The Indian Panorama

Tag: Science & Technology

  • SUPERCLUSTER OF GALAXIES NEAR MILKY WAY FOUND

    SUPERCLUSTER OF GALAXIES NEAR MILKY WAY FOUND

    MELBOURNE (TIP): An international team of astronomers has found one of the universe’s biggest superclusters of galaxies near the Milky Way.

    Researchers, including those from Australian National University (ANU), said the Vela supercluster, which had previously gone undetected as it was hidden by stars and dust in the Milky Way, was a huge mass that influenced the motion of our galaxy.

    “This is one of the biggest concentrations of galaxies in the universe, possibly the biggest in the neighbourhood of our galaxy, but that will need to be confirmed by further study,” said professor Matthew Colless from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

    “The gravity of the Vela supercluster may explain the difference between the measured motion of the Milky Way through space and the motion predicted from the distribution of previously mapped galaxies,” said Colless.

    Colless used the Anglo-Australian Telescope to measure distances for many galaxies to confirm earlier predictions that Vela was a supercluster.

    He also helped to estimate the supercluster’s effect on the motion of the Milky Way. The research involved astronomers based in South Africa, Australia and Europe. Two new Australian surveys starting in 2017 will confirm the size of the Vela supercluster.

    “The Taipan optical survey will measure galaxy distances over a bigger area around Vela, while the WALLABY radio survey will be able to peer through the densest parts of the Milky Way into the supercluster’s heart,” Colless said.

    The research was published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Source: PTI

  • Robot gives rare glimpse under Antarctic sea ice

    Robot gives rare glimpse under Antarctic sea ice

    SYDNEY(TIP): An underwater robot has captured a rare glimpse beneath the Antarctic sea ice, revealing a colourful world filled with coconut-shaped sponges, dandelion-like worms, pink algae and spidery starfish.

    The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) took footage on a camera attached to a Remotely Operated Vehicle sent down by scientists through a small hole drilled in the ice as they recorded the acidity, oxygen, salinity and temperature of the seawater.

    “When you think of the Antarctic coastal marine environment, the iconic species such as penguins, seals and whales usually steal the show,” AAD biologist Glenn Johnstone said Wednesday. “This footage reveals a habitat that is productive, colourful, dynamic and full of a wide variety of biodiversity, including sponges, sea spiders, urchins, sea cucumbers and sea stars.” These species, recorded near Australia’s Casey research station, live in water that is -1.5 degrees Celsius (29.3 degrees Fahrenheit) year round and covered in 1.5 metres (nearly five feet) of sea ice for 10 months of the year.

    “Occasionally an iceberg may move around and wipe out an unlucky community, but mostly the sea ice provides protection from the storms that rage above, making it a relatively stable environment in which biodiversity can flourish,” he said. Scientists are in Antarctica working on better understanding the impact of acidification on Southern Ocean sea-floor communities under increasing carbon dioxide emissions.

  • Spot lies, fake news and propaganda on #Facebook

    Spot lies, fake news and propaganda on #Facebook

    The Pope has endorsed Donald Trump for president.A Washington, DC, pizzeria is a front for a child sex abuse ring. George Soros will “bring down” the US by funding “black hate groups.” These are just some examples of viral stories circulated on social media recently that are completely untrue. Facebook on Thursday announced some steps it’s taking to stop the spread of such “fake news” on its huge social network.

    This includes working with outside fact-checking organizations and drying up financial incentives to what it calls the “worst of the worst” spammers that traffic in made-up stories. But there are basic things news readers can do themselves to spot fake news. And if you want, you can report them to Facebook, which can flag stories for fact-checkers to evaluate.

    Check the source

    Some hoax sites, designed to draw you in for advertising revenue, feature designs that resemble legitimate, well-known websites. Such “spoofing” can be quite effective _ but there are often telltale signs to indicate their true nature.

    For example, you should be vary of articles on sites whose addresses, or URLs, that end in “com.co,” writes Melissa Zimdars, a communications professor at Merrimack College whose own list of “fake news” sites went viral.(She has since taken it down and published a more general guide .) You can also check the website’s “about” page, its list of contacts, and other stories and photos on it. Poke around a little; if things look less-than-official, you’re probably on a spoof site.

    Grammar and emotions

    Random use of ALL CAPS? Lots of exclamation points? Does it make sense when you read it out loud? Can you imagine a TV newscaster reading it out loud? Is there something just off about it? Does it sound very angry, inflammatory, emotional? None of these are good signs.

    Poke around for other coverage

    If a story is real and really big, you will likely (though not always) see some version of it from multiple sources. Is it on sites like ABC News, The Associated Press, the New York Times, or other places you have heard of ? Is it featured in your local newspaper, the one printed on actual paper?

    Let’s put it this way: If the pope actually endorsed Trump, you’d see it everywhere.

    Sources, sources, sources

    Anonymous sources can appear in legit as well as made-up news stories. But Googling the people who are named in a story is a good way to check whether the story itself is real. They might have a LinkedIn profile, or appear in other news stories, for example. Someone says they are a university professor? Google the name of the university. Is it a health study on a new cure for cancer? Look it up.

    On Facebook

    Facebook users often share articles without reading them. Don’t be that person.

    Instead, click on the link and read the story before hitting the “share” button. If you believe a story someone shared is fake, you can post a comment, or report it to Facebook for outside fact-checking by clicking on the gray arrow on the upper right corner and selecting “report this post.” You’ll get an option for “It’s a fake news story.”

    • Source: AP
  • MESSENGER APP GETS NEW POWERFUL CAMERA

    MESSENGER APP GETS NEW POWERFUL CAMERA

    To help make conversations better, Facebook on Friday launched a new, faster and easier-to-use camera with art and special effects in its Messenger app that will be rolled out globally over the coming days.

    “We have seen that the way people are messaging is becoming much more visual. In fact, over 2.5 billion emojis, photos, stickers and videos are sent every day on Messenger,” the company said in a blog.

