Dell expressed confidence that the innovations and improvements within these products are designed to improve performance, functionality and overall user experience,

“At Dell, innovation never sleeps. We’re passionate about creating technology that expands the boundaries of what’s possible,” said Anothai Wettayakorn, Vice President, Dell EMC Indo-china.

The new refreshed Latitude portfolio is developed with the mobile workforce in mind, aligned with insights from various research studies sponsored by Dell. The latest global research shared the impact of emerging technologies – 48% of global business leaders surveyed, including leaders in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ), believe they’ll have more job satisfaction in the future by offloading tasks to machines. Thus, businesses and the workforce of today are increasingly critical about devices they need to support their work, now and into the future, Dell said in a press statement.

“We are entering the future of work where the way people work and run their businesses constantly change as technology continues to evolve. There is significant expectation riding on the positive impact emerging technologies can bring,” commented Anothai. “To do that, our customers want devices that can help them continue to be productive today and help them persevere for the future, with performance, mobility and security mentioned as the top features they need.”

Addressing a gap in the marketplace for thinner, lighter and more powerful mobile devices at work, Dell unveiled the new refreshed Latitude portfolio.

Designed for the mobile workforce, Dell’s Latitude portfolio of secure and manageable commercial notebooks and 2-in-1s has been fully refreshed with the latest dual-core and quad-core 8th Gen Intel Core vPro 15W processors delivering significant performance improvement. Productivity benchmark tests show dramatic performance uplift over products based on the previous generation processors. The additional cores and threads make a noticeable difference on company networks when IT is running encryption, malware scans and other background apps to secure and connect employees. The Latitude product line also has been updated with several exciting new hidden innovations.

Dell Latitude 7390 line-up has been refreshed with thin and light designs, excellent efficiency and powerful processing options. Latitude’s superior security, versatility and accessories empower the way people work and maintain office-level productivity.

Built with high-end materials like magnesium alloy, the Latitude 7390 combines premium design with best-in-class durability. The 2-in-1 series offer outstanding flexibility with a touchscreen that enables users to quickly access applications or use an optional active pen for fast note taking. The active pen enabled by Wacom technology creates a more lifelike pen-to-paper experience with less lag and it attaches magnetically to the 2-in-1 so it’s always nearby.

The new Latitude 13 7390 comes with processor options up to Intel 8th Gen processors and PCIe SSD for optimal performance. Dell offers a wide range of hardware and software security options including Dell ControlVault 2.0, contact and contactless smart card readers, touch fingerprint reader or infrared camera, ensuring users information is secure.

The Latitude 7490 features an exclusive Active Steering Antenna that delivers better WiFi range, speed and connection reliability, and a new Full HD super low power display that reduces power consumption by up to 50%, resulting in several hours of additional battery life.

Featuring the Intel 8th Gen processors, the new Latitude 7490 is a 14-inch business-class laptop built with premium materials for a clean, seamless exterior and superior structural performance.

The Latitude 5290 is the ultimate 12.5-inch mobility tool that empowers productivity. It offers multiple security options to meet your diverse security needs. Features include essential multi-factor authentication hardware such as touch fingerprint reader, contact FIPS 201 smart card reader, and contactless smart card reader NFC to prevent unauthorised access.

The Latitude 12 5290 navigates congested workspaces with ease with a range of wireless options, including mobile broadband. It also comes with an HD display and all-day battery life that let users work anywhere.

The new Latitude 5290 2-in-1 is thin, light and powerful, weighing less than two pounds and comes with an auto-deploy kickstand to make being productive easy.

Security is also convenient and scalable – options available include Windows Hello via IR camera, or more stringent levels including biometric card readers with Control Vault 2 and FIPS 140-2.

The Latitude 5490 is the ultimate 14″ productivity tool, designed for better security, manageability and reliability. The laptop comes with Windows Hello to facilitate facial recognition for easy and secure access while offering multiple security options to meet security requirements of users. This includes the Dell unique hardware-based security solution that provides a more secure alternative for storing and processing passwords, biometric templates and security codes.

