Covering The Multicultural Asian American Community in Georgia
www.gasiantimes.com August 15-31, 2017
Popular robots are dangerously easy to hack, say researchers
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August 15-31, 2017 Georgia Asian Times
Georgia Asian Times August 15-31, 2017
Publisher: Li Wong Account Manager: Adrian West Contributors: Andrian Putra, May Lee, Mark Ho Photographer: Ben Hioe
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GAT Calendar of Events GAT welcome submission of announcement pertaining to community related events. Please email event, date, venue, and time to gat@gasiantimes.com. GAT does not guarantee insertion of event announcement and has the right to deny any posting.
Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival-Atlanta Date: Saturday, Sept 9, 2017 Time: 7:00 am -6:00 pm Venue: Lake Lanier Olympic Kayaking Center, Gainesville, Georgia For more info: DragonBoatAtlanta.com 2017 JapanFest Date: Sat-Sunday, Sept 16-17, 2017 Time: 10:00 am - 6:00 pm; 10:00 am5:00 pm Venue: Infinte Energy Center For more info: www.japanfest.org 13th Atlanta Asian Film Festival Date: Oct 13-28, 2017 Venues: Georgia State University-Dunwoody, Georgia Gwinnett College For more info: www.ATLaff.org
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August 15-31, 2017 Georgia Asian Times
METRO ASIAN NEWS
Metro Atlanta adds 78,300 new residents in the past year TECO Atlanta senior officials pay courtesy visit to Gwinnett County Duluth, August 21, 2017 — Representatives from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office Atlanta (TECO) visited senior Gwinnett officials at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce. Director General Vincent Liu pays a courtesy call on Chairman Charlotte Nash, Gwinnett County’s Board of Commissioners with senior members of his staff. “We are pleased to pay a courtesy call on Gwinnett County to mutually develop a closer working relationship,” said Director General Vincent Liu, who assume his position in January 2017. Taiwan currently has over 18 companies operating in Gwinnett County ranging from information technology to distribution and supply chain warehousing centers. “We would like to continue our economic ties with Taiwan and we remain an attractive destination for Taiwanese companies to operate in the Southeast region,” said Chairman Charlotte Nash
Atlanta, August 1, 2017 — The 10-county Atlanta region added 78,300 new residents between April 2016 and April 2017, according to annual population estimates released today by the Atlanta Regional Commission.
in her remark at the meeting. Dr. Dan Kaufman, President of Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce and Mr. Nick Masino, Chief Economic Development Officer of Partnership Gwinnett, also joined in the meeting.
The fastest growth occurred in the region’s suburbs, led by Cherokee and Henry counties. The city of Atlanta continued its recent growth spurt, sparked by a surge in multi-family housing units.
Taipei City and the City of Atlanta will reach a milestone in 2019 with the 40th year anniversary of their Sister City relationship, according to Director General Vincent Liu.
The region’s population grew at a faster rate than at any time since the Great Recession, increasing by 1.8 percent, compared to 1.6 percent (69,800) a year earlier. The Atlanta region is now home to 4,480,100 people, more than that of 24 states.
TECO Atlanta plan to include Gwinnett as part of the celebration which would include major cultural performances by major performing groups from Taiwan. Both parties further discussed common areas to cooperate especially in arts, sports, and business chambers.
“Metro Atlanta offers a world-class quality of life along with one of the nation’s best business environments,” said Kerry Armstrong, ARC board chair. “It’s a winning combination that has fueled tremendous growth in recent years.” Jobs growth fueled the region’s population boom. Metro Atlanta added jobs at the fastest rate in the nation – 3.3 percent – in the past year.
Each of the region’s 10 core counties experienced population growth during the past year. Fulton County led the way, adding 17,100 residents, followed by Gwinnett County (16,900) and Cobb County (12,800). Cherokee and Henry grew at the fastest rate over the past year, at 3 percent and 2.4 percent respectively. The city of Atlanta added 9,900 new residents in the past year, compared to 7,900 last year and 4,800 the year before. Long-term trends show that the outer suburbs have led the region’s growth. Cherokee on the saw its population grow by 15 percent between 2010 and 2017, tops in the region. Henry followed closely behind with a population increase of 12 percent. Meanwhile, the city of Atlanta, which had been steadily losing population for several decades until the 2000 Census, grew by 7 percent between 2010 and 2017.
Georgia Asian Times August 15-31, 2017
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August 15-31, 2017 Georgia Asian Times
BUSINESS
McDonald’s to shut 169 outlets in India New Delhi, Aug 21, 2017 — McDonald’s said Monday it is shutting 169 restaurants in India after a legal row with a local franchise operator.
With a population of 1.25 billion, more and more of whom have the money to eat out, India is an attractive market for foreign fast-food firms.
The fast food chain’s Indian subsidiary said it was terminating its agreement with Connaught Plaza Restaurant Ltd (CPRL), alleging breach of contract and payment defaults.
But foreign operators must have a local partner to operate and the process can be highly bureaucratic, with restaurants needing an average of 50 licences to operate.
The move means all McDonald’s outlets in north and east India including the capital New Delhi will close, although the company said it would look for a new partner. McDonald’s outlets will remain open in south and west India, where it uses a different franchise operator. “We have been compelled to take this step because CPRL has materially breached the terms of the respective franchise agreements relating to the affected restaurants,” the company said in a statement. McDonald’s shut over 40 of its restaurants in Delhi in June after they failed to renew their eating house licenses, a police registration to operate a place of public entertainment. The fast food restaurant market in India is worth some $1.5 billion and growing at around 15 percent a year, according to Delhi-based consulting firm Technopak.
