Education on technology

The European Union's EUR 43 billion (nearly Rs. 3,84,120 crore) plan to boost its semiconductor industry and catch up with the United States and Asia is likely to get the green light from EU countries and lawmakers on April 18, people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. The European Commission announced the Chips Act last year in a bid to cut EU reliance on US and Asian semiconductors following global supply chain problems that hurt European businesses from carmakers to manufacturers. The proposed legislation, which aims to double the bloc's share of global chip output to 20 percent over the next decade, came after the United States announced its CHIPS for America Act to compete with Chinese technology. EU countries and lawmakers will meet at the European Parliament's monthly session in Strasbourg on April 18 to negotiate details of funding for the Act and will likely clinch a deal, the people said. Discussions have to date focused on a EUR-400-mill...

Intel's former chief architect Raja Koduri is in talks with Hiranandani-backed data center operator Yotta for a deal for his generative artificial intelligence startup, which he said will have a big presence in India. His yet-to-be-named firm would either partner or acquire Yotta, which has data centers in the cities of Mumbai and Noida, said Koduri, whose aim is to challenge Nvidia 's grip on the digital movie and video game markets. The company is likely to be launched by the end of the year and will provide AI tools to creators including game designers and film industry workers, the Indian-American executive said in an interview to Reuters. "These days if you breath you're competing with Nvidia because they have entered every space, everything, so you have no option but to compete against," he said on the sidelines of a conference in Bengaluru, dubbed India's Silicon Valley for its tech firms and startups, on Wednesday. Koduri, who has worked on nearly...

Facebook-owner Meta published an artificial intelligence model on Wednesday that can pick out individual objects from within an image, along with a dataset of image annotations that it said was the largest ever of its kind. The company's research division said in a blog post that its Segment Anything Model, or SAM, could identify objects in images and videos even in cases where it had not encountered those items in its training. Using SAM, objects can be selected by clicking on them or writing text prompts. In one demonstration, writing the word "cat" prompted the tool to draw boxes around each of several cats in a photo. Big tech companies have been trumpeting their artificial intelligence breakthroughs since Microsoft -backed OpenAI 's ChatGPT chatbot became a sensation in the fall, triggering a wave of investments and a race to dominate the space. Meta has teased several features that deploy the type of generative AI popularized by ChatGPT, which creates b...

The problem with mobile phones is that people look at them too much. At least, that's according to the man who invented them 50 years ago. Martin Cooper, an American engineer dubbed the "Father of the cell phone," says the neat little device we all have in our pockets has almost boundless potential and could one day even help conquer disease. But right now, we can be a little obsessed. "I am devastated when I see somebody crossing the street and looking at their cell phone. They are out of their minds," the 94-year-old told AFP from his office in Del Mar, California. "But after a few people get run over by cars, they'll figure it out," he joked. Cooper wears an Apple Watch and uses a top-end iPhone , flicking intuitively between his email, photos, YouTube and the controls for his hearing aid. He gets his hands on the latest model every time it is updated, and gives it a thorough road test. But, he confesses, with several million apps avail...

Ralph Lauren, the 56-year-old luxury fashion house, is set to give its brand a new-age Web3 twist. The company's new Miami Design District store — located in Miami, Florida — has begun accepting payments in cryptocurrencies. This is the first Ralph Lauren store to initiate crypto payments. It does not come as quite the surprise that the brand chose Miami to experiment with crypto, given that the beach town is popularly crypto friendly. Ralph Lauren has partnered with Bitpay , the crypto payment facilitator, to process crypto purchases. As of now, the fashion brand has listed Bitcoin , Ether , and Polygon as acceptable cryptocurrencies. For crypto payers looking for refunds, Ralph Lauren will be returning the amount in the cryptocurrency that was originally used. Introducing our new #RLMiami store, the first Ralph Lauren store to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment. In partnership with @BitPay , customers can make purchases with different cryptocurrencies including ...