Page 252 - Technology Internet
Paytm testing 'Face Login' feature
To further secure its platform, digital payments company Paytm on Monday said it is testing a new "Face Login" feature on its Android beta app.
Dubai's Careem acquires Indian bus-shuttle app Commut
Dubai's ride-hailing app Careem Monday said it has acquired Hyderabad-based bus-shuttle service app Commut for an undisclosed amount. Commut was set up in 2015 by six IIIT-Hyderabad graduates and is operational in the city. Backed by Shell-Foundation and 50K Ventures, Commut has served over 70,000 customers and onboarded 400 driver-partners. It has made over 7.5 lakh trips in over 100 existing routes. "...we are always looking to invest in new technologies and high-calibre people to help solve complex local problems. And mass transportation is one of the biggest issues facing cities in the Greater Middle East," Careem said in a blogpost. It added that improving the quality and availability of mass transportation will help to create affordable transport options. While Careem is taking over Commut's talent and technology, the latter's customers and drivers will become part of another shuttle service provider, Shuttl, the statement said. Careem, which operates in 14 countries, including .
3 Indian women selected as Facebook global community leaders
Adhunika Prakash, who founded non-profit Breastfeeding Support for Indian Moms in Pune, was on Monday selected among five global leaders for $1 million award each by Facebook as part of its Community Leadership Programme.
Scientists teach computers to see optical illusions
Scientists have taught computers to see optical illusions, an advance that may help artificial vision algorithms to take context into account and be more robust. Understanding how human brains perceive optical illusions remains an active area of research, said scientists from the Brown University in the US. For one class of optical illusions, called contextual phenomena, those perceptions are known to depend on context. For example, the colour you think a central circle depends on is the colour of the surrounding ring. Sometimes the outer colour makes the inner colour appear more similar, such as a neighbouring green ring making a blue ring appear turquoise. "There's growing consensus that optical illusions are not a bug but a feature," said Thomas Serre, an associate professor at the Brown University. "I think they are a feature. They may represent edge cases for our visual system, but our vision is so powerful in day-to-day life and in recognising objects," Serre said. The team ...
Campus placement kicks in SRMIST; over 3000 offers made to students
Like any other institute of repute, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, isn't a stranger, when it comes to getting recruitment offers from multinational companies.Last year saw nearly 540 companies opening their doors to thousands of students, despite the lull in IT sector hiring. IT company giants like Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and Wipro made over three thousand offers cumulatively, on the very 1st day of recruitment program:-Infosys - 1185-TCS - 985-Cognizant - 648-Wipro - 202The traditional recruiters like TCS, WIPRO, CTS, L&T and many others started their recruitments from 2nd of September. Under the category of dream jobs TCS Digital has already made offers to 62 students and INFOSYS made 64 offers.15 Taiwanese companies also participated in a job fair that was held at the campus and was facilitated by TAITRA (Taiwan External Trade Development Council).Some of the key highlights from Super Dream recruiters who made offers on campus are-Microsoft recruited a student with ...
Motorola's first Android One smartphone now in India
Chinese smartphone company Lenovo-Motorola on Monday launched its first Android One device "Motorola One Power" in India for Rs 15,999.
TVS Motor launches StaR City+ variant priced at Rs 52,907
TVS Motor Company Monday launched a new variant of its commuter motorcycle brand TVS StaR City+ for the festive season, priced at Rs 52,907 (ex-showroom Delhi). The 110cc motorcycle comes with synchronised braking technology (SBT) and dual tone mirrors. SBT is a joint braking system that activates the front and rear brake simultaneously, thus providing superior braking control and minimising skidding to ensure safety of the rider. TVS Motor Company is the only manufacturer to offer this technology in the 110cc motorcycle segment.
Russia's Rosatom to order new robot to extract minerals from Arctic bottom: Researchers
Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom wants to order creation of a robotic installation which would extract rare and hard-to-recover minerals at the bottom of the Arctic, Russia's Foundation for Advanced Research (FPI) told Sputnik on Monday.Head of the FPI's project group Viktor Litvinenko specified that the ordering customers of the automated system would be Rosatom and its subsidiary JSC Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ Uranium Holding)."This project will complement our work on the development of the Arctic . Such technology essentially does not exist . It will be quite a challenging project for ARMZ to go from land under water, where there are huge reserves of solid and hard-to-recover minerals. Now, we are working with them. Perhaps, there will be other partners," Litvinenko said.He noted that the robotic installation would be based on the existing Iceberg project, which provides for creation of separate autonomous complexes for the development of hydrocarbon fields for oil and gas ...
Nokia 5.1 Plus smartphone now in India
Finnish company HMD Global, that sells Nokia smartphones, on Monday announced the availability of Nokia 5.1 Plus for Rs 10,999 in India.
Instagram not planning 'Regramming' feature anytime soon
Instagram has denied testing any native "Regramming" feature that could allow its one billion users to instantly repost someone else's post to their own account, the media reported.
Combining multiple CCTV images can help catch suspects
Combining multiple poor quality CCTV images into a single, computer-enhanced composite could improve the accuracy of facial recognition systems used to identify criminal suspects, a study has found. Researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia and University of York in the UK created a series of pictures using a 'face averaging' technique -- a method which digitally combines multiple images into a single enhanced image, removing variants such as head angles or lighting so that only features that indicate the identity of the person remain. They compared how effectively humans and computer facial recognition systems could identify people from high quality images, pixelated images, and face averages. The results showed that both people and computer systems were better at identifying a face when viewing an average image that combined multiple pixelated images, compared to the original poor-quality images. Computer systems benefited from averaging together multiple ...
