Current Affairs on Technology

Google Launched Virtual Exhibition

1. In an effort to recognise the impact of Indian women in history, Google with the help of its cultural arm Google Arts & Culture launched a virtual artwork and exhibition showcasing the achievements of the Indian women in the country.
2. Women in India: Unheard Stories,’ is a collection of over fifty virtual exhibitions with more than 1,800 artworks, photographs and videos.

NASA Launches Weather Satellite

1. NASA has successfully launched the “next generation” US advanced weather satellites GOES-R 
2. ​GOES-R will provide more accurate and timely forecasts about hurricanes and storms.
3. It was launched on board of Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

India’s first genetic garden inaugurated

1. On 18 November 2016, Mauritius President Ameenah Gurib Fakim through video-conferencing inaugurated India’s first genetic garden of naturally occurring salt-tolerant plants called halophytes at Tamil Nadu.
2. First-of-its-kind genetic garden has been set up by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF).

China Wins Supercomputer Crown

1. China has retained the top spot in the list of the world’s fastest supercomputers for its ‘Sunway TaihuLight’ built entirely using processors designed and made in China.
2. Sunway TaihuLight has a capability of performing 93 million billion calculations per second (petaflop/s) and gain the top spot against the former champion, Tianhe-2, also a Chinese system.

Google Launches Photo- Scanning App

1. Tech giant Google has rolled out a new scanning app Google PhotoScan  that allows users to scan and digitise physical photographs.
2. The free standalone app detects edges, straightens the image, rotates it to the correct orientation and removes glare.
3. Scanned photos can be saved in one tap to Google Photos to be organised, searchable, shared and safely backed up at high quality.

DRDO carried out the maiden flight Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

1. On 16 November 2016, DRDO successfully carried out the maiden flight of TAPAS 201, a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) - "Rustom-II"
2. The maiden test flight of Rustom-II was undertaken from Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), Chitradurga, 250 km from Bangalore.
3. Rustom-II has been designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), the Bangalore-based premier lab of DRDO with HAL-BEL as the production partners.

Indian have transformed nanoscale pieces of silver to gold and gold to silver

1. As per the results were published on November 10 in the journal Nature Communications, team from the IIT Madras has successfully transformed nanoscale pieces of silver to gold and gold to silver by replacing their atoms one at a time.
2. The shape and structure of these materials before and after transformation are identical, although they are completely different chemically.