The hot new car tech coming in 2016

IT’S never been a more exciting time to be a car enthusiast.

Autonomous vehicles are in the spotlight, but car technology will change in more ways than one in 2016.

APPLE AND GOOGLE INSIDE THE CAR

As consumers seek closer integration between their smartphones and vehicles, Apple and Alphabet’s Google are taking centre stage. The tech giants are increasing their footprint in the automotive world heading into the new year.

Jack Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst at Kelley Blue Book, said advanced infotainment systems are major selling points for automakers.

“I think it’s a differentiator for people. For an individual who’s on the brink of buying a new car, if one of the vehicles they’re looking at has it and one doesn’t, I’d be reluctant to buy that car,” Nerad said, noting how many consumers are tied to their mobile devices.

“If you don’t have your smartphone with you, it’s like your soul is gone,” he joked. “You left your soul in another pair of pants.”

Apple and Google are partnering with major automakers like General Motors to enhance their infotainment systems. GM is rolling out both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto across its four brands, including Chevrolet, which will get the smartphone-like software in at least a dozen 2016 models. CarPlay and Android Auto will exist alongside GM’s current systems, such as Chevy MyLink.

Honda is also jumping on board, while rival Toyota chose to go with a separate system, Scout GPS Link, developed by Telenav. Although it hasn’t adopted CarPlay or Android Auto, Ford recently sent out a software update for its Sync 3 platform that added Apple’s Siri Eyes Free service, which connects to iPhones.

Apple CarPlay is coming to certain Holdens in 2016.Source:Supplied

MORE OPTIONS FOR MORE POWER

Under the hood, automakers continue to explore new ways to increase the efficiency of gasoline-powered engines. In recent years, companies have tried new strategies such as adding turbochargers to four-cylinder engines, combining the fuel savings of a smaller engine with greater horsepower.

“I think there’s more to squeeze out of the internal combustion engine,” Nerad said.

Mazda is one automaker that has made strides. Its Skyactiv engines employ higher compression ratios, thus improving efficiency. Nerad expects the industry to work on more sophisticated transmissions as well.

Alternative fuel should also be a hot topic in 2016. Ford is redoubling its efforts to sell electric vehicles, saying it will add 13 electrified cars to its portfolio by 2020. Honda will join Hyundai and Toyota when it launches the new hydrogen-powered Clarity sedan next year, starting in California.

COULD YOU SPARE A RIDE?

The growing popularity of Uber and Lyft, particularly in urban areas, has pushed automakers to explore opportunities in car sharing.

Ford partnered with Getaround to launch a test program called Peer-2-Peer Car Sharing that allows car owners to connect with users online who are looking for a ride. The program was opened to 14,000 Ford customers in six US cities. Ford is testing a similar service in London, too.

“I think we will see more consumer demand for alternative ownership in 2016,” said Thilo Koslowski, vice president and automotive practice leader at Gartner.

Car-sharing has certainly grabbed Detroit’s attention. In a post on LinkedIn, GM CEO Mary Barra said the nation’s top seller of cars and trucks will launch a car-sharing program in 2016.

“Customers in crowded cities may be re-evaluating vehicle ownership, but they still want to go places,” Barra wrote. “We’re testing shared mobility programs around the world that use smartphone apps — based on our 20 years of connectivity expertise with OnStar — to connect communities of customers with transportation, and we’re getting ready to launch our citywide car sharing programs in the US next year.

Carmakers are now exploring opportunities in car sharing.Source:AP

TECH THAT HELPS YOU DRIVE

High-tech driver assists are making their way to more mainstream vehicles. As an example, Nerad noted that new cars are equipped with lane-keeping technology, as opposed to just warning lights when a car begins to drift out of its lane. Active cruise control is another feature that is making its way into more models.

“All automated driving technology is going to be very important next year, and we’re going to see more sophisticated systems,” Nerad said.

GM is taking another step toward driverless cars with the 2016 Cadillac CT6, which will combine lane-keeping technology and active cruise control. The company’s creation, called Super Cruise, will enable the CT6 to virtually drive itself on highways.

According to Koslowski, consumers can expect to see advanced automated features trickle down to mainstream segments.

“A lot of these technologies are being democratised,” he said. “Consumers will start to see more self-driving capabilities in the cars they can buy.”