Major multinationals such as Coca-Cola and McDonalds were effectively locked out of India until as late as the mid-1990s before the government began to open up the economy. Executives at CPRL could not immediately be reached for comment. Company chief Vikram Bakshi told the Press Trust of India news agency that CPRL was considering what legal recourse was available. “This is a completely contemptuous, malafide and yet another oppressive act indulged in by the McDonald’s,” Bakshi was quoted as saying. Bakshi has been locked in a legal battle with McDonald’s global management since he was ousted as the managing director of the joint venture in 2013. Last month an Indian tribunal restored Bakshi as the managing director and ordered the American food chain to pay him one million rupees ($15,590).
Japan economy posts longest expansion in over a decade Tokyo, Aug 14, 2017— Japan’s economy grew 1.0% in the April-June period, notching up its sixth straight quarter of growth and its longest economic expansion in over a decade, government data showed Monday. The growth in Japan’s GDP — 4.0 percent at an annualized rate — blew past market expectations for a 0.6% rise, and was well up from a 0.4% expansion in the first quarter, according to figures from the Cabinet Office. The better-than-expected figure came on the back of robust domestic demand and capital spending, which offset a decline in exports. Private consumption picked up 0.9% in the second quarter — individual spending accounts for more than a half of Japan’s GDP. The world’s number three economy has been picking up steam, with investments linked to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics also giving growth a boost. The labour market is tight and business confidence is high. Consumer spending had remained tepid, however, and efforts to lift inflation have fallen flat despite years of aggressive monetary easing by Japan’s central bank.
The latest reading nonetheless means Japan’s economy has had its best string of gains since 2006, during the tenure of popular former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. Still, Monday’s figures are good news for the current prime minister Shinzo Abe — whose brief and underwhelming first term as Japan’s premier came directly after Koizumi. A string of short-term leaders followed before Abe swept back to power in late 2012 on a pledge to reignite Japan’s once-booming economy with a plan dubbed Abenomics. The scheme — a mix of huge monetary easing, government spending and reforms to the economy — stoked a stock market rally and fattened corporate profits. Japan has been struggling to defeat years of deflation and slow growth that followed the collapse of an equity and property market bubble in the early nineties.
Georgia Asian Times August 15-31, 2017
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August 15-31, 2017 Georgia Asian Times
BUSINESS
New Nokia 8 phone targets surging demand for video-streaming Helsinki, Aug 17, 2017 — HMD Global, the Finnish start-up looking to reinvigorate the Nokia phone brand, unveiled the Nokia 8 on Wednesday, hoping to cash in on rising consumer demand for high-quality audio and video features. The Android device, due out in September, will potentially beat rivals on price but will still face fierce competition, with Apple’s highly anticipated 10th anniversary iPhone also expected next month and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 set to hit the market next week. With a suggested price tag of around 599 euros (US$703), the Nokia 8 undercuts Apple, which typically offers a stripped down version of its latest phones for a similar price but charges hundreds of euros more for memory and key features. The new top-of-the-line Nokia sports a dual-sight video feature which enables simultaneous live-streaming on social media networks from both front and rear cameras on a split screen. It has licensed lens technology from camera maker Zeiss. It is the most high-end phone so far from HMD, which was set up late last year and made a splash in May when it revived Nokia’s classic 3310 feature handset in new brightly colored versions. Other features of the Nokia 8, which will also compete with Huawei’s recently launched P10, include surround-sound audio technology made for Nokia’s own virtual reality camera OZO for Hollywood professionals.
“This is especially meant for millennial creators, people who want to share what’s happening every day,” HMD’s chief marketing officer Pekka Rantala said. HMD products are built by a unit of Foxconn, which acquired the manufacturing and distribution assets of the former Nokia phone business from Microsoft last year. Once the world’s dominant phonemaker, Nokia Oyj sold its handset operations to Microsoft in 2014, leaving it to focus on telecoms network equipment. HMD is owned by Smart Connect LP, a private equity fund managed by Jean-Francois Baril, a long-serving former senior vice president of Nokia. It took over the Nokia feature phones business in December and has a licensing deal giving it sole use of the Nokia brand on all phones and tablets. It has so far launched four smartphones and five feature phones, including the 3310. Rantala said he was happy with initial sales of the previous smartphones, but declined to disclose any sales figures yet. HMD will pay Nokia royalties for the brand and patents. Last month, HMD announced that its CEO Arto Nummela, a former Nokia executive, was leaving the company for personal reasons, without elaborating.
JD.com invests in Indonesia’s Go-Jek amid SE Asia push Hong Kong, Aug 25, 2017 — JD.com Inc has invested in Indonesian ride-hailing startup Go-Jek, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in the latest move by China’s second-largest e-commerce firm to tap growth in Southeast Asian mobile-based services. Go-Jek, whose investors include global private equity firms KKR & Co LP and Warburg Pincus LLC as well as venture capitalist Sequoia Capital, has raised about US$100 million from JD.com, one of the people said. The startup is raising up to US$1 billion from existing and new investors in its latest funding round and has a pre-money valuation of about US$2.5 billion, the person said. The people declined to be identified as the financing plans are not public. JD.com and Go-Jek declined to comment. Indonesia currently accounts for almost all of JD.com’s investments outside China, which include an e-commerce platform and travel startup Traveloka. JD.com’s investment in Go-Jek follows that of Chinese social media and online entertainment firm Tencent Holdings Ltd, which is also an investor in JD.com. Reuters reported last month that Tencent had invested US$100 million to US$150 million in Go-Jek. The people said Tencent is also in talks with Go-Jek for further investment as a strategic investor.
Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Investment in Southeast Asia by some of China’s largest tech firms point to ambitions to boost their presence in a region that many expect to produce the next batch of high-valued tech startups. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing firm, have also been investing in Southeast Asia, home to more than 600 million people and some of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Didi, along with Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T), last month led a US$2.5 billion financing round of Singapore-based Grab, one of Go-Jek’s biggest rivals in Southeast Asia. Go-Jek, which began as a ride-hailing app for motorcycle taxis, mainly operates in Indonesia, the region’s most populous country, which has grown to be a large potential market for Grab and Uber Technologies Inc. Amid fierce competition in ride-hailing, Go-Jek is also developing food delivery business that a separate person said yields a much higher margin than car-hailing. Its mobile payment business, Go-Pay, is growing rapidly as it is complementary with other Go-Jek offerings, the person said. People close to the matter previously told Reuters that Go-Jek aims to close the current funding round in the third quarter.
Georgia Asian Times August 15-31, 2017
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LIFESTYLE
Buying online? Highly-reviewed doesn’t always mean highly-rated, say researchers Los Angeles, Aug 23, 2017 — Researchers from Stanford University, California, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Indiana University, Bloomington, were intrigued to find out how people use information available online, including first-hand reviews, when making internet purchases. They first looked at real products available on popular shopping site Amazon.com, and found that there was no relation between the number of reviews a product had and its average rating, suggesting that a large number of reviews is not a reliable indicator of a product’s quality. With this in mind, they set out to see how people would use both the review and the rating to choose a product. In the first online experiment, the team asked 132 adult participants
to look at a selection of phone cases, presented in pairs, each with an average user rating and total number of reviews. The team asked the participants to indicate which case from each pair they would buy. Across various combinations of average rating and number of reviews, participants routinely chose the option with more reviews, even when both options had low ratings, therefore choosing the product which statistically speaking, should be lower quality. “[F]aced with a choice between two low-scoring products, one with many reviews and one with few, the statistics say we should actually go for the product with few reviews, since there’s more of a chance it’s not really so bad,” explained lead author Derek Powell.
“But participants in our studies did just the opposite: They went for the more popular product, despite the fact that they should’ve been even more certain it was of low quality.” The team then carried out a second online experiment with the same procedure, which showed similar results. “We found that people were biased toward choosing to purchase more popular products and that this sometimes led them to make very poor decisions,” commented Powell. According to him, these findings have direct implications for both retailers and consumers, and could help consumers make better choices. “Our data suggest that retailers might need to rethink how reviews are presented and consumers might need to do more to educate themselves
about how to use reviews to guide their choices.” The findings were published online in the journal Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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EVENTS
August 15-31, 2017 Georgia Asian Times
TECO Atlanta visit to Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, Aug 21, 2017
Georgia Asian Times August 15-31, 2017
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ENTERTAINMENT
Bruce Lee’s toughest fight immortalized in film On a crisp December evening in 1960s California, two men near the peak of their powers locked horns in a battle that would go down in the annals of kung fu mythology. On one side was a scrawny 24-yearold monk, newly arrived from eastern China, who exuded reserve and modesty despite being one of the fabled Shaolin Temple’s most skilled grand masters. On the other: a brash, street-smart fighter of Chinese heritage but American birth — also 24 — who was about to announce himself as the most iconic proponent of unarmed combat in history. “Birth of the Dragon,” which hits theaters on Friday, showcases that epic face-off between Wong Jack Man and Bruce Lee, attempting to shine a light on a secretive and mysterious encounter that changed kung fu. The handful of witnesses have never agreed on exactly what went down at Lee’s gym in Oakland that night — not the length of the confrontation, nor exactly how many people saw it, nor even who won. What is undisputed is that the encounter transformed Lee’s approach to kung fu, setting him on the path to becoming “The Dragon,” a global superstar who introduced the until-then obscure martial art to world. “My father owns a martial arts school and he has a friend that was actually one of the witnesses,” said Chinese-American action star Philip Ng, 39, who plays Lee and believes it was he who triumphed. “I heard his story and it contradicts some of the stuff that I read. I have my beliefs and my hypothesis about what
happened in the fight but one thing that is definite is the fact that after this fight, Bruce Lee evolved his fighting methodology.” Arrogance Set against the backdrop of 1964 San Francisco, “Birth of the Dragon” takes its inspiration from the classic movies Lee is known for, such as “Fist of Fury” and the posthumously released “Enter the Dragon.” Legendary Shaolin monk Wong (Xia Yu), arrives in San Francisco to observe the state of kung fu in America and is immediately seen as a threat by Lee, who challenges him to the legendary duel. Ng decided Lee was too well known for a straight-up impersonation to work, and instead created his own version, anchored on the fighter’s distinctive Hong Kong and “1960s San Francisco hippy slang” accent. The actor was born after Lee’s mysterious death from cerebral edema at the age of just 32, but believes he has been preparing, mostly unwittingly, to play the master his entire life. Ng — a prolific kung fu movie star in his own right — became proficient in Lee’s Wing Chun style in his native Hong Kong under Wong Shun Leung, the man credited with training Lee. “He told me a lot of stories about Bruce Lee growing up, outside of kung fu and movies — things you can’t read in books,” said Ng. “And working in Hong Kong for the last 15 years in action movies, I’ve met a lot of people over the years who were close to Bruce.”
