Trichy: National Institute of Technology Trichy (NIT-T) is about to introduce a hybrid MTech program in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science this current semester. The curriculum is specially designed for working professionals and can be completed in 2 years.
Students with bachelor’s degree programs like BTech or BE, or MSc (or any other equivalent degree in computer sciences) from a recognized university are eligible to apply for the course. The classes have been scheduled after standard working hours, keeping in view the schedules of working professionals.
G Aghila, director of NIT Trichy, said, “The course is being jointly offered by Computer Applications, Computer Science and Engineering Management Studies departments. There is no entrance exam for this course. Sixty per cent marks in their respective subject are enough.”
NIT-T has also introduced a flexible curriculum and credit transfer from other institutions. Additionally, there are many options available to pursue the course in sections with different ‘Entry and Exit Points.’ candidates have the possibilities to leave with a certificate with credit points after the completion of six months and pursue it later if they want.
This makes the hybrid MTech course a very flexible and fruitful option for working professionals to enhance their knowledge and qualifications.
NFTs and blockchain technology will no longer be permitted to integrate with Minecraft, according to a recent announcement from Microsoft-owned Mojang. One of the most well-known video games in the world, Minecraft has seen steady growth since its initial 2009 release, thanks to publisher Microsoft.
The notification of the ban not only ended several NFT initiatives based on Minecraft but also provided a strong argument for NFTs. Mojang also published a news report on planned modifications to its NFT usage policies. Blockchain technology will soon be prohibited on independent game servers managed by players and producers, and Minecraft will also forbid the usage of its visuals in NFT ventures or using Minecraft’s API.
Although the Minecraft team does not presently plan to include blockchain technology, Mojang stated that it might do so in the future.
According to Mojang, the speculative pricing and investment mindset around NFTs divert attention from actually playing the game and promote profiteering, which is contrary to the players’ long-term happiness and success.
Some autonomous Minecraft servers, according to the company, enable the usage of NFTs that represent in-game objects or give NFT incentives to gamers. Additionally, there are initiatives that have transformed Minecraft resources into NFT collectibles, such as the Polygon-based NFT Worlds, which has invested months in creating a whole crypto-economy by selling virtual Minecraft land plots.
Sources claim that after the news, NFT Worlds suffered around a 70% drop in the price of its NFTs. Nonetheless, the project’s developers insist that they won’t be leaving the community.
The team behind NFT Worlds has now revealed plans to develop a new game based on many of the fundamental elements of Minecraft but totally free of the restrictions Microsoft and Mojang impose on the game. According to NFT Worlds, their brand-new Minecraft-inspired game will be recognizable to users of the original game but with the modernity and ongoing development, it has been missing for years.
As the metaverse and Web3 gaming pick momentum, numerous more gaming industry titans are planning to adopt NFTs. Square Enix, a developer of video games in Japan, has revealed Final Fantasy VII as its first game to use NFTs after selling some of its intellectual property to invest in Web3-based gaming.
While Microsoft wishes to avoid becoming involved in blockchain gaming, its planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which would make it the third-largest gaming firm, is a little unexpected, given that Activision Blizzard’s World of Warcraft served as the inspiration for Vitalik Buterin’s creation of Ethereum.
On the other hand, despite not banning NFT-using games from its marketplace, Fortnite maker Epic Games claims it won’t be implementing them in any of its in-house games.
As NFTs and blockchain promise to break the monopoly of centralized game developing companies, it will be interesting to see how these companies make drawing board changes to remain undefeated in the face of disruption in the gaming industry.
On July 19, at the Moscow Chess Open competition, when a 7-year-old child attempted a quick move without allowing the rival robot enough time to complete its move at a tournament in Moscow, the robot physically assaulted the child. According to Sergey Smagin, vice president of the Russian Chess Federation, who talked to state-run news organization RIA Novosti, the child is alright, but one of his fingers has been broken.
