Tesla Looks Into Improving Autopilot Feature

The auto-tech giant is actively involved in improving the autonomous feature which has gathered negative criticism after a fatal accident..

Tesla Motors is actively involved in making any improvements in its automatic high-tech Autopilot feature whose introduction had revolutionized the concept of transportation. The grave scrutiny of the feature is in the process after the fatal accident that took place on May 7 claiming the life of the driver.

Post the accident, the questions have been raised on the level of the safety which the feature possessed. US magazine, Consumer Reports have compelled the Palo Alto, Calif. firm to disable the autonomous feature for at least the period during which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is carrying out the probe.

The luxury electric car maker’s Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk tweeted Sunday that he had a "promising call" with Bosch –a German auto supplier –which makes the radar for the framework. He said "huge upgrades" look conceivable that would be channeled to Tesla's electric autos remote through over-the-air overhauls.

He further informed about another supplier Mobileye –a sensor maker –who has likewise been quite interested as Tesla investigates how to improve the framework.

Autopilot permits drivers of its extravagance electric vehicles to keep up their velocity with respect to other expressway movement and naturally keep the auto in its path. Tesla has over and again cautioned drivers that they should stay in alarm and in control. In any case, some have made recordings that were posted on YouTube that demonstrate the auto driving itself while travelers kick back and watch.

Tesla has been under an investigation since it uncovered to government controllers that an Ohio proprietor, Joshua Brown, 40, lost his life when his Model S being driven under Autopilot hammered into a truck that crossed his way on a Florida expressway.

The NHTSA has started a probe. A week ago, the National Transportation Safety Board sent its own particular group to investigate the wellbeing of the framework. Similarly as said earlier, the persuasive magazine, Consumer Reports, has approached Tesla to disengage Autopilot.

U.S. Sen. John Thune, Senate Commerce chairman, Science and Transportation Committee, sent a letter Musk Thursday requesting the access to the data on the security of the subject framework.

Although the company has time after time made it clear to the consumers not to leave the car at the mercy of the Autopilot feature only. Tesla has earlier clarified that human interference is essential and keeping the hands off the wheel is inadequate. However, the feature has cost a life and an extensive work has to be carried out to improve the feature’s security.

"Examination is required on the collaborations between the administrator and vehicle at various levels of self-governance to guarantee purchasers can react to the innovation properly," the South Dakota Republican composed. "Keeping in mind the end goal to accomplish the planned security advantages of these advancements, makers must instruct clients about the advantages as well as their constraints."

Musk said in his tweets that he will support and back Autopilot and Tesla innovation. In a tweet he asked not to accuse the suppliers. He further maintained his stance and asked to direct all the criticism to Tesla instead.

Facebook Activates Security Feature

In the wake of terrorist attacks in Turkey, the social networking giant has turned on its security feature.

Facebook Inc. has turned on its “Safety Check” service subsequent to the horrendous bomb attacks in Istanbul, Turkey’s main international airport which shook the region to its core. The unfortunate event took place during Tuesday night and the social networking site has activated the service ever since.  

The incident at Istanbul Ataturk airport took the lives of around 50 people and left over 100 injured. The Menlo Park Calif. firm sent out love and sympathies after the incident. “Our hearts go out to everyone touched by these tragic events,” the company expressed in a statement. “We hope the people in the area find the tool a helpful way to let friends and family know they are okay.”

The primitive concept behind Facebook security feature was to let users notify their friends about their safety in an event of natural catastrophe. Similarly, the users can check on their friends and acquaintances as well and marked them “safe.”

The social networking giant activated the feature when Paris had an unfortunate episode of bombing last year. In the similar way, earlier this month, after Orlando was shaken by nightclub shooting, the site’s security feature was brought into action. Among this, the same feature was activated post Brussels terror attacks and Ankara, Turkey bombing happened earlier this year.

Earlier this year, ahead of Easter Sunday bombing in Lahore, Pakistan, –claiming 70 lives –the Californian social networking giant’s Security Check service suffered from glitch. The feature erroneously forwarded misdirected notifications for which Facebook apologized later.  

Love and concern poured out on social media. The incident dominated almost all social media platforms on Tuesday. Twitter uses took the web by trending #Istanbul worldwide in addition #terörelanetolsun –a Turkish cursing condemnation of terrorism –and Atatürk Havalimanı'nda (‘at Ataturk airport’ in Turkish). Also, another worldwide trend was #PrayforTurkey.