Lee was noted for his generosity and sense of fairness, but George Nolfi’s movie invokes an arrogant yet gifted upstart who annoyed the Chinese masters with his insistence on teaching kung fu to Westerners and disrespecting its traditions. Lee’s big idea “He was definitely confident, but you have to be confident to the point of cockiness, because the ideas that he was talking about were very revolutionary and very controversial at the time within kung fu,” says Ng. Lee’s big idea — that style doesn’t matter, that it’s all about winning — has been vindicated, says Ng, by the emergence of mixed martial arts as a lucrative spectator sport. Despite being an expert in Wing Chun, a style emphasizing punches which is particularly devastating at close quarters, Ng says the central fight in “Birth of the Dragon” was the toughest he had ever filmed. “I’ve made about 40 movies and TV
shows altogether in Hong Kong if you add up my resume. I’ve never filmed a fight like that. It’s a 500 move fight — 500 moves! The most moves I’ve done maybe is 300,” he said. Lee’s widow Linda, now 72, describes in her 1975 book “Bruce Lee: The Only Man I Knew” how the fight was far too close in her husband’s opinion, causing him to abandon Wing Chun. He went on to invent his own style, Jeet Kune Do, a dazzlingly choreographed mix of many kung fu styles that made him a movie star and popualarized the previously obscure martial art of kung fu. Wong — who always insists the victory was his — later expressed regret over agreeing to fight Lee, putting his acquiescence down to youthful arrogance. He went on to teach the Northern Shaolin style in San Francisco before retiring in 2005. Thought to be 77, he now lives in relative obscurity, the only man alive who knows for sure who won the fight that changed kung fu.
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August 15-31 2017
Georgia Asian Times
LIFESTYLE
Millennials in the driving seat “Millennials are delaying major life decisions, such as getting married and having kids, but today they are the largest generation of homebuyers in the market,” said Dr. Svenja Gudell, chief economist at Zillow. And now that they are buying homes, they’re making suburban life, having children, and owning a vehicle that can accommodate this lifestyle switch in other words, an SUV a big priority. All of which means that they are the first generation to copy rather than do the opposite of their parents. “The SUV may put to rest the old truism that ‘no one buys what their mother drove,’” explains Chris Bangle, one of the most influential and respected car designers of his generation, who now runs his own consultancy.
“If she drove a sedan; her kids wanted a wagon; their kids wanted a mini-van, and their kids switched to a SUV. But maybe we have either run out of alternatives in terms of vehicle concepts or the SUV is just so appealing even your kids will want one.” Ford’s data shows that the oldest Millennials and youngest members of generation X (35-44-years-old) are most likely to favor a medium-to-large SUV as their car of choice and, as Millennials as a demographic outnumber Gen Xers by roughly 15 million, Ford forecasts that yet another wave of increased demand for family-sized SUVs is coming as younger Millennials hit their 30s. However, Millennials are breaking with tradition in one respect. Accord-
ing to a 1000 respondant survey commissioned by Mini in the US and also published this week, younger drivers want to be able to express their individuality and personality via their car.
Mini’s study found that 21% of Millennials put a car’s safety rating as a high priority when choosing which car to buy, and 42% name cost as a major factor.
Twenty-one percent said that when it comes to choosing a car, they want as many options as possible for personalizing its look and feel, while 39% said that the car they currently drive was specified or optioned so that it was more reflective of their tastes and personalities.
Whatever the motivation, it looks like the SUV is set to become the most popular car on the road. According to industry forecasts, by 2024 SUVs and crossovers will represent 45% of all new cars sold in the US alone.
As for the continued move towards the SUV or crossover, though every major manufacturer now has several such cars in its lineup so that choice has never been greater, it could also be the perception of security offered by a larger car that’s driving demand.
Georgia Asian Times August 15-31, 2017
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SPORTS “It was a very tough game,” he admitted. “But I am already looking forward to tomorrow’s match. The win has helped make me more confident after my recent injury because my season so far has been about recovery.” China’s Lin Dan is doing it the hard way in his bid for a sixth men’s singles victory. For the second day in succession, the 33-year-old had to come from behind and spent a grueling 81 minutes on court before overcoming England’s Rajiv Ouseph 14-21, 21-17, 21-16.
Chinese teen stuns top seed Yamaguchi at worlds Glasgow,August 26, 2017 — China’s Chen Yufei announced herself as a new star of international badminton on Thursday when she knocked out Japan’s top seed Akane Yamaguchi in the third round of the world championships. The 19-year-old reigning world junior champion shocked the Japanese favorite with a straight games 21-18, 21-19 victory and now meets Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon in the quarter-finals. In the second game, Chen clawed her way back from 11-14 behind, winning six points in a row and then claimed: “This is the greatest result of my career. “It was one of my goals this year to beat Akane and now I have achieved it. I am very excited and so happy. “In the middle of the second game I started to make some mistakes. But then I got myself together. I came to these Championships with several goals. This was the biggest one. “Now I am just going to take it day by day. I am really looking forward to the quarter-final.”