The crane-like robot is shown reaching across the board and aggressively grabbing the boy’s finger for a few seconds in a video posted on the Telegram channel Baza before authorities hurried over and rescued the child. According to reports, the child, known as Christopher, is among the top 30 chess players in Moscow under the age of nine. While Christopher’s finger was put in a plaster cast, he was not overly traumatized by the attack. He displayed extraordinary tenacity for someone who had been assaulted by a robot by playing the next day and finishing the competition. He was able to sign paperwork and attend the awards ceremony.
According to reports, Christopher’s parents have been in touch with the district attorney’s office, but the Moscow Chess Federation says it is speaking with the couple and working to resolve the matter (i.e., convincing them not to press charges).
Meanwhile, Smagin believes that Christopher is primarily to be blamed for this rare incident. He said, “There are certain safety rules, and the child apparently violated them. When he made his move, he did not realize he first had to wait.” As per the robot’s designers, it was built with artificial intelligence that allowed it to play three chess games simultaneously. It has been playing chess for around 16 years and has participated in several ceremonial matches without ‘cracking any bones’ or causing serious physical harm to opponents, according to Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation.
While this is not the robot uprising movies like Avengers: Age of Ultron or Terminator prepared us for. However, it still begs similar questions about our reliance on robots. Will the robots’ allegiance lie with humans when they go rogue or acquire emotional intelligence? Is this a teaser for AI’s hostile robot takeover critics have warned us about? Or can it be deemed as an episode that serves as a reminder to engineers to rethink how to create robots that are less prone to mistakes that might endanger lives? At the same time, Smagin defended the robot’s AI skills by saying that the public has a misconception that technology-advanced AI will wipe out humankind.
Though eliminating humans sounds a bit stretched, we cannot also deny accidents where there was the loss of human life due to AI robots. For instance, At Volkswagen’s Baunatal production facilities in Germany, a stationary robot murdered a contractor in 2015 by grabbing and crushing him against a metal plate. In the same year, a worker was stabbed to death by one of the robots at the SKH Metals facility in Manesar, India, where he worked.
Most recently, a tragic Model S collision in Newport Beach that claimed the lives of three people when the car smashed into construction equipment prompted a new Federal investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot technology. Three construction workers were also struck by the EV, and they were sent to the hospital with less severe injuries.
These instances highlight the possibility that with or without human error, robots, whether powered by AI, are capable of violating Asimov’s First Law of Robotics, which promises no harm to human lives.
Steelmaker ArcelorMittal has selected Iris.ai to leverage its AI to advance its use of scientific research. The collaboration will focus on automating some of the former’s R&D processes and reducing patent research time by efficiently extracting and transforming experiment data.
ArcelorMittal, a Fortune Global 500 company, is a leading steel firm with a presence in more than 60 countries. It relies on its R&D function to enhance manufacturing, deliver sustainability commitments, and transform into an AI-focused company. The patent team, a part of its R&D, undertakes ongoing competitive research to identify gaps in the market and provide patentable solutions for potential infringements.
Sophie Plaisant, head of Intellectual Property for ArcelorMittal, said, “At ArcelorMittal, we are constantly looking for ways to optimize our R&D processes, and this is what brought us to Iris.ai. Integrating the Extract tool into our process has made the ingestion and processing of external data significantly easier.”
However, searching and extracting such data takes a lot of unskilled manual labor time from the skilled employees. After collaborating with Iris.ai, this information can be extracted in a few minutes. Iris.ai’s extraction tool offers 94% precision, estimated via a self-assessment module. The tool can assess its results, giving researchers a good confidence level.
Iris.ai’s extraction tool utilizes natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to retrieve domain-specific elements from the data. This data can be entered into an Excel sheet, integrated lab tools, databases, etc.
Anita Schjoll Brede, CEO, and co-founder of Iris.ai, said, “Countless hours are being invested in corporate R&D functions around the world manually extracting data from tables. With our Extract tool, it’s possible to automate this manual work to free up time so researchers can focus on carrying out valuable research.”
