The investment – touted as the largest by an automotive manufacturer in the global ride-hailing sector – will see both parties expand their collaboration in “connected cars”, Grab said yesterday.

By using data collected by Toyota from Grab’s cars on the roads, the two companies will explore such services as user-based insurance and financing programmes.

As part of the agreement, a Toyota executive will sit on Grab’s board and another Toyota staff member will be seconded to Grab as an executive officer.

Grab president Ming Maa said: “As a global leader in the automotive industry, Toyota’s investment in Grab is based on its conviction in our leadership in driving the adoption of new mobility solutions and expanding O2O (online-to-offline) mobile services, such as GrabFood and GrabPay, in the region.”

Delivery service GrabFood, rolled out in Singapore last month, is one of Grab’s newest products. It is also available in regional markets, including Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Toyota is not the first carmaker to invest in Grab. In January, Hyundai said it had injected an undisclosed amount, and the two parties plan to develop a mobility service platform using Hyundai’s eco-friendly models such as the Ioniq Electric car.

The latest Toyota investment builds on its tie-up with Grab that started in August last year.

In a pilot scheme, Toyota installed its driving recorders in 100 Grab rental cars to collect data on vehicle and driving behaviour that is stored on Toyota’s mobility services platform.

Li Jianggan, founder of tech investment firm Momentum Works, said that motor financing can help automakers sell more cars and offers a steady revenue stream. “Grab will have the data of drivers as well as their driving patterns, and whether they are risky or not,” Li added.

He also said that Toyota’s large investment in Grab means it is less likely to back other ride-hailing rivals, placing Grab in a more favourable position.

Associate Professor Lawrence Loh of the National University of Singapore Business School, said: “A lot of investors are now willing to put their money on the winning formula, which Grab has: A full spectrum of products and services centred on serving customers.”

The threat of cyberattacks is one of the biggest challenges facing the Philippine financial system nowadays with the growing number of aggressive and malicious hackers targeting those in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSIs), according to industry experts.

And with rising concerns about security breaches in the biggest banking institutions locally, banks have been advised to allocate resources to boost its cybersecurity infrastructure and ensure the security of its clients transactions.

“Cyberattacks are getting more and more sophisticated every day. The usual practice is to provide and implement reactive actions by depending on the technologies,” ePLDT chief information security officer Angel Redoble said in a statement. “However, we would like to emphasize that it is always better to be proactive in anything that involves high stakes security.”

As one of the fastest growing economies in the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippines is considered to be a cybercrime hotspot. As such, local banks are being encouraged to improve their information technology infrastructure and manpower expertise to ensure security and confidentiality for their clients and stakeholders.

For this purpose, ePLDT—a subsidiary of the country’s largest telecommunications firm—recently introduced a more expansive portfolio specifically built to address risks and issues in banking security.

“Threats of cyberattacks have been evolving and becoming more advanced at an alarmingly rapid rate. In this day and age, it is critical for us to get our clients ready and accept that no company nor individual is 100-per cent safe from any breach,” ePLDT chief operating officer Nerisse Ramos said. “This means that as business leaders, preparedness means being ready before, during and after an attack.”

The company said financial institutions in the Philippines should employ a comprehensive suite of cyber security solutions that would allow them to predict, prevent, detect and respond to attacks before, during and after they happen.

“ePLDT’s business framework is built from a truly holistic and secure ecosystem,” Ramos said. “We cover all grounds from cyber security consultation to incident response. Our business framework addresses the most fundamental and critical need of ensuring protection from attacks online—education and empowerment of a technologically competent workforce.”

In China, artificial intelligence is expected to play a much bigger role than in many other countries, especially since there are only 1.5 doctors for every 1,000 people in the country, compared with 2.5 for every thousand in the United States, according to MIT Technology Review.

As part of its nationwide AI push, the country has been beefing up its healthcare facilities using the latest AI technology.

