Browsed by
Category: New Technology In Computer

China’s striking advances in green technology

China’s striking advances in green technology

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

China’s BYD overtaking Tesla as the world’s best-selling brand of electric vehicles is one of the most eye-catching headlines of the first week of 2024. But it is just one of the green milestones that China has recently achieved. More important for the world’s environment was the news late last month that China’s share of renewable energy capacity — mostly solar, wind and hydro — reached about 50 per cent of its total generation capacity in 2023. Renewables’ installed capacity surpassed that of coal power for the first time, according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency.

China’s advances in deploying clean tech should be applauded, even if it is continuing to expand its use of fossil fuels such as coal. The country remains the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide,

… Read more
‘For people in Bengaluru, technology begins and ends with a smartphone app’ | Technology News

‘For people in Bengaluru, technology begins and ends with a smartphone app’ | Technology News

Nagaraja Prakasam is a bearded man with a book in his hand. He wears a colourful handloom shirt and an overcoat with his name embossed on it — Naga. It is a walking advertisement for one of the social enterprises he has invested in, GoCoop — a marketplace for handlooms and crafts from India. A serial entrepreneur, he calls himself Naga the Farmer.

Nagaraja is a hands-on investor, identifying startups which others ignore or which seem to be a long bet. For example, Uniphore, which later became a unicorn, was rejected by quite a few investors before Nagaraja picked it up. Today, it is one of the largest global AI-native companies.

Nagaraja is now an author as his book Back to Bharat: In Search of a Sustainable Future has hit the shelves. He speaks to indianexpress.com about his debut book, his journey, and his goal of empowering social enterprises.

Venkatesh

… Read more
Aldous Huxley Explains How Man Became “the Victim of His Own Technology” (1961)

Aldous Huxley Explains How Man Became “the Victim of His Own Technology” (1961)

Just a cou­ple of days ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook tweet­ed out a video pro­mot­ing, “the new iPad Pro: the thinnest prod­uct we’ve ever cre­at­ed.” The response has been over­whelm­ing, and over­whelm­ing­ly neg­a­tive: for many view­ers, the ad’s imagery of a hydraulic press crush­ing a heap of musi­cal instru­ments, art sup­plies, and vin­tage enter­tain­ment into a sin­gle tablet inad­ver­tent­ly artic­u­lat­ed a dis­com­fort they’ve long felt with tech­nol­o­gy’s direc­tion in the past cou­ple of decades. As the nov­el­ist Hari Kun­zru put it, “Crush­ing the sym­bols of human cre­ativ­i­ty to pro­duce a homog­e­nized brand­ed slab is pret­ty much where the tech indus­try is at in 2024.”

One won­ders whether this would have sur­prised Aldous Hux­ley. He under­stood, as he explains in the 1961 BBC inter­view above, that “if you plant the seed of applied sci­ence or tech­nol­o­gy, it pro­ceeds to grow, and it grows accord­ing to the laws of

… Read more
Need niche technology, says Army as it seeks to beef up artillery firepower

Need niche technology, says Army as it seeks to beef up artillery firepower

New Delhi: Drawing lessons from the protracted Russia-Ukraine war, the Indian Army is seeking niche technology to beef up its artillery firepower while preparing itself for protracted war, a shift from the concept of short war that it was following.

Sources in the defence and security establishment said that the ongoing war against Ukraine showed the effective use of niche technology, such as loiter munitions, swarm drones or counter drone systems.

They also identified Starlink communication system, a satellite internet constellation operated by American aerospace company SpaceX, as niche technology that has helped the Ukrainians in carrying out pinpointed targeting.

The sources said the role of fire power has been reaffirmed as a battle-bearing factor in the war. Nearly 80 percent of the casualties have been due to artillery fire, they said.

Terming firepower as a “battle-winning” factor, the sources said the manoeuvre forces

… Read more
Canada Announces Tax Credit for Carbon Capture Technology

Canada Announces Tax Credit for Carbon Capture Technology

Canada’s federal government will introduce investment tax credits for carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and clean technology manufacturing as it aims to compete globally in clean tech and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.    

“As an important pillar of Canada’s clean economy jobs plan, the government is focused on implementing, on a priority basis, the new clean economy investment tax credits for carbon capture, utilization, and storage; clean technology adoption; clean hydrogen; clean technology manufacturing; and clean electricity,” the federal government said in the Fall Economic Statement this week.

The government aims to introduce legislation on CCUS in Parliament this fall.

Moreover, the 2023 Fall Economic Statement announced that the Canada Growth Fund would be the principal federal entity issuing carbon contracts for difference. The Canada Growth Fund will allocate, on a priority basis, up to US$5.1 billion (C$7 billion) of its current US$11 billion (C$15 billion) in capital to

… Read more