Not only companies or large corporations will use AI, but small shops, households, supermarkets and buildings will also become clients of the technology.
AI (artificial intelligence), together with Big Data, Clouds and Machine Learning, are often mentioned in the 4.0 industry revolution era. With big data to be collected, humans will ‘teach’ machines to provide analyses based on artificial intelligence through the cloud platform.
For instance, a self-propelled airplane with a camera would be able to fly across a large field and take pictures. Experts, after analyzing pictures based on Microsoft’s Azure, could detect areas that need watering.
Pham The Truong, CEO of Microsoft Vietnam, believes that AI will be in every corner of Vietnam in the time to come.
“Unlike IT, which is used by companies and large organizations, AI will squeeze into every corner of life. Small private shops in Vietnam, supermarkets and buildings all can utilize AI,” he said.
AI is useful in the retail industry. 100 cameras installed at a supermarket would allow observation of 1,000 visitors and collect images that serve both security and business purposes.
The cameras, with sensors attached, can recognize faces of the people entering supermarkets, show their age, feelings and behaviors.
While IT has designed systems and people have to learn the software, AI is based on databases, and people will create products to use.
“For example, people have to learn about Microsoft Word and Excel to be able to use the software. With AI platforms, such as Azure, Microsoft provides tool blocks like Lego. People can create different things from Lego blocks with their creativity,” he explained.
There are three commonly used AI types – face recognition, voice recognition and image analysis.
Truong said at a Microsoft meeting in the US, the AI system automatically converted the speaker’s language into many other languages. The machine interpreted with a lag of three seconds.
Truong believes that AI services will be used mostly in Asia Pacific, including Vietnam.
Large Vietnamese technology firms have stepped up research on AI and created AI-based solutions such as e-government, SMAS (a school management software piece), DMS, ONE (the overall solution for managing online sales system), SMMS (the user manual single phase energy meter) and Voffice (an electronic office system).
Hundreds of professors and associate professors give lectures at universities, but many do not conduct scientific research.
A report of the State Professorship Title Council shows that Vietnam has 1,600 professors and 10,000 associate professors, but only 200-300 are researchers.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOËT) said that only 40 percent of professors and associate professors are teaching at schools, while the other 60 percent work as managerial officers at state agencies.
According to Dr Nguyen Ngoc Hieu from the Vietnam-Germany University in HCMC, teaching and researching in Vietnam have no close relations.
About 30 percent of professors teach and do research, and the percentage of professors who teach only is nearly the same.
Hieu said the professors who only give lectures and do not do research exist in many countries.
In Germany, universities are classified into two groups which have different functions and tasks. The lecturers at schools focus on providing knowledge, while schools with community activities are not required to conduct research, but focus on teaching. At application-oriented schools, the professors must be both lecturers and researchers.
In Vietnam, there is no classification of schools, and the functions of the schools remain unclear.
He said that in Vietnam, schools recruit professors/associate professors not based on their real capability and experience, but on degrees. In many cases, schools employ professors/associate professors for unofficial purposes.
Hieu suggested that in Vietnam, since the school classification cannot be implemented, those who give lectures but don’t do scientific research should be considered ‘assistant lecturers’, and should not be given the professor/associate professor title.
Local newspapers cited a report showing that a professor was found working as an instructor for 44 postgraduates in three different majors, while another professor was assigned to instruct 12 postgraduates, and an associate professor was teaching postgraduates at the same time.
To fulfill lecturing and research tasks well, one professor/associate professor has time to instruct only one to two postgraduates.
Associate Prof Dr Nguyen Thien Tong pointed out that there are many problems in the policy. In Vietnam, professor/associate professor is an honourable title.
The titles are given for a lifetime and professors do not belong to one school, but to the nation. Professors not only work for certain schools, but also receive salaries from the State. Even if they no longer teach, and if they leave the schools for state agencies, they will still be professors.
Released on June 12, the latest report from real estate consultants JLL states that Ho Chi Minh City is one of Asia’s most enterprising cities and become home to large clusters of business services, engineering, finance and retail firms, and strong creative industries.
