Microsoft has announced that the company is unlocking new opportunities for its partners by investing in new programs, benefits, and resources. The investment is to help all independent software vendors (ISVs) to meet customer needs, innovate faster while being cost-efficient, and grow a thriving business. The announcement came yesterday at Microsoft Inspire 2022.
With cloud solutions’ demand estimated to exceed US$1 trillion by 2025, software providers are being more critical in supporting Microsoft’s mutual customers. With that in mind, the tech corporation announced new benefits with the ISV Success Program to help independent software vendors innovate rapidly, build well-architected applications, publish them in Microsoft’s commercial marketplace, and thus, grow their sales.
Currently in private preview and to be broadly available in fall 2022, the ISV Success Program is meant to be the pathway to ISV success in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. Software providers can use this newly enhanced benefits package to build across the Microsoft Cloud and access cloud sandboxes, technical and business resources, developer tooling, and a dedicated community.
Besides, participants can also get access to nearly US$128,000 in benefits to utilize productive, modern, and innovative developer tools to accelerate software production. Additionally, Marketplace Rewards has been integrated into the ISV Success Program to help simplify the path for ISVs.
Moreover, Microsoft announced that it is making ongoing improvements to its commercial marketplace platform. The company also announced a partnership with Tackle.io to help ISVs scale and reach Microsoft customers, simplify selling and accelerate revenue in the commercial marketplace.
At Microsoft Inspire 2022, the company also introduced new industry designations for ISVs, which will be available later this year. These designations differentiate solutions based on their demonstrated customer performance, technical maturity, and customer success. Partners will learn more about the designations and join the co-design sessions during Inspire 2022.
Microsoft has launched a platform named Project AirSim to train the artificial intelligence systems of autonomous aircraft. Project AirSim is a flight simulator for drones that companies can use to develop and train software controlling them.
The platform makes test flights possible in places that are usually considered risky, such as near power lines. Also, millions of flights can be simulated with this platform in the future, and companies can virtually see how the vehicle flies in the rain or how strong winds might affect its battery life.
In a statement announcing the launch, Microsoft said that the platform would show the power of the industrial metaverse, a virtual world where businesses will build, test, and hone solutions and bring them into the real world. The firm envisages using the technology to train the AI systems which fly autonomous air vehicles, from air taxis to delivery drones.
Microsoft has a long history in virtual flights. Project AirSim has grown out of an open-source project of the same name that was used by several researchers. Microsoft has announced that it will retire the old project.
Users will still have access to the code of the original open-source project, but it will be archived. Now, Microsoft will focus its efforts on the new project. Project AirSim contains more out-of-the-box features and requires less technical knowledge to use as compared to the open-source project.
Microsoft says its goal is to offer a free option and will provide more information on the platform as the general release date approaches. Project AirSim runs on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure. At present, US firm Airtonomy has received an early access to the platform.
In a new study led by Dr. Mark Walker at the Ottawa Faculty of Medicine, researchers have pioneered the use of a unique AI-based deep learning model as an assistive tool in obstetric ultrasonography in its nascent stages. The study was published in PLOS ONE, a peer-reviewed open-access journal.
The study aimed to demonstrate the potential of deep-learning architecture to support the early and reliable identification of cystic hygroma from first-trimester ultrasound scans. Cystic hygroma is an embryo-related condition that causes the lymphatic vascular system to develop abnormally.
The study used a dataset of nearly 300 fetal ultrasounds collected retroactively at the Ottawa Hospital. The images were analyzed using a DenseNet model to identify cases of cystic hygroma compared to normal controls correctly. This was done by calculating specificity, sensitivity, and other measurements. Gradient class activation heat maps, which visualize pixels in images, were also generated to assess model interpretability. Overall model accuracy was 93%.
The Ottawa-led research group believes that this study could lead to several advancements in the future. With further development, the team believes their approach might be applied to other fetal anomalies generally identified by ultrasonography, including testing in a large multi-site dataset.
