If your busy week gave you no time to catch up on your tech readings, don't you worry, we at IndianWeb2 have got you covered.
Here are the top ten things that happened in the tech world this week:
1) Google Creates AI That Can Do Things Which Previously Only Humans Could
Tech giant Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) division, DeepMind, which the company acquired back in 2014, is currently working on a project that can change the course of AI for years to come.
The division, which claims to be on a scientific mission to push the boundaries of AI, developing programs that can learn to solve any complex problem without needing to be taught how, recently shared that they have mastered an AI that can make its own plans.
According to DeepMind, they have successfully created “Imagination-Augmented Agents” that are capable of “imagining” the possible consequences of their actions, and interpret those simulations accordingly. The London-based company claims that these agents can make the right decision for what it is they have set out to achieve.
2) Facebook To Take on Netflix; Launches A New Platform For TV Shows
One of the most admirable things about Facebook is its effort to keep pace with the changing times and trends. Seeing the current generation’s interaction with video content on its platform, Facebook has unveiled Watch, a new platform for shows, which has the potential of giving the likes of Netflix a run for their money.
To be made available in mobile, on desktop and laptop, and in Facebook’s TV applications, the shows on the platform will be made of episodes, which will be either live or recorded. Keeping in line with the busy schedule that most people live nowadays, the tech giant has included a Watchlist feature in the Watch that will ensure that a person never misses out an episode of their favourite show.
3) Microsoft’s Coco Framework To Speed Up Blockchain Adoption
Software giant Microsoft is currently in the midst of developing a technology that has the potential of making blockchain-based systems faster and more private. With this, the company aims to speed up the use of the distributed database software by enterprises all around the world.
According to an official statement issued by Microsoft, they have developed a system called Coco Framework, which will be connecting different blockchain networks in order to solve some of the issues that have been hampering their adoption, including privacy concerns and speed issues.
To be made available by next year, Coco, which stands for Confidential Consortium, is currently compatible with Ethereum and has proven to make it roughly 100 times faster.
4) Indian-Origin 16-Year-Old Girl Invents An AI System To Detect Eye Disease
“Age is just a number.” Proving this saying right is 16-year-old Kavya Kopparapu from India who at this very young change has taken the innovation world by storm by creating a 3D-printed lens that can give a preliminary diagnosis for people with diabetic retinopathy. Kopparapu was encouraged to work on the lens when her own grandfather experienced symptoms of diabetic retinopathy.
Considering lack of diagnosis for the disease and the tiring nature of the current diagnosis exam, Kopparapu, along with her team set on a mission to train an AI system to identify diabetic retinopathy in photos instead. The 3D-printed lens invented by them when fitted onto a smartphone and used with its app, can give a preliminary diagnosis for people with diabetic retinopathy, considerably cutting down the current time it takes for a diagnosis.
5) India Accounts For 43% of Global IoT Market
In what could be considered as a stellar achievement for the Indian tech market, a recent report by research and strategy consultancy Zinnov Zones has highlighted that the Indian subcontinent holds a whopping 43 per cent of the global Internet of Things (IoT) market.
According to the research report, Indian information technology (IT) services companies now own about two-fifth of the global IoT market, which comes out at $1.5 billion of the global $3.5 bn market. The report noted that Bengaluru city was deemed as the top location in India for IoT processes.
After India’s first position with 43 per cent market share, the second position is occupied by Western Europe with 27 per cent and North America with 23 per cent.
The report shared that according to the current dynamics of the Indian IoT market, managed IoT services will be seeing the fastest growth. The report projected the growth to occur at a compounded annual rate (CAGR) of 23.5 per cent, which will translate to a promising Rs 2,036 crore of annual business for Indian companies. The Zinnov Zones report also revealed that with Rs 4,168 crore business in 2017 till now, Product engineering has emerged with largest share of Indian IoT services.
6) Eros in Preliminary Talks With Netflix, Apple and Others to Sell Content Library
Popular Indian movie production house Eros is currently contemplating selling its entire content library of films and music. The production house is currently engrossed in preliminary talks with Apple and other major content distributors for the same, according to a report in Reuters.
