Explainer

Aggarwal, thus, joins the growing ranks of Indian companies that are building large language models (LLMs) trained on Indian languages. The companies include Bhashini–a unit of the national language translation mission by the ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity); Tech Mahindra’s Indus project; AI4Bharat at IIT-Madras; Project Vaani–part of the Bhasha AI project of ARTPARK and the Indian Institute of Science’s pan-India language initiatives; Sarvam AI’s OpenHathi series; and…

European Union countries and lawmakers last week agreed a provisional deal for artificial intelligence rules aimed at establishing guardrails for the rapid development of AI and setting a global standard in technology regulation.The long road to the EU AI Act started in early 2021, with multiple drafts passing between the bloc's three political arms. It will take many more months before it becomes law and two more years before its impact will be felt by industry.Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value Skill…

The UN climate conference held in Dubai this year chalked up key resolutions on fossil fuels, methane emissions, funds to fight global warming, capitalisation of the loss and damage fund, and an agreement on a framework for the global goal on adaptation. The COP28 conference, however, remained an underachiever, unable to measure up to expectations, particularly in galvanising more ambitious climate action in the immediate term.  For India,…

For instance, computational approaches led by the Materials Project and other groups have helped develop 28,000 new materials till date. But this is an expensive and time-consuming process, and researchers may find it difficult to develop radically different structures since they mostly work with existing materials. Recently, though, Google unit DeepMind Technologies’ AI tool, called Graph Networks for Materials Exploration (GNoME), helped create 2.2…

Memories of the Covid-19 pandemic have resurfaced as a mysterious respiratory illness among children emerged in China, the epicenter of the earlier outbreak. Hospitals in many Chinese cities have been operating at maximum capacity the past two months, taking in more than 9,000 patients a day. The alarming scenes from China have put health authorities worldwide on high alert. This Mint Explainer aims to delve into the causes of this mysterious illness, how it differs…

A new series of smartphones launched by China's Huawei Technologies has drawn global attention for containing technology that indicates the company has managed to overcome US sanctions and could come back as a rival to Apple.In late August, the company unveiled the Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro, and on Friday launched two more smartphones, the Mate X5 which is a new version of its foldable phones, and the Mate 60 Pro+. The Mate 60 is priced from CYN 5,999 (nearly Rs. 67,800), the same as Apple's iPhone 14 in China.Here are some…

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Further, India would also become the first country to land at the lunar south pole, an area that interests space agencies and private space companies because the discovery of water ice (which will yield hydrogen and oxygen) could provide air and potential fuel. And artificial intelligence (AI) has a major role to play in such missions. For instance, even Chandrayaan-2 had planned to use the AI-powered 'Pragyan' (wisdom in Sanskrit)—a homegrown solar-powered robotic vehicle that would…

Cryptocurrency companies that have resisted US regulatory oversight, arguing digital assets are not securities, won a court victory this week. On Thursday Ripple Labs got a landmark ruling from a federal judge who said some of the company's XRP token sales were not subject to securities laws.What did the Ripple judge say? US District Judge Analisa Torres in New York found some digital token sales by Ripple did not violate the law as alleged by US Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC sued Ripple for conducting an…

Here is everything you need to know: Is Threads already available in India?The Threads app is linked to Meta's massively popular photo and video sharing app, Instagram. As such, Instagram users have begun receiving prompts to sign up and create a profile on Threads. Interestingly, word regarding the launch of Threads was not officially released by Meta, instead the app quietly showed up on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, with 6 July listed as the date of…