    “In some ways the camera is now replacing the keyboard. As more people use Messenger in their everyday lives, we wanted to make it faster, simpler and more fun to send photos and videos. So we built the new Messenger camera,” Facebook said.

    The new camera is quicker than previous versions which makes it easier for users to capture and share moments as they happen.

    Whether you are already in a conversation or have just opened up the app, you will see the shutter button centre in the screen. A tap takes photo and a long press records a video. The social media giant also introduced new art and special effects. “We are especially excited to debut 3D masks and special effects, which make it super easy to apply an artistic filter to your full screen photo and to turn your world into a work of art,” the company said.

  • Indian professor named AAPS 2016 Fellow

    Indian professor named AAPS 2016 Fellow

    NEW YORK (TIP): Arvind Kumar Bansal, a professor and head of the department of pharmaceutics at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) in India, has been nominated by The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) as one of its Fellows, 2016.

    AAPS announced the elevation of nine recipients to Fellow, one of the highest honors given to members of the association.

    Each year, AAPS elevates a few members to Fellow in recognition of their professional excellence in fields relevant to AAPS’s mission: to advance the capacity of pharmaceutical scientists to develop products and therapies that improve global health.

    Each Fellow has demonstrated a sustained level of superior and distinguished professional achievement and contributions in fields related to this mission. Fellows are nominated by supporters, selected by a committee of their peers, and elevated by AAPS’ Executive Council.

    Dr Bansal develops technologies to improve water solubility of medicines so that they are more effective for patients. He is currently Professor and Head, department of Pharmaceutics at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), SAS Nagar, Punjab, India. Dr. Bansal is leading a group of about 15 post-graduate and doctorate students, in various areas of Pharmaceutics like pre-formulation profiling, solid-state characterization, improvement of aqueous solubility, enhancement of oral bioavailability and compaction physics. Dr. Bansal holds a masters (1988) and doctorate degree (1993) in Pharmacy from the University of Delhi. Dr. Bansal served in the pharmaceutical industry as a research scientist in major Indian pharmaceutical companies – JK Pharmaceuticals (now called Regent Drugs after being acquired by Teva Pharmaceuticals, Israel) and Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited.

  • Japan plans world’s fastest computer:Capable of 130 quadrillion calculations/sec

    Japan plans world’s fastest computer:Capable of 130 quadrillion calculations/sec

    TOKYO (TIP): Japan plans to build the world’s fastest-known supercomputer in a bid to arm the country’s manufacturers with a platform for research that could help them develop and improve driverless cars, robotics and medical diagnostics.

    The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will spend 19.5 billion yen ($173 million) on the previously unreported project, a budget breakdown shows, as part of a government policy to get back Japan’s mojo in the world of technology. The country has lost its edge in many electronic fields amid intensifying competition from South Korea and China, home to the world’s current best-performing machine.

    In a move that is expected to vault Japan to the top of the supercomputing heap, its engineers will be tasked with building a machine that can make 130 quadrillion calculations per second – or 130 petaflops in scientific parlance – as early as next year, sources involved in the project told Reuters.

    At that speed, Japan’s computer would be ahead of China’s Sunway Taihulight that is capable of 93 petaflops.

    “As far as we know, there is nothing out there that is as fast,” said Satoshi Sekiguchi, a director general at Japan’s

    National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, where the computer will be built.

    The push to return to the vanguard comes at a time of growing nostalgia for the heyday of Japan’s technological prowess, which has dwindled since China overtook it as the world’s second-biggest economy.

    Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for companies, bureaucrats and the political class to work more closely together so Japan can win in robotics, batteries, renewable energy and other new and growing markets.

    DEEP LEARNING

    In the area of supercomputing, Japan’s aim is to use ultra-fast calculations to accelerate advances in artificial intelligence (AI), such as “deep learning” technology that works off algorithms which mimic the human brain’s neural pathways, to help computers perform new tasks and analyze scores of data.

    Recent achievements in this area have come from Google’s DeepMind AI program, AlphaGo, which in March beat South Korean professional Lee Seedol in the ancient board game of Go.

    Applications include helping companies improve driverless vehicles by allowing them to analyze huge troves of visual traffic data, or it could help factories improve automation.

    China uses the Sunway Taihulight for weather forecasting, pharmaceutical research, industrial design, among other things.

    Japan’s new supercomputer could help tap medical records to develop new services and applications, Sekiguchi said. The supercomputer will be made available for a fee to Japan’s corporations, who now outsource data crunching to foreign firms such as Google and Microsoft, Sekiguchi and others involved in the project said.

    The new computer has been dubbed ABCI, an acronym for AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure. Bidding for the project has begun and will close on Dec. 8.

    Fujitsu Ltd, the builder of the fastest Japanese supercomputer to date – the Oakforest-PACS, capable of 13.6 petaflops, declined to say if it would bid for the project.

    The company has, however, said it is keen to be involved in supercomputer development. Source: Reuters

  • Is live video the next big thing?

    Is live video the next big thing?

    If you spend hours navigating various social media platforms —and that’s all of us, really — you may have noticed something oddly familiar. All of them — Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram — have been quietly rolling out features that push you to go live and share your experience with the world.

    The latest is Instagram’s update to its stories feature, which lets you go live from any location, and as soon as you are done, the video disappears. “When you’re done, your live story disappears from the app, so you can feel more comfortable sharing anything, anytime,” the photo sharing app said in its blog, earlier this week. The feature is yet to be rolled out to all regions.

    But the question begging to be asked is: why has video suddenly taken over words, even as little as 140 characters?

    The answer lies in numbers. According to Facebook, users are already watching 100 million hours of video per day on the social media platform. And that’s just Facebook. As of March 2016, over 200 million broadcasts have been created on Twitter’s Periscope. According to a 2015 report by Cisco, video content will account for 80 per cent of global internet traffic by 2019.

    Don’t be surprised if, someday, all you see are videos on your social media feeds, instead of personal status updates.