The report also revealed that apart from Apple, other parties that are in the race to nab Eros’ film and music library are Amazon and Netflix. The Reuters source revealed that the discussions are private and in very early stages.
The deal is being pegged at a whopping $1 billion, according to a report in the Economic Times. Mumbai-based JM Financial, which is one of India’s prominent financial services groups, specialising in providing a spectrum of businesses to corporations, financial institutions, high net-worth individuals and retail investors, is reportedly advising Eros on the deal.
The flourishing Indian content streaming market has caught the attention of global players in the segment like Amazon and Netflix. Recent years have seen both the players working hard to garner the attention of Indian users by adding Hindi and Bollywood offerings to their content offerings.
7) IBM’s India Team Helps Create A Breakthrough Hacker Proof Encryption Technology
Considered as a breakthrough in security technology, the New York-based technology major IBM recently unveiled its latest Z series mainframe, the z14.
According to the company, in the history of security technology, this is the first time that a system can ‘pervasively encrypt’ every level of a network, right from applications to cloud services and databases and even prevent theft of data.
The best part of IBM’s z14 is that IBM’s Indian hardware and firmware team had a significant role in making the z14 system and microprocessor development a reality.
The latest Z series mainframe had more than 100 engineers from IBM’s India labs working on its key components for both its core and processor. The work diversified in areas of custom circuit design, logic design, verification and tool development. In addition to this, the Indian team also made crucial contributions in building newer virtualisation management capabilities, next-generation input/output enablement and in the base firmware development.
8) Coinbase Becomes First Bitcoin Based ‘Unicorn’ Startup
San Francisco-based Coinbase has recently become the first Bitcoin startup to enter the unicorn startup club after it successfully raised a whopping $100 million at a private valuation of $1.6 billion that includes the capital raised. The investment round saw the participation of Draper Associates, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Section 32 and Spark Capital, and was led by venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners.
Starting its journey in 2012, Coinbase achieved its unicorn status in just five years. During its half a decade journey, the startup which began as a simple Bitcoin wallet service has progressed on and ventured into brokerage space, opening online exchanges where traders can sell or swap crypto coins.
In previous funding rounds, the startup, which claims to have served over 9.2 M customers across 32 countries, had raised $117 million at a private valuation of about $500 million. This figure alone had made Coinbase the third most well financed Bitcoin startup in the world, after Circle and 21. And now, with its latest funding round and achieving the Unicorn startup feat, there’s no stopping Coinbase when it comes to the Bitcoin space.
9) India Completes Draft Proposal for Bitcoin and Digital Currencies
Bitcoin users in India be ready, because there are rules and regulations coming your way pretty soon. According to a recent news report in Cointelegraph, as of early this month, the Indian government has finally completed its draft proposal work on recommendations to regulate the use of cryptocurriencies in the country effectively, a task it has been working on for a few months now.
The intergovernmental panel that was especially formed to work on the task in April this year had already submitted its plan on the matter to the Indian Finance Ministry in the first week of August.
While the contents of the draft proposal are still unknown, previous media reports highlight that some members of the panel have strong inclination towards imposing stricter regulation against the use of the cryptocurrencies in the Indian subcontinent. Others, meanwhile, want the government to come up with some kind of a tax policy for digital currencies.
10) Scientists Successfully Infiltrate Computer Using Malware Coded into DNA
In what might seem unbelievable to many, researchers at the University of Washington have successfully infected a computer with malware coded into a strand of DNA. Set out on a mission to find out if a computer is capable of being compromised in that way, the researchers included a known security vulnerability in a DNA-processing program before creating a synthetic DNA strand with the malicious code embedded. A computer was then tasked with analysing that particular “infected” strand, and the malware in the DNA then successfully exploited the computer.
According to the researchers, their main aim behind carrying out the research was to find out what new computer security risks are possible in the interaction between biomolecular information and the computer systems that analyze it.
