Note: The name EQ stands for “Electric Intelligence” and is derived from theMercedes-Benz brand values of “Emotion and Intelligence”.
With "Generation EQ", Mercedes-Benz shows how electric cars can soon move into the fast lane: the concept vehicle, with the appearance of a sporty SUV coupé, gives a preview of a new generation of vehicles with battery-electric drives.
The dynamic exterior design with its new electro-look underlines the focus on the powerful electric drive system. Two electric motors, with a system output that can be increased to up to 300 kW thanks to scalable battery components, and permanent all-wheel drive deliver the guarantee of dynamic high-level performance. With a range of up to 500 kilometres and the typical Mercedes strengths of safety, comfort, functionality and connectivity, "Generation EQ" meets every demand in terms of contemporary, sustainable mobility.
EQ: The new e-mobility brand.
The
close-to-production concept vehicle “Generation EQ” marks the launch of an
architecture for battery-electric vehicles across all models. Dieter Zetsche:
“In 2007, the e-smart was a pioneer of electric motoring. We’re now flipping
the switch. We’re ready for the launch of an electric product offensive that
will cover all vehicle segments, from the compact to the luxury class.”
The coming
models embody the essentials of state-of-the-art electric mobility – the fusion
of appealing design, exceptional driving pleasure, high everyday practicality
and maximum safety, typical of every vehicle manufactured by the inventor of
the motorcar.
EQ: The new brand for electric mobility.
At the Paris Motor Show, Mercedes-Benz will unveil its new product brand for electric mobility: EQ. The name EQ stands for “Electric Intelligence” and is derived from the Mercedes-Benz brand values of “Emotion and Intelligence”. The new brand encompasses all key aspects for customer-focused electric mobility and extends beyond the vehicle itself. EQ offers a comprehensive electric mobility ecosystem of products, services, technologies and innovations. The spectrum ranges from electric vehicles to wallboxes and charging services to home energy storage units. The new brand is heralded by the close-to-production concept vehicle “Generation EQ”, which will celebrate its world premiere in Paris. The first series-produced EQ model will be launched in the SUV segment before the end of this decade.
EQ: Clear orientation for customers.
The EQ portfolio will encompass all future battery-electric cars as well as the associated products and services from Mercedes-Benz. In this way, the inventor of the motorcar is providing a simple and transparent means of orientation for customers within its ever expanding portfolio. The EQ brand is therefore the next logical step in the sales and marketing strategy “Best Customer Experience”.
Mercedes-Benz already offers a suitable charging infrastructure for electric cars, including a wallbox as a fast-charging station for the home, the free app “Charge&Pay” for convenient recharging at public charging stations as well as – for home-owners and businesses – stationary energy storage units for power generated by photovoltaic or solar systems. All these products and services will in the future be bundled under EQ. In this way, Mercedes-Benz is creating a consistent and clear image for sustainable products and services with the star.
Showcar in Paris: “Generation EQ“.
With “Generation EQ”,Mercedes-Benzshows how electric cars can soon move
into the fast lane: The concept vehicle, with the appearance of a sporty SUV
coupé, gives a preview of a new generation of vehicles with battery-electric
drives. The dynamic exterior design with its new electro-look underlines the
focus on the powerful electric drive system: Two electric motors, with a system
output that can be increased to up to 300 kW thanks to scalable battery
components, and permanent all-wheel drive deliver the guarantee of dynamic
high-level performance.
With a range of up to 500 kilometres and the typical
Mercedes strengths of safety, comfort, functionality and connectivity,
“Generation EQ” meets every demand in terms of contemporary, sustainable
mobility. Also on the inside, the vehicle offers innovative solutions,
including a completely new interior concept. Celebrating its world premiere at
the Paris Motor Show, “Generation EQ” is the forerunner ofMercedes-Benz’s new product brand for electric mobility, EQ.
CASE: Connected, Autonomous,
Shared, Electric.
“The mobility of
the future at Mercedes-Benz will stand on four
pillars: Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric. ‘Generation EQ’ is
the logical fusion of all four pillars,” says Dr Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler
AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. “The
emission-free automobile is the future. And our new EQ brand goes far beyond
electric vehicles. EQ stands for a comprehensive electric ecosystem of
services, technologies and innovations.”
The new
generation of electric vehicles will be based on an architecture developed
specifically for battery-electric models, which is scalable in every respect
and usable across all models.
The total worldwide PC monitor market shipped more than 30 million
units in the second quarter of 2016 (2Q16), up 4.9% year over year and
4.6% quarter over quarter, according to the International Data
Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker.
