Carmakers are limiting the data they share with technology partners Apple Inc and Google Inc through new systems that link smartphones to vehicle infotainment systems, defending access to information about what drivers do in their cars. Auto companies hope that the vehicle data will one day generate billions of dollars in e-commerce, though they are just beginning to form strategies for monetizing the information. Apple and Google already make money from smartphone owners by providing a variety of products and services, from digital music to targeted advertising, and connecting phones to car systems will almost certainly extend their reach. But as infotainment systems such as Apple's CarPlay and Google's Android Auto become more widespread, auto companies hope to keep tech providers from gaining access to a wealth of potentially profitable information collected by computer systems in cars. Some auto companies have specifically said they will not provide Apple and Google with data from the vehicle's functional systems - steering, brakes and throttle, for instance - as well as information about range, a measure of how far the car can travel before it runs out of gas. "We need to control access to that data," said Don Butler, Ford Motor Co's executive director of connected vehicle and services. "We need to protect our ability to create value" from new digital services built on vehicle data. High StakesThe stakes are potentially huge: General Motors Co told investors earlier this year that it expects to realize an additional $350 million in revenue over three years from the high-speed data connections it is building into its cars. Consultant AlixPartners estimates global revenues from digitally connected cars will grow in value to $40 billion a year worldwide by 2018, from $16 billion in 2013, and auto companies would like to hold on to as much of that money as possible. "The risk is, if you give up control and somebody else figures out that business model, then you lose the future revenue stream," said Friedmar Rumpel, vice president in AlixPartners' automotive practice. Auto companies hope to profit from in-vehicle data in a variety of ways, including the provision of travel planning services and auto repair and service information they hope will bring drivers to dealerships. They also expect to work with insurance companies, providing information that would allow insurers to base their rates on a driver's behavior behind the wheel. While many automakers have signed up to use CarPlay and Android Auto, systems designed to make it easier and safer for drivers to use the apps and features on their smartphones while driving, some car companies also have designed their own systems. Ford is installing a proprietary system, Sync 3, in its cars that is designed to work with and supplement CarPlay and Android Auto. Volkswagen AG's Audi subsidiary is hoping to develop and license its own brand-specific apps, while attracting third-party programmers to create and customize car-specific apps, according to Mathias Halliger, Audi's senior systems architect for connected vehicle technologies. "This enables a business model that completely belongs to the carmaker," Halliger said. Still to be answered, however, are questions concerning how comfortable consumers will be with sharing their personal information from the vehicle. In addition, state and federal regulators could impose limits on data-gathering and sharing. In the meantime, policies on data access and sharing differ from company to company. Several automakers said they are sharing minimal vehicle information that directly affects the performance of third-party infotainment systems - for example, GPS coordinates to enable navigation; information about whether the dashboard screen is in day or night mode; and notification of when vehicles are in reverse gear, so rear-view video displays can be activated. GM is integrating Apple's and Google's infotainment systems into its vehicles without "any outgoing data or shared revenue," a spokesperson said. VW says it is treating the tech companies more as strategic partners and is being more open in terms of data access - a different stance from its sister brand Audi, which makes such decisions on its own and has restricted access to vehicle data. A VW spokesperson said Apple and Google had "asked for more data than we were willing to share," but that the automaker is providing access to "data points that are important to providing the best apps performance and user experience." The car companies recognize that Apple and Google can glean a wealth of information from the mobile devices that users bring into the car, said Thilo Koslowski, vice president and automotive practice leader at consultant Gartner. As for Apple's and Google's interest in connecting with drivers, he added, "it's all about tying you into their ecosystems." Apple says it is collecting only limited data to enhance the in-car services offered through CarPlay, such as GPS information from the vehicle to make Apple Maps as accurate as possible. "As with all of our products, CarPlay is built from the ground up to protect your privacy using the same industry-leading safeguards already at work on iPhone," Apple said in a statement. "All of the data is anonymized, not connected with other Apple services, and is not stored by Apple, so no one can build a profile about the driver or their travels." Google says its aim is to integrate data from the car with features on Android Auto "for an improved driving experience." With Google's Android Auto, the driver is asked whether he or she agrees to share user-generated data with Google and third-party app providers, a Google spokesperson said. Vehicle owners who bring their mobile devices with them can elect whether or not to connect those devices inside the car. (Reuters)
