It will include use of artificial intelligence (AI), a chatbot, a big data platform, a new Car Platform, and a business-to-business (B2B) platform for the Thai market.

IcarAsia.com’s country manager for Thailand, Pornladda Dathratwibul, said the company has set a goal to be first in quality, “the largest and most trusted online automotive marketplace” by strengthening existing services and products, as well as launch new products and activity including a  new care product and chatbot. And it will host regional online to offline (O2O) events.

The company has forseen and prepared for several trends that will hit the digital automotive ecosystem in 2018 and play a bigger role in the customer’s buying journey and in video content. They include augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and AI. IcarAsia.com will in the automotive eco system in digital world included augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and AI.

“Our role is to provide the online research for people who want to buy a car, from providing content [autospinn.com] to the purchase decision [one2car.com], to cover the ecosystem and bring it together in one place. We have partnerships with dealers – both new and used cars – to strengthen that ecosystem, reduce field sales and further utilise online channels,” said Pornladda.

There is still high competition with newcomers domestically and internationally, he said. Consumers are already jumping to online, they are there, and so all players will go there, too.

“The challenge in 2018 is that the behaviour of upcountry consumers and dealers will still be a challenge, with car buying and selling still relying on relationship and referral. They have started to adopt online shopping, but still far less compared to greater Bangkok. Car brands [OEMs] and advertising spending is still quite huge in traditional media. They are already spending online, but the ration is still high in traditional media. World-class players in social media and e-commerce will invest to grab automotive marketplace sharing.”

Because the new-car marketplace is still very new for Thailand, “we have to work really hard to kick- start this in the consumers’ mind,” said Pornladda. “We’re helping to develop this new channel, platform and service. And what happens is that consumer and dealer behaviour shifts and they adapt to it. All our services are based on helping consumers and dealers have an easier and more convenient way to buy and sell cars.”

In the Thailand market (One2car.com), the company has experienced a 35 per cent increase in leads. “It shows that consumers have shifted more to digital,” said Pornladda. They have experienced 35 per cent growth in car listings, 50 percent growth in listing by private sellers, and a monthly car rotation averaging 15,000 vehicles – reflecting up to 500 cars selling daily through the platform (assuming the rotation reflects the sale of a vehicle).

“Our dealers are using our in-depth product more than ever this year,” he said. “This shows that online is a key channel for them to sell cars.”

According to a consumer search on the platform, people’s top vehicle preferences – for buying and selling – are SUVs, economy to mid-range sedans, and European cars.

From steering wheels with built-in alcohol-detecting breathalyzers to a smart pillow that automatically adjusts itself to help mold a newborn’s head into the right shape, South Korean college students have been recognized for coming up with ideas for several new nanotechnology-based innovations that have yet to hit the market.

South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT on Thursday awarded 10 student teams from local universities for winning a competition to present viable ways to apply Korea’s current nanotechnology techniques for practical use in the real world.

Last month, the ministry partnered with local startup solutions provider Maru180 to host an inaugural competition to discover and support innovative nanotechnology-based business ideas from local college students.

The ministry opened up the details of 10 nanotechnology techniques owned by Korea’s top science and technology research bodies to university students, who were then asked to come up with ideas of products that could be realistically built based on the nanotechnologies.

The grand prize was handed to Korea’s leading science and technology research university KAIST that sought to build an “anti-drunk driving steering wheel” by combining 3-D printing with gas sensors based on nanostructured materials.

When a person gets in the driver’s seat, the steering wheel equipped with the nano gas sensors would detect the amount of ethanol content in a person’s breath. If alcohol intake is confirmed, the car would give a warning to the driver or automatically shut down the engine from starting.

The gold prize went to a team from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology that developed a smart pillow designed to help mold a newborn baby’s head to the right shape. It recognizes the baby’s skull shape based on the amount of pressure it detects, and inflates and deflates based on the needed corrections.

Other prize-winning ideas include Sungkyunkwan University’s portable drum set and sticks able to recognize the location and pressure being applied to them, to emulate the intricate sounds of real-life drums.

Pohang University of Science and Technology was also recognized for presenting a system that translates pigment information into temperature data using a special camera glass coated with carbon nanotubes, among other invention ideas.

The Commercializations Promotion Agency for R&D Outcomes, an organization under the Science Ministry, plans to provide business and legal support, including potential tech transfer opportunities, to the winning teams interested in translating their ideas into commercial products.

When was the last time you fumbled in your wallet and gave notes to the cashier?

