Security-Focused, Immutable Chart Repository for Helm, the Package Manager for Kubernetes

JFrog, the Universal DevOps technology leader known for enabling liquid software via continuous update flows, announced the launch of ChartCenter, the first free, security-focused central repository of Helm charts for the community. The ChartCenter repository ensures that developers can easily access consistent versions of any publicly available Helm charts, which are currently stored in various locations across the web and can be changed or removed at any time.

“Helm plays a critical role in the fast-growing Kubernetes ecosystem, and it’s important for developers to be able to access and share consistent and secure versions of Helm charts for their applications,” said JFrog CTO and co-founder Yoav Landman. “We are creating a true unified and open repository that allows developers to set up a single, trusted location to consume immutable charts from every chart creator, together with important security information and metadata attached to these charts.”

Helm is an application package manager running atop Kubernetes that simplifies the process of defining, storing, and managing applications through convenient Helm charts. With different Helm charts and versions traditionally stored on various sites across the internet, it has been hard for developers to trust, locate, and learn about them all. Developers also risk losing access to a specific chart if the host removes it. ChartCenter joins the JFrog “centers” family, already encompassing GoCenter, ConanCenter and JCenter as hubs for immutable artifacts. JFrog’s centers are provided as free services, which already support millions of developers globally.

“While security and immutability are very important, another critical concern is observability of transitive dependencies,” said JFrog VP of Community Engineering, Jagan Subramanian. “Installing Helm charts results in pulling in container images and other sub charts that may contain security and license issues, deprecated artifacts, or outdated library dependencies. Making this information readily available promotes higher quality in managing open source dependencies by making the community aware and enables consumers to take proactive measures to safeguard their production deployments”.

JFrog’s ChartCenter addresses this issue by offering a one-stop shop that includes all major Helm charts currently available across the web today, along with important security information and metadata around dependencies and application versions. Organizations can use ChartCenter to find immutable and highly available versions of Helm charts and can even add their own.

ChartCenter was built with the help of Rimas Mocevicius, the co-creator of Helm, to address the needs of the Kubernetes developer community. Along with serving as the first immutable repository for Helm charts, ChartCenter offers super search and other important features and functionality, including:

* Robust metadata about each chart version including downloads, license information, apiVersion, application version, and more!

* Superior search by name, description, and keyword

* Free security scanning that shows vulnerabilities in dependencies

* Ability for developers to add their own charts to the UI

* Dependency tree showing all dependencies of each chart and version

 * ChartCenter is available to the general public immediately.

Sun Microsystems to layoff 150 more in India

The global layoffs by tech MNCs have started spilling to their Indian operations. IT giant Sun Microsystems reportedly laid off over 150 employees in India around late in January.

According to a news report in a leading daily, most of the laid off employees were software developers working in the company's Bangalore office.

The news report adds that the company may go for another round of lay offs in the last week of February. This round is likely to impact support staff from departments like marketing, human resources and sales.

In November last year, Sun Microsystems announced that it plans to cut as many as 6,000 jobs as the company tries to cope with plunging sales of server computers to financial firms, market-share losses to bigger competitors, and a spiraling stock price.

The reduction, which will eliminate as much as 18 per cent of the staff, will shave $700 million to $800 million from annual expenses, Sun said in an e-mailed statement.

Last week, a Goldman Sachs analyst put the server and software maker's stock on Goldman's `Americas Conviction Sell' list. Goldman analyst David C Bailey said in a client note that Sun's heavy concentration of financial services, telecom and manufacturing customers put it at a disadvantage to its more-diversified competitors. Bailey said that Goldman expects a low double-digit revenue drop at Sun in 2009 due to weakness in several of the company's key verticals and accelerating deterioration of its Unix server market.

Agencies