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Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan, award-winning music composer A.R. Rahman and FM radio station 97.2 BIG FM have joined a campaign to tackle climate change, fight poverty and promote sustainable development.Radio Everyone is the lynchpin of a plan to reach 7 billion people in 7 days. Using radio, the world’s most accessible medium, Radio Everyone will put the spotlight on the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development, a series of ambitious targets to eradicate extreme poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change for everyone by 2030.Listeners around the world will be able to access Radio Everyone via an online stream on globalgoals.org and a collection of national radio stations. This will play a particularly important role in getting the message out to communities without other forms of media.Radio Everyone is on a mission to make The Global Goals famous once they are adopted by 193 world leaders at the United Nations, New York, on 25 September 2015. As part of The Global Goals campaign, Radio Everyone is key to reaching 7 billion people in 7 days by taking the message of The Global Goals far and wide, from India to Brazil and from Nigeria to Indonesia, according to a press statement.Hrithik Roshan will take on the role of one of Radio Everyone’s global communicators. Hrithik is regarded as one of India’s most accomplished actors with numerous blockbuster hits to his name. With superstar looks and an acting pedigree to match, Hrithik is the epitome of charisma and charm.A. R. Rahman While A. R. Rahman is responsible for the critically-acclaimed soundtrack and joins other global musicians for Radio Everyone including Cody Simpson, D’Banj, Ice Prince and 2Face Idibia.Radio Everyone will also feature a special segment titled Global Superheroes where iconic figures from around the world share amazing stories from everyday people. The station’s soundtrack will be composed by Peter Gabriel and the Soweto Gospel Choir.Broadcasters around the world are signing up to carry content provided by Radio Everyone from 26 September to 2 October 2015 with India’s largest FM station 97.2 BIG FM being the first radio station to sign-up in India. 92.7 BIG FM uses the power of radio to not only entertain listeners but also positively influence their lives. With a presence across 45 cities, 1,200 towns and 50,000+ villages and a weekly reach of 4.2 crore (40,200,000) listeners across India, the multi-award winning station will help Radio Everyone penetrate a broad cross-section of audiences. Other broadcasters supporting the campaign include BBC Music in the UK, WNYC & Public Radio International in the USA, Ray Power FM in Nigeria, SABA and its members across 15 countries, Radio Romania, Radio2 Rai in Italy, the Mercury Media Group in Indonesia, and Deutsche Welle internationally.Radio Everyone launches on 26 September at Global Citizen Festival, a free-ticketed event on the Great Lawn in Central Park in New York City. Headline acts for this year’s festival are Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and Pearl Jam. Radio Everyone will take highlights from the six hour Central Park Global Citizen Festival and share them with their global partners in the week following the event. These highlights will run alongside unique packages inspired by The Global Goals, with the aim to “Tell Everyone” that the goals have been agreed."Our aim is to gather an amazing volume of extraordinary radio content about The Global Goals and then pulse it across the world to everybody on the planet that listens to radio. We want to do this in the seven days after the Goals are adopted by 193 world leaders at the United Nations. By getting The Goals into people’s hearts and minds - and ears! - we can inspire the next generation of Global Citizens to be the first generation that ends extreme poverty, the most determined to tackle inequalities and the last to live with the effects of climate change," Richard Curtis said.
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American TV network CNN's Indian-origin medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta is under scrutiny after it emerged that a child he had operated upon during the earthquake in Nepal had been wrongly identified by him, even as the network rallied behind him. Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent and a practicing neurosurgeon, clarified that he did perform brain surgery on a 14-year-old girl following the earthquake in Nepal in April but acknowledged he may have misidentified the patient as being eight-year-old, according to a post on the CNN website. "We are trying to independently verify exactly which child it was," Gupta said on CNN's "New Day". The clarification came after the website Global Press Journal reported that the 8-year-old identified by CNN "never underwent surgery of any kind." Gupta had travelled to Nepal in the days following the earthquake to cover the devastating natural calamity and had operated on a girl on April 27 at Kathmandu's Bir Hospital. The Global Press Journal reported that according to the girl's family and doctors, Salina Dahal was never operated on. Instead, Gupta had operated on 14-year-old Sandhya Chalise. CNN rallied behind Gupta, saying he had the network's support and that it was proud of his work. Gupta has our "full and unequivocal support," CNN said in a statement. "As we reported, he assisted the surgeons at Bir Hospital by performing a craniotomy on a young victim," the network said. "Some reporting has suggested it was not the young girl we, at the time of our own reporting in the midst of the crisis, believed her to be. We will try to verify that." It said Gupta had spent a week in Nepal, "helped save a young life in the operating room, and we couldn't be prouder of him." Gupta's medical assistance, particularly in disaster zones, is sometimes shown on the network's newscasts. CNN had provided video to Global Press Journal more than a week ago that showed Gupta's role in the surgery, contradicting the initial claim that he hadn't helped at all. "He was, if anything, relatively modest on the air in characterising his own role. He simply appears to have been fundamentally wrong about the identity of his patient," said NPR's David Folkenflik, who was informed of the journal's reporting ahead of time. (PTI)