    The lure of live

    For decades, television has taken us closer to live action: be it sporting events, the Gulf War, or the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. Now, with the way social media is influencing our consumption, the live action is slowly shifting online. Take, for instance, Cheddar, an online news start-up that’s betting big on Facebook’s live feature. Every day, its anchors go live from the New York Stock Exchange floor, with the latest news on business, technology, and start-ups. Think of it as an informal CNBC for millennials.

    Globally, Buzzfeed is a leader in video content creation. In April this year, the web publishing giant made a video of two employees trying to make a watermelon explode with rubber bands. And at one point, more than 8,00,000 people were watching it live on their phones and desktops. Another video that went viral was of a police officer talking a man down from an attempted suicide, somewhere in the US. Posted by NowThis, a video network for the mobile generation, it got 46 million views.

    Source: HT

  • MARS SURFACE TOO DRY TO BE HABITABLE: SCIENTISTS

    MARS SURFACE TOO DRY TO BE HABITABLE: SCIENTISTS

    LONDON (TIP): Mars is a primary target in the search for life outside Earth, and liquid water is the most important pre-requisite for life. But a team of international researchers has found that Mars is incredibly dry, and has been that way for millions of years.

    “Evidence shows that more than three billion years ago Mars was wet and habitable. However, this latest research reaffirms just how dry the environment is today,” said Christian Schroder, Lecturer at the University of Stirling in Britain

    “For life to exist in the areas we investigated, it would need to find pockets far beneath the surface, located away from the dryness and radiation present on the ground,” Schroder, who is also science team collaborator for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity mission, noted.

    The discovery, published in the journal Nature Communications, provides vital insight into the planet’s current environment and shows how difficult it would be for life to exist on Mars today.

    Using data from the Opportunity mission, the scientists examined a cluster of meteorites at Meridiani Planum — a plain just south of the planet’s equator and at a similar latitude to Gale crater.

    The researchers calculated a chemical weathering rate for Mars, in this case how long it takes for rust to form from the metallic iron present in meteorites.

    This chemical weathering process depends on the presence of water. It takes at least 10 and possibly up to 10,000 times longer on Mars to reach the same levels of rust formation than in the driest deserts on Earth and points to the present-day extreme aridity that has persisted on Mars for millions of years, the study said.

    A study published last year, which used data from the Curiosity Rover investigating Gale crater on Mars, suggested that very salty liquid water might be able to condense in the top layers of Martian soil overnight.

    “But, as our data show, this moisture is much less than the moisture present even in the driest places on Earth,” Schroder explained. Source: IANS

  • DRDO SCIENTISTS DEVELOP SURVEILLANCE UAV FOR ARMED FORCES

    DRDO SCIENTISTS DEVELOP SURVEILLANCE UAV FOR ARMED FORCES

    HYDERABAD (TIP): Heralding a new era in the indigenous development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), DRDO on Wednesday successfully carried out the maiden flight of TAPAS 201 (RUSTOM – II), a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV.

    The test flight took place from Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), Chitradurga, 250 km from Bangalore. Chitradurga is a newly developed flight test range for the testing of UAVs and manned aircraft.

    The flight accomplished the main objectives of proving the flying platform, such as take-off, bank, level flight and landing. TAPAS 201 has been designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), the Bangalore-based premier lab of DRDO with HAL-BEL as its production partner.

    The UAV weighing two tonnes was piloted (external and internal) by the pilots from the Armed Forces. It is also the first R&D prototype UAV which has undergone certification and qualification for the first flight from the Center for Military Airworthiness & Certification

    (CEMILAC) and Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance (DGAQA).

    TAPAS 201, a multi-mission UAV is being developed to carry out the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) roles for the three Armed Forces with an endurance of 24 hours. It is capable of carrying different combinations of payloads like Medium Range Electro Optic (MREO), Long Range Electro Optic (LREO), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Electronic Intelligence (ELINT), Communication Intelligence (COMINT) and Situational Awareness Payloads (SAP) to perform missions during day and night.

    According to an official release, the development of UAV immensely contributes towards the Make-in-India initiative as many critical systems such as airframe, landing gear, flight control and avionics sub-systems are being developed in India with the collaboration of private industries. Defence Electronics Application Laboratory (DEAL) of DRDO has developed the data link for the UAV. Rustom- II will undergo further trials for validating the design parameters, before going for User Validation Trials. Source: TOI

     

  • New fitness tracker can tell you how much muscle, fat is your body made of

    New fitness tracker can tell you how much muscle, fat is your body made of

    GPS and navigation equipment and mapping devices producer TomTom on Wednesday launched a new Rs 13,999 activity tracker, TomTom Touch, along with two other products to penetrate the Indian GPS fitness watch market.

    According to the company, the lesser-priced TomTom Touch, comes with a new body composition analysis technology which is not available on any other fitness device available in the market.

    “Obesity is considered the core of many diseases. With Body composition analysis right at your wrist, it will be a great indicator of your overall well being and knowing your body composition changes. Now with this innovation, we’re making technology more accessible to everyone. So will our focus on fitter India,” Hitesh Ahuja, country manager, TomTom India, said, adding that India has the third most obese population in the world.

    “With the push of a button, TomTom Touch fitness tracker measures the percentage of body fat and muscle mass in the body. Until now, this metric has been available with dedicated scales or expensive technology. The launch of TomTom Touch fitness tracker now makes BCA more accessible to a broader audience,” Ahuja explained.

    The TomTom Touch fitness can be worn 24-7 and includes functions like tracking steps, sleep, all day heart-rate, calories burned. It also comes equipped with a sports mode for running, cycling or hitting the gym and also shows up smartphone notifications. Source: HT

  • Now apps to help you track ATMs, banks and post offices with cash

    Now apps to help you track ATMs, banks and post offices with cash

    Having trouble with cash or liquidity lately due to demonetisation exercises floated by the government? Worry not, as help is around the corner.

    Several app developers are working on new ways to help customers lay their hands on cash as quickly as possible and save them the trouble of looking for an ATM with cash.

