The Revolution that Never Happened

The 5G launch was an inflection point in a country that was waiting for the next tech revolution. The announcement came five months ago, in October 2022, for selected cities in India, but the service and its impact are yet to be seen. The blame for this goes to tightened regulatory frameworks, which haven’t allowed 5G service to really see the light of day.

For instance, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has ordered telecom operators to restrict their 5G infrastructure at a distance of 1.3 miles at all airports in the country. The decision was taken after the DGCA flagged worries around interference between the 5G networks operating on the C-Band spectrum with flight altimeters that help pilots stick to a specific altitude during the flight.?

The other issue is the unavailability of 5G-enabled devices. The manufacturers' delivery of software updates that enable these services is said to have been delayed. Users have flooded the DoT with complaints, causing them to schedule a meeting with these operators.

While the 5G launch is plagued with these issues for now, Jio is set to launch 5G pan-India by December 2023. Bharti Airtel plans to accomplish this by March 2024, however, cash-strapped Vodafone India hasn’t announced any 5G rollout plans as yet. Media reports say that the DoT is keeping a close watch on Vodafone’s 5G plans as non-compliance with their minimum rollout obligations by September–October will result in a penalty.?

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No UPI for USA

The USA has given the world Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and many tech companies, but it has a unique case study when it comes to testing innovative fintech ideas like the UPI. According to experts, the lobby of the card-based payment network — built by VISA/Mastercard — is the reason behind the failure of UPI in the US. The other issue is with the US banks that won’t allow a non-money making platform like UPI — which has been unprofitable for banks — to run the service.?

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Cause & Effect in LLMs

Though LLM-based chatbots like ChatGPT, Bard and Bing Chat sound oh-so-intelligent with their swift responses, they have little understanding of the meaning or context of the text they generate. And this is the biggest limitation of these chatbots since they cannot learn about causes and effects from data alone. Scientists have a theory to make LLMs work on the cause-and-effect formula. According to them, reducing the amount of data needed to make these machines function the way they do is one big aspect where causal reasoning can play a role.?

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Ford’s Autonomous Bet

Ford is revamping its autonomous vehicle segment. With its new venture Latitude AI, the company is developing the driver assist system for the next-generation Ford vehicles.?

The car manufacturer intends to invest more time and money in Level 2/3 driver-assist tech, than a Level-4 robotaxi technology. The automakers’ own L3 BlueCruise system, known as the Active Driving Assistance (ADA) system, is “the simultaneous use of a car’s?adaptive cruise control?(ACC) to control speed and?lane centering assistance?(LCA) to control steering”.?

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