Apple is anticipated to open two store outlets in India this year, first in Mumbai and later in New Delhi, upping its game to push retail in the country. The first flagship store will be launched in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) district, followed by another in Saket, New Delhi, after a few weeks.
Apple’s plans to further the brand in India while maintaining its ownership got delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But now, the company is all set to launch more flagship products and stores where people can simply walk in to avail of Apple’s products.
Besides retail, the company also plans to expand manufacturing in the country. It believes that an Indian manufacturer of its iPhones would boost the brand’s sales in India and have a strong competitive advantage over China.
China’s manufacturing advantage and political tensions with the US have jeopardized Apple’s supply chain by rolling out occasional COVID lockdowns and policy changes.
It was earlier reported in September 2022 that the Tata group was in talks with the Taiwanese supplier of Apple products to launch an electronics manufacturing venture in India. Later on, in November, Tata planned to buy its manufacturing facility in Karnataka for up to ₹5,000 crores.
According to a paper titled “Factoring integers with sublinear resources on a superconducting quantum processor, 24 Chinese researchers have reportedly succeeded in breaking 2048-bit RSA encryption using a quantum computer. This can prove to be a significant achievement as RSA encryption is extensively used in current security practices.
However, several experts, cryptographers, and computer scientists do not believe the researchers have made a significant discovery solely based on the scientific paper published. In Sept. 2022, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned that a post-quantum world was coming soon and stressed that contemporary encryption techniques could break.
Months later, i.e. recently, in December 2022, the scientific paper published by Chinese researchers claiming to have broken RSA encryption using a quantum computer came into the limelight. The paper follows a report from April 2022 that claimed that China was “taking the lead” in the quantum computing race.
Financial Times questioned a few experts about the paper, and Roger Grimes, a computer security expert and author, said that it is a huge claim and that it would mean that governments could crack other governments’ secrets.
While sharing his opinion on the latter, Bruce Schneier, a computer security and cryptography expert, said that we have no empirical proof that the new quantum algorithm overcomes the Schnorr scaling problem. He added that there’s no reason to believe it won’t, but there’s no reason to believe it will.
Mastercard, a leading global payments and technology corporation, teamed up with Polygon to introduce a web3-focused incubator at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2023, with the goal of supporting artists in establishing new channels of communication with their audiences. According to a statement from Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt, the new Mastercard Artist Accelerator project will equip upcoming artists with the web3 tools and skills to enable them to interact with their audience. As a result, artists can maximize their earnings and advertise innovative mainstream products.
The Mastercard artist accelerator initiative will guide the five selected artists on a variety of tasks that will enable them to cut out the middleman, mint their own NFT (non-fungible tokens) collections to increase online fan engagement, and take part in metaverse-based concerts and more, using the Polygon network and the Polygon platform. Mastercard’s chief marketing and communications officer, Raja Rajamannar, emphasized that the company will also offer incubees marketing and technical consultancy assistance.
This announcement indicates that the company is moving further into the world of digital assets. Ryan thinks Web3 has the ability to empower a new breed of artists who can build a following, support themselves, and develop cutting-edge platforms for self-expression and human connection. The Polygon platform was selected as the new program’s technical partner due to its excellent scaling capabilities and prior experience working with top Web3 companies.
This program’s five participating artists have not yet been chosen, and artists are still welcome to submit their applications. The program will begin in the spring of 2023, and fans will be able to accompany these artists as they travel while working together to understand how these technologies work. The accelerator will contain a special edition NFT from Mastercard called “The Mastercard Music Pass,” which the company claims would grant owners access to unique resources, physical and digital experiences, and exclusive music educational materials. Additionally, the company said that the accelerator program would end with a live-streamed artist presentation later this year.
A leading display technology and smart experiences provider, TCL, has announced the launch of TCL RayNeo X2 augmented reality (AR) smart glasses at CES 2023. The new glasses possess binocular full-color Micro-LED optical waveguide displays along with an array of interactive features to create AR experiences for the users.
The TCL Ray Neo X2, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 platform, is designed to address the industry challenge of making augmented reality glasses look like conventional eyeglasses without compromising on the tech specs. The glasses maintain a lightweight and subtle body for everyday wear while having powerful all-in-one assistant features, from auto-translation and smart navigation to photography and music play, according to the company.
The glasses have display upgrades, including an image brightness of up to 1,000 nits and a high contrast ratio (CR) of up to 100,000:1. These features generate enhanced visual effects that make the AR glasses ideal for outdoor and indoor usage alike.
The device also has a smart GPS navigation system that makes use of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) along with gesture recognition. Its mapping shows nearby landmarks as the wearer moves. Also, the Bluetooth-enabled on-screen messages and call notifications keep users updated wherever they go.
Moreover, TCL RayNeo X2 has an AI translation feature that interprets multiple languages in real-time. When speaking face-to-face, the augmented reality glasses automatically detect and translate in-person conversations, with the subtitles displayed on the screen. This can also be turned into an immersive language-learning experience for the wearer.
