The MOU was signed to implement the 3DEXPERIENCE platform in key projects driving agency’s ‘Digital Thailand’ strategic plan for the new ‘Thailand 4.0’economic model, the company said in a press statement.

The projects will cover two key domains: re-designing the education system and vocational training in Thailand to cultivate the country’s workforce of the future; and future “smart city” developments in Thailand.

The agreement was signed during depa’s flagship exhibition, “Digital Thailand Big Bang 2018”, from September 19 to 23, 2018 at Challenger 1-3 IMPACT, Muengthong Thani, to promote social awareness of Thailand’s national plans and policies to drive the country’s transformation into a digital economy.

Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform, already instrumental in the development of the ‘Virtual Shipyard’ industry digital training program in South Australia and implementation of smart city projects in cities such as Singapore, Jaipur, India, and Rennes, France, will be leveraged in key “Digital Thailand”projects defined by depa in consultation with government entities.

“depa is escalating projects to establish Thailand as a leading IoT hub in Asia, which includes turning seven cities into ‘smart cities’ by 2023. To achieve this, developing a digitally-capable workforce is imperative. We chose to work with Dassault Systèmes for its world-leading technologies that are at the forefront of Industry 4.0 and proven expertise,” said Dr. Nuttapon Nimmanphatcharin, the President/ CEO of depa.

Masaki Sox Konno, Dassault Systèmes’ Managing Director, Asia Pacific South, said. “depa shares our vision in leveraging digital technologies to transform Thailand’s industries, cities and workforce of the future. These are projects that will require long-term close collaboration, not just in implementing the right solutions, but also in studying the specific skill sets and infrastructure that can best capitalise on the country’s future growth engines. We look forward to working with depa to herald in the ‘Thailand 4.0’ era.”

Most of the top tech firms in the country performed well last year, hitting revenue figures of VND374.4 trillion (US$16.7 billion) while employing around 93,000 people.

The Vietnam Software and IT Services Association (VINASA) revealed the ranking in Hanoi on Monday.

This year, aside from the selection of 50 leading IT companies, the organising board also picked up 10 outstanding enterprises in digital transformation, Internet of Things and new technology trends in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

VINASA said the IT businesses have strong growth and affects the trend in the market and IT sector in Vietnam.

The programme, the fifth of its kind, picked prestigious IT firms in Vietnam to introduce, promote, and connect with potential partners at home and abroad.

In the past the programme has supported many effective businesses, especially those operating in the fields of marketing, communications, and co-operation development.

Launched in June, the businesses are split into four sectors including business process outsourcing (BPO), IT Outsourcing (ITO) and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO); software, IT solutions and services; digital content, mobile application and solutions and 10 firms with outstanding technologies in the Industry 4.0 such as FPT, Viettel, VNPAY and MISA.

Those chosen have been pillars in the country’s IT industry with big potential such as Viettel, FPT, CMC.

Most of the firms say they have not only focused on business results but also paying attention to investment into new technologies as well as participating into digital transformation and applying advanced technologies to meet with the society’s demands.

For example, FPT is developing software for self-driving and would provide service for some big automakers in Japan and the Europe. Meanwhile, Viettel has developed new technologies into its products and solutions for projects of e-government, education, agriculture and smart cities.

In addition to big players in the IT market, the 10 outstanding businesses have also brought new solutions to society.

MISA Joint Stock Company’s representative told Viet Nam News it has introduced a range of products to help people save time and money while improving effectiveness in different sectors such as business administration software amis.vn, restaurant management cukcuk.vn and the first e-invoice solution using blockchain technology in Vietnam – MeInvoice.vn.

“MISA would continue to study and apply modern technologies to help customers better integrate,” she said.

Vietnam Payment Solution Joint Stock Company (VNPAY) has become the country’s first and only unit integrating payment methods using QR codes on mobile banking applications. As of July, QR Pay is available with the mobile apps of more than 17 banks in Vietnam.

QR Pay has been considered one of solutions for the boom of non-cash payments in Vietnam.

However, the leading firms have also revealed a worry for a serious shortage of IT human resources in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, especially the local ministries and organisations are striving to promote digital transformation.

The training and re-training of human resources for new technologies such as IoT, artificial intelligence (AI), robotic, blockchain and Big Data to be suitable with the development of a 4.0 society and digital economy have been a big challenges for the country’s IT sector.