Dr. Walker said that the group will aim to develop an international consortium to upload obstetrical ultrasound images to the cloud, which is a cluster of remote servers to store data and provide computing services to other users. This could ultimately help physicians in developing countries achieve cloud-driven interpretation and diagnosis.
New plans to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) will be published today in the United Kingdom (UK) to encourage innovation in cutting-edge AI technology and help develop consistent rules to protect the public.
The regulation comes as the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill is about to be introduced to the parliament of UK, which will drastically change the data laws in the UK to boost innovation in AI technology. The Bill will save about £1 billion for various businesses and will maintain a high standard of protection for personal data and privacy by taking advantage of Brexit.
A new artificial intelligence document published on Sunday outlines the approach to regulating technology which will be followed by the UK government. The document also consists of proposed rules covering future risks and opportunities, allowing businesses to develop and utilize AI systems and provide consumers with the same.
This approach to be followed by the government is based on some specific principles that regulators must apply. The businesses have the flexibility to implement these in methods that best suit the use of artificial intelligence in their concerned sector.
The proposals aim to support the development of businesses and avoid unnecessary barriers for the same. It will also allow businesses to share information about how they test the reliability of their AI. Businesses will follow guidelines set by UK regulators to ensure their artificial intelligence is safe and avoid unfair bias.
Instead of giving a central regulator the responsibility for managing AI, the government proposals would allow different regulators to take a tailored approach to use AI in different settings. This method will also generate adaptable and proportionate regulation for AI to be rapidly deployed to boost growth and productivity in the UK.
With the evident demand for artificial intelligence (AI) technology and thus AI professionals in India, the Indian educational institutes have stepped up to offer unique curated courses in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Although the focus has been on specialized professional-level courses or postgraduate space-related programs, recent years have seen a rise in AI courses at bachelor’s level at top BTech in Artificial Intelligence Institutes in India.
All the complex real-world problems are being solved with artificial intelligence and data science, whether it is face recognition, web search, or cancer detection. India has a bustling AI ecosystem, and the country is well-positioned to become a global leader in AI. However, India needs to be recognized as the global hub of digital talent to keep up with the international competition. This can be made possible only by training the young demographic for the requirements of the artificial intelligence industry at the top artificial intelligence engineering colleges in India.
In many top BTech in Artificial Intelligence Institutes in India, the AI courses are offered by different departments such as computer science or data science. The educational institutions in India are located across the country and provide programs at various levels, including the graduate level.
Below are some of the top BTech in Artificial Intelligence Institutes in India. However, the numbering is not necessarily the institute ranking or order of preference.
1. Indian Institute Technology, Hyderabad
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hyderabad, offers a full-fledged BTech program in Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is the first Indian educational institution to provide a BTech program in AI. The college is listed as one of the top BTech in Artificial Intelligence Institutes in India and third globally, according to India today. The course has an intake of around 20 students who are required to qualify for the program through the JEE-Advanced exam. The course aims to provide students with a sound understanding of the fundamentals of the theory and practicals of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The BTech program is designed to meet the nation’s pressing demands in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
2. Institute of Technology (VIT), Bhopal
Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Bhopal, is considered one of the top BTech in Artificial Intelligence Institutes in India. The School of Computing Science and Engineering (SCSE) at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) offers prospective students a BTech in Artificial Intelligence program. The courses at VIT in artificial intelligence are an eclectic mix of algorithms that are applied in various applications, including engineering, pure sciences, research and development, medical, linguistics, and others. The faculty and the division are determined to encourage students to explore and delve deeper into the world of artificial intelligence.
The BTech courses at VIT include:
BTech CSE specialization in artificial intelligence and machine learning
BTech mechanical engineering specialization in artificial intelligence and robotics
BTech ECE specialization in artificial intelligence and cybernetics.
