Page 62 - Technology Internet
Osmanabad LS poll: 12 booked for recording voting process
Twelve people have been booked for allegedly using mobile phones to record themselves while casting votes for the Osmanabad Lok Sabha poll which was held on April 18, police said Friday. The Election Commission, meanwhile, appealed to people to not carry mobile phones or such recording devices to the poll booth as it violates the principle of secret ballot. As per Election Commission guidelines, voters are not allowed to carry their mobile phones within a 100-metre radius of polling stations on the day of voting. Speaking to PTI, additional chief electoral officer Dilip Shinde said carrying mobile phones or any other digital device that can record the act is strictly prohibited. "Any violation of these guidelines will be dealt with strictly and we will take all efforts to maintain the sanctity of secrecy of ballot," Shinde said. Following instructions from the EC, Osmanabad police started an inquiry and booked 12 persons though no arrests have been made, district ...
68.81% voting recorded in 1st phase of LS polls in Karnataka,
A 68.81 per cent voter turnout was reported in the elections for 14 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka in the first phase on Thursday, poll officials said. Voter turnout was 68.68 per cent in the same 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in the 2014 polls, officials said, revising the figures. Mandya, where Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil is pitted against multi-lingual actress Sumalatha Ambareesh in what is perceived to be a cliff-hanger contest, recorded the highest voter turnout of about 80.24 per cent. The lowest voting was reported in Bangalore South constituency with 53.48 per cent, officials said. In other constituencies of the city, that has a history of low voter turnout, Bangalore North recorded 54.62 per cent, Bangalore central 54.29 per cent and Bangalore Rural 64. 90 per cent. In Tumkur, where former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda is locked in a tough contest with G S Basavaraj of BJP, 77.17 per cent turnout was reported. Hassan where Gowda's other grandson ...
Scientists develop biosensor bandage to collect and examine sweat
Researchers have developed a biosensor bandage that can help collect and analyse the body sweat. The bandage developed in conjunction with a smartphone could someday help diagnose diseases.The research was published in the American Chemical Society.Like other biofluids, sweat contains a wealth of information about what is going on inside the body. However, collecting the fluid for analysis, usually by dripping or absorbing it from the skin's surface, can be time-consuming and messy.Compared with other biofluids such as blood, sweat has the potential to be obtained less invasively for diagnostic testing.Earlier, researchers had developed tools to collect and analyse sweat, such as temporary tattoos or microfluidic devices, but they typically required wires, electronics or sophisticated structures.Researchers Tailin Xu, Li-Ping Xu, Xueji Zhang and colleagues wanted to make a wearable biosensor resembling a bandage that samples sweat and uses a simple colour-changing assay to quantify ...
Indian student in US faces 10 yrs jail for destroying computers at New York college
An Indian student has pleaded guilty to intentionally causing damage of over USD 58,000 to more than 50 protected computers of a college in New York state capital Albany by using a "USB Killer" device. Vishwanath Akuthota, 27, residing in the United States on a student visa, has been in custody since he was arrested in North Carolina in February this year. He faces up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to USD 250,000 and a term of post-imprisonment supervised release of up to three years. United States Attorney Grant Jaquith said that he pleaded guilty this week to causing damage to computers owned by The College of St Rose. Akuthota, who will be sentenced in August, admitted that on February 14, he inserted a "USB Killer" device into 66 computers, as well as numerous computer monitors and computer-enhanced podiums, owned by the college in Albany. The "USB Killer" device, when inserted into a computer's USB port, sends a command causing the computer's on-board capacitors to rapidly ..
Giving human touch to chatbots may not help: Study
Giving chatbots human names or adding humanlike features to its avatar may not be enough to win over a user if the device fails to maintain a conversation, researchers, including one of Indian origin, suggest. According to researchers from The Pennsylvania State University in the US, those humanlike features may create a backlash against less responsive humanlike chatbots. In a study, chatbots that had human features -- such as a human avatar -- but lacked interactivity, disappointed people who used it. However, people responded better to a less-interactive chatbot that did not have humanlike cues, said S Shyam Sundar, a professor at Penn State. High interactivity is marked by swift responses that match a user's queries and feature a threaded exchange that can be followed easily, according to Sundar. "People are pleasantly surprised when a chatbot with low anthropomorphism -- fewer human cues -- has higher interactivity," said Sundar. "But when there are high anthropomorphic visual ...
Adding human avatar to chatbots not enough: Study
Giving chatbots a human name or adding human like features to it might not be enough to win over a user if the device fails to maintain a conversational back-and-forth with the person, say researchers, including one of Indian-origin.
Instagram testing co-watching feature on app
Facebook-owned photo-messaging app Instagram is testing a new feature that would let users co-watch on-platform video content with friends, while being able to see their reactions on the video via the phone cameras.
Pixel 3 user asks for refund, gets 10 phones instead
Google sent a customer 10 Pixel handsets worth over $9,000 after he requested a refund for a defective Pixel 3 smartphone.