    One such app is the Walnut app, which was originally designed to help users track their expenses. However, via a blog post, the app developer informed users that they had made a new feature available which could help users track ATMs with cash.

    Based on the ATM usage of more than 1.8 million subscribers of the app, Walnut not only points towards a functional ATM but also provides information about the length of queues at the ATM and the time it was last active.

    While green pins on the map interface inside the app means that the ATMs are currently active, orange pins denote that the ATMs were recently active and grey pins means that ATMs were last active in the last few days.

    “You can also help your friends and other people around you by sharing the location and queue status of a functional ATM. Every time you visit an ATM and successfully withdraw cash, we’ll send you a push notification to tell us the queue status at the ATM. We’ve also made it simple to share information about

    #ATMwithCash with your friends on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and other social channels,” the blog post explained adding that the “more the number of Indians that use the app, the more improved the accuracy of the feature.”

    Walnut is not alone. Another app called Cashnocash also uses crowdsourcing mechanisms to help users track ATMs, banks and post offices with cash availability. Cashnocash, which went live on Monday, is founded by Manjunath Talwar and Abhijit Kansas and has data of over 4,000 ATMs in the country. The app-makers claim that nearly 8,000 people have already used the app.

    Talwar and Kansas reportedly said that they had approached banks for data on ATMs but were declined. They also said that they were talking to companies such as Hitachi, Secure One and CMS to get more data on ATMs to help more consumers.

    All the apps work mostly in the same format. When a user logs on to the website/app and searches for ATMs in a region, the result shows up a series of ATMs with cash and wait time. This helps other people logging into the app. However, there might be instances where several ATMs without information might show up as they might not have been used so far.

    Another such app is CMS’ own app named CMS ATM Finder. The Finder app provides information on ATMs managed by CMS. The site lets you choose your state and city and the list shows ATMs that are up and running. The site also allows the option to notify CMS if a particular ATM is shut or out of cash. CMS says if it is notified about an ATM not functioning or has run out of cash, it will take action quickly.

  • WhatsApp launches video calling to take on Google Duo, Skype

    WhatsApp launches video calling to take on Google Duo, Skype

    WhatsApp will launch video calling service on its app, a move that will help the popular messaging platform compete with the likes of Skype, Apple’s FaceTime and the recently launched Google Duo.

    The new feature will be rolled out to WhatsApp’s over one billion users over the next few days.

    “This has been in the works for some time and we are glad that we are launching the service from India, which has our largest userbase. Like voice calls, video calls are also going to be dynamic i.e. depending on the quality of network, the video will adjust accordingly,” WhatsApp Head of Business Neeraj Arora said.

    He added that like text and voice calling features, video calls will also be encrypted end-to-end to ensure safety and privacy of its users.

    “With the new update, users simply can choose between a voice or a video call and go ahead with the call,” he said.

    Arora did not give any estimates about the volume of video calls WhatsApp expects to facilitate in the coming days.

    In June, WhatsApp had announced that its platform saw over 100 million voice calls are made every day.

    “In line with the user base, India is one of the most active voice calling countries for us,” he added.

    Facebook-owned WhatsApp has almost become the default messaging application for people in countries like India and Brazil.

  • Donald Trump’s top aide Steve Bannon suggests there are too many Asian bosses in Silicon Valley

    Donald Trump’s top aide Steve Bannon suggests there are too many Asian bosses in Silicon Valley

    WASHINGTON (TIP): A comment by Donald Trump’s top aide that seemed resentful of the number of Asian bosses in Silicon Valley has created a new controversy in the US. And the Indian tech space has some advice to offer. “As they say in America, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’” Saurabh Srivastava, co-founder of the India Angels Network, a large investor in start-ups. “A third Silicon Valley start-ups are cofounded by someone of Indian origin… it is not surprising that many of the leading American Companies that operate and compete globally have CEOs who are immigrants but the best in class in the world.”

    Steve Bannon, who has been appointed Chief Strategist by US President-Elect Donald Trump, seemed critical months ago of the prominence of Asians in Silicon Valley. The interview with Mr. Bannon has resurfaced in the US media this week.

    Mr. Bannon, 62, interviewed Mr. Trump last year on radio.

    Mr. Trump noted that students attending top universities in the US were heading home after their education.

    “We’ve gotta be able to keep great people in the country. We’ve gotta create, you know, job creators,” Mr. Trump said in the interview. He added that “we have to keep our talented people in this country.”

    Mr. Bannon responded that “when two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think…”, and then went on to say, “a country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society.”

    “He seemed to hint at the idea of a white nationalist identity with the phrase ‘civic society’,” said the US tech site The Verge.

    A study in May last year showed that white men were 149 percent more likely to be CEOs than Asian men, and that the impact of race is 3.7 times more significant than gender as a negative factor in companies. According to the survey, one-third employees in Silicon Valley are Asian; Asians are under one-fifth of management; and only 14 percent are CEOs.

    Despite this, some Indians have risen to positions of great importance in the Valley. According to some estimates, Indians make up 15 percent of all Silicon Valley CEOs, and two of these are leading two of the biggest, most influential, and richest companies in the world today – Microsoft, and Google. In 2014, Microsoft appointed Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella as CEO, after he’d been at the company for 22 years.

    Last year, when Google reorganized as Alphabet, Sundar Pichai was named CEO of the new Google entity. Pichai, who hails from Tamil Nadu, has been at Google since 2004, and before becoming the CEO, he was SVP of Google Android, Chrome and Apps.

  • Ladakhi engineer Sonam Wangchuk receives global award in USA

    Ladakhi engineer Sonam Wangchuk receives global award in USA

    LOS ANGELES (TIP): Sonam Wangchuk, an engineer from Ladakh, India, who was the inspiration behind Aamir Khan’s “Phunsukh Wangdu” character in the blockbuster film 3 Idiots, was one of the recipients of the 2016 Rolex Awards for Enterprise for his remedy to combat severe seasonal water scarcity in the western Himalayas by building artificial glaciers – “ice stupas” shaped like Buddhist monuments – to store water to irrigate and reforest desert land.