Here are the top ten things that happened in the tech world this week:
1) Google Creates AI That Can Do Things Which Previously Only Humans Could
Tech giant Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) division, DeepMind, which the company acquired back in 2014, is currently working on a project that can change the course of AI for years to come.
The division, which claims to be on a scientific mission to push the boundaries of AI, developing programs that can learn to solve any complex problem without needing to be taught how, recently shared that they have mastered an AI that can make its own plans.
According to DeepMind, they have successfully created “Imagination-Augmented Agents” that are capable of “imagining” the possible consequences of their actions, and interpret those simulations accordingly. The London-based company claims that these agents can make the right decision for what it is they have set out to achieve.
2) Facebook To Take on Netflix; Launches A New Platform For TV Shows
One of the most admirable things about Facebook is its effort to keep pace with the changing times and trends. Seeing the current generation’s interaction with video content on its platform, Facebook has unveiled Watch, a new platform for shows, which has the potential of giving the likes of Netflix a run for their money.
To be made available in mobile, on desktop and laptop, and in Facebook’s TV applications, the shows on the platform will be made of episodes, which will be either live or recorded. Keeping in line with the busy schedule that most people live nowadays, the tech giant has included a Watchlist feature in the Watch that will ensure that a person never misses out an episode of their favourite show.
3) Microsoft’s Coco Framework To Speed Up Blockchain Adoption
Software giant Microsoft is currently in the midst of developing a technology that has the potential of making blockchain-based systems faster and more private. With this, the company aims to speed up the use of the distributed database software by enterprises all around the world.
According to an official statement issued by Microsoft, they have developed a system called Coco Framework, which will be connecting different blockchain networks in order to solve some of the issues that have been hampering their adoption, including privacy concerns and speed issues.
To be made available by next year, Coco, which stands for Confidential Consortium, is currently compatible with Ethereum and has proven to make it roughly 100 times faster.
4) Indian-Origin 16-Year-Old Girl Invents An AI System To Detect Eye Disease
“Age is just a number.” Proving this saying right is 16-year-old Kavya Kopparapu from India who at this very young change has taken the innovation world by storm by creating a 3D-printed lens that can give a preliminary diagnosis for people with diabetic retinopathy. Kopparapu was encouraged to work on the lens when her own grandfather experienced symptoms of diabetic retinopathy.
Considering lack of diagnosis for the disease and the tiring nature of the current diagnosis exam, Kopparapu, along with her team set on a mission to train an AI system to identify diabetic retinopathy in photos instead. The 3D-printed lens invented by them when fitted onto a smartphone and used with its app, can give a preliminary diagnosis for people with diabetic retinopathy, considerably cutting down the current time it takes for a diagnosis.
5) India Accounts For 43% of Global IoT Market
In what could be considered as a stellar achievement for the Indian tech market, a recent report by research and strategy consultancy Zinnov Zones has highlighted that the Indian subcontinent holds a whopping 43 per cent of the global Internet of Things (IoT) market.
According to the research report, Indian information technology (IT) services companies now own about two-fifth of the global IoT market, which comes out at $1.5 billion of the global $3.5 bn market. The report noted that Bengaluru city was deemed as the top location in India for IoT processes.
After India’s first position with 43 per cent market share, the second position is occupied by Western Europe with 27 per cent and North America with 23 per cent.
The report shared that according to the current dynamics of the Indian IoT market, managed IoT services will be seeing the fastest growth. The report projected the growth to occur at a compounded annual rate (CAGR) of 23.5 per cent, which will translate to a promising Rs 2,036 crore of annual business for Indian companies. The Zinnov Zones report also revealed that with Rs 4,168 crore business in 2017 till now, Product engineering has emerged with largest share of Indian IoT services.
6) Eros in Preliminary Talks With Netflix, Apple and Others to Sell Content Library
Popular Indian movie production house Eros is currently contemplating selling its entire content library of films and music. The production house is currently engrossed in preliminary talks with Apple and other major content distributors for the same, according to a report in Reuters.
