Category: Tech

Chennai-based space tech start-up, Space Kidz India will launch a satellite made by 750 government school girl students from across the country aboard an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launch vehicle this month.

Space Kidz India selected 10 girl students from 75 government schools across the country for the mission. The selected students are predominantly from class 8 to 12. It is a first of its kind space mission with an ‘all women concept’ to promote women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Moreover, the programme utilises children from impoverished backgrounds, allowing them opportunities that will enable them to explore different skill sets and, perhaps, even aim for careers in space.

In 2022, Space Kidz’s payloads were sent onboard India’s first private rocket to launch into space, Vikram-S, an initiative of Skyroot Aerospace. The payload, FunSAT, consisted of 80 experiments conducted by 160 students from India, the United States, Indonesia and other countries. Space Kidz India has developed basic and simple experiments that students can learn and assemble with the simultaneous support of their science teachers and its team’s online coaching.

Lumina Datamatics has partnered with Space Kidz India for the satellite. The project is also supported by Niti Aayog. Space Kidz intends to begin commercial operations and raise funds next year.

India’s first-ever coal gasification based Talcher fertiliser plant in Odisha will be ready by October 2024.

Union Health and Family Welfare and Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya said this after reviewing the progress of work in the plant in Talcher. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was also present on the occasion.

Dr. Mandaviya said that when operational, the Talcher fertiliser plant will help the country reduce its dependence on urea import. The plant is being built under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat. Five out of four urea plants are already operational. The plant is being constructed at a cost of about Rs. 17,000 crore and will benefit the farmers across the country, besides generating local employment and boosting the region’s economy.

The Coal India Ltd, the Gas Authority of India Ltd, and the National Fertiliser Corporation are supporting the setting up of the Talcher fertiliser plant with the coal gasification technology. The use of coal, which is abundantly available in India, in alternative uses like in the gasification technology to produce urea, will reduce the carbon footprints on the environment.

Dr. Mandaviya also said that this endeavour will be a significant step towards ensuring energy security of the country through harnessing the vast coal reserves of the country in a manner which is more environment friendly than direct fired coal projects.

India’s digital competence will grow in 2023 and over the next five years, driven by technology, start-ups, semiconductors, electronics and computing, said Union Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Allaying any concerns over tech winter, the minister predicted spring for the country’s booming innovation ecosystem.

“India as a market for consuming digital products and digital services is one of the biggest markets,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, adding that opportunities for digitisation continue to be “very strong”. He exuded confidence that India’s trillion dollar digital economy vision is “well within our grasp” and “an absolutely incontrovertible fact”. The momentum of the digital economy will continue in 2023, backed by enabling rules and laws that offer a catalysing framework for technological growth and innovation, he assured.

Demand for Indian talent, as well as products and technology that are designed in India and Made in India continues to be robust, Rajeev Chandrasekhar pointed out. Innovation and the start-up momentum will continue despite certain corrections now and then. He added that companies cannot relax, but must upskill and brace new business models to be relevant amid market disruptions. Companies that do not innovate fast, or adjust to changes will face challenges “created not by the market, but related to their own preparedness for this digital opportunity,” he cautioned.

Around 75-80% of the new smartphone launches in India by 2023-end will be 5G-enabled, said Pankaj Mohindroo, Chairman, India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA).

“India as a nation is an early adopter of 5G technology,” Mohindroo said. “[5G] has opened a vast opportunity for a new generation of telecom equipment manufacturers, application providers…among others,” he added.

The mobile device ecosystem was an early starter for manufacturing 5G phones. Even before the launch of 5G services, approximately 80-100 million 5G-compatible phones were already in the market. By the end of 2023, 75-80% of the new smartphone launches will be 5G-enabled, he projected.

The 5G services were launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 1. Telecom service providers have launched the service in select cities and plan to cover the entire nation by the end of 2023 or early 2024. The technology will represent around 53% of mobile subscriptions in India by 2028, with 690 million users, according to Ericsson Mobility Report. The 5G subscriptions in India were expected to reach around 31 million by the end of 2022.

The ICEA Chairman also said that the Indian semiconductor market, which was $15 billion in 2020, is expected to reach $63 billion by 2023 at 30% CAGR.

A solar-powered electric car built by students at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia, has made it to the Guinness World Record for covering 1,000 km on a single charge in 11 hours 52.08 minutes.

The car, named Sunswift 7, weighs 500 kg, about a quarter size of a Tesla. The student-produced car achieved the feat at the Australian Automotive Research Center in Wensleydale, Victoria. The Sunswift 7 set the new record after circling the facility’s test track 240 times in a hair over 11 hours and 52 minutes. The car travelled at an average speed of 52.8 mph. A few days later, Guinness certified the vehicle the “Fastest EV over 1000km on a single charge” after studying and confirming the timing and telemetry data.

Aerodynamics and efficiency helped Sunswift achieve its record. The car, which was developed over the course of two years, has a drag coefficient of 0.095 — even lower than that of the Mercedes-Benz EQXX concept (0.17). The vehicle is efficient, consuming only 3.8 kWh of energy per 100 km (about 62 miles). Most EVs of today consume between 15 and 20 kWh of energy over the same distance.

Students at UNSW have been working on solar-electric vehicles since 1996, says the university. Sunswift 7 will now participate in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, a 1,864-mile race through the Australian outback on 20-27 October 2023.

