With another news filled week in the world of tech coming to a wrap, we at IndianWeb2 bring to you the ten top things that happened in the tech world this week.

1) #MadeInIndia Microwave Circuit Boards To Revolutionise India’s Space, Defence Sectors

India might be cruising ahead in a lot of sectors, but its huge dependence on imported sources for much of its advanced electronic hardware for strategic applications is acting as a major deterrent in its development. Taking a progressive step in doing something about the issue, the Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), Thrissur, has come with its very own low-cost microwave printed circuit boards.

These ‘Made in India’ microwave circuit boards are capable of revolutionising nation’s space, defence and atomic energy sectors. Speaking to DNA, Dr. NR Munirathnam, Director General, C-MET said that these microwave printed circuit boards are one of the major steps in the indigenisation of electronic materials drive, especially for wireless communication sector.

2) Infosys Showcases First Indigenously-Built Driverless Cart

Software giant Infosys has proven that innovation and India can go very well together. The company recently unveiled its very own self-driving vehicle, a ‘driverless’ cart. The vehicle, which has been indigenously developed by the Bengaluru headquartered MNC at its Mysore centre, was showcased by
Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka at a recent media briefing.

The company aims to use the autonomous cart, which is equipped with sensors that sense its environment, for training its employees on new emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. It is capable of navigating without human assistance and comes with advanced control systems that helps these vehicles in identifying navigation paths as well road obstacles, signage etc.

3) Elon Musk Terms Artificial Intelligence As Greatest Risk To Human Civilization

When tech big weight Elon Musk talks, you have got to listen. The man who has successfully turned his $160 to $180 million payout for his second company, x.com into $15 billion Space X and $50 billion Tesla business recently had some choice words to say about the pace at which Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking over the world.

Speaking before a meeting of the United State’s National Governor’s Association recently, the South African born American Business Magnate called AI as “the greatest risk we face as a civilisation.” This coming from a man who is fearless about sending people to Mars and believes that all cars will be driving themselves in the next 10 years comes as a bit of surprise. But, this is not the first time that Musk has warned humanity about the idea of AI, software and machines double crossing their human creators and taking over them. But, yeah, this is very first time he went to the extent of calling it the greatest risk we as a civilisation are facing right now.

Not only did Musk voice his concerns about AI, he also urged the government to oversee the technology’s future development. Musk wants the government to regulate the technology starting now as he believes if the government mulls on the matter for long, it might be too late for human civilisation. Speaking at the Saturday meeting, he said, “AI’s a rare case where we need to be proactive in regulation, instead of reactive. Because by the time we are reactive with AI regulation, it’s too late.”

4) AI Is Dangerously Inventing Languages Humans Can’t Understand

Tech magnate Elon Musk recently warned United State’s National Governor’s Association about the pace at which Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking over the world and termed it as “the greatest risk we face as a civilisation.” A recent conversation between two AI agents developed inside Facebook gave us a live example of what Musk is actually talking about.

Bob: “I can can I I everything else.”

Alice: “Balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to.”

After observing the aforementioned conversation between two AI agents in what could be considered as the most sophisticated negotiation software on the face of the Earth, people at Facebook were fast to catch on that they have made some major mistake in programming, which had made these two AI’s diverge from sticking to plain old English language and conversing in their own invented languages.

It is almost similar to the way human beings have developed shorthand or different dialects to converse with a selected group of peers without anyone else finding out what they’re talking about. So, the big question that arises here is should we let AIs evolve its dialects for specific tasks that involve speaking to other AIs or should we stop this situation right here and now. If we let them continue this path, there’s a possibility of us having a more interoperable world, where our phones will be able to talk to ours cars, ACs without a second thought but the biggest disadvantage that we as human beings will have in this matter is that we would actually have no idea about what two machines are talking to each other.

5) Make Any Device AI-Ready With This USB Stick

While Elon Musk is going around the world warning people about the implications of unregulated Artificial Intelligence development, the tech world is lapping up the technology like no other. From cloud to devices right in our hands, AI is advancing at an unprecedented pace. The latest example of innovation in the space is by chipmaker Movidius.

The company, which was acquired by Intel last year, has invented and launched a Neural Compute Stick that is capable of adding a machine vision processor to any device. Powered by the same low power high performance Movidius Vision Processing Unit (VPU) that is used in millions of smart security cameras, gesture controlled drones and industrial machine vision equipment all around the world, the Neural Compute Stick is a tiny fanless deep learning device that anyone can use to learn AI programming at the edge.