A product search engine startup, Vetted, announced a US$14M Series A funding for its AI-powered platform for deals and product reviews. The cash infusion comes from a funding round led by Insight Partners and will be utilized in scaling Vetted’s machine learning technologies.
Stuart Kearney, a co-founder of Vetted, describes the platform as a search engine for discovering brands and products based on your requirements. He started the company along with Tim Etler and Tom Raleigh after realizing that online shopping had become an overwhelming customer experience.
Kearney said, “People shouldn’t have to spend hours sifting through indistinguishable products littered across thousands of ad-infested sites loaded with fake reviews and unreliable information.”
This is where Vetted comes in handy. It surfaces reviews for a given product. These reviews are picked from platforms like Reddit, The New York Times Wirecutter, YouTube, and many other reliable sites. The platform also compares product prices across merchants, tracks changes, and alerts when there are sales or discounts. Vetted ranks these products based on 10,000+ factors, including reviewer credibility, brand reliability, past generations, etc.
Vetted is available on the web and as a browser extension. It stands apart from other product comparison tools like Honey by PayPal, Paribus, etc., because of its use of AI to identify products from different categories. Around 30 “product experts” work with the technology to analyze price changes or updates to ensure accurate results.
SEBI, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, announced its plans to collaborate with a US-based artificial intelligence systems company. The US firm is reportedly known to have aided in combating gambles in Las Vegas casinos, hence becoming an area of interest for SEBI, looking to deter insider trading in India. According to speculation, the board also plans to explore AI potential on several other fronts too.
During the initial discussion, SEBI has been shown the kind of software that will be used, how it works, and how beneficial it can be for the board in India. The firm reportedly stands out because all the software will be customized to meet SEBI’s requirements in the most efficient manner.
The combination of artificial intelligence and casinos is not a recent update, especially in the virtual arena. AI has been an integral part of the online gaming and casino sector for the last few years. It helps the operators to quickly spot and track players’ behavioral patterns and actions. Consequently, casinos accumulate a lot of information that can be utilized to spot any changes and detect misuse, fraud, or addiction with the help of AI. Operators can also know the specific games and offer a player usually opts for.
It’s a win-win situation for the casino operators and authorities. SEBI is considering this technology area because the AI systems utilized in the casino sector, especially in the US, are known for their high accuracy. It will utilize the technology to ensure that every transaction happens above the board and that any fraudulent activity is tracked before its occurrence, as operators and authorities will be able to act promptly and decisively.
Accenture has acquired a cloud data solution provider Tenbu to aid clients with total enterprise reinforcement and expand its data and AI capabilities. The former is looking forward to welcoming over 170 data scientists with 150 certifications, who will join the data and AI team within Accenture Cloud First to optimize and accelerate growth. Accenture has been making several investments to grow its cloud capabilities, Tenbu being its 11th in Latin America in the last five years.
Accenture Cloud First’s global leader Karthik Narain said, “Tenbu’s team will expand capabilities to help companies drive new services and resilience using data from across the cloud continuum.”
The acquisition will expand Accenture’s First capabilities through Latin America and then globally to bring industry depth and scalable innovation. Paulo Ossamu, leader of Accenture Technology in Latin America, highlighted that the changing business landscape and operating models require monetization across the cloud continuum.
This acquisition will help keep “different sections of clients’ organizations aligned to achieve specific business outcomes.” Tenbu’s team will focus on minimizing people’s complexities in utilizing data with its disruptive technology and a 360-degree approach. It will guide the clients through the entire cloud data journey.
CEO Carlos Pinto said, “Joining the Accenture Cloud First team will enable us to bring our specialized skills to help clients make smart, well-informed decisions that generate value.” He added that the acquisition is a massive growth opportunity for Tenbu’s people by integrating with Accenture Cloud First and exploring business opportunities across the Accenture business.
