1) World’s first holographic flexible Smartphone developed.
- Scientists from the Queen’s University (Canada) have developed the world’s first holographic flexible Smartphone named HoloFlex.
- HoloFlex, is capable of rendering 3D images with motion parallax and stereoscopy to multiple simultaneous users without head tracking or glasses.
- HoloFlex features a high-definition Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diode (FOLED) touch-screen display.
- Images are rendered into 12-pixel wide circular blocks rendering the full view of the 3D object from a particular viewpoint.
- These pixel blocks are projected through a 3D printed flexible micro lens array consists of over 16,000 fish-eye lenses.
- The Smartphone is also equipped with a bend sensor which allows the user to bend the phone. It helps in moving objects along the z-axis of the display.
2) Baby Biagio is first in Britain to be born through new chromosome screening technique.
- UK’s first baby named Biagio Russo was born in Oxford using Next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) method.
- This method uses a revolutionary In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) technique resulting in better selection of embryos to transfer during the treatment.
- NGS also known as high-throughput sequencing is bio medical process that allows doctors to easily choose the embryos which have the strongest chance of growing into healthy babies.
- This method helps doctors to move away from traditional manually count and identify problems caused by embryos produced in IVF having the wrong number of chromosomes.
- Unlike traditional screening methods, NGS can spot embryos that have more subtle DNA faults and embryos that have only some cells with chromosomal defects.
3) Google launches free public Wi-Fi service at five railway stations.
- Multinational company Google has announced the launch of its free high-speed public WiFi service at Ujjain, Jaipur, Patna, Guwahati and Allahabad railway stations.
- Google has been deploying the service over the extensive fibre network of Indian Railway`s arm Railtel which provides Internet services as RailWire.
- The service is now available in 15 stations across India.
- This is in continuation with its project to provide high-speed public WiFi service at 100 Railway stations across India by end of the year.
- Google Covering 100 of the busiest train stations in India, the project will be eventually rolled out to cover 400 train stations across India.
4) NASA’s Kepler telescope 1,284 new planets found outside our solar system by Kepler telescope.
- NASA’s unmanned Kepler space observatory has discovered the largest trove of exoplanets outside our solar system.
- It has discovered total of 1,284 exoplanets and it is more than double the number of known exoplanets found with the Kepler space telescope.
- The new trove of 1,284 exoplanets nearly 550 are said to be rocky planets like Earth, based on their size.
- NASA has discovered nearly 5,000 total planet candidates, of them more than 3,200 have been verified and 2,325 of these were discovered by Kepler.
About Kepler space observatory:
- The unmanned Kepler space observatory was launched in 2009 and was tasked with determining how commonly, Earth-like planets occur throughout the Milky Way galaxy.
- The Kepler observatory works by observing a dimming in the light of a star, known as a transit, each time an orbiting planet passes in front of it.
5) Indian Navy Decommissions Fighter Planes Sea Harriers.
- The Indian Navy decommissioned its fleet of iconic Sea Harriers at a function organised at INS Hansa base in Vasco, Goa.
- The Harriers will be replaced by a squadron of Russian MIG 29k jets and the retired aircrafts will be put on display in museums.
About Sea Harriers:
- The aircraft was developed by the British in the 1960s. It was used for both reconnaissance and strike.
- In India Sea Harriers were inducted in 1983 and played a pivotal role in various operations.
- It is best known for the ability to take off and land vertically. It is only class of jet that can hover like a helicopter.
- During their service, the aircrafts had operated from both INS Vikrant and INS Viraat aircraft carriers.
6) Reliance Jio Launches JioMoney Digital Wallet to The Public.
- Reliance Jio has quietly launched its new wallet app on the Apple and Android app stores.
- The new app, which joins Jiochat Messenger and My Jio apps in the respective stores, is called JioMoney Wallet.
- JioMoney is a semi-closed prepaid wallet that aims to enable mobile-based transactions. Using it customers can store money and use it for purchasing goods and services.
- Customers can use JioMoney’s digital wallet, a Jio Money card or any other credit/ debit card directly from the wallet to pay merchant seamlessly and instantly.
- JioMoney digital wallet also gives consumers the option of opening a Digital Bank Account or linking their existing account.
- The service will enable customers to make bill payments, mobile and DTH recharges, send/receive money and insurance premium payments, as well as for online shopping.
- It also allows users to send and receive money to and from family and friends.
7) Electronics maintenance management system for Indian air force inaugurated.
