16-29 February 2020 The Asian Independent

20 16-02-2020 to 29-02-2020 TECHNOLOGY
www.theasianindependent.co.uk
Hacker creates new device that can unlock any luxury car
Mumbai, In the wake of the novel
coronavirus outbreak, sales of smartphones
in China may decline 20 per
cent in the first quarter of this year,
according to an estimate by
Counterpoint Research on Thursday.
While companies like Huawei,
OPPO and Vivo could suffer the most
due to this decline, the impact may be
limited on smartphone makers like
Xiaomi, OnePlus and Realme as they
are more online-centric and overseasfocused
. The novel coronavirus
(COVID-19), which originated in
China s Wuhan area in December 2019
has impacted social and production
activities in the country.
To curb the spread of the coronavirus
epidemic, the Chinese government
issued a strict travel ban on January 24
following which retail and commerce
activities slowed sharply, Counterpoint
said. Demand-wise, we see the market
getting impacted severely. We estimate
more than a 50 per cent YoY (yearonyear)
decline in offline smartphone
sales during the lock-down period.
Therefore, we have lowered our sales
forecast 20 per cent for Q1, Brady
Wang, Associate Director at
Counterpoint Research, said in a statment.
The situation may worsen and
we may lower our forecast even more
depending on the February sales. The
plummet in Q1 is likely to generate a
surge in channel inventories and further
influence shipments and new products
launches through Q2, Wang said. The
coronavirus outbreak has led to the
death of over 1,300 people in China.
Huawei group is likely to suffer as
China has accounted for over 60 per
cent of its total smartphones sales.
OPPO and Vivo will also be impacted
San Francisco : A hacker named
"EvanConnect" has developed a
device which helps users break into
any luxury car that uses a wireless
key fob system.
He named the device "keyless
repeater" which he sells for $9,000
and demonstrated that how it works
in a video which he released recently.
The video shows him approaching
an unattended car which belongs to
his friend who gave him permission
to use it and using the small handheld
device with an antenna to unlock the
driver’s side door of the car and start
the engine, dailymail.co.uk reported
CORONAVIRUS : Now,
Nokia-maker HMD Global
withdraws from MWC
New Delhi, HMD Global, the
maker of Nokia-branded smartphones,
on Wednesday announced it
was withdrawing from the Mobile
World Congress (MWC) due to the
outbreak of coronavirus (2019-
nCoV).
HMD Global has been carefully
monitoring the situation following
the outbreak of Covid-19. After much
deliberation, we have decided to cancel
our participation at MWC Barcelona,
2020, the company said in a statement.
We believe the prudent decision is
to cancel our participation at MWC and
want to express our sincere thanks to
the GSMA and other authorities for
their tireless efforts to address the challenges
resulting from Covid-19, and
they have our full support as they move
forward, the company added.
Meanwhile, MWC organiser and telecoms
lobby GSMA is going to hold a
meeting on Friday to decide on the fate
of the world s biggest tech event.
According to a new report coming
out of Spain, GSMA is holding a meeting
on Friday, February 14, to decide
the fate of MWC 2020, GSMArena
reported on Tuesday.
Cisco and Facebook have become
the latest big tech firms to drop out of
the world s largest mobile industry
exhibition. Both the companies have
joined the growing list of companies
including LG electronics, Ericsson,
Nvidia, Sony, Amazon, Intel, Vivo, and
NTT Docomo to not attend the mobile
trade show.
Chinese health authorities on
Wednesday said it received reports of
2,015 new confirmed cases of novel
coronavirus infection and 97 deaths
from 31 provincial-level regions and
the Xinjiang Production and
Construction Corps.
With this, the overall confirmed
cases on the Chinese mainland has
reached 44,653 by the end of Tuesday,
and 1,113 people died of the disease.
Sennheiser launches new headphones at Rs 29,990
New Delhi, German audio brand Sennheiser on Wednesday launched its new
headphones PXC 550-II for Rs 29,990 in India.
PXC 550-II is built to offer the best in class audio for both music and calls.