Local researchers are already developing a variety of AI tools for medicine, including ones that can assist staff members at drug rehab centres to assess levels of addiction and another that helps children suffering from autism to improve their perception of people and surrounding environment.

In Shanghai, nearly 1,000 addicts in three of the city’s five rehab centres, including one for exclusively for females, have been using a virtual reality system complete with an eye-movement tracking system when users put on a VR helmet and “walk into” scenes with drugs.

Their eye movement and biological indicators, such as their heart rate and skin conductivity, are recorded in an objective way to show their levels of addiction.

Around 1,000 children suffering from autism in the city have also been using a VR system simulating real-life scenarios for interactive training. In some cases, AI can do more than just assist medical professionals, it can also help the counter the affects of the country’s acute shortage of doctors.

One hospital in Guangzhou, for instance, has been testing an AI system for the diagnosis of autism in children aged as young as two years old.

The system, jointly developed by the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and the Duke Kunshan University, has achieved an 80 per cent accuracy rate in screening 120 toddlers who were diagnosed with autism, the team behind the system said during a recent forum at DKU.

The system represents a major development in screening for child autism, which is considered a challenge in China due to the lack of experienced paediatricians who can perform accurate diagnoses.

Experts predict more AI tools will be developed in the country. A recent report from the International Data Cooperation predicted that China’s market for AI healthcare services would grow to $930 million by 2022.

In South Korea, Naver dominates the internet technology space. Here, the Naver portal website serves as a mainstream hub for just about every web-based activity, ranging from searches and shopping to blogs, news and maps.

However, Naver is outpaced by its foreign rival Google in one key area — videos. Google-owned YouTube is currently Korea’s longest-used app and the primary tool used to share and watch online videos, according to Seoul-based app analytics firm WiseApp.

With YouTube’s presence growing day-by-day, Naver has long struggled to find ways to strengthen its video sharing platform. And now, the portal thinks it can secure a competitive edge in the space tying videos into one its most influential and widely-accessed resources blogs.

Naver announced a series of new features to “drastically strengthen” the video element in its blogs, |by introducing a series of features |to make video production easier and to ensure more widespread circulation.

In doing so, Naver hopes to reposition itself as a convenient video-sharing platform for both content creators and users – a task that will be highly challenging considering YouTube’s reigning presence and user base in Korea.

As part of the upgrades, Naver’s blog system will adopt new video-editing features including voice separation tools, easy captioning and automated still-image extraction. Naver will also add title, description, and tag functions to videos, to ensure more videos are exposed through web and video searches.

To help bloggers formulate multimedia content quicker, Naver also introduced the “auto transformation” feature in which images and videos are automatically generated in accordance with the text written by a blogger.

Aiming to reach out to bloggers and content creators which are mainly active on other platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, Naver also introduced a “smart editor” system that lets bloggers recreate in the same format posts initially made on other third-party content platforms.

AdPost revamp

The firm also said it would revamp its ad profit-sharing model AdPost to provide expanded monetisation opportunities to creators. Previously, bloggers could post ads only at the bottom of their posts. But now, they can freely display ads in any part of their post deemed most suitable, the firm said.

As for users who are consuming videos via Naver, the Korean internet giant will employ artificial intelligence engines to make better video recommendations and to show the most relevant video ads to its users.

Ad experience for users will remain unchanged. Naver did not disclose plans to shorten the duration of the 15-second ads that are shown before a video, which many users have complained is too long compared to YouTube’s pre-roll ads that can usually be skipped after 5 seconds.

To lead such changes, Naver has created a new unit dedicated to improving the firm’s blog service. Named Apolo, the unit will function as a company-in-company that oversees the portal’s various user-generated content platforms, most notably blogs and videos.

“We plan to continue developing new technologies to make blogs a better platform for displaying and sharing diverse forms of user-generated content including text, videos and images,” said Apolo’s new chief Kim Seung-eon in a statement.

Whether Naver’s efforts will translate to gains in the video-sharing platform business remains to be seen. What is for sure is that it won’t be an easy task as the latest statistics show that YouTube has an undisputed lead in the market.