India still not power-surplus nation; peak deficit at 0.8 pc, energy deficit at 0.6 pc in 2018-19
India has again missed the target of becoming an electricity-surplus nation by a whisker as its peak power deficit stood at 0.8 per cent and the overall energy deficit remained 0.6 per cent in 2018-19. In its load generation balancing report (LGBR) for 2018-19, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) had pegged overall energy and peak power surpluses at 4.6 per cent and 2.5 per cent, respectively, indicating that India would be a power-surplus country in the financial year. In 2017 also, the CEA in its LGBR had projected that India would become a power-surplus nation in 2017-18. But, the peak power deficit was 2.1 per cent, while overall electricity deficit was 0.7 per cent across the country in that financial year. According to the latest CEA data, during peak hours, as much as 175.52 gigawatt (GW) was supplied against demand of 177.02 GW leaving a deficit of 1.49 GW or 0.8 per cent in 2018-19. The data showed that as much as 1,267.29 billion units (BUs) of electricity was supplied .
Major display-issues bugging Samsung 'Galaxy Fold'
Ahead of its public release scheduled for April 26, US-based tech reviewers who were testing the $2,000 worth "Galaxy Fold" encountered and reported major display and screen-related issues within just two days of using the phone.
NASA airborne telescope spots universe's 1st molecule
NASA's airborne observatory has detected the first type of molecule ever formed in the universe.
US regulators mull holding FB CEO accountable: Report
Worried over the mishandling of users' personal data on Facebook, the US federal regulators are now considering the possibility of holding its CEO Mark Zuckerberg accountable.
Apple paid $6bn to settle Qualcomm dispute: Report
Apple may have paid chip-maker Qualcomm somewhere between $5 billion-$6 billion for an agreement to dismiss all ongoing litigations, including with Apple's contract manufacturers, between the two companies worldwide.
Microsoft acquires Express Logic to push IoT dream
Microsoft has acquired San Diego-based software company Express Logic, that makes software for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to accelerate IoT development for billions of devices at scale.
Facebook exposed millions of Instagram passwords
A day after admitting it "unintentionally" uploaded emails of nearly 1.5 million of new users, Facebook has now revealed that millions of Instagram passwords were stored on its servers in a readable format.
Maharashtra: 57.22 pc polling in 2nd phase
An average 57.22 per cent voter turnout was recorded till 5 pm across 10 constituencies in Maharashtra which went to the polls in the second phase of Lok Sabha elections Thursday, an official said. The final turnout in Thursday's polling in the state will be known later and could be higher, the official said. In 2014, the average voting in these seats was 62.39 per cent. Nanded Lok Sabha seat recorded 60.88 per cent voting, the highest in the second phase, followed by Hingoli at 60.69 per cent. Parbhani recorded 58.50 per cent voting, Beed 58.44 per cent, Latur (SC) 57.94 per cent, Buldhana 57.09 per cent Osmanabad 57.04 per cent, Amravati (SC) 55.43 per cent, Akola 54.45 per cent, and Solapur (SC) 51.98 per cent, he said. In Nanded, there were complaints that as many as 78 electronic voting machines (EVMs) malfunctioned. A total of 179 candidates were in the fray in these constituencies. Beed had the maximum number of contestants - 36 - while 10 candidates contested from
US airports to use facial recognition to scan 97% passengers in next four years
The US Department of Homeland Security expects to use facial recognition technology to scan 97 per cent of departing passengers at airports in the next four years.The method involves photographing passengers before they board the flight and cross-referencing it against a library of images from visa and passport applications, and those taken by border agents, The Verge reports.The technology is used to keep track of those who have overstayed their visas. However, it is being criticised for hampering citizen privacy.The system was already operational at 15 US airports as of the end of 2018.
Facebook 'accidentally' uploads email contacts of 1.5 million new users
There goes no day without finding a loophole in Facebook's data systems. The company has admitted that it uploaded the e-mail contacts of 1.5 million new users to its systems since May 2016.A security researcher recently noticed that Facebook was asking new users to provide their e-mail passwords upon sign up. Once the password is entered, a message would prompt that the user's contacts were being imported, without any permission, Business Insider reports.Facebook admitted that it 'unintentionally' uploaded the user data to improve ad targeting, make recommendations, and more. It is now deleting users' contacts from its systems.The company said that the content of users' e-mails was not being accessed.
Facebook working on voice assistant to rival Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri
Facebook is reportedly working on its own voice-assistant to rival the existing Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Google Assistant.The social networking service has been working on the new initiative since early 2018, CNBC reports. Facebook's augmented reality and virtual reality group division is the same team behind the upcoming voice-assistant.It is unclear how Facebook plans to integrate the voice assistant to its services. The most likely application will be on the company's Portal video chat smart speakers or Oculus headsets.In 2015, the company released an AI assistant called M, for its Messenger app. The project was shut down last year.
Samsung to investigate why Galaxy Fold screens are breaking down
Samsung sent out its Galaxy Fold to tech journalists for a preview before shipping, and all kind of screen issues are impacting the company's first foldable smartphone, even with just a day of use.Samsung is aware of the issue on the limited number of early review units and has promised to inspect the units to find the flaw, Mashable reported.The company says that removing the screen's top protector may have caused problems. The Samsung Galaxy Fold costs an eye-watering USD 1,980 and is expected to go on sale on April 26, this year.