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India has pipped China to drive the volume growth of smartphones in the world on the back of falling prices of high-end devices and growing adoption of 3G services, according to an HSBC report."China was the volume growth engine since 2013. However, given China's smartphone penetration having reached 95 per cent in 2014, further growth will be derived from other emerging countries with relatively low smartphone penetration."We forecast that smartphone shipments will grow at a 2014-19 CAGR of 26 per cent in India, followed by 19 per cent in Middle East (West Asia), 8 per cent in Latin America and 5 per cent in China," HSBC Global Research report said on Thursday (9 July).It noted that India was the global No. 2 mobile phone market in 2014 with 275 million units of shipment, or 14 per cent of world market. However, it was global No. 3 smartphone market last year with 81 million units of shipment, or 6 per cent of global market.India's smartphone penetration was merely 30 per cent in 2014. This is far below 95 per cent for China and 72 per cent at the global level, the report observed.It attributed the meagre penetration to lower disposable income and lack of carrier subsidy but said the falling smartphone prices and growing adoption of 3G should help increase the penetration of high-end phones in India.India will account for 12 per cent of global smartphone market with a penetration rate of 65 per cent in 2019, it said."While we believe demand for 3G smartphones will continue to dominate for the next 12-18 months, post that, will it be still 3G-led demand or 4G-led demand will depend on how successful 4G entrants are with their offerings."The report noted that the online channel currently accounts for less than 10 per cent of smartphone sales in India compared to 20 per cent in China."We note there are currently 70 million 3G users and total Internet users are estimated at 243 million (including 2G data users). Increasing Internet adoption and ability of e-commerce portals to get into exclusive deals with handset makers suggest that online handsets sales may double to 20 per cent over the next 18 months," the report said.(Agencies)
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Wipro on Thursday said it will acquire global strategic design firm Designit for € 85 million (about Rs 595 crore), a move aimed at strengthening the digital services business of the country’s third largest software services company. “Wipro Digital, the digital business unit of Wipro has announced its intention to acquire Designit. This investment marks a further stage in Wipro’s move to evolve the digital offer it takes to market,” Wipro said in a statement. This would be the first acquisition by Wipro Digital, a business unit formed recently to tap into the digital oppotunities in the market. The purchase consideration of € 85 million includes a performance based contingent consideration payable over three years, it added. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals and is expected to be closed in the current quarter. “The final payout could range between 70 per cent — 105% of purchase consideration,” Wipro said. The acquisition will add complementary capabilities which is crucial for digital transformation initiatives such as world-class strategic design talent, it added. It also adds size (over 300 designers) and global reach (network of nine offices), Wipro said. Founded in 1991, Denmark-based Designit is privately held and delivers transformative product-service experiences for brands in healthcare, telecom, banking, automotive, and retail sectors. “Our clients are looking to us to help them transform their businesses and move at the speed of digital. Solving these complex challenges starts with strategic design and fuses a human-centered method with innovative technology solutions delivered by multi-disciplinary teams of strategists, designers and engineers,” Wipro Digital Senior Vice President and Global Head Rajan Kohli said. The acquisition will complement the capabilities of an established design leader with Wipro’s engineering heritage and bring compelling value to clients, he added. “Design is no longer about beautification. It is about creating a strategic foundation, driving growth and change across industries. There is an endless market for products, services, and systems that need to be simplified and humanized,” Designit Founder and Chief Visionary Officer Mikal Hallstrup said.(PTI)
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The Singapore-based dmg information Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of DMGT, has invested more than $5 million (approximately Rs 32 crore) in the Mumbai-based residential real estate monitoring and data agency, Liases Foras. dmg Information aims to increase its business stake in the company over the next few years.Established in 1999, Liases Foras is a non-brokerage, residential real estate data and analytics company. Promoted by Pankaj Kapoor, Liases Foras has built up a proprietary database of residential housing developments: it collects inventory and pricing data of the largest 25 Indian cities, covering around 15,000 new residential projects and 8,000 developers on a quarterly basis.Its list of clients includes leading mortgage companies such as HDFC Ltd, Axis Bank, real estate developers, government bodies and international research organisations. Liases Foras monetizes data through online subscription-based services and customized research and advisory services. These include valuation, risk assessment, future forecasting and price behaviour.The funds raised will be used to hire key management team members, increase its presence in major metros and launch two new verticals: monitoring services and automated valuation.Tej Kapoor, Country Head of dmg Information said, “We are delighted to invest in Liases Foras which is a leading player in residential property information market. Residential real estate is one of the largest asset classes in India which is likely to grow from $80 billion to $140 billion by 2020. However, residential real estate data still is very opaque. Liases Foras has expertise in the real estate market which will benefit the entire ecosystem and keep the market transparent. dmgi having assets such as Landmark Information Group in the UK will be able to add immense value to LiasesForas.”dmg information (dmgi) comprises a portfolio of B2B, high growth, must-have information media businesses in the property, education, energy, commodity and structured finance sectors. In May 2015, dmg information Asia Pacific made its first strategic investment in Funcent, a Chinese property information company, followed by investment of US$ 3 million in Propstack, a Mumbai based commercial real estate data and technology company; and now Liases Foras.
