Category: Tech

The Government of India on August 4 deferred the implementation of the import restriction order on laptops, computers and tablets by about three months, till October 31. The move now gives more time to electronic companies to import these devices without a licence.

On August 3, the Centre put the import of these devices under a licence regime with immediate effect, leading to complaints from industry on the notification. With the latest order, the companies now would need to take a licence from the government to import these devices from November 1.

In its order, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) added that a “liberal transitional arrangement is provided for import of laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers, ultra-small form factor computers and servers … till October 31, 2023.”

The Centre had imposed the restrictions for security reasons and to promote domestic manufacturing. It will curtail in-bound shipments of these goods from countries like China and Korea. It will also allow the government to keep a close watch on the locations from where the products are coming.

The decision will also spur domestic manufacturing. Under the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI 2.0) IT hardware scheme, 44 companies have already been registered and two companies have filed their applications on the scheme portal by July 31. The companies can submit applications till August 30.

Researchers and surgeons at Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Northwell Health, have successfully implanted a microchip that was developed with artificial intelligence algorithms to re-link a paralysed man’s body and spinal cord, to help him move and feel again.

The patient, Keith Thomas, 45, has, thus, become the first human to have the microchip successfully implanted. The native of Massapequa, New York suffered a spine injury after a diving accident in July 2020 that left him paralysed from the chest down and unable to feel. In March 2023, he was implanted the microchip at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, in a 15-hour-long surgery.  He can now move his arm simply by thinking about it and can feel the touch of a hand for the first time in three years.

The breakthrough happened with an innovative “double neural bypass” procedure, wherein surgeons first implanted microchips in Thomas’ brain in the regions that control movement and touch sensation in the hand. The chip interfaces with AI algorithms that “re-link his brain to his body and spinal cord” interpreting Thomas’ thoughts and translating them into actions.

As the patient has more than doubled his arm strength within just four months of receiving the implants, researchers believe that repeated use of the bypass could promote lasting natural recovery over time. The brain, body and spinal cord may be able to relearn forgotten communication pathways.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has introduced Rajmargyatra, a unified mobile application to provide comprehensive information and efficient complaint redressal for national highway users.

The user-friendly app is available for download on both Google Play Store and iOS App Store. It is currently available in Hindi and English. The app offers real-time weather conditions, timely broadcast notifications, and details about nearby toll plazas, petrol pumps, hospitals, hotels, and other essential services, ensuring a seamless and safe journey on National Highways.

Users can report highway-related issues and attach geo-tagged videos or photos for clarity. The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways said that complaints will be handled promptly, with system-generated escalations to higher authorities in case of delays. Users can track the status of their grievances for transparency.

Rajmargyatra also integrates FASTag services, allowing users to recharge their FASTags, avail monthly passes, and access other related banking services within the app. The app also sends over-speeding notifications and offers voice-assistance to promote responsible and safe driving behaviour.

With the app, NHAI aims to provide a user-friendly experience for highway travellers, ensuring safety and convenience while fostering a more efficient road network for all.

India’s third moon mission spacecraft, Chandrayaan-3, is now one step closer to a lunar landing, as it successfully entered the moon’s orbit on August 5. The Indian space agency released the first images of the moon taken by the spacecraft on Saturday. The images show craters on the lunar surface getting larger and larger as the spacecraft draws closer.

In a tweet on X, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that a retro-burning at the Perilune was commanded from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX), at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru.  ISRO reported that all systems are healthy.

The development marks the completion of a critical manoeuvre, Lunar Orbit Injection. It would now fire its onboard engines to slow itself down and get captured into lunar orbit, and begin to circle the moon in a highly-elliptical orbit.

On July 31, the spacecraft performed Trans-Lunar injection (TLI), a long-duration firing of its engines, beginning a journey that pushed it out of Earth’s gravitational influence and towards lunar gravitational influence. During the first weeks of August, it is set to complete five to six orbits around the moon before a precise landing site on the moon’s South Pole area is determined.

Singapore-headquartered global investment firm Temasek has executed a binding agreement to invest Rs 1,200 crore in Mahindra Electric Automobile Ltd (MEAL), the four-wheeler (4W) passenger electric vehicles company.

Temasek will invest the amount in the form of Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) at a valuation of up to Rs 80,580 crore, resulting in its ownership of a 1.49-2.97% stake in MEAL.

MEAL also has British International Investments (BII) as an investor. With the new investment, Mahindra’s EV subsidiary’s valuation has gone up by 15% from up to Rs.70,070 crore to Rs. 80,580 crore.

In a statement, MEAL said that Temasek is globally known for their strong governance, and its investment is a crucial step in the vehicle company’s strategy towards future leadership in electric SUVs. With Temasek as an investor, MEAL has strengthened its global strategic partnerships and is now targeting 20% to 30% of Mahindra SUVs sales from electric vehicles by 2027.

Founded in 1945, the Mahindra Group is one of the largest multinational companies with 2,60,000 employees in over 100 countries.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Survey of India (SoI) are clamping down on apps hosted on app stores such as Google Play Store that have been depicting the Indian map incorrectly.

