science and technology

Apple removes 25 VPN apps from App Store in Russia, here's why

Apple has removed 25 VPN apps from its App Store in Russia, complying with orders from the communications regulator. This move comes amidst Russia's crackdown on VPNs and ongoing tensions with big tech companies over content regulation and censorship.




science and technology

IT hardware makers push for faster BIS certification to boost local production under PLI scheme

Industry executives have informed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) about the extended timelines for acquiring BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) certification. This is due to the mandatory separate tests for battery packs installed on laptops, after running viability tests for making the products with local contract manufacturers.




science and technology

Digital payments show strong uptick buoyed by wider adoption of credit during festive season

During this year’s festive season sales, credit cards and credit-based payment instruments like pay-later products saw a significant increase, according to industry reports. Transactions rose by 35-50% compared to last year, with a large share being made through credit cards, EMIs, and pay-later options. Unified Payments Interface (UPI) remained the dominant payment method, with a 34% rise in transactions and over 500 million daily payments recorded.




science and technology

How 5-star online customer reviews can backfire

It may be counterintuitive, but the more positive online reviews a product gets may actually lead to a net negative profit for the retailer. That's the conclusion of new research by a team of marketing experts from a Dutch and a German university that will be published in the September 2016 issue of the Journal of Retailing.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Echo templates aid mental mapping in bats

A study published in eLife provides new insights on how bats recognise their surroundings to help them build mental maps.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Reach in and touch objects in videos

We learn a lot about objects by manipulating them: poking, pushing, prodding, and then seeing how they react.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Online gaming can boost school scores

Teenagers who regularly play online video games tend to improve their school results, according to new research from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Study highlights serious security threat to many internet users

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have identified a weakness in the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) of all Linux operating systems since late 2012 that enables attackers to hijack users' internet communications completely remotely.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Researchers find that Android apps can secretly track users' whereabouts

Three years ago, the Federal Trade Commission dimmed hopes for the Brightest Flashlight app for Android, slapping its developer with charges of consumer deception. Why? The app was transmitting users' locations and device IDs to third parties without telling the users or getting their permission.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

In right balance, environmental regulations increased firms' profits, new study finds

CEOs and corporate lobbyists often spend plenty of time decrying how potential government regulations will affect their bottom line, but a new University of Kansas study finds that the U.S. Clean Water Act, when implemented in the right balance, improves firms' profitability.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

New study: Are voters influenced by campaign visits?

Los Angeles, CA (August 17, 2016) Despite their extensive national press coverage, campaign visits might not be worth presidential candidates' time and resources. A new study out today finds that voters are largely unaware of and unresponsive to campaign visits. The study was published as part of a special issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (a journal from SAGE Publishing) titled "Elections in America."

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Stanford scientists combine satellite data and machine learning to map poverty

One of the biggest challenges in providing relief to people living in poverty is locating them. The availability of accurate and reliable information on the location of impoverished zones is surprisingly lacking for much of the world, particularly on the African continent. Aid groups and other international organizations often fill in the gaps with door-to-door surveys, but these can be expensive and time-consuming to conduct.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Paper-based device spots falsified or degraded medications (video)

The developing world is awash in substandard, degraded or falsified medications, which can either directly harm users or deprive them of needed treatment. And with internet sales of medications on the rise, people everywhere are increasingly at risk. So, a team of researchers has developed a simple, inexpensive paper-based device to screen suspicious medications.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Edible food packaging made from milk proteins (video)

At the grocery store, most foods -- meats, breads, cheeses, snacks -- come wrapped in plastic packaging. Not only does this create a lot of non-recyclable, non-biodegradable waste, but thin plastic films are not great at preventing spoilage. And some plastics are suspected of leaching potentially harmful compounds into food. To address these issues, scientists are now developing a packaging film made of milk proteins -- and it is even edible.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

New device could help improve taste of foods low in fat, sugar and salt

Scientists may be closing in on a way to let consumers savor the sweet taste of cake, cookies and other culinary delights without the sugar rush. In preliminary tests using a new device developed in-house that allows them to screen for odor compounds in real foods, they have isolated several natural aromatic molecules that could be used to trick our brains into believing that desserts and other foods contain more fat, sugar or salt than they actually do.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Ramen noodles supplanting cigarettes as currency among prisoners

