World's first robot lawyer ROSS hired by US law firm

US-based law firm Baker Hostetler on May 2016 hired the world’s first robot lawyer ROSS to assist the company and its various teams in legal research. The law firm will license artificial lawyer ROSS for use in its Bankruptcy, Restructuring and Creditors Rights team.

Key Features:

Ø  ROSS has been built by ROSS Intelligence and is built upon IBM cognitive computer Watson.

Ø  With the support of Watson’s lawyers can ask ROSS their research question.

Ø  The ROSS reads through the law, gathers evidence, draws inferences and returns highly relevant, evidence-based answers.

Ø  ROSS also monitors the law around the clock to notify user of new court decisions that can affect a case.

Ø  The programme continually learns from lawyers who use it to bring back better results each time.

UAV flights for early diagnosis of HIV in infants

On 14 March 2016, the Government of Malawi and UNICEF successfully tested the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones) to explore cost effecting ways of reducing waiting times for HIV testing of infants. As part of the test, simulated blood samples were transported from a community health centre to the Kamuzu Central Hospital laboratory that is located at a distance of 10 kilometers. Though drones were used in the past for surveillance and assessments of disaster, this is the first known use of UAVs in Africa for Improvement of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) services. After successful completion of further tests, the drone services well be integrated into the health system alongside others existing mechanism such as road, transport and short message service (SMS).
Significance of UAVs for Malawi
      The successful completion of tests and integration of UAVs with HIV services of significance for Malawi due to the following scenario. In 2014, nearly 40000 children in Malawi were born to HIV positive mothers. It is also estimated that around 10000 children deaths occur every year due to the infection. The high incidence of death is attributed to the fact that there is a considerable delay in diagnosis of the infection in infants. This is because of transport challenges and associated delays experienced by health workers in remote areas of the country.

India successfully test fired Agni-1 ballistic missile

On 14 March 2016, India successfully test-fired indigenously built nuclear capable intermediate range Agni-1 ballistic missile. It was launched from launch pad-4 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Abdul Kalam Island (Wheeler Island) on the Odisha coast. The trial was as part of training exercise by the Strategic Force Command (SFC) of Indian Army. The sophisticated missile covered 700 km distance within 9 minutes and 36 seconds. The latest trial of Agni-1 followed the first successful test-fire that was conducted on 27 November 2015 from the same base.

About Agni-1 ballistic missile:

Ø  Agni-1 was developed by Advanced System Laboratory, the premier missile development laboratory of DRDO in collaboration with Defence Research Development Laboratory and Research Centre Imarat and integrated by Bharat Dynamics Limited, Hyderabad.

Ø  The missile is 15-metre long and weighed 12 tonnes and equipped with sophisticated navigation system which ensures it reaches the target with a high degree of accuracy and precision.

The missile is a surface-to- surface and single-stage missile powered by solid propellant and capable of hitting a target 700 kilometers away