Sunday, November 6, 2016

New Toyota Fortuner set to launch tomorrow; lighter, new engine options and more

New Toyota Fortuner set to launch tomorrow; lighter, new engine options and more

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It’s just a day to go until Toyota unveils its next-generation Fortuner SUV for the Indian market. The full-size SUV is expected to be lighter, adds some more gizmos and gets a couple of new and much-awaited engine options.
The new Toyota Fortuner is a long-awaited update to currently available model, that has seen minor facelifts since its first launch in India back in 2009. The new Toyota Fortuner apparently borrows its underpinnings from the Toyota’s recently launched Innova Crysta MPV.
2017 Toyota Fortuner Brown
It’s not just minor improvements here, but a complete overhaul. The new Fortuner is expected to be lighter, and obviously look better in terms of appearance, (this is keeping in mind how we got the Crysta from the Innova).
Expect a cabin redesign, with ambient lighting, a bigger touchscreen infotainment system and a lot more.
Coming to stuff that matters, there are finally a few more engine options.
The new Fortuner will be available in diesel and petrol engine variants right from the day of the launch. The new SUV will be available with a 2.8-litre diesel engine and a 2.7-litre petrol engine. So this year we won’t be getting a 2.4-litre engine variant.
The 2016 Toyota Fortuner will be available in six trims which include a 4×2 Petrol with Manual Transmission, 4×2 Petrol with Automatic Transmission, 4×2 Diesel with Manual Transmission, 4×2 Diesel with Automatic Transmission, 4×4 Diesel with Manual Transmission and 4×4 Diesel with Automatic Transmission. The 4×2 models will be fitted with 17-inch wheels along with all terrain tyres while the 4×4 models will come with 18-inch wheels along with highway terrain tyres.

Samsung to launch AI assistant service for Galaxy S8

Samsung to launch AI assistant service for Galaxy S8

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Sunday it would launch an artificial intelligence digital assistant service for its upcoming Galaxy S8 smartphone, seeking to rebound from the Galaxy Note 7’s collapse and differentiate its devices.
The world’s top smartphone maker in October announced the acquisition of Viv Labs Inc, a firm run by a co-creator of Apple Inc’s Siri voice assistant programme. Samsung plans to integrate the San Jose-based company’s AI platform, called Viv, into the Galaxy smartphones and expand voice-assistant services to home appliances and wearable technology devices.
Samsung is counting on the Galaxy S8 to help revive smartphone momentum after the discontinuation of fire-prone Galaxy Note 7s, which will hit its profit by $5.4 billion over three quarters through the first quarter of 2017. Investors and analysts say the Galaxy S8 must be a strong device in order for Samsung to win back customers and revive earnings momentum.
Samsung did not comment on what types of services would be offered through the AI assistant that will be launched on the Galaxy S8, which is expected to go on sale early next year. It said the AI assistant would allow customers to use third-party service seamlessly.
“Developers can attach and upload services to our agent,” said Samsung Executive Vice President Rhee In-jong during a briefing, referring to its AI assistant.
“Even if Samsung doesn’t do anything on its own, the more services that get attached the smarter this agent will get, learn more new services and provide them to end-users with ease.”
Technology firms are locked in an increasingly heated race to make AI good enough to let consumers interact with their devices more naturally, especially via voice.
Alphabet Inc’s Google is widely considered to be the leader in AI, but others including Amazon.com, Apple and Microsoft Corp have launched their own offerings including voice-powered digital assistants.
Reuters

Xiaomi announces the Redmi 4A, Redmi 4 and Redmi 4 Prime in China; prices start at Rs 5,000

Xiaomi announces the Redmi 4A, Redmi 4 and Redmi 4 Prime in China; prices start at Rs 5,000