Akane, the world number two, was desperately disappointed. “I am very sad,” she admitted. “I made too many errors but she played well.” South Korean second seed Sung Ji Hyun also made a shock exit losing to India’s Saina Nehwal 21-19, 21-15. Newhal had surgery on her knee after a disappointing Olympic Games and now admits she was in agony for the most of last year. “But now I’m trying to forget about pain,” she said. “Today was extremely tough. I have beaten her in the past, but she has been so consistent this year. I am absolutely delighted to get through to the quarter-finals.” In the men’s singles, top seed Son Wan Ho needed three games to overcome Thailand’s Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk and set up a quarter-final against India’s Kidambi Srikanth. The world number one from South Korea was on court for over an hour before going through 21-14, 17-21, 2113.
“It was tough,” admitted Dan, who won the last of his five titles in 2013. “He started so quickly and it took a while for me to get a hold of the situation. “I also started slowly yesterday, but I am just doing my best. I think I am improving in each round.”
Viktor Axelsen, the top European hope, cruised into the quarter-finals with a 21-13, 21-18 victory over Hong Kong’s Ng Ka Long. India’s Pusarla Sindhu won the longest singles match of the championships so far. The Indian fourth seed beat Hong Kong’s Cheung Ngan Yi 19-21, 23-21, 21-17 in one hour 27 minutes. Meanwhile, defending champions Chen Long and Carolina Marin, who are also the 2016 Olympic gold medallists, both cruised through to the quarter-finals. China’s Chen beat India’s Ajay Jayaram 21-11 21-10 and Marin ousted the final unseeded player in the women’s event, Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark 21-7 21-11.
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August 15-31, 2017 Georgia Asian Times
SPORTS
Vettel to stay at Ferrari till 2020 Hamilton equals Schumacher record with 68th pole Spa-Francorchamps, Aug 26, 2017 - Lewis Hamilton roared to a record-equalling 68th career pole position on Saturday, matching Michael Schumacher’s record in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix. The 32-year-old three-time world champion will start Sunday’s race, the 200th of his career, from his sixth pole this year with Germany’s championship leader Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari alongside him in second. Hamilton’s lap in 1min 42.553sec was the all-time record fastest at the spectacular Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the forests of the Belgian Ardennes, 0.242 seconds quicker than Vettel. The 68th pole position for the Mercedes driver drew him level in the record books with seven-time champion Schumacher whose congratulations were conveyed to him immediately afterwards by former Ferrari and Mercedes technical director Ross Brawn. Briton Brawn, who guided Schumacher to all seven of his titles with Benetton (two) and Ferrari (five), hugged Hamilton on the track and said he had a special message. “I am here to deliver a special message from the Schumacher family who want to congratulate you on equalling Michael’s record,” said Brawn. “He always said records are there to be beaten and they want to say a special thanks.” Hamilton, who appeared to be visibly moved with emotion, said: “First, a big
shout to the fans here – I can’t believe it. A big thank you to my team. “Ross was a big part of that. This is one of my favorite circuits so to put a lap together like that is like a dream. “To hear that message which Ross just gave… a big thank you. “I pray for Michael and his family all the time. “I have always admired him and I still do today. I am honored to be there with him now on the pole positions, but he will still be one of the greatest of all time.” Schumacher suffered severe head injuries in a skiing accident at the end of 2013 and has been in prolonged private recuperation at his family home in Switzerland since then. Vettel, who Ferrari said Saturday has signed a three-year contract extension, secured his front-row spot with a late and dramatic lap for Ferrari. He leads Hamilton by 14 points with nine races remaining this year. Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas of qualified third ahead of Finnish compatriot Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari, Dutchman Max Vestappen and his Red Bull team-mate Australian Daniel Ricciardo. German Nico Hulkenberg was seventh for Renault ahead of Mexican Sergio Perez and his Force India teammate Frenchman Esteban Ocon and Briton Jolyon Palmer, who was 10th for Renault after an engine failure.
Spa-Francorchamps, August 26, 2017 — World championship leader Sebastian Vettel will stay with Ferrari until 2020 after agreeing a three-year contract extension, the Italian team announced on Saturday. In a statement that ended weeks of speculation over the future of the fourtime champion German, Ferrari said it had “extended its technical and racing agreement with driver Sebastian Vettel for the 2018, 2019 and 2020 racing seasons.” It had been widely rumored that the 30-year-old German was flirting with the possibility of joining Mercedes, a prospect dismissed on Friday by his title rival Lewis Hamilton. The announcement came as little surprise to paddock observers, even if the timing was unexpected. Ferrari usually make their driver announcements at their home Italian Grand Prix at Monza, scheduled for next weekend. The three-year extension ties in with Ferrari’s own contract with Formula One that runs until 2020 when the team will seek to negotiate new terms for its participation with the sport’s new US owners Liberty Media. Vettel’s original contract with Ferrari was scheduled to run to the end of this season, a situation that allowed him to use possible talks with other teams as leverage in his negotiations to stay. However, given the team’s resurgent form this year -– he was second behind team-mate Finn Kimi Raikkonen, who has re-signed for 2018, in the third free practice on Saturday morning -– there has been little doubt that he would remain with the Italians.