The city is pulling in increasing amounts of investment from large multi-national technology corporations, including Microsoft, LG, Intel and, most notably, Samsung.
It’s also the base of Vietnam’s only tech unicorn – the VNG Corporation.
It is also undergoing rapid real estate development amid increasing demand for office, retail and hotel space, with a new metro system also under construction.
The country’s tallest building, Vincom Landmark 81, is due to open later this year, while the Thu Thiem New Urban Area, a 657-ha site east of the Saigon River, is earmarked to be the new financial district.
Ho Chi Minh City is also in a prime position to benefit from wider national growth. Vietnam is one of the world’s fastest-growing countries, with a large, youthful and increasingly-educated workforce that meets its future talent needs.
Other cities listed include Bangalore in India, Shenzhen in China, Taipei in Taiwan, Guangzhou in China, and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
“Increasingly, cities in emerging economies are becoming key hubs in global networks of innovation and referred to as ‘Enterprisers’,” said Mr. Jeremy Kelly, Director of Global Research at JLL.
“This group of business and enterprise hubs are major places of opportunity and magnets for workers in their country and the wider region.
Usually specialized in higher-value activities, as well as manufacturing, they are among the largest cities in their national economy and have exploited their business climate advantages in recent years.”
As such, he added, they’ve been among the world’s most dynamic real estate markets in recent years and are increasingly on the radar of international real estate investors.
Yet despite their rapid growth, the Enterprisers are also facing a unique set of challenges as they aim to boost productivity and innovation to take their economies to the next level, whether ensuring a strong local talent pipeline, making their land use more efficient, or strengthening their city brand and successfully projecting it to the wider world.
After Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, southern Can Tho city had reported the first confirmed and suspected cases of A/H1N1 bird flu, the provincial Preventive Medicine Center said Wednesday.
According to a report by Dan Tri, a local media channel, an 84-year-old woman patient at the Can Tho General Hospital has been tested positive to A/H1N1 virus, becoming the first confirmed infection case in Can Tho after years of being free from the virus, said the center.
One doctor and two nurses at the hospital have shown symptoms of A/H1N1 infections, after taking care of the old woman. The three medical workers have been isolated for bird flu treatment.
Earlier this month, Ho Chi Minh City reported 28 suspected and confirmed cases of A/H1N1 infection, including 16 confirmed ones.
Of the 28 suspected cases, eight are medical workers at the Tu Du Hospital, a major maternity institution in Vietnam.
According to the World Health Organization, A/H1N1 flu can be transmitted by droplets emanating from unprotected coughs and sneezes, hand contamination, and interpersonal encounters in crowded closed spaces.
In a tropical country like Vietnam, the flu circulates the entire year round, usually reaching several peaks in the rainy season. The A/H1N1 virus causes pernicious respiratory infection.
Vietnam experienced an H1N1 pandemic in 2009, with over 9,000 cases of people contracting the disease and nearly 20 deaths within four months of the year, according to its Health Ministry.
HANOI, June 13 (Reuters) – Vietnam’s Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical is considering the sale of a further stake in the company ahead of a possible listing in April next year on the country’s main bourse, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
The funds would be used for an upgrade of its Dung Quat refinery, aiming to raise capacity to at least 192,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 148,000 bpd now and to allow it to process more types of crude oil.
Chief executive Tran Ngoc Nguyen told Reuters the stake sale, which will follow a $245 million initial public offering in January, would be through a private placement or auction.
The initial sale of a 7.79 percent stake in the refinery was part of the Vietnamese government’s plan to privatise hundreds of state-owned enterprises to boost their performance, relax a tight state budget and reform an economy that is highly reliant on foreign investments.
Shares of the company have been trading on the unlisted public company market, or UPCoM, since March, and Nguyen said they would be listed on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the country’s main bourse, by April next year.
Vietnam’s first refinery, Dung Quat began operations in 2009 and was initially designed to process light sweet crude oil, mostly sourced from the Bach Ho field offshore Vietnam.
The upgrade will enable the plant to process sour crude oil as well, Nguyen said, and will also allow it to produce more petrochemical products.