Combining multiple CCTV images may help catch suspects
Combining multiple poor quality CCTV images into a single, computer-enhanced composite could improve the accuracy of facial recognition systems used to identify criminal suspects, a new study has found.
RBI shortlists Infosys, TCS, 3 other IT firms to implement CIMS
The Reserve Bank has shortlisted five IT firms including Infosys and TCS for implementation of a centralised information and management system (CIMS) for seamless data collection and validations. The central bank had invited of expression of interest (EOI) in July for identification of solution provider for implementation of CIMS by overhauling the Data Warehouse (DW) of the apex bank. After evaluation of the responses, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said "it has been decided to shortlist" five vendors for issuance of 'Request for Proposal' (RFP) for selection of vendor for CIMS development and implementation. The vendors are: Capgemini Technology Services India, IBM India, Infosys, Larsen & Toubro Infotech and Tata Consultancy Services. The RBI had proposed a CIMS comprising of DW and Data Lake (DL) which would include, seamless data collection from regulated entities by creating system-to-system interface; system driven data validation and data review; flexible and scalable ...
ShareChat to double headcount, invest in expanding infrastructure
Regional language social media platform ShareChat, which has recently raised USD 100 million funding (about Rs 720 crore), will double its headcount to 150 people as it looks to further strengthen its technology platform and reach 100 million monthly active users in the country. The Bengaluru-based company has recently raised USD 100 million in series C funding led by Shunwei Capital and others like Yuri Milner, Lightspeed US, handset maker Xiaomi and Morningside Venture Capital. "We are focused towards scaling up business in India, the financing will be used to scale up the business by creating and maintaining infrastructure. One of our main focus areas will also be to hire talent. We have about 75 people right now and we expect to double that to about 150 people in the next one year," ShareChat CEO Ankush Sachdeva told PTI. A significant part of ShareChat's team comprises of language experts but the company is also looking at adding more technology experts going ahead. "We are ...
Spray-on antennas may turn objects into connected tech
Scientists have developed a method for spraying invisibly thin antennas on to flexible materials, an advance that could turn a variety of objects and surfaces into seamless Internet of Things. Researchers from Drexel University in the US used a type of two-dimensional, metallic material called MXene, that perform as well as those being used in mobile devices, wireless routers and portable transducers. "This is a very exciting finding because there is a lot of potential for this type of technology," said Kapil Dandekar, a professor at Drexel. "The ability to spray an antenna on a flexible substrate or make it optically transparent means that we could have a lot of new places to set up networks -- there are new applications and new ways of collecting data that we can't even imagine at the moment," said Dandekar. The study published in the journal Science Advances shows that the MXene titanium carbide can be dissolved in water to create an ink or paint. The exceptional conductivity of ...
New robot may help in harvesting crops
Researchers have developed an advanced sweet pepper harvesting robot that is designed to operate in a single stem row cropping system, with non-clustered fruits and little leaf occlusion.
Grooming rural youth in Cloud must for inclusive innovation in India: AWS (Tech Trend)
Amid a talented pool of tech entrepreneurs and start-ups in India live millions of women and under-represented communities, chasing opportunities to enter the new digital world, and the onus is right on the tech giants to skill them and bridge the digital divide, says a top Amazon Web Services (AWS) executive.
Robot that can harvest ripe produce developed
Scientists have developed the world's most advanced sweet pepper harvesting robot, that can detect ripe produce using computer vision and pick them within seconds. The robot SWEEPER, developed by researchers including those from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel, is designed to operate in a single stem row cropping system. Preliminary test results showed that by using a commercially available crop modified to mimic the required conditions, the robot currently harvests ripe fruit in 24 seconds with a success rate of 62 per cent. Polina Kurtser, a PhD candidate at BGU, said that robotic harvesting will revolutionise the economics of the agriculture industry and dramatically reduce food waste. "The Sweeper picks methodically and accurately. When it is fully developed, it will enable harvesting 24/7, drastically reduce spoilage, cut labour costs and shield farmers from market fluctuations," said Kurtser. Additional research is needed to increase the robot's work speed to .
oon mission a calculated risk; ISRO chairman Sivan
ISRO's moon mission Chandrayaan 2, a 'calculated risk' undertaken in the knowledge that 50 per cent of such launches have failed, will land at a spot where no country has gone before,its chairman K Sivan said Saturday. "Though half of lunar missions have failed, ISRO is taking a calculated risk, because calculated risk along with innovation is absolute essential if we want to be a major player in the space industry. Chandrayan 2 is also a calculated risk," he said. He said the landing site at the Moon is above 70- degree latitude, "where no one else has gone before". He said India has not only developed launch vehicles and satellites, but also undertaken extremely challenging and inspiring missions like Chandrayaan, Mars Orbiter Mission andAstrosat. Sivan was speaking at the ninthConvocation of GITAM Deemed to be University at Rudraram in neighbouring Sangareddy district. Sivan said India will have its first demonstration flight of SSLV by mid-2019, which would be the ...
'Tech giants must spend real money on media literacy in India'
To ensure smartphones remain a force for good, device makers need to spend some "real money" on media literacy in India so that people can take full advantage of the new technologies and learn to distinguish what messages to believe and what not, says the author of a new book on how the smartphone is changing the country.
