Seoul, July 31 (IANS) Major hospitals have received few or no applications for trainee doctor programs starting in September, medical sources said Wednesday, casting uncertainty over the government’s efforts to normalise the monthslong medical disruptions.

Local hospitals, which recently processed resignations from thousands of trainee doctors protesting the medical school quota hike, were set to close applications for 7,700 new positions in the training programs later in the day, Yonhap news agency reported.

However, the medical community has largely been unresponsive to the latest recruiting efforts, with some medical professors also vowing to boycott the training of new applicants, calling for the government to fully scrap the reform plan before engaging in any negotiations.

Pundits said even the country’s top five hospitals were facing hurdles in recruiting new trainee doctors.

The five hospitals — Asan Medical Center, Samsung Medical Center, Severance Hospital, Seoul National University Hospital and Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital — play a key role in providing medical care for critically ill patients.

“While we cannot say there have been no applications, the number remains extremely low, and it is uncertain if it will even exceed a single digit,” an official from one of the hospitals said.

Hospitals also remain cautious about revealing the number of applicants, as there could be attempts to identify the individuals, an official from another hospital said.

The government had earlier encouraged hospitals to accept mass resignations from trainee doctors filed in late February as an appeasement gesture, allowing departing doctors to seek new jobs while enabling hospitals to recruit fresh trainees.

The government also promised special considerations for departing junior doctors reapplying for the training programs, including an exemption from the rule that prohibits applying to the same department within a single year.

It earlier finalised an admissions quota increase of approximately 1,500 students for medical schools next year to address the shortage of doctors.

Amid the continued protest from the medical community, the government vowed to implement additional reform plans to fundamentally reduce hospitals’ dependence on trainee doctors by expanding the roles of physician assistant nurses, and have top-tier general hospitals focus on treating critically ill patients.

“We intend to speed up efforts to implement reforms that can effectively and fundamentally revamp the system of top-tier general hospitals and reduce their excessive reliance on junior doctors,” an official from the health ministry said.

–IANS

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Bengaluru, July 31 (IANS) The average cost of a data breach in India reached an all-time high of Rs 19.5 crore this year, as the local industrial sector experienced the costliest cyber attacks across sectors, a report showed on Wednesday.

The Indian industrial sector faced the highest impact from data breaches, with average cost reaching Rs 25.5 crore, followed by the technology industry at Rs 24.3 crore and the pharmaceutical sector at Rs 22.1 crore.

The cost of lost business – operational downtime, lost customers and reputation damage, among others – escalated nearly 45 per cent and notification costs jumped 19 per cent from the previous year, according to the annual report by tech major IBM.

The most common initial attack types in India were phishing and stolen or compromised credentials, accounting for 18 per cent of incidents each, followed by cloud misconfiguration (12 per cent).

Business email compromise was the costliest root cause at an average total cost of Rs 21.5 crore per breach, followed by social engineering (Rs 21.3 crore) and phishing (Rs 20.9 crore) as the next highest costs.

“Considering that India is getting ready for the rollout of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023, businesses also need to assess the regulatory implications of such attacks and ensure end-to-end compliance,” said Viswanath Ramaswamy, Vice President, Technology, IBM India and South Asia.

Prioritising data security and safeguarding critical assets to help ensure that only the right people have access to organisational resources is essential, Ramaswamy added.

According to the report, 34 per cent of data breaches studied in India involved data stored on public clouds and 29 per cent across multiple environments (including public cloud, private cloud and on-prem).

Globally, critical infrastructure sectors – such as healthcare, financial services, industrial, technology, and energy organisations – incurred the highest breach costs across industries, the report mentioned.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 31 (IANS) People born blind develop unique connectivity patterns in the primary visual cortex, akin to a fingerprint, a new study by Georgetown University neuroscientists reveals.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), these findings could inform personalised rehabilitation and sight restoration strategies.

The study, led by Lenia Amaral, PhD, and Ella Striem-Amit, PhD, explores how the visual cortex in individuals born blind responds to various stimuli, including touch and sound. Unlike the consistent visual cortex connectivity in sighted people, blind individuals exhibit highly individual patterns that are stable over time.

The research involved functional MRI scans of blind participants over two years, revealing that their connectivity patterns remained consistent regardless of tasks such as localising sounds or identifying shapes.

Amaral noted, “These patterns did not change significantly based on the task at hand, underscoring the uniqueness and stability of these neural connections.”

