Helpchat Lays Off Employees as It Pivots to New Business Model.

Bengaluru-based Helpchat, a chat-based personal assistant app with operations in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, reportedly laid off around 150 employees on Saturday.
Following news reports, paired with a social media backlash by disgruntled employees, Helpchat founder Ankur Singla published a blog post on Sunday explaining the reasons for the layoffs - primarily due to a change in business model from a consumer complaint resolution platform (Akosha), to a personal assistant app.
Helpchat has also downsized its work-from-home program for chat experts. Singla writes that they were struggling to bring accountability among their work from home chat personnel. "Everyone says that failure teaches you more than success but it's never pleasant while you are in the middle of it," He wrote.
Ex-employees have taken Helpchat's Facebook page to vent. One of them asks why employees were sacked after being appointed in August, and why work from home employees were not evaluated on performance while being laid off.
"As we evolved, there were 2-3 teams from the earlier model (call centre, quality etc.) who we tried hard to scale up and help become relevant within the new reality of the company. We were able to do that for almost half of the people, but that still left some others who couldn't make the cut." Ankur wrote on his personal blog.
A spokesperson at Helpchat declined to comment on the exact number of layoffs, but said that reports that they were running out of funds were unfounded. Helpchat had said that it had 600 employees when it acquired hyperlocal discovery platform Niffler in late September, adding 30 personnel from the Mumbai-based startup.
Founded in 2010 by Ankur Singla, Vishrut Chalsani, and Vishal Pal Chaudhary, Helpchat has raised funding of $21.2 milllion (roughly Rs. 137 crores) so far from Sequoia Capital and The Morpheus.
Helpchat's app has over half a million downloads on Google play, and a 4.5-star user rating. Singla writes in his blog that Helpchat has grown by 30X in the last 6 months.
Some of the other leading players from India include Russsh, Haptik, and Lookup, and GoodService. There are over 46 Indian tech startups in chat-based mobile personal assistants space, according to startup data tracker Tracxn.
(Also Read: Roundup: Indian Apps to Outsource Your Everyday Tasks).

Flexible Camera Developed That Can Be Wrapped Around Objects

A team led by an Indian-origin professor at Columbia University has created a novel sheet camera that can be wrapped around everyday objects to capture images that cannot be taken with one or more conventional cameras. "Cameras today capture the world from essentially a single point in space. While the camera industry has made remarkable progress in shrinking the camera to a tiny device with ever increasing imaging quality, we are exploring a radically different approach to imaging," said Shree K Nayar, computer science professor at Columbia University. "We believe there are numerous applications for cameras that are large in format but very thin and highly flexible," added Nayar who graduated from the Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, in 1984. Nayar's team designed and fabricated a flexible lens array that adapts its optical properties when the sheet camera is bent. This optical adaptation enables the device to produce high quality images over a wide ...

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo back Apple in its fight over encryption with FBI

The nation's leading tech companies joined security experts, independent programmers and civil liberties advocates who filed court papers backing Apple in its fight with the FBI over an encrypted iPhone used by an extremist killer. Several law enforcement groups, meanwhile, filed briefs in support of federal authorities who are seeking Apple's help in hacking an encrypted iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino mass shooters. These "friend of the court" briefs come in advance of a March 22 hearing in which Apple is asking U.S. Magistrate Sheri Pym to reverse an order requiring Apple to create a software program that overrides iPhone security features. That program would let authorities try to unlock Farook's phone by guessing its passcode; Apple says it would make all other iPhones more vulnerable to future attacks. Relatives of five people who were killed, along with one survivor of the December 2 attack, also filed a brief saying the FBI's ...

Samsung Galaxy S7: 5 Features That Stand Out

Klutzes of the world should rejoice Friday, as Samsung officially starts sales of its new water-resistant Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. The phones, which the company first unveiled last month, are now widely available in all their dunkable glory. The latest two Samsung's high-end smartphones are supposed to be able to withstand submersion up to five feet for as long as 30 minutes. So you're in luck if you drop your phone in the drink - as long as you fish it out reasonably fast. Samsung provided me with a review unit of the Galaxy S7, a 5.1-inch smartphone. Once I opened the box, I duly dropped the high-performance, expensive phone into my sink while doing the dishes. Apart from the mild palpitations I gave myself, there was no damage at all. The phone's touchscreen didn't work under water, but it continued on without a hiccup and was unharmed and still working perfectly when I pulled it out. It was just as impressively zippy as ever and no worse for ...

IntellectBeat

Search This Blog