"The
second quarter proved better than forecast overall, with the U.S.,
EMEA, and Canada markets recording solid year-over-year results.
However, IDC expects the global monitor market will continue to decline
at rates around 3% year over year from 2018 through 2020," said Maura Fitzgerald, senior research analyst, Worldwide Trackers.
IDC
currently forecasts 118 million PC monitor units will be shipped for
the full year 2016 and expects to see a year-over-year decline of 12.7%
in worldwide shipments to 26.7 million units in the second quarter of
2017. By 2020, worldwide shipments are expected to be less than 100
million units as the adoption of mobile devices at lower price points is
expected to continue.
Technology Highlights
Curved monitors continue to be on the rise, with 1.9% market share in 2Q16. This represents year-over-year growth of 221%.
21.5-inches
wide and 19.5-inches wide segments continue to dominate the worldwide
market, with 22.0% and 12.2% market share respectively in 2Q16. Of the
top 10 screen sizes, 23.8-inches wide and 31.5-inches wide saw the
largest year-over-year growth, posting 100.1% and 76.8%, respectively,
in 2Q16.
Monitors with TV tuners are expected to have 5.3%
market share in 2Q17, up from 4.8% in 2Q16, led by LG and Samsung with a
combined market share of 99.0% in this category.
Vendor Highlights
Dell – Dell stayed
in the top position in 2Q16 with worldwide market share of 17.0% on
shipments of more than 5.2 million units. The vendor posted strong
year-over-year growth in Central & Eastern Europe (31.2%), Canada
(25.5%), and Middle East & Africa (18.0%).
HP – HP
saw 4 million units shipped, resulting in 13% share in 2Q16.
Year-over-year unit increases of 51.1% in the U.S. and 22.4% in Central
& Eastern Europe helped bring the vendor a total year-over-year
increase of 19.6%.
Lenovo – Lenovo made significant
gains, moving into the top 3 position with year-over-year growth of 2.7%
to more than 3 million units shipped. Lenovo also posted significant
quarter-over-quarter growth of 27.1%, with especially large growth in
Central & Eastern Europe (114.5%) and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)
(33.1%).
Samsung – Samsung moved down to the number
four position with nearly 3 million units shipped. The vendor saw a
year-over-year decline in all regions except Central & Eastern
Europe, and Canada.
LG Electronics – LG rounded out the
Top 5 in 2Q16 with 9.2% market share in the worldwide market. The vendor
logged year-over-year gains across all regions except Middle East &
Africa.
Apple has increased its part and component orders for
iPhone 7 devices, with order visibility for the fourth quarter of 2016
to be 20-30% higher than expected, according to sources from
Taiwan-based touch panel makers.
Touch panel makers TPK
Holding and General Interface Solution (GIS) shared the touch panel
orders for iPhone 7 devices previously, but Apple appeared to have
pulled in more orders from GIS recently.
GIS,
a subsidiary of Foxconn Electronics, is expected to see its revenues
grow significantly in the fourth quarter.
However,
TPK said that touch panel orders from its major clients for the fourth
quarter have not been fixed completely, and some adjustments may be made
later.
Shipments of the iPhone 7 devices from ODMs are
expected to reach 80-84 million units in the second half of 2016,
compared to 85-90 million iPhone 6s shipped in the latter half of 2015.
I don`t know when we all the humans will be replaced for robots and Ai machines for certain humans activities.
Not so long ago we use the computer and started to make movies with animations and some games software resembles very close what we do in some way.
By the time being SONY CSL-Paris Research Laboratory has uploaded on youtube a video musical made by Ai with a touch of The Beatles style: Daddy`s Car sounds good and the other video song is called Mr Shadow ( nice try)
Scientists
at SONY CSL Research Laboratory have created the first-ever entire
songs composed by Artificial Intelligence: "Daddy's Car" and "Mister
Shadow".
The researchers have developed FlowMachines, a system
that learns music styles from a huge database of songs. Exploiting
unique combinations of style transfer, optimization and interaction
techniques, FlowMachines composes novel songs in many styles.
"Daddy's
Car" is composed in the style of The Beatles. French composer Benoît
Carré arranged and produced the songs, and wrote the lyrics.
The two songs are excerpts of albums composed by Artificial Intelligence to be released in 2017.
How six scrappy young inventors built a breakthrough text-to-Braille translator device
A group of engineering students knew exactly what they wanted to build at a student technology competition, and they had just 15 hours to do it.