In China, wallets could litreally become obsolete as mobile payment rapidly sweeps the country, according to a recent study from payment tool Alipay.

Residents are increasingly relying on cellphones to pay for meals, unlock shared bikes and make medical appointments, with 82 per cent of Alipay’s 520 million users adopting digital wallet services last year, the company said in a study that tracked users’ consumption profile last year.

A total of 11 provinces have seen the proportion of mobile payment exceed 90 per cent, up from just one province in the previous year. Guizhou and Shanxi provinces shared the top spot with 92 per cent of mobile payment rate.

Such a trend is evident from the dwindling need for physical wallets. The number of searches for wallets dropped for the first time in three years across Alibaba Group’s multiple shopping sites, according to the company.

One reason driving such exponential growth is the proliferation of a merchant-version QR code, which customers can scan via their phones and be redirected to online payment. Alipay said over 40 million mom-and-pop stores have enabled mobile transactions by embracing such codes.

Mobile payment has also penetrated public utilities and civic affairs. Public transportation services in some 30 cities now allow residents to pay for their rides with phones, while for over 200 million people registering marriage licenses and paying traffic fines are among the services available with a few taps on the gadget.

A credit-rating system developed by Alipay has helped those with good credit records to be exempt from deposits of all sorts, with a combined value of over 40 billion yuan ($6.16 billion) last year.

Mobile payment has also given philanthropy a digital makeover. Alipay’s services have become accessible across 795 poverty-stricken counties and regions in China, providing easier payment and loan services.

Mobile payments in China were a $9 trillion market in 2016, according to iResearch, which is almost 90 times the size of the US mobile-payment market of $112 billion, according to data from research firm Forrester.

Just last year, tens of thousands of foreign merchants across 36 countries and regions accepted Alipay as a payment option, with the total transaction numbers tripling year-on-year.

“It has become the default way of life now,” said Shiv Putcha, an analyst with research firm IDC. “Literally every business and brand in China is plugged into this ecosystem.”

Two payment platforms, Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd’s WeChat Pay, handled around 90 per cent of China’s online payments by transaction value, iResearch said.

The HCM City People’s Court has dismissed a suit by the Dutch-based ride-hailing company Uber International Services Holding B.V against the city tax department seeking remedy against a claim for back taxes.

VNExpress electronic newspaper reported the court said Uber Vietnam, a subsidiary of Uber International, “does not have the required legal status for such a case”.

In September, the department ordered Uber to pay VND66.68 billion (US$2.94 million) in tax arrears and penalties for tax evasion by December 23. But the company only paid up VNĐ13.3 billion ($586,000).

The department then asked five local banks to appropriate more than VND53.38 billion ($2.35 million) from Uber’s accounts by January 10.

Uber then filed the lawsuit against the department.

On December 29, the department received a notice from the court to put on hold its appropriation from Uber.

Now that the case has been dismissed, the tax authorities will proceed to collect the amount.

Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The said Vietnam should learn from the European Union (EU) to manage the operation of companies such as Uber and Grab to ensure fair competition for traditional taxi firms.

At a conference of the General Directorate for Road of Vietnam on Tuesday, The said the management of Uber and Grab remained controversial worldwide.

However, in December, the EU’s top court ruled that Uber should be classified as a transport service and regulated like other taxi operators despite Uber’s argument that it was simply a digital app acting as an intermediary between drivers and passengers.

“We should learn from the EU to manage this service,” The said, urging relevant management authorities to raise proposals to manage Uber and Grab following the established regulations and ensure a healthy competition environment.

HCM City Taxi Association recently proposed that the transport ministry regulate Uber and Grab as taxi operators.

The association also suggested that Uber and Grab be banned from using foreign capital sources to offer promotions aimed in getting a share of the taxi industry, and then reporting losses to avoid paying taxes.

In a related move, taxi firm Anh Duong Việt Nam Company (Vinasun) sent a document to the Ministry of Transport proposing that Grab and Uber should also be regulated as taxi operators.

Reuters reported that Uber has transformed the taxi industry since its launch in 2011 and currently operates in more than 600 cities globally.

The boom in Uber and Grab cars in major cities, including Hanoi and HCM City, during the past three years has pushed many taxi firms into difficulties.

 The insurance company is currently conducting demonstrations and aims to put the system into use in fiscal 2018.

Nonlife insurance companies already use drones to assess damage from earthquakes, but it is thought that globally, satellites and AI have rarely been used to survey flood damage.

