Nothing Phone 2a Smartphone: Nothing shares glowing first look of Phone 2a Community Edition: Check here

Nothing Phone 2a Smartphone: Nothing shares glowing first look of Phone 2a Community Edition: Check here


Nothing Phone 2a in concept: Phosphorescence


British consumer technology start-up Nothing has announced the stage 1 winner of its Nothing Phone 2a Community Edition Project. Kenta Akasaki and Astrid Vanhyuse from London are the winners from the “Hardware Design” stage for the Phone 2a concept: Phosphorescence – said the company in a press note.


Nothing said the Phone 2a concept has a green-tinted phosphorescent material element on the back of the phone that emits a soft glow in the dark. According to Nothing, the feature is purely analogue, requiring no power source, and can last for hours before gradually fading until it recharges by daylight. Nothing stated that the material element is widely used in the watch industry, and the glowing property of the material can also be functional, for example in helping you locate the phone in the dark or indicating your presence.


Nothing said the winners of the first stage of the project will now work alongside the Nothing’s Industrial Design Team and R&D team to bring their concept into its physical form.


With the stage 1 concluded, the company announced the commencement of the second stage for the project, where the participants can submit wallpaper designs for the upcoming community edition phone. Participants in this stage are required to submit a series of four wallpapers that can integrate with the winning hardware design. Submissions for the second stage are now open and will close on May 15.


The second stage for Wallpaper designing will be followed by packaging designing in June and Marketing campaign in July. Similar to the winners of the first stage, Winners of each stage will get to collaborate with the company and contribute towards the new Phone 2a model, which will be put on sale once the process concludes.


For the uninitiated, Nothing announced “The Community Edition Project” earlier this year, inviting its community members to participate in designing, packaging, and customising a version of Phone 2a smartphone that it plans to launch in future.


Nothing Community Edition Project: Process


Participants can submit their designs on Nothing’s website on the Community Edition page. As part of the submission, participants are required to share the idea and inspiration behind the design along with details regarding the tools that were used to create the series of wallpapers. Additionally, all the submitted designs should be of the size – 1084 x 2412 pixels.


After the deadline on May 15, valid entries will go for community voting. The company said that the votes will be a key deciding factor for the internal panel who will determine the overall winner.

First Published: May 03 2024 | 2:09 PM IST



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Wi-Fi 6E: What is it and why does the COAI want a ban on these routers?

Wi-Fi 6E: What is it and why does the COAI want a ban on these routers?



In a letter to the Department of Telecommunication (DoT), Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has sought a ban on the sale of internet routers based on Wi-Fi 6E standard. Introduced in 2020, the adoption of Wi-Fi 6E standard has been on the slow lane in the absence of any policy-related decision from the government regarding the use of the 6GHz frequency band. But how is the 6GHz frequency band related to Wi-Fi 6E and why is COAI seeking ban on the sale of eligible routers? Let us find out:


Wi-Fi 6E: What it is


Wi-Fi 6E is a wireless network standard from the Wi-Fi alliance, a group of Wi-Fi platform vendors that works with electronics manufacturers to set standards for Wi-Fi technology. Introduced in 2020, the Wi-Fi 6E is an extended version of the Wi-Fi 6 standard, as denoted by the suffix in the naming nomenclature. The extended version brings support for the 6GHz frequency band in addition to frequency bands supported by Wi-Fi 6 – 2.4GHz and 5GHz.


Wi-Fi 6E: What changes with it


Prior to Wi-Fi 6E standard, transmission over a Wi-Fi network was limited to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands that offered limited channels for connectivity. Therefore, the Wi-Fi network faces signal drops and connectivity issues if too many devices turn up and compete for bandwidth on the same wireless channel for internet connectivity.


To solve bandwidth issues, Wi-Fi 6E enables support for the 6GHz frequency band. Routers based on Wi-Fi 6E standard have wider channels available, reducing the signal interference and increasing the connection capacity. The Wi-Fi 6E also gives the user an option to choose between 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz.


6GHz band: Bone of contention


Last month GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications), an association that represents global telecom companies, wrote to India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) urging them to recognise the 6GHz band for commercial mobile services in India. The global telecom association said that inclusion of the 6Ghz band in the country’s National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) will support 5G growth in the country and ensure that it is ready for assignment to support demand from the Indian operators in the 2025-30 timeframe.


For reference, GSMA represents 1100 telecom companies from around the world, including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea. On a national level, the Indian telecom operators are represented by COAI.


While Indian telecom operators want the government to allocate the 6GHz band for 5G, the broadband companies want the entire spectrum band to be available freely (delicensed) to improve Wi-Fi services in the country.


In a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) last year in August, COAI cautioned the department that heeding the demand of Wi-Fi service providers to make the 6GHz band freely available would lead to loss of revenue to the government. It emphasised that 6GHz frequency band spectrum will be utilised far more efficiently in 5G services than in Wi-Fi. 