A lot of unanswered questions regarding the attacks are stuck in a limbo. No organization has taken the responsibility of the attack. People across the world, however, have used the social media platform to express their condolences and to stand with Turkey at time of tragedy. Since the attacks, social media has a flux of information being shared, images and experiences with public and other are also being uploaded.

Earlier when suicide bombs attacked Paris, Facebook launched a temporary profile photo feature which let the users to add a transparent flag filter to their current display picture. As of now, the site hasn’t introduced such feature to record grievances for Turkey attacks. Many users, however, have been showing their creativity by editing their pictures in photo editing app and uploading the edited picture on the platform to express their sorrow and grief. Many analysts have opined that the site will soon launch similar feature for the country as well.

Google Sets Up a Research Division in Switzerland

In Switzerland, the search engine operator has established the division to work on Machine learning..

Google is setting up a research division in the European region concentrated on Artificial intelligence’s main branch machine learning. On 16^th June 2016, the Switzerland-based venture will be crucial to the ambitions of the organization, as it bets huge on machine learning for powering its upcoming generation of devices. These include its autonomous car efforts, digital assistant within Allo chat application as well as improvements in its general search engine.

The new division known Google Research, Europe, came at a time when the American search engine developer is being seriously scrutinized from the authorities in Europe. The 2 antitrust charges, over Android as well as search product could impose fines worth billions of dollars. In  France, taxation authorities mounted a rapid dawn raid of the company’s office in Paris, under an inquiry into tax evasion that could lead to demands for $1.8 billion(€1.6 billion) in terms of back taxes.

Already, Zurich is the largest engineering center of Google outside its head office in Mountain View. The group there has been held responsible for running the conversation engine powering the chat app Allo and Knowledge Graph, which shows and pulls relevant details out from a search result.

The new research division will concentrate on machine perception, machine intelligence as well as processing of natural language, revealed a blog post by the head of the division Emmanuel Mogenet. These fields point out the potential applications that these research related measures could end up finally.

Machine intelligence could be employed across the search engine operator’s range of products. Natural language processing would help its efforts in Gmail as well as Allo. And machine perception could enhance its autonomous car project. Quartz has questioned the Alphabet’s division that how many persons are members of the research team as well as how many funds have been injected into the division, but it stated it can’t comment.

The only group mentioned on the Google Research page, and has 34 mentioned members. In total, 979 members are mentioned on Google Research. The search engine operator has another division that’s important for its artificial intelligence initiatives in the European region: DeepMind in London.

DeepMind developed the historical Artificial intelligence, and is  presently working on controversial- and ambitious- healthcare efforts inside the Britain based national healthcare system. Through the newly introduced office will not doubtlessly be quite smaller, Mogenet, the research head of Europe, jokingly compares with the organization’s head office the Googleplex.

The announcement of the Machine learning unit came 4 years after the organization aggressively started to pursue machine technologies, 3 months after the search organization’s Artificial Intelligence defeated an excellent Go player.

Facebook Partners With Shopper Tracking Systems To Lure Advertisers

The American social network operator has collaborated with Marketo and Square to find out who visited a shop..

Facebook has found out a method to keep a check on buyers by partnering with point-of-sale systems such as Marketo and Square that will show who purchased what after viewing the American social media service provider’s advertisements. Even if one doesn’t purchase anything, the company will now also find out who went to a shop based on a newly introduced feature that matches WiFi, beacons, GPS, cell towers with brick-and-mortar coordinates and radio signals.

This data could make advertisers spend a greater amount of money on the social network platform as it will be in a position to demonstrate precisely how advertisement views led to foot traffic as well as in-store purchases. 90% of sales yet happen in conventional brick-and-mortar shops, not online. The Menlo Park based organization is trying to evolve the delicate metrics of the industry such as clicks and ad views, towards determining when ads really inspired purchases everywhere.

The Offline Conversions application program interface could help the social network operator battle with search company Google for ad revenue. The search engine operator has had shop visit metrics for Adwords for two years now and lately launched advertisements that show users maps of nearby areas. The social networking company will need to point out its deep data collection regarding the identity of people and what they are interested in, and all advertisement inventory in its famous News feed to attract advertisers.