Dell commercial client solutions come with ProSupport Plus, the most complete support solutions for enterprise customers in the industry, combining 24×7 phone access to expert technicians, onsite service after remote diagnosis, and support for both hardware and software and proactive automated support. ProSupport Plus with SupportAssist takes up to 91% less time to resolve issues with technical support and up to 72 percent fewer steps in the support process.

ProSupport Plus allows customers to get:

·         24×7 access to ProSupport engineers with deep hardware and software expertise

·         Proactive and predictive automated support enabled by Dell’s SupportAssist monitoring technology[1]

·         Self-service case management and parts dispatch via Dell’s TechDirect portal, mobile application or API

·         Coverage for drops, spills and electrical surges to protect hardware investments

·         Hard drive retention after replacement to ensure data control

·         A dedicated Technical Account Manager who serves as a single point of accountability and provides monthly reporting for customers with 1,000 or more ProSupport Plus systems.

“Three, two, one and liftoff!” said a NASA commentator as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) soared into the blue sky atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 6:51 pm (2251 GMT).

The washing machine-sized spacecraft is built to search outside the solar system, scanning the nearest, brightest stars for signs of periodic dimming. These so-called “transits” may mean that planets are in orbit around them.

TESS is expected to reveal 20,000 planets beyond our solar system, including more than 50 Earth-sized planets and up to 500 planets less than twice the size of the Earth, NASA said.

Its discoveries will be studied further by ground- and space-based telescopes for signs of habitability, including a rocky terrain, a size similar to Earth and a distance from their sun — neither too close nor too far — that allows the right temperature for liquid water.

“The stories of these planets will continue on, long after their detection,” Martin Still, TESS program scientist, said on Wednesday.

Four eyes on the sky

“It was incredible. It was so emotional,” said Natalia Guerrero, a TESS researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an interview on NASA TV after the launch.

She was part of a team that built four cameras that serve as the spacecraft’s eyes.

“TESS’s four cameras are tiny but mighty,” she said.

“They are only about four inches (10 centimeters) across, the lenses. They could fit in a mailbox. But they are so powerful. You could have an entire constellation, like Orion, in the field of view of one of these cameras.”

TESS will survey far more cosmic terrain than its predecessor, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, which launched in 2009.

Both use the same system of detecting planetary transits, or shadows cast as they pass in front of their star.

The new spacecraft will focus on nearby exoplanets, those in the range of 30 to 300 light-years away.

Kepler’s trove of more than 2,300 confirmed planets outside our solar was impressive, but most were too distant and dim to be examined further.

“One of the many amazing things that Kepler told us is that planets are everywhere and there are all kinds of planets out there,” said Patricia “Padi” Boyd, director of the TESS guest investigator program at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center.

“So TESS takes the next step. If planets are everywhere, then it is time for us to find the planets that are closest to us orbiting bright nearby stars, because these will be the touchstone system.”

The Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2020, should be able to reveal more about planets’ mass, density and the makeup of their atmosphere — all clues to habitability.

The initial launch attempt Monday was scrubbed about two hours before planned takeoff, so that SpaceX engineers could perform extra checks on the rocket’s navigation systems.

On Wednesday, the rocket performed flawlessly.

Less than 10 minutes after launch, the rocket’s first stage returned to an upright landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, marking SpaceX’s 24th touchdown of a rocket booster.

Once a somewhat novel feature, using voice commands have become much more commonplace. A recent survey commissioned by Adobe showed that only 16% of people feel uncomfortable using voice commands in front of others. Whether its playing music, getting the day’s news or controlling room lights, the technology is quickly becoming part of everyday life. However, while voice has emerged as a credible challenger to touch interfaces, it will require a vibrant ecosystem of “skills” in order to thrive. Like with smartphones nearly a decade ago, this presents a big opportunity for brands.

Though Adobe Experience Cloud, we’ve worked with some of the world’s largest brands to deliver great experiences on every digital touchpoint. Now, we want to help them tackle voice. Available today, we are announcing enhanced technologies to deliver truly personalized voice experiences. Consumers will be able to interact with their favorite brands in the same way they engage a local baker or familiar bank teller—with nuanced relevance and context that keep users coming back. This is all is supported by analytics and audience insight, as well as AI capabilities that automate difficult processes and becomes a decisioning engine in the moments where it counts.

