All of Airtel’s troubles aren’t caused by Reliance Jio — its own social media team isn’t helping. On the occasion of Diwali, Airtel’s Twitter handle put out two tweets. Instead of simply wishing its customers a happy Diwali, Airtel sought to impart some awareness as well. One tweet urged users to “join us in the fight against pollution”, while another featured a mute button, and wished customers a “noise-free Diwali.” The Airtel family wishes you…

Easily-offended people are now influencing product development decisions at large tech companies. Earlier this week, Google Maps rolled out a feature that let users know how many calories they’d burn if those chose to walk to their destination, as opposed to taking the car. The Google Maps UI showed a small calories burnt number next to the distance walked, and to put the number into context, it showed a little factoid, saying that one cupcake…

Microsoft has taken the open office idea to a whole new extreme — it’s taken it outdoors. Microsoft has created treehouses in its Redmond, Washington campus where employees can attend meetings. Suspended twelve feet above the ground, these treehouses are large wooden structures that are built into giant fir trees. They sit on the grounds of Microsoft’s 500 acre campus, and let employees collaborate, presumably with the wind rustling through tree leaves and the smell of…

Bitcoin has enjoyed a breathtaking run over the last couple of weeks. People had speculated that the volatile cryptocurrency was in trouble after it had shed as much as 40% of its value in September, falling from a high of $4,800 to nearly $3000. But bitcoin is back with a bang — it now trades at $5,700, after touching a lifetime high of $5,855 today. Much of bitcoin’s valuation comes from a belief that it’ll…

India might think of itself as an IT powerhouse, but the rest of the world doesn’t seem to quite agree. The owner of an India-based mobile development agency posted a question yesterday on Hacker News. Hacker News is a popular online forum run by startup accelerator Y Combinator, and the poster, who chose to remain anonymous, seemed to imply that it was hard to find work because of the negative perception around Indian software companies. “How…