As they worked furiously alongside other MIT students, the young women hit a series of snags. They had to wait in long lines to use the 3D printer and laser cutter they needed to shape various parts for their project. Some of the supplies their design called for had already been snatched up by others.
Bonnie Wang, an engineering and materials science major, recalls it as “one of the most hectic 15 hours of my life, ever.”
They cobbled together their prototype with barely 15 minutes to spare. It was clunky, with taped corners, an array of wires sprouting from the middle and gaps they’d hastily filled with cardboard — but it worked.
The device will allow people with low or no vision to read everything from textbooks to menus by converting words into Braille on a display roughly the size of a candy bar.
In the wee hours of that morning in February, they were awarded a first-place trophy for their invention: a device that could turn printed words into Braille. It was a moment that left them even more energized to create something that could help blind people around the globe — and to cement their place in the growing subset of the world’s inventors who are women.
The tight-knit friends, known as Team Tactile, are now among four groups of innovators accepted into the new Microsoft #MakeWhatsNext Patent Program, giving them the chance to get the legal help they need to navigate the complicated and often expensive process of obtaining a patent.
“There are a lot of potential barriers for women entering tech and staying in tech, from not enough exposure as children to lack of encouragement as they grow up,” said student Tania Yu. “This program makes it a lot easier for women to pursue what they’ve been working on, instead of just dropping a project because they feel like they couldn’t get intellectual property rights.”
They formally applied for a patent for their real-time text-to-Braille converter, called Tactile, on Sept. 16. All of the Microsoft Patent Program’s participants reached the major milestone of achieving patent-pending status that same week for their fledgling technologies.
The pins on this early prototype move up and down, forming Braille characters from the text it scans.
Members of all four groups are attending this year’s Microsoft Ignite conference in Atlanta, where they’ll meet with execs from around the company, discuss their projects and learn from industry experts about the latest technology.
The genesis of the patent program came earlier this year, when Microsoft connected with girls in New York for International Women’s Day, and young students were asked to name an inventor. The answers came quickly: Ben Franklin. Nikola Tesla. Thomas Edison.
But when they were asked to name a female inventor? The question was met with uncertain silence.
“We realized as we started talking to these girls that we had hit on something,” recalled Jenny Leahy, director of marketing for Microsoft’s Global Advertising team. “Even though females in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields have done and continue to do incredible things that have shaped our world, their stories aren’t as well known. Uncovering these stories and celebrating these women is key for the next generation to have female role models to help them realize they can do it, too.”
The #MakeWhatsNext Patent Program seeks out industrious women, or groups that include at least one female member, who are working on advances in technology that could make a real difference in the world. It then connects them with Microsoft patent lawyers and a newly formed Patent Board of senior company leaders, researchers and technology experts to provide them with mentorship and connections across Microsoft and the tech industry.
The other teams in the program are AfriGals, a group of women in Uganda who have developed a low-cost phone app to help detect sickle cell anemia; Team AMANDA, a group of four engineering students in Greece who have created a gamified virtual reality app to combat bullying; and a medical school graduate in India who created Care N Grow, a system that monitors schoolkids’ health profiles at scale to detect often-overlooked medical problems.
“When we started looking at inventors to invite into the program, we really focused on the impact these inventions could make, and we also wanted to ensure they had a high likelihood of receiving a patent,” Leahy said. “The problems these teams are trying to solve for are big issues that the world is facing today, and I love that the teams are and will continue to drive considerable impact through their inventions, both in their local communities and around the world.”
Microsoft Assistant General Counsel Sandy Swain, who leads a team of patent attorneys at Microsoft, connects patent experts with Patent Program participants to file their applications. She said she has long been interested in seeing more girls and women find success in science and technology, so she “was really excited about this idea and this way we, in the patent group, could help.”
“There are multiple steps in the patent process that need to be successfully navigated and completed in order to get to a patent, and it can be very intimidating for someone who’s not familiar with it,” she said. “Having a patent attorney work with the participants eases that barrier in many ways.”
The students’ CAD rendering shows the sleek design they envision.
The engineering students behind Tactile hope their device will allow people living with low or no vision to read everything from textbooks to menus, all in real time, by converting the words into Braille that appears on a refreshable handheld display.
As they work to improve their early prototypes, they also want to combine the mechanism used to capture images of text with the display itself, which has pins that move up and down to form Braille characters. Their goal is to make the device about 5 inches long by 2 inches wide — barely larger than a candy bar — and display about 36 Braille characters at a time.
The students are working to refine the mechanical actuation system, which moves the pins, and are exploring ways to use materials that will allow them to make the device much cheaper than any other Braille display on the market. They’re aiming to make it cost less than $100.
Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Microsoft’s chief accessibility officer, loves the idea that the students have focused their efforts on a way to help empower people. Such technology inspires many because “we all want to do projects that are going to enable people to do whatever their hearts dream of,” she said.
We all want to do projects that are going to enable people to do whatever their hearts dream of.
“There cannot be enough investment in technology that will enable, empower and allow people with disabilities to go and do amazing things,” she said. “And getting it to under $100 is gold dust. I can’t wait to see where this one goes — and I think the patent is a great next step.”
The group now includes six students — Wang, Yu, Jialin Shi, Charlene Xia, Grace Li and Chandani Doshi — who are all starting their senior year at MIT and are each fascinated by technology in their own ways.
Enthusiasm fills Wang’s voice as she talks about her experience writing code for computational simulations involving solar-thermal fields as an intern at BMW in Germany. Li just wrapped up a summer interning in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Shi recently took a trip to a Six Flags amusement park and found herself preoccupied by the engineering of the wires and harnesses that each ride relies on to keep people safe at such lofty, spinning heights.
But these studious engineers are also serious about having fun. On many nights, they crowd into Xia and Shi’s double dorm room to watch movies or hold impromptu dance parties. Each year for Shi’s birthday, they capture their dance moves to some outrageous tune to make their own music videos.
At dinnertime, if they’re not laughing over a meal in the campus dining hall, they’re likely out trying new restaurants in their ongoing mission to find food that is too spicy for Doshi, but they haven’t been able to overwhelm her unflappable taste buds yet.
The idea for Tactile was born earlier this year. Some of the students thought it would be fun to participate in the MakeMIT hackathon. They entered under the team name “100% Enthusiasm” because, in an early group chat to gauge interest, each responded with the same basic answer: “I don’t know how much I can contribute, but I’m pretty excited!”
“That was the consensus of the entire group, so I made a joke about how we have zero percent skill and 100 percent enthusiasm, and the name stuck,” Shi said. “We just became ‘100% Enthusiasm’ because that’s what we knew we had going in.”
They started by throwing around ideas of what they could design and build in 15 hours: A dancing robot? A machine that draws elaborate pictures? An alarm clock that awakens you with a splash of water, or maybe a helpful smack in the face?
As ideas popped up and were just as swiftly cast aside, the group realized they really wanted to do something that could make a difference in people’s lives. Shi came across a blog post with a hypothetical rendering of a Braille watch, and the students were soon discussing the idea of building a device that could turn text to Braille.
“We knew assistive technology was a huge and growing field, and this was something I think everyone felt good about making,” Shi said. “Especially since we knew that if we could make this device, it would actually have an impact.”
Since the hackathon, the students have improved their prototype several times. Many people suggested that they get a patent. It seemed like a good idea, but they felt intimidated by the process.
That’s why they were so excited to be invited into the patent program in July. The students believe it will make a big difference in how far they’ll be able to take their idea.
“The legal side is very important to us, but certainly Microsoft also has a lot of really bright engineers,” Yu said.
“We stand to benefit a lot from learning from these people, who have more experience and maybe have considered things we haven’t thought of yet.”
The students learned through their research that the Braille literacy rate among blind people around the world is discouragingly low, partly because there’s limited technology for Braille and partly because of an increasing reliance on audio technologies, which Wang said “can hinder people from learning Braille or taking it seriously.”
“Our device would really increase people’s access to Braille because it’s portable, and we’re trying to make it affordable as well,” she said. “We could potentially increase the Braille literacy rate, which would in turn give people more independence and better employment opportunities.”
Despite the prevalence of text-to-speech and other audio-based technology, Braille and the technology that uses it remain as important as ever, according to Anne Taylor, who served for 11 years as the director of access technology at the National Federation of the Blind and is now a senior supportability programming manager at Microsoft.
Blind people in the U.S. have long faced high rates of unemployment. A 2013 study showed less than 40 percent of legally blind or visually impaired people are employed — but it also revealed that those who read Braille on a weekly basis were more likely to have jobs, and even to earn higher salaries, than those who did not.
Chandani Doshi, Jialin Shi, Bonnie Wang, Charlene Xia, Tania Yu and Grace Li of Team Tactile.
Taylor, who has been blind since birth and uses Braille every day, says Braille literacy “has really helped many blind people get ahead in life.”
Taylor is eager to learn more about the students’ technology because she knows the drawbacks of what’s on the market now. She has two electronic Braille displays on her desk. One had a price tag of about $5,000. The other cost even more.