Know Who You Are Talking To

Imagine searching for a flight on an Amazon Echo device and finding the right one at the best price. The travel brand you are engaging with has already connected the dots on the backend, and you can book instantly—followed by a travel confirmation sent directly to your smartphone. Or, consider a morning news briefing, where each new piece of content becomes increasingly more aligned with your interest in technology. It begins to remind you of the sophisticated playlist recommendations you’ve seen on music streaming services.

These are the kinds of delightful voice experiences that keep customers wanting more. They are relevant, engaging, and provided in the right context. Enhanced capabilities in Adobe Target now enables brands to deliver these kinds of stand-out experiences. For each individual, marketers are able to customize the experience by acting on their own data—from known tastes and preferences, to tapping existing information provided by the user. Adobe Analytics Cloud serves as the underlying insights platform here, capturing data from voice devices as well as other channels such as desktop web and mobile. The ensures that data is lined up so that brands are engaging people, not devices.

Find the Right Service 

Over the years, the most successful brands on smartphones have been the ones that operated in a constant state of iteration. Instead of porting over the full desktop experience to mobile, they continually tested different features and landed on the ones that delivered the most value. Through Adobe Target, brands can now do the same on voice interfaces. A retailer for example, can experiment with different services offered through their “skill”. Simulations can be run for each service, where brands can begin to see which features are used most frequently, the various steps taken by users after each reaction and the situations that cause people to drop off.

The Power of AI 

Once a brand has figured out how to personalize a voice experience to an individual, they are challenged with having to roll this out across millions of customers. Through Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s AI and machine learning framework, brands now have the ability to accomplish this. As a decisioning engine, Adobe Sensei leverages machine learning and predictive algorithms to help ensure that a perfectly personalized experience can be provided to every single customer. With voice devices bringing in a new stream of data, Adobe Sensei also does the hard number crunching to automatically provide useful insights about customer segments and to flag anomalies in the experience.

Move Fast but Act Cautiously

As much opportunity as the future of voice provides, brands must also keep in mind that mistakes on voice devices are glaringly obvious. It is akin to being in a coffee shop, and getting offered a pastry after you’ve already declined. The shield that a website or mobile app generally provides is not available here. Adobe wants to help brands navigate this tricky landscape, and help them stay ahead of the curve. We saw that a decade ago, many missed the boat with smartphones and some are still paying for it today. With the right discipline and the latest technologies, brands have the tools to make sure this does not happen with voice. They can deliver great experiences that extend their brand presence and ultimately drive more customer loyalty.

“The devastating attacks from the past year demonstrate that cybersecurity is not just about what any single company can do but also about what we can all do together,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, in a statement endorsed by US firms including Facebook, Oracle and global giants including Telefonica, Nokia and BT.

“This tech sector accord will help us take a principled path towards more effective steps to work together and defend customers around the world.”

The companies made a commitment to mount a stronger defense against cyberattacks, “recognizing that everyone deserves protection … regardless of the motivation for attacks online,” the statement said.

The announcement comes after a year marked by devastating attacks including ransomware and news of Russian-led efforts to infiltrate systems controlling critical infrastructure.

Just Monday, US and British officials warned that Russian state-sponsored actors are using compromised routers for attacks to support espionage, extract intellectual property, maintain persistent access to victim networks and potentially lay a foundation for future offensive operations.

“The real world consequences of cyber threats have been repeatedly proven. As an industry, we must band together to fight cybercriminals and stop future attacks from causing even more damage,” said Kevin Simzer, chief operating officer at the security firm Trend Micro.

According to the statement, economic losses expected from cyberattacks are likely to reach $8 trillion by 2022, impacting services ranging from small businesses to hospitals.

Companies that signed the accord plan to hold their first meeting during the security-focused RSA Conference this week in San Francisco.