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Xiaomi unveiled three new phones in the Redmi series, the 4, 4A and 4 Prime. As usual, these budget-friendly phones pack in value-for-money hardware at throwaway prices. If the previous Redmi phones are anything to go by, these phones should deliver on all of their promises.
Xiaomi Redmi 4A: CNY 499 (around Rs 5,000)
Xiaomi Redmi 4A Rose Gold
This phone packs in a Snapdragon 425 chipset (1.4GHz quad-core), 2GB of RAM, a 13MP rear camera, a 5MP front camera and a 3,120mAh battery in a device with a 5-inch screen with a 720p resolution.
You get 16GB of onboard storage, but it’s expandable via microSD (hybrid SIM tray). The device itself runs MIUI 8 on Android 6. There is no fingerprint scanner.
The phone will be available in China for around Rs 5,000 on 11 November in Gold and Rose Gold.
Xiaomi Redmi 4: CNY 699 (around Rs 7,000)
Xiaomi Redmi 4 gold
This phone is a slightly bumped up version of the Redmi 4A. The main differences include 2.5D glass on the front, a 1.4GHz, octa-core Snapdragon 430 SoC and a fingerprint scanner on the back.
The battery has also been bumped up to 4,100 mAh.
Other than that, you get the same 5-inch screen, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front camera, 2GB RAM, 16GB onboard storage and support for microSD cards.
This phone will go on sale in China on 7 November for around Rs 7,000 in gold, silver and dark grey.
Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime: CNY 899 (around Rs 9,000)
The most expensive candidate in this series, the Prime features 32GB onboard storage, 3GB of RAM, a Snapdragon 625 (2.0GHz octa-core) and 1080p resolution for the 5-inch screen.
The front and rear camera units remain the same, but you get an additional dual-LED flash on the back. The battery capacity remains the same as on the Redmi 4. The design also remains the same as the Redmi 4.
This phone will go on sale in China on 7 November for around Rs 9,000 in gold, silver and dark grey.

2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class model recalled after potential engine stalling issues

2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class model recalled after potential engine stalling issues

Shown above, the Mercedes-AMG-E-63-S-4MATIC.
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Remember the controversial self-driving advertisement that Mercedes released which got pulled down for misguiding viewers? Well, this time its the vehicle that is being pulled down (or rather pulling itself down), after Mercedes-Benz discovered a flaw in the new E-Class model’s wiring that leads to a stalled car when someone sits at that perfect spot on the back seat.
Car and Driver reported citing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which claimed that the early builds of the 2017 E300 and E300 4MATIC sedan have an engine stalling problem if a passenger sits at a particular area of the rear seat.
As per Jalopnik, this does not apply to every 2017 E-Class model, but just the vehicles built from Dec. 10, 2015 to June 30, 2016, which have the wiring below the rear seats. When pressure is applied to the rear seat, the fuel pump, fuel-tank pressure sensor and fuel gauge get pressed down, which cuts off the supply of fuel to the engine, shutting it it in the process.
Car and Driver states that a total of 6858 cars have a wiring harness mounted under the rear-seat bench. Lucky for Mercedes-Benz, 3,100 of the affected vehicles are yet to be sold. For the unlucky owners who have yet to discover the issue, dealers have figured out a way to reroute the wiring so its more of quick fix than a complete overhaul.

US regulator found another cheat device in Audi car

US regulator found another cheat device in Audi car

Image Credits: REUTERS
A U.S. regulator found software in some Audi vehicles that lowered their carbon dioxide emissions if it detected they were being used under test conditions, Bild am Sonntag reported.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) discovered the software in an automatic transmission Audi last summer, the German weekly newspaper said, without citing any sources.
CARB had no immediate comment and Audi was not immediately available for comment on Sunday’s Bild am Sonntag report.
The paper said the device, which was not the same as the one which triggered last year’s diesel emissions scandal at Audi parent Volkswagen, was also used in diesel and gasoline-powered cars in Europe.
VW’s admission that it had installed software that deactivated pollution controls on more than 11 million diesel vehicles sold worldwide, triggered the deepest business crisis in the German carmaker’s history.
Audi, the main contributor to VW group profit, has also admitted its 3.0 litre V6 diesel engine was fitted with emissions-control software.
Bild am Sonntag said the software discovered by CARB, which was installed in vehicles with certain automatic transmissions, detected whether a car’s steering wheel was turned.
If it was not, indicating laboratory testing conditions, the software turned on a gear-shifting programme which produced less carbon dioxide than in normal road driving. If the wheel was turned in any direction by more than 15 degrees, the programme was switched off, the paper said.
Audi stopped using the software in May 2016, just before CARB discovered the manipulation in an older model, the paper said, adding that the carmaker had suspended several engineers in connection with the matter.
Bild am Sonntag said a spokesman for Audi had declined to comment, citing ongoing talks with U.S. and California regulators on a proposed fix for cars with 3.0 litre engines.
Reuters

Call drop issue: Parliamentary panel calls DoT, Trai and telcos for meeting to discuss call drops

Call drop issue: Parliamentary panel calls DoT, Trai and telcos for meeting to discuss call drops

