IntellectBeat

Sector watchdog TRAI will set inter-connection charges for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls once the Department of Telecom (DoT) amends the relevant clause of the Unified Licence framework. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended amending the licence provision for inter-connection at the IP level, which would facilitate Internet-based calls, alternatively known as VoIP calls. A telecom company is required to pay inter-connection charges when its subscriber makes a call to one on another network. The charge gets added up in the final price, which the subscriber has to pay. Currently, there are inter-connection charges for VoIP calls as the licence did not have a clause for inter-connection at IP level. "How can we determine charges till the time licence is not amended? When this licence condition is accepted... we will determine the inter-connection charges for the IP-based network," a senior TRAI official told PTI. He added that TRAI ha...

Sharks can regenerate their teeth through the network of genes, which may pave the way for the development of therapies to help humans with tooth loss, said researchers. Although humans possess same cells, their tooth regeneration ability is limited. But the study has identified a network of genes that enables sharks to develop and regenerate their teeth throughout their lifetime. "We know that sharks are fearsome predators and one of the main reasons they are so successful at hunting prey is because of their rows of backward pointing, razor-sharp teeth that regenerate rapidly throughout their lifetime, and so are replaced before decay," said the lead author Gareth Fraser from the University of Sheffield in Britain. Researchers have identified how a special set of epithelial cells form, called the dental lamina, which are responsible for the lifelong continuation of tooth development and regeneration in sharks. The genes also allow sharks to replace rows of their teeth u...

Advances in artificial intelligence will soon lead to robots that are capable of nearly everything humans do, threatening tens of millions of jobs in the coming 30 years, experts warned Saturday. "We are approaching a time when machines will be able to outperform humans at almost any task," said Moshe Vardi, director of the Institute for Information Technology at Rice University in Texas. "I believe that society needs to confront this question before it is upon us: If machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?" he asked at a panel discussion on artificial intelligence at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Vardi said there will always be some need for human work in the future, but robot replacements could drastically change the landscape, with no profession safe, and men and women equally affected. "Can the global economy adapt to greater than 50 per cent unemployment?" ...

US tech giant Apple has announced a worldwide replacement programme for the USB-C cable that it shipped between April and June, 2015. The cable was released with the 12-inch Retina Macbook last year, and according to Apple, it is possible for the cable to fail without warning due to flaw in the design. "As a result, your MacBook may not charge or only charge intermittently when it's connected to a power adapter with an affected cable," iClarified quoted Apple's statement as saying on Saturday. The buyers of these cables may get a new cable if they gave Apple their mailing address when registering for MacBook. Others can contact authorised Apple service provider, or contact Apple customer support. If any user has bought a new one, he/she is eligible for a refund.

Kolkata:  Two students, one of them from IIT, have launched a mobile app which uses an unique algorithm to find out alternative routes for getting seats in train. "There are some station-wise quotas for ticket booking. For example if you are booking a ticket from station A, it might show waiting list but when you book it from a previous station you might get the ticket. If you try to find out such stations manually it becomes tough but our app has automated this," the app's co-developer Runal Jaju told PTI. The ' Ticket Jugaad ' app is developed by second year IIT Kharagpur student Jaju and his cousin Shubham Baldava, who studies in NIT Jamshedpur. Supported by Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT, the start-up won the first prize of Rs 1.5 lakh in IIT Kharagpur's Annual Global Business Model Competition recently. The app automatically finds available tickets starting from stations before or after the source station to provide passengers the maximum path that can...