Mai Liem Truc, former minister of Post and Telecommunications and head of the programme’s voting committee said with advantages of dynamic and young human resource, many Vietnamese IT firms have caught up with the global trends in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. They have been investing into new technologies.

“Applications developed on the Industry 4.0 technology foundation have seen breakthroughs. There would have more IT firms actively participate into the Industry 4.0 in the upcoming time, bringing a new image for Vietnam’s IT sector in the world technology map,” he added.

A special publication entitled “Vietnam’s 50 10 Leading IT Companies 2018” will be compiled in Vietnamese, English, and Japanese.

An event to unveil the first lunar traveler since the last US Apollo mission in 1972 is planned for Monday at 6:00 pm (0100 GMT Tuesday) at SpaceX’s headquarters and rocket factory in Hawthorne, California, in the middle of metropolitan Los Angeles.

An onslaught of questions about the passenger’s identity on Twitter has failed to coax any details from Musk, except one hint.

In answer to a query about whether Musk himself would be the passenger, he tweeted an emoji of a Japanese flag.

Until now, Americans are the only ones who have left Earth’s orbit. A total of 24 NASA astronauts — all white men — voyaged to the Moon during the Apollo era of the 1960s and ’70s. Twelve walked on the lunar surface.

In announcing the event last week, SpaceX described the journey as “an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space.”

It also said it would reveal “why” — implying the mission may have a goal other than simply satisfying the whim of a wealthy client — as was the case with the first space tourist, Dennis Tito, an American businessman who in 2001 paid some $20 million to fly on a Russian spaceship to the International Space Station.

The price of a SpaceX Moon ticket and the date of travel are unknown.

The ride will take place aboard a Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), which has only been shown in designs and images so far, and may not be ready for human flight for four to five years at least, according to industry media.

The BFR was first announced in 2016, touted as the most powerful rocket in history, even more potent than the Saturn V Moon rocket that launched the Apollo missions five decades ago.

Last year, Musk said the BFR’s admittedly ambitious goal was to make a test flight to Mars in 2022, followed by a crewed flight to the Red Planet in 2024.

SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell has said the BFR’s first test flight should take place next year.

‘Multi-planetary species’ 

This isn’t the first time Musk has vowed to send tourists around the Moon. Last year, he said two paying tourists would circle the Moon in 2018, but those plans that did not materialize.

As curiosity mounts over the futuristic BFR, Musk tweeted three images, showing it will consist of a first stage with engines and fuel systems, and a second stage with the spacecraft where the passengers will ride.

Like SpaceX’s existing rockets, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, the first stage can detach from the rest of the rocket and return to Earth for an upright landing.

The spacecraft will continue on toward the Moon, powered by its own engines.

The BFR spacecraft’s shape is reminiscent of the space shuttle, the bus-like US spaceships that carried astronauts to space 135 times from 1981 to 2011.

Musk has said he wants the BFR’s vessel to be able to hold around 100 people, and that the launch system could one day be used to colonize the Moon and Mars in order to make humans a “multi-planetary” species.

A Martian mission is far more complicated than a back-and-forth trip around the Moon.

A Mars trip could take three to six months, including several fuel-ups.

Going to the Moon could be far quicker. US astronauts generally made the trip in about three days.

Whatever the details, SpaceX is touting an experience considerably more ambitious than space tourism plans under development by other private companies.

Virgin Galactic, founded by British tycoon Richard Branson, and billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s rocket company Blue Origin, are working on trips to the edge of space that could offer tourists a chance at weightlessness for 10 minutes or so.

Virgin’s trip will cost about $250,000. Blue Origin’s price has not been revealed.

Russian and Chinese companies are also working on space tourism plans.

– Focus on NASA –

Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla Motors, has drawn attention in recent months over his erratic behavior.

He has alleged that a cave diver in Thailand who helped rescue stranded boys was a “pedo,” smoked what appeared to be marijuana on a comedian’s podcast, spooked Tesla investors with comments about the future of the electric car maker, and admitted to exhaustion and use of the sleeping pill Ambien.

But so far this year, his space firm has also kept up a schedule outpaced only by the Chinese government, making 15 launches with its Falcon 9 rocket.