Koslowski mentioned automated parking as one feature that is spreading to more cars. The 2016 BMW 7-series will be the first production car that can park itself without anyone in the driver’s seat. Owners will be able to use their key fob to help direct the new BMW into a garage or parking spot.

courtesy;Make news.com

Read »

some Tech Predictions for the Year Ahead

When it comes to tech, I have been known to diss entire years. But I’m confident 2016 is going to be different. The year ahead won’t be a cake walk, but it will be wild and fun, in a way that tech has struggled to be for some time.

Prediction 1: There will be blood.

If you think the so-far minor adjustment in the valuations of private tech companies has brought them in line with reality, I have some hot pre-IPO shares in online retailer Jet.com to sell you. This coming year will be when many winners and losers in startups are sorted to their proper places. The true unicorns and decacorns—startups valued at more than $1 billion and $10 billion—will vacuum up even more cash, while many other companies will see their valuations get slashed.

This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it is a great thing: the markets at work. If there is a flaw in this system it is that the market for shares in pre-IPO startups is relatively illiquid and there is limited information available about the true performance and potential of these companies.

If the analysts with the unenviable task of seeing through the smoke and mirrors of slide decks and new money from nontraditional investors manage to do their job, a whole bunch of big-name startups are going to take a haircut.

But that is just the beginning. Some startups could cease to exist in their current state in 2016. Whole sectors are ripe for flameouts and consolidation, like food delivery, ad tech and fintech, or financial technology. The lesson of the last tech bubble is that creative destruction isn’t just for incumbents; the volume of friendly fire in the advance of the “new” new economy is substantial. From the wreckage of these startups will come the warm bodies and hard-earned lessons that build the next tech giant.

Prediction 2: Some other tech titan will buy a media property.

It is a common myth that the builders of tech fortunes want to replace traditional media. As Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg once said, one of his goals is to create the world’s greatest newspaper. And who’s going to provide the content for it? How about Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post and Jack Ma’s South China Morning Post?

There have been so many acquisitions in media this year that the pickings are getting slim, but the same egos that drive CEOs to conquer whole industries demand the kind of influence that can only be achieved when you’re buying ink—or pixels—by the barrel.

Prediction 3: Predicting the future will become embarrassingly easy.

Prediction algorithms—the fruits of big data—have become so ubiquitous that we take them for granted. They are how the most sophisticated lenders know you are a good risk, and they are the reason weather forecasting is now better than ever. As the code behind these algorithms and the knowledge required to use them diffuses, we are fast entering a world in which the only barrier to divining usable predictions about the behavior of many parts of a business—from its inner workings to the behavior of customers—is gathering the right kind of data.

This doesn’t mean CEOs can ask for crystal balls to predict anything they wish. The tricky thing about big data is that you never know what factors will be predictive of a desired outcome. But if your business isn’t employing the glorified actuaries known as data scientists, you might want to ask yourself if you can afford to get eaten by competitors who are.

Prediction 4: You are going to develop a love/hate relationship with virtual reality.

Just in time for the holidays, Samsung Electronics Co. released the first pretty good, relatively affordable, consumer-grade VR system—the Gear VR. Unfortunately, it only works with Samsung phones, but a raft of other devices are coming to market in early 2016, from Oculus, HTC Corp. and others. Even if you aren’t an early adopter, you probably know someone who is, which means 2016 is the year many of us will have our first experience with VR.

Let’s not mince words: VR is awesome. It is also very likely to be nauseating or at least a little disorienting, an effect that hits most folks sooner or later when they wear the headsets. You are going to try a game in VR and want to stay there for hours—but, depending on how sensitive you are, you might not be able to do that. Unfortunately, that is likely to be the state of VR for the foreseeable future.

Prediction 5: Tech predictions are worth what you pay for them.

This year I almost wrote a column about how all the graphs that analysts publish about the future market for X or the likely outcome of Y are generally laughably wrong in hindsight.

Technology is a game of unpredictable disjunctions rather than straight-line growth or deceleration. So keep that in mind the next time a confident numerical prediction comes across your screen—just because it comes with a graph doesn’t make it any more valid than any other set of assumptions.