MIT Researchers have developed a new architecture for quantum computing that allows high-fidelity communication across superconducting quantum computers. While quantum computers can conveniently emulate systems, optimize more complex tasks and simulate quantum chemistry, building a large-scale quantum computer is challenging.
Traditional quantum computing architectures comprise various components that perform different functions. Electronic information is passed among these components, encoded and stored as bits, via interconnects (wires that facilitate electron movements in a quantum computer).
To make quantum computing more feasible, MIT researchers have published their work in Nature Physics, demonstrating the beginning step where single photons (information carriers for quantum computers) are deterministically emitted towards a pre-specified direction. The newly devised quantum computing architecture ensures that information flows are correctly directed 96 percent of the time.
Bharath Kannan, a co-author of the research paper, said, “This ‘directional transmission’ is what we demonstrated, and it is the first step toward bidirectional communication with much higher fidelities.” He added that the new quantum computing architecture might be a more straightforward method of scaling the same to larger systems rather than approaching with a single oversized chip.
This quantum computing architecture can be both a transmitter and a receiver, with multiple modules and just one physical connection. The researchers will now intend to connect many modules and use the procedure to emit and absorb photons now that they have successfully emitted photons in a particular direction. It would be a significant development for modular architectures combining small-scale processors for large-scale applications.
The New York City public school system has banned the use of ChatGPT on school networks and devices which is an AI-based program for generating text, citing concerns about the safety and accuracy of the content produced.
The artificial intelligence chatbot, which is developed by OpenAI, was released publicly for users to test in November.
New York City schools said ChatGPT would be banned across the district. However, specific sites or schools will be able to request access to provide students with cutting-edge tech education.
A spokesperson for the city’s department of education, Jenna Lyle, said that due to concerns over negative impacts on students’ learning and the accuracy of content, access to ChatGPT is restricted on devices and networks of New York City Public Schools.
While the tool seems able to provide easy and quick answers to questions, it does not, however, build critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success, they added.
Soon after the release, some users began to speculate about how the program may be used to help students cheat in writing essays. According to OpenAI, officials are working on ways to identify text generated by the bot.
Google has announced that they are officially shutting down Google Stadia, a cloud gaming service that allows players to access a wide range of video games through the internet. According to a statement, Google Stadia failed to generate enough traction as the company first anticipated.
Players will continue to have access to the games library and play till January 18, so they can complete final play sessions. Google will refund all Stadia hardware purchases that were made through the Google Store and all game add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store.
Stadia allowed players to play games on a variety of devices, such as laptops, smartphones, and TVs, as long as one had a compatible screen and a good internet connection.
One of the significant features of Google Stadia was that it enabled players to access games at high frame rates and in up to 4K resolution. This allowed players to experience smooth gameplay and high-quality graphics, even on devices that may not be powerful enough to natively run the games, including certain smart TVs.
Moreover, Stadia allowed players to use various controllers, including the Stadia Controller, as well as specific third-party controllers.
The racing division of famous automaker Ferrari, Scuderia Ferrari, is the latest to join the rising number of Formula One racing teams who have terminated their ties with their cryptocurrency sponsors. After a tumultuous first year, Ferrari ended its multi-year collaboration deals with Velas Blockchain. Ferrari has severed partnerships with Snapdragon as well, costing the Italian club a net US$55 million in losses before the 2023 season.
In late 2021, Ferrari announced a long-term partnership with Velas Blockchain, with branding appearing on vehicles and driver apparel. The primary objective behind the partnership was to boost fan engagement via NFTs and other joint projects. But, according to RacingNews365, the team did not adhere to the provisions that allowed Velas to produce NFT images. Meanwhile, Velas Blockchain is allegedly facing a financial breach. As a result, now both parties are considering taking legal action.
Another insider informed RacingNews365 that the split from Snapdragon is mutual and that a joint statement will be released soon. Snapdragon is expected to join another F1 team, possibly Mercedes, following the announcement of a major ‘cockpit’ electronics joint venture between its parent company Qualcomm and Mercedes.
About a quarter of Scuderia’s commercial revenue was generated by the Velas Blockchain, and Snapdragon combined. Now, Ferrari must fill a sizable vacuum in its portfolio as a result of the loss of Velas and Snapdragon.
This development comes before Ferrari’s plans to unveil its 2023 F1 car on Valentine’s Day on 14th February, though the launch location is yet to be announced.
The cryptocurrency landscape has changed drastically over the past year, with the value of cryptocurrencies plummeting alarmingly fast. The most notable illustration of the volatility and fragile financial status of cryptocurrency sponsors in Formula One was kickstarted by the collapse of FTX. In November 2022, after discontinuing its relationship with FTX as the cryptocurrency exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, rival team Mercedes suffered a loss of US$15 million. At the time, Team Principal Toto Wolff predicted that most F1 teams might witness a similar effect.
In December, Red Bull Racing and Tezos Foundation cut ties after the blockchain platform apparently decided not to renew their contract due to a lack of strategic alignment.
NVIDIA announced important updates to Isaac Sim, a robotics simulation and synthetic data generation tool that allows users to create and test virtual robots in a variety of operating scenarios, at CES 2023. Companies adopting the robots platform can automate a variety of industries, from shipping and manufacturing to energy, retail, and more, thanks to improved AI and cloud access features.