“If we can bring the price point down so that it will be affordable for every Braille reader in the world,” she said, “that would absolutely be helpful.”
People can already convert Braille to text with technology available now, but it takes a PC, a phone to scan the text, an optical character recognition app and a Braille display that all have to be physically connected each time, “so it’s very convoluted and cumbersome,” Taylor said.
A device that turns text into Braille as quickly and easily as a sighted person can read a piece of paper “would be outstanding,” she said.
The Tactile team would love to see their invention help boost Braille literacy around the globe. They hope it can help many people gain more independence, and they’ve even been discussing how they could make it available to schools that don’t have the budget for expensive technology.
“The thing that’s really pushed us is there’s not really something like this yet in the world… and it’s something that’s needed,” Li said. “That’s really motivated us to continue to develop this and make it happen.”
WESTERN DIGITAL DEMONSTRATES PROTOTYPE OF THE WORLD’S FIRST 1TERABYTE SDXC CARD AT PHOTOKINA 2016.
COMPANY GIVES PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY INDUSTRY A PREVIEW OF FUTURE SANDISK IMAGING TECHNOLOGY.
Western Digital Corporation , a global storage technology and solutions leader, today unveiled its SanDisk® 1TB terabyte (TB) SDXC™ card prototype at the world's leading trade fair for photo and video professionals. With increasing demand for high resolution content, such as 4K and 8K, the company continues to push the boundaries of technology with solutions that support the exponential growth of data-intensive production demands.
“Showcasing the most advanced imaging technologies is truly exciting for us,” said Dinesh Bahal, vice president, product management, Content Solutions Business Unit, Western Digital.
“Sixteen years ago we introduced the first SanDisk 64MB SD™ card and today we are enabling capacities of 1TB. Over the years our goal has remained the same; continue to innovate and set the pace for the imaging industry. The SanDisk 1TB SD card prototype represents another significant achievement as growth of high-resolution content and capacity-intensive applications such as virtual reality, video surveillance and 360 video, are progressing at astounding rates.”
Since the introduction of the record-breaking 512GB SanDisk Extreme PRO® SDXC UHS-I Memory Card at Photokina 2014, Western Digital has proven it can nearly double the capacity in the same SD card form factor using proprietary technology. Higher capacity cards expand the possibilities for professional videographers and photographers, giving them even greater ability to create more of the highest quality content, without the interruption of changing cards.
“Just a few short years ago the idea of a 1TB capacity point in an SD card seemed so futuristic – it’s amazing that we’re now at the point where it’s becoming a reality. With the growing demand for applications like VR, we can certainly use 1TB when we’re out shooting continuous high-quality video.
High-capacity cards allow us to capture more without interruption, streamlining our workflow, and eliminating the worry that we may miss a moment because we have to stop to swap out cards,” said Sam Nicholson, CEO of Stargate Studios and member of the American Society of Cinematographers.
Western Digital will be demonstrating the SanDisk 1TB SDXC card prototype and showcasing its newest offerings at Photokina, Hall 02.1 Stand A014.
About Western Digital
Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC) is an industry-leading provider of storage technologies and solutions that enable people to create, leverage, experience and preserve data. The company addresses ever-changing market needs by providing a full portfolio of compelling, high-quality storage solutions with customer-focused innovation, high efficiency, flexibility and speed. Our products are marketed under the HGST, SanDisk and WD brands to OEMs, distributors, resellers, cloud infrastructure providers and consumers. For more information, please visit www.hgst.com, www.wd.com, andwww.sandisk.com.
About SanDisk
SanDisk, a Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC) brand, provides trusted and innovative flash storage products that have transformed the electronics industry. SanDisk’s quality, state-of-the-art solutions are at the heart of many of the world's largest data centers, and embedded in advanced smartphones, tablets and PCs. SanDisk’s consumer products are available at hundreds of thousands of retail stores worldwide.
MEDIA CONTACT Joanna Andrade SanDisk, a Western Digital brand +1 408.801.1792 joanna.andrade@sandisk.com
Well, after all the rumors before, Google finally will hold an event in October 4th, 2016 in San Francisco, California, USA. Doors open at 8 a.m and the presentation will start at 9 a.m Is expected to unveil the new Pixels smartphones replacing the actual Nexus brand. Probably Google will announce two phones the Pixel (Sailfish) with a 5 inch display and the Pixel XL ( Marlin) with a 5,5 inch screen It is not clear if the company will present the smartphones only or will also unveil Google Home an answer to Amazon`s Echo and maybe some new Google Android Wear watches . Will see. If you would like to be notify by Google, please summit your email address here
