Category Archives: Technology

MUHS Pioneers Emotion-AI in Indian Healthcare with Nihilent’s Emoscape

Mumbai, May 16, 2025: In a landmark step toward advancing holistic healthcare, the academic wing of the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS), Nashik the country’s premier institution overseeing over 600 medical, dental, Ayurveda, and allied health institutions has officially partnered with Nihilent to explore clinical applications of Emoscape, the company’s innovative AI-based emotion detection platform. This collaboration marks a transformative moment in the Indian healthcare landscape, combining the ancient Indian concept of Navarasa (the nine emotions) with modern artificial intelligence to fundamentally reshape how emotional well-being is integrated into diagnosis, treatment, and patient care.

Emoscape leverages cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology to detect nine core emotions love, joy, compassion, anger, courage, fear, disgust, wonder, and calmness by capturing subtle upper-body movements (shoulder and above) in 3D. This breakthrough platform draws inspiration from Navarasa, the ancient emotional theory that has played a pivotal role in Indian performing arts for centuries. The integration of this ancient wisdom with modern AI allows for real-time emotion detection, providing unprecedented insights into a patient’s emotional state and opening new avenues for personalized care and treatment.

Lt Gen (Dr.) Madhuri Kanitkar, Vice Chancellor of MUHS, emphasized the profound impact of this collaboration on the future of healthcare in India: “You cannot separate the mind from the body. Healthcare must be holistic. This is not just research it’s a revolution. By combining the time-tested wisdom of Navarasa with state-of-the-art technology, we are opening new doors for understanding and addressing emotional well-being. Our students, researchers, and healthcare professionals will now have access to an advanced platform that can aid in diagnosing and treating emotional and psychological issues with greater accuracy and empathy.”

As one of the most renowned institutions in the country, MUHS has long been a leader in medical education and research. This collaboration with Nihilent positions the university at the forefront of healthcare innovation. The partnership will allow MUHS to explore clinical applications of Emoscape across a range of disciplines, including non-communicable diseases, pediatric and adolescent care, maternal mental health, pre-surgical counselling, psychiatric conditions and ensuring patient privacy. Through this initiative, MUHS aims to bring emotional diagnostics into mainstream healthcare, aligning with its commitment to delivering comprehensive, patient-centred care.

Sandeep Pendurkar, Business Director of Emoscape at Nihilent, highlighted the role of emotional AI in revolutionizing patient care: “For the first time, we’re offering a platform that brings together AI, clinical science, and cultural heritage to redefine healthcare. Emoscape’s ability to detect emotional states with precision is a game-changer. This partnership with MUHS is not just about technology it’s about creating a new framework for emotional well-being in medicine. By detecting and understanding emotions, we can provide more personalized and effective care, improving both patient outcomes and the overall healthcare experience.”

In addition to its clinical applications, the collaboration will facilitate hands-on student engagement through Nihilent’s Summer Internship Program, providing MUHS students with valuable exposure to the intersection of AI and healthcare. This initiative will empower the next generation of healthcare professionals with the skills and knowledge necessary to embrace technological advancements and innovate in their respective fields.

The partnership between MUHS and Nihilent also paves the way for India to become a global leader in emotion-AI-driven healthcare. With both organizations committed to generating empirical data through rigorous research, this collaboration aims to mainstream emotional diagnostics and usher in a new era of holistic, human-centred medicine that can be adopted globally.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between MUHS and Nihilent was signed in a formal ceremony attended by key figures from both institutions, including Lt Gen Dr. Madhuri Kanitkar (Retd), Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of MUHS; Dr. Milind Nikumbh, Hon’ble Pro Vice Chancellor of MUHS; Dr. Rajendra Bangal, Hon’ble Registrar of MUHS and Sandeep Rathod, Assistant Registrar at MUHS. From Nihilent, the signing ceremony was witnessed by Sandeep Pendurkar, Business Director of Emoscape, along with Saurabh Shaligram, Principal Data Scientist, and Sai Sanjana Chitturi, Associate Consultant.

AI Samarth Launches ‘AI Literacy Curriculum Framework’ for Future-Ready Bharat

16th May, 2025, New Delhi: Marking a pivotal moment in India’s education landscape, Central Square Foundation (CSF), with support from Google.org, and in collaboration with the Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI (WSAI) at IIT Madras, launched the AI Literacy Curriculum Framework for Students at the ‘AI Samarth Conclave’ in New Delhi. This represents a significant milestone for ‘AI Samarth’, an initiative to empower over 50 lakh students, teachers, and parents across government and affordable private schools in India with the requisite knowledge and capacity to engage with AI effectively, safely, and responsibly.

