New tech on the block: Regtech, telemedicine, auto, fintech, AI, cybersecurity, metaverse, SaaS & cloud

The Tech Panda takes a look at recent tech launches.

Regtech: A tech product to simplify insider trading disclosures & manage regulations

Indian Reg-tech company TSS Consultancy launched Disclosure 360, a cutting-edge tech product designed to simplify insider trading disclosures and manage Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI) in compliance with the Prevention of Insider Trading (PIT) Regulations. This innovative solution is set to serve SEBI and IRDAI regulated entities, listed companies, and connected persons such as vendors and service providers to listed companies.

Chief guest Sivasubramanian Ramann said, “The interconnectedness of companies today is fairly large and complex. Each company works with hundreds of vendors who have access to price sensitive information, which they are obligated not to use. However, compliance officers have no way of knowing if price sensitive information about their company is being used by their vendors for trading, until now. Disclosure 360 empowers compliance officers to pull data from a software about the vendor and their families. Ultimately, it is about providing them with the next level of hygiene to ensure that they can safeguard their companies from reputation risks of crimes like insider trading. As regulators, we believe Reg-tech companies like TSS are ushering in a necessary change by providing capital markets, listed companies, MSMEs and other stakeholders with an important database such as Disclosure 360 and TrackWizz leading to significant savings of cost and legal damages.”

Features

Disclosure 360 is a unique information bridge that eliminates data submissions from users while integrating tightly controlled processes. The platform is developed to enable informed decision-making by making information easily accessible and simplifying the collection process.

TSS aims to make Disclosure 360 accessible to firms of all sizes and environments. To achieve this, TSS will leverage existing client relationships, offering insider trading solutions to ensure that current clients fully benefit from Disclosure 360. Furthermore, Disclosure 360 plans to target vendors and service providers to the listed companies, addressing the growing need for insider trading compliance in this new client category.

Telemedicine: To provide provider services such as overnight coverage & specialist

InfoVision, a digital transformation solution, tied up with iDocsWeb, a telemedicine company, to launch “Doctors Anytime.” This initiative aims to provide provider services such as overnight coverage and Specialist Clinics to regional hospitals and LTACHs across the United States.

“We are thrilled to expand our partnership with iDocsWeb and support the launch of Doctors Anytime,” said Sean Yalamanchi, Founder & President of InfoVision. “Leveraging advanced technology, we are driving digital transformation to reach rural and underserved communities. Our collaboration will set a new standard for healthcare delivery, ensuring innovative and equitable access to quality care.”

Features

• Doctors Anytime will revolutionize healthcare access for rural and underserved communities by offering 24/7 availability of medical professionals.
• This platform will ensure timely and effective care without the constraints of traditional healthcare systems.
• With seamless integration of medical consultations, follow-ups, and health management tools, Doctors Anytime meets the growing demand for convenient and comprehensive healthcare solutions.
• InfoVision’s Salesforce solutions will enable robust, scalable, and secure telehealth services, ensuring patients can connect with healthcare providers effortlessly.

Automotive: In-cabin car acoustic experience lab

HARMAN, an automotive electronics technology company and subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. focused on delivering consumer experiences at automotive grade, launched In-Cabin Car Acoustic Experience Lab in India. This cutting-edge facility in Pune is specifically designed to meet the diverse needs of car audio acoustics, engineering, research, as well as customer demonstrations.

Jonathan Pierce, Director, Audio Benchmarking, Engineering at HARMAN Automotive said, this lab adheres to our global standards for automotive research and evaluation. This is HARMAN’s sixth global testing environment, aimed at bringing critical tools and resources to our customers and engineering teams. We are optimistic that this lab will not only meet our customer expectations but also provide them a new perspective towards the car audio experience.”

