Technology

Technology, science and the digital world

Vikram-1 lifted off from the launch base in Sriharikota

Skyroot launches India's first private rocket into orbit

Vikram-1 carried six payloads into low Earth orbit in a 16-minute flight, making India the third country with a private orbital launch capability.

Space technology

SpaceX aborts 13th Starship test flight at the last moment

Illustration: sugar discovered in an interstellar cloud

Astronomy

Astronomers discover sugar in interstellar space for the first time

The Commission is investigating social media design that creates addiction (illustration)

DSA investigation

Commission: Instagram and Facebook design preliminarily breaches DSA

Investigation covers infinite scroll, autoplay and personalised recommendations, with Meta facing fines of up to 6 per cent of global annual turnover.

Technological dispute before federal court (illustration)

Trade secrets

Apple sues OpenAI over alleged theft of trade secrets

Lawsuit also names io Products and two former Apple employees; OpenAI responds that it has no interest in third-party trade secrets.

Foldable iPhone

Foldable iPhone Ultra arriving in September, supply chain sources claim

Design finalised and mass production has begun; the first Apple foldable phone is expected to go on sale simultaneously with the iPhone 18 Pro models.

The industry proposes labelling music created by artificial intelligence

AI music

Music industry unveils two labels for AI-generated music

IFPI and RIAA propose 'AI-generated' and 'AI-assisted' tags, urging streaming platforms to adopt them.

AI abuse

xAI sued over Grok used to generate explicit images of minors

Class action lawsuit alleges stepfather used Grok to create around 7,000 explicit images of stepdaughter; company accused of obstructing investigation.

Autonomous satellite

NASA tests satellite that uses AI to autonomously identify what it captures

YAM-9 satellite independently identifies objects from orbit for the first time without ground control confirmation; achieved 88.2 per cent accuracy in Earth-based tests.