Garmin launches MARQ luxury smartwatches in India: Price, specifications

The battery life of the MARQ series ranges from up to 12 days in smartwatch mode, 28 hours in GPS Mode and up to 48 hours in UltraTracTM mode.

Business Standard : US-based wearable major Garmin Thursday launched six new smartwatches under its premium luxury watch collection The MARQ, starting at Rs 141,990. The new collection features variants such as MARQ Driver, MARQ Athlete, MARQ Aviator, MARQ Captain and MARQ Expedition.

The smartwatches feature sunlight-readable display with GPS capabilities, built-in music storage, smart notifications, daily activity tracking, heart rate and Pulse Ox2 sensor.

The battery life of the MARQ series ranges from up to 12 days in smartwatch mode, 28 hours in GPS Mode and up to 48 hours in UltraTracTM mode.

Here are the features:

MARQ Driver

The watch comes with over 250 preloaded global racetracks. The MARQ Driver is built for the racing enthusiast and comes equipped with auto lap splits, live delta time and a track timer. The Track Timer lets the user time cars at the race track and calculate average speed. MARQ Driver also features a hybrid bracelet - a titanium shell on the outside with a soft inner material. Treated with a highly durable carbon gray DLC (Diamond like Carbon) coating, it makes the watch virtually resistant to scratches.

MARQ Athlete

The MARQ Athlete is an ultralight titanium watch with silicone strap, and geared towards serious athletes. The watch includes advanced running dynamics including V02 max and recovery time scale - right on the bezel. Additionally, watch tracks workout stats, measure progress and fine-tune form, and Pulse Ox for oxygen levels in the body.\

MARQ Aviator

The watch is created for aviation enthusiasts, the MARQ Aviator features a swept-wing design, and includes aviation maps and advanced safety features such as the NEXRAD Weather Radar, airport information and Garmin cockpit integration. A mirror-polished 24-hour GMT bezel give pilots quick access to two other time zones in addition to the current time, as well as the airport code on the watch face.

MARQ Captain

MARQ Captain is a regatta timer enhanced with GPS technology, advanced nautical and smart features including a regatta timer bezel, coastal charts, tack assist and a port conditions watch face to help mariners. The watch face display the current wind speed, temperature and tide information, allowing the mariner to decide if conditions are right for a day on the water.

Vikram had hard landing; NASA releases images of Chandrayaan 2 landing site

Vikram was scheduled to touch down on September. 7. This event was India's first attempt at a soft landing on the Moon.

NASA on Friday released high-resolution images captured by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) during its flyby of the lunar region where India's ambitious Chandrayaan 2 mission attempted a soft landing near the Moon's uncharted south pole, and found Vikram had a hard landing.

The Vikram lander module attempted a soft landing on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters before losing communication with ISRO on September 7.

"Vikram had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined, NASA said.

The scene was captured from a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Quickmap fly-around of the targeted landing site image width is about 150 kilometres across the centre.

Vikram was scheduled to touch down on September. 7. This event was India's first attempt at a soft landing on the Moon. The site was located about 600 kilometres from the south pole in a relatively ancient terrain, according to the US space agency.

The LRO passed over the landing site on September 17 and acquired a set of high-resolution images of the area; so far the LROC team has not been able to locate or image the lander.

LRO will next fly over the landing site on October 14 when lighting conditions will be more favourable, John Keller, Deputy Project Scientist Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission, Goddard Space Flight Centre, told PTI via email.

"It was dusk when the landing area was imaged and thus large shadows covered much of the terrain; it is possible that the Vikram lander is hiding in a shadow. The lighting will be favourable when LRO passes over the site in October and once again attempts to locate and image the lander," NASA said.

Business Standard

India should integrate AI with education to become world leader: Sikka

Last month, at the request of PM Modi, Sikka gave a presentation before the NITI Aayog how to expand the reach of AI to the Indian society in a very big way.

Business Standard : Former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, who has announced a new AI startup with $50 million fund, believes India has the potential to become a world leader in artificial intelligence but the key to this is integrating AI into the country's education system in a massive way.

India is at "an inflection point" when it comes to AI or artificial intelligence, Sikka said.

