Author Archives: Loknath Das

WhatsApp Finds New Uses in Conflict Zones

These days, the word on the street in war-torn Syria is that hospitals are best avoided – even if you’re injured. “Sometimes we hear that people feel the home is safer than the hospital,” said Mohamed Elamein, an information officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Gaziantep, Turkey, close to the Syrian border. Communities often oppose plans to build ... Read More »

Intel’s First AI Day in India Sees a Commitment to AI Research Here

HIGHLIGHTS Intel held its first AI Day event in India on Tuesday It has pledged to educate 15,000 people in AI technologies It is rolling out specialised hardware for machine learning At its first AI Day conference in India on Tuesday, Intel outlined its vision on artificial intelligence (AI) in India, and announced a developer education program targeted at educating ... Read More »

Baidu Competitor Says to Focus on AI as It Plans US IPO

China’s second-largest mobile search engine Sogou, controlled by Sohu.com and 45 percent owned by Tencent Holdings, said it will focus on artificial intelligence (AI) as it aims to build a next-generation search engine. Chinese internet and gaming company Sohu on Monday announced the plan to float Sogou in the United States “as early as market conditions permit”, saying the search unit would make ... Read More »

RTE’s heart is in the right place—but not its head

The RTE Act has proved to be a disastrous piece of legislation. Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or the Right to Education Act (RTE) was supposed to drive India’s big leap in social development. It was supposed to bring millions to school, building the foundations upon which a modern, progressive and prosperous nation ... Read More »

Teacher education reform: 46 cases against NCTE in 15 days

NCTE is looking to have an accreditation and grading system for such colleges with physical assets getting the least weightage. Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint New Delhi: India’s teacher education regulator, the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE), is facing 46 court cases for acting against poor quality teacher education colleges and making an effort to bar hundreds of non-performers from admitting fresh ... Read More »

Almost half the world is now on social media, according to new report

There are now over 3 billion (!!!) people logging onto social media accounts around the world, meaning that almost half of the world’s population spends at least part of their day updating their status or story. A new report compiled by Hootsuite and We Are Social and published by The Next Web found that there are 3.028 billion active social media users around the world. That’s ... Read More »

Should elected officials block people on social media?

Rick Calvert wants his congressman’s attention. So the Murrieta resident used Facebook and Twitter to send messages to Murrieta’s congressman, Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona – no relation. A self-described “lifelong liberal,” Rick Calvert also has produced online videos for Indivisible 42, a grassroots group critical of the conservative congressman. One day, Rick Calvert found himself blocked from viewing Ken Calvert’s ... Read More »

Man Arrested For Social Media Message On Braid Cutting Gang

LAKHIMPUR KHIRI, UTTAR PRADESH: A man has been arrested on the charge of spreading a false rumour on social media about braid cutting incidents, police said today. The development comes amid a string of complaints of braid chopping, which has led to panic and fear in some areas of UP and other neighbouring states. The message allegedly sent by a ... Read More »

IBM Develops Tape Cartridge That Stores 330TB of Uncompressed Data in the Palm of Your Hand

HIGHLIGHTS The tape comes with a recording density of 201GB per inch IBM worked with Sony Storage Solutions for the tape The tape has been developed over years In an interesting development, scientists at IBM have managed to develop a prototype magnetic tape drive that fits in the palm of your hand and can store a whopping 330TB of uncompressed ... Read More »

LG Q6 India Launch Set for Thursday, Sports 5.5-Inch FullVision Display

HIGHLIGHTS LG Q6 was unveiled last month with two other variants The India variant will come with 3GB RAM, 32GB inbuilt storage It will go on sale from August 10, via Amazon India LG Q6, amongst the first Q-Series phones launched by the South Korean company last month, is coming to India this week. Exclusive online retail partner Amazon is teasing the Thursday, August ... Read More »