    To mark the 40th anniversary of the program this year, Rolex decided to present Awards to five Laureates and five Young Laureates. The 10 winners received their Awards at a ceremony on 15 November 2016 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Each winner received a Rolex chronometer and funding for their project (Laureates receive 100,000 Swiss francs, and Young Laureates, between 18-30 years old, 50,000 Swiss francs). They will benefit from a worldwide publicity campaign.

    Sonam Wangchuk is helping farmers in Ladakh to overcome water shortages by building artificial glaciers. In spring, farmers who live at 3,500 m in the trans-Himalayan mountains of Ladakh, in India, face acute water shortages. Ladakhi engineer Sonam Wangchuk’s ingenious solution is to freeze glacial melt water into towering conical mounds resembling Tibetan religious stupas. These ice stupas behave like mini-glaciers, slowly releasing irrigation water for the growing season.

    Wangchuk’s design builds on the experimental work of fellow Ladakhi engineer Chewang Norphel, who created flat artificial glaciers. Wangchuk realized, however, that a workable structure must have a minimal surface area to provide protection from the sun, especially at lower altitudes. Thanks to this design, ice stupas melt at a slower rate than flat ice. The 2015 prototype, the result of a crowdfunding campaign that paid for a 2.3 km pipeline to direct glacial streams down to the village desert, lasted until early July, supplying 1.5 million liters of meltwater to 5,000 saplings planted by locals. With his Rolex Award funds he intends to create up to 20 ice stupas, each 30 meters high, and initiate a substantial tree-planting program on the desert near their school once the new water supply system is established.

    Wangchuk believes that education and care for the environment go hand in hand. In addition to his work with young people at SECMOL, the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh, through its Alternative School he has started work on establishing an alternative university in the same area. His objective is to engage young people from the Himalayas and beyond in eco-solutions for mountain areas.

  • NASA SPACE TELESCOPES REVEAL A BROWN DWARF

    NASA SPACE TELESCOPES REVEAL A BROWN DWARF

    WASHINGTON (TIP): In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, Nasa’s Spitzer and Swift space telescopes joined forces to reveal a brown dwarf – thought to be the missing link between planets and stars, with masses up to 80 times that of our solar system’s most massive planet, Jupiter.

    The discovery of this brown dwarf, with the unwieldy name OGLE-2015-BLG-1319, marks the first time two space telescopes have collaborated to observe a microlensing event — when a distant star brightens due to the gravitational field of at least one foreground cosmic object, Nasa said in a statement on Thursday.

    “We want to understand how brown dwarfs form around stars, and why there is a gap in where they are found relative to their host stars,” said Yossi Shvartzvald from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and lead author of a study published in the Astrophysical Journal.

    Spitzer and Swift observed the microlensing event after being tipped off by ground-based microlensing surveys, including the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE).

    By combining data from these space-based and ground-based telescopes, researchers determined that the newly discovered brown dwarf is between 30 and 65 Jupiter masses.

    They also found that the brown dwarf orbits a K dwarf, a type of star that tends to have about half the mass of the sun.

    “In the future, we hope to have more observations of microlensing events from multiple viewing perspectives, allowing us to probe further the characteristics of brown dwarfs and planetary systems,” co-author of the study Geoffrey Bryden Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

  • Scientists working on solution to deal with Drones Threats

    Scientists working on solution to deal with Drones Threats

    BENGALURU (TIP): The threat perception is real. Late in 2015, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) had issued alerts of drone attacks in Delhi. Last month, Mumbai airport was put on high alert after a pilot spotted an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), popularly called drone.

    But agencies in India don’t have a concrete solution. Unlike shooting down an enemy fighter aircraft over no man’s land, bringing down a drone using fire power in cities isn’t an option. Also, that there can be no ‘hot pursuit’ (where a missile follows a target emitting carbon or thermal energy) with these vehicles not emitting any carbon, poses a challenge.

    A technological solution, thereby, is the only option and scientists from the Indian institute of Science (IISc) and the National Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bengaluru, including noted scientist and former member of the Scientific Advisory Council to Prime Minister, Prof Baldev Raj, are trying to develop the same.

    From ways of trying to intercept the drones and bring them down using, what one scientist termed “anti-drone” drones, to building a system that can remotely identify these objects, a host of ideas are on the drawing board.

    The scientists are keen on developing a system using that could remotely identify the flying objects using electromagnetic waves—UAVs piloted remotely use radio waves (invisible electromagnetic waves) for control— and then either disabling them or, safe-land them.

    Confirming the developments at IISc and NIAS, Additional Director General Police (crime and technical services) Bhaskar Rao, said: “Drones are increasing in numbers, becoming a serious concern across India. Therefore, we thought that an early solution needs to be available with us given the growing threat perception. The scientists, have committed to finding us a solution after a two-day meet.” The DGCA’s draft regulation on UAVs has remained on paper for more than two years now, with the local police still dealing with the issue in an ad hoc manner. Rao said, the punishment for flying a drone without permission now is only a negligible fine A senior intelligence officer said: “The issue is that you can assemble a drone using materials available in the open market here. And mounting of payloads (sensors used for surveillance or something that could strike) is also not too difficult. We need to know how to ground these things without collateral damage.”

    He also pointed out that these objects are still classified as toys that can be checked in and brought into the country. “A lot of these things are brought in from China and southeast Asia. As long as it is in the right hands, the concern is only of them flying in areas they shouldn’t by mistake. But there is almost no certain way of knowing who is flying this and from where (immediately).”

  • WHY ARE SO MANY SMARTPHONES EXPLODING?

    WHY ARE SO MANY SMARTPHONES EXPLODING?

    Twitter has been lately abuzz with consumers crying foul about their exploding smartphones.

    The latest casualty was a Reliance LYF smartphone owned by a Kashmiri youth. Tanvir Sadiq, who is political secretary to the National Conference, took to Twitter to put up pictures of the burnt device and say he and his family had a narrow escape.

