Author: Uma Iyer

I am not famous enough (yet!) to interview Sundar Pitchai, so I thought why not interview Google’s latest addition to docs! I am not famous enough (yet!) to interview Sundar Pitchai, so I thought I can take another route by interviewing Google’s latest addition to docs, one of my most used tools! Prelude I use Google Docs to write my articles. I suddenly got a prompt asking me if I wanted to use labs. I nonchalantly said, “yes”. Turns out it can write this article for me. So I am going to experiment writing this article using the labs tool……

Not only does AI help find a partner, sometimes applications themselves become the partner, the potential is limitless, says Uma. Sima Aunty is the guru of match making and the show Matchmaking in Netflix is one of the most watched shows. What started as a basic documentary has been stretched to three seasons and a brand new designer avatar. However, Sima aunty has a catch, she does not appreciate flings and dating. She prefers ‘serious’ relationships which ultimately culminate in marriage. For the unversed, Indian Matchmaking, the hit eight-episode long Netflix docuseries, has Mumbai-based Matchmaker Sima Taparia becoming a social…

Uma Iyer traces the developments of the stock market, and explores the role of and future potential for technology in share trading. Back in the day, the share market used to be depicted by a big bull outside Wall Street in New York, busy shouting at individuals buying and selling stocks. High voltage voices echoed through NASDAQ and other high trading places. The bell used to be rung to start a trading day and stop the trading day! Brokers and traders made money speculating by reading through scores of papers and annual reports, predicting the future of a stock or…

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…