Shree K. Nayar, the T. C. Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia Engineering, has been awarded the prestigious Okawa Prize from Japan’s Okawa Foundation for his decisive work on computer vision and computational imaging.

Nayar, who directs Columbia’s Computational Imaging and Vision Laboratory, is being recognised for “the invention of innovative imaging techniques and their widespread use in digital photography and computer vision.” The Computer Science Professor will receive the prize at a ceremony in Tokyo, Japan, in March 2023.

The Okawa Prize “is intended to pay tribute to and make public recognition of persons who have made outstanding contributions to the research, technological development, and business in the information and telecommunications fields, internationally.” Since 1996, the prize is given each year to one Japanese and one international researcher. The Japanese recipient of the 2022 prize is Dr. Chieko Asakawa, an IBM Fellow who is being recognised for her work on accessibility.

Nayar’s work has changed the way visual information is captured and used by machines and humans. In the mid-1990s, he pioneered the field of computational imaging, which combines unconventional optics with advanced image processing algorithms to produce immersive and interactive visual information. Based on this model, Nayar and his collaborators developed novel cameras for omni-directional imaging, depth imaging, giga-pixel imaging, and high-dynamic-range imaging.

Bharti Airtel and Apollo Hospitals have carried out India’s first 5G-driven, artificial intelligence (AI) guided colonoscopy trial in collaboration with HealthNet Global, AWS and Avesha. The trial was conducted using AI on Airtel’s 5G technology and led to faster and accurate detection of colon cancer.

The successful AI-assisted colonoscopy polyp detection trial will now help doctors to improve quality of patient care, improve accuracy of detection rates by capturing information correctly, and reducing errors. Technologies like 5G, edge computing and artificial intelligence can significantly improve patient outcomes by assisting in proper and timely diagnoses, Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

Colon cancer is currently detected through colonoscopy procedure, which is manual and requires great attention and time from medical practitioners for accurate detection. The procedure is not only long—with 30 to 40 minutes taken per case—but also discomforting for patients, and for the doctors and nurses. The procedure is being advised for all men and women above 45 years of age for early detection and prevention of cancers. Early detection and removal of polyps can easily avoid them from becoming cancerous.

IIT Madras Professor Thalappil Pradeep has bagged the VinFuture Special Prize for Innovators from Developing Countries for his development of a low-cost filtration system, which can remove arsenic and other heavy metals from groundwater, in Vietnam on December 20, 2022.

Attracting 970 nominations from over 70 countries across six continents, the four most outstanding scientific works, aligned with this season’s theme of “Reviving and Reshaping”, were chosen as the winners. The winners include the breakthroughs that have made global network technology a reality, 3D protein structure prediction using AI system AlphaFold 2, isolation of the Sub1A gene that facilitated the development of submergence tolerant rice, and a low-cost filtration system to remove arsenic and other heavy metals from groundwater. World Wide Web inventor, Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, was among the winners of the VinFuture Grand Prize.

Professor T Pradeep has discovered affordable and sustainable nanomaterials which could be used to produce clean water. The arsenic and other materials removed by these materials do not cause impact on the surrounding environment. This method, employing simple designs, provides a means to purify groundwater at a very low cost to reach millions of impacted households. In remote areas, this technology is even more advantageous because it does not require electricity.

The Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) have started providing 5G services in the country and a total of 20,980 base stations services were installed in 14 states and union territories till November 26, 2022, Minister of State for Communications Devusingh Chauhan told the Parliament.

In a written reply to a question on 5G towers, the minister said the TSPs are installing approximately 2,500 base stations per week on average. The highest number of 5G base stations have been installed in Delhi at 5,829 (938 Airtel, 4,891 Reliance Jio), followed by Maharashtra with 4,051 base stations already set up. The minister said the rollout obligations are required to be met over a period of five years, in a phased manner, from the date of allocation of the spectrum.

The TSPs have started providing 5G services in the country from October 1, 2022, onwards. The providers are presently providing the services to their subscribers, with 5G enabled devices, at no extra cost.

The minister said that the government has taken a number of policy initiatives to speed up the 5G capacity installation. The steps include the availability of additional spectrum for mobile services and permission for spectrum sharing, trading, leasing and surrender as per the current Notice Inviting Applications terms and conditions and guidelines, among others.

The Geneva-based European Organisation for Nuclear Research, Cern, has expressed hopes that Singapore could become its partner one day, helping it tap the minds of top scientists.

Professor Emmanuel Tsesmelis, Head of Associate Member and Non-Member State Relations at Cern, in an interview said this citing the strong physics, engineering and computing departments of eminent Singapore universities such as NUS (National University of Singapore) and NTU (Nanyang Technological University).

Cern has formal partnerships with 80 countries: 23 members finance and decide the centre’s activities, 10 associate members fund and provide personnel to Cern, while 47 partners have signed international cooperation agreements enabling their participation in its programmes. Singapore has yet to ink an official partnership on any level with the centre. In Asia, Cern only has one full member (Israel), and two associate members (India and Pakistan).

The Higgs boson, a subatomic particle supposed to give matter mass, was discovered at Cern in 2012. Cern has seen many other important discoveries such as the World Wide Web, touchscreen, and big data and data analysis techniques. A partnership with Cern helps members access its technologies in sectors such as medicine, industry, electronics and robotics.