- The Indian Air Force has launched its Electronic Maintenance Management System (e-MMS) Project, an automated military maintenance system.
- It was inaugurated by the Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha at the Air Force Station in Pune, Maharashtra.
- The system would transform the manner in which the maintenance activities are executed and managed by the IAF.
- The e-MMS project is one of the largest Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO) IT implementation in the world.
- The project has been designed and developed by the Indian IT giant Wipro.
- It will transform IAF’s paper-based legacy maintenance system to an online system as it will be implemented in IAF’s hierarchy and functioning.
- It will help to transform work environment of IAF to become more efficient.
- And help to monitor the operational availability of all fleets and systems in real time at various hierarchical levels.
8) Islamic State launches mobile app for children.
- The Islamic State’s ``Library of Zeal`` has released an application for teaching the Arabic alphabet to children on Android devices.
- The vocabulary taught by it includes jihadist themes along with words like ‘tank’, `gun` and `rocket`.
- The IS’s ‘Library of Zeal’ has released an application, titled Huroof, for teaching the Arabic alphabet to children on Android devices.
- The alphabet application is not the Islamic State’s first mobile application, however it is the first to be directed exclusively at children.
9) Nalco enters into MoU with BARC for research and development.
- National Aluminium Company (Nalco) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, for Research and Development (R&D) in fields of mutual interest.
- Extraction of Gallium from Bayer Liquor will be NALCO`s first R&D project with BARC with an objective to develop indigenous technology for this strategic metal.
- Its integrated operations cover the entire aluminium production value chain from mining bauxite, refining alumina, smelting aluminium, captive power generation to a strong logistic network in terms of rail & port facilities.
- Nalco has the largest integrated alumina-aluminium complex of Asia.
10) US and Nato officials to activate missile defence station in Romania.
- The United States has activated a land-based missile defence station (Aegis Ashore Missile Defence System) in Deveselu, Romania.
- The missile defence station is part of NATO’s larger European shield to protect member countries from short and medium-range missiles, particularly from the Middle East.
- Deveselu missile defence station has uses powerful computer and radar technology to track and guide weapons to destroy enemy targets.
- It also allows on-shore sites and warships to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles while they are still in space.
- US has spent 800 million dollars on the site in Romania.
11) IAF team concludes `Exercise Red Flag` in Alaska.
- The multilateral Red Flag Aerial combat exercises between US, NATO and allied forces and India Air Force (IAF) concluded in Alaska, US.
- This was the second time India had participated in such an exercise after 2008.
- IAF’s participation in this inter-continental exercise was to showcase its capability in undertaking integrated air operations and gain also operational lessons.
- The exercise was conducted multiple simulated scenario to provide realistic settings with a Red Force, defending their airspace and assets and a Blue Force acting as offensive side.
- Red Force was constituted by US F-16 fighters, while the IAF planes along with other USAF aircraft such as F-15, F-16 and F-22 and US Navy F-18, constituted the Blue Force.
12) Indigenous Advanced Air Defence interceptor missile, Ashwin successfully test fired.
- India successfully test fired an indigenously developed Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor missile, Ashwin.
- It was launched from the complex of Abdul Kalam Island (formerly known as Wheeler Island) off Odisha coast.
- This was the 12th test in the series to develop interceptor missiles.
- It was test fired to validate various parameters of the interceptor in flight mode.
- AAD interceptor missile Ashwin is the advanced version of low altitude supersonic ballistic interceptor missile.
- It is indigenously developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and is capable of destroying any incoming hostile ballistic missile.
- It weighs around 1.2 tonnes and has a diameter of less than 0.5 meter.
- The missile also has its own mobile launcher, secure data link for interception, independent tracking and homing capabilities and sophisticated radars.
- With this, India became the fourth country to have successfully developed this anti-ballistic missile system. The other three are United States, Russia and Israel.
13) China launches Yaogan-30 via Long March 2D.
- China has successfully launched Yaogan-30 remote-sensing satellite into sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) using the Long March-2D rocket.
- Yaogan-30 was carried by a Long March-2D rocket, the 227th mission for the Long March rocket family.
- The rocket was launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located in Gobi desert in northwest China’s Gansu Province.
- The Yaogan-30 satellite was built by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST).
- It is part of second generation of the Yaogan series inaugurated in 2008. The first Yaogan satellite was launched in 2006.
- It has two deployable solar arrays along with batteries. It uses the CAST-2000 platform, which has a dry mass of about one metric ton.
- The satellite will be used for experiments, land surveys, crop yield estimates and disaster relief.