Next year, SpaceX — which has received billions in NASA funding to ferry supplies to the ISS and build a crew vehicle — hopes to become the first private company to send astronauts to the space station.

“Top SpaceX priority is and will remain supporting @NASA crewed spaceflight and National Security missions,” Musk tweeted Monday

CYBER EXPERTS are weighing the pros and cons of a draft law about digital identification that will allow government agencies to collect citizens’ digital ID.

Some pointed to the benefits of the proposed new legislation for both the digital economy and society while others voiced concern over security and privacy issues.

The Digital Identification Bill was approved by the Cabinet in principle last week and is expected to be passed by the National Legislative Assembly and take effect by the middle of next year, according to its drafters.

Under the proposed new law, a National Digital Identification (NDID) company will be set up to build a so-called NDID Platform, which will be a technology platform to identify and authenticate the digital ID of people. The NDID will issue licences to identification providers (IDP) to provide easy and secure digital identification for online transactions.

Paiboon Amonpinyokeat, a cyber-law expert, said the bill would establish regulations for online ID authentication and could strengthen cybersecurity. The law would help the government build database of people’s online ID, he added.

The government can collect identification authentication information and allow state agencies and the courts to use this information for prosecution in case of an offence or for posing a threat to the government’s system.

“In the past, there were no rules; it was difficult to investigate who had committed a wrongdoing,” Paiboon, who is the founder and legal counsellor of P&P Law Firm, said.

Though the Internet service provider, mobile operator and social media platforms like Facebook and Google have online identity authentication, it is difficult to seek information from them when the government wants to investigate or file a lawsuit.

Financial sector to gain

He said it might be difficult to enforce this law, as most identification authentication providers are foreign companies, like PayPal, Facebook and Google.

Prinya Hom-Anek, an expert on cybersecurity, said the bill would help the legal authentication of digital identification, which could be used as e-evidence in court.

On the economic side, the bill is expected to benefit the financial sector and other industries, especially the government sector, that need digital identity authentication, said Bhume Bhumiratana, an adviser to the committee who drafted the Digital ID bill and a member of the working committee that designed the NDID system.

“It will cost less to get people identification authentication,” said Bhume.

The digital ID bill will enable people to open accounts and seek lending via the Internet or a smartphone.

Once this bill becomes a law, everyone can feel secure when doing online transactions as all transactions which need face-to-face for authentication will be moved online once the technology is ready may be in a year, he added.

For society, the bill would make it easier and more reliable for the public to collect names, make inquiries or lodge complaints, the bill drafter said.

It also can be linked to education and healthcare and make it easier to identify students and patients.

People will have their digital IDs on many IDPs and they can choose which one they want to use for a particular transaction.

Asked if the law could be implemented for an election, he said it was possible but the matter was more sensitive. “Election is not only about identity authentication, but a digital ID authentication can be used as part of the election process. For example, instead of presenting their ID cards, people might identify themselves with a mobile phone,” Bhume said.

Predee Daochai, chairman of the Thai Bankers’ Association, said that the law would help the entire process of digital ID authentication and proof to be more solid and trustworthy and acceptable to all stakeholders, both government and private sector.

It will encourage digital transactions, increase the number and efficiency of digital transactions while reducing the cost of operation, he said.

It would facilitate the digital transition, while helping increase the ease of doing business for the country, Predee said.

However, there are some concerns about the bill.

Cybersecurity risk is a point that remains an issue of concern although the NDID has been designed to be difficult for hacking, Bhume said.

Paiboon pointed out that the bill gives wide coverage to identification authentication, including PIN code, e-signature, fingerprint, username and password and so on.

To collect these types of identification authentication, which is personal data, into a portal manned by the government would raise issues of privacy violation, he added.

“The principle of taking care of people’s digital ID should be tied up with the Personal Data Protection Bill,” said Paiboon.

Prinya asked how reliable and secure the system would be, as well as how the concept of the bill would be implemented successfully in the real world.

What is the benefit of the new digital ID platform for all government organisations as they already have their own digital ID database? he asked.

Poomjit Sirawongprasert, president of the Thai Hosting Club, said that digital ID would help reduce offline fake ID cards, as faking a card is made easy but hard to prove.