First Published: May 03 2024 | 2:05 PM IST



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OpenAI's ChatGPT facing widespread outage across web and smartphone app

OpenAI's ChatGPT facing widespread outage across web and smartphone app



OpenAI’s ChatGPT is currently facing issues in generating responses. Upon trying to use the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot through a mobile app for Android, an error message pops up stating that the server is facing problems. Similarly, on the iOS app and on the web version of chatGPT, the AI chatbot is unable to generate responses and shows a “Request Timeout” message after a while.


According to Downdetector, reported outages for OpenAI spiked up from 11am on May 3 with 90 per cent of reported problems being with ChatGPT. Some users have also reported issues with the website (8 per cent) and login (2 per cent).


Users from around the world have taken it to social media platforms, stating that ChatGPT is currently facing a wide scale outage. Multiple users on X (formerly Twitter) are reporting that the AI chatbot is not working for them.


OpenAI has not acknowledged the issue yet.


The AI powered chatbot from OpenAI faced similar problems last month, where about 91 per cent of users reportedly faced issues in accessing ChatGPT across platforms. The company acknowledged the outage and said that the outage was caused by “increased latency and errors affecting both ChatGPT and APIs”. The service resumed shortly after.

First Published: May 03 2024 | 12:12 PM IST





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Apple has advantage over the competition in generative AI, says Tim Cook

Apple has advantage over the competition in generative AI, says Tim Cook


Image: Apple CEO, Tim Cook


During Apple’s quarterly earnings call on May 2, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook pointed out generative artificial intelligence as the company’s next frontier. According to a report by 9To5Mac, while talking about Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which is scheduled for June 10, the Apple CEO said that he is excited to reveal what the company has been working on. 


Tim Cook did not point out the AI features that the company is working on for its ecosystem. However, he did say that Apple continues to make significant investments in generative AI and that the company will share “some very exciting things” soon. 


While Cook had confirmed that Apple is working on generative AI earlier this year, Apple CEO now shared how the company plans to integrate AI into its products. He said that Apple can leverage the powerful neural engines on its Apple Silicon and the company’s focus on privacy to gain advantages over its competition in the AI space.


“We believe in the transformative power and promise of AI, and we believe we have advantages that will differentiate us in this new era, including Apple’s unique combination of seamless hardware, software, and services integration, groundbreaking Apple Silicon with our industry-leading neural engines, and our unwavering focus on privacy, which underpins everything we create,” Cook said, as reported by 9To5Google.


While WWDC is still a month away, Apple is hosting another event “Let Loose” on May 7, where it is expected to unveil its next-generation iPad Pro and iPad Air models. Last month, Bloomberg reported that the 2024 iPad Pro model would likely be powered by its M4 chip, instead of the M3 chip that is currently the latest Apple silicon. Reportedly, the M4 chip would feature a new neural processing unit (NPU) for running AI models on-device. With a device already running on a new chip with an improved neural engine, Apple would be in a better position to present its AI strategy at WWDC. 


Tim Cook during the earnings call said, “We’ve got a product event that we’re excited about. And then just a few weeks thereafter, we’ve got the developers Worldwide Developers Conference coming up and we’ve got some big plans to announce in both of these events. From an AI point of view.”

First Published: May 03 2024 | 11:22 AM IST



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Israeli cyber security startup Apex gets initial investment from Sam Altman

Israeli cyber security startup Apex gets initial investment from Sam Altman



Israeli cyber security start-up Apex, which focuses on protecting the rapid use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, said on Thursday it received an undisclosed investment from OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman.


In all, Apex raised $7 million in a seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures, with participation from Altman and others, it said. Altman did not immediately comment.


Apex said it had been running trials with a number of Fortune 500 companies and investment firms and was close to finalising paid contracts. The new funds will go toward accelerating product development, hiring workers and marketing, the company said.


With demand growing for AI tools – including OpenAI’s ChatGPT – that help to complete tasks much faster, their users are seeking ways to protect their own data and prevent threats and inappropriate data from entering their systems.


“There is a whole new segment of threats and risks using AI models. It starts with data leakage and problems on the data side. It goes to privacy, compliance and what comes back into an organisation,” Matan Derman, Apex’s CEO, told Reuters.


That marked a pivotal moment for the cyber security industry, which until has focused on prevention and blocking unwanted access, he said.


“We started Apex to build the extra layers of security that’s needed for enterprises to adopt (AI),” he said. “We will try to take this as far as we can.”


Israel is a global leader in cyber security with hundreds of startups.


Ten months ago, Derman co-founded Apex with Tomer Avni, whom he met when both served as officers in the Israeli military’s elite 8200 intelligence unit. Since then the company has been operating in so-called stealth mode, working in secrecy with selected companies.


“Every board, every CEO, every investor and every entrepreneur is talking about AI and how they can leverage AI,” Avni said. “So, the need for security is much more imminent.” Avni said that AI is the latest in major shifts in technology, that began with the emergence of personal computers, and then moved to networks and the cloud – with each requiring added security.


“AI is probably going to be bigger than all these (prior) revolutions,” he said, “because AI is just everywhere.”

First Published: May 03 2024 | 11:02 AM IST



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