AI is rapidly emerging as a transformative force in shaping society, influencing daily life across sectors, including education. As AI profoundly impacts the education sector, it brings opportunities to make learning deeply personalised, adaptive, and efficient. However, realising this potential requires more than just access to technology; it demands awareness, thoughtful integration and meaningful AI engagement by users.

To address this need, AI Samarth has developed a contextualised AI Literacy Curriculum Framework for Students and Teachers in India. In his Keynote address at the launch, Abhishek Singh, CEO, IndiaAI Mission and Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Govt. of India, said “The transformative and cross-cutting potential of AI will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of education in India. As we build a Viksit Bharat by 2047, it is essential to equip every learner with foundational AI literacy so they are ready for the opportunities of tomorrow’s workforce. With AI-powered learning, we can make education more personalised, equitable, and efficient, while easing the burden on teachers.” The curriculum released today aims to build fundamental AI awareness in students, cultivate critical thinking and responsible use of AI tools—laying the groundwork for a future-ready, AI-literate society. The AI literacy curriculum for educators, to be released soon, will focus on enhancing AI awareness, building capacity to leverage AI for teaching and learning, and guiding students in its safe and informed use. The curriculum has been informed by key learnings from high-quality curricula and courses available globally.

Further, AI Samarth is building an open-source content stack, including a video repository for self-learning for students, parents, and teachers, along with teaching-learning materials for cascaded training for both teachers and students. The multilingual content stack will be released as a public good in English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, and Odia over the next six months, with an intent to expand to additional regional languages subsequently. The content will be disseminated through digital platforms and cascaded training modules, in collaboration with mission-aligned implementation partners, state governments and online learning platforms across Bharat. In its first round of implementation, AI Samarth has partnered with six organisations to build AI Literacy for over 50 lakh (5 million) students, parents and teachers. Looking ahead, AI Samarth is committed to mainstreaming AI literacy into school systems nationwide.

As India embraces the promise of AI, equipping users with the tools to engage with AI critically and responsibly will be key to shaping a future where technology is used with purpose and impact at scale. Through this effort, India is building the groundwork for future generations to lead, create, and shape an inclusive AI-driven future.

Qlik Introduces an Agentic Experience to Accelerate Data-to-Decision Journeys

Qlik^®, a global leader in data integration, data quality, analytics, and artificial intelligence, today introduced its new agentic experience at Qlik Connect^® 2025. The agentic experience will provide a single, conversational interface allowing users across the enterprise to interact naturally with data, using specialized AI agents to quickly uncover insights, drive faster decisions, and boost productivity—bringing new simplicity to complex data-driven workflows.

Qlik has consistently pushed forward the possibilities of data exploration, visualization, and analytics. At the heart of this continuous innovation is the Qlik engine—a unique technology that indexes relationships across data, enabling the discovery of unexpected connections. The agentic experience builds directly on this engine, expanding the ability of both users and agents to intuitively access these relationships, surface insights, and take action across diverse data.

The agentic experience will enable users to access insights and take action simply by engaging in natural language dialogue. Operating seamlessly across Qlik Cloud—including data integration, data quality, and analytics solutions—the experience removes friction, providing fast, intuitive visibility for smarter decisions and higher productivity.

At Qlik Connect, the company demonstrated how specialized AI agents will support users within this new experience:

• Introduced last year for unstructured data, Qlik Answers™ will bring together structured and unstructured data in a single natural language experience, delivering trusted answers and enabling automated actions.
• Revealed for the first time at the event, a discovery agent will proactively identify critical risks and opportunities across applications and datasets, presenting insights and recommended actions through a personalized feed.
• Demonstrated as a concept, a pipeline agent will allow users to describe desired business outcomes conversationally, prompting automated recommendations and design of necessary data pipelines.

As enterprises face unpredictable market conditions and increasing pressure to make critical decisions rapidly, investments in AI have grown. With its agentic experience, Qlik is focused on helping customers turn data into timely, high-quality decisions and results. Qlik’s agentic experience is specifically designed to empower teams to accelerate both decisions and productivity in rapidly changing environments.

“This new agentic experience is about removing the distance between data, decisions, and outcomes,” said Mike Capone, CEO of Qlik. “People want a seamless, conversational way to engage with their data—one that fits naturally into their work and delivers clear, trusted answers in context. We’ve built this experience to reflect how decisions actually get made in a business.”