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Tata Consultancy Services on Thursday (09 July) posted better than expected quarterly net profit and said it would increase investments in digital services to meet faster adoption by clients. India's information technology firms have in recent months moved towards higher value services and are focusing on digital technologies to cater to customers increasingly seeking expertise in areas like automation and artificial intelligence. "Given the strong pipeline and market adoption of digital across industries, we are investing to train over 100,000 professionals this year in all relevant technologies, CEO N. Chandrasekaran said in a statement. The digital segment contributed about 12.5 per cent to the company's consolidated annual revenue, he added. TCS, the biggest company by market value in India's $146 billion IT outsourcing industry, said net profit rose 13 per cent to Rs 5,709 crore ($900 million) for its fiscal first quarter to June 30, higher than analysts estimates of Rs 5,440 crore. TCS, part of India's diversified Tata Group, said the current situation in Greece and China did not pose any immediate concerns for the company. TCS makes close to a fifth of its revenue from Europe. Revenue rose 16.1 per cent from a year earlier to Rs 25,668 crore. Sequentially, the company's revenue rose 6 per cent, slightly above analyst expectations of 5.3 per cent. The Mumbai-based company attributed growth in the quarter to strong demand from North America and greater traction for TCS's digital solutions in areas like financial services, retail and life sciences. Typically, Indian IT services companies see better revenue growth during the first two fiscal quarters, when client spending tends to rise as compared to the second half of the fiscal year. Shares of the company closed down 2.8 per cent before the results on Thursday, while the broader Mumbai market was down 0.41 per cent. (Reuters)
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Honda has launched the third generation Jazz in India to re enter the premium hatchback segment in the country, writes Haider Ali Khan Passenger vehicle manufacturer Honda Cars India on Thursday (09 July) lauched the much-awaited third-generation premium hatchback Jazz in petrol and diesel variants. The petrol variant has been priced between Rs.5.30 lakh and Rs.7.85 lakh while the diesel version ranges from Rs.6.49 lakh to Rs.8.59 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai). "We strongly believe that the Jazz will meet both the rational as well as the aspirational needs of the customers," said Katsushi Inoue, president and chief executive, Honda Cars India. "The all new Jazz will be a key pillar of business and would be instrumental in driving the growth for Honda Cars in India." This car is designed at Honda's R&D centre in Tochigi, Japan. It is designed according to markets surveys across the world and India for driving needs and lifestyles. The diesel variant is powered by 1.5 litre i-DTEC diesel engine which has been exclusively made available for the Indian market. This engine delivers a maximum power of 100 ps at the rate of 3,600 rotations per minute. The petrol powered vehicle boosts of a 1.2 litre i-VTEC engine that delivers a maximum power of 90 ps at the rate of 6,000 rpm. It has been mated with advanced CVT that delivers fuel efficiency of 19 kms per litre. The all new Jazz also features advanced compatibility engineering (ACE), pedestrian injury mitigation technology, driver and front passenger dual SRS-airbags, anti-lock brake system (ABS), electronic brake distribution (EBD) and impact mitigation headrests which reduces neck injury in rear impact. It will be available in seven new colours like sunset orange (new and exclusive), carnelian red pearl, orchid white pearl, golden brown metallic, urban titanium metallic, alabaster silver metallic and taffeta white. The Honda Jazz is available in five grades of E, S, SV, V and VX with manual transmission and CVT in S and V in petrol variants.Prices: Ex-showroom (Navi Mumbai)
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