According to WiseApp’s March data, Koreans spent the longest amount of time on YouTube than any other app, including the country’s top-used chat app KakaoTalk, Naver and Facebook.

In March, Korean users spent 25.8 billion minutes on YouTube, far outrunning the total time spent on the other three apps during the month — 18.9 billion minutes on KakaoTalk, 12.6 billion minutes on Naver and 4 billion minutes on Facebook.

The total amount of time Koreans spent on YouTube last month tripled from March 2016, when they spent just 7.9 billion minutes on the app.

The unmanned cart – specially designed to transport lumber from thinned forests – carries wood from a forest-clearing site to a collection point a kilometer away, where it automatically unloads its cargo. It is currently being developed by the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute and other entities.

“Some are saying they want to start using the vehicle as soon as possible,” said Masahiro Mozuna, 52, who leads the research team spearheading the development.

According to the Forestry Agency, employment in the forestry industry totaled about 45,000 in 2015, less than a third of the roughly 146,000 people employed in 1980. Thanks to a technical training initiative subsidised by the agency, about 3,000 people have landed forestry-related jobs annually in recent years, although many are also leaving the industry.

Due to the aging of the industry workforce, efforts are under way to develop various advanced technologies to improve efficiency and reduce the need for labor. Laser scanners are one example of such technology.

“All you need to do is to carry it on your back and walk around. Then you can get a feel for the woods,” Hiroyuki Nakamura, the 65-year-old president of Woodinfo, a system developer based in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, said loudly in the woods of Manazuru, Kanagawa Prefecture.

Around him, members of the Kanagawa prefectural federation of forest owners’ cooperative associations looked into black cylindrical laser scanners.

The device precisely records the location, height, trunk width, curves and other details of nearby trees when carried around a forest.

The data help loggers identify which trees to cut down, among other things.

“This device is handy because the number of veteran loggers who are very familiar with forests is falling, due to aging. We want to sustain forests and pass them down to future generations by making good use of new technology,” said Toshiaki Hattori, 67, representative managing director of the federation.

This year, Chinese audiences are not only be immersed in livestreaming and on-demand video of the matches and related programmes from digital channels, but also enjoy a wide range of services linked to the game, such as ordering easy-to-eat food online.

Leading online video service Youku is delivering a viewing experience that is about more than just sitting and watching a match, Yang Weidong, president of Youku, said at a news conference in Beijing on Sunday.

Youku, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, is streaming all 64 games of the tournament in partnership with China Central Television, and unveiled a suite of promotions to boost fan engagement, including talk shows, in-show merchandise sales and prize giveaways.

“We are not only streaming soccer games… but leveraging this sporting event to showcase how Youku can … capture opportunities in the China sports market by building relevant content and excitement,” he said.

Ma Shicong, an analyst at Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys, said, “The video streaming sector has seen fierce competition in China, so key participants will rush to grab the opportunity to boost their market share.”

Youku is hosting a show called Play Football with Peppa Pig, a soccer-education programme for children, and distribute original World Cup-themed content in the form of short videos, music and graphics via Alibaba portals including UC Web, Xiami Music and ticketing service Damai.

Hema, Alibaba’s fresh food supermarket, will provide round-the-clock delivery of prepared seafood to people’s doorsteps as they enjoy the games in the middle of the night.

“Using the World Cup as the entry point to integrate its whole ecological resources, the company is able to meet users’ needs for multiple scenario experiences from online to offline, such as content, e-commerce and entertainment consumption,” Ma said.

Youku is not the only video platform to stream the game. Migu Co Ltd, a subsidiary of China Mobile Communications Corp, is also a partner of CCTV in broadcasting the World Cup on digital media and telecommunication channels.

Migu has announced a partnership with Twitter-like Sina Weibo involving cooperation in the distribution and promotion of World Cup-related short videos, programs produced by Migu and interactive features.