Image Credit: Reuters
A Parliamentary panel has called telecom operators along with the Department of Telecom and sector regulator TRAI for a meeting on 10 November to discuss the raging call drop issue.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by BJP MP Anurag Thakur, has called members of industry body COAI and Reliance Jio separately.
Reliance Jio, also a member of Cellular Operators Association of India, has blamed the industry body for promulgating views of mainly incumbent telecom operators – Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular.
The subject of the meeting is ‘Issues related to quality of services and reported call drops’, according to a Lok Sabha notice. The panel will “hear the views of the representatives of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Reliance Jio, followed by meeting with representatives of DoT and The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).”
Call drops are rampant in the country with telecom operators of late making some effort to improve the situation by installing more telecom towers.
There has also been a tussle between Reliance Jio and incumbent telecom operators for not providing adequate interconnection facility to the Mukesh Ambani-led firm, leading to heavy call drops on its network.
Interconnection enables mobile users to make calls to customers of other networks and is, therefore, crucial for smooth functioning of mobile services.
TRAI has also recommended a penalty of Rs. 3,050 crores on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, holding them responsible for congestion on Reliance Jio network leading to call drops.
As per the quality of service rules, not more than five calls in 1,000 should fail due to network congestion. The recommendation followed complaints from Reliance Jio that over 75 percent of calls on its network are failing as incumbents were not giving sufficient points of interconnect that would help complete calls.
As per TRAI’s recommendation, the penalty for Airtel and Vodafone work out to about Rs. 1,050 crores each, while in case of Idea Cellular it comes to about Rs. 950 crores.
The regulator stopped short of recommending cancellation of their telecom licences by saying it may lead to “significant consumer inconvenience”.
PTI

US boosting cyber defenses, but not police presence, for election

US boosting cyber defenses, but not police presence, for election

Representational
Federal and state authorities are beefing up cyber defenses against potential electronic attacks on voting systems ahead of US elections on 8 Nov, but taking few new steps to guard against possible civil unrest or violence.
The threat of computer hacking and the potential for violent clashes is darkening an already rancorous presidential race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, amid fears that Russia or other actors could spread political misinformation online or perhaps tamper with voting.
To counter the cyber threat, all but two US states have accepted help from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to probe and scan voter registration and election systems for vulnerabilities, a department official told Reuters.
Ohio has asked a cyber protection unit of the National Guard, a reserve force within the US military, for assistance to protect the state’s systems.
On Thursday, Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan and her cyber security team met with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the DHS, in addition to state-level agencies, to discuss cyber threats, said Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Reagan.
Cyber security experts and US officials say chances that a hack could alter election outcomes are remote, in part because voting machines are typically not connected to the internet.
But the FBI sent a flash alert in August to states after detecting breaches in voter registration databases in Arizona and Illinois.
ARMED GROUPS
Unidentified intelligence officials told NBC News on Thursday that there is no specific warning about an Election Day attack, but they remain concerned that hackers from Russia or elsewhere may try to disrupt the process, likely by spreading misinformation by manipulating social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
DHS cyber security experts plan to hold a media briefing on Friday to discuss the agency’s efforts with states to boost the security of their voting and election systems.
The potential for violence around the election has loomed in the background of the campaign for months. Armed groups around the country have pledged in unprecedented numbers to monitor voting sites for signs of election fraud.
Voter intimidation reported at polling sites so far prompted Democrats to accuse Trump of a “campaign of vigilante voter intimidation” in four states on Monday.
But local authorities surveyed by Reuters on Thursday in five states – Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin and Florida – said they were not increasing election-related law enforcement personnel or resources above 2012 levels.
‘A LOT OF TALK, LITTLE ACTION’
The FBI, which designates one special agent from each of its 56 field offices for election crime matters, has not increased its numbers or given staff additional training this year, said an FBI spokeswoman.
There has been no “substantive change” in the number of personnel deployed by the rest of the Justice Department, which designates Assistant US Attorneys and federal prosecutors within the agency’s Public Integrity Section to handle election crimes, according to a spokesman.
Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents hundreds of thousands of US officers, said cops are taking the same security measures they would take for any large event. He said he expects the vows by militias to monitor the polls to be “a lot of talk, little action.”
Civil rights groups said deploying more police officers to the polls can actually intimidate voters.
“The presence of law enforcement can have a chilling effect on the electorate,” said Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a watchdog group. “That’s something we want to discourage.”
Reuters

