Category: Tech

E-commerce giant Amazon will invest up to $4 billion in artificial intelligence company Anthropic and take a minority ownership position in the company to fuel generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Anthropic was founded about two years ago by former OpenAI research executives, and recently launched its new AI chatbot, Claude 2.

The two companies on September 25 said that they are forming a strategic collaboration to advance generative AI, with the start-up selecting Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its primary cloud provider. Anthropic said it will provide AWS customers with early access to unique features for model customisation and fine-tuning capabilities.

Anthropic will also use custom AWS-designed semiconductors to train the foundational models that underpin its AI applications. Foundation models are large AI programs trained on vast amounts of data so that they can be adapted to solve a wide range of tasks.

AWS customers will be able to build on Anthropic’s AI models via Amazon Bedrock — a service that lets customers build generative AI applications in the cloud via existing models, rather than train their own models.

Amazon is looking to position itself as the one-stop shop for AI. The e-commerce giant designs its own chips for training huge AI models. Through Amazon Bedrock, customers can also design their own generative AI applications using existing models, which are all run on the Amazon cloud. The company sells its own AI applications too.

In the next four to five years, iPhone maker Apple plans to scale up production in India by over five-fold to around $40 billion (about Rs. 3.32 lakh crore), according to a news report citing government sources. The company crossed the $7 billion production mark in the last financial year, the report added.

The US company also plans to start manufacturing Airpods from next year, but has no immediate plans to make iPads or laptops in India. The focus is to scale up existing production levels. It does not have any plans to participate in IT hardware PLI as of now, the official added.

On September 22, iPhone 15 series, including iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max hit the stores in India and other countries. For the first time, the company made the India-built iPhone 15 models available in the country and other parts of the world on the global sales debut day.

In the financial year ended on 25 September 2022, Apple globally sold iPhones worth $191 billion and products worth $38.36 billion in the wearable, home, and accessories segment.

The company recorded about a 4% dip in iPhone sales at $156.77 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal and a slight decline in the wearable, home, and accessories segment at $30.52 billion.

Apple has even become the largest exporter of mobile phones from India. Industry sources claimed the sales of Apple’s iPhone 15 series registered a 100% growth compared to that of the iPhone 14 series on the launch day.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to significantly impact labour markets by enhancing creativity and automating routine tasks for future jobs, said a white paper released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on September 18. Jobs most at risk of disruption are those that involve routine and repetitive language tasks, while jobs with a high degree of personal interaction or physical movement will be least affected, it added.

The WEF has called on businesses and governments to take proactive steps to prepare for the effects of AI in the workforce, encouraging the creation of an adaptable workforce and systems that facilitate job transitions.

The white paper found that Large Language Models (LLMs) could be a boon for jobs that require critical thinking, complex problem-solving skills and creativity, including those in engineering, mathematics and scientific analysis. LLMs are deep learning algorithms that can perform a variety of natural language processing tasks.

The WEF analysis examined more than 19,000 distinct tasks across 867 different occupations that are likely to be impacted by LLMs. It found that the industries with the highest estimates of overall potential exposure both in automation and augmentation are financial services and capital markets, along with insurance and pension management.

A trial of a preventive HIV vaccine candidate has begun enrollment in the United States and South Africa. The Phase 1 trial will evaluate a novel vaccine known as VIR-1388 for its safety and ability to induce an HIV-specific immune response in people.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has provided scientific and financial support throughout the lifecycle of this HIV vaccine concept and is contributing funding for this study.

VIR-1388 is designed to instruct the immune system to produce T cells that can recognise HIV and signal an immune response to prevent the virus from establishing chronic infection. It uses a cytomegalovirus (CMV) vector, meaning a weakened version of CMV delivers the HIV vaccine material to the immune system without causing disease in the study participants.

CMV has been present in much of the global population for centuries. Most people living with CMV experience no symptoms and are unaware that they are living with the virus. CMV remains detectable in the body for life, which suggests it has the potential to deliver and then safely help the body retain HIV vaccine material for a long period, potentially overcoming the waning immunity observed with more short-lived vaccine vectors.

NIAID has funded the discovery and development of the CMV vaccine vector since 2004 and is funding this trial with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Vir Biotechnology, based in San Francisco. The trial is sponsored by Vir and conducted through the NIAID-funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) as study HVTN 142.

HVTN 142 is taking place at six sites in the United States and four in South Africa, and will enroll 95 HIV-negative participants.

High-Energy electrons from planet Earth might be forming water on its satellite Moon, according to a study based on data collected by the successful Chandrayaan-3’s predecessor Chandrayaan-1 published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The team led by researchers from the University of Hawai’i (UH) at Manoa in the US discovered that these electrons in Earth’s plasma sheet are contributing to weathering processes — breaking down or dissolving of rocks and minerals — on the Moon’s surface.

Knowing the concentrations and distributions of water on the Moon is critical to understanding its formation and evolution, and to providing water resources for future human exploration, the researchers said.

The new finding may also help explain the origin of the water ice previously discovered in the permanently shaded regions of the Moon, they said.

Chandrayaan-1 played a crucial role in the discovery of water molecules on the Moon. The mission was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in October 2008, and operated until August 2009. The mission included an orbiter and an impactor.

