IIT Guwahati Unveils Online BSc in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence

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July 5, 2023

IIT Guwahati online BSc Data Science Artificial Intelligence — Image Credits: News Today

An online Bachelor of Science (Hons) Degree Programme in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence is being offered through Coursera by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati. This online degree programme seeks to equip students for high-paying, quickly expanding employment in artificial intelligence and data science.

IIT Guwahati is opening up access to the entirely online degree programme through a number of enrollment paths in order to fulfill this demand and follow NEP 2020 recommendations. Anyone who has completed Class XII or an equivalent with mathematics as a required subject is eligible to apply.

Direct admission will be granted to those who are qualified and have registered for JEE Advanced (in any year), while those who do not may take an online course and be admitted based on their performance.

The degree offers several exit possibilities and rewards learning throughout. By converting their credits into a certificate, diploma, degree, and finally an honors degree, students can graduate from the programme. Online courses are mostly asynchronous to maximize flexibility and engagement. This allows students to learn at their own speed, while optional campus visits provide them the chance to interact with peers and teachers.

Before moving on to more specialized topics like generative AI, deep learning, computer vision, and data mining, students develop a foundation in coding. Through group projects, real-world case studies, and internships, students will improve their learning. Students can increase their understanding of job-relevant topics by earning industry micro-credentials, which are available in the programme and accepted as prior learning.

The BSc (Honors) in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence programme will accept applications beginning on July 19, 2023, with the commencement of classes set for October 2023.

Meesho Partners with IISc Lab for Research in Generative AI

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Sahil Pawar

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July 5, 2023

Meesho partners IISc lab research generative AI — Image Credits: Meesho

For future expansions of the e-commerce industry, Meesho, the emerging shopping platform, intends to promote advancements and breakthroughs in fields like generative artificial intelligence and multimodal large language models (LLMs).

As part of an industry-academia partnership, the e-commerce marketplace Meesho and the Vision & AI Lab (VAL) of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for research that will last for one year.

In accordance with the MoU, Meesho’s data scientists will work with lab researchers from the institute to concentrate on generative AI skills and multimodal representation learning. By improving the online shopping experience for customers, the goal is to have a significant impact on the e-commerce sector.

Additionally, the partners believe that this will maintain Meesho at the forefront of the escalating competitiveness in the ecommerce industry and perhaps lead to the publication of research articles.

“Innovative thinking and technology are enabling a significant transformation in e-commerce. Online buying habits of consumers are evolving, and new trends are appearing. At Meesho, we welcome this profound transformation brought on by new technologies. The goal of developing solutions that ultimately benefit both customers and sellers equally will be strengthened by this collaboration,” Rajesh Kumar SA, director of data science at Meesho.

“By pooling our resources, we can create new opportunities and enhance technology that will provide beneficial business solutions for millions of customers,” said Venkatesh Babu, the head of the Vision & AI lab at IISc. Meesho announced its intention to increase its investment in AI and machine learning in June, citing the increasing integration of these technologies across industries.

Google Announces 20 Indian Startups for Its Startups Accelerator Programme

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Sahil Pawar

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July 5, 2023

Google 20 Indian startups for Startups Accelerator programme — Image Credits: Shutterstock

On Tuesday, Google announced that it has chosen 20 Indian firms for the seventh round of its Google for Startups Accelerator, including the railway ticket booking tool Trainman. The company stated that these Seed to Series A startups, which were picked from more than 1050 applicants, will aim to harness the power of generative artificial intelligence (AI).

The 20 India Startups include ActoFit, AlgoBio, Atsuya Technologies, AyuRythm, Blend, Cloudphysician, DentalDost, Expertia AI, Filo, KarmaLifeAI, Knorish, LimeChat, Mozark, Namaste Business, Neodocs, Qoruz, Rooter, Swasthya AI, Trainman, and Vitra.ai.

