Technology giant NVIDIA announces that it has acquired Israel-based data storage startup Excelero.
The companies did not provide any information regarding the valuation of the acquisition deal, but sources estimate it to be nearly worth $35 million. NVIDIA will benefit from Excelero’s technology, technical talent, and block storage expertise.
NVIDIA will bring Excelero’s engineering team to Israel, where the chipmaker employs about 2,800 people in seven R&D centers, including Yokne’am, Mellanox’s headquarters, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ra’anana, and Beersheba in the south.
Excelero previously worked with NVIDIA to accelerate their storage software using RDMA, which is a critical component of both InfiniBand and RoCE (Ethernet) networks.
Senior Vice President of Software Architecture at NVIDIA, Dror Goldenberg, said, “The company and its talented team brings extensive experience and deep technical expertise in accelerated software-defined storage and networking.”
He further added that with Excelero joining their fast-growing software department, they would be able to support their efforts to extend NVIDIA Israel’s areas of activity.
Additionally, NVIDIA announced plans to establish a new design and engineering group that will lead the development of next-generation CPUs focused on AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and NVIDIA’s new platform Omniverse, which allows for virtual world simulations.
Israeli data storage startup Excelero was founded by Lior Gal, Ofer Oshri, Omri Mann, and Yaniv Romem in 2014. The company is best known for developing NVMesh, a software platform that manages and secures virtual arrays of NVMe flash drives as block storage available across public and private clouds.
To date, the firm has raised around $35 million from investors like Battery Ventures, Western Digital Capital, and many more over four funding rounds.
“The Excelero team is joining NVIDIA as demand is surging for high-performance computing and AI. We’ll be working with NVIDIA to ensure our existing customers are supported, and going forward, we’re thrilled to apply our expertise in block storage to NVIDIA’s world-class AI and HPC platforms,” said CEO and Co-founder of Excelero, Yaniv Romem.
Indian EdTech company PurpleTutor announces the launch of its new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered live classes for students. According to the company, its new artificial intelligence feature will not only help learners but also teachers by enabling them to effectively impart knowledge to class attendees.
This is a one-of-a-kind feature as most of the other EdTech platforms omit the role of their teachers entirely and solely focus on student convenience.
PurpleTutor claims that the AI component operates in real-time, providing feedback to teachers and assisting them in making decisions that are in the best interests of the student, resulting in a highly personalized class experience for the student.
The AI-driven live lessons were created to scale the platform and close the gap in instructor delivery quality and engagement. Earlier this year, PurpleTutor, which specializes in skill development for children, received funding from IvyCap Ventures and other well-known investors.
CEO and founder of PurpleTutor, Gaurav Perti, said, “We have spent the initial few months last year on conceptualization and beta testing. We launched the AI-driven classes from July last year in a phased manner, and now they are inflow.”
He further added that in their AI-powered live classes, every child would receive identical explanations and exercises from the teacher, preventing the children from developing their own learning path.
Mumbai-based EdTech firm PurpleTutor was founded by Gaurav Perti in 2019. The company specializes in offering coding/computational sciences coaching to kids in the age group of 6-16 via live online classes. To date, PurpleTutor has raised a total of $300 thousand in one funding round. The company has a sizable operation with hundreds of teachers and over 2,00,000 registered students across the world. Interested candidates can book a free demo session from the official website of PurpleTutor.
Kerala Police announces that the department will receive training in artificial intelligence and data analytics to enter the next generation of police. India’s first on-campus digital university,
The Digital University Kerala (DUK), has introduced a specially developed training program for the police department called Capability Constructing in Accountable Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics.
Last week, the training program was launched at the university’s campus located in Pallippuram.
The goal of this new AI and data analytics training program is to reduce officers’ burden in police stations, allowing them to deliver better services to citizens.
This new development is part of the department’s effort towards its digital transformation. The first training batch would include up to 15 police officers from the police department.