The curriculum highlights include subjects like Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing, AI and Mobile Robotics, Computer Vision, Speech Recognition, Artificial Neural Networks, Internet-of-Things, Mechatronics and Robotics Modelling, Modelling and Simulation, and Data Science.
3. Sharda University
Sharda University is another reputable name among the top AI engineering colleges in India. BTech in Computer Science with Artificial Learning and Machine Learning at Sharda University is an undergraduate program that imparts specialized knowledge of advanced innovations like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning. In order to study a unified theory of machine learning problems and their solutions, this program discusses artificial intelligence methods related to different fields, including signal processing, neural networks, control, and data mining. The B.Tech program is for students who want to acquire the ability to design intelligent solutions for problems in several domains and business fields such as natural language processing, text mining, robotics, reasoning, and problem-solving.
4. Lovely Professional University (LPU)
Lovely Professional University (LPU) is considered one of the top artificial intelligence engineering colleges in India. LPU offers BTech in Computer Science and Engineering with a specialization in artificial intelligence. This program provides students a competitive edge in the job market by offering a robust curriculum and hands-on learning in data science and machine learning to develop competence that caters to the requirements of the industry. This specialization course offered by LPU is designed to enable students to develop software, applications, and intelligent machines with an exceptional combination of analytics, machine learning, and visualization technologies. In order to enable the students to keep pace with changing technological advances, Lovely Professional University has an industrial tie-up with Upgrade for this program.
5. SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRM IST)
SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRM IST) is one of the top BTech in Artificial Intelligence Institutes in India. SRM IST offers BTech in Computer Science and Engineering with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning specializations. The course aims to enlighten the students with a knowledge base in computer networks, data structures, compiler design, and its application in problem-solving, using advanced techniques and tools. Besides, students are granted access to both offline and online services. The intake for the course is through university-level counseling based on the rank obtained in the SRMJEE exam. The program provides a wide approach to programming and enables students to apply the knowledge in the latest artificial intelligence, computer algorithms, compiler designs, and computer networks. Also, guidance is provided to the students by an expert faculty team and lab programmers.
6. University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES)
University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) is counted as one of the top artificial intelligence engineering colleges in India. BTech CSE (Computer Science and Engineering) with specialization in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at UPES offers students the opportunity to learn about vital concepts such as algorithms, data structures, and OOPS concepts using Java, software engineering, databases, and design processes. The course also provides students with in-depth knowledge of machine learning and artificial intelligence by placing real-world problems in a wide variety of application domains such as computer vision, robotics, natural language processing, etc. Through this course, students will get experience in machine learning pipelines, data, models, algorithms, and empirical methods. The course curriculum framework has an overall holistic structure and focuses on the individual need of the student to discover. Students can choose from several subject-focused specializations along with the curriculum’s core subject.
7. Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology
Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology falls under the list of top AI engineering colleges in India. Launched in June 2019, BTech in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology is offered by the university’s computer science department in collaboration with Infosys Foundation. Students can avail admissions through Joint Admission Counseling (JAC) based on their JEE Mains scores. The program aims to provide students with an opportunity to learn both foundational and experimental components of artificial intelligence and machine learning. As an AI and ML-focused program, it starts with introductory AI-oriented and computing courses followed by AI and ML application-based courses, along with other open electives. The course has a highly structured core AI program that focuses on artificial intelligence and computer science fundamentals, along with communication skills. Humanities and other social sciences are an integral part of the curriculum, especially the ethical aspects of AI.
8. Jain University
Jain University falls on the list of top BTech in Artificial Intelligence Institutes in India. BTech Computer Science and Technology, with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Jain University, has seen exponential growth in terms of students in the last few years. This program is a well-established computer science specialization, emphasizing the methods to make computers or machines intelligent. Through this program, students can acquire knowledge of fundamental concepts, advanced technical architecture, progress infrastructural requirements, design strategies, tools, services, deployment models, and techniques related to AI. The course accelerates understanding through student-centric and application-oriented learning. The program facilitates an augmented curriculum with a pragmatic approach through projects, knowledge exchange forums, and sessions by professionals.