Mercedes admit approach Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda revealed on Saturday that discussions had taken place with Vettel, but they did not go far. “We discussed it briefly once with him, but the more competitive Ferrari goes, the less the reason he would want to leave,” Lauda told Sky Sports F1. “So therefore we stopped right away a couple of months ago. “I think every driver, if he’s clever, talks to more than one team. Then when you negotiate you’re in a better position. That’s what he did.” The duration of his new contract will keep Vettel out of the driver market beyond d 2019 when a hectic spell of activity is expected in the sport with Dutchman Max Verstappen, still only 19, likely to become available unless his current Red Bull team become serious title contenders. Raikkonen’s extension for just one year signals also that Ferrari may swoop for Verstappen or any other rising star to partner Vettel in 2019. Following Ferrari’s announcement, it is now expected that Mercedes will extend Finn Valtteri Bottas’s contract. He was signed on a one-year deal for this year as a replacement for retired 2016 champion Nico Rosberg. Both Red Bull drivers Verstappen and Australian Daniel Ricciardo are under contract until the end of next year, as is Hamilton with Mercedes.
Georgia Asian Times August 15-31, 2017
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HEALTH ‘Good’ cholesterol might not be as good as we think, say researchers ly low levels of HDL in the blood. Those with medium levels of HDL in the blood had the lowest mortality. For men, this level was 1.9 mmol/L. For women, it was 2.4 mmol/L.
Copenhagen, Aug 24, 2017 — It has long been thought that a high level of “good” cholesterol in the blood, also known as HDL, is better for health. However, new European research is challenging this belief, suggesting that those with extremely high levels of good cholesterol have a higher mortality rate than people with normal levels. Carried out by researchers from the University of Copenhagen, the study looked at data for 116,000 subjects from the Copenhagen City Heart Study and the Copenhagen General Population Study, in combination with mortality data from the Danish Civil Registration System. Participants were followed for an average of 6 years, and the study was based on just over 10,500 deaths. From the mortality rate based on these deaths and medical information on the participants, the team found that for men with extremely high levels of HDL in the blood, the mortality rate
was 106 per cent higher when compared to those who had normal levels. In addition, men in the next group, with very high levels, also had a 36 per cent higher mortality rate.
Previous US studies have also shown similar correlations between levels of HDL cholesterol and excessive mortality but in specific population groups. This is the first time excessive mortality has been shown in a more general population.
For women with extremely high levels, the mortality rate was 68 per cent higher.
However, because the study only looked at a statistical correlation between mortality and HDL levels, it doesn’t give any reasons why those with extremely high or low HDL levels have higher mortality.
However, the team also found excessive mortality for people with extreme-
Though it may prompt more questions than answers, study author Børge
Nordestgaard noted that “These results radically change the way we understand ‘good’ cholesterol. Doctors like myself have been used to congratulating patients who had a very high level of HDL in their blood. But we should no longer do so, as this study shows a dramatically higher mortality rate.” Professor Nordestgaard now believes that we need to adjust our thinking about levels of good cholesterol, commenting that, “It appears that we need to remove the focus from HDL as an important health indicator in research, at hospitals and at the general practitioner. These are the smallest lipoproteins in the blood, and perhaps we ought to examine some of the larger ones instead. For example, looking at blood levels of triglyceride and LDL, the ‘bad’ cholesterol, are probably better health indicators.” The results can be found in the European Heart Journal.
New study suggests caffeine could help stop post-op pain New American research has found that for patients who suffer from sleep deprivation before surgery, caffeine before the operation could be an alternative way to reduce post-operative pain associated with a lack of sleep. Previous research has shown that a lack of sleep both pre- and post-op can worsen pain after surgery. This new study from the Department of Anesthesiology at Michigan Medicine set out to see if there were any interventions that could help minimize the effect of sleep loss and reduce the severity of pain experienced after surgery. The team focused on caffeine as a potential treatment, which may seem surprising given that caffeine is a stimulant to increase alertness. “Most people would be confused
by the idea of using caffeine while we insist on the dangers of not getting enough sleep,” noted study author Giancarlo Vanini, M.D.
caffeine pre-emptively, before the sleep deprivation, would block the increase in postoperative pain caused by this lack of sleep.
However, as caffeine blocks the actions of the sleep-inducing neurotransmitter adenosine, causing us to feel more awake, the team proposed that caffeine might counteract the negative impact of sleep deprivation on surgical pain.
The results showed that sleep deprivation before surgery did indeed increase postoperative pain, and also extended recovery time after surgery.
“Insufficient sleep enhances pain perception, so we reasoned that caffeine might also be useful for reversing the increase in pain caused by sleep loss,” Vanini said. The team used a rat model of surgical pain to test whether sleep deprivation before surgery would increase postoperative pain, and whether being given
However, as the team hypothesized, caffeine helped mitigate the negative effects of insufficient sleep prior to surgery, blocking the increase in surgical pain. Vanini explained that caffeine’s positive effect may be due to its role in blocking neurochemical changes caused by sleep deprivation in the brain areas that control sleep and wakefulness, and are connected to major pain-related areas.
“These results are relevant because sleep disorders and insufficient sleep are highly prevalent problems in our society,” he added. “Additionally, often times patients travel long distances during the night or early morning before being admitted into the hospital for elective surgery. In one way or another, most patients do not get adequate sleep before surgery.” The team now plan to carry out more research to better understand caffeine’s effect on reducing pain in surgical patients. The results are online in the journal Sleep.