Ramen noodles are supplanting the once popular cigarettes as a form of currency among state prisoners, but not in response to bans on tobacco products within prison systems, finds a new study.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Norwegian prisons rehabilitate criminal offenders

The research project "The Social Costs of incarceration" is the largest study of imprisonment and return to a normal life that has ever been conducted in Europe.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Louisiana Tech University uses underground radar to locate post-Katrina damage

An innovative underground radar technology developed at Louisiana Tech University is helping the City of Slidell in south Louisiana to identify and document underground infrastructure damage that had gone undetected in the months and years following Hurricane Katrina.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Researchers find vulnerabilities in iPhone, iPad operating system

An international team of computer science researchers has identified serious security vulnerabilities in the iOS - the operating system used in Apple's iPhone and iPad devices. The vulnerabilities make a variety of attacks possible.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Beat the stock market by satisfying customers

Satisfy your customers and win in the stock market, says a new study by a team of researchers from Michigan's University Research Corridor, who found positive stock returns on customer satisfaction far out-distance competitive market measures that have been in play for more than half a century.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

New service improves cloud storage usage on mobile devices

A new service developed at Binghamton University, State University of New York could improve performance of mobile devices that save data to the cloud.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Team of robots learns to work together, without colliding

When roboticists create behaviors for teams of robots, they first build algorithms that focus on the intended task. Then they wrap safety behaviors around those primary algorithms to keep the machines from running into each other. Each robot is essentially given an invisible bubble that other robots must stay away from. As long as nothing touches the bubble, the robots move around without any issues. But that's where the problems begin.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

App vs. website: Which best protects your privacy?

That's the ques­tion that North­eastern researchers, led by assis­tant pro­fessor David Choffnes, ask in new research that explores how free app- and web- based ser­vices on Android and iOS mobile devices com­pare with respect to pro­tecting users' privacy.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

Language delivers fourfold speedups on big-data problems

In today's computer chips, memory management is based on what computer scientists call the principle of locality: If a program needs a chunk of data stored at some memory location, it probably needs the neighboring chunks as well.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

New tools assess the future of wind power

Using software tools developed by Near Zero, a research group hosted by the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology, a team of researchers has completed the largest expert survey yet on any energy technology, in this case wind energy.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

science and technology

China drafts rules for using facial recognition technology

The use of the technology will also require individual's consent, the CAC said in a statement. It added that non-biometric identification solutions should be favored over facial recognition in cases where such methods are equally effective.




science and technology

New data bill’s mandate could pose security risk, say social media platforms

For users in India between 13 and 18 years of age, apps may now have to get parental consent by verifying the identity of the children and their parents.. The Digital Personal Data Protection bill defines children as those below 18 years, which is above the global threshold. Users above 13 years of age, for example, are typically allowed on many social media platforms.




science and technology

Building the government-to-citizen (G2C) value chain with cloud-first-security-first approach

The government will need to start by assessing and uplifting the digital posture of each concerned department, further enabling an interconnected ecosystem of government, private, and peering parties, and offering seamless and secure last mile for government-to- citizen services and support. All this while keeping the citizen’s data and identity safe.




science and technology

Generative AI biggest weapon and tool for cybersecurity: Microsoft's Brad Smith

Addressing cybersecurity attack concerns raised by generative AI, Smith said that there will be an increasing number of organisations and governments that will use the technology to develop cybersecurity threats.




science and technology

Cybersecurity firms CrowdStrike, Okta shares jump after better-than-expected earnings

CrowdStrike beat estimates when it reported late on Wednesday that its revenue jumped 37% to $731.6 million while adjusted net income more than doubled to $180 million in the second quarter on strong growth in subscriptions to its cloud-based data and identity protection services.




science and technology

Encourage ethical data management amid rising concerns: Confluent’s Jay Kreps

Confluent chief Jay Kreps says compliance can be challenging and lead to scrutiny of data movements. “Streaming technology enables the real-time synchronization of data, connecting all these disparate sources. An apt analogy is that of a central nervous system. The capability to unify data streams from different organizational segments empowers better decision making and the creation of personalized customer experiences,” he said.




science and technology

Tech Data, Allied Telesis to revolutionize tech solutions for CIOs

These solutions provide granular network control, resulting in minimized downtime and streamlined operations. Allied Telesis offers seamlessly integration with more than 30 recognized cybersecurity vendors to provide True Zero Trust Network Security, ensuring a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity remediation.




