New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) After the successful implementation of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for online ticket booking at Eiffel Tower, NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), the international arm of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), on Friday, enabled the acceptance of UPI at Galeries Lafayette’s flagship store in Haussmann, ahead of Paris Olympics.

This is in partnership with Lyra, a French leader in securing e-commerce and proximity payments.

Starting July 26, the Paris Olympics is expected to draw a large number of Indian visitors. According to Jawed Ashraf, Ambassador of India to France and Monaco, this will pave the way for the wide acceptance of UPI in France and support its internationalisation as a means of digital payments.

“Our collaboration with Galeries Lafayette in Paris not only enables UPI payments at a prestigious venue but also boosts UPI adoption as a convenient and secure cross-border payment method for Indian tourists,” Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NPCI International, said.

As per NPCI, this partnership will benefit a multitude of Indian tourists visiting Paris every year, allowing them to use UPI at the Galeries Lafayette flagship store.

“Lyra is happy to have enabled for the first time in Europe the in-store acceptance of UPI in the iconic Department stores Galeries Lafayette Haussmann in Paris,” said Christophe Mariette, Chairman of Lyra India.

NPCI also mentioned that this initiative aims to broaden UPI’s market presence in France and Europe, driving further growth and adoption as a secure payment solution.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) Bharti Airtel has denied claims of a massive data breach, which alleged that the data of 375 million Indian users was up for sale on the dark web, saying that “this is nothing short of a desperate attempt to tarnish Airtel’s reputation by vested interests.”

Unverified reports had suggested that details of 375 million Airtel users, including their phone number, email, address, date of birth, father’s name and Aadhaar number were allegedly available for sale on the dark web.

“There has been an ongoing report alleging that Airtel customer data has been compromised. We have done a thorough investigation and can confirm that there has been no breach whatsoever from Airtel systems,” an Airtel spokesperson told IANS on Friday.

As per Dark Web Informer on X, a threat actor identified as ‘xenZen’ was claiming to sell data of Airtel users on a community called BreachForums.

The price set by the threat actor to sell the information was $50,000.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) Polaris Dawn, run by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is all set to drive billionaire Jared Isaacman, along with three others, for the first-ever ‘all-civilian’ spacewalk.

Polaris Dawn — the first commercial spaceflight mission with a spacewalk — is expected to launch on July 31. It is the first mission under “Polaris Programme” by Isaacman — the founder of Shift4, an online payment processing company.

He was the commander of the first “all-civilian” space mission Inspiration4, launched in 2021. He purchased three spaceflights with SpaceX, and named the series “Polaris Programme”.

“We are targeting no earlier than July 31 for the launch of Polaris Dawn,” the company said in a post on X.com.

While SpaceX is yet to formally announce the mission, it is expected to provide Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket as well as space suits for the intended spacewalk.

The spacewalk at about 700 kilometres above the Earth will also test the SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits needed for future long-duration missions including building a base on the Moon and a city on Mars.

The company noted that Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit.

Besides Isaacman, the other three crewmates, include pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a retired lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force who served as the mission director for Inspiration4, mission specialist Sarah Gillis, who oversees SpaceX’s astronaut training programme, and medical officer Anna Menon, who manages the development of SpaceX’s crew operations while also serving the company’s mission control.

The mission is expected to fly higher than any crewed mission since the Apollo Programme ended in the 1970s, “endeavouring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown”.

It will also research to understand better the effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health.

The crew will also “be the first to test Starlink laser-based communications in space, providing valuable data for future space communications systems necessary for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond”.

“Thanks to the hard work of SpaceX, PolarisProgram, and NASA teams, we cleared a critical milestone last week. More details on that test soon, but for now we are moving on to refresher sims and then off to @NASAKennedy,” Isaacman posted on X, early this week.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) Global eSIM-capable device shipments are expected to exceed 9 billion units between 2024 and 2030, growing at a 22 per cent CAGR during the period, a new report showed on Friday.

By 2030, nearly 70 per cent of all cellular devices shipped will be eSIM/iSIM-capable driven by smartphones and cellular IoT modules, according to Counterpoint Research.

As per analysts, the industry has moved past an inflection point after the release of the US-exclusive eSIM-only iPhone in 2022 and is now entering a period of hypergrowth.

“Key ecosystem players have started preparing to deploy eSIM beyond their flagship devices into mid-tier segments. The new eSIM-only iPad is another sign indicating that the future is eSIM,” said Research Analyst Siddhant Cally.

“Other use cases such as travel and roaming will also greatly help in increasing eSIM adoption in the short term,” he added.

At present, smartphones have the highest eSIM adoption rate on the consumer side.

However, categories such as Connected Cars, Gateways and Routers and Drones, where physical SIMs can be very difficult to manage, stand to greatly benefit from eSIM or iSIM-based connectivity, the report said.

In the long run, eSIM will become the default form factor for these industries, it added.

More than 400 operators now support eSIM services globally, enabling an average of over 50 consumer devices.

Further, the analysts said that they expect iSIM-capable devices to account for a significant portion of the cellular device ecosystem by 2030.

“These are still very early days for iSIM. However, we expect iSIM adoption to pick up steam in the next three years. The technology has the potential to bring more efficiency to devices by lowering costs, size and complexity,” Senior Analyst Ankit Malhotra said.

“This makes it ideal for use in a wide range of IoT applications, from smart home devices to industrial sensors,” he added.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) American private aerospace firm Firefly Aerospace has successfully launched its Alpha Flight 5 (FLTA005) rocket, which carried eight CubeSat for NASA.

The mission, part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative(CSLI), lifted off aboard the Alpha rocket, named “Noise of Summer” from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 9.04 p.m. PDT (9.34 a.m. IST).

Following payload deployment, Firefly successfully performed a second stage relight and plane change manoeuvre to further test and validate Alpha’s on-orbit capabilities, the company said. Firefly Aerospace is a NASA vendor for both launch and lunar services.

“The Firefly team knocked it out of the park,” said Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, in a statement.

Besides “continuing this partnership,” Weber aims to be part of NASA’s “larger space exploration goals from Earth to the Moon and beyond.”

The mission’s CubeSats were selected through NASA’s CSLI, which provides a low-cost way for universities, non-profits, science centres, and other researchers to conduct science and technology demonstrations in space.

The CubeSats were designed by universities and NASA centres and cover science that includes climate studies, satellite technology development, and educational outreach to students.

The launch “demonstrates the capability of small rockets,” said Hamilton Fernandez, mission manager for NASA’s Launch Services Programme.

Further, he added that via the CubeSat mission, NASA aims to “build relationships with this new part of the US launch vehicle industry.”

Firefly is also in the final testing phase for its next Alpha launch, FLTA006.

The team is concurrently ramping up for a responsive on-orbit Elytra mission that will launch on Alpha FLTA007 later this year while also working to complete the final readiness milestones for its first Blue Ghost mission to the Moon launching in Q4 2024, the company said.

–IANS

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