Elon Musk: After three month hiatus, SpaceX will return to flight in December

Elon Musk: After three month hiatus, SpaceX will return to flight in December

Image Credit: Reuters
SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Friday his space launch company is aiming to return its rockets to flight in mid-December following a launch pad accident two months ago.
During an interview with CNBC, Musk said investigators had figured out why a Falcon 9 rocket burst into flames on 1 September as it was being fueled for a routine, preflight test.
The accident destroyed a $200 million Israeli communications satellite and grounded the Falcon 9 fleet for the second time in 14 months.
The cause of the accident was a fueling system issue that inadvertently produced solid oxygen inside the rocket’s upper stage tank. The oxygen then reacted with a carbon composite bottle containing liquid helium that sits inside the oxygen tank, triggering an explosion.
“I think we’ve gotten to the bottom of the problem,” said Musk, who is also chief executive of Tesla Motors Inc. He added that the issue had never been encountered in the history of rocketry.
Musk did not specify what mission would launch next, nor whether SpaceX would fly from a new launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, or from its West Coast site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
SpaceX’s primary launch pad, located just south of Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, was damaged in the Sept. 1 accident. SpaceX has declined to release details on the extent of damage.
The company has a backlog of about 70 missions, worth more than $10 billion.
Also on Friday, NASA and Orbital ATK Inc said Orbital’s next cargo run to the International Space Station would use the heavier-lift Atlas 5 rocket, made by United Launch Alliance, rather than Orbital’s Antares booster. The switch will allow NASA to fly an extra 660 pounds (300 kg) of cargo to the station while SpaceX returns to flight.
NASA hired Orbital and SpaceX to fly cargo to the station after the shuttles were retired in 2011.
Terms of Orbital’s contract with United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, were not released. The launch is targeted for early 2017, NASA said.
Reuters

Oil companies establish Climate Investments fund; to pledge $1bn in tech to fight climate change

Oil companies establish Climate Investments fund; to pledge $1bn in tech to fight climate change

Image: Reuters
Some of the world’s biggest oil companies, including Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell, pledged on Friday to invest $1 billion to help fight climate change as a global deal to wean the world off fossil fuels came into force.
The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), which also includes Total, BP, Eni, Repsol, Statoil, CNPC, Pemex and Reliance Industries, has established the Climate Investments fund which will help develop carbon-reducing technologies over the coming ten years.
“OGCI is adding shared investment to shared action toward a lower carbon future – and I expect opportunities to grow and investments to prosper over time,” said BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley in a statement.
The investment is nevertheless dwarfed by the joint annual spending of the member companies, even as they battle one of the longest downturns in the sector’s history. Shell, Total, BP, Statoil, Repsol and Eni are expected to spend nearly $100 billion in 2016.
The 10 firms, which jointly produce around 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas, said a “large share” of the $1 billion pledged would go toward speeding up the use of carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) in gas-fired power plants.
OCGI has screened a list of 200 CCUS-related technologies already and is now assessing which one or ones to develop to commercial scale.
The group will also invest in reducing methane emissions and improving efficiency in transport and energy-intensive industries.
The announcement coincides with the official coming into force of the 2015 Paris Agreement, intended to wean the world economy off coal, oil and gas in the second half of this century in order to slash carbon emissions.
The oil and gas sector, which is directly responsible for 5 percent of manmade greenhouse emissions and the use of its products for another 32 percent, is under growing pressure from investors and the general public to help fight climate change.
Critics have said oil companies need to do more to reduce emissions and to shield themselves from climate change risks.
“Companies could be worth considerably more, not less, if they aligned their portfolios with 2˚C by exercising capital discipline and opting for lower-cost upstream projects that make both financial and climate sense,” said Anthony Hobley, chief executive of think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative.
Reuters

