Knowledge Update

​Seoul, April 5 (IANS) South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors on Tuesday announced a plan to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-based, internet-connected car to create a new future lifestyle with a "driving, high-performing computer". The driving computer means a car will become a high-performing computer itself as the car, to be developed by Hyundai and Kia, will self-drive based on AI and connect to electronic devices while driving based on internet connectivity, Xinhua cited a joint statement as saying. The main concept of the project is a "hyper-connected and intelligent car", which means an interaction between cars home as well as home and office in addition to AI-based self-driving. To achieve the goal, the automakers will focus on four major themes, intelligent remote-controlling support service, perfect self-driving, smart traffic and mobility hub. The remote-controlling support service aims to check and examine cars on a real-time basis to detect potential emergency situations in advance. The perfect self-driving is aimed at creating a safe-driving environment by exchanging information with everything, including cars and roads. Smart traffic is designed to reduce time and energy by analysing traffic conditions and finding an optimised route of getting to a destination. Mobility hub means a car becomes a hub to link internet-connected devices. The hyper-connected and intelligent car also aims to enable smartphone functions to be reproduced within a car. The smart home connection service targets a remote control of home appliances within the car.​

Macau, April 6 (IANS) In a biggest ever launch in 10 years, HP Inc on Wednesday launched an aggressive, New Age portfolio of business printers with a focus on enhanced data security, faster and low-cost printing and energy savings. The game changer among 15 newly launched printers that include OfficeJet Pro and LaserJet devices is HP PageWide Technology -- a reliable and scalable print technology that has so far delivered more than 140 billion high-quality digital pages including large format printers and web presses. "We are reinventing printing for every business, whether they are small and midsize business (SMB) who need to be more productive and secure at an affordable price-point or organisations grappling with the fast evolving security risks in their complex network," Richard Bailey, president, Asia Pacific and Japan, HP Inc, told reporters here. The new HP PageWide printers -- which included HP PageWide Enterprise Colour 556 and HP PageWide Enterprise Colour MFP 586 devices -- will provide professional colour, best-in-class ownership cost, faster speed, best energy efficiency and the world's most advanced security and management features. The PageWide printers are designed for small businesses and medium-sized firms, printing up to 15,000 pages a month with a print speed of up to 75 pages per minute. While HP PageWide Enterprise Colour MFP 586 is expected to be available in May starting at Rs.150,000, HP PageWide Enterprise Colour 556 printer is expected to be available also in May starting at Rs.71,400. The HP PageWide Pro 500 series includes HP PageWide Pro 552dw and HP PageWide Pro MFP 577dw. The 552dw and 577dw are designed for small businesses and work groups printing up to 6,000 pages a month, with print speeds of up to 70 pages per minute. The PageWide Pro 500 series is expected to be available in India in May beginning at Rs.51,600. The HP PageWide Pro 400 series includes the HP PageWide Pro 452dw and the HP PageWide Pro MFP 477dw. These printers are designed for small businesses and work groups printing up to 4,500 pages a month with print speeds of up to 55 pages per minute. The PageWide 400 series is also expected to be available in India in May, starting at Rs.45,580. For micro and small businesses printing up to 2,000 pages a month, the HP OfficeJet Pro 8710/8720/8730/8740 all-in-one printers and HP OfficeJet Pro 8210 printer provide professional quality printing at up to 50 percent lower cost per page than lasers. While OfficeJet Pro 8700 series is to be available starting at Rs.19,252 in May, OfficeJet Pro 8210 is expected to be available at Rs.11,561. For micro and home businesses printing up to 800 pages a month, the HP OfficeJet Pro 6960/6970 all-in-one printers provide professional-quality printing at less than half the cost of laser printing. The OfficeJet Pro 6900 series is expected to be available in July starting at Rs.12,999. In addition to A4 devices, HP will soon expand the reach of PageWide technology to a new portfolio of A3 multi-function printers (MFPs). The company also launched a new "Secure Managed Print Services". "HP Secure Managed Print Services is to help customers secure their print environment with the strongest protection available in the industry," HP Inc said. The new HP PageWide business portfolio will be available through channel partners and at select retail store. "In addition, the new portfolio increases the number of managed devices designed for contractual channel partners and managed print services engagements," the company added. The HP OfficeJet Pro 8000 series features HP "Print Forward Designa to provide customers productivity with high speeds in a space-saving design that helps preserve office real estate." These new printers also include enhanced manageability and security features as well as seamless mobile printing. The new LaserJet products include original HP toner cartridges with JetIntelligence technology, enabling the industry's most advanced laser printing platform that offer leaner, faster, smarter options to help customers accelerate their business. HP JetAdvantage Private Print also features support for HP Common Card Reader for fast authentication.​