The SoI issued a notice to Google in June, stating that the app World Map Quiz, hosted on the Play Store, depicted the territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh wrongly. The app, developed by Qbis Studio, has gathered over 5 million downloads on the Play Store.

India’s Information Technology Act and the IT Rules prohibit publishers of content from hosting any content that is illegal under any law in any jurisdiction. According to the notice sent under Sec 79 (3) (b) of the IT Act, the incorrect depiction of India’s boundary jeopardises the sovereignty and Integrity of the country. The SoI also informed Google that showing an incorrect map of India is an offence under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1990.

SoI has also issued notice to Google about MA 2 – President Simulator, a game on the Play Store that also depicted the maps of J&K and Ladakh incorrectly.

National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval has said that the gravity of cyber risks will increase exponentially with the advent of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data and Internet of Things. Speaking at the ‘Friends of BRICS’ meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa on July 24, the NSA highlighted the need for collective efforts to deal with challenges emerging from cybersecurity.

“The Global South in particular needs to overcome limitations of resources. In this regard, India will always remain at the forefront and work closely with the Global South,” he said.

In the ‘Friends of BRICS’ meeting, the issue of cybersecurity was discussed at length. In addition to BRICS, the Friends of BRICS countries – Belarus, Burundi, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kazakhstan and Cuba – participated in the discussions.

Doval underlined the connection between cyber criminals and terrorists, including the use of cyber space for financing, money laundering, radicalising, lone wolf attacks, recruitment, and secured communications. He said that the younger population was particularly vulnerable to the spread of extremist ideologies via social media websites, as they are technology savvy and have impressionable minds.

The NSA also held several bilateral meetings with his counterparts from BRICS and Friends of BRICS countries.

Tech major and Facebook’s parent company Meta has signed an initial pact with the Indian government to partner on artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies. The association came amid a visit by Nick Clegg, President, Global Affairs, Meta and Former British Deputy Prime Minister, to India.

The objective of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is to establish a framework for collaboration and cooperation between ‘India AI’, the country’s official programme to promote the development of the technology, and make Meta’s open-source AI models available for use by the Indian AI ecosystem.

India had taken over as the chair of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) 2023. The GPAI is a multi-stakeholder initiative, which aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice on AI by supporting cutting-edge research and applied activities on AI-related priorities. In a press statement on July 26, the Government said that India’s official AI programme and Meta may also consider establishing a Centre of Excellence to nurture the AI start-up ecosystem.

“Leveraging Meta’s AI research models like LlaMA, Massively Multilingual Speech, and No Language Left Behind, the partnership will focus on building datasets in Indian Languages to enable translation and large language models, with priority given to low-resource languages,” the official statement said. “This effort will foster social inclusion, improve government service delivery, and spur innovation using large language models, Generative AI, cognitive systems, and translation models,” it added.

Genes required for learning, memory, aggression and other complex behaviours originated around 650 million years ago, says a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

The researchers from the University of Leicester, UK, said that monoamines such as serotonin, dopamine and adrenaline that act as neurotransmitters in the nervous system play a role in complex behaviour and functions such as learning and memory, and processes such as sleep and feeding.

The researchers reconstructed the evolutionary history of these genes using computational methods, and showed that most of the genes involved in monoamine production, modulation, and reception originated in the bilaterian stem group.

Bilaterians are a group of animals with bilateral symmetry as an embryo, i.e. with a left and a right side that are mirror images of each other. This discovery suggests that the monoaminergic system evolved to the Cryogenian/Ediacaran boundary, about 650-600 million years ago.

The researchers suggest that this new way to modulate neuronal circuits might have played a role in the Cambrian Explosion known as the Big Bang, which gave rise to the largest diversification of life for most major living animal groups today by providing flexibility of the neural circuits to facilitate the interaction with the environment.

The discovery will open new research avenues to help clarify the origin of complex behaviours, and if the same neurons modulate reward, addiction, aggression, feeding, and sleep, the researchers added.

India’s third lunar exploration mission, Chandrayaan-3 will leave imprints of India’s State Emblem – an adaptation of Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath – and the ISRO logo on the Moon’s surface. The imprints will be left behind by the rover’s rear wheels, said the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in a video.

Launched on July 14, Chandrayaan-3 is on its 40-day journey towards the Moon. The mission comes after Chandrayaan-2 mission, which failed to soft land on the lunar surface about four years ago in September 2019.

The prime objectives of the new lunar mission are to exhibit end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. The spacecraft is expected to touch down on the Moon’s south pole region on August 23. It consists of a six-wheeled lander and rover module, configured with payloads to provide data related to the Moon’s surface.

The rear wheels of the rover, named Pragyan, will leave the national imprints on the lunar surface – symbolising its presence and leaving India’s mark behind. Considering the Moon is geologically dead and has no atmospheric processes, the imprints can be expected to last for millions of years. Pragyan will navigate the lunar surface for at least an entire lunar day, which is around 14 days on Earth.