Vice-Chancellor of DUK, Saji Gopinath, said, “We are looking at a series of projects for various government departments that are much more deep and hands-on with technology as a major component.”
He further added that they are elated to start this series with the Kerala Police department. Industry experts and researchers will lead the 150-hour training program in a classroom setting.
The police department would be able to develop software features that are critical for next-generation police using artificial intelligence and data analytics.
During the launch event, Inspector-General of Police (South Zone) P Prakash stated that the department is now developing iCoPS, new software that will allow the department to exploit the vast amount of crime data stored in the Crime Criminal Tracking Network & System (CCTNS).
Director of Kerala State IT Mission, Snehil Kumar Singh, said, “The entire e-governance initiative was about introducing different applications, hardware, and products so that the governance improves in general. Now it is time we start onboarding people who have certain ideas in data analytics and AI so that governance itself improves.”
He also mentioned that while AI and Data Analytics may appear to be far off in the future, the reality is that they are currently exploring the possibilities of using these technologies in governance.
Technology giant Microsoft acquires conversational artificial intelligence company Nuance in a recent deal. According to officials, the acquisition deal was worth a whopping $16 billion for $56 per share, about 23% above its closing price.
Earlier Microsoft shared its plans to acquire Nuance for $19 million, but the deal’s valuation changed after required regulatory approvals.
This new development is Microsoft’s one of the most significant acquisitions in recent years, following the acquisition of leading video game developer, publisher, and distributor Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion.
Microsoft and Nuance will empower enterprises across industries to accelerate their business goals with our outcomes-based AI using Nuance’s security-focused, cloud-based solutions integrated with strong, vertically optimized artificial intelligence.
Executive Vice President of Cloud + AI Group at Microsoft, Scott Guthrie, said, “Completion of this significant and strategic acquisition brings together Nuance’s best-in-class conversational AI and ambient intelligence with Microsoft’s secure and trusted industry cloud offerings.”
He further added that the acquisition would enable healthcare providers to provide more inexpensive, effective, and accessible treatment while also helping businesses of all sizes develop more personalized and engaging customer experiences.
Customers will now be able to enjoy the benefits of better consumer, patient, clinician, employee experiences, and improved productivity and financial performance.
United States-based conversational AI company Nuance was founded by Ronald Croen in 1992. The firm specializes in providing solutions that understand, analyze, and respond to people – amplifying human intelligence to increase productivity and security.
CEO of Nuance, Mark Benjamin, said that Nuance’s deep vertical expertise and proven business outcomes in healthcare, financial services, retail, telecommunications, and other industries, combined with Microsoft’s global cloud ecosystems, will enable Nuance to accelerate its innovation and deploy the solutions more quickly, seamlessly, and at scale. “As Microsoft and Nuance come together as one organization, we are excited about the opportunities ahead for our technology, employees, customers, and partners,” added Benjamin.
Photonic chip developing company Luminous Computing raises $105 million in its recently held series A funding round.
Multiple veteran investors, including Bill Gates, 8090 Partners, Neo, Modern Venture Partners, Third Kind Venture Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, Strawberry Creek Ventures, Horsley Bridge, and others, participated in the funding round.
Luminous Computing will utilize the funds to fuel its mission of creating the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence-enabled supercomputer. The fact that Luminous is constructing practically every aspect of the stack from the ground up, integrating expertise from a variety of fields, is what sets it apart.
Luminous Computing’s engineering team will be doubled, and the company will begin developing unique chips and software in preparation for commercial production. Photonics designers, digital and analog VLSI engineers, packaging and system integration engineers, and machine learning experts are all being sought by Luminous.
Co-founder and CEO of Luminous Computing, Marcus Gomez, said, “AI has become superhuman. We can interact with computers in natural language and ask them to write a piece of code or even an essay, and the output will be better than most humans could provide. What’s frustrating is that we have the software to address monumental, revolutionary problems that humans can’t even begin to solve.”