“These firms have now been included to the list of 137 startups in India that are part of the Google for Startups Accelerator. We kicked off the programme with a 1-week in-person bootcamp in Bengaluru on June 12 that was heavily focused on AI/ML and Generative AI, as well as training/workshops and office hours around product and design, tech, growth, and people, according to the company,” said Google.

In short, a three-month, equity-free accelerator programme for Seed to Series A software businesses in India is the Google for Startups Accelerator (GFSA) program. Over 130 firms in India have used it to speed up their growth thus far. Google began accepting applications for the seventh iteration of the accelerator programme in March of this year.

The business had then stated that Indian entrepreneurs operating in a variety of industries who were utilizing or planning to employ machine learning or artificial intelligence were eligible to apply and would receive mentoring and help in the areas of cloud, web, product strategy, UX, android, and growth.

Uttar Pradesh to Transform Key Cities into AI and IT Centers

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Sahil Pawar

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July 4, 2023

Uttar Pradesh transform key cities AI IT centers — Image Credits: NDTV

The government of Uttar Pradesh has unveiled a strategy to transform important cities into centers for artificial intelligence and information technology.

The action comes in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement last month from the US that India and the US are at the forefront of developments in AI and that there have been ground-breaking advances. The cities scheduled for the AI and IT-based makeover are Varanasi, Prayagraj (Allahabad), Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), Kanpur, and Lucknow.

As part of a larger plan to establish the five cities as future centers for IT and IT Enabled Services (ITeS), Lucknow has been designated as India’s first “AI City.” Nand Gopal Gupta, the industrial development minister for the state of Uttar Pradesh, was quoted as saying that technology and tech leadership would define the future of the world and that UP has made great strides to become a key center of AI, both nationally and internationally.

He said, “AI leadership means leadership of the world and our ‘double engine’ government is turbocharged to lead the tech revolution in the world. The goal of the anticipated AI and IT sector development in these five cities is to accelerate Uttar Pradesh’s transition to a trillion-dollar economy.”

A detailed road map was recently presented to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath by officials. A high-level committee led by the chief secretary has been tasked by the CM with taking action to implement the idea right away. The Lucknow AI hub initiative would offer investors and businesses a whole value chain made up of AI start-ups, data centers, data analytics, AI-based training, and data forensics, among other things.

Data, AI in Healthcare to Add $25-30 Billion to India’s GDP by 2025, Says Nasscom

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Sahil Pawar

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July 4, 2023

Data AI healthcare $25-30 billion India’s GDP 2025 Nasscom — Image Credits: Sutterstock

India’s healthcare sector is undergoing a dynamic change that is centered on digital transformation. According to a report from the IT industry group Nasscom unveiled at an event, data and AI in healthcare have the potential to boost India’s GDP by $25 to $30 billion by 2025.

Ktech Nasscom Centre of Excellence (CoE) organized the 11th edition of the Life Sciences and Healthcare Innovation Forum (LHIF) and the 4th edition of the Healthcare Innovation Challenge (HIC), reiterating its commitment to upending the healthcare ecosystem for accessible and affordable patient care.

The forum is a seven-year-old initiative that has the support of the Karnataka government. It highlighted the necessity of adopting technology-driven digital healthcare solutions to provide patients with better, faster, and more timely access to medical facilities and services, especially in remote locations.

The forum reemphasized the necessity of the industry’s innovation and swift adoption of cutting-edge technologies. Additionally, it emphasized the necessity of putting strategic emphasis on creating infrastructure that will fuel healthcare innovation in the nation. Some of the main drivers will include telemedicine, health technology, data-focused healthcare, accessibility to primary care, and mobility of skilled talent.

Hidentity, KareXpert, I Am By Your Side, Autoyos, Expand My Business, Healthvectors, Vyli, Ignoimagine, Leucine BioTech, AiVolved, Janitri, and Expand My Business were a few of the startups who attended the event. The startups showcased their digital health technologies that improved healthcare facilities and guaranteed accessible healthcare delivery by utilizing the power of AI and IoT.