Though the networking organization keeps the anonymity of users intact and aggregates the data to safeguard privacy, the fact that there is no particular opt-out option is a little unsettling. All one can do is to hide specific ads one sees in his or her feed, or switch off location facilities for the organization completely, which people who get pissed out may do even it damages any other functionality of Facebook. Up till now, advertisers had to ambiguously correlate increases in sales with local ad purchases.

Even the organization’s partnerships with offline shopping data providers such as Datalogix  did not produce nearly as specific data. But this newly introduced Offline Conversions API lets the organization directly jack into E-commerce sales software as well as cash registers both online and in-store and demographic insights to enhance upcoming ad campaigns. To fuel advertisement buys trying to get foot traffic.

The organization has also a new Store Locator advertisement unit. It can show the nearby conventional stores of a business at the end of an advertisement carousel and allow people to “Get Directions”.  Instead of needing to leave the organization to go to the store locator of an unfamiliar website, users can find the hours, address, website, phone number as well as expected travelling time for every shop without quitting the social platform.

Tesla Gets Rival In Battery Placement

The German automaker has launched an electric car platform to challenge Tesla Motors.

Tesla’s so long strong dominance has been shaken by Mercedes-Benz whose electrically powered vehicle have been queued to contest with Tesla’s high-powered torque and battery placement.

Recently, the German automaker held a briefing at its head office in Stuttgart to elaborate upon its “multi-model vehicle architecture”. The latter prototype is likely to display at the Paris Auto Show in the later part of Sept 2016, but its production is not scheduled to begin till late decade.

Motor Authority has revealed that initially new Mercedes EV would be a sports utility vehicle like GLC. It could be like the future-generation CLS, and might look similar to the Intelligent Aerodynamic Automobile prototype launched at the Frankfurt Auto Show last year. The newly introduced platform follows the American electric car maker’s lead in flat battery placement in the automobile floor to maximize low gravity center as well as interior space. An electrically powered motor will join it at either axle, which will enable an all-wheel drive.

Like Model X and Tesla Model S, it will probably have acceleration like supercars. That is enabled by the low-end torque in electric motors, which make the California based organization’s models even more enticing to car buyers. An official at Mercedes’ technology brief described the future-generation electric cars as being vehicles capable of performing on parity with Mercedes-AMG vehicles for acceleration off-the-line.

The German automaker states it will be manufacturing its batteries through its parent’s subsidiary Deutsche Accumotive. The latter already delivers home power storage in some marketplaces, and it’s presently extending its factory to get ready for the newly introduced EVs. Initially, Mercedes is equipping its electric cars with lithium-ion battery systems but it’s also tapping future-generation batteries, which the organization calls “post-lithium-ion systems.” 

In other news, Elon Musk’s organization has introduced its new in-house Personal Contact Purchase Program (PCP) in the United Kingdom. The flexible program lowered down the monthly entrance cost of the Tesla Model S to $572.97 with a down payment of 30%.

The Tesla Motors company stated that after road and fuel tax savings, the electric vehicle would cost just $419.80 in the United Kingdom. The recently launched program looks to have helped Tesla succeed in the state, which turned into the EV manufacturer’s topmost market for Tesla’s flagship car in the European region in the first 3 months of this year after delivering 750 vehicles based on registration details. Normally, Britain was following between the fifth and four positions in the European region for the car maker- behind Norway, Holland, Germany and Switzerland.

Alibaba Tries to Bring Hong Kong And China Youth Closer

Alibaba founder Jack Ma expressed his views while addressing  a seminar in Macau.

Executive chairman and founder of Alibaba Group Holding Limited Jack Ma has urged youngsters in Hong Kong who are interested in ending up their relations with China to clearly think about the consequences of their demands. Mr. Ma, who is also owner of the South China Morning Post, discussed the rise of local sentiment in HK while addressing university students in the city of Macau on 6^th June 2016.

Youngsters must also “think of their roots”, he added. On an exclusive note, Ma voiced his hope to register Alibaba partner Ant Financial Services, in the Chinese special administrative region. Established 2 years ago, the organization, which runs Alipay, presently offers an online payment, wealth management and insurance services platform that supports the Alibaba empire.

Jack, who is also General Association of Zhejiang Entrepreneurs’ Chairman, was in Macau to inaugurate the association’s chapter in the casino city. Speaking at a seminar attended by many University of Macau’s students, Jack stated some youngsters in HK and Ex Portuguese colony were hesitant to tour the region due to preconceived stereotypical concepts.