Facebook under investigation in Germany for failing to remove racist posts

Facebook under investigation in Germany for failing to remove racist posts

German prosecutors are investigating Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives, a spokesman for the Munich prosecutor’s office said on Friday, following a complaint alleging the company broke national laws against hate speech and sedition by failing to remove racist postings.
The spokesman declined to provide further details. German attorney Chan-jo Jun had filed a complaint with prosecutors in the Bavarian city in September and demanded that Facebook executives be compelled to comply with anti-hate speech laws by deleting racist or violent postings from its site.
Facebook’s rules forbid bullying, harassment and threatening language, but critics say it does not do enough to enforce them and has failed to staunch a tide of racist and threatening posts on the social network during an influx of migrants into Europe.
Prosecutors in Hamburg earlier this year rejected a similar complaint by Jun on the grounds that the regional court lacked jurisdiction because Facebook’s European operations are based in Ireland.
“There is a different view in Bavaria,” his firm Jun Lawyers of Wuerzburg in Bavaria said in a statement.
“Upon Jun’s request, Bavarian Justice Minister Winfried Bausback said that Hamburg’s view was wrong and German law does indeed apply to some of the offences,” it said.
Jun’s complaint named Facebook founder and chief executive Zuckerberg and nine other managers at the company, including Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
Facebook said it had not violated German law and was working on fighting hate speech online.
“We are not commenting on the status of a possible investigation but we can say that the allegations lack merit and there has been no violation of German law by Facebook or its employees,” a company spokesman said.
Jun has compiled a list of 438 postings that were flagged as inappropriate but not deleted over the past year. They include what some might consider merely angry political rants but also clear examples of racist hate speech and calls to violence laced with references to Nazi-era genocide.
Following a public outcry and pressure from German politicians, Facebook this year hired Arvato, a business services unit of Bertelsmann, to monitor and delete racist posts.
A rash of online abuse and violent attacks against newcomers to Germany accompanied the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants last year, which led to a rise in the popularity of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and has put pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Reuters

Battlefield 1 Review: Here comes the cavalry

Battlefield 1 Review: Here comes the cavalry

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When one thinks of a Battlefield game, visions of large maps come to mind, with 64-players running around like headless chickens; majority of whom are either getting mowed down by machine gun fire or run over by tanks.
One possibly also envisions skyscrapers collapsing into a city river, frigates crashing into an island, tanks, helicopters and lethal gadgets being deployed to eliminate even the most stubborn foe, all while squads of soldiers attempt to co-ordinate a push amidst the chaos of battle.
Battlefield is the series that encouraged players to “play the objective” — despite how confusing or daunting the prospect.
Battlefield 1 retains that fundamental philosophy of DICE’s beloved series, while transporting players to World War I, a period long forgotten; and one which quite literally birthed modern warfare as we know it. Unexpectedly, however, its brief single player campaign shines just as brightly as its chaotic multiplayer.
Dubbed “War Stories”, Battlefield 1’s campaign employs a

Internet Authority announces formal regulations and rules for live streaming industry in China

Internet Authority announces formal regulations and rules for live streaming industry in China

Image credit: Reuters
Chinese internet authorities have formalized controversial rules regulating the country’s fast-growing live-streaming video industry, in a move that strips out smaller competitors and places hard-line surveillance measures on leading firms. In an announcement posted on their website on Friday, the Cyberspace Administration of China grouped a handful of earlier restrictions under a final 24-point regulation that will come into effect on Dec. 1.
The rules require streaming services to log user data and content for 60 days, and work with regulators to provide information on users who stream content that the government deems threatening to national security or social order. Both users and providers are punishable under the regulations.
The law also codifies rules that ban online news broadcasting services from original reporting, requiring them to identify sources and non-selectively reproduce state-sanctioned information. China’s live video streaming industry has experienced booming growth in the past two years as dozens of video and social media sites scrambled to add the updated capabilities to their existing services.
Credit Suisse Group analysts estimate the industry could top $5 billion by the end of 2017, driven by cheap bandwidth and a growing population of young mobile users. The industry’s exponential growth attracted increased scrutiny from government authorities in 2016. In April, Chinese authorities called on 20 of the country’s top firms to join a self-criticism coalition, saying the industry was damaging China’s youth by proliferating content including pornography, fraud and terrorism.
On June 1 companies including Baidu Inc, Sina Corp, Sohu.com Inc and Youku Tudou, acknowledged new rules as part of the group, including requirements for real-name authentication. While the latest move places wide-reaching restrictions on the sites, it also signals an official sanctioning of the industry and its top players by Chinese officials.
Much like China’s earlier online video and music industries, the regulations put pressure on smaller competitors and bring larger firms into line with regulators, offering more growth opportunities for a smaller number of controllable companies.
“One of the things the government always wants to do is narrow the playing field to a smaller number of higher profile known entities, ideally ones that have a better track record of cooperating with the government,” says Mark Natkin, Managing Director at Marbridge Consulting.
“In the long run it’s actually relatively beneficial to the large companies.” In May the government handed down 588 licenses for prominent media outlets and live-streaming sites, effectively banning all unapproved services.
Reuters

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