Features

• This unique concept enables around 500 engineers and research teams in India to test, develop, and validate products in the 1,000 sq ft facility that accurately reflects consumer expectations.
• It acts as a valuable tool for acoustic engineers, providing them with a sonic aid when architecting and fine-tuning car audio systems to meet the highest audio standards and formats.
• The lab is utilized by the Experiential R&D team for conducting consumer and internal sound quality testing.
• It plays a crucial role in supporting product development, optimization, and competitive analysis while catering to the major OEMs in India.
• HARMAN also conducts HARMAN Qualified Listener Program in the lab, wherein employees and OEMs are trained to be qualified listeners. 
• It is equipped with hidden modular panels, allowing for easy manipulation of the lab’s reflective properties. This flexibility enables engineers to tailor the listening experience to meet specific testing or demonstration requirements, ensuring optimal results.
• The lab complies with the strict NC 20 room criteria as per ISO 9568 and aligns with ASHRAE guidelines for acoustically sensitive spaces. Its adjustable treatment elements facilitate a seamless transition between a bright sounding volume and an acoustically absorptive space.
• Utilizing HARMAN Luxury Audio products and Professional products, the lab is outfitted with nine main loudspeakers, four in-wall subwoofers, and seven height channels. BSS Audio manages the digital signal processing (DSP), while Crown amplification powers the system. With a remarkable 9.1.6 Dolby ATMOS configuration, meticulously calibrated by Dolby engineers, the lab delivers an immersive audio experience like no other.

FinTech: Seamless GST payments for commercial card clients

Axis Bank, one of the largest private sector banks in India, integrated with the Goods and Service Tax portal, thereby allowing its Commercial Card Corporate customers to make GST payments seamlessly.

Vivek Gupta, President & Head – Wholesale Banking Product, Axis Bank, said, “Axis Bank has always been at the forefront of leading digital initiatives in Transaction Banking to support our Corporate Customers. The latest initiative enables a secure, convenient and seamless way to make GST payments, while enjoying the working capital optimisation benefits of our Commercial Card proposition. This is yet another customer centric offering that positions us well as our clients’ operational Bank of choice.”

AI: AI-powered platform to help plan customised holidays, check availability & book in minutes

Thomas Cook (India) Limited – the Indian omnichannel travel services company and its Group Company, SOTC Travel launched an AI-powered platform to help customers plan their customised holidays, check availability and book – in minutes. The platform has been deployed with sellers initially. Over the next few months, end customers will have direct access to the platform via the company websites thomascook.in & sotc.in and the company apps.

Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head – Holidays, MICE, Visa, Thomas Cook (India) Limited said, “The new age Indian consumer is increasingly demanding personalized trips – unique, tailor-made programs based on their preferences. Extending our digital-first strategy, I am delighted to announce our AI-powered platform, to help customers plan their customised holidays, check availability and book – in real-time. This will empower both our frontline and customers to create deeply personalized programmes in minutes. This cutting-edge AI technology will transform how Indians plan their travel, and as travel pioneers, we continue to improve our customer experience.”

Daniel D’Souza, President & Country Head – Holidays, SOTC Travel said, “We are excited to unveil our AI-powered platform to help customers plan their customised holidays in real time. This platform will ensure the delivery of real-time recommendations and optimize every aspect of trip planning – personalizing travel like never before. We believe that AI is the key to unlocking intuitive, efficient, and personalized experiences in this new age of travel, and we at SOTC are excited to lead the way.”

The Why

Creating a customised travel program has traditionally been an arduous task for holiday experts: from the discovery-research stage to creating an itinerary and then pricing and booking. This involves coordination with several disparate sources, with multiple external suppliers for various components, be it air, hotels, attractions, local transportation, etc. The average time frame involved being between 48 – 72 hours, or more. With the Thomas Cook and SOTC AI-based platform, the promise is in under 10 minutes.

Leveraging a combination of Deep Learning & AI algorithms, intelligent recommendations intuitively tailor travel itineraries by analyzing unique customer preferences. With access to a global network of partners for flights, hotels, experiences and transport, holiday planning and booking is now more personalized and streamlined than ever before.