Binh Son said in a statement on Wednesday that it will select an engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the upgrade next year.
Nguyen said seven companies had registered to bid for the contract, but declined to name them.
Binh Son said in the statement its net profit in the first half of this year was estimated at 2.95 trillion dong ($129 million), about 85 percent of its full-year target. ($1 = 22,810 dong)
Reporting by Mai Nguyen and Khanh Vu; editing by Richard Pullin
Danh Vo’s take on the traditional aromatic soup is, if he says so himself, “getting better than my mother’s.” – NY TIMES Reported.
In “One Good Meal,” we ask cooking-inclined creative people to share the story behind a favorite dish they actually make and eat at home on a regular basis — and not just when they’re trying to impress.
Before he was a famous artist, Danh Vo was a boy growing up in Vietnam. The 1970s weren’t exactly stable in that country, so when he was 4, he and his family fled by boat. They wound up in Denmark, where they held onto their heritage through their food. Instead of candy, Vo and his siblings ate sour mangoes dipped in chili. For meals, they often feasted on pho, the aromatic soup. “In Vietnam,” Vo says, “you eat it for breakfast. You eat it for lunch. You eat it for dinner. You just have a good pot standing there, and you can have it for days. So it’s a very practical thing.”
With all the accoutrements laid out, Vo says, “you cook on the table, basically.”CreditRobert Rieger
Vo’s mother taught him her recipe when he was young, but he has refined it over the decades to suit his evolving palate (cue the grass-fed beef) and restless lifestyle. Now in his early 40s, he makes it in huge quantities, ritually simmering the broth for hours upon hours until the aroma is so overpowering that he has to open the windows of his Mexico City apartment. Then he calls over a bunch of friends and lays out fresh herbs and other accouterments. “You always have the chili, ginger and fish sauce on the side,” he says. “And people do it themselves. So you cook on the table, basically.”
As showcased in his Guggenheim retrospective this spring, Vo’s art focuses on quotidian objects — such as Ted Kaczynski’s typewriter or Robert McNamara’s chair — that gain deep emotional resonance once you appreciate their context. The same might be said about his pho. “I’m very proud of it today,” he says. “I’ve impressed certain people — even Vietnamese. And, actually, my pho is getting better than my mother’s.”
Vo believes pho broth should be clear — and served piping hot. CreditRobert Rieger
Danh’s Pho
For the broth:
∙ 6.5 pounds of beef bone or oxtail (cook’s preference)
∙ 6 roasted whole big yellow onions
∙ 1 cinnamon stick
∙ 3 or 4 star anise
∙ 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
∙ 1 tablespoon salt
∙ ½ teaspoon ginger, roughly chopped and roasted over a flame
∙ ⅓ cup fish sauce (preferably Phu Quoc brand)
1. Clean the bones by covering with boiling water. Drain.
2. Combine all ingredients in a large pot with two gallons of water and simmer on the stove for several hours, periodically skimming the excess foam off the top. You’re aiming for a clear broth. (“After two hours you can eat it,” Vo says, “but the longer it simmers the better it becomes. I think actually the day after is always the best.”) This recipe makes 18 servings; freeze any extra.
For the rice pho noodles:
1. Soften noodles by soaking in cold water. Drain.
2. Add the drained noodles to individual serving bowls and add boiling water. Stir for 10 seconds. Drain.
3. Add very thin slices of raw grass-fed meat to each bowl. Ladle the broth and boiled onions into each individual bowl. Serve very hot.
4. Garnish with cilantro, holy basil, scallions, bean sprouts, fresh chiles de árbol, lemon and roasted ginger.
107 people have been detained for vandalizing government offices and burning cars in Binh Thuan Province – VnExpress reported.
Police in Vietnam’s south central province of Binh Thuan announced on Tuesday they would be launching a criminal investigation into a protest that broke out in the province last Sunday.
The protest, which quickly turned violent when protesters started vandalizing government offices, burning cars and assaulting law enforcement officers, was likely planned in advance, according to Colonel Dao Trong Nghia, deputy chief of Binh Thuan Police.