Currently, insurance inspectors visit all policyholders in flood-hit areas. Policyholders sometimes wait more than a month for payments if a large number of homes are subject to assessment.

Tokio Marine expects to save a significant amount of time on assessments by using a satellite. The firm has been conducting demonstrations aimed at practical implementation since July 2017. The tests are being done in cooperation with U.S. startup Orbital Insight, which analyzes satellite images via AI, and other organizations.

The research team is using data from various disasters, including the heavy rains that hit the Kanto and Tohoku regions in 2015, to examine the accuracy of the AI in terms of it deeming policyholders who were actually paid as eligible for payment. The team is still compiling the final results of the study, but the AI is thought to have an accuracy rate of 90 percent.

Assessments in large areas hit by massive flooding require substantial amounts of time and manpower. Tokio Marine aims to use its satellite to quickly and smoothly pay insurance claims to policyholders affected by such disasters.

The Internet Association — a group which includes Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, among others — announced it would support legal efforts to block the rollback voted last month by the Federal Communications Commission.

The association gave no specifics but suggested it would seek to intervene in lawsuits expected by several attorneys general, including from Washington and New York states.

Internet Association president Michael Beckerman said the FCC action voted December 14 “defies the will of a bipartisan majority of Americans and fails to preserve a free and open internet.”

He said the association “intends to act as an intervenor in judicial action against this order and, along with our member companies, will continue our push to restore strong, enforceable net neutrality protections through a legislative solution.”

Last month’s vote capped a heated partisan debate and is just the latest twist in a battle over more than a decade on rules governing internet service providers.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who pushed the latest effort, has argued that the neutrality rule enacted in 2015 served to stifle investment and innovation in a fast-evolving sector.

But net neutrality backers have argued that clear rules are needed to prevent internet service providers from blocking or throttling services or websites for competitive reasons, and that the rollback would increase the power of a few dominant providers to control what users see online.

Lawsuits could not be filed until the FCC’s order was published, which occurred this week. Some lawmakers have also begun efforts to invalidate the FCC’s action.

The battle over net neutrality has raged for over a decade in the FCC and the courts, with both sides contending they represent “internet freedom.”

The 2015 net neutrality rules were backed by then-president Barack Obama and endorsed by a 3-2 Democratic majority at the time. But the election of President Donald Trump reversed the FCC party majority and it quickly reversed course.

Scalp cooling for reducing chemotherapy hair loss

Newly diagnosed cancer patients have a lot to process. For women, the inevitable loss of hair is often one of the hardest. There is a new technology making its way to the US that is looking to eliminate this problem from some patients’ lists of worries.

The practice of “scalp cooling” – which works by reducing the temperature of the scalp a few degrees immediately before, during and after chemotherapy  –  has been shown to be highly effective for preserving hair in women receiving chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer. United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the system in May last year.

JAMA, the medical journal of the American Medical Association, in February last year published two studies — one from the University of California, San Francisco, and one from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston — confirmed that women with early-stage breast cancer who underwent scalp-cooling treatments were significantly more likely to keep at least some of their hair throughout chemotherapy.

Dr Hope S Rugo, the director of breast oncology and clinical trials education at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and lead investigator of one of the studies, told the New York Times, “We have this huge growing population of breast cancer survivors, and many of them are very traumatized by their treatment. We’re working on all sorts of areas to try to limit that impact, and one is scalp cooling”.

Speech-to-Speech translation (S2S)

Speech Translation is the process by which conversational spoken phrases are instantly translated and spoken aloud in a second language. This will allow natural language processing features to be built into apps. Imagine discussing important matters across the globe with just a tap, in multiple languages without the aid of a translator or a mediator.

Researchers at Microsoft in 2012 have made software that can learn the sound of human voice, and then use it to speak a language that you don’t. The system could be used to make language tutoring software more personal, or to make tools for travelers.

Microsoft research scientist Frank Soong in a demonstration at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus in 2012 showed how his software could read out text in Spanish using the voice of his boss, Rick Rashid, who leads Microsoft’s research efforts. In a second demonstration, Soong used his software to grant Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, the ability to speak Mandarin.

According to Chris Wendt of Microsoft/Skype, SR, MT, and Text-to-Speech (TTS) by themselves are not enough to make a translated conversation work. Because clean input is necessary for translation, elements of spontaneous language — hesitations, repetitions, corrections, etc — must be cleaned between automatic SR and MT.