9. Great Lakes International University
Another name on the list of top artificial intelligence engineering colleges in India is Great Lakes International University. Bachelor of Technology (BTech) in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at Great Lakes is a four-year full-time undergraduate program offered in Andhra Pradesh. The program is a unique learning experience created keeping in mind the needs of the professionals in the sector. The program is provided in two formats based on the candidate’s requirements, classroom and online. The classroom program combines classroom teaching and self-paced online learning, enabling students to work and study simultaneously. The online format has a unique mentored learning model where students interact with their mentors every weekend to clear doubts. The faculty are industry experts from various backgrounds and domains with expertise in machine learning. The course has a rolling admission process. Prospective students are required to fill up an online application form. Shortlisted candidates are then asked to appear for a telephonic interview.
10. DY Patil International University
Another name among the top AI engineering colleges in India is DY Patil International University. The university offers BTech in Computer Science and Engineering (with Artificial Intelligence and Robotics). This track course is designed to prepare the engineering graduates to develop machine learning algorithms, have hands-on experiences with modern artificial intelligence frameworks such as Google TensorFlow, and design business applications using artificial intelligence engineering. The course also enables students to identify big data, its business implications, and advanced computing technologies. The department collaborates with leading AI front runners and other domain experts for the design and implementation of new strategies and techniques in AI.
11. GH Raisoni College of Engineering
GH Raisoni College of Engineering is a prestigious institution and one of the top BTech in Artificial Intelligence Institutes in India. The BTech program by GH Raisoni College Engineering, Nagpur, aims to develop professionals skilled in artificial intelligence and contribute toward the innovation of computing, expert systems, and data science. The college provides BTech in Artificial Intelligence with an intake of 60 students, which is relatively higher than IIT Hyderabad’s. The institute was listed as one of the top 100 in the Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements.
12. Sage University
Sage University is undoubtedly another one of the top artificial intelligence engineering colleges in India. BTech in Computer Science with Artificial Learning offered by the university is an undergraduate program that facilitates advanced learning solutions and innovations in machine learning and artificial intelligence. This specialization trains students to develop intelligent machines, software, and applications with a cutting-edge combination of visualization technologies and machine learning. The program also allows the students to pursue advanced study in machine learning. Students seeking admission at Sage University must have good analytical skills and a strong aptitude for mathematics, statistics, and programming.
13. Dehradun Institute of Technology (DIT) University
Dehradun Institute of Technology (DIT) University is another among the several top AI engineering colleges in India. BTech in Computer Science and Engineering offered by DIT is a four-year program designed to provide students with a firm foundation in the core discipline of computer science with specialized tracks in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, and robotics. At the institute, students can choose courses under several specification tracks and register for certificate programs in allied areas that improve opportunities for high-end placements and postgraduate admissions. Prospective students can choose a specialized track based on availability at the time of entry.
The specialized tracks of BTech CSE at DIT are:
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robotics
Data Science and Analytics
Internet of Things and Edge Computing
Cybersecurity and Privacy
Computer Vision and Biometrics
Cloud Computing and Blockchain
Full Stack and DevOps
14. International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Naya Raipur
International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Naya Raipur, has emerged as one of the top BTech in Artificial Intelligence Institutes in India. Launched in May 2019, the institute offers BTech in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Besides being a state university recognized by UGC, the university is also an established joint venture between the Chhattisgarh government and NTPC Limited. Bachelor of Technology (BTech) in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence is a four-year full-time undergraduate program offered by the experienced faculty of IIIT, Naya Raipur. Admission to this undergraduate program is based strictly on the candidate’s performance in JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) Paper 1.