This headset has been created to provide unrivalled experience of sound quality
and wireless freedom to its consumers on the go, Kapil Gulati, Director,
Consumer Segment, Sennheiser Electronics India, said in a statement.
The PXC 550-II is the right blend of superior comfort, style, elegance and
sound output. This extraordinary headset is going to revolutionise the way we
experience sound as well as ambient noise and will be taking the audio experience
to the next level, he added. According to the company, the new headphone
is upgraded with Bluetooth 5.0 compatibility and support for the high-quality
AAC codec. Alongside aptXTM support, these enhancements help to deliver
uncompromised sound quality. It features a Voice Assistant button that offers
convenient, one-touch access to voice assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant
as well as Amazon Alexa, and also features a triple microphone array that makes
it easy to stay connected while on the move.
because of their greater reliance on
offline sales channels. The influence on
sales of Xiaomi, OnePlus and Realme
will likely be less severe as they are
more online-centric and overseasfocused,
Flora Tang, Research Analyst
at Counterpoint Research, said.
As Apple announced a shutdown of
its offline stores across China until
February 15, the company could face a
sales loss of about one million units of
iPhones.
Apple s new product development
plans will also be affected as engineers
from the USA and Taiwan cannot travel
to China. The iPhone SE2 set for a late
March launch is likely to have troubles
in ramping up volume due to the insufficient
labour force in Foxconn s
Zhengzhou factory, Mengmeng Zhang,
Research Analyst at Counterpoint
Research, added.
on Friday.
In the video, he admits there is no
guarantee as to how his customers
might use the device.
He said in an interview that his
device works on all luxury cars
except for those that use frequencies
between 22 and 40 khz, such as
Mercedes, Audi, Porsche, Bentley
and Rolls Royce models released
after 2014. Additionally, he also mentioned
about the upgraded version of
the same for $12,000 which can
unlock any car that uses a wireless
fob system.
"Honestly I can tell you that I have
not stolen a car with technology, it is
very easy to do, but the way I see it,
why would I get my hands dirty when
I can make money just selling the
tools to other people," he said. Samy
Kamkar, a security expert Vice after
reviewing EvanConnect’s footage,
said the keyless repeater technology
is commonly known in the field.
"I ca not validate that the video is
legitimate but I can say that it is 100
per cent reasonable (I have personally
performed the same attack on more
than a dozen vehicles with hardware
I’ve built and very easy to demonstrate),"
the report quoted Kamkar.
Unwanted contact, sexting among
top online risks in India: Microsoft
NEW DELHI : Unwanted contact, unwanted sexting, hate speech, trolling
and being treated meanly are the top five online risks in India which has seen
a dip in digital civility, according to a new research from Microsoft. The
results which were released in conjunction with the international Safer
Internet Day on Tuesday revealed that 45 per cent of those who faced online
risks knew the perpetrators. Among teenagers, 71 per cent faced a risk, while
81 per cent worry risk will happen again, said the study, adding that social
media sites are the most common online space for risks.
However, 67 per cent of those surveyed said that they believe technology
and social media companies will create tools and policies that will encourage
respectful and civil behaviour. In the Microsoft Digital Civility Index (DCI),
a measure of the tone and tenor of online interactions as reported by consumers
in 25 countries, India fared poorly in 2019. A higher DCI score means
lower perceived civility.
The India DCI Index increased 12 points to 71 per cent in 2019 the highest
in four years, the results showed. The report, based on the views of 12,520
adults and teenagers questioned across 25 countries including India, showed
that physical appearance and politics are the primary drivers of online incivility,
with 31 per cent of all respondents pointing to both of these two topics
as problematic. Sexual orientation was close behind at 30 per cent, while religion
and race came in at 26 per cent and 25 per cent respectively, Jacqueline
Beauchere, Global Digital Safety Advocate at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.
The top five for online civility were the UK, the Netherlands, Germany,
Malaysia and the US. Those with the lowest online civility readings were
Vietnam, Russia, Colombia, Peru and South Africa, the research showed.
China smartphone sales may decline 20% in Q1: Counterpoint