“There’s a growing demand for AI that does more than generate responses—enterprises want systems that can reason across complex data, explain their outputs, and drive action,” said Megha Kumar, Research Vice President, Worldwide Analytics & AI, IDC. “Qlik Answers combines structured and unstructured data with automation in a governed, explainable framework. It’s a strong example of how agentic AI can support real enterprise decision-making.”

“We’re under constant pressure to make faster, better decisions with data that’s scattered across the business,” said Yuzuru Fukuda, Corporate Executive Officer – Senior EVP, Enterprise Division CEO, Fujitsu. “The ability to ask a question and get a trusted, contextual answer—across structured reports, unstructured content, and automated workflows—is exactly the kind of capability we’ve been waiting for. It has the potential to remove a lot of friction from how decisions actually get made.”

Smarter Wearables: Google Gemini Is Coming to Samsung Galaxy Watch and Buds

Bengaluru, India – May 15, 2025 – Your Galaxy wearables are about to get even smarter in the coming months. Google Gemini is set to debut on Samsung Galaxy Watches, making its first integration into the Galaxy wearable lineup. Moreover, activating Gemini will be smoother than ever when paired with the Galaxy Buds3 series. This update will extend AI functionalities across the entire Galaxy ecosystem, creating a more cohesive and intelligent user experience.

Galaxy Watch: Get More Done, Hands-Free

With Gemini on your Galaxy Watch, you can get hands-free assistance using natural voice commands to stay productive on the move. When running on the treadmill at the gym, simply ask Gemini to “Remember I’m using locker 43 today” so you can focus on your workout without a second thought. Or when you receive an important email while your hands are tied up carrying groceries, just ask Gemini to “Summarize my last email” for a quick overview. Gemini handles these requests across your apps, letting you quickly glance at the response and get right back to what you’re doing.

Galaxy Buds: Seamless Device Interaction

When used with Galaxy Buds, the Gemini experience becomes even more seamless. By using voice or pinch and hold controls, you can activate Gemini on your Galaxy Buds and smoothly interact with your Galaxy smartphone. So when you are lacing up your running shoes before a jog, just ask Gemini, “What’s the weather for my run today?” without having to reach for your phone. With Gemini, a more intelligent Galaxy experience is at your fingertips.

Hexnode Boosts Purpose-Built Device Support with ChromeOS Kiosk and Windows Signage

Hexnode, the leading Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) platform from Mitsogo Inc., has announced the extension of Kiosk Lockdown support to ChromeOS and the addition of digital signage capabilities to its Windows kiosk management offering.

These enhancements empower businesses to take better control of their single-purpose and customer-facing endpoints. By restricting access to unnecessary applications and streamlining content management, organizations can strengthen security and ensure displays remain relevant and up to date.

“As businesses rely more on purpose-built devices for customer engagement, even brief downtime can disrupt operations and the customer experience,” said Sahad M, Chief Technology Officer at Hexnode. “Recognizing this, we are committed to providing reliable kiosk and digital signage tools that help businesses transform everyday devices into secure, easily manageable interaction hubs.”

Transform ChromeOS devices into Interactive Kiosks

ChromeOS is gaining ground as a preferred platform for kiosk deployments by offering an affordable, compact and cloud-first design solution. Businesses using ChromeOS-powered kiosks have reported an increase in sales and efficiency, making it ideal for applications ranging from self-service kiosks to exam-ready student devices. 

Hexnode now offers several essential features for managing ChromeOS kiosks:

Single-App Kiosk Mode: Lock devices into a single app for a focused experience, ideal for self-ordering, check-ins, or wayfinding. Enhance security by disabling plugins and function keys, blocking browser extensions and shortcuts to prevent malicious actors from exploiting loopholes and exiting kiosk mode.

Multi-App Kiosk Mode: Grant access to a curated set of apps while blocking distractions, ideal for environments that require flexibility without compromising security. This mode is particularly valuable in digital classrooms or healthcare environments, where users may have limited tech expertise, ensuring they can switch between essential apps easily.

Power and Accessibility Settings: Configure power and battery settings to align with usage patterns, optimizing uptime and extending device longevity. Manage accessibility features like virtual keyboard and dictation, ensuring a user-friendly experience on shared or public devices.

Remote Management: Quickly lock or wipe kiosk devices in the event of compromise or loss, and reboot devices when they freeze or malfunction, all without the need for on-site technician intervention.