But she was concerned about the accuracy of the identity authentication algorithm as once the algorithm is wrong, the onus would be on the people to prove that they are not the ones accused of the wrongdoing.

The Digital ID bill is one of bills issued by the government to promote a digital economy and society. Another important bill, the Cybersecurity bill, will be going before the Cabinet for consideration by the end of this month.

But then came the question many expats might have encountered: How would he obtain legal status－a visa allowing him to stay in China while self-employed－after quitting his job?

After consulting with an incubator based in Shanghai’s Hongqiao area, Olivier found the answer to the question－an “entrepreneurship visa”, which he soon applied for and obtained in August.

The incubator, K-Tech Hongqiao International Incubation Center in Shanghai, provides working space, finance options, company registration and, more important for Olivier, visa service.

Zhu Peiyi, the managing partner of the center, said that after consultation with the Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration Bureau, the center’s staff helped Olivier apply for the special residence permit for entrepreneurs.

“That’s what people now call the ‘entrepreneurship visa’ or ‘business startup visa’,” Zhu said, adding that there are 20 startup companies working in the center, and one-third of them are foreign teams.

“Many foreign businessmen just didn’t know that they were qualified for it, and after the news is out, many consulates have contacted us for more details,” she added.

Since 2015, Shanghai has launched 25 pilot visa policies to streamline and simplify the foreigner visa application process and to diversify the visa types to better fit the demand, said Cai Baodi, chief of the foreigner visa management division at the Exit-Entry Administration Bureau.

Among the 25 pilot visa policies, four are directly linked to foreigners opening businesses in the city. These include issuing visas that allow current international students in Chinese colleges to start businesses in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and the Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone, and allow foreign technological specialists or college professors to commercialize their research in those areas.

Chinese-American Zhang Zheng is a professor of computer science at New York University Shanghai. Before joining the university’s Shanghai campus, he was the founder of the System Research Group of Microsoft Research Asia, where he served as principal researcher and research area manager.

Since his expertise was needed by Amazon’s Shanghai branch, Zhang was approached by the company to put the research into future products.

“Before, our visa policy didn’t allow foreigners to hold two jobs, but … Shanghai launched a talent visa program in May that made it possible,” said Cai, from the Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration Bureau.

Zhang got his new work permit on Sept 4, which allows him to work at both NYU Shanghai and Amazon.

Besides current students and professors, graduates with a degree from the world’s top 300 universities ranked by the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University can get the “entrepreneurship visa” within two years of graduation to live and work in Shanghai.

Foreign entrepreneurs with a business plan and documents proving their investment and source of income can also apply.

Cai said his department has issued 95 such entrepreneurship visas in the past three years.

“We hope this kind of residence permit will encourage talent and entrepreneurs to come to the city with their innovative ideas and plans,” Cai said.

Compared with a business visa, which allows the holder to stay in China no longer than six months, the permit for entrepreneurs is valid for one year with multiple entries and can be extended to a maximum of two years.

“We will soon open a center for entry-exit and immigration affairs in Zhangjiang, providing one-stop services, from language training and job hunting to legal consultation,” Cai said. “It’s going to be the first of its kind in the country.”

The report  analyses the energy innovation landscape of the next decade and identifies possible breakthroughs in fields such as energy production, storage, distribution, and consumption. It also looks at how breakthrough innovation occurs at the grassroots level and describes how small-scale renewable systems are on the rise.

South East Asia is at the third place globally in terms of innovation. Singapore leads the region with a high score in most of the indicators. Globally it has moved two positions up since last year.

South Korea is also among the high income countries that has increased investment in innovation and is ranked second in Asia. The country has not only increased the investment but also “improved its performance in the quality of its scientific publications and the quality of its universities,” It is followed by Japan that is ranked third in Asia.

China is ranked fourth in Asia. The country has been on a dynamic innovation trajectory. China’s innovation prowess has been evident in its global R&D companies, hightech imports, the quality of its publications, and tertiary enrolment.

It is followed by Malaysia which is ranked fifth in Asia and is one is one of the middle income countries that is edging closer. This year it moved ahead in the rankings with strengths in Tertiary education, Knowledge diffusion, and Creative goods and services.

Thailand ranked sixth has outperformed on innovation relative of its development, according to the report. It is followed by Vietnam and Mongolia ranked seventh and eighth in Asia respectively.

