Education on technology

Sam Bankman-Fried was hit with new criminal charges on Thursday, in an expanded indictment accusing the founder of the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to make more than 300 illegal political donations. Bankman-Fried now faces 12 criminal charges, including four for fraud and eight for conspiracy, up from eight charges in an earlier indictment, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda Research, his crypto-focused hedge fund. The new charges add to pressure on the 30-year-old former billionaire, who has seen two of his former top lieutenants plead guilty. Bankman-Fried is also trying to stay out of jail, after his online activity since his arrest prompted US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversees the case, to signal a willingness to revoke his $250 million (roughly Rs. 2,100 crore) bail package. A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to commen...

Qualcomm on Thursday demonstrated local image generation using artificial intelligence on a smartphone. Ahead of the upcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023, the chipmaker showed Stable Diffusion 1.5, the AI image generator, running on an Android handset without network access. The company's deployment of the AI tool, that typically requires a lot of computing power, is capable of generating images in a few seconds, according to Qualcomm. The company is yet to reveal details of the smartphone hardware used to optimise the tool to run locally on smartphones.  According to details shared by Qualcomm , the firm performed full-stack optimisations by utilising the Qualcomm AI Stack in order to run Stable Diffusion 1.5 on an Android phone without access to the Internet. The popular generative AI tool is known to consume a lot of computing power in order to run, which is why several services that rely on it perform these activities on large servers instead of on a user's smartphon...

Xiaomi is expected to make an announcement at the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2023 about its partnership with Leica and reveal the new Xiaomi 13 series of devices. According to past leaks, these devices could include the Xiaomi 13, the Xiaomi 13 Pro, and the Xiaomi 13 Lite. Details about all three devices have leaked out in the past, and this shows that while the first two are focussed on the rear camera experience, the Xiaomi 13 Lite may focus on a better selfie camera experience instead. More details about the Xiaomi 13 Lite have now leaked online, thanks to a German e-retailer. The Xiaomi 13 Lite according to Notebookcheck was briefly listed by German e-retailer CyberPort. The source managed to get cached pages ( 1 ) on the same which suggests detailed specifications, finishes, and prices. The pages suggest that the Xiaomi 13 Lite could be available in two finishes – pink and black. The listings also hint that the phone may be available in an 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant...

Samsung unveiled the 5G non-terrestrial networks (NTN) modem, which allows phones to communicate with satellites in areas where cellular network connectivity is unavailable. The company stated that it intends to incorporate this technology into its own Exynos chip, which is used in several Samsung smartphones, but not the current flagship Galaxy S23 series, which launched earlier this month. This technology, as explained by the South Korean tech giant, uses "satellites and other non-terrestrial vehicles" to provide connectivity in remote areas. According to a press release by the South Korean giant, this technology will be integrated into the company's Exynos modem solutions, boosting the commercial viability of 5G satellite communications and setting the stage for the 6G-powered Internet of Everything (IoE) era. Based on this technology, Samsung's future Exynos modems will support two-way satellite text messaging as well as high-definition image and video sharing. ...

Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX on Thursday, February 23, promoted Vivek Gupta as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Gupta had been serving as the company's Head of Engineering before this promotion. The exchange, that claims to have over 15 million registered users, is exploring ways to simplify the process of buying and trading in crypto in India, which is being touted among world's most lucrative markets to grow the overall digital assets ecosystem. As part of his new role at the crypto exchange , Gupta will be heading the engineering, data science, and infrastructural development teams comprising of 190 professionals. “I am humbled. In my new role, I am excited to lead CoinDCX's technological initiatives and together with the team shape the future of Web3 ,” Gupta said in a prepared statement. In April 2022, CoinDCX launched ‘Okto', a decentralised finance (DeFi) app to open the Web3 sector for a widespread adoption in India. Focussed on safeguarding user fina...

Samsung is expected to launch its Galaxy Watch 6 series sometime later this year. Not much is known about the smart wearable yet, but the model is expected to succeed the Galaxy Watch 5 that was launched in August 2022. If the South Korean tech giant follows precedence, the Galaxy Watch 6 series could launch with a base and a pro variation. A new leak is now suggesting that the Galaxy Watch 6 series may no longer use a flat display. Reliable tipster Ice universe (@UniverseIce) suggested that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 will come with a curved glass design, instead of a flat one. “Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 has returned to the curved glass design. From now on, it is known that the glass is not flat and there is not much other information,” the tweet read. Samsung has not revealed much about the purported smart wearable yet. Although, the company is believed to have filed for a patent that would enable the company to integrate a projector in some of its future Galaxy watches, it...

The Telangana government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Bharat Web3 Association to stir discussions around the blockchain technology. The India-centric crypto advocacy organisation, that was formed in November last year, has crypto players like CoinSwitch Kuber and WazirX among others as participatory members. As part of this fresh partnership, the Telangana government is looking at creating a nurturing ecosystem for Web3 developers and players to boost the growth of the overall blockchain industry. The initiative has been undertaken by the Telangana government's Information, Technology, Electronics, and Communication Department (ITECD). Jayesh Ranjan, the Principal Secretary to Government of Telangana as well as Rama Devi Lanka, the Director of Emerging Technologies for the state of Telangana were present for the signing of this MoU alongside Kiran Vivekananda, the Chief Policy Officer at CoinDCX who also serves as the Director of the Bharat Web3 Associ...