He further added that most hardware designers believe that in order to boost performance, you either sacrifice programmability and cost-efficiency or just switch to a higher-density silicon node.
United States-based chip designing company Luminous Computing was founded by Marcus Gomez, Michael Gao, and Mitchell Nahmias in 2018.
Luminous Computing specializes in offering an artificial intelligence training and inference chip that combines the computational capacity of supercomputers onto a single chip, allowing organizations to bypass major bottlenecks that traditional processors confront. To date, the company has raised a total of $115 million over our funding rounds.
The country of Ukraine seems to be struggling to catch a break. Amid the escalating tensions with Russia, the nation is caught in the mayhem of a string of cyberattacks. Alarms blared off at Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center on February 23, hours before Russian tanks started marching into Ukraine, warning of a never-before-seen piece of “wiper” malware aimed at the country’s government departments and financial institutions. While it was the first sighting of wiper attacks, last month was plagued with multiple cyberattacks on Ukraine.
For instance, Ukraine was also targeted by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assault on that day, which caused multiple governments and business websites to fail, according to the BBC. Earlier on February 15, around 70 Ukrainian government websites, as well as the country’s defense and armed forces networks, were targeted by identical DDoS attacks, which the US and UK blamed on Russian hacker organizations. The victims of the DDoS carnage were the websites of Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Security Service of Ukraine, Cabinet of Ministers, and Ukraine’s largest commercial bank, Privatbank. This is not the first time, Ukraine was a fertile ground for Russia’s nefarious cyberattacks. In 2017, Russia used Ukrainian accounting software to distribute the notorious NotPetya (another wiper malware), which swiftly spread throughout the world, causing billions of dollars in damage and disruption to businesses.
As the latest wiper attacks took place, Threat Intelligence Center, which is located north of Seattle, sprung into action and alerted Ukraine’s main cyber defense body about the malware which was initially dubbed as “FoxBlade”. Microsoft’s virus detection systems were upgraded in the next three hours to stop the FoxBlade, which erases or “wipes” data on machines on a network. On March 2, Microsoft announced that the group behind the wiper cyberattacks (now dubbed as HermeticWiper), still pose threat to cybersecurity systems worldwide. The name “Hermetic” is most likely taken from Hermetica Digital Ltd, the firm whose false code signing certificate was used by the malware. Software developers use code-signing certificates to digitally sign apps, drivers, executables, and software programs to ensure that the code they receive has not been tampered with or corrupted by a third party.
Furthermore, the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center is tracking the threat actors behind this attack as DEV-0665, although it hasn’t linked them to a previous set of attackers.
According to ESET, a Slovakian cybersecurity firm, on February 23 it discovered the data-wiper malware HermeticWiper on hundreds of PCs in Ukraine. ESET also detected a massive attack by another wiper called IsaacWiper (also called Lasainraw) on February 24, and a new version of malware with debug logs on February 25. Legal institutions such as the FBI and the Federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a warning to neighboring nations due to the rise of wiper cyberattacks such as HermeticWiper. As the political hostility continues, it is thought that the wiper malware that struck Ukraine has the ability to harm government agencies in other European nations.
As per ESET, the wiper’s timestamp shows that it was compiled on December 28, 2021, implying it was being planned for some time. HermeticWiper exploited genuine disk management software drivers like the EaseUS Partition Master software. The virus includes 32-bit and 64-bit driver files compressed using the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, which is a standard data compression method. When executed, the wiper corrupts the infected computer’s Master Boot Record (MBR), leaving it useless. It can also attack a system’s data recovery tools and a hard drive’s rebooting system, making it impossible for the device to boot into its operating system, therefore rendering it useless. This malware could potentially get complete control of its target’s internal networks, exposing a variety of applications. According to ESET, the wiper was deployed into one of the targeted organizations’ systems via the default Group Policy Object (GPO), allowing it to access the primary server and disseminate the malware to other devices and programs.