Isaac Sim is accessible via the cloud and is built on Nvidia Omniverse, the company’s platform for developing and running metaverse applications. This enables teams working on robotics projects around the world to collaborate with increased accessibility, agility, and scalability for testing and training virtual robots.
Using Isaac Sim makes it possible for robot manufacturers to train and test robots more efficiently. NVIDIA asserts that roboticists can create more realistic simulations of a robot interacting with a virtual imitation of a real-world in ways that go beyond what is achievable in the real world.
With Isaac Sim’s new people simulation feature, you can mimic how people might interact in settings like warehouses and manufacturing plants while being instructed to carry out common tasks like stacking goods or pushing carts. According to NVIDIA, many of the most typical behaviors are already supported, so simulating them only requires issuing a command. The objective is to assist autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) or collaborative robots (cobots) in understanding and detecting common behavior and potential hazards in the real world.
Isaac Sim can now display physically correct sensor data in real-time thanks to NVIDIA RTX technology. This includes ray tracing offers more precise sensor data for an RTX-simulated lidar under varying lighting situations or in response to reflective materials. In order to ensure that the robots are trained as accurately as possible, this feature enables simulated worlds to be built on physically realistic sensor models, minimizing the disparities between the simulation and the real environment.
For developers and users to get started building right away, Isaac Sim updates also feature a load of new simulation-ready 3D assets, such as warehouse components and well-known robots. These 3D simulation elements are essential for creating physically accurate simulated settings.
Additionally, NVIDIA unveiled advancements in Isaac Gym for reinforcement learning and Isaac Cortex for collaborative robot programming, two important new capabilities for robotics researchers. Furthermore, it introduced a brand-new tool called Isaac ORBIT that offers benchmarks and simulation operating environments for robot learning and motion planning.
NVIDIA further notes that Isaac Sim has upgraded support for ROS 2 Humble and Windows for the sizable community of Robot Operating System (ROS) developers. It is now possible to simulate using the entire Isaac ROS software.
The antitrust watchdog in South Korea said it will penalize Tesla 2.85 billion won ($2.2 million) for failing to inform its consumers that their electric vehicles had a reduced range when the temperature is low outside. The alleged infractions of the country’s advertising legislation might be a blow for the US automaker, which is looking to grow its footprint in the Asian country.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said that from August 2019 until recently, Tesla’s official local website had overstated the driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to gasoline vehicles, and the performance of its Superchargers. When the watchdog opened a probe in February last year, the Elon Musk-led company changed the advertisement on its Korean website.
Tesla does not mention the drop in driving range in below-freezing conditions on its South Korean website, but it does provide winter driving recommendations including pre-conditioning cars using external power sources and using its updated Energy app to monitor energy usage. According to the KFTC, the driving range of Tesla vehicles decreases in cold weather by up to 50.5% compared to how they are advertised online.
According to information from the nation’s environment ministry, a South Korean consumer group Citizens United for Consumer Sovereignty, stated in 2021 that the driving range of most EVs falls by up to 40% in freezing weather when batteries need to be heated, with Tesla incurring the most drop.
The KFTC quoted the long-range Model 3 example from Tesla and stated the company promised the car could drive more than 446 kilometers on a full charge. However, the battery performed far worse than the company marketed in most of the scenarios. In freezing conditions below minus 7 degrees Celsius, the Tesla model could travel only to 220.7 kilometers on a single charge, which is less than half of the claimed range. According to the antitrust regulator, Tesla used the word “up to” on its website in the US to highlight the vehicle’s maximum driving range, in contrast to the deceptive advertising employed here. Tesla also ran deceptive or overstated marketing on its V2 and V3 superchargers, as well as the amount of money that can be saved by charging.
According to the KFTC, the company prevented customers from making fair deals by providing false information about the factors EV purchasers would most likely consider before purchasing.
Tesla was also thought to have broken the e-commerce transaction law in South Korea. When buying its automobiles online, Tesla asks for 100,000 won as a deposit from local buyers. Even if consumers changed their minds and canceled their purchases before the automobiles arrived, the deposits were nonrefundable. As a result, Tesla gathered a total of 95.2 million won in fees between January 2020 and January 2021, which they referred to as “cancellation penalties.”
The antitrust watchdog also noted that although local customers could place their orders online, they could only cancel them by calling the customer support line. The FTC viewed it as an infringement of customers’ rights to cancel orders and imposed a correction order, as well as a 1 million won penalty on Tesla for violations of the Electronic Commerce Act.
This development could make it more difficult for South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to implement his plans to provide “tailored” incentives to Tesla in order to persuade them to build an electric car ‘gigafactory’. For false advertising regarding the gas emissions of its diesel passenger vehicles, the KFTC slapped German automaker Mercedes-Benz, and its Korean subsidiary with 20.2 billion won last year.
The antitrust agency pledged to make every effort to provide accurate and trustworthy information to customers by regularly monitoring the businesses’ unethical behavior.