Artificial Intelligence has been used for content creation of various kinds for a long time. Now, the focus has also shifted to content curation using artificial intelligence with the end goal of making education more accessible to people of all spheres. With students accessing education remotely these days, they constantly have to watch long college lectures on loop to understand concepts, clear doubts, or access certain information. The same is the case with remote workers in terms of presentation notes and documents. However, the use of artificial intelligence can address these concerns.
Content curation is sourcing relevant, high-quality information from diverse sources and promoting it to increase engagement. Similar to content generation, the process of content curation can be automated using artificial intelligence and machine learning. AI content curation not only provides assistance in content selection but also customizes the result for each person depending on their specific preferences.
For example, businesses and educational institutions produce hundreds of millions of hours of long-form video every day. However, since the production and editing costs are enormous, most of the population is unable to access and benefit from these productions. To address this issue, artificial intelligence and machine learning-based Educational Vision Technologies (EVT) was founded. EVT provides services that make long-form video content more comprehensive and easily accessible for workers and university students.
EVT utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning tools that provide content curation. These services employ machine learning algorithms to divide videos into short, manageable chapters of just a few minutes. Each of these short videos is accompanied by a transcript and notes. The EVT program was first designed with the needs of students with disabilities in mind. However, it also helps students who are unable to attend classes or find making notes difficult.
Users can either upload their own movies for content curation on EVT Bloom or use EVT Learning Systems to automatically upload the required content. The EVT software automatically generates a searchable voice transcript, interactive table of contents, quiz questions, and speaker summaries by segmenting recordings into concise video chapters. On web platforms, the software puts the titles of brief videos as headers to allow users to read aloud and help those who are visually impaired or blind access the video material easily.
EVT Bloom processing takes place on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), and the content is secured and stored in OCI object storage. EVT has developed its various machine learning microservices on OCI. With the help of engineers from Oracle, EVT prototyped and developed their machine learning microservice infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud.
Given that EVT offers hundreds of educational videos that are broadcast from its website, one would expect the cloud charges to be high. But since Oracle content curation service does not charge egress for the first 10 TB per month, EVT was able to significantly reduce the cost of video streaming, which makes it affordable too.
Conclusion
AI tools like ETV can significantly boost the productivity of students by helping them with content curation. Studies show that it takes more cognitive effort to take notes while listening to a lecture than it does while playing chess. To overexert students’ cognitive bandwidth to write everything from the whiteboard or chalkboard hardly makes any sense. With affordable AI innovations like EVT, the education system can be drastically transformed to make it more adaptable for the digital world, thus making it more accessible simultaneously.
A case brought by Fabrizio D’Aloia against Binance Holdings, Poloniex, gate.io, OKX, and Bitkub over allegations that someone was running a fraudulent clone online brokerage has led to a legal precedent that airdropping legal documents via blockchain using NFT, according to a notice released by the U.K. law firm Giambrone & Partners on Tuesday.
D’Aloia claimed to have been tricked into depositing more than 2.1 million Tether and 230,000 USD Coin valued at roughly US$2.33 million into two distinct digital wallets that turned out to be fake. Before he realized he was “a victim of fraudulent conduct” in May, the con artists convinced him to transfer money from his cryptocurrency wallets to trade on the platform under the pretense of being from online brokerage TD Ameritrade via the website tda-finan.com.
On June 24, the High Court of England and Wales authorized D’Aloia to distribute the court documents to people linked to two anonymous digital wallets. This is a historic step against cryptocurrency scammers.
The court also stated that exchanges must ensure that stolen cryptocurrency is neither transferred nor removed from their systems.
This is not the first instance of someone using the blockchain in a lawsuit. According to the legal firms Holland & Knight and Bluestone, the New York Supreme Court granted a restraining order against a hacker via NFT drop in the US$8 million LCX exchange breach case in June.
The LCX or Liechtenstein Cryptoassets Exchange is a Liechtenstein-based cryptocurrency exchange that was hacked in January. At the time, it was reported that the hackers compromised the exchange’s hot wallets, leading to the theft of many digital currencies, including Ether (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC).