Features

• Inspire Engine: AI-driven suggestions to optimize time and budget based on customer interests
• Swift Personalization: Build a customized trip in just minutes with tailored recommendations
• Speed: Turnaround time reduced – to under 10 minutes
• Convenience: Curate a trip at ease – anytime, any day
• Flexible Customization: Book recommended options or adjust every element of the itinerary to suit individual preferences.
• Theme-based destination rankings
• Flight price predictions and recommendations
• Activity ranking and scheduling
• Hotel price predictions and recommendations
• Optimization within budget

Cybersecurity: An initiative designed to deliver valued data needed for better outcomes from AI & AIOps solutions

NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC. (NASDAQ: NTCT), a provider of performance management, cybersecurity, and DDoS attack protection solutions, launched a new initiative designed to deliver the valued data needed to secure better outcomes from artificial intelligence (AI) and AIOps solutions.

“As organizations automate their IT environments to scale operations, they need enterprise-grade intelligence to improve decision-making and optimize the user experience,” said Stephen Elliot, group vice president of I&O, Cloud Operations, and DevOps at IDC. “Technology leaders must consider the value of service reliability and resiliency they can receive by filtering the appropriate metadata, session data, and IP intelligence necessary for critical AIOps and security use cases.”

“NETSCOUT is built around deep packet inspection, so we understand the value of transforming raw packet data into actionable intelligence at scale,” stated Bruce Kelley, chief technology officer at NETSCOUT. “As customers accelerate their IT operations using AI, our expanded end-through-end visibility and open data model is critical to assuring better business outcomes and elevating user effectiveness.”

The Why

As enterprises increase observability for AIOps, they require high-fidelity, enriched, and curated data mapped to their unique requirements. NETSCOUT is working across its growing partner ecosystem, including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, ServiceNow, Splunk, and others, to integrate its high-quality AI-ready data and deliver the insights needed to drive better business outcomes and elevate user effectiveness.

NETSCOUT generates granular telemetry at scale and curates it into targeted feeds, producing an information-rich dataset designed to address critical use cases. NETSCOUT’s data can be easily ingested into data lakes and other AIOps platforms, where it can be enriched and combined with other datasets for analytics and visualization, resulting in higher-quality behavioral classifications, predictions, and automation.

Features

• To provide high-quality AI-ready data that mitigates the risks IT teams face from an overload of unusable or ineffective data, NETSCOUT has introduced Omnis™ AI Insights. It delivers precise, actionable network telemetry data that feeds customer AI initiatives to enable critical outcomes without requiring data transformations and adaptations, including, identifying and correlating observability trends, streamlining and automating data analysis, uncovering historical operational patterns, and detecting unforeseen issues and security risks that could lead to future service outages and data breaches.
• Data intelligence, produced and curated at the source for AI platforms, is imperative for AI use cases across multiple sectors, including healthcare, communication service providers, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, energy and utilities. NETSCOUT’s high-quality AI-ready data allows models to converge and generalize without dealing with extraneous data that blurs or impairs outcomes.

Metaverse: Digital collectibles to add 1 million users in the metaverse

BharatBox, an India focused metaverse venture between The Sandbox and Brinc, launched ‘Jab We Met’ digital collectibles, in a strategic partnership with Shemaroo Entertainment, a leading player in the entertainment industry. BharatBox will prioritize India to make it its largest market within the next 2 years. Leveraging Shemaroo Entertainment’s six-decade legacy of captivating audiences with diverse content, BharatBox aims to bring 1 million users into the metaverse, which will rank at the top of the blockchain gaming ecosystem.

“This launch is a significant step in merging the intent to drive interactive engagement of blockchain and the timeless charm of Bollywood. Going forward, we will see more of such innovations on blockchain and Metaverse which will transform fan engagement. Launching this avatar collection allows fans to own a piece of their beloved movie and engage with it in an innovative way,” said Karan Keswani, CEO of BharatBox.

