These days metaverse has become a buzz word. The organisations which have played a role include Epic Games, Microsoft, Tencent Holdings, Marvell Technology, Cloudflare, Unity Technologies, Nvidia, AMD and others. Roblox, with its immersive games, has been perceived as the company with first metaverse IPO in 2021.

Metaverse solutions do require hardware support. There are displays, sensors, smartglasses, headsets, software tools, virtual platforms and marketplaces.

Metaverse depends on Web 3.0 with a collection of technologies — AR/VR, blockchain, 5G, AI and cloud. There are cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

Neal Stephenson’s science fiction novel Snow Crash in 1992 started this. Here the governments and global economy collapses. The world then comes to an alternate world — a metaverse. It is accessible with goggles and earphones. It offers an escape to people.

Such a world has merits. But at the same time, there could identify theft, fraud, polarisation and exploitation. There are issues of data security and emotional safety.

In India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) has proposed several legislations for the regulation of tech industry and has also proposed some social media guidelines.

Data Protection Bill

In July 2017, the ministry set up a 10-member panel to examine the need for data protection law. Justice Srikrishna Committee in August 2018 submitted its draft report. In December, 2019, a bill was tabled in the parliament, which was sent to a joint parliamentary committee for further deliberations. The parliamentary committee suggested that data protection law should include non-personal data too. In 2021, the parliamentary committee adopted a report, signs off it, and called the new bill Data Protection Bill instead of Personal Data Protection Bill. The bill was studied by the Ministry. In July 2022, the government withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019. The government is likely to propose four large buckets of digital rules and regulations with a data privacy bill. The government will come back to the parliament with a comprehensive framework of laws, including the privacy too and other contemporary challenges.

IT Act, 2000

Since the SC accepted privacy as a fundamental right, the government in 2017 decided to change the IT Act to reflect the same. In the meantime, the PDP Bill goes to parliamentary committee. The government could ask the committee to suggest changes in the IT Act too , in 2019. In February 2020, the minister feels the IT Act needs revision as it is more than 20 years old. There are new aspects of cybercrime. The same issue was emphasised in February 2022 too. In June 2022, the government declares that a new IT Act is being drafted.

Social Media Intermediary Guidelines

In February 2021, the ministry proposes a new policy to be followed within 60 days. In May 2021, the ministry asked the social media intermediatries to follow the law. In June 2022, the government released a draft of another set of changes to IT Rules. But it was withdrawn immediately. The same was re-released after some minor changes. In July 2022, the public consultation was conducted and there was a proposal of grievance appellate body. The final report is being prepared and may be released soon.

Data Governance Framework

The government constitutes a panel for suggesting data governance framework in September, 2019. In July 2020, it submits its report. Feedback was called for a revised framework was suggested by the ministry in December 2020. There was fresh public consultation in May 2022. The ministry in June 2022 says that the work is being given finishing touches.

In the proposed bill on data, the focus should be on personal data — name , phone number, chat history, credit history, profile details etc. Non-personal data is not about an individual — data about traffic, weather patterns, cab users data etc. A parliamentary committee suggested inclusion of non-personal data. This could dilute the objective of protecting personal data. Personal data protection is about allowing an individual to control how information about him/her is used. Non-personal data has economic goals. Both the objective are wide apart, and treating them on par in a single law dilutes both.

There should be checks on the way the government uses data. It has to respect the privacy principles. There should be provisions about the data collection, its storage and its safeguarding. The government surveillance must have checks and balances.

There is over-reliance on consent of an individual for data processing. Data processing for product improvement may be legitimate. Therefore, such processing may not be dependent on consent.

The IT Act rules regulate the sensitive personal data. These rules have yet not been enforced. When a data regulator is established, it has to co-ordinate with several agencies.

Data localisation should be restricted to critical data. Or else, there should be cross-border flow of data.