A modified worm known as HermeticWizard distributes the virus inside infiltrated local networks. ESET has also discovered HermeticRansom, which is operating as decoy ransomware to divert attention away from the disk-wiper HermeticWiper.
However, aside from its damaging traits, the wiper does not appear to have any other functions. Experts are already drawing parallels of Hermetic Wiper with the WhisperGate malware that Microsoft discovered in numerous Ukrainian PCs in mid-January this year.
Meanwhile, according to Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point Software, cyberattacks against Ukrainian government sites and the military sector climbed by 196% in the first three days of Russia’s invasion on the 44 million-strong population country, while attacks on Russian companies grew by only 4%.
Kyiv has called on worldwide hacktivists and cyber professionals to join its international “IT army” to repel any Russian cyberattacks. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation and Vice Prime Minister, set up a Telegram room and posted the URL to the forum, inviting “digital talents” to participate. He claimed that those who join up will be assigned “operational tasks,” that will be revealed on Telegram..
As of Monday evening, this IT army Telegram channel had over 240,000 subscribers. The channel has published a list of Russian targets that members are encouraged to try to infiltrate via cyber vectors (attacks such as malware or ransomware) or denial-of-service assaults. The target includes Russian government websites, APIs, bank websites, and important government corporations. Even before the Russian invasion, the European Union began deploying a cyber rapid-response team (CRRT) throughout Europe on February 22 in response to a plea for assistance from Ukraine, comprising of cyber professionals from six countries: Lithuania, Croatia, Poland, Estonia, Romania, and the Netherlands.
Self-driving technology is gaining immense popularity across the globe as more and more companies are entering the market and are deploying their autonomous vehicles on public roads for testing and commercialization.
Therefore, there is a high possibility that the technology will increase traffic congestion, and humans will no longer need to put effort while driving.
Self-driving car will amplify traffic to insane levels, as you won’t feel the pain of driving yourself
Leading autonomous vehicle manufacturer Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk mentioned in a recent tweet, “Self-driving cars will amplify traffic to insane levels, as you won’t feel the pain of driving yourself.”
Twitteratis flooded the tweet with their replies backing this possibility of increased traffic on roads due to self-driving cars.
A research conducted by the University of Adelaide suggested that self-driving vehicles might indeed worsen traffic congestion in the coming decades due in part to drivers’ attitudes toward emerging technology and a lack of willingness to share their rides.
A Twitter user also pointed out that driverless vehicles could eliminate the need for traffic lights as the technology can easily detect other cars present in the surroundings and make necessary decisions regarding movement.
However, many researchers think otherwise. UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies’ research showed that automated car-led human-controlled vehicles could reduce 42% stop-and-go traffic and gas usage. Additionally, the team used loops, ramps, and figure-eight courses to simulate traffic, with automated cars increasing flow among human-controlled vehicles.
Sanctuary Cognitive SystemsCorp., a Canada-based Robotic AI startup, has closed a $58.5 million Series A funding round from Verizon Ventures, Bell, Evok Innovations, Magna, Export Development Canada, and a handful of other corporate giants.
Sanctuary Corp incorporates AI, cognition, computer vision, theoretical physics, machine learning, and quantum computing technologies to create general-purpose robots with human-like intelligence. These robots can interact and learn from humans. The company pitches them as a potential aid for complicated and dangerous jobs and makes up for labor shortages.
“With unfilled vacancies, workplace safety considerations, increasing employee turnover, worldwide aging populations, and declining workplace participation, one thing is clear: many labor-related challenges are outside the scope of current specialized AI and robotics technology,” Sanctuary CEO Geordie Rose said.
Unlike other AI companies that are developing robots for a single task, Sanctuary corp aims to design robots capable of performing a wide range of tasks across various verticals and industries with the recently closed Series A funding. These robots will be piloted by humans or can work entirely independently but with a human operator’s supervision.