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August 15-31, 2017 Georgia Asian Times
Misc Asia
Meet Lulu Hashimoto, the ‘living doll’ fashion model Tokyo, Aug 24, 2017 — Meet Lulu Hashimoto, a “living doll” and the latest trend in Tokyo’s fashion modeling scene. Lulu – a full-body doll suit consisting of a wig, a mask and stockings patterned with doll-like joints – was born from one woman’s desire to become cute. “I have always really liked dolls and for me, the epitome of cuteness is dolls,” said the 23-year-old fashion designer Hitomi Komaki, who created Lulu. Dressing up as a mascot, called “kigurumi” in Japanese, is a popular art form in Japan. Komaki has taken it to a new level by creating a body suit that looks like a doll and lets you move like a human. “Many people call my project a fetish, but for me it’s not a fetish but
fashion,” she said. “It’s like wearing nice clothes or putting on false eyelashes to become cuter.” There is only one Lulu body suit, Komaki said, but dancers, designers and models are among those who have worn the costume. The identity of exactly who is inside is secret, she added. The stockings worn by Lulu were created by fellow fashion designer Koh Ueno, who airbrushes doll-like joints onto the material. “I want to see women wear these stockings and transform,” said 29-year-old Ueno. “I want them to experience the extraordinary – to become otherworldly, artificial, or like a doll,” he said. While popular among fans of Japa-
nese subculture, Lulu is now turning heads at the annual Miss iD beauty pageant where she is among the 134 semi-finalists chosen from around 4,000 entrants. The pageant, which includes “non-human” characters generated by artificial intelligence and three-dimensional computer graphics for the first time, will announce a winner in November. Lulu’s ability to blur the line between reality and fiction has mesmerized fans on social media, where the Lulu Twitter and Instagram accounts have
drawn tens of thousands of followers. “I find it miraculous that dolls and humans – two things that exist in different planes – are standing in the same space,” said Erika Kato, 24, who met Lulu for the first time at a recent fan event. The possibility of wearing a suit and becoming Lulu also appealed to fans like 22-year-old Miu Shimoda. “I’d like to be a beautiful girl like Lulu at least once in my life,” she said.
Georgia Asian Times August 15-31, 2017
Page 17
Misc Asia Made in Khmerica: The US-raised Cambodians deported to a foreign home Battambang, Aug 24 — Guzzling beer and pizza as hip-hop blasts from a stack of speakers, Kookie’s thoughts drift back to America, a country that took him in as a child refugee from Cambodia but deported him to the kingdom years later for a criminal record. Returning to the US is just a dream for the heavily tattooed Kookie and his fellow exiles, who are among hundreds of Cambodian refugees banished from the US after serving time for gang shootouts and other crimes committed as youths in America’s tough inner cities. “We don’t remember s*** (about Cambodia), really our minds is Americanised,” said 41-year-old Kookie, one of seven so-called “Khmericans” shooting the breeze around a table in Cambodia’s rural Battambang province. “I’m here just in my body. My heart is over there,” Vuthy Ing chimed in, eliciting nods of agreement from a group whose American street slang, elaborate inkwork and US-bred bulk sets them apart in their new home. In between profanity-laced banter, the men sketch out emotionally raw stories of dislocation that span Thai refugee camps, gang violence in the US, prison and deportation back to one of Asia’s poorest countries. They are now back in the same rice fields their parents fled to escape Pol Pot’s genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. But it is not a happy homecoming for the returnees. They have been severed from their families and cast into the cultural wilderness of a country that views them as outsiders. “It’s hard to adjust because (locals)
After years of languishing in Thai refugee camps, more than 100,000 Cambodians were granted asylum in the US. America’s embrace of the refugees was in part an act of atonement for carpet bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War, destruction that helped set the stage for the Khmer Rouge’s rise. But life in the US was no fairy tale for the traumatised refugees shunted into its crime-ridden cities.
look at us as different... they say us is like a reject: ‘You got a chance to go to America, why you get deported?’” explained Kookie, a charismatic Californian whose full name is Leach Chhoeun. Cambodia has taken in 566 deportees since inking a 2002 pact with the US that opened the trap door on thousands of legal residents who had blots on their criminal records. Authorities now want to revise a deal seen as a form of “double punishment” for deportees, many of whom were booted out years after finishing their prison sentences. But unpicking the agreement is unlikely with President Donald Trump talking tough on immigration and immigrants with criminal pasts. Twenty-eight Cambodian deportees have arrived since the start of the year, with some 2,000 others currently on the deportation list. “Now that Trump is in The House, nothing is gonna change,” said Kookie, pouring another round of beer. Asian Boyz The Khmericans were newborns and toddlers when their families fled through mine-strewn jungle to escape the Khmer Rouge, which killed or starved to death nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population.
