Author: Uma Iyer

Uma Iyer explains how Alexa might encourage more families to have open conversations around the taboo subject of menstruation. With an objective to get more families to have open conversations around menstruation, Amazon UK has trained its virtual assistant technology Alexa on how to give advice to manage periods. On 23rd May, Amazon introduced an innovative initiative geared towards empowering girls in association with the Freedom4Girls charity. NHS has been long trying to extrapolate its content and aim at ending period poverty. Amazon’s Alexa trained to offer better advice on periods. (Image Credit: Amazon) History of menstruation education Periods has…

Uma Iyer explains how Neuralink has the potential to bring every science-fiction trope about a man-machine interface to life. Brain implants are not exactly new to human knowledge. In 1963, a man with a red cape holding a device stops an enraged charging bull towards him at the push of a button. This was the first ever demonstration of direct mind control, where the region of the brain called caudate nucleus when triggered by an electrode array helped the bull shed its aggression. What started with the Yale University neural engineer, Jose Manuel Rodrigues Delgado, however controversial, has now manifested…

Uma Iyer investigates green technology, its possibilities, perils, and everything in between. Green is in! That is the mantra of the new age. When we look at Green Technology, we automatically think of Solar panels, solar flowers, and everything Solar. Green Technology in fact must span to basic decisions that are made by everyday people in how technology is viewed, consumed, and discarded. Today’s technology life cycle: CreateBuild and ScaleConsumeDump!! (Rarely recycle) Image Credit: Cohen USA This spans across information consumption (read Data article), hardware and software. The situation is escalating. While we are moving to electric cars, the mining…

Uma Iyer explores how modern science and developments in technology can faciliate an easier and meaningful life for folks in their old age. It is a cliche to say that technology is omnipresent. The younger generation have adapted to technology quite comfortably. I was in a hospital when I saw a one-year-old child seamlessly scrolling through a phonebook as if it were second nature. It was baffling to see how scrolling left or right or up or down is such a useful function in user experience. This has now been made accessible using moving the device as up or down…

Uma Iyer explores the fascinating world of virtual assitants, their possibilities, pitfalls and potential future. Back in the day of the old science fiction movies, a ‘communicator’ was about that; a small box that allowed you to speak with the spaceship. Times have changed now. Today, technology is more integrated. A small piece of technology, say a speaker boasts features today that fifty years ago would have taken several large and cumbersome boxes to execute. But perhaps nothing beats what has come to be the existence of virtual assistants. Think of Jack Kirby’s motherbox minus the interdimensional travel (so far).…

Uma Iyer explores how in a post-pandemic world steering toward remote work, and a general move towards a digital workforce, cybersecurity turns into a potential nightmare. With rapid growth comes increased vulnerability. This can affect not only high-profile operations but even basic infrastructure like water, transportation, et al. Cyberattacks on transportation networks are a definite possibility of wreaking devastation with substantial traffic jams, to crashes with many casualties. Israel is one of the greatest reminders of such a potential risk. To that end, the Israeli Defense Forces store information which contain biometrics for data protection. As such, there is no…

With AI based tools developing fast, Uma Iyer looks at what the future may hold for search engines like Bing, Bard et al. Although the ChatGPT craze has died down, Artificial Intelligence based tools are still in its nascent stages. This article could well be written by the engines making most of the information websites redundant! Microsoft’s Cortana and Google Assistant including Alexa have already been pioneers in the space of intelligent and coherent responses. While these products were commercial wings, the bigwigs have now started focussing on research based programmes to collect as much data to bring into life…

ISRO has had 34 launches in the last decade, successfully sending up 121 satellites, 75 of them foreign. Uma Iyer finds out how this Indian juggernaut went international. The Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO has come a long way since its humble beginnings of requesting other countries to launch its first Satellite Aryabhata in Russian soils to be at the forefront of international collaborations. It not only challenged the costs levied by the big wigs of NASA and all other coveted international counterparts, it now has done what the Indian market does best, launch satellites in wholesale. OneWeb, the…

Uma Iyer explains how in an encrypted post-analog age the code of tomorrow may have no code at all. Since the dawn of the species, humanity has been coding over the hardwiring of their brains to compute, understand, evolve, create, and thrive in an apathetic universe. One of the ways of coding information has been in the form of language, its use and interpretation. Computers, like humans, have evolved over time and have a language of their own. This language, as with many human languages, is now being democratized. I wrote the word ‘democratize’ above and Google gave me a…

Uma Iyer explores how the technological boom of apps and tracking devices is transforming the fitness industry. Did you ring in the new year with a promise that you will eat clean, join the gym and head out for the run every morning at 5:00 a.m.? Or did you get a new subscription with Noom? Or treat yourself to a fancy apple watch to close those coveted rings? Surely for some, at the end of the month, the gadgets have found their place under your couch or in some corner by now! Myzone App (Image Credit: Myzone) Fitness has now…