​Tokyo, April 4 (IANS) A Japanese ice cream company has apologised to consumers for hiking the price of its popsicles for the first time in 25 years. The public apology was made through an online video, in which the company's president Hideki Inoue and employees bow to viewers in an expression of remorse. The clip, posted on YouTube and played on national television, has now gone viral, with over 700,000 views as of Monday, EFE news reported. The company, Akagi Nyugyo, made the video after raising the price of its iconic Gari Gari Kun popsicles from ten yen to 70 yen after maintaining the same price for a quarter of a century. The company explained the price increase of the product, which has been wildly popular since it went on sale in 1981, due to higher production and packaging costs. Gari Gari, a name that in Japanese resembles the crunchy sound made from chewing ice, is beloved in Japan due both to its availability at most convenience shops and also its unique flavours alongside the traditional soda and fruit tastes, including potato stew, neapolitan spaghetti and corn potage.​

​Washington, April 2 (IANS) Hyundai Motor Co. and its smaller affiliate, Kia Motors Corp., have reported their best US performances in the first quarter of 2016, industry data showed. Combined with January and February sales, their performances marked the best ever for the first quarter, Yonhap cited the companies as saying on Friday. Hyundai's sales rose 0.4 percent to 75,310 units on the strong demand for the Tucson sport utility vehicle, whose sales rose 85 percent to 7,830 units from last year, as well as for the Sonata mid-size sedan whose sales rose 57 percent to an all-time high of 28,778 units, the company said. Kia's sales fell slightly to 58,279 units from last year's 58,771, but the company said the figure included the best-ever single month sales for the Forte line of compact cars, and together with January and February figures, marked a new first quarter record of 146,321 vehicles. The record was led by the Sportage sport utility vehicle, whose first-quarter sales rose 50 percent to 17,467 units from last year.​

Melbourne, April 1 (IANS) Annoyed by long selfie sticks in public? An Australian technology company has a solution -- a "selfie drone". This lets you click selfie without stretching the hand and gives you a perfect photo too. Built by Australian technology company IoT Group, the "ROAM-" drone opened for pre-sale on Thursday and will begin shipping internationally in June, Mashable website reported. According to Ian Duffell, executive director of the IoT Group, the company's vision was to build "a selfie stick on steroids". "The selfie stick's problem is it's confined by the length of the stick. The thought was, let's get the thing taking the picture flying with you," he was quoted as saying. After being tethered to a smartphone, the two rotor "ROAM-e" can be programmed using facial recognition technology to follow the user at a distance of up to 25 metres. The device can take 360-degree panoramas and can even stream a live video for up to 20 minutes of flight time. The $267 device has a 5-megapixel CMOS sensor camera and runs on Quadcore ARM Cortex A7 processor. Its rotors can be folded. "We wanted it to be small enough to fit into a bag or pocket. We modelled it on not being bigger than a 600-millilitre water bottle," Duffell explained. "We all know drones fly around and take pictures, but because we've tailored it to be portable and in your space, it fits into a different category," he said. IoT Group said they will an extra capability that is the ability of the drone to drop a pin on a map application, instructing the ROAM-e to travel to that point and return.​

San Jose, April 1 (IANS) Luxury electric car maker Tesla Motors, the facility of which Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited in Silicon Valley last year, has identified India as a market for one of its most affordable models that has a price tag of $35,000, said a top company official. "Adding several more countries to Model 3 order page tonight. Check for details, but will include India, Brazil, SA, SK, NZ, Sing (Singapore) & Ireland," Tesla Motor CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet. Unveiling the model's prototype on Thursday, Musk said the car would go into production in 2017. According to him, the car would accelerate from 0-60 kmph in less than 60 seconds and can go up to 345 km on a single charge. Musk said the car will be on sale by 2017-end and has a pre-order level of around 117,000 units. The company said once the production starts, deliveries will begin in North America. When the production is ramped up, deliveries in Europe, Asia-Pacific region and right-hand drive markets will happen. Last year, on September 27, Modi visited Tesla Motors facility. According to Musk, he and Modi talked about electricity generation and the way to skip ahead as it happened in the cell phones where it skipped ahead of landlines. Musk then said rural areas can have solar panels with battery packs which means there need not be electricity lines and skip ahead to next generation to power generation.​

