News

In what is being hailed as a paradigm shift for the local education sector, the "LivePhysics" mobile application was recently launched, integrating cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) to redefine the learning experience. Designed to address the perennial grievances of Gen Z students—specifically the lack of personalized attention in overcrowded tuition hubs—the app promises a bespoke educational journey that bridges the gap between mass instruction and individual mastery. The innovation was recently unveiled during an exclusive discussion hosted by renowned media personality Narada Bakmeewewa, featuring veteran Physics educator Sanjeewa Dharmawardena and Dr. Chamath Palihawadana, Chief Technology Officer at BetaGen.

The "Study Buddy": A Bespoke AI Tutor

The centerpiece of the application is "SD AI," a sophisticated virtual assistant that transcends the capabilities of generic AI models like ChatGPT. Unlike standard chatbots, SD AI is built upon a proprietary knowledge base reflecting over 20 years of Mr. Dharmawardena’s specialized teaching methodologies and academic expertise. The application offers a remarkably immersive experience, allowing students to receive explanations, lesson summaries, and answers to complex queries in the familiar voice of their own teacher. This nuance provides a sense of continuity and trust that traditional digital platforms often lack.

Transforming Distraction into Discipline

While smartphones are frequently criticized as a primary distraction in a student's life, LivePhysics seeks to pivot the device’s role into a productivity powerhouse. The app serves as a holistic lifestyle coordinator, helping students schedule their sleep cycles, school hours, and dedicated study blocks.

To ensure focus, the system utilizes intelligent push notifications and guided interventions to curb unproductive phone usage during study hours, effectively mentoring the student toward better time management and digital discipline.

Empowering Parents through Real-Time Analytics

One of the most significant features for the modern Sri Lankan household is the real-time reporting dashboard. Parents and educators can now monitor a student’s progress with surgical precision, viewing data on study duration, weekly growth, and specific subject areas that require reinforcement. According to Sanjeewa Dharmawardena, this transparency is vital. "It eliminates the friction often found between parents and children regarding academic progress, replacing doubt with data and fostering a more supportive, trust-based learning environment," he noted.

Preserving Pedagogical Legacies

Dr. Chamath Palihawadana emphasized the long-term vision of the project, noting that the technology allows a teacher’s unique intellectual legacy and instructional style to be preserved indefinitely. This ensures that future generations can access the same high-quality mentorship regardless of time or location.

BetaGen, the technology partner behind the project, has announced its intention to extend this AI framework to other leading educators and academic institutions across Sri Lanka. This move is expected to democratize high-end personalized tutoring, setting a new gold standard for the nation’s educational landscape. For the discerning Sri Lankan parent and the ambitious student, LivePhysics represents more than just a digital tool—it is the arrival of a more intelligent, intuitive, and individualized future for education.

The Department of Meteorology stated that, according to today’s latest weather analysis, the low-pressure area located northeast of Sri Lanka continues to persist.

The Department said it is continuously monitoring the behavior, development and path of the system. 

Due to the influence of the above system, showers or thundershowers will occur at times and cloudy skies are expected in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central, North-Western and Northern provinces and in Galle and Matara districts, the Met. Department added. 

Fairly heavy showers of about 75 mm are likely at some places in these areas. 

Several spells of showers will occur in the Anuradhapura district, it added. 

Meanwhile, showers or thundershowers may occur at a few places in the Uva and Eastern provinces after 1.00 pm. 

The general public has been requested to take adequate precautions to minimize damage caused by temporary localized strong winds and lightning during thundershowers.

(Adaderana.lk)

Oil prices gained more than 3% on Friday, after comments by U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran’s foreign minister further dented hopes of a deal to end ship attacks and seizures around the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude futures settled at $109.26 a barrel, up $3.54, or 3.35%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures finished at $105.42 a barrel, up $4.25, or 4.2%.

Over the week, Brent has climbed 7.84% and WTI 10.48% on uncertainty over the shaky ceasefire in the Iran war.