“Petrol, rocks and bricks were placed beforehand at places convenient for protesters to use against the functional forces,” Nghia said, adding that criminal charges would be brought forward once the police could narrow down the list of suspects.
A total of 28 police officers were injured while attempting to maintain order since the protest started on Sunday, according to the province’s authorities. Protesters also damaged the provincial People’s Committee building, set fire to 12 cars and smashed another two.
The protest extended to Monday with protesters blocking National Highway 1, vandalizing and looting the headquarters of the local fire police, officials said.
Police said 107 protesters have been detained as of Tuesday afternoon.
The protest in Binh Thuan Province was the most intense among a series of street demonstrations against Vietnam’s draft law on Special Economic Zones (SEZs) last weekend.
Nguyen Van Son, Deputy Minister of Public Security, instructed Binh Thuan authorities on Monday to investigate and strictly punish “the ringleaders that enticed, incited and provoked thousands of people into gathering, vandalizing and opposing the functional forces in performance of their duty.”
Apart from Binh Thuan, large crowds of protesters also gathered in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Hanoi and other places to protest the draft law on SEZs.
The police in HCMC and neighboring Binh Duong Province have arrested several people for leading the “illegal” protests, media reports said.
It is believed that a particular provision in the draft law on SEZs that would allow foreign investors to lease land for 99 years was the primary triggering factor for the protests. Vietnam’s current Land Law allows investors to rent land for up to 70 years.
The bill was deferred by the National Assembly on Monday at the government’s behest. Originally scheduled to be passed this week, the parliament will take the bill up for discussion at its next session in October.
Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Bank (SHB) and Việt Nam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) have been assigned to support projects signed between Việt Nam and the World Bank. — Photo baomoi.com, reported by Viet Nam News
HÀ NỘI — Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Bank (SHB) and Việt Nam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) have been assigned to support projects signed between Việt Nam and the World Bank.
The decisions were issued by the State Bank of Việt Nam (SBV).
Accordingly, SHB will support the project “Medium Urban Development” – Financing Agreement for Additional Financing Credit 6070-VN and Financing Credit Code 6071-VN, signed on December 15, 2017.
In addition to this, SBV also assigned Techcombank to serve “Sustainable development of Đà Nẵng City” – Financing Agreement for Additional Financing Credit 6032-VN, signed on September 29, 2017.
The general directors of SHB and Techcomback are responsible for implementing the provisions of Decree 16/2016 /NĐ-CP dated March 16, 2016, of the government on the management and use of official development assistance (ODA) and preferential loans of foreign donors, guiding documents of the SBV and the Ministry of Finance, as well as the guiding regulations of the World Bank to better serve the implementation of the project.
These decisions are effective from the signing date on June 6, 2018. — VNS
Nguyen Duc Tai revolutionized country’s mobile phone business
Now he’s seeking to change how food is sold in Vietnam
When Nguyen Duc Tai, the son of a street vendor, said he was going to revolutionize Vietnam’s mobile phone industry, few people gave it a second thought. Bloomberg reported
“Everybody laughed at me,” says Tai of that time in 2009.
But Tai was true to this word. His Mobile World Investment Corp. became the country’s top seller of mobile phones and one of the biggest listed stocks. The company now has a market value of $1.7 billion.
So when Tai said that he was going to overhaul the country’s food industry, this time people listened.
“The future of groceries is very clear,” a t-shirted Tai, 49, said in an interview in Ho Chi Minh City. “It’s not a question of whether I succeed or not. It’s a matter of how long it takes.”
Tai’s success as an entrepreneur has come from trying to modernize Vietnam. For mobile phones, he opened what he says was the first high-street chain where customers could have a sense of security about the devices’ quality and origins. And in the world of food shopping, he’s trying to replace Vietnam’s traditional wet markets with grocery stores.
Tai opened his first such outlet in Ho Chi Minh City in 2016, selling vegetables, meat and fish with clearly labeled origins, and other essential items such as noodles and drinks. In wet markets, food is sold outdoors in venues that aren’t always clean. Buyers don’t necessarily know where it comes from, and the prices aren’t fixed.