For this purpose, Microsoft has built a function called TrueText to turn what you said into what you wanted to say. Because it’s trained on real-world data, it works best on the most common mistakes, Wendt says.

In a report published earlier in 2017, the Translation Automation User Society (TAUS) recognises this Speech-to-Speech (S2S) technology as the paradox the technology currently finds itself in.

Leap motion

Leap Motion, Inc is an American company that manufactures and markets a computer hardware sensor device that supports hand and finger motions as input, analogous to a mouse, but requires no hand contact or touching.

The Leap Motion controller is a small USB peripheral device which is designed to be placed on a physical desktop, facing upward. It can also be mounted onto a virtual reality headset.

Leap Motion presents an entirely new way to interact with your computers. For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements.

The technology for Leap Motion was first developed in 2008. Following an initial angel investment, David Holz and his childhood friend Michael Buckwald founded the company in 2010 while Holz was studying for a PhD in mathematics.

The company in June 2011 raised a $1.3M seed financing round with investments from venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, and SOSV, as well as several angel investors.

Later in February 2016, Leap Motion released new software, called Orion, designed for hand tracking in VR (virtual reality).

Electrovibration Technology

Electrovibration Technology is not a touch screen. It’s a feel screen! Little motors embedded in smartphones and tablets vibrate to apply the haptic feedback that adds sensation to typing on a virtual keyboard. More than a year ago a company called Senseg demoed an alternative using an electrostatic field, and not a vibrating motor, to create tactile feedback.

Electrovibration technology will change the mobile touchscreen experience dramatically and you will be able to feel different kinds of texture in the coming years.

In 1950, Edward Mallinckrodt, a researcher at Washington University in St Louis, accidentally discovered the phenomenon of electrovibration (also known as electrostatic vibration). He noticed that a brass electric light socket had a different texture when a light was burning than it did when the light was turned off. Along with a team of researchers, he began exploring the phenomenon in more detail by running experiments using an aluminum plate with insulating varnish.

Over a half-century after Mallinckrodt’s discovery, a collaborative team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research developed an algorithm for rendering 3D textures onto a touch screen using electrovibration. Nicknamed TeslaTouch, the system modifies the frequency and amplitude of an alternating voltage applied to an electrode beneath a touchscreen.

By changing this voltage, TeslaTouch allows a software interface on a tablet computer to provide real-time haptic feedback by modifying the perceived friction of different parts of the screen. As the user swipes, taps, pinches, and manipulates objects on a touchscreen, the software can generate tactile effects that mimic the bumps, ridges, and textures of the surfaces of different objects.

Driverless vehicles

A visitor looks at a self-driving car by Google at the Viva Technology event in Paris, France, June 30, 2016. Photo: Reuters

A driverless car is a robotic vehicle that is designed to travel between destinations without a human operator. It is also sometimes called as a self-driving car, an automated car or an autonomous vehicle.

The dream of a self-driving automobile goes as far back as the middle-ages, centuries prior to the invention of the car. The evidence for this comes from a sketching by Leonardo De Vinci that was meant to be a rough blueprint for a self-propelled cart.

It was around the early part of the 20th century that a real concerted effort to develop a driverless car that actually worked started to take shape, beginning with the Houdina Radio Control Company’s first public demonstration of a driverless car in 1925.

The first self-sufficient and truly autonomous cars appeared in the 1980s, with Carnegie Mellon University’s Navlab and ALV projects in 1984 and Mercedes-Benz and Bundeswehr University Munich’s Eureka Prometheus Project in 1987.

Since then, numerous major companies and research organisations have developed working prototype autonomous vehicles including Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Continental Automotive Systems, Autoliv Inc, Bosch, Nissan, Toyota, Audi, Volvo, Vislab from University of Parma, Oxford University and Google.

Cybersecurity researchers called for computer systems to urgently install updates a day after the release of details of the so-called Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities affecting the chips powering most modern PCs and many mobile devices.

Researchers on Wednesday published details of the flaw, which unlike many other vulnerabilities stems from the chip itself and how it safeguards private data stored on computers and networks.

The researchers at Google showed how a hacker could exploit the flaw to get passwords, encryption codes and more, even though there have been no reports of any attacks using the vulnerability.

“The full extent of this class of attack is still under investigation and we are working with security researchers and other browser vendors to fully understand the threat and fixes,” said Mozilla researcher Luke Wagner in a blog post.

The revelations “attack the foundational modern computer building block capability that enforces protection of the (operating system),” said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer at security firm McAfee.

