Google has launched a new video-based Q&A app which allows people to answer questions about themselves, then share those answers directly on Google. The name of the app is;

Xiaomi launched Mi Pay, a UPI (Unified Payments Interface) Based mobile payment service in India to send money from one bank account to another or between UPI (Unified Payments Interface) accounts. The service provider of this application is ICICI Bank. It was certified by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). A customer can pay various types of bills, make DTH recharge with the help of this application.

TreadWill has been developed by a team with support from the Computer Science and Engineering and Humanities and Social Sciences, HSS (Psychology) departments. TreadWill is a website designed to help people deal with stress, low mood, lethargy and other depressive symptoms by means of various online exercises, questionnaires and games. It will help in overcoming depressive symptoms and becoming more resilient against stressful events in the future.

According to a report called Breach Level Index by digital security firm Gemalto, data breach incidences in India were the second highest globally. It is due to compromises in the Aadhaar database. India is second to the US which represents more than 57 per cent of global breaches. 945 data breaches led to 4.5 billion data records being compromised worldwide in the first half of 2018. Out of this, India accounted for over 1 billion data during the first six months of 2018.

Google launched a new search engine called 'Dataset Search', which works in multiple languages, to help scientists, data journalists and others find data required for their work. The new search engine will work like Google Scholar, the company's popular search engine for academic studies and reports.

Researchers from MIT have designed a four-legged robot called Cheetah 3 that can run, jump onto desks, and climb obstacle-laden stairs without visual sensors. The 40kg robot has been developed with two new algorithms to provide the robot with 'blind locomotion' capabilities. Using those, the robot adjusts its movements and determines how much force to use to perform actions like stepping forward and pulling back and deals with unexpected forces like a kick. The robot can also recover from adverse conditions like being shoved or yanked by relying on "feel" instead of cameras.

Pulkit Sapra, 26, from Delhi and Suman Muralikrishnan, 27, from Chennai, former students and researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi have created a laptop for visually-impaired called "DotBook". It is claimed to be the first in India, the laptop has an interface in form of dots or Braille instead of a visual one. Instead of a screen, the laptop displays embossed text in Braille through a touchpad and the users get to feel everything a website has by touching the pad. It is built in Linux and comes with 4 GB internal storage which is expandable up to 64 GB and it can be connected with mobile phones and other laptops to provide a visual display for sighted persons. They have launched two versions of the laptop, one with 20 cell version (Rs 40,000) and another 40-cell version (Rs 60,000) - each referring to the number of characters displayed in one line. The 20-Cell Braille Variant has Perkins Keys while the 40-Cell Braille Variant with QWERTY keyboard.

CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion), the first Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered robot to fly in Space, was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2018. German astronaut Alexander Gerst talked with the artificially intelligent crew-assistant CIMON during a 90-minute experiment on November 15, 2018, aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Facebook launched a 'Digital Literacy Library' providing safety tips for users in 6 Indian languages. This launch is a part of Facebook's efforts to train 3,00,000 people in India on digital literacy by the end of 2018. Digital Literacy Library will help educators in addressing digital literacy and young people in skill development regarding digital safety. The library will be available in 6 Indian languages: Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Facebook is also organising a 2-day child safety hackathon at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.

AntBot is the first walking robot to have navigational capabilities without GPS or mapping. It has been designed by French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Aix-Marseille University researchers at ISM, on lines similar to desert ants who use polarised lights and UV radiation to navigate in space. It consists of an optical compass which determines its movements by the help of a polarised light. An optical movement sensor directed to the sun is used to measure the distance covered. It provides a precision of up to 1 cm after covering a total distance of 14 metres. It has six feet to enhance mobility and facilitate movements in complex environments. Celestial compass is used to measure its heading with precision by cloudy or clear weather.

Google announced 'Pie' as the name for the latest version of the Android operating system, succeeding Android Oreo. The Android P or 'Pie' version has begun rolling out to Pixel phones and will be available to other devices later this year.