    Another consumer also took to Twitter to report about his burnt OnePlus One, and said the phone exploded while it was being charged. In fact, Indian aviation regulator DGCA banned Samsung phones on flights two months ago after reports of Note 7 blasts followed by a Note 2 explosion.

    But why are smartphone batteries exploding now? Scientists and researchers seem to point in the direction of heat/thermal management on the device and also high usage of devices these days.

    A lithium-ion battery is a kind of rechargeable battery that uses different materials, one holding positive ions and the other holding negative ions. Called the cathode and the anode respectively, these ions move one way when charging, and back again when discharging — being used.

    These two layers — or conductors —are never supposed to touch; so manufacturers insert separators to keep them apart. The chemical reaction that makes batteries work creates heat. Overcharging the packs — or charging them too fast — can lead to fires.

  • Farewell large USBs? Apple might do it again with Macs after 3.5 mm jack drop

    Farewell large USBs? Apple might do it again with Macs after 3.5 mm jack drop

    Apple has done it once and it might do it again! The Tim Cook-led company in spite of global anxiety and fear dropped the adored 3.5 mm headphone jack.

    The company was warned even before the speculated drop of the jack that its sales of iPhones would take a hit as consumers were so used the jack and its convenience.

    But what did Apple do other than dropping the jack? It put in a splitter/converter (3.5 mm to lighting jack converter) free of cost along with the iPhone box so that consumers could use thier headphones along with the new smartphones. It also came out with Air Pods — a wireless device that doesn’t need a jack at all.

    Hence, would it be very far fetched to think that it can go ahead and ditch the USB ports and replace them with Type-C ports? All logic seems to point that way along with Apple’s innovation cycle.

    Leaked photos suggest that Apple has replaced the function keyboard bar with an OLED bar and also has the design thinner. An older USB port needs more space and is unfit for a sleeker design. This suggests that Apple might have included the USB Type-C jack. Rumours suggest that the PCs will carry four USB Type-C ports.

    But this speculative news is causing anxiety for users as the new iPhones also don’t have the Type-C USB jacks. It is our best guess that Apple might include a similar splitter (USB to USB Type-C) to help suppport iPhones.

    However, Apple has dropped parts in the past to make the notebooks slimmer. It has already ditched the CD/DVD port earlier with previous generations of MacBooks. The removal of the USB ports is expected to make the device slimmer, have space for the new OLED bar and the touch ID button, experts said.

  • URANUS MAY HAVE TWO UNDISCOVERED MOONS: STUDY

    URANUS MAY HAVE TWO UNDISCOVERED MOONS: STUDY

    WASHINGTON (TIP): Uranus may have two tiny, previously undiscovered moons orbiting near two of the planet’s rings, researchers using data from NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft have found.

    Rob Chancia, a doctoral student at University of Idaho in the US, spotted key patterns in the rings while examining decades-old images of Uranus’ icy rings taken by Voyager 2 which flew by the planet 30 years ago.

    He noticed the amount of ring material on the edge of the alpha ring -one of the brightest of Uranus’ multiple rings – varied periodically.

    A similar, even more promising pattern occurred in the same part of the neighbouring beta ring.

    “When you look at this pattern in different places around the ring, the wavelength is different – that points to something changing as you go around the ring. There’s something breaking the symmetry,” said Matt Hedman, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Idaho.

    Researchers analysed radio occultations – made when Voyager 2 sent radio waves through the rings to be detected back on Earth – and stellar occultations, made when the spacecraft measured the light of background stars shining through the rings, which helps show how much material they contain.

    They found the pattern in Uranus’ rings was similar to moon-related structures in Saturn’s rings called moonlet wakes.

    The researchers estimate the hypothesised moonlets in Uranus’ rings would be four to 14 kilometres in diameter – as small as some identified moons of Saturn, but smaller than any of Uranus’ known moons.

    Uranian moons are especially hard to spot because their surfaces are covered in dark material.

    “We haven’t seen the moons yet, but the idea is the size of the moons needed to make these features is quite small, and they could have easily been missed,” Hedman said.

    “The Voyager images were not sensitive enough to easily see these moons,” he said.

    Hedman said their findings could help explain some characteristics of Uranus’ rings, which are strangely narrow compared to Saturn’s.

    The moonlets, if they exist, may be acting as “shepherd” moons, helping to keep the rings from spreading out. Two of Uranus’ 27 known moons, Ophelia and Cordelia, act as shepherds to Uranus’ epsilon ring.

    “The problem of keeping rings narrow has been around since the discovery of the Uranian ring system in 1977 and has been worked on by many dynamicists over the years,” Chancia added.

  • INDIAN-ORIGIN SCIENTIST CREATES ‘REAL’ 3D HANDS IN LABORATORY

    INDIAN-ORIGIN SCIENTIST CREATES ‘REAL’ 3D HANDS IN LABORATORY

    NEW YORK (TIP): An Indian-American researcher and his team have created life-size 3D hand models, complete with fingerprints, using a high-resolution 3D printer that can produce the same ridges and valleys as a real finger.

    Like any optical device, fingerprint and hand scanners need to be calibrated, but currently there is no standard method for doing so.

    “This is the first time a whole hand 3D target has been created to calibrate fingerprint scanners,” said professor Anil Jain from Michigan State University (MSU).

    “As a byproduct of this research, we realized a fake 3D hand, essentially a spoof, with someone’s fingerprints, could potentially allow a crook to steal the person’s identity to break into a vault, contaminate a crime scene or enter the country illegally,” Jain cautioned.

    Jain and his biometrics team were studying how to test and calibrate fingerprint scanners commonly used across the globe at police departments, airport immigration counters, banks and even amusement parks.

    To test the scanners, they created life-size 3D hand models complete with all five fingerprints.

    “Another application of this technology will be to evaluate the spoof-resistance of commercial fingerprint scanners. We have highlighted a security loophole and the limitations of existing fingerprint scanning technology, now it’s up to the scanner manufacturers to design a scanner that is spoof-resistant,” Jain noted in a university statement.