​London, March 28 (IANS) Shoppers should bring a list with them to minimise the chances of returning home only to find they forgot something, say researchers. A list is especially helpful while shopping for things that you do not buy regularly, while you can generally rely on memory while buying familiar items, the findings suggest. Although this may seem like an intuitive solution, statistics show that only about half of shoppers use lists, the study pointed out. The findings were published online in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. For the study, the researchers observed more than 700 consumers in different scenarios. The investigators were eager to find out if people could predict how many items on the list they would remember to buy once they started shopping after they spent 10 minutes reading a story. "One of our key findings is that people don't correctly anticipate when they are more likely to forget items," said Daniel Fernandes, assistant professor of marketing at Catholic University of Portugal. "When we have something in our mind, it is hard to imagine that we will forget it," Fernandes noted. This failure to predict our forgetfulness suggests that people should always bring a shopping list, he explained. These findings could also have broader implications for performance at work. "We often rely on our memories to perform familiar tasks at work, and those tasks will come easily to mind, but unfamiliar tasks are hard to recall," Fernandes said. "To maximise our effectiveness on the job, it's important to pay special attention to those less familiar tasks and put them on the agenda," Fernandes noted.​

​New Delhi, March 22 (IANS) Expanding its presence in the professional projectors solutions category, consumer electronics major Sony has launched five new laser and lamp projectors, an official statement said. The projectors aim to cater to professional users who require higher level of brightness and resolution, with enhanced versatility and affordability for business, academic, large venue or entertainment use, the statement added. The new products include three 3LCD laser models (VPL-FHZ65, VPL-FHZ60 and VPL-FHZ57). The new laser models deliver brightness of 6,000 lumens (VPL-FHZ65), 5,000 lumens (VPL-FHZ60) and 4,100 lumens (VPL-FHZ57). The other two are lamp models. The new laser models are designed to deliver enhanced picture quality with new features such as "reality creation" and "contrast enhancer," both technologies already in use by Sony’s home theatre projection systems for high-end consumer entertainment, the statement added. The new projectors also offer colour space adjustment and colour correction features for more accurate colour reproduction. A laser light source means there is no lamp that needs to slowly warm up or cool down, no lamp to limit tilt angle and no compromise between high brightness and high resolution. Smartly designed, the new laser models’ “quick turn on/off” requires only approximately seven seconds for the brightness to ramp up after turning on, the statement said.​

Beijing, March 22 (IANS) Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, is preparing to unveil its first internet-connected smart car in April, the People's Daily reported on Tuesday. According to the company's chief technology officer Wang Jian, internet character is one of the car's technological innovations. Details of the sport utility vehicle (SUV) will be unveiled at a launch event in April. This is an energy-saving car whose battery will retain 80 percent of its storage capacity after running 160,000 km. Internet cars adopt technologies including computer, modern sensor, information fusion, telecommunication, artificial intelligence and automatic control. The car jointly developed by Alibaba and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) is equipped with real car-based smart operation system which has proprietary intellectual property rights. Independent development of smart operation system plays a key role in the process to transform an ordinary car to an internet car. In order to fulfil this task, Alibaba arranged over 800 researchers for the project and invested billions of dollars into the project. Wang added the internet car will not only promote people-to-car communication, it will expand car-to-car, car-to-road, and car-to-infrastructure communication too.​

​San Francisco, March 21 (IANS) Confirming leaked media reports, Apple on Monday launched its first-ever cheaper and smaller yet powerful iPhone SE especially for the emerging markets like India and China. The 64 GB version will come at $499 while the 16 GB model costs $399. As powerful as iPhone 6S, it has a 64-bit A9 processor and the M9 motion co-processor and will be available in sleek rose gold colour, the company announced as its special "spring lineup" at the packed auditorium at its Cupertino, California-based headquarters. The iPhone SE will be available in 100 countries including India by the end of May and will go on full sale on March 31. The company also dropped the price of it Apple Watch to $299 (Rs.19,295). Last year, Apple sold 30 million 4-inch iPhones.​