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Apple patents socially-distant selfies !!

Apple has been granted a patent for software that creates socially-distant group selfies.Synthetic Group Selfies, as patent No. 10,672,167 describes them, it would allow users to generate selfies with numerous family members and friends residing at distant, separate locations. The selfie would be created using live or stored still photos and videos. The software would remove backgrounds, resize images and accommodate positioning in front or in back of other individuals as needed to arrange realistic group photos. Users would be able to modify the selfie at any time with stored video…

BSNL 200Mbps 1500GB FTTH Plan Extended to More Cities !!

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the state-owned telco, has extended its existing 1500GB FTTH plans to new cities in Tamil Nadu, after introducing it in only Chennai and Telangana circles earlier this year. The BSNL 1500GB Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) plan offers a speed of 200Mbps up to 1500GB data with unlimited local and STD calls to any network. After the FUP limit is reached, the speed reduces to 2Mbps. The 1500GB FTTH plan is also introduced in Bhawanipatna city in Odisha, as well as in Puducherry area also. According to a…

Bank FDs now fetch less than savings accounts !!

Kolkata: It no longer pays to keep your money locked up in a bank. Fixed deposit rates have plummeted in recent months, with short-term rates now hovering very close to or below savings account rates for some banks. Surplus liquidity and sluggish credit growth have forced banks to cut rates of both short-term and long-term deposits, and made savers move to riskier instruments such as debt market mutual funds or even equity assets. Deposit growth shrunk last fiscal and has grown less than 2 % so far in the current…

Facebook Publishes New Update on Account Removals Due to Organized Manipulation Efforts !!

Facebook has this week published its Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior report for May, which outlines all of the accounts, pages and groups that the platform has removed over the course of the month due to identified efforts to mislead and misinform Facebook uses for varying purpose. As explained by Facebook: “We’re constantly working to find & stop coordinated campaigns that seek to manipulate public debate across our apps. We view influence operations as coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal where fake accounts are central to the operation.”  In May, Facebook…

Sensex rallies 608 points to 34,895 in opening session; Nifty surges 184 points to 10,326 !!

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Sunday clarified that the annualised gross direct tax collection growth in 2019-20 was actually 8% at ₹14,01,920 crore, but tax reforms worth ₹1,68,200 croreannounced last year had led to about 5% contraction in overall tax receipts in the previous financial year. The revenue impacts of corporate tax reforms and personal income tax concessions were ₹1,45,000 crore and ₹23,200 crore, respectively. After adjusting the revenue losses due to the two reforms actual gross direct tax collection in 2019-20 was ₹12,33,720 crore, a 4.92%…

A foolproof way to shrink deep learning models !!

As more Artificial Intelligence(AI) applications move to smartphones, deep learning models are getting smaller to allow apps to run faster and save battery power. Now, MIT researchers have a new and better way to compress models. It’s so simple that they unveiled it in a tweet last month: Train the model, prune its weakest connections, retrain the model at its fast, early training rate, and repeat, until the model is as tiny as you want. “That’s it,” says Alex Renda, a PhD student at MIT. “The standard things people do to prune their…

Meet Chirag Chopra, the Delhi developer whose biggest Possession is a game on Apple Arcade !!

“In my childhood, we weren’t financially strong. But then things started changing when we started buying sometimes useful, sometimes luxury objects. That’s where the name ‘Possessions’ comes from…our possessions tells us what we are.” Chirag Chopra, the 27-year-old founder of Lucid Labs, the only Indian developer to make it to Apple Arcade, is a matter of fact on why his game is called Possessions. The word ‘Possession’ has deep philosophical meaning, says Chopra, adding he decided to name the game thus because it tells us how successful or financially independent we…

Zuckerberg Says Facebook Will Review its Policies Around State Use of Force and Voter Supression !!

Despite rising criticism over Facebook’s inaction over recent comments from US President Donald Trump, despite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently stating that he believes in the company’s policy direction is well thought out and on the right track. In light of the ongoing #BlackLivesMatter protests, and internal unrest over its approach, Zuckerberg has today announced that Facebook will review its policies as part of a broader effort to improve, and address concerns around racial inequality. In a long post on his Facebook profile, Zuckerberg shared a memo, which he’d initially posted to Facebook employees, which outlines his thoughts…

International Yoga Day 2020 To Be Celebrated On Digital Media Platforms Due To COVID-19 !!!

New Delhi:  In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s International Yoga Day would be celebrated on behalf of digital media platforms and there would be no mass gatherings, the government has said. This year’s theme will be ‘Yoga at Home and Yoga with Family’. People will be able to join the Yoga Day celebrations virtually at 7 am on June 21. Indian Missions abroad are trying to reach out to the people through digital media as well as through the network of institutions which support yoga, officials said. The…

Renewable electricity costs plummet, rendering coal uneconomical !!

The cost of electricity generated from renewables plunged in 2019, making fossil fuel plants increasingly uneconomically, a report has claimed. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) said that more than half of the renewable capacity added in 2019 achieved lower power costs than the cheapest new coal plants. On average, new solar and onshore wind power cost less than keeping many existing coal plants in operation and auction results show this trend accelerating. IRENA said this “reinforced” the case to phase-out coal entirely. Next year, up to 1,200 Gigawatts (GW)…