As AI moves from recommending products to making purchases, banks are flagging risks around fraud, privacy, authorisation and who is responsible when an agent makes a mistake

AI shopping agents could reshape festive shopping while raising fraud and data privacy concerns.

Business Standard

The breach took place on July 18. The OpenAI agent had gained unauthorised access to a public-facing Medicare statistics portal

Anthony Albanese

Building AI platforms that can interact in local languages is key to growing the technology in India and bridging the digital divide

artificial intelligence, languages, vernacular languages

Predictions that artificial intelligence could lead to catastrophic outcomes are overstated, and a global pause in AI development is unlikely, Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu said on Wednesday, while urging India to keep its strategic options open and invest heavily in foundational R&D across sectors.
Vembu said India should pursue an independent approach to AI, building on partnerships without becoming locked into the emerging technology rivalry between the United States and China.
"We must be friends with everybody, enemies with nobody and keep our options open," Vembu, Chief Scientist and Co-founder, Zoho, said in an interview with PTI.
Vembu argued that any big tech company genuinely wanting to slow AI development is free to do so on its own; nothing stops one player from pacing itself without demanding the whole industry follow, he pointed out.
Vembu was skeptical of calls by AI labs for an industry-wide pause, which, as per him, appeared to be less about safety and more a bid .

Sridhar Vembu Zoho

Vembu was skeptical of calls by AI labs for an industry-wide pause, which, as per him, appeared to be less about safety and more a bid by some players to slow down rivals

Press Trust of India

AI agents can browse, shop and make calls for users, but changing websites, unexpected human responses and real-world uncertainty mean human intervention remains part of the process

AI agent requiring human intervention to complete real-world tasks

AI agents and human intervention

The AI interface brings information, context and workflows into one conversational platform as Zoho expands into seven industry-specific applications

Sridhar Vembu

Homegrown software company Zoho on Wednesday launched Zia Chat, a unified AI interface for businesses, and announced its entry into vertical SaaS with seven industry-specific applications spanning retail, automotive, BFSI, healthcare, education, real estate and restaurants.
Zia Chat is built natively into Zoho's ecosystem and gives users a single conversational interface to find information, generate leads, resolve support issues and analyse data across sales, marketing, support, HR and finance functions, the company said.
"Our goal is to commoditise intelligence so customers can get work done, without incurring high costs on tokens," Sridhar Vembu, Chief Scientist and Co-founder, Zoho, said at a briefing.  Zia Chat will reduce token consumption for users, and will be available for early access in a month, initially in English.
"There is an interface crisis, and people spend too much time searching for the right context and data. We strip away the UIs (user interfaces) of different 

ZOHO

Zia Chat is built natively into Zoho's ecosystem and gives users a single conversational interface to find information, generate leads, resolve support issues and analyse data across various sectors

Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi have designed country's first working, demonstrable indigenous micro Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), in a significant development that can reduce import dependence to a large extent, officials said on Thursday.
According to officials, GPUs are widely used in modern hardware, including in AI and Machine Learning engines. Currently, all GPUs are imported.
This is the first working, demonstrable indigenously designed micro-GPU from India, they said.
The micro-GPU architecture developed by IIT Delhi researchers will enable indigenous graphics and display-processing systems for embedded applications.
The researchers at the institute's Electrical Engineering department have demonstrated programmable graphics rendering using a custom floating point GPU engine implemented entirely in Register Transfer Language (RTL) and mapped to a Spartan-7 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform.
"The hardware architecture is a scalable 

IIT Delhi, IIT

IIT Delhi researchers have developed India's first working indigenous micro-GPU, aimed at reducing import dependence and enabling affordable graphics systems for embedded applications

Meta is spreading Muse across smart glasses, a Neural Band, VR hardware and the new Charm device, distributing AI interaction across hardware rather than concentrating it on a smartphone

Meta's new AI glasses and hardware devices built around the Muse AI agent

The solution combines agentic AI with property, inventory and CRM systems to support discovery, lead qualification, sales and post-sales interactions through WhatsApp and voice

Technology, artificial intelligence, Telecom industry

Adobe Premiere's Android app brings professional-style editing to smartphones, with multi-track timelines, precise cuts, audio enhancement, 4K export and AI-powered creative tools

Premiere mobile on Android is available now in the Google Play Store for devices running Android 13 or later.

Beyond expanding Amazon product tagging to India, YouTube is adding new features for viewers and creators like Custom Feeds, Live Showdowns, real-time dubbing and more

YouTube

The Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses drop cameras but retain audio recording, while Meta expands its Muse AI assistant with shopping, appointments and computer-use features

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wears Meta VR Glasses as he delivers a speech presenting the new line of smart glasses during the Meta Connect event

Reuters

The heads of major artificial intelligence firms pleaded with the United Nations on Wednesday to save the world or at least its people - by somehow regulating the fast-expanding technology that they have been designing.
"If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole," said Dario Amodei, chief executive officer of Anthropic. And from his competitor Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, came the assessment: "We could lose control of the future to AI."
Both said the countries of the world, through the UN Security Council, where they testified Wednesday, have to set safeguards of some kind to prevent the technology from getting too powerful to rein in.
They also called for the world to make sure that the power of AI isn't concentrated in one company or country. They also touted the benefits of the technology for bettering humanity and what Altman called "giving people more power over their own lives."
Those tech leaders "are telling us in stark terms that it cannot b

United nations, UN

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI chief Sam Altman told the UN Security Council that governments must help prevent AI risks and excessive concentration of power

Mivi has entered India's smartphone market with the One 5G, featuring a 6,000mAh battery, Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 chipset and Android 16, with sale starting from October 8

Mivi One 5G debuts in India at a starting price of Rs 14,999

Beats has launched the Beats 360 over-ear headphones with interchangeable ear and headband cushions, Active Noise Cancelling, Personalised Spatial Audio and IPX4 rating

Beats 360 over-ear headphones with interchangeable cushions

Apple absorbs part of the impact of taxes, import duties and retail margins on the iPhone 17 as it looks to expand its presence in the fast-growing Indian market

iPhone 17, iphone

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is priced at Rs 79,999 in India and will go on sale from September 18, with a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, Exynos 2500 chip and triple rear cameras

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE with its triple rear camera setup and One UI 9.

The CMF Buds Neo brings ANC, 12.4mm drivers, Bluetooth 6.0 and long battery life to the Rs 1,999 segment. But do these features add up to a genuinely good everyday listening experience?

CMF Buds Neo

Sony 1000X The Collexion offers premium materials, detailed sound and strong noise cancellation, but battery life, portability and call quality leave room for improvement

Sony WH-1000XX

With a vibrant OLED display, lightweight design and seamless PC connectivity through GlideX software, the ASUS Pad makes a strong case as both an entertainment screen and a useful work companion

ASUS Pad tablet with its large OLED display showing content

Asus Pad with OLED display

Google isn't trying to out-spec competition here, it's betting that a smartwatch should explain your health rather than just display it, and mostly, that bet pays off

Google Pixel Watch 5 review showing the smartwatch on a wrist

Google Pixel Watch 5

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