EduTechVlogs

  Mission managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California quickly received data from Mars satellites and the rover itself confirming a good touchdown, including the first images from Perseverance: scenes of a desolate, dusty landscape that looks dangerous to humans but full of potential for this scientist-explorer. "We got it. We're there," JPL Chief Engineer Rob Manning, who has worked on Mars landings for decades, said after landing. "This is so exciting and the team is beside themselves. This is so surreal. So much has been riding on this." Just minutes after the landing, Perseverance continued sending images from its hazard-detecting navigational cameras. The 2,200-pound rover, nearly identical though slightly larger than its 2012 Curiosity predecessor, has several suites of onboard instruments that will be used to find, analyze, and store rock samples. A drill on the end of its "arm" is designed to grab core samples, while systems t...

Indian Space Research Organisation and location and navigation technology solutions provider MapmyIndia announced an initiative to partner together to offer India's best, and fully indigenous, mapping portal and geospatial services. It combines the power of MapmyIndia's digital maps and technologies with ISRO's catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data, according to MapmyIndia's CEO and Excutive Director, Rohan Verma. He termed it a path-breaking milestone in India's journey towards 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat', wherein Indian users would not be dependent on foreign organisations for maps, navigation and geospatial services, and leverage made-in-India solutions instead. "You don't need Google Maps/Earth any longer", Verma said in the headline in an article on LinkedIn. According to ISRO, the Department of Space (DoS) -- ISRO comes under it -- has joined hands with MapmyIndia to combine their geospatial expertise and build holistic solu...

Stardust 1.0 was launched from Loring Commerce Centre in Maine, US, a former military base, becoming the first commercial space launch powered by biofuel, which is non-toxic for the environment as opposed to traditionally used rocket fuels.  Sunday’s launch marks another historic first for Maine since Stardust 1.0 has become the first commercial rocket launch for the state located in northeastern US. Stardust 1.0 is a launch vehicle suited for student and budget payloads. The rocket is 20 feet tall and has a mass of roughly 250 kg. The rocket can carry a maximum payload mass of 8 kg and during its first launch carried three payloads. According to a report in Politico, the payloads included a cubesat prototype built by highschool students, a metal alloy designed to lessen vibrations, which is developed by Kellogg’s Research Labs and a cubesat from software company Rocket Insights. These rockets will help to launch small satellites called cubesats into space in a way that is relative...

The  Quantum Computing Applications Lab will provide quantum computing as a service to government ministries and departments, researchers, scientists, academia, and developers, to enable advances in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and aerospace engineering. AWS will provide hosting with technical and programmatic support for the Lab. The government body said that the Quantum Computing Applications Lab will work with subject matter experts from the government sector to define the problem statements, and make them public, inviting applications from researchers, academia, and organizations to address them. It will then provide select applicants with access to quantum computing hardware, simulators, and programming tools, on-demand and at no cost, via Amazon Braket that enables scientists and developers to build algorithms, conduct advanced simulations, and run experiments. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Tuesday announced it will...

3 Amazon.com Inc has launched an online academy to train students for one of India's most competitive college entrance tests, the e-commerce giant said on Wednesday, as it taps a boom in virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. "Amazon Academy", available as a website and an Android smartphone app, will offer learning material, live lectures and assessments to help students prepare for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), which allows entry into top engineering schools across India. Content on the platform is currently available free and will remain free for "the next few months", Amazon India said in a statement. Each year, close to two million aspirants to coveted undergraduate engineering courses take the government-run JEE, for which some take additional classes with private tutors. Many of those tuition centers have either moved online or shut during the pandemic. India has seen a boom in online education, or ed-tech, a market which has only expanded...

Pravaig Dynamics, an Indian electric car company, recently took the wraps off of its very first product in the form of the Extinction Mk1. The designed and made in India all-electric two-door coupe-style car is set to launch . Pravaig Dynamics, an Indian electric car company, recently took the wraps off of its very first product in the form of the Extinction Mk1. The all-electric car will be launched sometime next year and will be available on lease for commercial fleet operators. The electric vehicle will first be launched in Delhi and Bengaluru. Pravaig claims that the car will deliver 504 km of range on one full charge with a 0-80 percent charging capability in 30 minutes. The power output is slated to be about 202 hp and 2,400 Nm of torque. It claims a top speed of 196 km/h and a 0-100 sprint time of 5.4 seconds.

 WhatsApp has officially updated its terms of service and privacy policy and given users till February 8, 2021 to accept the same to continue using the messaging platform. For those who do not accept the new terms, there is the option to delete their accounts, which is a standard practice in the industry. So what are the key changes in the new privacy policy and terms of service for WhatsApp? According to the message, the new updates include more information about WhatsApp’s service and how it processes user data. Further, there are updates on how businesses use Facebook hosted services to store and manage their WhatsApp chats. The new privacy policy also looks at how WhatsApp partners with Facebook to offer integrations across the Facebook Company. Users in India would have noticed the new policy popup when they logged into the messaging app for the first time today. The WhatsApp  message for users notes at the end, “By tapping AGREE, you accept the new terms and privacy poli...

 Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is working to power its rockets and satellites using non-hazardous and environment-friendly fuels. In addition, the Indian space agency is also aiming to use electric propulsion for its satellites, as has been confirmed by the ISRO Chairman recently. "Since humans will be inside the rocket, we want only non-hazardous fuel and not the hazardous one to power the human space mission's Gaganyaan rocket," ISRO chief K Sivan told IANS. For this, ISRO has decided to make use of hydrogen peroxide in its future rockets that will be a part of the missions like 'Gaganyaan'. The hydrogen peroxide can be used as a mono-propellant or as a bi-propellant along with ethanol. In addition to hydrogen peroxide, ISRO is also looking at another green fuel - LOX/Methane. This would constitute liquid oxygen which will work as oxidiser while the methane will work as fuel. As per the space agency, LOX/Methane propellant is better than the existing...

 DigiBoxx, a Made-in-India digital asset management and storage platform has launched in India. This cloud storage and file sharing service was announced by Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.The launch of DigiBoxx comes just a few weeks after Google announced that it won’t be offering unlimited free photo uploads starting June 1, 2021. The service is priced competitively, as the company is offering free 20GB cloud storage and 100GB space per month to those who pay just Rs 30. “We have created an innovative model through which we are working with multiple Indian Data Centres to achieve these price points. It’s an intelligent mesh created using domestic cloud solutions. The platform is the first of its kind ‘Make in India, Store in India’ digital asset management SaaS product that is in line with the country’s national security and data localisation priorities. DigiBoxx has different prices and benefits for a free user, an individual/freelancer, small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and en...

 A mutated variant of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2 has been associated with recent infections in England. The question being raised is whether the mutation could affect people’s response to vaccines — and scientists say this is unlikely. The virus has undergone several mutations since it first infected humans, which scientists say is neither unexpected nor a cause for panic. A mutation means a change in the genetic sequence of the virus. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, which is an RNA virus, a mutation means a change in the sequence in which its molecules are arranged. A mutation in an RNA virus often happens when the virus makes a mistake while it is making copies of itself. Only if the mutation results in a significant change in the protein structure can the course of a disease be altered, said Prof V Ravi, retired Head of the Department of Neurovirology at NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences), Bengaluru. Dr Gagandeep Kang, Professor at Christian Medical...