As teenagers, many were swept into the gang wars barrelling through their poor urban communities in southern California, Massachusetts and Washington State through the 1980s and 90s. Banding together became a means of survival in a world where gangs were cut along ethnic lines and anti-Asian sentiment festered following the Vietnam War. “They all picked on us so we had to stick together for protection,” said Kookie, a former member of the mainly Cambodian street gang, the Asian Boyz. The group was established in southern California in the 1970s, luring up to 2,000 members by 2009, according to the FBI. Many Cambodian refugees never thought to apply for full citizenship after they were granted permanent resident status in the US. It wasn’t until years after they arrived, in 1996, that the US passed laws mandating deportation of non-citizens with a criminal record. Some were put on planes straight from prison. Others were picked up years after they had served their sentences and turned their lives around. “I was out for a long time. I had kids, 18 and ten years old,” says Kookie, who was deported in 2014 for a shootout with a rival gang nearly two decades earlier.
‘The struggle is real’ The Cambodian government does not provide support for the returnees, who arrive with few belongings and a poor grasp of the local language. Most are shuttled through the Returnee Integration Support Centre (RISC), an NGO that provides temporary housing in the capital and helps with job training. From there, their paths branch out. Some draw on their native English skills to land teaching gigs, remarry and start over in small businesses. Others struggle to find their feet in an impoverished, graft-riddled country where employers are suspicious of their tattoos and chequered pasts. “We had an individual who couldn’t adjust to the new life so he hung himself,” says Kem Villa, of the US-funded RISC. “Another one jumped off a bridge.” Battambang, a western province bordering Thailand, has become a hub for returnees who trickle back to the countryside to stay with distant relatives. Van Vath, a soft-spoken 43-year-old from Seattle, has led the camaraderie among the group since he arrived in 2015, bringing them together for pizza and monthly bible readings. “When I was young I was bad. Now I’m doing good. It was a whole flip for me,” he told AFP, reaching a hand to the fading ink of a prison tattoo scrawled across his neck. “I’m trying to get this removed for job opportunities,” he explained. Van has been working as a translator for Habitat for Humanity, a US-based volunteer group. But the work is irregular and the pay is not enough to live on. “The struggle is real,” he said. “You know the term dog-eat-dog world? This is really it.”
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August 15-31, 2017 Georgia Asian Times
TECHNOLOGY
Popular robots are dangerously easy to hack, say researchers New York, Aug 23, 2017 — Some of the most popular industrial and consumer robots are dangerously easy to hack and could be turned into bugging devices or weapons, IOActive Inc said. The Seattle-based cybersecurity firm found major security flaws in industrial models sold by Universal Robots, a division of US technology company Teradyne Inc. It also cited issues with consumer robots Pepper and NAO, which are manufactured by Japan’s Softbank Group Corp, and the Alpha 1 and Alpha 2 made by China-based UBTech Robotics. These vulnerabilities could allow the robots to be turned into surveillance devices, surreptitiously spying on their owners, or let them to be hijacked and used to physically harm people or damage property, the researchers wrote in a report released yesterday. Universal Robots’s devices are designed to work directly alongside humans without being confined to a cage for safety, as with many other industrial models. But IOActive was able to remotely hack the software that controls the robot and disable key
safety features. This could result in them being programmed to injure the humans around them. This is particularly worrying, IOActive said, because these machines are large enough and have enough power that “even running at low speeds, their force is more than sufficient to cause a skull fracture.” With the robots intended for home use — SoftBank’s Pepper and NAO — IOActive found that cyberattackers could use them to record audio and video and secretly transmit this data to an external server. UBTech’s Alpha series home robots did not encrypt sensitive information they captured before storing or transmitting it, opening an avenue for cybercriminals to potentially steal important personal information, IOActive said. As with the Universal Robots machines, these home robots could also be made to carry out physical attacks. Although they are much less powerful than the industrial models from Universal Robots, IOActive released a video of a test in which an otherwise cute NAO robot suddenly begins laughing in an evil and maniacal way and uses a screwdriver to repeat-
edly stab a tomato. While the video is clearly intended to be humorous, IOActive’s researchers said it had a serious intent: One could imagine the robot potentially launching a similar attack against an infant, toddler or pet.
abilities in March but withheld the specific techniques used to hack into the software that controls the robots in order to give manufacturers time to fix flaws. Yesterday, the cybersecurity firm made technical details of the hacks public.
“If we know about these vulnerabilities, chances are that we’re not the only ones,” Lucas Apa, principal security consultant at IOActive, wrote in an e-mail.
“We contacted all the vendors in January but sadly there’s little to suggest that the 50-plus vulnerabilities we demonstrated have been fixed,” Apa said. “Most vendors were not forthcoming when we contacted them in private, so going public was the only option left available to us.”
Universal Robots spokesman Thomas Stensbol said the company was aware of IOActive’s report. “We have a constant focus on our product improvement and industrial hardening for the sake of our customers,” he wrote in an e-mailed statement. “This includes monitoring any potential vulnerability, not just cyber-security.” He said the company’s products “undergo rigorous safety certification.” SoftBank spokesman Vincent Samuel said the company was aware of IOActive’s findings and had already fixed all of the vulnerabilities the cybersecurity firm discovered. UBTech didn’t respond to requests to comment on IOActive’s findings. Apa said that IOActive had not been able to confirm that SoftBank had issued patches for all of the vulnerabilities it found. IOActive issued an initial report highlighting many of these vulner-
Apa said the intent was to make the public aware of the risks and prod the manufacturers to fix the security flaws. He said IOActive wanted to highlight the need for robotics companies to think about cybersecurity at every stage of their design process. “These are early days for the robotics industry, but as it grows, we want to make sure it has a more secure future,” he said. — Bloomberg