Tech major Infosys on Monday announced a strategic three-year partnership with the Australian Open to enhance digital experience of the tennis tournament.

As the Official Digital Innovation Partner of the Australian Open, Infosys will leverage its expertise in emerging technologies like Big Data and analytics, artificial intelligence as well as virtual and augmented reality, to provide unique, innovative and engaging experiences for fans.

“We have long understood the importance of using data and insights to improve connections with our fans, players, coaches and the rest of the tennis community and we look forward to working with Infosys to change the way we all experience our great sport in the future,” Craig Tiley, Tournament Director, Australian Open, said in a statement.

“We’re really excited about the opportunity to showcase how digital technologies can enhance the boundaries of this tournament, to change the way the Australian Open is watched, analysed and played,” added Salil Parekh, CEO and Managing Director at Infosys.

The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually in January in Melbourne. Tickets for the tournament will go on sale on October 9.

Infosys is also the technology partner to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) till 2020.

(IANS)

The key Indian equity indices opened in the negative territory on Monday, tracking broadly negative cues in the global markets and also due to a weakening rupee.

The rupee opened at a fresh low of 72.18 against the US dollar on Monday, which dampened the domestic investor sentiment.

At 9.35 a.m., the wider Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange, traded at 11,546.65 points, lower by 42.45 points or 0.37 per cent from its previous close.

The S&P BSE Sensex, which had opened at 38,348.39 points, traded at 38,213.84 points, lower by 175.98 points or 0.46 per cent than the previous close of 38,389.82 points.

So far, it has touched an intra-day high of 38,354.52 points and a low of 38,242.37 points.

(IANS)

San Francisco In a push to enter the film and TV market, Apple has acquired global rights to two feature films — Victoria Stone and Mark Deebles documentary “The Elephant Queen” and an animated film “The Wolfwakers”.

According to a report in Deadline.com on Sunday, Apple’s worldwide video division led by Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht acquired “The Elephant Queen” that made its debut at the Toronto Film Festival last weekend.

The documentary follows an elephant named Athena as she leads her herd away from a drought.

“The Wolfwalkers” is two-time Oscar-nominee Tomm Moore’s animated film which follows a young apprentice hunter who travels to Ireland with her father to hunt wolves.

There have been reports that Apple is set to produce its own content and start its own streaming service in order to share a pie of the growing video streaming industry dominated by Netflix and Hulu, among others.

(IANS)

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore each on three public sector banks for non-compliance with its directions on “Fraud – Classification and Reporting”.

According to the RBI, the penalty was imposed individually on all the three banks — Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of India, Union Bank of India — on August 30, 2018.

The apex bank took into account the delay on the part of these banks in reporting fraud in certain accounts.

(IANS)

National passenger carrier Air India has invited bids from banks for Rs 500-crore government guarantee-backed “Short Term Loans (STLs)”.

The airline has called for financial bids by September 10.

“Air India is inviting bids for Government Guaranteed INR Short Term Loans (STL) totalling to Rs 500 crore to meet its urgent working capital requirements,” the airline said in a tender document issued on Thursday.

“The tenure of the loan will be for one year (renewable) from the date of availing the STL. The amount of Rs 500 crore will be drawn during September 2018 in one or more tranches.”

(IANS)

As countries over the world including India face elections amid the spread of fake news and political interference on social media platforms, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has asked for some more time to fix his network that has over two billion users.

In a post on Friday, Zuckerberg said that Facebook started on the platform sanitising project in 2017 and “even this work will extend through 2019, I do expect us to end this year on a significantly better trajectory than when we entered it”.

“My personal challenge for 2018 has been to fix the most important issues facing Facebook — whether that’s defending against election interference by nation states, protecting our community from abuse and harm, or making sure people have control of their information,” the Facebook founder wrote.

After his grilling in the US Congress in April over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and the Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, COO Sheryl Sandberg again testified at the US Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on election security on September 5.

Along with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, she faced the committee which is probing the Russian interference from an angle to publicly hold Facebook and Twitter accountable for allowing Russian operatives on their platforms.

“I’m spending a lot of time on these issues, and as the year winds down I’m going to write a series of notes outlining how I’m thinking about them and the steps we’re taking to address them,” said Zuckerberg.

The first note will be about the steps Facebook is taking to prevent election interference on Facebook, which is timely with the US mid-terms and Brazilian presidential elections approaching.

“I’ll write about privacy, encryption and business models, and then about content governance and enforcement as well in the coming months,” he added.

NASA has launched a sounding rocket from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to test a supersonic parachute for landing its next rover on Mars.

The rocket launched on Friday carried the Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE) from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

The payload descended by parachute and splashed-down in the Atlantic Ocean 28 miles from Wallops Island, NASA said.

The parachute was successfully recovered and returned to Wallops for data retrieval and inspection.

The suborbital launch was designed to mimic conditions that the parachute might experience during a Mars landing, Space.com reported.

“This is really a strength test of that Mars 2020 (rover) design,” Jeremy Hill, a mechanical engineer at JPL, was quoted as saying during a webcast of the launch.