Over the next 20-25 years, AI is going to be "a very, very big disruptor" for the Indian society because what one is seeing now in terms of automation and job losses because of automation is just the beginning, said Sikka, who announced his startup Vianai Systems last week.

"But on the other hand, if we are able to bring AI education, the ability to build AI systems to India at a very large scale, and I'm talking about like billion plus people, then India can really leap frog and become the world's leader in artificial intelligence, in AI skill and AI talent," Sikka told PTI in an exclusive interview.

Doing that requires working on multiple dimensions in parallel, he said.

Last month, at the request of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sikka gave a presentation before the NITI Aayog how to expand the reach of AI to the Indian society in a very big way.

Representatives of some 20 Union ministries were present during his presentation on AI and India. This, he said, required creating necessary infrastructure to bring the talent through institutions, schools and educational institutions, the ability to do AI education at a large scale.

According to Sikka, the prime minister said he personally saw whenever classes worked into digital classrooms, he was joking that children would sometimes even forget to eat their lunch because they were so engrossed in learning. "It was very encouraging. But I think a lot of that has to be done," he said and suggested multi-faceted countrywide programme like digital classrooms.

If India does nothing then this great wave of AI is going to have massive disruption over the next 20 years. But on the other hand, if it puts together programmes then this can be a huge advantage for it and "we can be a leader in the world," he said.

PM Modi tells investors 'come to India' to aid $5 trillion GDP goal

"India is waiting for you," PM Modi told political and business leaders at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged global businesses to “come to India” as his government seeks to build a $5 trillion economy by 2025.

His address to chief executives at a summit in New York comes less than a week after India delivered a $20-billion tax-cut stimulus to help shore up the $2.6-trillion economy that’s growing at the slowest rate in six years amid 45-year-high unemployment.

“India is waiting for you,” Modi told political and business leaders at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum. “India is the only destination for you.”

Competitive Rates

Modi, who met energy company CEOs in Houston, is meeting more than 40 major companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp., American Tower Corp., Mastercard Inc. and Walmart Inc. at the forum hosted by Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

“Just recently we have decided to considerably reduce corporate tax,” Modi said, calling the move revolutionary. “If you want to invest in a market where there’s scale, come to India.”

The cut in corporate tax rates puts India on par with some of the lowest in Asia to help the south Asian nation compete with the likes of Vietnam and Indonesia for investments in the midst of ongoing global trade tensions. Attracting investments is key to revive economic growth and put the nation on the path to becoming a $5-trillion economy by 2025.

The cropped tax rates are the latest in a series of steps announced by the government, including easier foreign investment rules for companies from Apple Inc. to Huawei Technologies Co. to BHP Group Plc, to revive economic growth from the weakest pace since 2013. With $3 billion in foreign direct investment from American companies last year, the US is the fourth largest investor in the Indian economy.

Infrastructure creation is expanding at an unprecedented pace, with highways, metros, railways, ports, airports being built, Modi said. “Each sector is seeing massive investment and tremendous potential.”

Business Standard

At 6%, UN body projects 7-year low GDP growth for India in 2019

The UN body also pointed towards challenges in meeting sustainable development goals (SDGs) at a time when private debts are rising globally.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has pegged India’s economic growth rate at a seven-year low of 6 per cent in calendar year (CY) 2019. It also highlighted the pitfalls of shadow banking in countries such as India and China, citing the example of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS).

The UN body also pointed towards challenges in meeting sustainable development goals (SDGs) at a time when private debts are rising globally.

India’s economy grew 7.4 per cent in CY18. It grew below 6 per cent in 2012 — called the policy paralysis year — under the UPA 2 government.

“Growth projections for India have been marked down because of a sharp fall to 5.8 per cent in the first quarter of CY19 (relative to the corresponding quarter of the previous CY),” said UNCTAD in its trade and development report for 2019.

It should be noted that UNCTAD did not take into account an over 6-year low economic growth rate of 5 per cent that the country recorded during the second quarter of CY19.

Highlighting the risks of shadow banking, it said such institutions were fragile alternatives to public banks and development finance institutions, as the roles of the latter were reduced or done away with, as part of liberalisation.

