May 2019

www.theasianindependent.co.uk
Samsung India to install 40
ONYX Cinema LEDS by 2022
New Delhi : Samsung India,
which installed its fourth 4K
ONYX Cinema LED screen in
Bengaluru on Thursday, aims to
introduce 35-40 such Cinema
LED displays at movie theatres
across the country by the end of
2022. “We started with the
ONYX Cinema LED journey in
Delhi and Mumbai and now
we’re entering the south India
market, which we foresee as a
strong market for Samsung. Our
primary focus will be around
metro and other Class A cities,”
Puneet Sethi, Vice President,
Consumer Electronics Enterprise
Business, Samsung India told
IANS. The technology was originally
introduced by the company
in 2017 and the first screen
was installed in Korea. “There is
huge potential in India and we
want to convert at least 20 per
cent of the screens to Cinema
LED over the next decade. We
will offer innovative solutions to
consumers in India and transform
their overall cinema viewing
experience,” Sethi added.
The ONYX screen is 3D applicable,
with active 3D technology
for all 618 seats in the Bengaluru
theatre.
The South Korean tech major
installed the first such screen at
PVR in Delhi last year. After
that, it partnered with INOX to
bring the ONYX experience in
Mumbai and with Cinepolis in
Delhi. According to the company,
the installation of one LED
screen roughly requires 8-10
weeks. The 4K LED screen
comes with comprehensive solutions
such as “Onyx View”,
“Onyx 3D” and “Onyx Sound”.
The display has HDR (High
Dynamic Range) to the cinema,
showcasing on-screen contents
at peak brightness level, nearly
10 times greater than that offered
by the standard cinema projectors.
“Since the beginning, cinemas
have been powered by projector
based systems. ONYX
Cinema LED is the next generation
of cinema viewing. This theatre
in Bengaluru — Swagath
Onyx Theatre — incorporates a
14-metre Cinema LED screen,
which is the largest in the
world,” said Sethi.
The ONYX display accommodates
any venue configuration
and aims to deliver an
unmatched visual quality, technical
performance and reliability
over traditional projectors, the
company claimed.
TECH
Bangladesh court
seeks mobile towers
radiation report
Dhaka : A Bangladesh court has directed the
country’s telecom regulator to submit a report on
the impact of radiation from tens of thousands of
mobile phone towers.
The court issued the order following a writ
petition seeking the court’s directive to the regulator
for measures to minimize radiation impact
on people and the environment, reported Xinhua
news agency. The Bangladesh Telecom
Regulatory Commission (BTRC) was given four
months to submit the report. Human Rights and
Peace for Bangladesh, a local rights body, filed
the petition as a public interest litigation with the
court following reports that the towers have been
emitting radiation detrimental for human health.
Bangladesh’s mobile phone operators have
currently over 35,000 towers. The total number
of Bangladesh’s mobile phone subscribers
reached over 158 million at the end of February
with the addition of 1.449 million new users in
the first two months of this year, statistics from
the country’s telecom regulator showed.
Washington : Aimed at effective disaster
management, NASA and its international
partners are planning to participate
in an exercise that will play out a realistic
— but fictional — scenario of an
asteroid on an impact trajectory with
Earth. The scenario begins with the fictional
premise that on March 26,
astronomers “discovered”
a NEO
they consider potentially
hazardous to
Earth.
After a “few
months” of tracking,
observers predict
that this near-Earth
object (NEO) –
dubbed 2019 PDC –
poses a 1 in 100
chance of impact
with Earth in 2027
(in real life, the international community
has decided that a 1 in 100 chance of
impact is the threshold for action).
Participants in this exercise will discuss
potential preparations for asteroid reconnaissance
and deflection missions and
planning for mitigation of a potential
impact’s effects, NASA said.
Scientists believe that these exercises
can help people in the planetary defence
community to understand what those on
the disaster management side need to
know. “This exercise will help us develop
more effective communications with each
May 2019
19
NASA planning asteroid
impact exercise next week
other and with our governments,” Lindley
Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defence
Officer, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Better communication of the hazards
posed by NEOs such as asteroids or
comets has been a top priority for international
groups, such as NASA’s Planetary
Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), the
European Space
Agency’s Space
Situational
Awareness-NEO
Segment and the
International
Asteroid Warning
Network (IAWN).
Developed by the
NASA Jet
Propulsion
Laboratory’s Center
for NEO Studies
(CNEOS), the asteroid
impact exercise next week is scheduled
to take place at the 2019 Planetary
Defense Conference to be held in the US
from April 29 to May 3. NASA’s PDCO
and other US agencies and space science
institutions, along with international partners,
will participate in the exercise, the
US space agency said. Next week’s exercise
events will occur over the five days
of the conference, with exercise leaders
briefing participants on the status of the
scenario at the end of each day and soliciting
response ideas and feedback, based
on the latest fictional data, NASA said.