The scientists analysed the remote sensing data that were collected by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument, an imaging spectrometer, onboard India’s Chandrayaan 1 mission between 2008 and 2009.

Gas Recovery and Recycle Limited (GR2L), a small cleantech firm in south-east England, has secured a GBP 4 million order to supply its technology to a projected 2-gigawatt solar facility in Mundra, Gujarat.

An micro small and medium enterprise (MSME) business in Surrey, GR2L claims to have developed, patented and exported cutting-edge technology to reduce the energy consumption, carbon footprint and cost of manufacturing solar panels. The MSME was backed by UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK government’s export credit agency, with a GBP 4,75,000 guarantee issued under its Bond Support Scheme that helped secure the Indian order.

Solar panel manufacturers use argon gas to purify silicon crystals, which are then used in solar cells. This process requires vast amounts of argon, with some producers needing to ship in multiple tankers of the gas each day.

GR2L’s Argon machinery claims to be a world first which allows solar cell production and other advanced manufacturing activities such as microelectronics production, 3D metals printing and aerospace heat treatments instead to recycle up to 95% of argon used.

GR2L had an opportunity to supply its argon recycling technology to Mundra Solar Technology Ltd. to support a solar facility being built in the town.

A team of students from Swiss universities has set a new record for the fastest acceleration from 0 to 100 kmph in an electric vehicle (EV), with Mythen. The fully hand-built electric race car – named Mythen after a mountain in the Schwyzer Alps of Central Switzerland – achieved the feat in just 0.956 seconds, beating the previous record by over one-third.

A team of students from the Academic Motorsports Club Zürich, Swiss universities ETH Zürich, and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, has made this record. Their EV has beaten the previous record, set by the German Greenteam, comprising 20 German students, of 1.461 seconds.

Mythen has four hub-mounted electric motors, churning out 326 horsepower. The one-of-a-kind racecar weighs just 140 kilograms. The remarkable milestone of accelerating from a complete standstill to 100 kmph in only 0.956 seconds was accomplished on an airbase strip in Dubendorf, Switzerland. The vehicle covered the 0-100 kmph sprint in just 12.3 meters.

The record has been officially affiliated by the Guinness World Records. A behind-the-scenes video of this mind-bending record was shared on YouTube by ETH Zurich. 

The recently launched iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models will support India’s indigenous navigation system, NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation), Apple has said in a statement. It is the first time the US tech giant has introduced NavIC support to any of its iPhone models.

However, the standard iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus variants do not support NavIC, according to the official tech specifications. Apple has not confirmed which specific features will be included in this integration.

Developed by ISRO, NavIC – an alternative to the Global Positioning System (GPS) – became operational in India in 2018. The standalone navigation satellite system provides accurate position and timing information over India and surrounding regions.

NavIC is designed with a constellation of 7 satellites and a network of ground stations. Its applications include transportation (terrestrial, aerial and marine), location-based services, personal mobility, resource monitoring, surveying and geodesy, scientific research, time dissemination and synchronisation and safety-of-life alert dissemination.

India aims to expand NavIC coverage globally and it wants tech companies to make their devices compatible with the new standard before then.

Apple unveiled its iPhone 15 series globally on September 12 at its “Wonderlust” launch event.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on September 18 announced that its solar exploration mission, Aditya-L1 has commenced collecting scientific data.

The sensors of the Supra Thermal and Energetic Particle Spectrometer (STEPS) instrument, a part of the Aditya Solar Wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) payload, instrument have begun measuring supra-thermal and energetic ions and electrons at distances greater than 50,000 km from Earth, the Indian space agency wrote on X.

The data collected helps scientists analyse the behaviour of particles surrounding Earth. The figure displays variations in the energetic particle environment, collected by one of the units, it added.

The activation of STEPS took place on September 10, at a distance greater than 50,000 km from Earth, equivalent to over eight times the Earth’s radius. After undergoing essential instrument health checks, data collection continued until the spacecraft moved beyond the 50,000 km mark from Earth.

Each unit of STEPS is functioning within normal parameters, and the provided figure displays measurements illustrating variations in the energetic particle environment within Earth’s magnetosphere, captured by one of the units, the statement read.

These measurements will persist throughout the Aditya-L1 mission’s cruise phase, as it progresses towards the Sun-Earth L1 point, providing crucial insights into the origin, acceleration, and anisotropy of solar wind and space weather phenomena.

After several weather-related delays, Japan’s moon lander mission, called SLIM, finally took off on the morning of September 7. Its successful landing would make Japan only the fifth country in the world to touch down safely on the lunar surface, and the first to do it with unusual precision.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) got its nickname, Sniper, from its ability to land within 100 metres of a specific target on the surface. The distance is much less than the usual range of several kilometres.

The H-IIA rocket carrying Slim lifted off from the southern island of Tanegashima carrying the lander; it is expected to touch down on the lunar surface in early 2024. The Slim probe and the XRISM space research satellite developed with the US and European space agencies both separated soon after the launch.

Only the United States, Russia, China and India have successfully landed a probe on the moon. There have been two failed Japanese missions – one public and one private. With the success of the Slim lander, humans will make a qualitative shift towards being able to land on the moon where they want and not just where it is easy to land, said the Japanese space agency, Jaxa. With the precision landing, it will become possible to land on planets even more resource-scarce than the moon, it added.