“You should really pay a visit to the mainland when there is chance … It would be so meaningful to understand the real situation [of China],” Jack stated. He added that it was also equally important for them to discover the globe. Jack highlighted the benefits which the special administrative regions of Macau as well as Hong Kong enjoyed- mainly the principle of “one country, two systems”- which he stated was internationally unique and provided great chances for business.

He advised Macau and HK to preserve their characteristics, which he stated included the 2 region’s lengthy history of openness to various ideas and people. He also voiced confidence in Macau’s financial market, service sector and the establishment of medium-sized and small enterprises. Exclusively, Jack stated he had never considered delisting his company from the US after it appeared in May that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was probing the online retailer’s accounting methods to decide whether federal regulations had been violated.

Such a probe was a usual practice, he stated suggesting that it would prove to be a nice opportunity to permit those who have any misconception regarding the web retailer as well as other China based internet companies learn more regarding China and its organizations.

When questioned that would he consider listing Alibaba Group in Hong Kong, he stated it would be “troublesome” anywhere. As far as the Japanese telecom SoftBank’s latest decision to spin off more of its stock in the Hangzhou based organization, Jack stated their relations continued to be unchanged.  He stated the Japanese internet and telecom organization was just making efforts to resolve its financial issues.

Uber Technology Supplier to Receive Millions From an IPO

The cloud communications service provider will receive millions of dollars by holding an initial public offering.

While CEO of Uber technologies Travis Kalanick has clarified that his organization would not go public soon, investors might instead be in a position to attain a tiny part of the American application based cab service provider’s technology with the help of developer known as Twilio.

Twillio is known for its cloud-based software, which lets users have one-to-one talks without revealing their personalized phone numbers, made an announcement of plans on 26^th May 2016 to receive $100 million in an initial public offering. The organization’s technology is especially useful for the transporter, which is required to help communications between a large number of riders and drivers. The filing by Twilio lands when IPOs aren’t taking place.

In November, Square was launched in the competitive world. It was followed by the software development company Atlassian in Dec 2015, but none of the venture-backed organizations have test launched themselves in the marketplace in this year. Computation vendor and cloud storage is filing to go public as well as holding off because of market volatility.

In 2008,the San-Francisco based organization Twilio at the beginning of the smartphone age. The launch of mobile products has helped its consumer base grow in a significant manner, with organizations such Task Rabbit, Open Table and Nordstrom employing the software for powering chats as well as notifications. The cab service provider avails a number of facilities from the cloud communications organization.

"As we expand our portfolio of products and services, from Uber for Business to UberEats and UberRush, we trust Twilio to keep us on the cutting edge of innovative communication," Kalanick stated.

In the last year,the cloud communications service provider was ranked 41^st in the CNBC Disruptor List. Supported by a valuation of $62.5 billion, instead of being constantly scrutinized after being listed, the transporter is opting to raise private market capital worth billions of dollars. The communications service provider has received over a sum of $233 million in venture funds, with investments from Salesforce Ventures, Fidelity Investments and Amazon.

Union Square Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners are the largest shareholders of the organization. Revenue increased by 78% in the initial quarter to $59.3 million, whereas the organization’s net loss declined from $8.8 million to $6.4 million, a concentration level that poses sufficient risk for Jeff Lawson’s organization to reveal in its prospectus.

In the NYSE, the cloud communications organization will be registered under the ticker TWLO. Offering underwriters include JP Morgan and Goldmen Sachs. WhatsApp is one of the users of Twilio. It uses the communications service in a huge way to verify existing and new users.

Amazon Gaining Pace in Tablet Industry

Amazon presence in the tablet industry has increased due to the affordable $50 tablet.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) has finally surfaced the numbers pertaining to the performance of the tablet market for the first trimester of the fiscal year of 2016. On a year over year basis, the tablet market has experienced a 15% decline in the first quarter.

In this category, two companies that are said to be industry giants namely Samsung and Apple Inc. have experienced a decline in terms of growth and market share. At this point, Apple is still on top of the list by shipping 10.3 million units in contrast to the first quarter of 2015 where they shipped 12.6 million devices. Apart from that, the iPhone maker observed a 18.8% decline in terms of year over year growth where its market share has gone down from 27.2% to 25.9%.