science and technology

What Google's antitrust trial means for your search habits

If Mehta rules that Google has been running an illegal monopoly in search, the punishment could open up new online avenues for consumers and businesses to explore in pursuit of information, entertainment and commerce.




science and technology

IT hardware companies may require global certification

The Indian government is considering asking importers of IT hardware to provide an international certification, attesting that their products are from trusted sources. This move is in response to concerns raised by countries such as China, the US, South Korea, and Taiwan about India's restrictions on the import of these products.




science and technology

Cisco launches Secure Networking approach in India

Organizations can apply controls to identify, set and enforce policy, and gain visibility across all users, devices, and entities on the network to empower and enable work from anywhere.




science and technology

Major AI models not very transparent, says report

Artificial intelligence (AI) based foundations models such as Meta's Llama 2 and OpenAI's GPT-4 are low on transparency, according to a global report.




science and technology

Identity governance: Upgrading beyond AD and PIM solutions

Let us explore the limitations of traditional AD and PIM solutions, and why identity governance is essential.




science and technology

CERT-In finds multiple bugs in Microsoft Edge, advises users to update

"Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Microsoft Edge (chromium-based) which could allow the remote attacker to cause a denial of service condition, remote code execution, sensitive information disclosure and security restriction bypass on the targeted system," said the CERT-In advisory.




science and technology

API integration: Fueling business the secure way

At the ETCIO Annual Conclave 2024, top IT leaders converged to discuss the critical topic of API integration. This gathering of minds explored how APIs are not only catalysts for digital transformation but also a cornerstone for enterprise security.




science and technology

Tech Mahindra and Cisco to deliver AI-powered firewall solution

Tech Mahindra expands partnership to deliver NGFW modernization solution with Cisco. The solution includes unified policy management, Talos threat intelligence integration, and comprehensive malware defense for network and endpoints.




science and technology

OpenAI's internal AI details stolen in 2023 breach: Reports

OpenAI executives informed both employees at an all-hands meeting in April last year and the company's board about the breach, according to the report, but executives decided not to share the news publicly as no information about customers or partners had been stolen.




science and technology

Three hackers arrested in Spain over DDoS cyberattacks

The suspects were detained for their alleged participation in distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyber attacks against public institutions and strategic sectors, the Civil Guard said.




science and technology

First in UP, Agra police launches advanced digital court monitoring system

The Agra Police Commissionerate launched the Commissionerate Courts Monitoring System (CCMS) to enhance transparency and efficiency in judicial processes. The digital portal, developed under Commissioner J Ravinder Goud's supervision, provides real-time access to case information for citizens and police officers, aiming to streamline and digitize court case management.




science and technology

California lawmakers pass AI safety bill

At least 40 states have introduced bills this year to regulate AI, and a half dozen have adopted resolutions or enacted legislation aimed at the technology, according to The National Conference of State Legislatures.




science and technology

AI-driven cyber attacks top risk for enterprises, says report

According to Zachary Ginsburg, senior director, research in the Gartner Risk & Audit Practice, while the upcoming US election generates headlines over the candidates' regulatory, trade and other proposals, organisations have difficulty considering the actual risk implications from the many scenarios that might unfold.




science and technology

Elevating financial services in digital age: Hybrid multicloud approach

While, traditionally, the financial services sector has taken a cautious approach to cloud adoption, the tide is turning, and adoption rates are accelerating across all cloud models.




science and technology

'AWS working with Indian startups to solve for world'

Cloud major looking to export ‘great ideas’ from here, says Gaurav Arora, director and head of startup business in Asia Pacific and Japan at AWS.




science and technology

Kapil Mahajan shares Allcargo Logistics' blueprint for automating operations

Kapil Mahajan unveils Allcargo Group's unwavering commitment to innovation. He is aiming to move 80% of operational workloads to the cloud by the end of 2025.




science and technology

Top companies back move to set up open cloud compute network

People+ai, an initiative by EkStep Foundation co-founded by Nandan Nilekani, set out last year to address increasing compute demand in the country, which is increasing with AI.




science and technology

Microsoft offers cloud customers AMD alternative to Nvidia AI processors

Microsoft's clusters of Advanced Micro Devices' flagship MI300X AI chips will be sold through its Azure cloud computing service. AMD, which expects $4 billion in AI chip revenue this year, has said the chips are powerful enough to train and run large AI models.