Turn Windows Devices into Engaging Digital Signage

Windows remains a widely adopted choice for digital signage after Android, thanks to its long hardware lifespan, robust performance, and broad compatibility with signage software and peripherals. From retail chains to corporate campuses, Windows-powered signage is used to broadcast promotions, display dynamic menus, and relay internal communications. With digital signage shown to boost customer visits by 80%, delivering the right message at the right time has never been more crucial.

Hexnode equips businesses to display content effectively through:

Content Deployment: Easily push promotional images, videos, or URLs to remote displays, making it perfect for keeping retail storefronts updated or synchronizing digital menus across multiple locations.

Loop Video Mode: Auto-play content in a continuous loop, keeping customer engaged with uninterrupted video playback in high-traffic areas like malls or transport hubs.

Full-Screen Display: Automatically adjust content to fill the screen, ensuring consistency and visual impact in environments like corporate lobbies or product showcases.

With the latest addition of digital signage capabilities to Windows kiosk lockdown and newly expanded kiosk support for ChromeOS, Hexnode’s kiosk solutions now cover major platforms like macOS, iOS, Apple TV, Windows, Android, and ChromeOS. This unified approach empowers IT teams to seamlessly secure and manage interactive kiosks and digital signage displays across a diverse fleet of devices.

ManageEngine Adds Native Intelligence and Advanced Automation Capabilities to Its Unified PAM Platform

Chennai, India – May 6, 2025 — ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corporation and a leading provider of enterprise IT management solutions, today announced that it has added AI-powered enhancements—featuring intelligent least privilege access and risk remediation policy recommendations—to its privileged access management platform, PAM360. A new privileged task automation module enabled by Qntrl, Zoho’s unified workflow orchestration platform, has also been introduced. Together, these newly added capabilities help enterprises automate enterprise-wide administrative routines, enforce least privilege at scale with intelligent, context-aware controls and reduce security risks through automated remediation.

AI-Governed Least Privilege Access

Traditional PAM models, which rely on static policies and manual processes, often operate without sufficient context. This can result in excessive permissions, entitlement drift, and configuration errors. To address these challenges, organizations should adopt an adaptive, context-driven approach to privileged access management—one that leverages AI to enable dynamic, risk-based access control. In fact, according to ManageEngine’s 2024 Identity Security Insights, 68% of the respondents are looking for AI-driven improvements in risk-based access control.

“Today’s hybrid, multi-cloud environments have led to an explosion of human and non-human identities, creating complex access workflows and rampant privilege sprawl. To tackle this, organizations require dynamic policies that can intelligently enforce the principle of least privilege across their identity stack. With the AI-driven CIEM module in PAM360, IT security teams can now generate intelligent least privilege policies, proactively flag risky entitlements and automate remediation, helping enterprises close critical identity security gaps before they’re exploited,” said Ramanathan Kannabiran, director of product management at ManageEngine.

PAM360’s CIEM module now features AI-generated least privilege policies, automated remediation of shadow admin risks and real-time access and session summaries. These AI-driven capabilities help organizations proactively tackle access sprawl and misconfigurations in hybrid environments with minimal manual effort.

Orchestrating Privileged Operations With Zero-Touch Controls

Business workflows that leverage RPA and script-based automation often rely on manual access provisioning, resulting in delayed execution and increased overheads, leading to potential security gaps. Modern IT teams need dynamic controls that can streamline on-demand access within these automated workflows and strengthen the security posture of the organization.

According to Kannabiran, “Privileged task automation in PAM360 eliminates the need for administrators to manually grant and revoke necessary access privileges for every automated routine. Access is provisioned just in time, based on the task context, and revoked automatically once the task ends. This not only preserves admin bandwidth, but also reduces the risk of privilege misuse caused by excessive or standing access.”

Powered by Qntrl, PAM360 brings native automation capabilities that eliminate the need for third-party tools. Its deep integration within the Zoho ecosystem enables seamless orchestration of privileged access workflows—enhancing efficiency without compromising security. PAM360 streamlines vendor access with automated onboarding and offboarding, provisions ephemeral, just-in-time access with fine-grained, time-bound controls, and ensures a secure, hands-free transfer of privileged data—delivering speed, consistency and reduced risk across the board.

Productivity SaaS for education is changing: a wake-up call for schools

April 5, 2025: For schools that have relied on productivity SaaS solutions for years, it’s a pivotal moment to reassess long-term needs. With providers like Google ending free unlimited storage in 2022 and Microsoft’s recent updates to their education offerings, institutions face significant challenges, including increased costs and reduced functionality. These developments underscore the importance of adopting systems that provide stability, scalability, and control.