The chain — called Bachhoaxanh — now has 376 stores in the city.
“Our dream is to take 10 percent of the $60 billion grocery market by 2022,” Tai said. That would be twice his company’s almost $3 billion in revenue last year.
A vendor attends to a customer at a Mobile World store in Ho Chi Minh City. Photographer: Maika Elan/Bloomberg
Of course, Tai has been down a similar road before. Fifteen years ago, a global mobile phone boom had skipped Vietnam, because handsets were too expensive.
“At that time, only executives or rich people could buy a cell phone,” Tai said. “Owning one seemed impossible to many people, and I thought we needed to do something to change that.”
So in 2003, he quit his job as a strategic director at a phone company to start his own business. He opened three stores in small alleys in Ho Chi Minh City, but they failed after a few months because of their locations and inability to win customers’ trust, Tai said.
Mobile World
In 2004, he tried again, establishing Mobile World with four friends. This time, he opened his stores on major streets and sold devices with transparent origins.
Mobile World had 1,065 outlets throughout Vietnam and a 45 percent share of the country’s smart-phone and mobile-phone market as of the end of April, it said. At the end of 2017, there were almost 120 million mobile phone contracts in the country, more than the population of about 94 million. Sales of mobile phones have surged with the country’s economy.
“Opportunities came very fast and the market developed more quickly than I could imagine,” Tai said.
Tai grew up poor in Ho Chi Minh City, where his mother was a street vendor who sold sticky rice and rolled rice pancakes. Those early struggles left him with one goal: to have a better life than his parents did.
“I always wanted to think big and do big,” Tai said.
Stock Surges
Mobile World’s stock has surged more than sixfold since listing in 2014. Of 10 analysts covering the company, nine say it’s a buy. Mobile World was the only Vietnamese firm on the Forbes list of the best 50 big Asian public companies last year. “Now my dream is to have $10 billion in revenue by 2022,” Tai said.
For sure, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. Bachhoaxanh contributed only 3 percent to Mobile World’s sales in the first four months of 2018, with the company’s leaders acknowledging that the chain is still in the “trial and error” phase. The grocery business posted negative Ebitda of 60 billion dong ($2.64 million) in the first quarter, prompting the company to close three outlets and cancel the opening of seven others, local media and brokerages cited Tai as saying at the company’s analyst meeting in May. The company also reduced its planned new store openings for this year to 500 from 1,000.
‘Uncertainty Stage’
“Bachhoaxanh is still in the uncertainty stage,” said Nguyen Duc Hieu, an analyst at Viet Dragon Securities JSC in Ho Chi Minh City. “This is not an easy industry as it requires a good supply chain, which is very hard now because there aren’t enough suppliers big enough to provide fresh meat or vegetables. The market is big, but execution isn’t easy.”
Mobile World store in Ho Chi Minh city. Photographer: Maika Elan/Bloomberg
Still, Tai won’t be too put off by the growing pains. While he had only slightly more than $30,000 when he started his business, he’s now worth about $53 million from his shareholding in Mobile World alone, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And as he gets richer, he’s become less interested in the trappings of wealth, he says. Mekong Capital’s Chris Freund, an early investor in Mobile World that has since sold its stake, describes him as a “very casual” entrepreneur, noting that on a business trip abroad, Tai and three others shared just one room.
But for Tai, the t-shirt isn’t about being frugal. It’s simply a matter of using his time best as he seeks to build his grocery empire.
“It’s very tiring thinking about what to wear,” Tai said. “I would prefer to spend that time thinking about how to develop the company.”
Vietnamese youth, who account for 60 percent of the total population, are a promising market for health and beauty products. The industry has an average growth rate of 30 percent per annum.
A series of South Korean cosmetics brands have arrived in Vietnam in recent years. The Face Shop, Ohui and Laneige have been opening shops in many cities and provinces. Their business has been prospering as South Korean products have high quality and reasonable prices.
Meanwhile, European brands such as Vichy, Lancome and L’Oréal, which have been cementing their positions in the domestic market, have been launching new products and running sale promotions to lure customers.
