In a casual conversation, team Oriental Phoenix, winners of this year's Arena of Valor Bangladesh Championship 2021, shares with us the behind-the-scenes journey and future aspirations. Here are key snippets from the conversation.

The ransomware landscape will become both more modular and uniform in the coming days. It will continue to adapt to distribute and deliver ransomware. These findings were made public by Sophos, the global cybersecurity solutions provider, recently in their 'Sophos 2022 Threat Report'. The report also provides a unique multi-dimensional perspective on security threats and trends facing organisations in 2022.

To bring the e-commerce sector of the country under further regulation, the government is launching Unique Business Identification (UBID) numbers for e-commerce platforms. Traders who operate in the f-commerce industry, meaning any individual or business, small or large, that trades goods and items on Facebook, must also register to get their own UBIDs. 

Rockstar has confirmed that it is working on a new Grand Theft Auto, GTA, game. In a recent Grand Theft Auto community update post, a Rockstar spokesperson wrote, "We are pleased to confirm that active development for the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is well underway. We look forward to sharing more as soon as we are ready, so please stay tuned to the Rockstar Newswire for official details."

An American hacker by the name of P4x has hacked the nationwide internet access of North Korea, according to a report by the American magazine Wired. 

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, plunged over US$200 billion in stock value, according to stock reports from Thursday. 

In a new Facebook update, if someone takes a screenshot of the disappearing message, the other person will get a notification.

Startup Bangladesh, the first and only flagship venture capital fund of the government, appointed Sami Ahmed as the new Managing Director. Sami is being appoined for the position which remained vacant for six months now.

Shohoz, the online ticketing platform, has assisted transport workers at Gabtoli and Mohakhali Bus Terminal to register online for covid-19 vaccination.

Since 2013, Facebook, in collaboration with select carriers and operators, has been offering a free text-only version of its browser that–according to Facebook–wouldn’t use up mobile data. The services were targetted particularly towards developing countries with poor connectivity and as of last October, it has more than 300 million users. But recent internal documents reveal that users of the free version ended up being charged anyway. The worst part–Facebook has no idea how much. 

India’s will have its own digital currency soon in the current financial year 2022-23 (April to March), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said today. Presenting her fourth consecutive annual budget in Lok Sabha, she said the digital currency will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 2022-23 and it would give a big boost to the economy.

REVE Chat, a Bangladeshi SaaS-based chatbot company, is providing technical support to the Mexican Government for facilitating access to information and protection of personal data for its citizens.

Sesame Workshop Bangladesh, the producer of favourite children’s program Sisimpur, is launching Safe Internet and Early Childhood Development, an initiative to promote a safe internet environment for young children by increasing access to and awareness of safe online Internet spaces. Sesame Workshop Bangladesh will also develop and share engaging content on Sisimpur’s learning platforms as part of the initiative, which will reach children across Bangladesh.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc said on Monday that its research team has built a new artificial intelligence supercomputer that it thinks will be the fastest in the world when completed in mid-2022.

Google will invest up to $1 billion in India's second-largest mobile operator, Airtel, the companies said on Friday. The global tech giant will buy a $700 million stake in billionaire Sunil Mittal's Bharti Airtel, giving it 1.28 per cent ownership, the firms said in a joint statement.

Walton Digi-Tech Industries Limited has launched a new model of its ‘Toronggo’ dual-band Wi-Fi router in the market. The 1200 Mbps router, modelled as 'WR15', features 4 high performance 5 dBi antennas and can provide up to 300 Mbps speed at the 2.4GHz band and up to 867 Mbps at the 5GHz band, says a press release. The device features 3 LAN and 1 WAN Gigabit ports. It also has a MAC address filter and black-list facilities along with 64/128-bit encrypted protection and a built-in firewall. The router is currently priced at Tk. 2,750/-. Users can buy it from all Walton Plaza and dealer points across the country along with the e-commerce platforms, e-plaza and Walcart. Users will also get 1-year after-sales service on the device.

10 Minute School and Shajgoj, two local startups have been selected for Sequoia Capital's prestigious accelerator program, Surge. A total of 20 startups from South-East Asia, including two from Bangladesh, were selected for this years Surge Accelerator cohort.

Walton Digi-Tech Industries has recently launched three new laptops with Intel's 11th Generation processors. 

Symphony Mobile announced that they have begun exporting locally assembled 'Made in Bangladesh' smartphones to Nepal.

The biggest E-sports tournament in Bangladesh will be held on Jan 21 involving 8 finalists, with the collaboration of Smartphone Brand Infinix.