News Card 10

Cheap smartphones global market grows

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20986550
By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

Cheap smartphones global market grows

 

Asha, the budget smartphone line from Nokia, is outselling its premium handset offering, the Windows-run Lumia, by over two to one. The total number of both Asha and Lumia devices sold in the last three months of 2012 was 14 million. Only 4.4 million were Lumias.

 Apple may soon offer a lower-priced iPhone model. It is forecasted that by 2016, 31% of the global overall handset market will be low-end smartphones. The difference in cost to the consumer is significant: A basic smartphone in the UK can cost about 30 UK Pounds (฿1500), but the iPhone 5 currently costs over 500 UK Pounds (฿25000).

 It is questionable if Apple can maintain their market position, being in the small but premium end of the market. In the UK, for example, only 28% of smartphone owners had iPhones. The problem is cheaper phones have lower quality components and performance. Apple’s strategy has been to update older models rather than develop a new design. Analysts believe Apple should be more aggressive and develop a lower-price model

News Card 9

Toyota gives a sneak preview of its self-drive car

 Toyota has shown its self-drive car safety technology. The car maker revealed a video of a Lexus with safety features designed to minimise car crashes. The technology includes on-board radar and video cameras, and the car can communicate with other vehicles.

 The video shows a prototype Lexus LS fitted with "Intelligent Transport Systems" (ITS) technology. The "advanced active safety research vehicle" prototype uses ITS and existing Toyota technology to monitor whether the driver is awake, to keep the car on the road, detect the positions of pedestrians and obstacles and to stop at traffic signals.  The car can even communicate with a driver's smartphone, for example, to let the car know about upcoming places of interest.

Toyota is one of several car manufacturers and technology companies researching autonomous vehicles. Google was awarded an autonomous car patent in 2011 and has secured a Nevada driving licence for its self-drive car. Volvo also tested a self-drive convoy on a Spanish motorway.

Self-driving cars could drastically improve road safety, according to Professor Paul Newman, who heads an Oxford University autonomous car project, and explains that car systems can be engineered so that a systems failure will not result in a crash. Prof Newman's Wildcat project aims to use lasers and radar to make a car "sense" its surroundings.