    The study aims to design and develop standard models and procedures for consistent and reliable evaluation of fingerprint readers and is funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

    “We are very pleased with this research and how it is showing the uncertainties in the process and what it can mean for the accuracy of the readers,” said Nicholas Paulter, Group Leader for the Security Technologies Group at NIST and a co-author of the study.

    he FBI, CIA, military and manufacturers will all be interested in this project, he added.

    Along with Jain and Paulter, the study was co-authored by Sunpreet Arora, MSU doctoral student.

  • Too used to using your phone while driving? This app will keep you safe

    Too used to using your phone while driving? This app will keep you safe

    Talking on the phone while driving is not only distracting, it can also prove to be incredibly dangerous. This is a fact that almost everyone of us is fully aware of. But still, there are times we just can’t stop ourselves from answering that call or each one of us is well rehearsed with this rule. But nevertheless, there are times when we can’t stop ourselves from answering a phone call while driving.

    There can be many reasons for this. Maybe we are expecting an important call, or maybe there is someone calling repeatedly so it would be inappropriate to avoid the call.

    Whatever the reason maybe, it still doesn’t make mixing driving and talking any less dangerous. It increases the risk of accidents many folds. Scores of people lose their lives in road accidents each year and many more are seriously injured. Not surprisingly, many of these accidents are linked to mobile usage in one way or another.

    With the growing number of accidents caused by it, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that talking while driving is as hazardous as drunk drinking. But most of us ignore or forget this. So if you must talk on your smartphone while driving (despite being aware of the risks), we recommend using an app that you should use to ensure road safety. It’s called Kruzr.

    Currently in beta testing mode, Kruzr is an Android app that acts like a sieve for phone calls. In other words, it only lets very important calls reach you while you are driving. Here’s how Kruzr works. Each time you start driving, the app starts to work on its own (provided you’ve turned on GPS functionality). When you receive a call, Kruzr answers it on your behalf. It then instructs the caller that they can press 1 to proceed (if they think that the call is important), or press 2 to leave a voice message.

  • FACEBOOK LAUNCHES REVAMPED SAFETY CENTRE TO TACKLE BULLYING

    FACEBOOK LAUNCHES REVAMPED SAFETY CENTRE TO TACKLE BULLYING

    Social network company Facebook on Monday launched its revamped safety centre to help users tackle issues of online bullying, hacking and other cyber frauds.

    “We believe safety is a conversation and a shared responsibility among all of us. That’s why we provide the information, tools and resources you’ll find here,” a post on the revamped safety centre, called Family Center, reads.

    Facebook, which has an active user base of 155 million in India, also said that the Safety Center will be available in over 50 languages including Hindi and can be accessed via a smartphone, desktop or tablet.

    “The Facebook Safety Center includes easy to follow videos to help people understand the tools we offer to control their experience on Facebook, as well as numerous tips and resources for safe and secure sharing,” Facebook said in a statement adding that the update “also makes available Facebook’s Bullying Prevention Hub to everyone across the world. The Hub is a resource for teens, parents and educators seeking guidance on how to prevent and address bullying”.

    The Prevention Hub was developed with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence in 2013 and Facebook says that it is already working with nearly 60 partners around the world.

    Facebook claims that the website has lot more details to keep your account safe but here are some tips that Facebook suggests to keep your social media account safe:

    Lock down your login

    Login approvals (or two-step verification) are the best and easiest way to keep your Facebook account from getting hacked. When you log in from a new computer, phone, or web browser, you’ll enter a code that you get on your phone to help make sure it’s really you.

    How to do it? To turn on login approvals, go to “More” and tap “Settings.” From there, select Security Settings, and check the box next to “Login Approvals.”

    Let us know when you see something that shouldn’t be on Facebook

    If you see something abusive or harmful that you think should not be on Facebook, you can report it to us by clicking the report link (typically an upside down arrow in the top right of a post). Our global team works 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to review things that you report and remove anything that violates our community standards. We don’t include any information about the person who filed the report when we reach out to the person who posted it. If you’ve reported something, you have the option to check the status of your report from your Support Inbox. Keep in mind that only you can see your Support Inbox.

    Understand who you’re sharing with

    Whenever you update your status, share photos or post anything on Facebook, you can select who sees what you share by using the Audience Selector tool. You can choose to share with everyone, just your friends or even a customized audience. When you create a customized audience, you can selectively share with, or hide something from, specific people. You also can change the audience for a post after you’ve shared it. To change the audience for something you’ve posted, tap the top right of the post to edit the post’s privacy setting and select a new audience. Remember, when you post something on another person’s profile, that person controls who can view the post. Additionally, anyone who gets tagged in a post may see it, along with their friends.

    Check who can tag you in posts

    When it comes to tagging, you can review the content you’re tagged in on Facebook. Tag review lets you approve or dismiss tags that your friends may add to your posts. When you turn this option on, a tag that someone else adds to your post will not appear until you approve it. We also offer timeline review. Timeline review lets you choose whether posts you’re tagged in appear on your Timeline. When you turn this option on, posts you’re tagged in will not appear on your Timeline until you approve them.To turn on tag review or timeline review, tap the icon with three lines, and then tap Settings, then Account Settings and select Timeline and Tagging. From here you can manage everything from tags people add, to who can add and see things on your timeline – putting you in control of who you connect with and how you connect with them. Source: HT

  • PARALYSED MAN FEELS THROUGH ROBOTIC FINGERS IN WORLD-FIRST BREAKTHROUGH

    PARALYSED MAN FEELS THROUGH ROBOTIC FINGERS IN WORLD-FIRST BREAKTHROUGH

    A 28-year-old man left paralysed after a car accident has been able to feel as though he was touching something with his fingers after a robotic arm was connected directly to his brain in a world-first breakthrough.

    Nathan Copeland, who was injured after crashing his car on a rainy night in Pennsylvania when he was just 18, spoke of experiencing a “really weird sensation” as he touches things. He said it felt like “my fingers” were being touched or pushed.