Andrew Ng introduces ‘Generative AI with LLMs’ with AWS

By

Tejaswini Kasture

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July 4, 2023

Andrew Ng Introduces 3 Gen AI courses — Image Source: Analytics Drift

Collaborating with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Andrew Ng, a pioneer in Machine Learning, founder of DeepLearning.AI, Landing AI, and co-founder of Coursera, has unveiled a new course on ‘Generative AI with Large Language Models’.

It is a three-week course based on generative AI with Large Language Models (LLMs) created by AWS and DeepLearning.AI. The course will provide an in-depth understanding of LLM architecture and how LLM works. In addition, the course will also guide how to effectively use LLMs in applications by determining the most appropriate model and implementing suitable training techniques.

The course also covers the full life-cycle of a generative AI project, and it focuses on specific techniques like Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF), zero-shot, one-shot, few-shot concepts with LLM, advanced prompting frameworks like ReAct, and even fine-tuning LLMs. The course is available on Coursera and is especially designed for data scientists, ML engineers, research engineers, and anyone interested in generative AI.

Apart from Andrew Ng, the course will be instructed by Chris Fregly, principal solutions architect at AWS; Antje Barth, principal developer advocate at AWS, and Mike Chambers, developer advocate at AWS. Andrew Ng announced the courses in a post on LinkedIn.

Andrew Ng is an AI and ML expert who is always prompt regarding people learning and adapting to generative AI. In the previous month, he introduced three new Generative Al courses on Building Systems with the ChatGPT API, LangChain for LLM Application Development, and How Diffusion Models Work. In collaboration with OpenAI, he also offered a free short course, ‘ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers,’ designed to help developers effectively utilize LLMs.

Twitter Announces Daily Reading Limits Due to Excessive Data Scraping

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Sahil Pawar

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July 3, 2023

Twitter daily reading limits due data scraping — Image Credits: AD

Elon Musk recently announced additional “temporary” limits on the number of posts users can view. He continued to blame these restrictions on AI businesses extracting vast amounts of data for Twitter. Now, only 600 posts can be viewed daily by unverified accounts, and only 300 can be viewed daily by “new” unverified accounts.

To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:

– Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
– Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
– New unverified accounts to 300/day
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023

The restrictions for verified accounts still only allow reading up to 6,000 posts per day. This applies accounts presumably whether they’re purchased as a part of the Twitter Blue subscription, granted through an organization, or verification Elon forced on people like Stephen King, LeBron James, and anyone else with more than a million followers.

The rate restrictions would “soon” rise to 8,000 tweets for verified users, 800 for unverified users, and 400 for brand-new unverified accounts, Musk tweeted shortly after that.

Rate limits increasing soon to 8000 for verified, 800 for unverified & 400 for new unverified https://t.co/fuRcJLifTn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023

The restrictions came into effect a day after Twitter abruptly began denying access to users who aren’t logged in. Musk claimed that this was necessary because a few hundred organizations (possibly more) were scraping Twitter data extensively, to the point where it was affecting the real user experience.”

Musk has tried to monetize Twitter in a number of different ways over the past few months, and the change is only one of them. Just three months after launching the redesigned $8 per month Twitter Blue pay-for-verification programme, the company announced a three-tier API update in March that will start charging for the use of its API.

TSRTC Buses to Get AI-powered Driver Monitoring Systems

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Sahil Pawar

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July 3, 2023

TSRTC Buses AI-powered Driver Monitoring Systems — Image Credits: TSRTC

In an effort to improve road safety, public transport buses in Telangana will soon be equipped with driver monitoring systems (DMS), which include CCTV cameras that can identify inattentive or fatigued drivers.

In up to 190 Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) buses, DMS with CCTV cameras are likely to be installed, either right away or gradually. This initiative is a part of Project iRASTE, which makes use of artificial intelligence to lessen crash rates and mishaps on roadways. Tenders for this have been floated.

The system will track the driver’s facial expressions and eye movements in real-time, analyze them, and issue voice alerts within a few seconds in the event of driver distraction, or instances where the driver is frequently seen looking outside the bus.