Dominic OH, director of INTEX, said INTEX plans to organize a cosmetics international exhibition – Mekong Beauty Show – in June. He said Vietnam is an emerging promising market because it has a high 6 percent GDP growth rate and increasing interest in beauty products and services.
Regarding the market scale, a report from Nielsen said Vietnam’s population has nearly reached 100 million, and 60 percent of them are aged below 35. The income per capita has been increasing rapidly recently, reaching $2,385, a rise of $170 compared with 2016.
The market analysis firm cited a report as showing that the cosmetics import/export turnover has soared from $3 billion in 2016 to $6 billion in 2017. At least 95 percent are smuggled products.
The Vietnamese cosmetics market is becoming busier than ever as Vietnam, as a member of FTAs, has slashed the import tariff on many items to 0-5 percent.
The fate of domestically made products
While foreign investors rush to scale up their production and expand distribution networks in Vietnam, domestic manufacturers have seen their market share shrink.
According to Nguyen Van Minh, chair of the Essential Oil, Flavors, Cosmetics Association, of the $6 billion worth of cosmetics import/export turnover in 2017, only 5 percent belonged to domestic companies.
Minh said Vietnam is rich in herbs, the input materials of many organic cosmetics products. However, domestic enterprises can only produce raw materials and cannot create high-end products.
Only a few Vietnamese cosmetics still can exist in the market, such as Thorakao and Miss Sai Gon, but they mostly target the low-cost market segment.
Minh said the association has asked agencies to help set up a R&D center to make organic products and take advantage of Vietnam’s rich herb treasure. However, nothing has happened.
Vietnam enterprises find it difficult to compete with foreign brands because of small production scale, low technology and limited investment capital.
“72% of fintech firms choose to cooperate with commercial banks in providing products and services instead of direct competition”, said Le Anh Dung from the Payments Department under the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).
Dung made the remarks at the national conference, entitled ‘Industry 4.0 and innovations in the financial-banking sector”, held in Hanoi, on June 12.
He noted that the banking system remains inactive in terms of innovation and lacks flexibility in technology application, resulting in high transaction costs, while fintech firms have advantages in innovation and the ability to apply technology flexibly and efficiently, which in turn helps to reduce transaction costs and enhance customer experiences.
However, fintech firms lack experience in financial-banking operations, capital and customer bases, in addition to internal compliance controls and risk management systems.
Meanwhile, banks have strengths in customer networks, IT infrastructure, methodical payment systems and strong risk management frameworks. Thus, the partnership between banks and fintech is considered as a premise for enhancing the access to financial-banking services, Dung added.
Professor John Wong said that the bank’s operating costs will be reduced by 80% if they use fintech, as banks will be able to cut down the number of branches and eliminate ATM system, among others.
Chairman of the Board of Director of LienVietPostBank, Nguyen Dinh Thang, also pointed out several major challenges for Vietnamese commercial banks in implementing digital banking systems, including the legal framework, capital, human resources and risk management.
Though 4G is still in early development, experts say Vietnam should think of preparing for 5G soon.
4G has been in use in Vietnam for 1.5 years. VinaPhone was the first network operator to launch 4G services in the domestic market.
Figures about the number of 4G users to date are not available. Of three service providers, only Viettel has publicized the number of its clients.
By the end of March 2018, or one year of providing service, it had 10.6 million 4G subscribers, accounting for 25 percent of Viettel’s total clients.
If considering subscriber density, Ca Mau unexpectedly had a higher ratio of 4G subscribers to total mobile subscribers, followed by Da Nang, Bac Ninh and Hanoi.
Data users (both 3G and 4G) amount to 40 percent of total mobile subscribers of Viettel, according to Viettel’s deputy CEO Le Dang Dung. The military group is now trying to increase the figure to 60-70 percent by developing subscribers from current 2G users.
Data users (both 3G and 4G) amount to 40 percent of total mobile subscribers of Viettel, according to Viettel’s deputy CEO Le Dang Dung. The military group is now trying to increase the figure to 60-70 percent by developing subscribers from current 2G users.