To put it simply, the Movidius Neural Compute Stick is like a plug-and-play USB stick that can be used by manufacturers to amp up the AI capabilities of their new product.

6) IoT Enabled Roads in Bengaluru Soon

Bengaluru is called India’s IT capital for a reason. The city, which boosts of being the nation’s leading information technology (IT) exporter, will soon also boost of having IoT enabled roads. Yes, you read that right.

Being developed under PM Modi’s pet project, Smart Cities Mission, at least seven km of roads in Bengaluru’s central business district area will be developed as ‘Smart SURE’ roads. These roads will have IoT enabled solutions for citizens and making driving on Indian roads an experience rather than an act of pain.

Not only will the ‘Smart SURE’ roads come with basic wi-fi connectivity, they will also feature 420 sensor-based smart dustbins, 50 designated vending kiosks, 50 smart card-enabled public bicycle sharing points, 35 e-toilets and 30 e-rickshaw stands. All of these will be connected to 1,250 smart telecom towers that will double up as street light poles.

7) Now Carry Aadhaar Card In Your Smartphone with mAadhaar App

While Indian citizens are still coming to grip with the importance of Aadhaar cards when they already have multiple government identification cars like PAN, Ration cards etc.in place, the Indian government has decided to make these cards a more inclusive part of their lives. This week, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) announced the launch of mAadhaar app that will allow people to carry the information of their Aadhaar cards right on their smartphone. This means, no more carrying the bulky card around and no more living in the fear of forgetting it during important identification events such as catching a flight or when going through an important government regulated application process.

In order to access the mAadhaar or ‘mobile Aadhaar’ app, users will have to register their phone number with UIDAI. Once that is done, the users can download their entire Aadhaar details on the app. This includes data such as name, date of birth, gender, address and the photograph on the card. For now, the app is only being made available for Android users and can be downloaded from Google Play Store.

8) Govt Launches ‘Sohum’, A Low-Cost Device To Test Hearing of NewBorns

The week saw the launch of Sohum, a new hearing screening device developed by School of International Biodesign (SIB) startup M/s Sohum Innovation Labs India Pvt Ltd meant especially for newborns. While a lot of us take the gift of hearing for granted, there are many children which still can’t hear their own voice when they take birth. Sohum aims to change that.

The indigenously developed hearing screening device was formally launched by Y.S. Chowdary, Minister of State, Ministry of Science and Technology & Earth Sciences at Prithvi Bhavan.

Being promoted as a valuable contribution to government’s Make in India campaign, Sohum makes use of brainstem auditory evoked response, the golden standard in auditory testing to check for hearing response in a newborn.

The startup aimed to create a low-cost product as until now the technology available out there is very expensive and out of reach of many. Sohum has worked towards making the technology appropriate for the resource constrained settings in India and is on a mission to help nearly 26 million babies born every year in India.

9) Nasdaq To Work With Indian Tech Cos To Build New AI, Blockchain Products and Services

The Nasdaq Stock Market, which is the second-largest exchange in the world by market capitalization, behind only the New York Stock Exchange, has got its eyes set out for Indian technological companies. The 46-years old stock exchange is looking for companies creating innovative products and services in currently in trend tech spaces such as blockchain and machine-learning.

The American exchange, which first came to India for over eight years ago, has recently shifted its shifted its corporate office in Bengaluru, the city which is sometimes referred to as the “Silicon Valley of India” or “IT capital of India” because of its role as the nation’s leading information technology (IT) exporter.

The technology stock-focussed exchange is looking to develop products that are designed especially for the needs and wants of the local market. It wishes to make this possible by joining hands with the some of finest Indian firms works in the fintech space.

10) Google Glass is Back

Google Glass is back, and this time it is bigger and better. From the very first time that the product made it into the market, tech experts quarrelled that the product had much more application as an enterprise-focused product rather than being meant for the masses. And now, the global tech giant has taken that suggestion and given us a reboot of the glasses called Glass Enterprise Edition (GEE).

Unveiled to the world by Google’s “moonshot” branch, the new GEE comes with an updated camera module that increases resolution from 5 megapixels to 8. It further has improved Wi-Fi speeds, an indicator for video recording and a longer battery life for smoother operation for longer hours. The one major change that Google has succeeded in bringing in GEE is that it has decoupled the new model entirely from integrated frames. This means, the Glass can now function easily with all kinds of existing eyewear, including the industrial safety glasses typically used by workers in enterprises.
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