The signatories included ABB, Arm Holdings, Avast, Bitdefender. CA Technologies, Cisco, Cloudflare, Datastax, Dell, Docusign, Fastly, FireEye, F-Secure, Github, Guardtime, HP, HPE, Intuit, Juniper Networks, LinkedIn, Nielsen, RSA, SAP, Stripe, Symantec, Tenable and VMware.

The ruling comes as the social network is snared in a scandal over the mishandling of 87 million users’ data ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.

The facial recognition tool, launched in 2010, suggests names for people it identifies in photos uploaded by users — a function which the plaintiffs claim runs afoul of Illinois state law on protecting biometric privacy.

Judge James Donato ruled the claims by Illinois residents Nimesh Patel, Adam Pezen, and Carlo Licata were “sufficiently cohesive to allow for a fair and efficient resolution on a class basis.

“Consequently, the case will proceed with a class consisting of Facebook users located in Illinois for whom Facebook created and stored a face template after June 7, 2011,” he said, according to the ruling seen by AFP.

A Facebook spokeswoman told AFP the company was reviewing the decision, adding: “We continue to believe the case has no merit and will defend ourselves vigorously.”

Facebook also contends it has been very open about the tool since its inception and allows users to turn it off and prevent themselves from being suggested in photo tags.

The technology was suspended for users in Europe in 2012 over privacy fears.

Also on Monday, Facebook confirmed that it collected information from people beyond their social network use.

“When you visit a site or app that uses our services, we receive information even if you’re logged out or don’t have a Facebook account,” product management director David Baser said in a post on the social network’s blog.

Baser said “many” websites and apps use Facebook services to target content and ads, including via the social network’s Like and Share buttons, when people use their Facebook account to log into another website or app and Facebook ads and measurement tools.

But he stressed the practice was widespread, with companies such as Google and Twitter also doing the same.

During heated hearings in Congress last week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had already explained that Facebook collects data beyond what users share on their profiles.

“When you visit a site or app that uses our services, we receive information even if you’re logged out or don’t have a Facebook account,” product management director David Baser said in a post on the social network’s blog.

“This is because other apps and sites don’t know who is using Facebook,” he added, noting Facebook was also following up with Congress on a few dozen questions Zuckerberg was unable to answer at the time of the hearings.

Baser said “many” websites and apps use Facebook services to target content and ads, including via the social network’s Like and Share buttons, when people use their Facebook account to log into another website or app and Facebook ads and measurement tools.

But he stressed the practice was widespread, with companies such as Google and Twitter also doing the same.

“Most websites and apps send the same information to multiple companies each time you visit them,” the post said.

“There are three main ways in which Facebook uses the information we get from other websites and apps: providing our services to these sites or apps; improving safety and security on Facebook; and enhancing our own products and services.

“I want to be clear: We don’t sell people’s data. Period.”

Zuckerberg says Facebook “failed” to protect people’s information following the use by Cambridge Analytica of data scraped from 87 million Facebook users to target political ads ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.

South Korean tech titan Samsung Electronics is increasing its patent holdings outside Korea, in the United States particularly, in a bid to prepare for intensifying intellectual property rights disputes, according to the industry on Friday.

Samsung held a total of 119,337 patents across the globe as of the end of 2017, according to industry data.

The number of Samsung’s patents with the US stood at 46,150, while the Korean company had 24,860 patents in its home country and 10,509 in Europe.

The company had 11,005 and 7,086 patents in China and Japan, respectively, data showed.

Samsung won 6,072 new patents last year in the US, becoming the second-largest holder of patents in the country, trailing only Intel.

The company’s patent holdings have more than doubled since 2009, when it had 22,513 cases in the US.

Samsung is expanding the number of patents in the US in order to cope with potential technology disputes, a company official said.

Most of the patents are related to smartphones, smart TVs, memory and system chips, according to the official.

Last year, Samsung invested 16.8 trillion won ($15.6 billion) in research and development projects, winning 5,394 patents at home, along with 14,279 abroad.

Facebook’s CEO has left many Pakistanis wondering how the social media site could influence the country’s upcoming general elections — what kind of data could be accessed, exploited and by whom.

During his two-day congressional hearing on an information breach by data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which was affiliated with US President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Mark Zuckerberg said that fake accounts on Facebook could have an impact on Pakistan’s elections.