India ranked ninth is Asia is also seen as an overachiever in relation to its development.  As per the report India is one such country that make a significant change in the innovation landscape.

Although Brunei is a high income country the innovative input score is very less.  It is ranked tenth in Asia. It is followed by Philippines and Indonesia. Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the least innovative countries in Asia.

As per the report, innovation in Asia can grow if if increased protectionism—in particular protectionism that impacts technology-intensive sectors, IP, and knowledge flows across the board—could be contained.

Such dynamics, as per the report, could create the basis for productive knowledge spillovers and opportunities for collaboration and the generation of new knowledge and innovation.

The pictures are taken every day at 10:30 in the morning by American satellites, offering a detailed view of every three to five meters on the ground.

An algorithm helps reveal automatically where logging has taken place.

The authorities send agents to investigate and potentially apprehend the suspects before they do any more damage.

“It used to take six days, sometimes two or three months without images,” said Iara Musse Felix, CEO of SCCON, the company which distributes the alerts.

“Now we have daily images.”

This revolution in forest surveillance, and the Earth in general, comes from a constellation of satellites run by a company called Planet.

Founded in San Francisco in 2010 by three former NASA scientists, Planet is a leader in small satellites, which are easier to produce and replace, and tend to have mission lives of between three and five years.

This economic model is vastly at odds with the traditional aerospace industry, which builds large, sophisticated satellites that are far more powerful but take hundreds of millions of dollars to build.

Planet has placed 298 satellites in orbit since 2013, and half of those were launched last year.

Some 150 are active today, 130 of which are nanosatellites.

The rest have fallen back to Earth and burned up on re-entry to the atmosphere.

‘Doves’

These so-called “Dove” satellites are made in San Francisco, at a new building presented this week during the Global Climate Action Summit here.

“One technician can build three Dove spacecrafts in a day,” said Chester Gillmore, 33, vice president of manufacturing at Planet.

“You need about 10 tools to build one of our satellites.”

There is no “clean room” here. Visitors walk in and out freely.

Electronic components are brought in on one side of the room, then tested, then assembled.

Doves are a format known as “Cubesat 3u,” including a 30-cm cylinder, equipped with an internal camera and two solar panels which unfold in orbit.

Six completed Doves wait on a cart to be sent to India, where they will be loaded onto a rocket and sent into orbit, some 300 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth.

We “just keep updating it,” said co-founder Robbie Schingler, a former employee of NASA.

“And that’s what we mastered, the ability to take the latest chips, and technologies, from other industries like automotive and consumer devices, take the 50 chips that are inside here… and then make them work in aerospace.”

The result is a daily image of every square kilometer of the Earth’s surface, accessible on the Internet.

The company still doesn’t turn a profit. But future opportunities abound for companies that want to launch Earth surveillance across the world, whether to track humanity’s actions on a global scale or to understand the prevalence of drought.

Another project financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen involves surveilling coral reefs. Cameras on board the small Planet satellites allow researchers to see whether they are bleaching, dying, or growing.

When it comes to the Amazon rainforest, illegal loggers know that every day at 10:30 am, the “doves” are watching.

The agents, arrested by Dutch intelligence services earlier this year, were implicated in a planned attack on the Spiez laboratory in Bern, which was investigating the poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Britain, according to Swiss officials and media reports.

The Swiss attorney general’s (OAG) office told AFP on Saturday that the same two individuals have separately been under criminal investigation since March 2017 “due to a cyber-attack against the World Anti-Doping Agency.”

“The proceedings are being conducted on suspicion on political espionage,” an OAG spokeswoman, Linda von Burg, told AFP in an email.

She confirmed that the individuals linked to the alleged hack at WADA’s Swiss office “are those affected by the operation mentioned by the Federal Intelligence Service,” in connection with the Spiez laboratory attack.

The attorney general has asked Switzerland’s justice ministry for permission to prosecute the individuals over the WADA incident, von Burg said.

WADA declined to comment.

Tensions between Russian and WADA have been elevated for several years.

The Montreal-based watchdog suspended Russia’s Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) in 2015 after declaring it to be non-compliant following evidence of a vast plan backed by Moscow to cheat at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

On Friday, WADA announced that its independent Compliance Review Committee had cleared RUSADA to be reinstated.