    Copeland is able to feel using the robotic arm because it is connected to microelectrodes about half the size of a shirt button that were surgically implanted in his brain. Before the operation, imaging techniques were used to identify the exact places that corresponded to feelings in his fingers and palm. The discovery that people can regain some sensations using a so-called ‘computer-brain interface’ could revolutionise the treatment of paralysis.

    Earlier this year the Walk Again Project in Brazil discovered people left paralysed by severe spinal cord injuries could recover the ability to move their legs after training in an exoskeleton linked to their brain.

    That project was designed to enable people to walk by controlling the exoskeleton with their minds, but one of the subjects was able to walk again using crutches. Professor Robert Gaunt, of Pittsburgh University, who led the team that treated Mr Copeland, said they were trying to make use of the brain’s natural abilities. “The ultimate goal is to create a system which moves and feels just like a natural arm would,” he said. “We have a long way to go to get there, but this is a great start.”

    His colleague, Professor Andrew Schwatz, said the most important finding was that the system could create a “natural sensation”. But he added: “There is still a lot of research that needs to be carried out to better understand the stimulation patterns needed to help patients make better movements.” When his accident happened, Mr Copeland was in his first year of college studying for a degree in nanofabrication. He tried to continue his studies, but his health problems forced him to put them on hold.

    One of the first things he did after he was injured was to enrol on the Pitt School of Medicine’s registry of patients willing to participate in clinical trials. Ten years later, that led him to have the operation to fit the implants in his brain and rediscover what it is like to reach out and touch things. “I can feel just about every finger — it’s a really weird sensation,” he said, speaking a month after the operation. “Sometimes it feels electrical and sometimes it’s pressure, but for the most part, I can tell most of the fingers with definite precision. It feels like my fingers are getting touched or pushed.”

    In a video interview, Mr Copeland, who can move his upper arms, but has no sensation or movement in his lower arms and hands, added: “I usually feel it in the base of my fingers, in my finger pads, usually a tingle or some pressure like someone was squeezing. A couple of electrodes feel like they are on my knuckles … there are a couple of electrodes that feel like a regular touch. It’s never been painful. It’s just kind of a tingle, it’s not really pleasant or unpleasant.” While he can feel pressure through the fingers and gauge how strong it is to an extent, he is unable to tell whether something is hot or cold. In tests, Mr Copeland was able to tell which of the robotic hand’s fingers were being touched despite being blindfolded. A sense of touch is one of the key things currently missing in robotic devices. This is particularly important for picking something up —something heavy and solid like a brick requires a different approach to the delicate pressure control needed when handling a slice of cake, for example.

  • CTO Zorawar Biri Singh leaves As Internal Exodus Continues at Cisco

    CTO Zorawar Biri Singh leaves As Internal Exodus Continues at Cisco

    In another high level exit at Cisco, Indian American Zorawar Biri Singh is the latest to leave the networking giant in the midst of an internal exodus or restructuring.

    In addition to being CTO, Singh was the senior vice president of cloud services and platforms — a crucial role, given that Cisco, like most vendors, considers the cloud crucial to its future success.

    Unlike other departing executives, such as Senior Vice President Rob Soderbery, Singh was not part of Cisco’s old guard under former CEO John Chambers.

    He and Chief Digital Officer Kevin Brandy arrived in mid-2015, hired from the outside by incoming CEO Chuck Robbins.

    Since the beginning of this year, a few highly visible executives have announced their departures from Cisco. The list includes Soderbery, who ran Cisco’s enterprise business; Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president of the service provider business; and Pankaj Patel, chief development officer.

    In addition, the quartet of Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero, and Soni Jiandani have also resigned. They were responsible for three successful spin-ins, including Insieme, the startup that developed Cisco’s Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI).

    In August, Cisco announced layoffs of 5,500, part of a plan to shift priorities to areas such as security, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the cloud.

    Cisco confirmed to CRN that Singh, Cisco’s CTO and senior vice president of Cloud Services and Platforms, is leaving due to the company’s evolving engineering strategy.

    “Earlier this week, we announced to employees an updated alignment of our engineering teams. We believe these changes will help us simplify our development efforts and accelerate delivery of value for our customers. As a result of these changes, Zorawar Biri Singh will leave Cisco at the end of October,” a Cisco spokesperson wrote to CRN in an emailed statement.

  • NEW MATERIAL TO MAKE COMPUTERS 100 TIMES MORE POWER EFFICIENT

    NEW MATERIAL TO MAKE COMPUTERS 100 TIMES MORE POWER EFFICIENT

    NEW YORK (TIP): Researchers including one of Indian-origin have engineered a material that could lead to a new generation of computing devices, packing in more computing power while consuming nearly 100 times less energy thant today’s electronics require.

    “Electronics are the fastest-growing consumer of energy worldwide,” said one of the study authors, Ramamoorthy Ramesh from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US.

    “Today, about five per cent of our total global energy consumption is spent on electronics, and that’s projected to grow to 40-50 percent by 2030 if we continue at the current pace and if there are no major advances in the field that lead to lower energy consumption,” Ramesh said.

    Known as a magnetoelectric multiferroic material, it combines electrical and magnetic properties at room temperature and relies on a phenomenon called “planar rumpling.”

    The new material sandwiches together individual layers of atoms, producing a thin film with magnetic polarity that can be flipped from positive to negative or vice versa with small pulses of electricity.

    In the future, device-makers could use this property to store the binary digits that underpin computing devices.

    “Before this work, there was only one other room-temperature multiferroic whose magnetic properties could be controlled by electricity,” said John Heron, Assistant Professor at University of Michigan who worked on the material with researchers at Cornell University.

    “That electrical control is what excites electronics makers, so this is a huge step forward,” Heron noted.

    Room-temperature multiferroics are a hotly pursued goal in the electronics field because they require much less power to read and write data than today’s semiconductor-based devices.

    In addition, their data doesn’t vanish when the power is shut off. Those properties could enable devices that require only brief pulses of electricity instead of the constant stream that’s needed for current electronics, using an estimated 100 times less energy.