The 33-year-old Internet mogul said he feared bogus accounts “may disturb the transparency of the electoral process in the country”.

While talking to Dawn, a social media activist claimed that there was nothing new or shocking in the Facebook CEO’s statements.

“The US is years behind us. We have a much more sophisticated pattern. He’s whitewashed everything with big words — basically this is all about trolling,” he said.

“When the Facebook CEO talks about fake accounts and the data breach, he doesn’t mean someone is going to hack into your account and use your data — what this means is that fake accounts will be set up to sway the mind of the public and this has been going on in Pakistan for years.

“Look at Maryam Nawaz’s Twitter account, look at how party tweets go viral. People of all ages use social media — they are interested in what Mian sb did or where he’s buying clothes from, this helps develop their image of the man and thus his party and their candidate,” he explained.

Digital Rights Foundation’s Nighat Dad agreed with this point of view, saying: “Facebook, to a lot of people in Pakistan, is the internet and an only option to experience online spaces.

“So when they see something on Facebook without having the knowledge of an alternate narrative, they start believing what they see. So it’s important that Facebook builds strong mechanisms around countering false news on its platform.”

Controlling your data

Mr Zuckerberg claimed that right now the social media company’s top priority was to “protect the integrity of the upcoming elections in Brazil, India, Pakistan and other countries”.

Explaining how this would be done, Mr Zuckerberg said that Facebook, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, would identify and remove fake accounts seeking to interfere in elections and spread misinformation.

He said the social network was deploying artificial intelligence tools to identify bogus accounts. He also revealed that Facebook, which had more than 30 million users in Pakistan in 2016, would be hiring over 20,000 new employees to ensure security and personal privacy.

Discussing why would it be easy to mine this kind of information in Pakistan, Sadaf Baig from Media Matters for Democracy, a not-for-profit working to defend freedom of expression, media, internet, and communications in the country, said that there were no data protection laws in the country.

“There is no provision for this in the cybercrime law either — your data is being used by telecommunication companies and companies like Facebook… the government is failing to protect our data,” she said, adding that this data can also include information available with the National Database and Registration Authority and can be sold without people’s knowledge.

What this means

“On the one hand you have people creating technology who don’t understand social and political implications and on the other, politicians who don’t understand technology… this disconnect is ideal ground for companies like Cambridge Analytica and individuals like Steve Bannon to come in and exploit,” said Rahma Mian who teaches politics of technology at Habib University.

Talking to Dawn, she said what is important here is what this case represents about politics and citizens’ rights today and where it is headed. Cambridge Analytica’s role in Brexit and US elections is really just the tip of the iceberg.

She said that compared to Pakistan, these countries have robust civil liberties frameworks and laws that protect privacy and data, yet despite that, something on this scale has not only happened but was pretty much not mainstream news for two years.

“In Pakistan, we may not have the exact same scenario unfold due to our particular history and electoral politics — in a bizarre twist our dysfunctional political system is actually helping us — but what can and is happening is that our data is being collected by the state and by these tech companies without any protection in place,” she said.

“This is definitely deeply frightening — but what is even scarier is how ill-prepared our politicians and bureaucrats are at handling not only our data which is basically equivalent to currency and freedom today but the rapidly changing technology policy landscape,” she added.

Unlike smartphone addicts who spend hours a day on social media, playing games or watching videos, residents of Basan village are using smartphones to save lives and local incomes.

The safety alerts about wild Asian elephants they spread help prevent injuries and economic losses that can be caused by the roaming rainforest giants.

The village, in the Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture of southwestern China’s Yunnan province, has witnessed frequent visits by wild Asian elephants in recent years as their numbers have grown. The giant animals, searching for food, sometimes pose a threat to safety.

“Nearly all families in the village had their crops damaged by wild elephants nearby,” said villager Huang Zhaowu. “Some were eaten while other crops were trampled. Nothing is left in the farmland, just like a hurricane has swept through it. To a local family, it means the loss of a whole season’s income.”

Even more annoying, the elephants sometimes break into villagers’ houses at night.