“The tone between the U.S. and Iran has once again become significantly more confrontational. While the ceasefire holds, hopes for a swift reopening of the Strait of Hormuz have faded,” Commerzbank analysts said.

Iran has “no trust” in the United States and is interested in negotiating only if Washington is serious, Foreign ⁠Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday, adding that Iran is prepared to go back to fighting but also prepared for diplomatic solutions.

Trump said he is running out of patience with Iran and that he has agreed with Chinese President Xi Jinping that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and must reopen the strait. About a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the strait, which is the gateway to the Gulf and main export route for countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Qatar.

Xi did not comment on his discussions with Trump about Iran, though China’s foreign ministry issued a statement.

“This conflict, which should never have happened, has no reason to continue,” the ministry said.

Among deals the market was looking for from the U.S.-China summit, Trump said China wants to buy oil from the United States. Trump also said he could lift sanctions on Chinese companies that buy Iranian oil.

“Market focus is ⁠back on the deadlock and a blockaded Strait of Hormuz, with a tail risk of renewed military escalation,” said Vandana Hari, founder of oil market analysis provider Vanda Insights.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that 30 vessels had crossed the strait between Wednesday evening and Thursday, still far short of the 140 a day that was typical before the war, but a substantial increase, if confirmed.

“An increasing number of vessels are filtering through the strait ... although currently this has a more tangible impact on sentiment than on the actual ⁠oil balance,” PVM analyst Tamas Varga said.

The strait’s closure comes at a time when reserves are running thin.

“The world has consumed its oil safety net at a historic rate,” Phil Flynn, senior analyst with Price Futures Group, said in a note. “While strategic releases and demand reduction have prevented immediate chaos, the margin for error is shrinking rapidly. A ⁠prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz points toward tighter physical markets, potential refined product shortages, and upward pressure on prices in the coming weeks and months.”

Shipping analytics firm Kpler said on Thursday that 10 ships had sailed through the strait in the past 24 hours, compared with the five to seven ⁠that have crossed daily in recent weeks.

“Crude is trading higher on a combination of the Trump-Xi meeting doing little to bring us closer to a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and continued Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries,” Saxo Bank analyst Ole Hansen said.

Source: Reuters

The Colombo High Court today (14) rejected a preliminary objection raised by the defence in a case filed against Yoshitha Rajapaksa, son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, clearing the way for the trial to proceed.

The ruling was delivered by Colombo High Court Judge Udesh Ranatunga, according to an Ada Derana reporter.

In delivering the order, the judge stated that the defence argument claiming the conspiracy charge against the defendant could not be maintained was without basis. The court further held that there was no impediment to proceeding with the relevant charge.

Following the ruling, the indictment was read out in open court to the defendant, Yoshitha Rajapaksa. Appearing from the dock, he pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against him, the Ada Derana report said.

With the plea recorded, proceedings officially commenced before the Colombo High Court, marking the start of the trial under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

A controversial video circulating online has triggered renewed public debate over governance, transparency, and strategic direction at Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) and Mobitel, particularly surrounding the long-delayed commercial rollout of 5G services.

The presenter, Ajith Dharmapala, alleges that operational delays and internal decision-making failures within SLT-Mobitel may be benefiting rival telecom operators at the expense of the state-owned company and Sri Lankan taxpayers.

Central to the criticism are SLT Chairman Mothilal De Silva and CEO Riyaz Rasheed, both of whom are alleged to have previously worked within competing telecom circles. The video questions whether such past affiliations may present conflicts of interest in current strategic decisions.

The presenter also raises concerns regarding leadership capacity and sector readiness, particularly pointing to the rapidly evolving telecommunications industry and Mobitel’s comparatively slow commercial 5G rollout despite reportedly investing nearly LKR 5 billion in spectrum rights. According to the claims made, the company is allegedly incurring approximately LKR 200 million in monthly costs linked to the spectrum investment while competitors continue expanding their market share through active 5G deployment.