Russia has admitted shortcomings in its anti-doping programme but has rejected the existence of a state-supported cheating programme.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also condemned Friday’s reports that Russian agents targeted the Spiez laboratory, saying he could not believe the arrests would have not been picked up at the time by the media.

The agents, believed to be working for Russia’s GRU military intelligence, allegedly targeted the laboratory analysing data related to poison gas attacks in Syria, as well as the March 4 attack using the nerve agent Novichok on Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in southern England.

The laboratory does analytical work for the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the global chemical arms watchdog.

Exact details of the alleged agents’ arrest are unknown.

But on March 26, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced that his cabinet had decided to expel “two Russian intelligence workers from the Russian embassy” as a result of the Skripal attack, without giving further details.

The mission will inform sea level rise forecasts and is “exceptionally important for science,” according to Richard Slonaker, ICESat-2 program executive at NASA.

The half-ton satellite should reveal unprecedented detail about the current thickness of ice at the vulnerable polar regions as the climate warms.

The weather forecast was 100 percent favorable for the 40-minute launch window opening at 8:46 am (1246 GMT) on Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The measurements will be “extremely precise,” down to the width of a pencil, said team member Kelly Brunt.

It has been nearly a decade since NASA had a tool in orbit to measure ice sheet surface elevation across the globe.

The preceding mission, ICESat, launched in 2003 and ended in 2009. From it, scientists learned that sea ice was thinning, and ice cover was disappearing from coastal areas in Greenland and Antarctica.

In the intervening nine years, an aircraft mission, called Operation IceBridge, has flown over the Arctic and Antarctic, “taking height measurements and documenting the changing ice,” NASA said.

But an update is urgently needed.

Humanity’s constant reliance on fossil fuels for energy means planet-warming greenhouse gases are continuing to mount.

Global average temperatures are climbing year after year, with four of the hottest years in modern times all taking place from 2014-2017.

Ice cover is shrinking in the Arctic and Greenland, adding to sea level rise that threatens hundreds of millions of people along the coastlines.

ICESat-2 should help scientists understand just how much melting the ice sheets are contributing to sea level rise.

“We are going to be able to look at specifically how the ice is changing just over the course of a single year,” said Tom Wagner, cryosphere program scientist at NASA.

Advanced lasers

ICESat-2 is equipped with a pair of lasers — one is on board as a back-up — that are far more advanced than the kind aboard the preceding ICESat mission.

Though powerful, the laser will not be hot enough to melt ice from its vantage point some 300 miles (500 kilometers) above the Earth, NASA said.

The new laser will fire 10,000 times in one second, compared to the original ICESat which fired 40 times a second.

The result is a far higher degree of detail, akin to taking 130 images of a single football field, compared to one shot of each goal post.

Measurements will be taken every 2.3 feet (0.7 meters)along the satellite’s path.

“One of the things that we are trying to do is, one, characterize the change that is taking place within the ice, and this is going to greatly improve our understanding of that, especially over areas where we don’t know how well it is changing right now,” Wagner said, mentioning the deep interior of Antarctica as one such area of mystery.

The mission is meant to last three years but has enough fuel to continue for 10, if mission managers decide to extend its life.

The invitation offered few details but the mention of “4x fun” led to speculation the about a new smartphone with four cameras or possibly a foldable handset.

The South Korean electronics giant, the world’s leading smartphone maker, unveiled its latest flagship Galaxy Note 9 in August.

Samsung and other device makers are looking for ways to boost momentum in a sluggish smartphone market.

Research firm IDC expects worldwide smartphone shipments to decline 0.7 percent in 2018 to 1.455 billion units, with growth likely to resume as 5G devices become available.

Despite its leadership position, Samsung saw a 22 percent drop in mobile technology sales in the second quarter.

The news from Samsung comes days after Apple unveiled a new lineup of iPhones focusing on the premium smartphone segment at prices starting between $749 and $1,099 for US customers.

Apple recently slipped to third place in the smartphone market behind Huawei, even though the Chinese firm’s sales in the United States are limited.

Google, which is looking to gain ground in the premium segment with its own branded handsets, has scheduled a media event October 9 expected to unveil its updated Pixel handsets.