“Some people live in bamboo houses without a steel or wooden door that can be used as a defense,” Huang said. “It’s not funny if you are awoken by a wild elephant. They are capable of killing, very easily.”

The villagers’ options for dealing with the safety threat are limited because the wild Asian elephant is listed as one of China’s top-level protected wild animals due to its limited population－an estimated 300－all living in Yunnan.

Huang said some farmers used to broadcast loud music to drive the elephants away. “It worked in the beginning, but soon became nonthreatening to the elephants,” he said. “Then they stomped on all our sound equipment.”

An elephant alert alliance was later formed voluntarily in the village. Through text messages, phone calls and social media such as WeChat, a report system has been established. Anyone who notices a wild elephant nearby will spread the alert.

“Tourists are eager to see wild elephants, but we want them to stay in their territory and keep away from us,” Huang said.

Rarer than giant pandas

The area inhabited by wild Asian elephants in the province has expanded from seven counties in 2017 to eight this year, according to Chen Mingyong, a life sciences professor at Yunnan University who has been studying the animals for decades.

He said the wild Asian elephant population has grown by two to three animals a year in recent years.

Statistics from the provincial forestry department show the wild elephant population in the province－mostly in Xishuangbanna－has soared from 170 in the 1970s to about 300 now thanks to protection efforts.

That means they are still rarer than giant pandas, but the growing population has resulted in more conflicts between people and elephants.

In 2014, a villager in Basan died after being attacked by a wild elephant searching for food. In 2016, a sexually frustrated bull elephant smashed 19 cars in three days. Five months ago, a 67-year-old tourist from Sichuan suffered broken ribs and a broken right hip bone when he was attacked by a wild elephant in Xishuangbanna.

Statistics from the prefecture’s forestry bureau indicate that more than 85 per cent of the 153,000 confrontations between humans and wild animals in Xishuangbanna between 1991 and 2010 involved wild Asian elephants. A total of 33 people died and 165 were injured in such confrontations.

A lack of food is the root of the problem. Guo Xianming, deputy director of the research institute at Xishuangbanna Natural Reserve, said an adult Asian elephant usually weighs between 3 and 5 metric tons and consumes 150 to 200 kilograms of food a day. The growing population has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in the herds’ demand for food.

The expansion of some invasive plants has made growing conditions more difficult for the elephants’ preferred food, and scientists say decades of rainforest protection efforts are another factor.

“Protection of rainforest resulted in rapid growth of plants, especially those big trees that used to be threatened by excessive tree felling,” said Wang Lifan, director of Xishuangbanna Natural Reserve’s Shangyong section. “The efforts are crucial to the better recovery of rainforest, but might also lead to problems with the wild elephants’ natural food supply.”

The section, covering 31,300 hectares, is the third largest in the natural reserve. Established in the 1980s, it is now home to 70 to 90 wild elephants.

“A number of the elephants’ favourite foods, such as bamboo, plume grass and plantain, are declining dramatically,” Wang said. “They are much shorter than trees and the protection of the rainforest allows trees to grow rapidly and become a shelter, stopping the sun’s rays those shorter plants need.”

‘Canteens’ for wildlife

To ease the tension, the provincial forestry department has built “canteens” in several natural reserves, reducing friction between villagers and wild elephants that had been eating their crops. In recent years, some of the canteens have been expanded.

In Xishuangbanna Natural Reserve’s Mengyang section, the canteen set up in 2008 has since doubled in size to 67 hectares, Guo said.

In the first two months of this year, 12 cameras shot more than 12,000 pictures and nearly 1,300 videos showing wild Asian elephants, sambar deer and boar feeding at the canteen.

“It shows the canteen is welcomed by the elephants,” Guo said. “After we provided the food source, the elephants paid many fewer visits to farmland, and their conflicts with farmers have been eased in recent years.”

However, with investigations conducted by scientists indicating local people sometimes also feed elephants with crops grown in villages, such as corn, Yunnan University professor Chen said he worries the canteens may teach the elephants to want more of it.

“And their affection for this sweet-tasting crop will encourage more elephants to step into humans’ territory,” he said.

