Major win for Artificial Intelligence

In what could prove to be a major win for Artificial Intelligence, IBM's AI product named "Watson" was able to identify a rare form of Leukemia after Doctors failed to diagnose the exact cause for the woman not responding to the apparent treatment given. 

The mentioned incident took place in Tokyo, Japan.  It is said that the patient's genetic information was compared with 20 million clinical oncology studies before it could reach to the conclusion.  

Artificial Intelligence is surely taking huge leaps day by day, be it in Healthcare, gaming, scientific or any other field.

#ArtificialIntelligence win- @IBM #Watson detect leukemia which Drs couldnt. #AI should complement human inteligence pic.twitter.com/nR2ap2l2r8

— Rohan Mhasalkar (@rohan0203) August 9, 2016

News reference - Russia Today 

NEWSCAST PRATYAKSHA - A comprehensive news website and much more

In today’s world, where it is difficult to find any good news media which publishes an unbiased version of the news, Newscast-Pratyaksha comes as a refreshing change. It publishes very comprehensive news from India as well as significant geo-political happenings from around the world.

English Newscast-Pratyaksha

One important highlight is a section dedicated to news related to the Third World War, which is very significant in the times we live; for many a political leaders have stated that this World War is already underway.

Newscast-Pratyaksha also categorises news based on the political location  (such as Indian Subcontinent, North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific & Australasia, Middle East, Central Asia & Russia).

Hindi Newscast-Pratyaksha

While this English website concentrates mostly on news articles, the Hindi version goes a step further. In addition to news, the Hindi site also includes series of articles on various Inventors(many of whose names weren’t heard of by us, but their contribution nonetheless very vital), Netaji Subhashchandra Bose, Dr. NikolaTesla, Information Technology articles, articles on locations around India, Shri Saisacharita and a history of Rashtriya Seva Sangh(RSS). 

This website truly is very welcoming and should surely be bookmarked by all those who are truly interested in being aware of the vital happenings in the world and a thorough analysis of it.

Website url: www.newscast-pratyaksha.com

Newcast Pratyaksha - International News

Newscast Pratyaksha - Russia section

Newscast Pratyaksha - Dr Nikola Tesla

Newscast Pratyaksha - Inventions & Inventors

Robotics... soon to be a part of our lives

The very mention of the word Robot reminds us of the hi-fi machines that we have seen in numerous Hollywood movies such as Star Wars, Star Trek, AI, Terminator etc. That a robot can be a small device assisting one in their household tasks is something that most people will not believe at all. One always imagines a robot to be a man-like looking machine that acts and does tasks just like a human.

Today, knowingly or unknowingly the field of robotics has reached the house of every common man. The automatic vacuum cleaners, floor washers, automatic irons all are examples of small robots in our homes. Though they are not very commonly seen in India yet, it’s just a matter of few years when they will become very routinely used.

I came across an awesome video of a robot doing household chores, same is given below. Lot of exciting things await us in this Robotics for sure.

Video of a #robot doing chores... #Robotics will soon become part of our daily lives. Embrace #Technology.https://t.co/mmaDFuzlm1

— Rohan Mhasalkar (@rohan0203) June 24, 2016

SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS

#Research shows that 62% of US public get news on #socialmedia. Seems people find #Citizenjournalism more reliable. pic.twitter.com/K5TLA6PMt7

— Rohan Mhasalkar (@rohan0203) May 28, 2016

Undoubtedly, social media has changed the entire outlook of the society as such. Social Media has become such an integral part of our lives that its difficult to imagine how life was when it was not in existence.

Today, I read a news report, that in the US more than 60% of people rely on social media for getting news updates. Two thirds of Facebook users get their news from this media while about 59% of Twitter users do the same. To me, this was an astounding number.

Thinking further on this, I thought that indeed our traditional news media has become so mundane (and many times highly partial) that people are in fact finding social media to be much more accurate, true and reliable. The concept of Citizen Journalism gets its true meaning due to this.

As they said earlier “The pen is mightier than the sword”. In today’s world, we may rephrase it as “The Keyboard is mightier than the gun”.

BLOCKCHAIN... Real or Hype ?

So what really is Blockchain ? I am sure most of you would have come across this term somewhere or the other, be it on some website, blog article, news or other place. Analysts are projecting it to be bigger than Social media, Cloud Computing, Big Data or even Artificial Intelligence. Another term which is closely related to Blockchain, which no one had heard of till few years back is Bitcoin. Blockchain, in the simplest terms is the technology behind Digital or Virtual Currencies such as Bitcoins.

Blockchain is a form of Distributed database, which, as the name suggests stores the data in bits and pieces at different places. In context of Bitcoins or Currency, it is a public ledger (accessible to authorized users only, called miners) of the Bitcoin transactions. As the name says, Blockchain is the chain of blocks, where each block holds a series of transaction entries. Each transaction has a digital signature that authenticates it. The “distributed” part is introduced by making this ledger available to other miners. Transactions done every 10 minutes are recorded into a single ‘block’. Each block is then connected to the previous one in terms of transactional values, thus the name Blockchain. The Distributed architecture gives no single party the power to tamper with the data, thus securing it. Here, it is important to understand that Bitcoin is just an application of Blockchain technology and that this technology in itself has the potential to be as big as the Internet has become in the past 2 decades.

There are reports that DARPA as well as NATO is looking to use Blockchain technology for military related apps. This shows that Blockchain technology is becoming more and more mature and is now ready for applications in the real world.  It is being said that we are on the verge of a time like early 1990’s when we were just introduced to the Internet. Blockchain could change email, online shopping, Social networking, Internet of Things and just about everything we do online. Maybe a time will come sometime in 2035 when people will wonder how civilization ever functioned without it.

All said and done, it needs to be seen how much of all this will turn out to be true eventually. Nonetheless, technology seems to be bringing up exciting new avenues, which a common man cannot stay away from.

Website References:

https://hbr.org/2016/05/the-impact-of-the-blockchain-goes-beyond-financial-services

http://www.cio.com/article/3055847/security/what-is-blockchain-and-how-does-it-work.html

https://www.zebpay.com/blockchain-simple-explanation/?utm_content=bufferf9164&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

http://www.newsweek.com/blockchain-technology-will-remake-global-financial-system-462537

Facial Recognition and Social media... an interesting experiment

I happened to read an interesting article on the website PCWorld. In today's world of social media, mobile technology, gadgets, sophisticated cameras etc., do we really think we have enough privacy from various spying eyes ? If you think the answer is YES, then you really are not yet in this digital world. 

Today, it has become very common to search someone on Facebook or Twitter to gather more details about them. This experiment on Face Recognition was conducted by a Russian Art School student. It surely makes one think on how social media stays connected to us. 

The experiment title itself is "YOUR FACE IS BIG DATA". The experimenter did a search of about 100 random people on a social networking website and was able to find 60-70% of them between age 18 to 35. For these recognised "Faces", the experimenter was then able to find more details on the social media website.

You may refer to the entire article on the below mentioned URL:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3055305/your-face-is-big-data-the-title-of-this-photographers-experiment-says-it-all.html