Apart from that, Samsung succeeded in shipping almost 6 million units in the first trimester of FY16 in contrast to 8.3 million gadgets in the same tenure last annum. The smartphone giant observed a 28.1% decline on a year over year basis where its market share has gone down from 18% to 15.2%.

However, on the other hand, it has been a great quarter for Amazon.com Inc. since it has accelerated to be a part of the top three vendors in the fraternity. The reason behind the company’s substantial growth is due to its $50 Fire tablet. The company has been successful in shipping 2.2 million units of the Fire tablet which has attributed to an instrumental 5421.7% year over year growth.  The market share of the company has also increased from 0.1% to 5.7% which is a great sign for them.

Irrespective of the fact that the Fire tablets have become a big hit but the E-commerce giant has a long way to go to stand on par with Samsung and Apple.

This quarter has been extremely unpredictable since, Microsoft was not just a part of the list. The PC sales all over the world have gone down tremendously for obvious reasons but the company has covered the downfall through the hybrid tablets belonging to the Surface range.

As per a report by the IDC, "Microsoft arguably created the market for detachable tablets with the launch of their Surface line of products, with the PC industry in decline, the detachable market stands to benefit as consumers and enterprises seek to replace their aging PCs with detachables.”

The reason behind the decline in the tablet market increased after the launch of gadgets that had a bigger form factor. Since the smartphone market has transformed to big screens, the industry would have not observed a significant decline in the tablet sales. Now users are more comfortable with using their phablets instead of tablets since they serve the same purpose more or less. Considering that the innovation has become extremely stagnant, the ratio of coming up with new features has become quite restricted and it is also said that new features will not be added at least till the coming year.

Apple Is Stumbling To Keep Pace

Decrease in the demand of Apple iPhone has caused panic among investors.

Apple Inc. stocks have been struggling to keep pace since quite some time. This is due to the increasing concerns pertaining to the growth of the iPhone. Investors are extremely concerned about the staggering demand of the iPhone 6s since the market for expensive phones is saturating.

Apple stocks have experienced a 11% drop over a time span of the past six months. Considering this situation, the company is geared up to report it earnings for the second quarter of FY16. The analysts at The Street are expecting revenues worth $52 billion whereas the company’s adjusted earnings are likely to be $2.00 per share.

Brian White an analyst at Drexel Hamilton has come up with his prediction of the earnings. He forecasts a decline on a year over year (YOY) basis in terms of the iPhone shipments for the present trimester. This is due to the tough competition and the closure of the iPhone 6 product cycle.

However, at this point, the analyst is optimistic since the launch of the iPhone 7 is scheduled in fall. Moreover, he is also intrigued by the updates from the capital return program. Mr. White stated, “We continue to look forward to a new iPhone cycle with the iPhone 7, the potential for an enhanced capital return program for shareholders and new geographic opportunities (e.g., India, Tier 3-5 cities in China). Moreover, Apple trades at just under 8x (ex-cash) our CY:17 EPS projection.”

At this point there is some volatility in the Apple market since the iPhone 6s series has finally come to an end of its two yearlong product cycle. He is of the view that the users are waiting for the iPhone 7 to make its debut. Moreover, the analyst talked about his recent visit to China and Taiwan where there was a surge in the demand of iPhone SE.

For the quarter in June, the analyst is predicting sales worth $44.44 billion and the earning per share to be $1.6. However, the estimates by Street’s are $47.32 billion and $1.76. It is assumed that the management will be extremely particular in the third quarter due to the macro environment and end of iPhone 6 cycle.

“That said, we expect Apple to expand its capital return program from the $200 billion ($153 billion used as of 1Q:FY16) through March 2017. If Apple maintains a March 2017 expiration, we believe a $30-$40 billion expansion is possible, including a 10-12% cash dividend increase,” Mr. White explained. Analysts at Drexel Hamilton have maintained a Buy rating on the company’s stocks with a price target of $200.

Considering the present sales graph of the iPhone, AAPL decided to come up with iPhone SE that had a small screen for growing markets like China and India. The phone is priced $399 which is rather expensive for the targeted nations. However, it has been deduced that the company has hiked old iPhone prices in India to circulate iPhone SE. Analysts believe that by marginalizing the price of iPhone SE, sales can bolster even further.