Alerts will be either in Telugu, English or Hindi. Additionally, the system will transmit alarms if the driver is not wearing a seatbelt, is sleepy, or is smoking. The DMS will identify the driver using facial recognition technology and trace the journeys he has taken.

The technology will examine both the top safest and most reckless drivers using the data at hand. Motion is captured by CCTV cameras that are mounted on the windscreen.

There are 200 buses equipped withAdvanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) along the corridors connecting Hyderabad to Vijayawada, Hyderabad to Bengaluru, and Hyderabad to Nizamabad. The plan calls for adding DMS to the current ADAS. Buses that operate on long-distance routes are likely to have the DMS fitted.

Meta Gives a Glimpse of Its Twitter Rival Threads on Google Play

By

Sahil Pawar

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July 3, 2023

Meta gives glimpse Twitter rival Threads Google Play — Image Credits: AD

Early this morning, Alessandro Paluzzi, a developer who frequently examines app code to discover hidden functionality, tweeted that Meta’s Twitter rival, Threads, has been made available on the Google Play store. But given that the app is no longer accessible, it appears it was a mistake.

#Instagram has released Threads (aka Barcelona) app on the Play Store https://t.co/v82PwE5Mgm pic.twitter.com/9rox8GgZfL
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) July 1, 2023

The login screen, which allows users to sign in with their Instagram accounts, and another screen with a list of the accounts they follow on Instagram, so that users can choose who to follow on Threads, were among the screenshots Paluzzi provided.

Here's the store listing screenshots 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/kBK9OSRhNF
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) July 1, 2023

Threads resembles Twitter a lot. According to the screenshots, a new post will display character counts along with a little paperclip for attaching anything else that Threads will allow you to attach to posts. There are icons for liking, reposting, reacting to, and sharing posts when viewing them, and user photos appear in little circles. Even the blue checkmarks that Twitter uses for Instagram are present.

Since January, Threads has been in development at Meta under the title of “Project 92.” Chris Cox, chief product officer at Meta, who was introducing Threads at an internal company meeting said, “We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, as opposed to Twitter.”

Although Meta has not given the app an official release date, the fact that it has appeared in the Google Play store suggests that one is about to come. There is a lot of discussion regarding what this development would entail.

Goa to Install AI Cameras in 70 Accident-prone Zones to Enhance Road Safety

By

Sahil Pawar

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July 3, 2023

Goa install AI cameras 70 accident-prone zones — Image Credits; Stock Images

Authorities in Goa have selected 70 priority areas as accident-prone zones around the state in an effort to minimize traffic accidents and improve road safety. By December, artificial intelligence (AI) cameras will be installed at these areas to track traffic and catch drivers breaking the law. This was decided during a State Road Safety Council meeting on Friday at the Altinho ITMS control center.

Rajan Satardekar, Director of Transportation, emphasized the necessity for technological intervention in these accident-prone areas because it is getting harder for law enforcement to personally monitor them. In these regions, erratic driving and damaged traffic medians, which allow two-wheelers to shift lanes carelessly, have been recognised as two of the main causes of safety problems and accidents.

The transport department intends to deploy more staff to the backend to remotely monitor these areas in order to solve this issue. The best locations and camera positioning angles are being discussed in collaboration with the traffic cell of the Goa police. Additionally, finalization is being made to the associated expenditures for placing cameras at these high-priority areas.

To further punish drivers who violate the law, the list of violations recorded by AI cameras will be circulated. Since June 1, the traffic cell and the transport department have been using AI cameras to detect offenses and issue challans.

Due to this, common traffic violations including speeding, riding without a helmet, operating a vehicle without a seatbelt, and using a phone while driving have come under more scrutiny.

According to earlier reports, these high-resolution cameras have the ability to follow automobiles, spot speeding cars, and even find out whether a car has been reported stolen. It can run on Ethernet IP-based systems. Goa seeks to strengthen its Intelligent Traffic Management Systems (ITMS) and make considerable headway in reducing road accidents by installing AI cameras in accident-prone regions and broadening the scope of identified breaches.