TLF Editorial Board Test 2016 Archives - Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

PAYMENT BANKS: AN OUTLINE

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Balaji Subramanian

Ed. Note: This post by Vishal Rackecha is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

One of the greatest problems for the Indian Economy faces today is the problem of financial inclusion and the lack of credit in rural areas and for micro industries. In 2013, the Reserve Bank released a paper based on the findings of a committee under the chairmanship of Nachiket Mor. This committee said that services provided through mobiles and other internet portals are a low-cost method and under the right regulatory setup would have the potential bringing financial services to places where the formal banking setups find it unviable or unprofitable to setup branches. This is because having both credit and savings functions is necessary. The committee suggested that allowing non-banking businesses with huge customer bases and comprehensive data about the consumers will be able to increase the reach of the requisite facilities in regions where they are not available.

GOOGLE PIXEL AND ITS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The New Big Daddy Watching You?

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Balaji Subramanian

Ed. Note: This post by Sayan Bhattacharya is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

Google launched its first smartphone series called Pixel some time earlier this month. The major shift from being software producer to being both hardware and software producer was a calculated change in policy to take a direct dig at Apple’s hardware throne.

CIVILIAN DRONE HYSTERIA: The Absence of a Regulation Mechanism

Posted on October 20, 2016August 3, 2022 by Balaji Subramanian

This post by Sayan Bhattacharya is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

We live in a world where presence of drones, more formally known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, are owned by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to high school kids who put them to several new non-military uses previously unimaginable. We live in a world where drones are conceptualized to do something as simple as delivery of items by Amazon to your doorstep to delivering radioactive vials to the office of the Japanese Prime Minister, from monitoring crops to capturing heart stopping footages which you would see circulating on social media platforms. In a world where these gadgets have flown uncomfortably close to US airspaces as many as 650 times, been used to smuggle contraband into prison cells, used to take pictures of inner premises of temples in India which are prohibited, interfered in police and firefighting operations and lastly crashed into civilian populations causing injuries. This article is placed in such a paradigm where clear absence of regulations have led to imposition of blanket bans post freak accidents and subsequent media hysteria leading to isolation of these progressive gadgets from our daily lives. If you are injured in an accident caused by negligence like drunk driving, contact an expert lawyer who will help with DUI first offense claim, give you legal counseling, and fight for your rights.

Roboethics

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Balaji Subramanian

Ed. Note: This post by Benjamin Vanlalvena is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

Source: xkcd

Biotechnology, Ethics and CRISPR: A Panacea or Pandora’s Box?

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Balaji Subramanian

Ed. Note: This post by Benjamin Vanlalvena is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

Change is inevitable. Through technology, humans have brought about changes not only in the environment but also within themselves. Whether these changes are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, the fact is that we have achieved things and gone to places we would never have dreamed of.

BLOCKCHAINS: THE TRUE INNOVATION BEHIND BITCOINS

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Balaji Subramanian

Ed. Note: This post by Vishal Rakhecha is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

Bitcoins have disrupted e-commerce not because of the idea of virtual currency but the peer- to-peer system it has developed. The USP of bitcoins was the decentralised structure of data entry. Any participant in the entire network can make an entry into the ledger if they follow certain rules. This reduced the dependence on trusted third-parties (Pay Pal, Master Card, etc.) or a centralised authority (governments). This has been made possible using an open database called Blockchain. This article will give a brief explanation of blockchain and the possible applications it can have across sectors.

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS IN A DIGITAL AGE

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Balaji Subramanian

Ed. Note: This post, by Kaustub Bhati, is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

The digital media, be it the digitalised version of 24×7 print media, the social networks or the instant messaging. The internet, much like the radio in its era, has radically altered who is electable. Before the digital landscape arrived, there was a vividly different set of candidates who would win that don’t have even a chance of winning now. Academic research has consistently found that people who consume more news media have a greater probability of being civically and politically engaged across a variety of measures. In an era when the public’s time and attention is increasingly directed toward platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, scholars are seeking to evaluate the still-emerging relationship between social media use and public engagement. The Obama presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 and the Arab Spring in 2011 catalyzed interest in networked digital connectivity and political action.[1]

ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Balaji Subramanian

Ed. Note: This post by Kaustub Bhati is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

Have you ever seen a Paralympic athlete run and wondered how is he doing that? The answer to that query is assistive technology. Assistive Technology is basically an umbrella term, used for any software or hardware designed to help a user get past the area of their disabilities. It encompasses any device which helps assist, adapt and rehabilitate a disabled person.

Throttling Net Neutrality: A Fast Lane to Success?

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Balaji Subramanian

Ed. Note: This post by Ashwin Murthy is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

Net neutrality in its most basic understanding is the principle that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the Government regulating the Internet must treat all data of the Internet the same. In a situation however where these bodies can increase the productivity of the provision of Internet to the consumer by discriminating between different sites and their data packets, the question arises as to whether this too would be against the principle of net neutrality and thus should be rendered unviable. Perhaps the clearest example of the same would be slowing down certain sites in exchange for speeding up other sites, a process known as throttling and fast-laning. Each site is essentially a collection of data packets (packets of information transmitted via Internet). By distributing data packets of different sites at different speeds, a level of optimisation can be reached that cannot be provided by distributing the data packets of each site at the same speed. Thus more data intensive sites could be given priority over less consuming sites – multimedia sites over text-based sites is the simplest form of distinction to understand. This could be extended even further, where ISPs divide which sites to speed up, thus allowing the consumer to choose which is most beneficial for their personal use. In the Indian context, this could be understood in the example where Airtel would ‘speed up’ all multimedia sites (YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, etc.) and ‘slow down’ all other sites while BSNL would do the same with news sites (The Hindu, Times of India, Al Jazeera, etc.) and so on.

YouTube’s Copyright Policy – An Explanation

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Balaji Subramanian

Ed. Note: This post by Ashwin Murthy is a part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2016.

Digital media has become the norm of the modern world and in the field no website is as dominant as YouTube. YouTube, currently a Google subsidiary, controls the market when it comes to video sharing, outpacing the other video-sharing providers by millions of views and users. YouTube presently has more than a billion users and has even allowed the growth of a new career in YouTube personalities, the most famous being PewDiePie. As a natural product of being a video sharing service, multiple videos use content that is copyright protected.