Banana, a nutritionally-rich, delicious fruit, is a widely-cultivated crop across the world and is a staple diet of people living in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Due to pests and diseases, only 13% of the global production is traded, and often, farmers in India experience severe loss due to fusarium wilt or Panama disease. A novel innovation now aims to change the fortunes of banana growers by helping them detect diseases and pests with their smartphone. In a recent study, researchers from the USA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Ethiopia and India have developed a banana pest detection app powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

A team of researchers from University of Aberdeen, UK, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, People’s Republic of China, and Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai have looked at the effects of availability of a smartphone based real time passenger information system on a passenger’s willingness to use public transport. Their studies reveal that although there was an initial excitement for the app, there were insufficient users required to scale up.