The report also revealed that apart from Apple, other parties that are in the race to nab Eros’ film and music library are Amazon and Netflix. The Reuters source revealed that the discussions are private and in very early stages.
The deal is being pegged at a whopping $1 billion, according to a report in the Economic Times. Mumbai-based JM Financial, which is one of India’s prominent financial services groups, specialising in providing a spectrum of businesses to corporations, financial institutions, high net-worth individuals and retail investors, is reportedly advising Eros on the deal.
The flourishing Indian content streaming market has caught the attention of global players in the segment like Amazon and Netflix. Recent years have seen both the players working hard to garner the attention of Indian users by adding Hindi and Bollywood offerings to their content offerings.
7) IBM’s India Team Helps Create A Breakthrough Hacker Proof Encryption Technology
Considered as a breakthrough in security technology, the New York-based technology major IBM recently unveiled its latest Z series mainframe, the z14.
According to the company, in the history of security technology, this is the first time that a system can ‘pervasively encrypt’ every level of a network, right from applications to cloud services and databases and even prevent theft of data.
The best part of IBM’s z14 is that IBM’s Indian hardware and firmware team had a significant role in making the z14 system and microprocessor development a reality.
The latest Z series mainframe had more than 100 engineers from IBM’s India labs working on its key components for both its core and processor. The work diversified in areas of custom circuit design, logic design, verification and tool development. In addition to this, the Indian team also made crucial contributions in building newer virtualisation management capabilities, next-generation input/output enablement and in the base firmware development.
8) Coinbase Becomes First Bitcoin Based ‘Unicorn’ Startup
San Francisco-based Coinbase has recently become the first Bitcoin startup to enter the unicorn startup club after it successfully raised a whopping $100 million at a private valuation of $1.6 billion that includes the capital raised. The investment round saw the participation of Draper Associates, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Section 32 and Spark Capital, and was led by venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners.
Starting its journey in 2012, Coinbase achieved its unicorn status in just five years. During its half a decade journey, the startup which began as a simple Bitcoin wallet service has progressed on and ventured into brokerage space, opening online exchanges where traders can sell or swap crypto coins.
In previous funding rounds, the startup, which claims to have served over 9.2 M customers across 32 countries, had raised $117 million at a private valuation of about $500 million. This figure alone had made Coinbase the third most well financed Bitcoin startup in the world, after Circle and 21. And now, with its latest funding round and achieving the Unicorn startup feat, there’s no stopping Coinbase when it comes to the Bitcoin space.
9) India Completes Draft Proposal for Bitcoin and Digital Currencies
Bitcoin users in India be ready, because there are rules and regulations coming your way pretty soon. According to a recent news report in Cointelegraph, as of early this month, the Indian government has finally completed its draft proposal work on recommendations to regulate the use of cryptocurriencies in the country effectively, a task it has been working on for a few months now.
The intergovernmental panel that was especially formed to work on the task in April this year had already submitted its plan on the matter to the Indian Finance Ministry in the first week of August.
While the contents of the draft proposal are still unknown, previous media reports highlight that some members of the panel have strong inclination towards imposing stricter regulation against the use of the cryptocurrencies in the Indian subcontinent. Others, meanwhile, want the government to come up with some kind of a tax policy for digital currencies.
10) Scientists Successfully Infiltrate Computer Using Malware Coded into DNA
In what might seem unbelievable to many, researchers at the University of Washington have successfully infected a computer with malware coded into a strand of DNA. Set out on a mission to find out if a computer is capable of being compromised in that way, the researchers included a known security vulnerability in a DNA-processing program before creating a synthetic DNA strand with the malicious code embedded. A computer was then tasked with analysing that particular “infected” strand, and the malware in the DNA then successfully exploited the computer.
According to the researchers, their main aim behind carrying out the research was to find out what new computer security risks are possible in the interaction between biomolecular information and the computer systems that analyze it.
Advertisements