Some provisions of data protection bill are likely to be dropped or fine-tuned — regulation of hardware and devices, localisation of data with retrospective effect, regulatory consent for cross-border flow of data every time, and penalty on global turnover for any violation.

TMT is going to be the world’s largest optical telescope, having a mirror of 30 metres in diameter and a height of 4-5 floors of a building. The work has been in progress for the last one decade, and will take another decade for completion. It will be located in a high-rise in North-East Pune.

The idea is conceived by Thoughtworks, a tech consultancy firm. Its team works closely with TMT project.

At present they focus on three components — the common software to operate the telescope consisting of communication network to give instructions to the telescope, the execution software to issue commands for interpretation and implementation by the operating system of the telescope and the data management system which processes all the data and images the telescope captures. It will take 3-4 years for Thoughtworks to complete the software engineering. The telescope is being built simultaneously.

India happens to be the hub of the GCCs of the international organisations. These are technology and business operations arms of the global firms. Initially, they were set up to take advantage the low labour cost in India. As time advanced, these acquired expertise and provided a competitive advantage to India. GCCs now have arbitrage value — ability to offer tech and innovative ideas. They become crucial for the parent organisation. They have travelled from the boiler room to the boardroom.

These platforms together bring a combination of technologies. It provides enough experience to the organisation. GCCs adopt a platform approach. There is a shift from pure tech to business enablement and domain strength. It should promote profit-centres, and should drive centres of excellence in specific areas.

We do require millions of applications in the next few years. There are not enough developers to code these applications. The viable approach is to use low-code/no-code or LC/NC solutions. People with no or little knowledge of coding and who have to build software can avail of LC/NC. Yes, this will not be suitable for complex and customised software.

These LC/NC platforms have visual environment, and a modular approach. There is friendly graphic user interface(GIF). It is a matter of dragging and dropping software components, which are visually represented to make an app. It is similar to prepare a power-point presentation (PPT).

Quixy is no-code app development platform. Anyone who can handle PPT or MS Excel can use this platform to build business software.

It is the empowerment of a layman that is so appealing. It democratises technology. The specialised IT staff could focus on more strategic projects.

Microsoft’s LC/NC platform is called Microsoft Power Platform. It has 7 million plus active users.

LC/NC platforms have been assisted by the advances in AI. The market dynamics change rapidly, and business has to be responsive. This calls for more adoption of LC/NC. This sector shows a healthy growth 28 per cent CAGR.

Builder AI is a AI-powered LC/NC platform. As most of the features of apps are common, there would be greater use of LC/NC. It is the last mile that is unique.

Indian advertising is served by a variety of agencies — big conglomerates such as WPP, IPG, Publicis, Havas and Dentsu and a number of small independent agencies, either generalist or specialist.

Big networks foster advertising culture and talent, and attract big budget advertising. Smaller agencies have meagre resources, and work hard to get a share of the total advertising revenues. Smaller agencies generally do not handle big brands or large mandates. It is the niche area they cater to. Large mandates, especially in multiple markets, require scale and speed and modularity of solutions. This could be provided by bigger network agencies. They get insight from their global associations.

However, the times are changing. The localised smaller agencies are nimble and lift heavier business from the market surrounding them. Bigger agencies have multiple bureaucratic hurdles in the approval process. These are the best times for independents to thrive in the advertising ecosystem. They bring in services such as analytics, social performance and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Their biggest plus point is the freedom they enjoy. They take quick managerial decisions. To retain talent, they offer ESOPs. Independents allow talents to access higher executives easily. There are issues of constant sales pitches to win business, and long working hours.

Industry will undergo a churn. There will be consolidation of business and few players. The current small independent agencies will by then ready for acquisition by the larger agencies. Global networks are likely to become uncompetitive since talent likes to have more space. Clients too would be choosy. Both independent and networks will fight for the space. Some may sneak into the digital space. Future is bright for the proactive agencies. Independents can offer services to consultancies and financial services firms.