According to Giambrone & Partners, who represented D’Aloia, the ruling is a welcome example of a court embracing new technology. It is also a noteworthy verdict because it shows that England and Wales is one of the greatest jurisdictions in the world, if not the best, for safeguarding victims of crypto asset theft.
An NFT is a unique blockchain-based digital asset. It is cryptographically validated, meaning the creator or author is authenticated within an irrevocable digital record. An NFT could be anything that exists on a machine, from art to a video clip to a music sample.
When a creator creates an NFT, all other copies of the artwork become its copies. As a result, the economic value of the NFT is connected to the blockchain that confirms the legitimacy of the work rather than the job itself. NFTs, like bitcoin or ether, have instrumental but not inherent value. However, thanks to increased adoption and endorsement from celebrities and large corporations, NFTs have gained much traction over the past year.
The U.K. government revealed intentions to create its own NFT earlier this year to establish itself as a “global leader” in the cryptocurrency industry. The government-owned Royal Mint, which is in charge of producing coins for the United Kingdom, has been instructed to develop and issue the NFT by the summer, according to Finance Minister Rishi Sunak.
Andrej Karpathy, director of artificial intelligence (AI) and Autopilot Vision at Tesla, has announced that he is quitting his job after five years with the company.
Karpathy’s resignation comes after Tesla recently laid off 229 annotation employees from its Autopilot team. The company also closed one of its offices in the US. The remaining 47 employees are expected to be employed at Tesla’s Buffalo Autopilot office.
Tesla has laid off workers from its San Mateo office, which employed 276 workers. The layoffs were part of the 10% reduction in the salaried workforce that the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, had announced last month.
The workers who were laid off were primarily low-skilled and had low-wage jobs, such as Autopilot data labeling, which involves determining whether Tesla’s algorithm identified an object well or not.
Karpathy joined Tesla five years ago. Before joining Tesla in 2017, he was a researcher at OpenAI, the AI nonprofit previously backed by Musk. He was on a four-month leave which fuelled speculations about his return.
I have no concrete plans for what’s next but look to spend more time revisiting my long-term passions around technical work in AI, open source and education.
Karpathy said that in 5 years, Autopilot graduated from lane keeping to city streets and is looking forward to seeing the solid Autopilot team continue that momentum. In a tweet, Karpathy said that he has no concrete plans for what he will pursue next but looks to spend more time around technical work in AI and open source.
Image Credits: Sebnem Coskun Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
A group of Chinese scientists from Sichuan University in southwest China has created soft robot fish that “eat” microplastics and might one day help clean up the filthy waters around the world. Researchers from Sichuan University in southwest China claimed that the bionic fish could also “self-heal” and absorb microplastics even when injured in a study that was published in the peer-reviewed journal ACS’ Nano Letters on June 22.
Photo: Nano Letters
According to the researchers, the 1.3 cm (1/2 inch) long robot can swim up to 2.67 body lengths per second, outpacing the majority of artificial soft robots. Microplastics adhere to the surface of the bionic fish because it is composed of synthetic resin polyurethane. According to the researchers, the robot can continually absorb surrounding microplastics and carry them to a predetermined location because particular components in microplastics have strong chemical connections and electrostatic interactions with the fish material.
Nacre, often known as the “mother of pearl,” is found on the inside of clam shells and is composed of layers of calcium carbonate mineral-polymer composites and a main silk protein filler, which makes it robust and flexible. In comparison, traditional soft robot materials like hydrogels and elastomers get readily destroyed in water. Using the mother of pearl as a base, the research team created an elastomer actuator using gradient nanostructures based on sulfonated graphene and β-cyclodextrin, which resulted in polyurethane latex material that can withstand high temperatures.
The research team gradually created a fish-shaped robot that can swim in any direction while being powered by a light source. When a laser is focused on the fish’s tail, the light deforms the material, causing it to bend. Because polyurethane is also biocompatible, it can be safely digested if it is unintentionally consumed by other fish. The nanocomposite material used in its construction had a self-healing efficiency of up to 89%.
