INTERNATIONAL news
ZEEKR 001 breaks two Guinness World Records
ZEEKR’s luxury all-electric 001 vehicle has broken the record of fastest electric vehicle drift car and the fastest electric car slalom. More than 160km/h was needed to break the record. The maximum speed of the car is 207.996km/h. The vehicle weaved between 50 cones equally spaced and completed the course, without touching or knocking any down, in 49.05 seconds.
Motional’s Robotaxi debuts in Las Vegas
A joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Motional has started the ride service of the free ‘Robotaxi’ IonIq 5 in Las Vegas. The Lyft app is providing the ride-ordering facility for this self-driving cab, making it the first fully electric autonomous vehicle (AV) on its platform.
Sceye rises to stratosphere with HAPS
Sceye, a high-altitude platform stations (HAPS) manufacturer, has successfully reached the stratosphere while using renewable energy sources. This has put Sceye on a roadmap to expand wireless connectivity to remote locations, monitor greenhouse gas emissions accurately to individual emitters, and detect natural calamities as they begin. The company also announced test flights for q3 and q4 of 2022.
Hyundai and Kia partner for moon exploration
After the recent successful launch of Korea’s domesticallydeveloped rocket in June, the Hyundai and Kia companies’ joint venture and research agreements with six Korean research institutes is to form a consultative body that will design and develop mobility solutions to explore the surface of the moon. The required resources will be provided by Hyundai and Kia’s robotics lab. The companies are also expected to collaborate on software and hardware development and design, space environment response technology, and equipment to conduct missions on the moon.
IoT core service of Google Cloud to shut soon
As per the announcement, Google Cloud’s IoT Core Service will be discontinued from 16th August 2023, after which access to the IoT Core Device Manager APIs will no longer be available.
Customers can opt for any alternate service in the meantime. Apart from Google Cloud, such IoT services are provided by their close competitors like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.
Intel’s CPU delay throws off TSMC’s plans
Due to TrendForce recently enunciating on the chip market and supply chain, Intel has postponed the Meteor Lake CPU production, 1H23. This led to TSMC cancelling its 3nm product manufacturing plan for 2023. However, according to an Intel announcement, it would produce 2nm chips on its own starting in the year 2024, which makes it an unlikely scenario that the company will use TSMC’s 3nm wafers.
IIC and ISA announce IoT security maturity model
The Industry IoT Consortium (IIC) and the International Society of Automation (ISA) announced the IoT Security Maturity Model (SMM): 62443 Mappings for asset owners, product suppliers, and service suppliers. This SMM helps compare the current target state with the target security state. With repeated comparison, organisations can identify where they can make further improvements. The ISA/IEC 62443 standards focus on maturity, but only on the maturity of security programs and processes.
CamGraPhIC raises funds for photonics
Cambridge University’s innovation CamGraPhIC recently raised £800,000 from Wealth Club clients via an enterprise investment scheme. overall, the company has raised over £1.26 million via an equity crowdfunding round from existing investors and new ones led by Frontier IP and Wealth Club. In the previous funding round, it raised £1.6 million in September, totalling the overall investment and company valuation at £7.2 million.
Littelfuse acquires C&K Switches
Littelfuse has acquired C&K Switches—a manufacturer of electromechanical switches and interconnect solutions. This acquisition enables the former to deliver comprehensive solutions. The latter has annualised sales of over $200 million and will be reported within the company’s Electronics reporting segment. The transaction has been financed through a combination of available cash and debt.