Another major issue highlighted involves allegations surrounding a high-level meeting said to have taken place at Shangri-La Colombo regarding a telecom-related transaction reportedly valued between LKR 20–25 billion. The video questions why such discussions were allegedly handled privately by a limited group of executives instead of being formally tabled before the SLT Board. However, no documentary evidence supporting these allegations was presented publicly.

The video further claims that certain politically connected individuals and some board-level appointments may be undermining governance standards within the institution. Concerns are also raised regarding transparency, accountability, and broader public confidence in the management of the state-backed telecom entity.

The presenter has ultimately called for:

•⁠ ⁠A formal government audit into the 5G investment and rollout delays

•⁠ ⁠Investigations into possible conflicts of interest

•⁠ ⁠Greater transparency in decision-making processes

•⁠ ⁠Administrative changes within the current leadership structure

As of now, SLT-Mobitel has not publicly responded to the allegations contained in the video.

All 11 people aboard a private airplane that crashed at sea off central Florida survived the wreck and were rescued from their lifeboat hours later by a U.S. Air Force Reserve team, U.S. Coast Guard and Air Force officials said on Wednesday.

“For all those people to survive is pretty miraculous,” Air Force Major Elizabeth Piowaty, commander of one of the aircraft involved in the rescue, told reporters at a news briefing a day after Tuesday’s crash.

The ill-fated plane, a twin-engine turboprop flying from the Bahamas with 11 adults on board, ⁠went down in the Atlantic about 80 miles (129 km) off Melbourne, Florida, activating an emergency locator signal that was picked up by the Coast Guard.

Piowaty’s HC-130J Combat King II, a plane designed for combat search and rescue, was already airborne on a training mission when the search was initiated, and her crew immediately joined the operation, according to the Coast Guard.

The major said her team spotted the life raft as a thunderstorm was approaching and dropped a package of food, water and additional flotation to sustain the survivors until rescuers could reach them in the water.

By then the survivors “had already been in the raft for about five hours, and we could tell ⁠just by looking at them they were in distress, physically, mentally, emotionally,” Air Force Captain Rory Whipple, one of the pararescuers, recalled at the briefing.

The survivors ultimately were hoisted to safety by the crew of a hovering rescue helicopter, dispatched from the Air Force Reserve’s 920th Rescue Wing from a base near Melbourne, and were flown to Melbourne Orlando International ⁠Airport for medical attention, officials said.

Whipple said the crew managed to get all 11 survivors into the helicopter with nine hoists, completing the rescue with just five minutes of fuel left before they would have reached the point of needing to ⁠refuel mid-air or land immediately.

Air Force and Coast Guard officials said they had no immediate information about the extent of injuries and medical conditions of the survivors.

Bahamian authorities were investigating the cause of the crash, but ⁠the aircraft was reported to have experienced engine failure, according to the Coast Guard. The agency said the plane reportedly left Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas and was headed for Freeport on Grand Bahama Island, a distance of about 100 miles.

Source: Reuters

Water levels in several major river basins across Sri Lanka have begun to recede following reduced rainfall over the past 24 hours, according to the Irrigation Department.

Director of the Hydrology and Disaster Management Division, L.S. Sooriyabandara, stated that water levels in the Nilwala Ganga, Gin Ganga, Kalu Ganga, and Attanagalu Oya basins are gradually decreasing, with most areas showing a downward trend.

However, he noted that water levels remain high at Millakanda on the Kalu Ganga, marking one of the few exceptions amid the overall improvement.

Despite the easing situation, officials cautioned that the progress may be temporary, as the Department of Meteorology has forecast further rainfall in the coming days.

Meanwhile, reservoir conditions remain closely monitored, with 18 of the country’s 73 major reservoirs currently spilling water. In addition, 18 medium-sized reservoirs are also discharging excess water, reflecting the continued strain on water management systems even as river levels show signs of decline.