Robots today appear to be designed to replace all kinds of human occupations. They can carry heavy objects, carry out tedious activities, help in food delivery, scurry into tight areas for research, medical applications, agriculture or disaster recovery, or act as disposable stand-ins in potentially fatal circumstances like military warfare. Now, this soft robot developed by Sichuan University can address the long-time concern of microplastics in water bodies that threaten fragile ecosystems.
Microplastics are tiny remnants of larger plastic debris that measure less than 5mm in size. They could be mistaken for food due to their small size and get lodged in an animal’s digestive system, starving it to death. Before being used, certain plastics are coated with harmful compounds that can kill neighboring marine life when the coating on microplastics dissolves.
It is challenging to clean the already contaminated water, even while decreasing plastic waste and filtering wastewater before it enters the ocean can help reduce the amount of microplastics in our seas. Even banning the production of certain single-use plastics, as done recently by Canada, would not help free the already polluted waters and microplastics. The minute particles can also stay trapped deep beneath the seafloor’s fissures and crevices, making it difficult for large, rigid robots to access these locations. The bionic fish has so far demonstrated its capacity to ingest pollutants in shallow water, but scientists intend to deploy it in deeper waters as well to study marine pollution.
The research study was funded by the Sichuan Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the National Key Research and Development Program of China.
Left: Hubble. Right: James Webb. Credit: ESA/NASA/STSCI
On Monday, President Biden hosted a gathering at the White House where he unveiled the James Webb Space Telescope’s first scientific photograph. It is one of the targets that NASA earlier disclosed on Friday, July 8: galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. SMACS 0723 is located in the southern constellation of Volans at a distance of 5.12 billion light-years from our planet. The image showed how this galaxy cluster looked 4.6 billion years ago.
Webb’s First Deep Field Image source: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
This is the deepest and brightest infrared picture of the distant universe yet taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The photograph known as Webb’s First Deep Field is rich in detail. It is a composite picture created from pictures acquired over a period of 12.5 hours at various wavelengths. This animation shows the amount of additional information seen by the more recent probe by contrasting the Hubble Space Telescope with JWST’s images of SMACS 0723.
The area of the cosmos depicted in this picture is about the size of a grain of sand held out in front of someone. All the images captured by the telescope are anticipated to result in revelations that will improve our understanding of how the cosmos started some 13.7 billion years ago.
A machine learning model known as Morpheus was created by researchers and taught to sift through pictures, identify faint blob-shaped objects from the deep abyss of space, and assess whether or not they are galaxies and, if so, what kind. In simple words, it will enable pixel-level morphological classifications of cosmological images. NVIDIA, a prominent player in the technology industry, offered its GPUs to speed up Morpheus on several platforms.
The COSMOS-Webb program, the biggest and most challenging undertaking the telescope will embark on in its first year, is largely dependent on the Morpheus. To examine how dark matter evolved when these structures started housing stars, a team of almost 50 researchers will survey half a million galaxies from a region of the sky where they’ll be looking for the oldest, fully-formed galaxies. They’ll employ the software to automate this procedure, which was formerly employed to assist with image classification for the Hubble Space Telescope.
A large portion (0.6 square degrees) of the sky will be surveyed by COSMOS-Near-Infrared Webb’s Camera (NIRCam) during the course of more than 200 hours of observation. It will concurrently use the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to map a smaller region. Known as the epoch of reionization, COSMOS will focus on the development of the universe, which took place from 400,000 to 1 billion years post the big bang. Additionally, COSMOS will be used to map the large-scale dark matter distribution of galaxies back to very early times and search for some of the rarest galaxies that were present in the early universe, i.e., the first 2 billion years after the big bang.