Quoting a study, UNCTAD said an example of this development was Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), which sourced capital using short-term instruments such as commercial papers (CPs) to fund long-term investments.

This maturity mismatch did not prove to be a problem initially, because of the presumption that being a government-sponsored entity, it enjoyed sovereign guarantee.

Owned one-third by state-owned financial entities, IL&FS was one of the largest issuers of CPs and enjoyed a triple-A credit rating.

However, by August 2018, it suffered a series of bond defaults by group entities, leading to a change in management, legal proceedings, and a painful restructuring of the company that is still in progress, UNCTAD said.

The report also highlighted concerns over SDGs. It said these concerns were compounded by the dizzying rise in debt levels to a scale similar to those seen before the financial crisis.

Business Standard

Why boys and girls use tech differently? Here's the likely reason

Emerging research indicates that brain differences between males and females help account for the split.

Business Standard : Many parents of both boys and girls have witnessed striking differences in the way their kids use technology, with their sons generally gravitating to videogames and their daughters often spending more of their screen time scrolling through social media.

Emerging research indicates that brain differences between males and females help account for the split.

“It is entirely plausible from a neurological perspective that there’s an underlying biological component to this difference people are seeing,” said Larry Cahill, a professor of neurobiology and behavior at the University of California, Irvine, who has spent two decades researching gender differences in the brain.

In this column I’ve chronicled the aggression some boys exhibit when they have to shut off videogames and transition to other activities, as well as the problems some young men face when they go to college and have to juggle game time and school work without mom and dad’s help.

That led some readers to question why girls don’t appear to be having these problems. Of course, girls have issues of their own, such as smuggling “burner” phones to keep up with forbidden social media accounts. It’s just that when it comes to videogames, most girls seem to have a better handle on when to stop.

According to a 2017 survey conducted by Pew Research Center, 41 per cent of teenage boys said they spend too much time playing videogames while only 11 per cent of girls said they do.

Marc Potenza, a psychiatry professor at Yale University, teamed up with researchers at universities in China to find out why. Using functional MRIs, which measure brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, the team studied neural responses in young male and female gamers, particularly in the parts of the brain associated with reward processing and craving—a motivating factor in addiction. When the men and women were shown photos of people playing videogames, those parts of the men’s brains showed higher levels of activation than those parts of the women’s brains.

Brain regions that have been implicated in drug-addiction studies also were shown to be more highly activated in the men after gaming. The researchers said the results suggest men could be more biologically prone than women to developing internet gaming disorder.

How corporation tax cut has made rupee carry trade more lucrative

Going long on the rupee with borrowed dollars offered the best returns in the past month in Asia.

The carry trade for the Indian rupee is getting boosted after a shock $20 billion tax cut by the government.

The corporate tax reduction announced on Friday has spurred $374 million of inflows into Indian stocks in three days, and supported the rupee. That’s adding to the attractiveness of the currency for carry-trade strategies, according to UBS Group AG and Kotak Securities Ltd.

With the world’s pile of negative debt almost doubling to $15 trillion this year, investors are increasingly employing currency-related strategies that allow them to squeeze more yields. Going long on the rupee with borrowed dollars offered the best returns in the past month in Asia.

“The corporate tax cuts are a response to mounting growth pessimism, and should stem Indian equity outflows,” said Rohit Arora, emerging market Asia strategist at UBS. “This, in our view, works well enough for the rupee carry trades and lower volatility in the near-term.”

Carry trades work by investors borrowing in a lower-yielding currency, such as the yen or the euro, and putting the money into one with higher rates. Indian sovereign bonds offer the second-highest yields among major bond markets in Asia.

Still, growing fears of a global recession have dented risk appetite for emerging markets, with returns from purchasing developing nation currencies with dollars easing since July, according to a Bloomberg index. India is also tussling with its slowest growth in six years.

“Domestic risks abated after multi pronged measures to boost growth made rupee a preferred carry currency,” said Anindya Banerjee, a currency analyst at Kotak Securities. Another trade in vogue is shorting the yuan and going long on the rupee to take advantage of the trade tension risks that the Chinese currency faces, he said.

Business Standard