On the launch, Arghya Chakravarty, Chief Operating Officer, Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd. said, “By embracing new technologies, we aim to be future ready, catering to evolving needs of the consumers. The launch of the ‘Jab We Met’ immersive game and digital collectibles represents a significant step in our strategy to leverage the metaverse and expand our digital footprint. The blend of traditional entertainment with cutting-edge digital experiences will provide fans with unique and interactive forms of entertainment.”

The Why

Globally, the blockchain gaming market is projected to grow from USD 154.46 billion in 2023 to USD 614.91 billion in 2030 at a CAGR of 21.8% while the metaverse in gaming market is expected to reach around USD 648.24 billion by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 34% from 2024 to 2034.

This collaboration with Shemaroo Entertainment will significantly increase fan engagement, by introducing Bollywood IPs and iconic characters into the metaverse, starting with a digital collectibles series based on the beloved film ‘Jab We Met,’ IP owned by Shemaroo Entertainment. Further, BharatBox will look to partner with multiple brands and create 15 such IPs by March 2025.

Features

BharatBox set within The Sandbox metaverse is a subsidiary of Animoca Brands which allows users to build, own and monetize their gaming experiences. The first offering from this partnership will be the “Jab We Met” avatar collection, featuring 3,333 unique digital collectibles of ‘Geet,’ the iconic character portrayed by Kareena Kapoor in the film.

Fans will have the opportunity to own a piece of their favourite movie, as well as engage with the character and get rewarded for it. This includes winning exclusive merchandise and participating in various social and gaming quests designed to enhance the immersive experience.

SaaS: Transforming restaurant & food service management

HostBooks, an integrated business solutions, launched HB F&B 360°, a cutting-edge solution designed to revolutionize restaurant and food service management. Unlike traditional software, HB F&B 360° provides a comprehensive platform that empowers businesses to optimize operations, control costs, and enhance customer experiences across multiple locations.

Biswajit Mishra and Kapil Rana, founders of HostBooks, expressed their enthusiasm for the launch: “HB F&B 360° is a game-changer for the food and beverage industry. Our solution empowers restaurants to achieve higher levels of operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and financial control. We believe this platform will help our clients focus on delivering exceptional dining experiences while we take care of the complexities of management.”

The Why

The global food and beverage (F&B) industry is on the brink of a major transformation, driven by digital innovation and shifting consumer expectations. A report by Market Research Future (MRFR) highlights that the HoReCa (Hotel, Restaurant, and Catering) market, valued at $3,394.6 billion in 2023 and projected to reach $3,574.5 billion in 2024, is set to expand significantly, reaching $6,449.35 billion by 2032. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.70% over the forecast period (2024-2032). This remarkable growth is being propelled by the adoption of advanced management solutions, such as HB F&B 360°, which empower businesses to enhance efficiency and exert greater control over their operations.

HB F&B 360° is packed with innovative features that ensure stability, expansion, and strategic alignment for restaurant chains.