“We want to get as close to the Martian environment as we can.”

The payload is a bullet-nosed, cylindrical structure holding a supersonic parachute, the parachute’s deployment mechanism, and the test’s high-definition instrumentation — including cameras — to record data.

The Mars 2020 rover mission is scheduled to launch in July/August 2020 when Earth and Mars are in good positions relative to each other for landing on Mars.

The mission takes the next step in addressing questions about potential for life on Mars by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself.

(IANS)

BJP MLA Ram Kadam, under fire over his “will kidnap girl” remarks, was caught on the wrong foot again Friday after he tweeted that Bollywood actor Sonali Bendre was no more, only to retract it after realising that the news was not true and facing massive backlash.

Bendre is currently undergoing treatment for cancer in the US.

Kadam tweeted in Marathi that “Bollywood and Marathi diva” Sonali Bendre “has passed away in America” and condoled her demise.

After he was trolled for believing a baseless rumour, he deleted the message.

He posted another tweet, saying, “About Sonali Bendre ji, it was rumour for the last two days. I pray to god for her good health and speedy recovery.”

Bendre revealed in July that she has been diagnosed with a “high-grade cancer” and is undergoing treatment in the US.

On Monday, Kadam sparked off a storm of protest with his remarks at a Dahi Handi (Janmashtami) celebration in Mumbai. A video clip showed him saying that youngsters often seek his help after girls reject their proposals. “Come with your parents. What will I do if your parents approve? I will kidnap the girl and hand her over to you,” he was heard telling the crowd.

(PTI)

Commercial vehicles major Ashok Leyland Ltd on Friday said it has inaugurated its electric vehicle (EV) facility in its plant at Ennore here.

In a statement issued here the company said it is India’s first integrated facility for design, prototyping, testing, process prototyping and solutions design.

“The in-house facilities include engineering, prototyping and testing for motors, battery modules and packs and a power electronics lab. Keeping in mind the rapidly evolving and changing market and technology, it has been conceived as an in-house start-up facility in order to stay flexible and fast,” the statement said.

“In our 70th year, we are laying the foundation for our future. The EV Centre in Ennore will give us the edge throughout the evolution of eMobility,” Vinod K Dasari, Managing Director was quoted as saying in the statement.

Commenting on this milestone, Ashok Leyland, said, “Besides working on multiple technologies and platforms for our products, we are creating new disruptive products and services that will change the very paradigm of Commercial Vehicle mobility. The focus is on a massive number of internal initiatives for safety, reliability and optimizing total cost of ownership. We are committed to exploit new opportunities in terms of efficiency, energy, geometry and business models which Electric Drive Trains offers.”

“At present, we have a capacity to take care of about 5,000-10,000 vehicles per annum, with different battery and charging options. We have leveraged start-ups in India as well as from abroad, to bring in innovative yet cost-effective solutions that are offered by us on a turnkey basis. The idea is to have a mature and dynamic portfolio of products, services and solutions when the volume market takes off in a few years,” said Karthick Athmanathan, Business Unit Head, EV’s & eMobility.

(IANS)

The Income Tax Department on Thursday raided the residence of senior BJP leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi’s sister, Rekha Modi, who is one of the accused in Rs 1,900 crore Srijan scam, police said.

“A team of the IT Department raided Rekha Modi’s residence — a flat in Saraswati Apartment at posh commercial S.P. Verma road here. The team conducted searches in connection with the Srijan scam,” a district police official said.

According to the police officials, Rekha Modi is accused of purchasing huge jewellery gifts from the kingpin of multi-crore Srijan scam that is being probed by the CBI.

After Rekha Modi’s name surfaced in Srijan scam, opposition RJD attacked Sushil Modi, saying his family had links with those accused in the scam.

Leader of the Opposition in Bihar Legislative Assembly Tejashwi Yadav has repeatedly alleged that Sushil Modi’s family has direct links with the accused in the multi-crore Srijan scam case involving an NGO that allegedly pilfered funds meant for government welfare schemes.

“Sushil Modi’s sister Rekha Modi and niece Urvashi Modi received crores of rupees from Srijan scam,” the former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister had said earlier this year in a series of tweets, attaching the statement of Srijan Mahila Vikas Sahyog Samiti Ltd’s Indian Bank’s Bhagalpur branch account in which few transactions showed the names of Rekha Modi and Urvashi Modi.

However, Sushil Modi had claimed that he had no relation with Rekha Modi.

The Srijan scam involves Bhagalpur-based NGO Srijan Mahila Vikas Sahyog Samiti Ltd, which used to provide vocational training to women. The NGO allegedly pilfered funds meant for government welfare schemes from the bank accounts of the Bhagalpur district administration.

Nitish Kumar had on August 18, 2017 recommended a CBI probe into the scam after RJD chief Lalu Prasad accused him of “murdering democracy” in Bihar.

In August last year, the CBI registered 10 cases related to the scam and filed four fresh cases in June this year.

(IANS)