The idea behind organizer Jung Yong Jin's The Light Rose Garden was to bring more people to come out to parks at night. The garden- a public art installation featuring a sea of white roses made with light-emitting diode, or LED, is also a perfect venue for Valentine's Day in Hong Kong. Made up of 25,000 waterproof white roses arranged tightly in Hong Kong's landmark Central and Western District Promenade, the garden has 25 roses planted every 3 square meters. Replicating a scene straight out of a romantic movie, here's a glimpse of the garden: Workers place LED roses at the “Light Rose Garden”, against the backdrop of Central, the business district of Hong Kong, Friday, Feb. 12, 2016. “Light Rose Garden” is an art installation project featuring 25,000 white roses made of LED lights which will be light up for the celebration of the Valentine’s Day. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung) All images: AP Photo/Kin Cheung

It's like a romantic scene out of one of South Korea's sappy soap dramas — tens of thousands of illuminated roses forming an impressive backdrop for the lead actor and actress to declare their love for each other. The Light Rose Garden, a public art installation featuring a sea of white roses made with light-emitting diode, or LED, is also a perfect venue for Valentine's Day in Hong Kong. Originating in South Korea, the Light Rose Garden is on a world tour with its first stop in the southern Chinese city. Organizer Jung Yong Jin said he's thrilled to see people outside of Seoul enjoying the garden, made up of 25,000 waterproof white roses arranged tightly in Hong Kong's landmark Central and Western District Promenade, with 25 roses planted every 3 square meters (yards). The roses light up each night and instantly illuminate the park against the backdrop of Hong Kong's skyline. Couples, families and friends flock to take photos. "I created this LED ros...

Alphabet Inc's self-driving project is advertising dozens of jobs on its website with a special focus on manufacturing expertise. Thirty-six jobs related to the Google X car project were listed including engineers working on motion control, displays, robotics and sensors as well as managers charged with operations, materials and marketing. Google, which declined to comment, has denied in the past that it had any interest in making cars. Many industry experts believe the tech giant will partner with an established carmaker, supplying the software that will pioneer the fully autonomous vehicle. But the jobs listed provide a window into how much hardware Google may build to contribute to the cars of the future. Developing self-driving cars has been a key priority of traditional carmakers, technology companies like Apple Inc, Uber Technologies Inc and auto suppliers. A manufacturing process engineer job listing says the post is responsible for "designing factory assembly stat...

Smartphones could become the makeshift quake detectors of the future, thanks to a new app launched Friday designed to track tremors and potentially save the lives of its users. MyShake , available on Android, links users to become an all-in-one earthquake warning system; it records quake-type rumblings, ties a critical number of users to a location, and could eventually provide a countdown to the start of shaking. Its inventors say the app, released by the University of California, Berkeley, could give early warning of a quake to populations without their own seismological instruments. "MyShake cannot replace traditional seismic networks like those run by the US Geological Survey," said Richard Allen, leader of the app project and director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. "But we think MyShake can make earthquake early warning faster and more accurate in areas that have a traditional seismic network, and can provide life-saving early warning in countries th...

Warning- Do not set your iPhone clock to January 1, 1970. A new iPhone bug has arisen that encourages users to seek out an iOS 'easter egg' that puts a retro Apple logo theme on the display. The catch here is that Apple didn't exist until 1976 and if one sets the phone to the date it will essentially brick the device and getting the device back is no easy task. A  report  on Wired notes that the misleading image asking users to change their iPhones' date appeared on 4Chan and once rendered useless, even iTunes can't restore important data, leaving one with no choice but to buy a new device. The bug, however, appears to affect 64-bit iOS devices which means iPhone 5s, iPad Air, and iPad Mini 2 and newer. It is related to a Unix glitch as the date 1/1/1970 has an internal value of zero on a Unix system which leads to a software freakout.

The 'official' day of love has finally arrived and while some are marking it with dedicated video filters and emoji app, Google is sticking to its good-old way of expressing love; albeit with a bit of tech sprinkled all over. The search giant has published an animated Valentine's Day doodle with an adorable teapot and coffeemaker couple. As the teapot awaits outside what looks like the coffeemaker's house, the coffeemaker arrives and hands a rose to the teapot. After which the teapot blushes and whistles away as the love is in the air. Valentine's Day, also known as Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is a celebration observed on February 14 each year. Today's doodle, however, is not available on the India homepage. Here is what Google posted last year to show how love and technology go hand-in-hand: