6 killed in Odisha boat capsize; 12 rescued
Bhubaneswar, June 17 : At least six persons have been killed after a boat carrying 18 tourists capsized in Odisha's Chilika lake, officials said on Sunday.
The boat capsized on Saturday evening after it was caught in a thunderstorm, accompanied by strong wind and rains. Twelve others were rescued and admitted to a hospital.
While bodies of two persons including a minor girl were recovered on Saturday, four more bodies were retrieved on Sunday.
The search and rescue operation by the fire personnel and Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) team completed with the recovery of the missing bodies on Sunday morning, said an official.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed deep grief over the loss of lives in the tragedy. He announced an ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh for the kin of deceased and free medical treatment for all the injured persons.
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B'luru techies trick Apple's OS, use airpods hack to create hearing aids for grandmothers
Bengaluru: Three young tech enthusiasts from Bengaluru have devised an innovative method to bypass geographical restrictions on Apple’s AirPods Pro 2, enabling a hearing aid feature unavailable in India.
The feature, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September and available in over 100 countries, remains blocked in India. When 24-year-old Rithwik Jayasimha purchased AirPods Pro 2 for his grandmother, he discovered the restriction. Determined to find a workaround, he joined forces with his school friends, Arnav Bansal and Rithwik Ribhu, both of whom also had grandmothers dependent on hearing aids.
At a lab in Koramangala, the trio developed a solution using a Faraday Cage made of aluminium foil, copper mesh, a microwave, and an ESP32 chip. The cage blocked Wi-Fi signals, while the chip allowed them to spoof the AirPods' location to San Francisco using an open-source Wi-Fi location database. This geo-spoofing tricked Apple’s operating system into activating the hearing aid feature.
According to Jayasimha, the feature is significantly more user-friendly and advanced compared to traditional hearing aids. "With these AirPods, I could adjust settings like sound loudness and brightness easily, eliminating the need for audiologist visits," he said.
The self-taught innovators have already helped over 30 people enable the feature, sharing their methods online and assisting others at their home-based lab, 'Lagrange Point.'
The trio has previously worked on solutions like water-cooled suits for delivery personnel during heatwaves and adaptive clothing for Parkinson’s patients. Their next project involves developing devices to detect microplastics in food and water.
While Apple has not commented on their initiative, the tech enthusiasts hope the hearing aid feature will soon receive regulatory approval in India.