After January 2025, Microsoft rolled out significant changes to its Microsoft 365 Education plans, including retiring the Office 365 A1 Plus plan, reducing storage pools to 100TB per tenant, and restricting some licenses to web-only applications without their counterpart desktop versions, including Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

These adjustments may push schools toward higher-cost paid plans or force them to reallocate resources to maintain functionality, prompting many to reevaluate their reliance on SaaS solutions. Beyond financial implications, there are also rising concerns over data privacy and compliance. Educational institutions manage high loads of sensitive information such as student records, financial data, and research. This makes them prime targets of cyberattacks, which target nearly 80% of institutions annually (Netwrix, 2024). Furthermore, compliance with regulations such as FERPA and GDPR requires secure, private, and auditable data management practices, which some SaaS solutions may struggle to meet.

Shifting to an on-premise productivity solution offers educational institutions increased control over their data, cost predictability, and storage scalability. Unlike SaaS offerings, prone to subscription price hikes and unpredictable removals to their service features, on-premise solutions can provide a stable framework more suited for long-term needs. Locally stored data also ensures privacy, helping schools meet compliance requirements while protecting sensitive information.

Some on-premise productivity solutions like Synology Office Suite enhance collaboration and communication with tools for secure file storage, granular sharing permissions, real-time document editing and instant messaging, supporting both group projects for students and file management among faculty.

For IT administrators, these solutions simplify management with centralized dashboards, system health monitoring, and auditing tools for compliance. Advanced access controls also enable efficient delegation of tasks across IT teams, ensuring smoother workflows and stronger oversight of digital infrastructure.

While changes from major SaaS providers might disrupt operations in the short term, they also provide an opportunity for educational institutions to reassess the suitability of their current systems. On-premise productivity solutions provide a sustainable pathway to address cost concerns, enhance security, and build a resilient digital foundation for evolving educational needs of educators and students alike.

MG Teases ADAS in Upcoming Windsor PRO

Gurugram, May 5, 2025 – JSW MG Motor India recently announced that the MG Windsor PRO will be launched soon in the Indian market.  The upcoming car will include new features that shall enhance the overall appeal of the MG Windsor for customers. In a newly released video, the company has indicated that the Windsor PRO will be equipped with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), providing additional safety with every drive.

The Windsor PRO will be offered with Level 2 ADAS, which offers 12 major features and three levels of warnings – audio, visual, and haptic–always ensuring the safety of occupants. A few examples of these features include Traffic Jam Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control, and Lane Departure Warning, among others.

The MG Windsor, India’s best-selling EV since its launch, combines a sedan’s expanse with a SUV’s versatility, making it a premium offering for discerning consumers who seek both value and class. The MG Windsor PRO will feature new tech features like Vehicle-to-Load and Vehicle-to-Vehicle, enabling customers to utilise the vehicle beyond mobility usage.

Harnessing AI to Transform Vision Research

3 May 2025 ,Salt Lake City, Utah — Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the way we comprehend, detect and treat eye conditions, bringing new hope to millions worldwide. During the upcoming week (May 4 – 8) at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) in Salt Lake City, Utah, researchers will share breakthroughs on how AI is influencing the future of eye and vision health research and patient care, from enhancing clinical decision-making to simplifying workflows to equip patients with educational tools to create personalized care plans.

Scientists at the Annual Meeting will discuss multiple uses of AI, as well as share promising future applications, such as how advanced tools can more precisely detect early signs of diseases like diabetic retinopathy (DR) and glaucoma, sometimes even before symptoms appear. Automated screening tools can support underserved areas where access to specialists may be limited.

Researchers will show also how AI-powered algorithms — sets of rules that help computers learn from data — examine risk factors, track disease progression and identify disease trends that can inform public health strategies. AI can assess patient data to aid them and their doctors in recommending appropriate, personalized treatment plans. Some AI tools can enhance eye imaging techniques, assisting ophthalmologists in identifying and classifying abnormalities faster and with greater accuracy. Beyond the clinic and labs, there will be studies presented at the Meeting on how AI has improved assistive technology for individuals with vision loss (e.g., apps and devices that can support navigation and accessibility in everyday life).

This is just a small sample of the groundbreaking new research that will be featured at the ARVO Annual Meeting, signaling a transformative era for eye and vision science. As AI continues to evolve, it will bring even more innovative solutions that can enhance vision health and positively impact lives around the world.