There is heavy investment by Big Tech companies in metaverse platform. VR immerses a user into the virtual world. AR layers virtual objects onto the physical world. This layering demands motion-capture capabilities of VR and computing power for machine vision. In addition it also requires AI capabilities to process real world imagery in real-time.

Many technological breakthroughs would be needed to arrive at the next level of metaverse. It is essential to create realistic and high-fidelity avatars and virtual spaces to provide seamless experience connecting people in the virtual world. Consumers must move in their avatars from one metaverse platform to another. There has to be interoperability between these virtual worlds.

The metaverse in its current form has a long way to go. The process will be facilitated by emerging technologies.

Certain post-graduate medical courses in pre and para-medical specialisations such as anatomy-physiology, pharmacology, biochemistry and microbiology attract very few candidates, with the result that several seats remain vacant. Such courses make you eligible for research and for being a faculty to teach the subjects. This is not a very attractive proposition.

The seats which are in demand are clinical stream seats. Even diploma seats have few takers. To make the pre and para-medical seats more attractive, these subjects must add a clinical component. The government and NMC must think on these line and take steps to do so.

The departments in medical faculty have more percentage of desirable faculty members and lesser percentage of aspirational faculty members. If both these are clubbed together for para medical subjects, the overall manpower requirements of the department would increase, and would open up opportunities for these students.

A combined MD, Ph D programme can be launched which makes the Ph.D. scholar earn scholarship per month after PG itself automatically.

A PG Pharmacology student can be given training Product Management to make him/her eligible for corporate jobs in pharma companies. Microbiology students can be trained in Industrial Microbiology to make them employable.

Bootcamp is a North-American term. Basically, it is a training camp for new military recruits. The training is short but difficult. Such bootcamps are designed as intensive training sessions to make the trainees aware of the practical reality. The term could be traced back to Spanish-American War when the recruits wore leggings called boots, and that is the origin of the term of bootcamp.

In the IT industry, new technology trends are visible — blockchain, VR, NFTs, bitcoins, digital avatars and metaverse. There are innumerable new opportunities in the emerging sectors.

To be employable and to remain employable, the candidates can attend a coding bootcamp. Bootcamps teach the candidates how to code and apply the code to workplace projects. Bootcamps can be conducted physically or virtually.

Bootcamps cover programming languages such as JavaScript, SQL and Python. There are modules on current software, tools and techniques. Participants in bootcamps may have little or no prior coding experience.

In bootcamps, the participants learn about data science and analytics. The courses are interactive. The essential element is mentorship from expert professionals. They have hands-on experience and that facilitates learning. There is one-on-one relationship with the mentor. Attention is paid to the aspirations of the trainees and the demands of the industry.

Bootcamps also help in building networks. There is close co-operation between engineers and developers. Such camps foster team work. Cohort-based online training enable a smooth transition from the current job to the aspired job.

Your mobile can be made a target of SMS bombing. It means it receives in a short span a large number of messages so as to harass you and disrupt the functioning of your phone.

This could be done by using freeware and the downloaded apk files. Some of these SMS bombing applications are SMSBomber, TXTBlast and BombItUp. In majority of cases, the vulnerable API points are exploited by the websites to send either OTPs or text messages to legitimate users. The attackers exploit the APIs by making GET/POST requests with their scripts. It automates the process of sending SMSs.

The SMS bomber tool is easy to use. It requires the cell number and value, as to how many times the message will be repeated. On submission, the process starts and on completing the task gives the success alert.

Bombarding despite the DND is actually an offence and invades the privacy of a person.

The websites which provides SMS bombing tools also provides options to protect the cell phone number. If the number is enlisted on the protection list, SMS bombing cannot be made on it. There are anti-sms bombers also which block messages from a particular sender if the message is sent more than three times. Users can contact the security teams of the companies from whom such messages are received. The firm then can patch up vulnerable API.