🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #418

Cheers to Thursday! The weekend is almost here!

#SancharSaathiApp - For all the hue and cry around the Government of India’s directive to handset manufacturers to compulsorily install this app (which has now been rescinded - see News section below), one thing seems to have worked - the app has soared in popularity and it’s downloads have increased by 10x in the past couple of days.

#CyberInsurance - Government of India’s new Data Protection Law that makes companies financially responsible for cyber attacks has companies scrambling for cyber insurance. Apparently, they're seeing a 20-25% increase in demand for cyber insurance and it's becoming a necessity for compliance, not just a nice-to-have!

#Accenture - Hello ReInventors! That’s what Accenture has rebranded their employees as! That is, Accenture wants to start calling its employees as “ReInventors” in the age of AI.

India Backtracks On Plan To Force Pre-installed Government App On Smartphones
India has backed away from its plan to force smartphone makers to pre-install a government app on all devices. The mandate would expand state access to users’ devices and weaken privacy protections. The Indian telecom ministry said Sanchar Saathi would remain voluntary.

GPS Spoofing And Jamming At Indian Airports
India’s Civil Aviation Minister has revealed that local authorities have detected GPS spoofing and jamming at eight major airports. Spoofing a signal sees attackers transmit inaccurate location information so receivers can’t calculate their actual position.

Swiggy Launches 'Giftables' - On-demand Instant Gifting Platform Just In Time For Festive Season
Swiggy, a popular Indian food delivery platform, just launched a new feature called Giftables, which allows users to order curated gifts for any occasion, with options ranging from cakes and chocolates to electronics and toys, all delivered within minutes.

Android 16 Starts Rolling Out With Many New Features
Google has just released a major update for Android, making it smarter, more personal, and easier to manage. The update introduces AI-powered notification summaries and a notification organizer to help you stay focused, as well as customizable home screen icons, a dark theme, and improved parental controls.

Bun - Has now been acquired by Anthropic

Amazon Alexa+ - Jump to specific movie scenes with natural language voice commands.

Amazon Nova Forge - A New Service to Build Custom Frontier Models with Proprietary Knowledge and Domain Expertise

Amazon Web Services - Introduces "frontier agents", including Kiro autonomous agent that can work independently for days, and AWS Security Agent and DevOps Agent for automating coding and security tasks.

Anil Dash deconstructs power in tech, revealing how everyone from ICs to CEOs feels powerless within invisible systems. He argues that burnout arises from "moral injury," not overwork, when institutions misuse power. Dash urges tech workers to wield "power together" through collective action to reshape these systems.

Gunnar Grosch and Shridar Pandey use Kiro CLI and MCP servers to build a serverless image generator without manual coding. They prompt the AI to scaffold a SAM backend using Lambda and Bedrock, plus a React frontend. The demo highlights steering files for project guardrails, cloud-local syncing, and observability via AWS Lambda Powertools and CloudWatch Application Signals.

Shruti Kapoor details a four-step React performance guide to cut LCP from 30s to 1.53s. She begins with bundle optimization (minification, React compiler for auto-memoization). Next, she moves client-side data fetching (useEffect) to server-side loaders (TanStack Router). The process concludes by advocating for virtualized lists to reduce DOM nodes and using lazy loading/fetch priority for image optimization.

Junior Hiring Crisis
Recent research shows companies adopting AI at higher rates are hiring juniors 13% less, while seniors remain stable or grow, affecting young developers' career trajectories.