Ancient Kerala church opens gates to Muslims for prayers

U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc is "very close" to achieving level 5 autonomous driving technology, Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Thursday, referring to the capability to navigate roads without any driver input.

"I'm extremely confident that level 5 or essentially complete autonomy will happen and I think will happen very quickly," Musk said in remarks made via a video message at the opening of Shanghai's annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC).

"I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level 5 autonomy complete this year."

Automakers and tech companies including Alphabet Inc Waymo and Uber Technologies are investing billions in the autonomous driving industry.

However industry insiders have said it would take time for the technology to get ready and public to trust autonomous vehicles fully.

The California-based automaker currently builds cars with an Autopilot driver-assistance system.

Tesla is also developing new heat-projection or cooling systems to enable more advanced computers in cars, Musk said.

Industry data showed Tesla sold nearly 15,000 China-made Model 3 sedans last month.

Tesla has become the highest-valued automaker as its shares surged to record highs and its market capitalisation overtook that of former front-runner Toyota Motors Corp.

The Mars Colour Camera (MCC) onboard ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission has captured the image of Phobos, the closest and biggest moon of Mars.

The image was taken on July 1 when MOM was about 7,200 km from Mars and 4,200 km from Phobos.

"Spatial resolution of the image is 210 m.

This is a composite image generated from 6 MCC frames and has been color corrected," ISRO said in an update along with the image.

Phobos is largely believed to be made up of carbonaceous chondrites.

According to ISRO, "the violent phase that Phobos has encountered is seen in the large section gouged out from a past collision (Stickney crater) and bouncing ejecta."

"Stickney, the largest crater on Phobos along with the other craters (Shklovsky, Roche & Grildrig) are also seen in this image," it said.

The mission also known as Mangalyaan was initially meant to last six months, but subsequently ISRO had said it had enough fuel for it to last "many years."

The country had on September 24, 2014 successfully placed the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft in orbit around the red planet, in its very first attempt, thus breaking into an elite club.

ISRO had launched the spacecraft on its nine-month- long odyssey on a homegrown PSLV rocket from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on November 5, 2013.

It had escaped the earth's gravitational field on December 1, 2013.

The Rs 450-crore MOM mission aims at studying the Martian surface and mineral composition as well as scan its atmosphere for methane (an indicator of life on Mars).

The Mars Orbiter has five scientific instruments - Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP), Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM), Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA), Mars Colour Camera (MCC) and Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer

New Delhi, Jul 13: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has blocked Bharti Airtel's Platinum and Vodafone Idea's RedX premium plans that offer faster data speeds and priority services to customers as both the plans were violating net neutrality norms.

The telecom watchdog has asked Bharti Airtel to explain within seven days how such a similar plan being launched does not violate the rules of net neutrality.

Vodafone Idea's RedX plan has been in the market since November 2019. They made some modifications in May 2020 and the Bharti Airtel was soon going to launch a similar plan.

According to TRAI, the higher speed for premium customers discriminate against others and violates net neutrality.

Responding to TRAI's move, Airtel spokesperson said: "We are passionate about delivering the best network and service experience to all our customers. This is why we have a relentless obsession to eliminate faults and have been consistently recognised by international agencies as the best network in terms of speed, latency and video experience."

"At the same time, we want to keep raising the bar for our post-paid customers in terms of service and responsiveness. This is an ongoing effort at our end," the spokesperson said.