That said, given how bullish I am about data analytics as a competitive advantage, who am I to argue with Michael Dell when he says big data will be the next “trillion dollar” industry? He didn’t offer a timetable, so we don’t have to figure out the x-axis on that graph until his prediction is a foregone conclusion.

Read »

Free Download Manager 5.1 ships with new interface

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
 2

Free Download Manager 5.1 Beta is the latest version of the popular software program for the Windows operating system. The new version changes things around quite a bit as it ships with a new interface, no support for Windows systems prior to Windows 7, and a revamped software engine.

The new version will replace the previous version of the program, version 3.9.7 when it is released as a stable version in the near future

Download Managers are quite the useful tools even in times of Megabit and Gigabit connections. Probably the two biggest advantages they offer over downloading directly using a web browser or other program are that they use multiple connections to a server to increase the overall download speed, and that they support resume.

I used Free Download Manager last year to download a ROM file from a -- very slow -- Chinese server. The browser's download speed to the file was less than 40 Kb/s, that of the download manager almost 1600 Kb/s.

Free Download Manager 5.1

The new Free Download Manager 5.1 changes the interface of the program in significant ways. When you launch the new version for the first time you see less buttons, less tabs, and less information through and through in the interface.

The interface itself has been modernized, but it comes at the cost of functionality. While you can still add downloads to the program easily, either directly by using one of the included browser add-ons, by pasting urls or by dragging them, some features are less practicable then before.

For instance, to tag a file you need to create the tag first, then right-click on the file to tag it. Tags are displayed at the top and not in a sidebar as they were before, and space is more limited there because of this.

Filters, which were displayed in the -- now removed -- sidebar in previous versions, are now displayed as a menu in the right upper corner of the interface. It takes two clicks now to switch between filters where it tool one before.

The developers are still working on the program though, and note that some features are still to be added before release. This includes the import of history from FDM3, making sure RAM use stays low in all situations, and making sure the UI stays responsive if lots of downloads (400+) are listed in it.

The program ships with new features, like preview thumbnails for downloads, options to select files that are part of torrents to download only those, and additional shortcut keys like Ctrl-v to paste download links in the interface.

Windows XP and Vista users won't be able to use the Free Download Manager 5.1 as it is not compatible with those operating systems. XP users need to stay on version 3.9.4, the latest supported version, while Vista users on version 3.9.7 instead.

Since updates are not enforced, it is not necessary to upgrade to version 5.1 of the download manager when it comes out. Users who prefer the older interface can continue to use it. It is unclear right now however if browser integration remains supported, considering that most browsers require add-ons to be signed to be installed.

Read »

Facebook Inc. founder, Mark Zuckerberg,  on Monday fired another salvo in the company’s marketing blitz for its controversial Free Basics Internet service that has faced opposition in India, home to the world’s largest offline population.

In an opinion piece published in the Times of India, the country’s biggest-selling English-language daily, Mr. Zuckerberg defended his company’s Free Basics service, which provides free, but limited, Internet access.

He compared Free Basics to a library—which houses only a selection of books—as well as to public healthcare and education.

Free Basics allows users to access a small number of Web services without charge.

The service has been criticized by people who say it violates the principle of net neutrality, a concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.

They say that Free Basics violates this by offering some services for free, giving them an advantage over competitors.

Critics also say that Facebook acts as a gatekeeper for Free Basics, permitting some services, while rejecting others.

Controversy over the service led Indian regulators to ask Reliance Communications, Facebook’s Free Basics partner in India, to suspend it temporarily this month.

Mr. Zuckerberg said that India’s progress depended on providing Web access to the 1 billion Indians without it.

The social network’s founder wrote in his piece, titled “Free Basics Protects Net Neutrality,” that the service “is a bridge to the full Internet and digital equality.”

“Who could possibly be against this?” he added.

For the past few weeks, Facebook has blanketed India in advertisements designed to bolster support for Free Basics. Two-page ads in Indian newspapers have asked people to dial a 1-800 number to “support digital equality.”

On Facebook, Indian users are prompted to sign a letter supporting the service, which is then emailed to the Indian regulator. And, on video-sharing site YouTube, a banner ad urges people to watch a pitch for Free Basics.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will decide whether Free Basics and similar services are legal in early January.

Read »

The New Trend of Indian Girls Publicly Shaming Men on Facebook!

Read »