With multi-band, high-resolution near-infrared imaging and an unprecedented 32,000 galaxies in the mid-infrared, COSMOS-Webb will examine half a million galaxies. This survey will serve as a critical historical dataset from Webb for researchers worldwide researching galaxies outside the Milky Way due to its quick public release of the data.
Morpheus received training on the Lux supercomputer at UC Santa Cruz, which has 80 CPU-only compute nodes, each containing two 20-core Intel Cascade Lake Xeon processors along with 28 GPU-only nodes containing two Nvidia V100 GPUs each. According to Brant Robertson, an astrophysics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz and one of the leading researchers behind Morpheus, the James Webb Space Telescope will actually allow us to see the universe in a new way that we’ve never seen before with the aid of this machine learning software. Morpheus will thus need to be retrained after being initially trained on 7,600 galaxy pictures captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to more effectively adapt to James Webb Space Telescope data.
These competencies will be helpful when the telescope delivers a wider and deeper perspective of the cosmos than ever before, with each image containing more structures that cannot be explored manually with the unaided eye. The most recent version of the software also includes additional image processing features, such as deblending, which can distinguish astronomical objects in the sky that appear to be overlapping.
Image Source: Northrop Grumman
The James Webb Telescope project was initially conceived in 1996, with an original cost estimate of US$0.5 billion. Because it was named after a former administrator who allowed the government to discriminate against homosexual and gay personnel, it has repeatedly drawn criticism from the public. After several delays, the US$10 billion telescope was eventually launched on Christmas Day of the previous year. At the moment, it orbits the L2, or second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, which keeps it out of our planet’s shadow. In comparison, the Hubble orbits around the Earth at an altitude of 570km. The fact that Webb predominantly observes the cosmos in the infrared whereas Hubble primarily investigates it at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths is another significant distinction between the two telescopes. This has a major benefit since infrared views can see through cosmic dust to reveal objects or structures that are otherwise concealed.
James Webb Space Telescope boasts a base made of a sun shield composed of thin layers of Kapton, and a panel of hexagonal-shaped mirrors with a gold plating lying on top. The 18 mirrors, each measuring 6.5 meters across, are supported by struts and motorized actuators, allowing them to move in six directions simultaneously. A larger-than-expected micrometeoroid struck one of these mirrors in May. The mirror had previously experienced four minor micrometeoroid hits. According to NASA, the telescope has performed better than expected despite the strikes, with hardly any data loss.
For the purpose of concentrating light from distant objects more than 13 billion light-years away, they were precisely aligned with one another at 1/10,000th the thickness of a human hair to act as one large mirror.
A secondary mirror with a diameter of 0.74 meters that is mounted to the end of three long arms refocuses the light reflected from the large mirror. Photons are directed to several equipments, including a near-infrared camera and spectrograph, a mid-infrared camera and spectrograph system, and a field guidance sensor, which aids in pointing the telescope at relevant objects. These instruments are located behind the front mirror.
The image is only one of the initial few locations that astronomers chose to investigate during the JWST’s initial science operations run. In the following days, new images detailing the Carina Nebula, the Southern Ring Nebula, Stephan’s Quintet, and the light spectrum of WASP-96 b were released.
One of the biggest and brightest nebulae in the sky, the Carina Nebula lies around 7,600 light-years beyond. Several enormous stars in this region are many times as big as the Sun. The telescope captured the edge of the gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, a star-forming region within the nebula.
Southern Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula with an expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star. It is around 2,000 light-years from Earth and has a diameter of over half a light-year. Stephan’s Quintet is a collection of five galaxies initially identified as a compact galaxy group in 1877. It is situated in the Pegasus constellation, approximately 290 million light-years away.
WASP-96 b Credit: ESA/NASA/STSCI
Outside our solar system, there is a huge planet called WASP-96 b, mostly made of gas. It is roughly 1,150 light-years away from Earth and revolves around a star similar to the Sun. For 6.4 hours, Webb observed the light coming from the WASP-96 system as the planet traveled across the star.