The company’s team is to improve safety at the workplace by enabling these general-purpose robots to undertake dangerous activities that humans normally carry out. For example, people can use robots to sterilize hospital rooms or clear mind fields in conflict zones.
Founded in 2018 by Geordie Rose, Olivia Norton, Suzanne Gildert, and Ajay Agrawal. Sanctuary also plans to develop technology and robots to help humans explore, settle, and prosper beyond Earth.
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur’s Artificial Intelligence and Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship (AIIDE) – Centre of Excellence (COE) announces that it has incubated a Lucknow-based startup Future Crime Research Foundation (FCRF), to build a search engine for predictive policing and crime mapping.
The growth of technology over the years also increased crime. Hence, police and intelligence agencies are finding it increasingly challenging to counter them.
The startup plans to develop a novel search engine to make the investigation and policing process more efficient for concerned authorities.
Apart from other services, the company will integrate data from all important stakeholders to develop a search engine that would aid in predictive policing, crime mapping, and analysis.
According to the company, the search engine will assist police in conducting more advanced analysis, gaining a better understanding of the factors that influence criminal behavior, and also aid in predicting where crimes can occur. Earlier, FCRF had developed India’s first search engine for nodal officers and police station numbers across the country.
Co-founder of FCRF, Shashank Shekhar, said, “We will collect all necessary data from many sources and create a single platform that can execute data analysis utilizing regression models, data mining, and artificial intelligence, as well as providing insights into the crime pattern that is unique to a given region.”
Predictive policing, crime mapping, crime pattern analysis, crime prediction, future strategy, integrated database, behavioral analysis, a synergy of critical data, real-time action, the dark web, and social media investigation, default determination, and geospatial intelligence will be the key focus of the search engine.
CEO of IIT Kanpur’s AIIDE Center of Excellence, Nikhil Agarwal, said, “Frauds and crime are one of the main social issues. Future Crime Research Foundation (FRCF) is developing methods of predictive policing using Artificial Intelligence.” He also mentioned that they can now better comprehend crime and solve it faster because of the new technology.
Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce company, has launched Rakuten NFT, a nonfungible token (NFT) trading platform. Following the rising popularity of NFTs throughout the world, the company originally announced its ambitions to launch the platform in 2021. The company’s Rakuten NFT platform, according to an official news announcement, is focused on NFTs in fields like sports and entertainment, including music and anime.
Rakuten will also provide minting services for intellectual property (IP) owners who want to develop digital assets of their IP. To make purchases, customers will require a Rakuten ID, and they will earn and spend Rakuten points. The buyer can keep track of their purchases in a collection on the buyer’s website and then resell them. Rakuten wants to launch a peer-to-peer NFT service for minting and selling NFT content in 2023. Overall, Rakuten envisions to “spur further development of a global market” for the digital medium.
On February 25, Rakuten released their inaugural NFT, which includes digital materials from the Ultraman anime and the horse-racing-themed manga Kurogane Hiroshi G1 Gekitoshi (2010 Series). Rakuten NFT platform will further release collectibles from the TV Asahi Corporation series, Daiki Sound Co.’s Under Beasty, and NFTs depicting characters from Tiger & Bunny 2 in the future.
In 2015, by merging with Bitnet’s infrastructure, the company became an early adopter of Bitcoin payments. The business has also initiated Rakuten Coin, a cryptocurrency based on Rakuten Points and marketed as a “borderless money.” Under the Rakuten Wallet Inc. branch, the business started its own cryptocurrency exchange in 2019. Last year, the company enabled payments via Rakuten Pay and Rakuten Point Cards at point-of-sale terminals, allowing consumers to pay in cryptocurrency at certain shops around Japan.
Rakuten NFT platform is also in plans to manufacture and distribute the official J.League NFT collection and the Rakuten NFT Art Gallery, a collection of original NFT artwork chosen by Rakuten NFT.
For now, Rakuten NFT platform is up against prominent NFT market platforms, including Opensea, Rarible, Looksrare, and Magic Eden.