“We don’t see this level of variation in the visual cortex connectivity among individuals who can see,” said Striem-Amit. “The connectivity pattern in people born blind is like an individual fingerprint, identifiable and stable over time.”

Striem-Amit highlighted the implications for brain development: “Our findings suggest that experiences after birth shape diverse brain development pathways, particularly in those growing up without sight. This brain plasticity allows for varied uses of the visual cortex.”

The study suggests that understanding each individual’s connectivity could be crucial for developing tailored solutions in rehabilitation and sight restoration.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 31 (IANS) From meticulously choosing which photos to keep to freely downloading large apps, smartphone usage has transformed. This evolution mirrors the remarkable growth of our digital lives, with smartphone storage evolving from a few precious megabytes to commonplace gigabytes and emerging terabytes.

This shift is fuelled by our reliance on smartphones for social media, gaming, and even as primary computing devices, all demanding significant storage capacity. Early smartphones, limited by internal storage, often forced users to rely on expensive external memory cards. However, technological advancements led to larger internal storage capacities at lower prices, ushering in an era where our digital lives fit comfortably in our pockets.

Yet, the desire for more storage persists. Today’s smartphone users expect more – more freedom to create, download, and explore without constantly worrying about storage limits. They crave a seamless digital experience, and ample storage is the foundation upon which that experience is built.

realme understands this requirement and is taking a bold step to empower users with memory freedom. With its upcoming 13 Pro Series 5G, and subsequent launches, realme promises that every future Number Pro Series will come standard with a 512GB memory option.

Imagine the possibilities: storing approximately 1,940 episodes of your favorite dramas, 120,000 songs, or a staggering 120,000 photos – all without worrying about running out of space. But realme doesn’t stop there. The 13 Pro Series 5G takes performance to the next level with two RAM options: a blazing-fast 12GB+12GB Dynamic RAM configuration and a highly capable 8GB RAM variant.

The 12GB+12GB option is a true game-changer. Utilising realme’s innovative DRE dynamic memory expansion technology, the phone can intelligently convert unused ROM storage into virtual RAM, effectively boosting total RAM to an incredible 24GB. This means smoother multitasking, lightning-fast app switching, and a lag-free experience even when running demanding games or applications.

For users who prioritise efficiency, the 8GB RAM variant offers exceptional performance with the option to expand RAM further using DRE technology. Users can choose between 4GB, 6GB, or 8GB of expansion, tailoring the phone’s performance to their specific needs.

This potent combination of generous storage and adaptable RAM translates to a blazing-fast user experience, as evidenced by impressive AnTuTu benchmark scores. The 13 Pro Series 5G is designed to handle even the most demanding tasks with ease, setting a new standard for performance and storage capacity in its class.

The realme 13 Pro Series 5G is poised to redefine expectations for smartphone capability, making high-performance features and expansive storage accessible to a wider audience. Mark your calendars for July 30th, when realme unleashes the power of the 13 Pro Series 5G and its commitment to democratising smartphone storage.

–IANS

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San Francisco, July 31 (IANS) Artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Copilot accounted for over 40 per cent of GitHub’s revenue growth this year as the annual revenue run rate of the open-sourced developer platform has reached $2 billion, according to Satya Nadella, Microsoft Chairman and CEO.

During the company’s quarterly earnings call, where it posted $245 billion in revenue (up 15 per cent on-year), Nadella said it is already a larger business than all of GitHub was when they acquired it.

“We are also integrating generative AI across Power Platform, enabling anyone to use natural language to create apps, automate workflows or build a website,” he told analysts.

Over 480,000 organisations have used AI-powered capabilities in Power Platform, up 45 per cent (on-quarter).

“In total, we now have 48 million monthly active users of Power Platform, up 40 per cent year over year,” informed the Microsoft CEO.

The number of people who use Copilot daily at work nearly doubled quarter over quarter as they use it to complete tasks faster, hold more effective meetings and automate business workflows and processes.

Copilot customers increased more than 60 per cent quarter-over-quarter.

Nadella said that Teams premium has surpassed 3 million seats, up nearly 400 per cent YoY.

“We are delighted by early reviews, and we are looking forward to the introduction of more Copilot Plus PCs powered by all of our silicon and OEM partners in the coming months,” he said, adding that Windows 11 active devices increased 50 per cent YoY.

In gaming, the company has over 500 million monthly active users across platforms.

–IANS

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