Features

• The platform allows centralized control over operations across various locations, streamlining processes and ensuring consistency. With robust multi-store and warehouse management, businesses can monitor stock levels, transfer inventory, and maintain a seamless supply chain.
• One of the key features of HB F&B 360° is its Kitchen Order Display System (KODS), which improves communication between kitchen and front-of-house staff by providing real-time order information. This feature, combined with efficient sales and transaction processing through a multi-outlet POS system, accelerates checkout processes and enhances financial management.
• The platform also supports various payment methods, including UPI, mobile wallets, and online payments, ensuring a smooth transaction experience for customers.
• HB F&B 360° also simplifies accounting and compliance with centralized invoicing, financial reporting, GST compliance, and staff compensation management.
• The platform’s advanced menu and inventory management capabilities allow restaurants to optimize resources, reduce waste, and maintain consistency in their offerings. Through Central Menu Management, businesses can control menus, daily specials, pricing, and dish availability across all locations.
• In the supply chain and distribution arena, HB F&B 360° streamlines operations with centralized kitchen management, standardized recipes, and enhanced supplier integration.
• The platform also offers efficient order management features, including a centralized web menu, QR code order management, and mobile order processing, which enhance customer convenience and satisfaction.
• HB F&B 360° incorporates AI-powered consumer behavior analysis, utilizing AI and ML algorithms to identify trends and preferences. This enables businesses to make informed decisions and tailor their offerings to meet customer demands. The platform also supports customer loyalty through personalized experiences, special offers, and loyalty programs.
• HB F&B 360° is tailored for various niches within the food and beverage industry, including restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, bars, lounges, pizzerias, food trucks, bakeries, buffet restaurants, catering businesses, hotel restaurants, and quick-service or fast-food restaurants.

Cloud: Bringing the speed of Redis to AI workloads

Redis, a data platform, released Redis 8, which brings the advanced Redis features to Redis users. The company also released Redis for AI, a new package of foundational products and capabilities required for the modern AI stack.

Features

Redis 8 supercharges Redis Community Edition

Redis 8 launches the next evolution of the fast, flexible, and free foundation the team has developed over 15 years. By offering all of the diverse features of Redis Stack in Redis 8, first-time and long-time users of Redis Software or Redis Cloud will gain a streamlined, simplified experience, allowing them to scale mobile, web, and AI apps faster than ever before with new features like support for JSON, search, and vector database.

Redefining the AI stack with Redis for AI

Among millions of developers around the world, the combination of extreme speed, ease of use, and versatility has made Redis the preeminent data platform to power globally used applications and experiences. With the rise of GenAI, developers are tackling the challenges they once faced a decade ago: data speed, security, and integrity. But now the stakes are higher. Redis’ new products and capabilities are designed to streamline developer workflows and outpace the data-intensive needs of GenAI.

Redis for AI is an integrated package of Redis’ AI capabilities and support, designed to help developers bring GenAI apps into production and scale them quickly and seamlessly. Offering the same flexibility Redis has always been known for, Redis for AI also includes recipes, reference architectures, the new RedisVL 0.3.0, and new dedicated partner packages langchain-redis and llama-index-vector-stores-redis. Users gain a diverse ecosystem of integrations and partners, all built on Redis’ real-time data platform and benchmark-leading vector database.

• RAG with the fastest vector database: Real-time architecture for GenAI apps
• Semantic caching: Retrieve stored answers fast and save >30% on costly LLM calls
• LLM memory: Personalize user sessions with all the data LLM needs at the right time
• Agentic memory: Make agents faster for more complex reasoning and better answers
• Feature store: Get predictions in less than 1 millisecond for production ML models

Redis for AI offers the same flexibility Redis has always been known for, supporting several different data types and working across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments. With dedicated support, development teams can work directly with experts who have implemented Redis for AI at some of the largest companies in the world, accelerating deployment timelines, and ensuring application performance at any scale.

Redis Flex

Redis Flex, the next generation of Redis on Flash,  grants developers the ability to use Redis more extensively without the burden of increased costs or the need to redesign their data architecture. Before, Redis on Flash was only available for large caches. Developers wanted to use Redis in more places, but had to keep caches small because of cost. Now, you can get 5 GB of cache for the same price as 1 GB, for all cache sizes down to 1 GB with Redis Cloud Essentials, so you can cache more. After acquiring Speedb earlier this year, Redis has reduced the cost of Redis deployments by up to 80 percent, while increasing the speed of customer apps—all without needing to change any code. Redis Flex, designed to run on both DRAM and SSD, delivers real-time performance at significantly lower costs compared to in-memory solutions like self-managed Redis Community Edition, ElastiCache, and Memorystore. This means users can achieve faster responses and lower costs for both Redis Software and Redis Cloud, all without altering their existing data infrastructure. Redis Flex public preview is coming soon.