The executives of a crypto company named Forsage are facing severe charges of allegedly providing a bogus investment strategy to lure investors calling the scheme “a powerful long-term source of passive income.” Forsage raised US$300 million by running a pyramid and a Ponzi scheme where investors made money by recruiting others.
The company posted videos that promised terrific returns for investors claiming Forsage to be “fast and furious” for making a profit out of cryptocurrency. Four founders, Vladimir Okhotnikov, Jane Doe (known by her pseudonym Lola Ferrari), Mikhail Sergeev, Sergey Maslakov, and a few others, are to take the fall.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Forsage executives were not providing any investment strategy but running a scheme where the previous investors were paid with the money invested by newer investors, a Ponzi Hallmark!
As per the Security regulators, the scheme was “aggressively marketed to investors” starting in 2020 and targeted retail investors willing to enter into crypto transactions. The charges will cover the financial risks of the crypto sector that has drawn a fair share of attention and scammers in the last few years. The SEC also charged three promoters based in the US who Forsage hired to tout the services.
Carolyn Welshhans, acting chief of SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit, said, “As the complaint alleges, Forsage is a fraudulent pyramid scheme launched on a massive scale and aggressively marketed to investors.”
A multidisciplinary team of MIT researchers has built a new analog processor that can mimic synapses. The catch is that they have pushed the speed limits to make it synapse 1 million times faster than the human brain in a more energy-efficient manner. They employed a functional ‘inorganic material’ in the fabrication process to enable devices to run faster than the previous version they developed.
The newly developed inorganic material is compatible with standard fabrication techniques and can be integrated into commercial computing hardware like resistors for deep-learning applications. These programmable resistors exponentially increase the speed of training a neural network and fabricating devices even at the nanometer scale.
Senior author Jesus A. del Alamo, the Donner Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), explained that the working mechanism of the device was based on the “electrochemical insertion of the proton into an insulating oxide to modulate its electronic conductivity.”
Such devices are the essential foundations in analog deep learning. Scientists can create a network of analog artificial “neurons” and “synapses” by repeating arrays of programmable resistors.
Senior author Ju Li, the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, said that the potential of action in biological cells rises and falls with a timescale of milliseconds since the voltage difference of about 0.1 volts is constrained by the stability of water. He added, “Here, we apply up to 10 volts across a special solid glass film of nanoscale thickness that conducts protons, without permanently damaging it. And the stronger the field, the faster the ionic devices.”
The future will see more such developments as analog deep learning is quicker and more energy-efficient.
The umbrella organization for healthcare services in the United Kingdom (UK), the NHS, plans to utilize AI to diagnose and treat people at risk of Hepatitis C, a lethal disease. It plans to eradicate the disease by 2030 with its hi-tech screening program beginning in England in the next few weeks.
Hepatitis C is a severe disease whose symptoms do not have a noticeable manifestation until the liver has been severely deprecated. Hundreds of people could be infected and not know, making the disease a “silent killer.”
This new scheme that plans to bring AI into the screening process will screen thousands of people to provide a life-saving diagnosis and access to the line of treatment before it gets too late. The AI will also scan standard health records for risk factors like historical blood transfusions, HIV diagnosis, etc. Anyone identified through the screening process shall be invited for a physical review by a GP. Those who turn out to be positive will be recommended a line of treatment.
Prof Grahan Foster, NHS England’s national clinical chair in the Hepatitis C elimination program, said that the step marks a “significant step forward” and will save “thousands of lives.” He also added, “we will continue to boost the life chances of thousands of patients by catching the virus even earlier.”
The NHS staff also visits at-risk areas and communities with advanced trucks equipped with screening equipment to test the virus and scan patients’ records.
Rachel Halford, CEO of the Hepatitis C Trust, said, “Thanks to the brilliant advances we have seen in hepatitis C treatment in recent years, we have a real opportunity to eliminate the virus as a public health concern in the next few years.”
