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.

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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.

The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.

Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.

Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.

What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.

"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,

which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.

"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.

"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.

"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.

In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.

The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.

With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.

Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).