Redis Copilot

Redis Copilot is the virtual assistant for fast Redis knowledge. It offers fast responses at scale by leveraging the Redis real-time data platform and Redis for AI with capabilities like semantic caching, vector database, and rate limiting. With Redis Copilot, developers can retrieve information from docs faster, automatically write code, ask questions using natural language about their data, and get answers fast and at scale. Redis Copilot is free and generally available inside Redis Insight.

Redis Data Integration (RDI)

Redis Data Integration lets customers improve performance and address technical debt without needing to redesign their entire data strategy. RDI synchronizes data in existing databases with Redis with minimal setup, making it easy to supercharge data with Redis and build a federated data stack. RDI connects datastores to Redis through a single API, so users can simplify development and ensure the reliability of their data. RDI is available on Redis Software today and coming soon to Redis Cloud.

SaaS: A platform offering a comprehensive suite of digital solutions to streamline operations for insurance distributors across the country

Heph, an Indian insurance SaaS platform, an affiliate of InsuranceDekho, launched its platform offering a comprehensive suite of digital solutions designed to streamline operations for insurance distributors across the country. Heph’s full-stack technology covers every aspect of insurance operations – from front-end customer interfaces to robust back-end systems, covering a wide range of products including health, life, motor and group insurance.

Ayush Bagmar, Business Head of Heph, said, “Heph represents a paradigm shift in insurance technology. We’re not just providing a service; we’re empowering businesses to reimagine their insurance operations. Our platform combines cutting-edge technology with deep industry expertise, enabling our clients to deliver superior insurance experiences to their customers. We’re committed to driving innovation that makes insurance more accessible, efficient, and customer-centric.”

Ankit Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO of InsuranceDekho said, “At Heph, we’ve built a platform that marries technological innovation with deep insurance expertise. Our mission is to empower businesses across the financial spectrum to offer seamless, efficient insurance solutions. With our robust API integrations, bank-grade security, and customizable modules, we’re not just keeping pace with the digital transformation of insurance – we’re leading it. With this launch, we are set to redefine how insurance products are distributed and managed in India, driving growth for our partners and improving accessibility for consumers.”

Features

• The platform works with 49 insurers and supports multiple distribution channels, including assisted sales, direct-to-consumer models, and embedded insurance. This vast product API integration allows Heph to serve any insurance product, across any distribution channel, making it the most comprehensive platform in the industry.
• With its four core modules – D2C, POSP, Lending, Embedded Insurance- Heph caters to a diverse clientele including Banks, NBFCs, Brokers, OEMs, Fintechs, and Digital players. The platform provides access to more than 650+ insurance products with flexibility to co-create products with Insurers, allowing businesses to build, manage, and optimize their insurance offerings efficiently.
• Heph tackles the key challenges in insurance distribution with features like seamless digital policy issuance with multilingual support, enhancing reach. Its customer segmentation and lead scoring tools improve targeting and conversion rates, while automated management and renewal tracking minimizes policy lapses. Real-time analytics and dashboards provide actionable insights, aiding informed decisions and post-policy modules streamline claims and endorsements, ensuring smooth after-sales service.
• Heph’s standout feature is its rapid 7-day integration timeline, significantly reducing the time-to-market for businesses in an industry where traditional solutions often require months to implement.
• Heph’s financial tools, including an instant commission system (H2H), digital reconciliation, and automated payment processing, ensure accurate and timely settlements. With robust API integrations, customizable workflows, and bank-grade security, Heph empowers businesses to operate efficiently, scale rapidly, and drive sustained revenue growth.
• Adhering to the rigorous requirements of the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDAI), Heph offers businesses the confidence to operate securely and efficiently in a highly regulated environment. This emphasis on security is crucial as digital insurance platforms become more integral to the financial ecosystem.