The space debris cleanup mission launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully tracked down one of its targets.
The commercial debris removal demonstration saw Japanese company Astroscale work with JAXA to launch a satellite named ADRAS-J that demonstrates the capabilities needed to deorbit space junk. Last Friday, the two entities revealed that one of the four mission objectives – to approach a target closely and observe it from a fixed point while providing continuous images with high image quality and required data volume – had been reached at the end of May.
The observed object was the upper stage of an H-IIA rocket, launched in 2009 to carry the greenhouse gas observation satellite into space. The image below shows this upper floor, seen by ADRAS-J from a distance of only 50 meters.
One of the images of the H-IIA upper stage captured by ADRAS-J – Click to enlarge
The image would demonstrate that Japan’s goal of developing commercial space cleaning services is progressing satisfactorily.
India appoints new technology minister
India’s re-elected government has appointed a new minister with responsibility for a key technology portfolio.
A minister from the previous government, Ashwini Vaishnaw, retained his Cabinet post, along with the portfolios of railways, information and broadcasting, and electronics and information technology.
Jitin Prasada has been asked to become Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology portfolio. Former Minister of State for this portfolio, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has unexpectedly decided to end his political career.
Singapore Tech Reportedly Jailed for Deleting Former Employer’s Virtual Machines
An Indian national who once worked for Singaporean services company NCS was reportedly jailed for deleting virtual machines after being fired.
Singapore media reports that the man, an Indian national, was released by NCS and returned to his home country, but was able to log into the company’s services.
He then deleted several VMs in a test environment. After the virtual machines were discovered missing, authorities reportedly found evidence that the convicted man was looking for scripts to delete resources. The former employee said he was confused and angry after he was fired and was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.
Hong Kong uses robot dog to detect pollution
The Hong Kong government has tested a robot dog to detect pollution.
A government case study released Sunday explains that environmental officials currently rely on their own noses to detect pollution.
Law Chi-wing, senior environmental protection officer of the Department of Environmental Protection, said the robot dog “provides objective data and quickly tracks the location of these sources.”
The department envisions a future in which this gas-sniffing robot dog can replace human investigators when it comes to entering dangerous, enclosed spaces during pollution investigations, thereby improving both the effectiveness of their investigations and workplace safety of investigators.
Forrester predicts increased tech spending in Asia Pacific
Analyst firm Forrester predicted last week that technology spending in the APAC region would grow 6.4% in 2024, reaching a total of $710 billion.
Compound annual growth rates will persist between 6.4% and 7.4% per year from 2024 to 2027, meaning spending in the latter year will reach $876 billion.
India will be the fastest growing country in the region in 2024, with its technology spending accelerating by 10.8 percent, surpassing 8.1 percent in six countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand , Taiwan and Vietnam), China’s 7.2 percent, Singapore’s 5.6 percent and Australia’s 4.0 percent growth.
Australia likely to impose age requirement on social media
Australia’s two main political parties have both supported the idea of limiting access to social media to people aged over 16.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (61) and Gen-X Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (53) both backed the idea and suggested age verification would be necessary for it to happen . However, neither suggested an age verification mechanism.
Last week, Australia also launched an information-sharing system aimed at limiting the effectiveness of financial scams. The Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX) is seeing several financial institutions share information about scams they have observed or suspected perpetrators. The Exchange will work with other government agencies to identify more scams and scammers – in some cases using data provided by social networks.
APAC Offer Booklet
New deals, partnerships and alliances we spotted in the region last week include:
- NTT Data has acquired a majority stake in Indian company ProvenTech Pvt Ltd, a company that provides quality management and manufacturing solutions to the pharmaceutical, healthcare and food industries using its own products, SAP and other software business.
- Australian Macquarie Cloud has formed a “strategic relationship” with Dell and Microsoft which will allow it to offer a hybrid cloud service combining Azure Stack HCI and Dell’s Apex ITaaS service. We’re told that customers will benefit from “workload flexibility, a single management plan, a consistent experience, 24/7 critical support and ongoing compliance in public, private and hybrid cloud environments.
- Huawei has signed a memorandum of understanding with South African telecommunications company MTN under which the two will “jointly promote the large-scale application of key Net5.5G capabilities, such as 400GE, SRv6, slicing and digital map of the network, in order to continually improve MTN’s service. experience and network availability in the Consumer and B2B domains.” Huawei is a leading supporter of 5.5G, an evolution of the wireless standard that includes some elements expected to appear in the 6G specification at the end of this decade.
- Infosys has reportedly won a deal to bring together new IT capabilities for IKEA. The deal would allow the Indian company to hire hundreds of IKEA IT employees across Europe, looking for innovation.
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