July 13, 2023

Chandrayaan-3: Why is moon landing so difficult?

A trip to Earth's only natural satellite is still highly challenging and fraught with dangers more than 50 years after the first Apollo mission touched down there.



With the Chandrayaan-3 mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will try a soft landing on the Moon once more. The mission is slated to launch from Sriharikota at 2.30 PM on July 14. The endeavour is still fairly challenging even though humans first set foot on the Moon more than 50 years ago.


When the Vikram lander collided with the Moon's surface in September 2019, the Chandrayaan-2 mission was declared a failure. A similar outcome befell the Israeli-led Beresheet expedition earlier that year. Years later, in April of this year, the Japanese Hakuto-R mission similarly failed to make a soft landing on the moon.


And these are just a few of the numerous missions that tried and failed to reach the Moon. The United States and the Soviet Union wrecked spacecraft after spacecraft during the space race in the 1960s before successfully landing one. With the Chang'e-5 mission in 2013, China became the only other nation to successfully perform a soft landing on the Moon.


UPI Lite has been introduced by Google Pay to encourage small-value transactions.

Existing users of Google Pay may establish a UPI light wallet within the same app, which can hold up to Rs 2,000 in funds.



UPI Lite payment, which enables users to make minor payments without needing the pin, is now officially supported by Google Pay, the second-largest Unified Payment Interface (UPI) platform in the nation. When compared to traditional UPI payments, UPI lite technology enables customers to send money quickly even during rush hour.


Existing users of Google Pay may establish a UPI light wallet within the same app, which can hold up to Rs 2,000 in funds. Additionally, it enables users to conduct transactions up to Rs 200 without the need for a pin. The Google Pay UPI light has a limited spending restriction because one may only load up to Rs 2,000 twice each day at the moment.


In September 2022, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) first launched UPI light payment, which is now supported by over 15 significant public and commercial banks. UPI lite payments were originally made available by Paytm, PhonePe, and BHIM, a trio of UPI payment apps.


In order to compete with OpenAI, Elon Musk establishes the AI company xAI.

The arrival of superintelligence, or AI that is smarter than humans, was another prediction made by Musk during the next five to six years.



Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter, gestures on June 16, 2023, as he attends the Viva Technology conference in Paris, France, at the Porte de Versailles exposition complex. Gonzalez Fuentes/File Photo for REUTERS


The multibillionaire businessman Elon Musk unveiled his long-rumored artificial intelligence startup xAI on Wednesday. He also introduced a team of engineers from the same major American technology companies that he plans to compete against in his effort to create a ChatGPT competitor.

Musk, who is now the CEO of the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, the CEO of the rocket launch firm SpaceX, and the owner of Twitter, will serve as the startup's CEO. Musk has previously stated that the development of AI should be put on hold and that the industry need control. Musk has frequently expressed his worries about the possible "civilizational destruction" that AI may cause.

In a Twitter Spaces event Wednesday evening, Musk explained his plan for building a safer AI. Rather than explicitly programming morality into its AI, xAI will seek to create a “maximally curious” AI, he said.

July 12, 2023

How to watch the live online launch of ISRO's Chandrayaan-3

 In this window, you may watch live coverage of ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 mission launch. Here's how to go about doing that.




The Chandrayaan-3 mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is slated to launch on Friday, July 14 at 2.35 PM IST from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. Here is information on how to view the event live.


On ISRO's website and YouTube page, the launch of the LVM-3 (Launch Vehicle Mark - III) carrying the lander, rover, and propulsion module for the Chandrayaan-3 mission will be webcast live. On July 14, at 2 PM IST, you may view it by clicking the link below. For real-time information regarding the expedition, you can also visit indianexpress.com.



The Chandrayaan-2 mission, which impacted the lunar surface in September 2019, was replaced by the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Chandrayaan-3 is a lander and rover configuration, similar to its predecessor, that will be propelled into a 100-kilometer lunar orbit by a propulsion module.

Apps like Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon are popular among Twitter users.

Here are some platforms that are increasingly finding their base among users who are quitting Twitter.



Since being bought by entrepreneur Elon Musk for a staggering $44 billion in October 2022, Twitter has been on a rollercoaster ride. On the other hand, Twitter's user base is steadily declining. The current turf war on Twitter has given many people a chance. Now, a plethora of rivals are vying for the diminishing user base of the microblogging service. Recently, a number of businesses introduced platforms that were designed after the social networking site run by Elon Musk.


Most users are looking into Twitter alternatives as the market becomes more competitive and in light of the constantly shifting restrictions. Here are a few websites that are gaining popularity among Twitter users who are leaving the service.


Instagram's Threads

Threads, the most recent clone of Twitter, is now the one that poses the greatest threat to Twitter. In fact, Threads has recorded over 100 million registrations within a few days of introduction, which is an astounding amount of users even for an established social networking site. It should be emphasised that despite being a site over two decades old, Twitter only has 450 million users, which is just four times as many as Threads.