Chen said the most practical way to maintain harmony between elephants and humans is to separate human territory from the elephants’ habitat.

With investment of more than 1 million yuan ($159,000), the country’s first protective fence to separate people and wild elephants was built last year in Xiangyanqing village, Xishuangbanna.

The green, steel fence, 2.2 metres high and 800 metres in length, surrounds the village, which used to be visited by elephants about 40 times a year. It has proved to be effective and another fence, 550 metres long, is now under construction in another village in the prefecture.

Funding needed

But Chen is still trying to figure out other methods that could encourage elephants to stay within a certain region, far from the villages.

Through years of observation, he discovered an elephant secret－they usually spend several months a year near a source of salt, which could be a rock or a small pool with a high salt content.

“We could build some artificial salt source far from the village,” he said. “It won’t hurt either villagers or elephants and will encourage the elephants to stay in the deep forest.”

Drones that used to monitor forest fires have also been introduced to the wild elephant alert system since 2016, according to Chang Zongbo, a media officer from Xishuangbanna’s forestry public security office. He said drones are sometimes used around the clock for real-time monitoring of all 18 elephants in Menghai county, using infrared cameras at night, and that sections of road will be cordoned off if elephants are found there.

“The biggest obstacle in solving conflicts between humans and wild elephants is the lack of scientific research funding,” Chen said. Compared with some overseas research projects on big, wild animals that cost millions of dollars, he said scientific research on wild elephants in Yunnan had only received about 2 million yuan in government funding in the past decade.

“Government funds are mainly used as compensation for the losses of farmers during elephant encounters,” he said. “But that can’t solve the problem fundamentally.

“If more funding can be given to research programmes, things will be different. Scientists would figure out effective and natural methods to ease tension by knowing more about this wild, giant species.”

An “unmanned”, fully automated bank outlet that opened on Monday in Shanghai is receiving positive feedback from customers－especially younger ones.

The facility, installed by China Construction Bank’s Shanghai branch on Jiujiang Road in the downtown district, is self-service－replacing the counters and busy clerks at conventional banks－using robots, ATMs, a foreign exchange machine and an assortment of multimedia tools.

It comes at a time when concepts like mobile internet, big data and artificial intelligence have become inseparable to Chinese people’s everyday lives. Visitors attracted by the human-free concept arrived in streams on Thursday.

Hong Yumei, a tourist from Fujian province who came into the facility to withdraw some cash, said she was lured both by the self-service and guidance of robots.

“At conventional bank outlets you have to tolerate the long faces of clerks from time to time,” she said. “But here I don’t have such problems.”

Cao Dongliang, who works for a healthcare company, said he believed the concept will be well-received, so it’s not a publicity stunt.

“In addition to financial services, I hope the self-service bank will integrate a wide range of civil services and become more diversified,” Cao said.

Lu Bin, a clerk from another bank, said she wasn’t concerned that the self-service bank would eliminate her job.

“I am glad that the emergence of an unmanned bank will help reduce customers’ reliance on human operators. It’s not a concept that’s sprung into being suddenly. Many people already deal with wealth management and money transfers on their mobile phones,” she said.

The 165-square-meter outlet is divided into reception, financial services, civil affairs services and intelligent socialisation sectors.

China Construction Bank said the variety of self-service machines－assisted by cutting-edge technologies, such as robots, voice recognition, augmented reality, face recognition, voice navigation and holographic projection－can process more than 90 per cent of the cash and noncash business of a conventional bank.

Customers visiting the bank for the first time need to slide an ID card or bank card to get in through a turnstile. Then their facial information is collected and they can proceed with almost any kind of transaction. They do not need to show their credentials or mobile phones again.

Another highlight of the automated bank is a robotic guide that can understand and reply to all kinds of questions in Mandarin. When asked if it can speak Shanghai dialect, the robot answered: “I am a new Shanghainese and I do not speak the regional dialect.”

In addition to the robots, a few bank employees and a security guard were around to provide help.

“We are here because it’s newly opened and people may have all kinds of questions and need assistance,” said an employee who asked not to be named, citing company rules. “But we don’t put our hands on any of the machines, as conventional clerks do.”