“Businesses and consumers should update operating systems and apply patches as soon as they become available.”

– Intel updates –

Computer chipmaking giant Intel — the focus of the first reports on the flaw — said the company and its partners “have made significant progress in deploying updates” to mitigate any threats.

“Intel expects to have issued updates for more than 90 percent of processor products introduced within the past five years,” an Intel statement said.

“In addition, many operating system vendors, public cloud service providers, device manufacturers and others have indicated that they have already updated their products and services.”

But John Bambenek, a Fidelis security researcher who works with the SANS Internet Storm Center, warned that it may be too soon to know the extent of the problem.

“This bug is probably worth its name and logo considering the pervasive nature of the vulnerability,” Bambenek said in a blog post.

“Contrary to some initial reporting, this is NOT just an Intel bug, it affects AMD and ARM processors as well. These could even be used in cloud… environments to leak memory outside the running virtual machine.”

In a web page dedicated to the vulnerability, security researchers said Meltdown and Spectre may “get hold of secrets stored in the memory of other running programs. This might include your passwords stored in a password manager or browser, your personal photos, emails, instant messages and even business-critical documents.”

The two flaws “work on personal computers, mobile devices, and in the cloud,” the researchers said.

“All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected, but there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time,” Apple said in a post at an online support page

It advised only getting apps from its online App Store which vets programs for safety, and said it has already released some “mitigations” to protect against the exploit and planned to release a defensive update for Safari on macOS and iOS in the coming days.

Some experts pointed out that the only real “fix” in some cases would be replacing the chip itself, which would be a massive issue for the computing industry.

“The good news is patches are out for almost everything,” Bambenek said.

“The bad news is, Spectre, in particular can’t be completely mitigated by patching as it seems it will require a hardware fix. The good news is that Spectre is harder to exploit.”

The US government’s Computer Emergency Response Team initially indicated in a bulletin that only a hardware fix would solve the problem, but then removed that from an update.

“Fully removing the vulnerability requires replacing vulnerable CPU (central processing unit) hardware,” said the first bulletin.

The computer chipmaker issued a statement amid a flurry of concerns voiced after researchers discovered what was described as a “flaw” which could allow privately-stored data in computers and networks to be leaked.

Intel labeled as “incorrect” the reports describing a “bug” or “flaw” unique to its products.

“Based on the analysis to date, many types of computing devices — with many different vendors’ processors and operating systems — are susceptible to these exploits,” the Intel statement said.

“Intel believes these exploits do not have the potential to corrupt, modify or delete data.”

Intel said it was working with rivals AMD and ARM Holdings — which designs systems for mobile devices — and with the makers of computer operating software “to develop an industry-wide approach to resolve this issue promptly and constructively.”

Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich told CNBC meanwhile that “basically all modern processers across all applications” use this process known as “access memory,” which was exploited by Google researchers and kept confidential as companies work on remedies.

Jack Gold, an independent technology analyst, said he was briefed in a conference call with Intel, AMD and ARM on the issue and that the three companies suggested concerns were overblown.

“The story is not that there is a flaw in Intel chips,” Gold said.

The companies were working on remedies after “some researchers found a way to use existing architecture and get into protected areas of computer memory and read some of the data,” Gold said, adding that this is a function of all modern computer architecture.

– Slowdown? –

Earlier this week, some security researchers said any fix — which would need to be handled by software — could slow down computer systems, possibly by 30 percent or more.

Intel’s statement said these concerns too were exaggerated.

“Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time,” the company statement said.

Earlier Wednesday, Tatu Ylonen, security researcher at SSH Communications Security, noted that the flaw, if exploited, could allow hackers to gain access to private data, including passwords, banking data and encrypted or classified information.

The patch “will be effective” but it will be critical to get all networks and cloud services upgraded, Ylonen said.

“There are thousands of small cloud providers and all of them will need to upgrade,” he said.

British security researcher Graham Cluley also expressed concern “that attackers could exploit the flaw on vulnerable systems to gain access to parts of the computer’s memory which may be storing sensitive information. Think passwords, private keys, credit card data.”

Cluley said in a blog post that it was “good news” that the problem had been kept under wraps to allow operating systems such as those from Microsoft and Apple to make security updates before the flaw is maliciously exploited.

“The bad news is that no-one likes to make such low level security updates, particularly under such time-sensitive conditions,” Cluley said.

“Inevitably some businesses will find themselves disrupted by the process.”