When subscribers shift from 2G to 3G or 4G, they tend to use more service capacity, which means that network operators have higher revenue from 4G users.
As for Viettel, in Ba Ria – Vung Tau province, the average revenue per subscriber increased by VND50,000 with use of 4G, while in Binh Thuan, the revenue increased by 7-10 percent.
According to Thieu Phuong Nam from Qualcomm, even if the 4G service fee is equal to 3G, network operators will still make higher profits when providing 4G, because the cost of providing 1GB of 4G network is 70 percent lower than 3G.
Nam said the current 4G service fee set by network operators is ‘reasonable’.
Time for 5G?
As the world has begun preparing for 5G, experts believe that Vietnam also needs to think of doing the same.
At present, 4G can satisfy users who watch live video and play online games in terms of high-speed transmission and low latency.
The difference between 2G and 3G is the supplement of internet services (there are only voice and SMS services for 2G), while the difference between 3G and 4G is the higher-speed internet service (50Mbps).
With 5G, the speed goes up up to 10 Gbps and latency of less than 1/1,000 of second, which is low enough for computer-to-computer communication.
Nguyen Thi Kim Dung, CEO of Nokia Vietnam, said Vietnam may make the first tries with 5G from 2020, so that 5G can be used by 2021-2022. She said it would take a process to prepare, so there was no need to wait until the right moment.
The Giang Brothers, a Vietnamese acrobatic duo where one balances on the head of the other, have had to postpone a special show meant to pay tribute to supporters due to injuries the younger incurred when participating in the 2018 Britain’s Got Talent.
Giang Quoc Co and Giang Quoc Nghiep, along with their media people and family members, announced the show delay during a press conference in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday.
The event was scheduled for June 28, as a ‘thank-you show’ the brothers want to dedicate to home supporters, who rooted for them during the course of the 2018 Britain’s Got Talent.
The daredevil Vietnamese gymnast brothers were invited to participate in the 2018 Britain’s Got Talent, and won their way to be among the famed TV show’s 11 finalists.
The duo’s signature act involves the older Co, 34, performing stunts while balancing his younger brother head to head.
During their practice before the show’s semi-final, Nghiep unfortunately fell and his head hit a stair.
However, the daredevils held in the pain and continued to practice and perform, until the TV talent show ended on June 4.
But this has caused Nghiep’s neck, head and hand joints to be extremely swollen, and his right arm to almost become numb.
Upon returning to Ho Chi Minh City from the UK with his older brother on June 10, to the warm welcome of their families and fans, Nghiep went straight to the hospital for a check-up.
The 28-year-old’s MRI scans revealed that his right hand has fractured, with doctors advising that Nghiep take a break from performing for treatment.
The brothers therefore had to put off their free-admission show, titled “Dung so hai” (Don’t be scared), to an unknown date, they told reporters on Monday.
Germany on Monday (Jun 11) ordered the recall of some 774,000 vehicles from Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler across Europe, citing illegal “defeat devices” designed to conceal high levels of harmful emissions from regulators’ tests.
“The federal government will order an immediate official recall because of illegal defeat devices,” Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer said in a statement.
The move mostly affects Vito vans and diesel-powered versions of GLC 4x4s and C-class sedans, Scheuer added.
Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche was summoned on Monday for crunch talks with Scheuer over emissions irregularities in the firm’s vehicles.
“Daimler says the applications in the motor control software the federal government has found fault with will be removed at the greatest possible speed and in cooperative transparency with the authorities,” Scheuer said.
A Daimler spokesman confirmed the recall to AFP, adding “legal questions will be cleared up in the appeal procedure” against the transport ministry decision.
‘DIESEL QUAGMIRE’
So-called defeat devices were at the heart of Volkswagen’s “dieselgate” scandal, in which the world’s largest carmaker admitted in September 2015 to installing them in 11 million vehicles worldwide.
Vehicles kept to legal emissions limits for harmful substances like nitrogen oxides during lab tests, only to exceed them as much as 40 times in on-road driving.
The scandal has so far cost the world’s largest car manufacturer over €25 billion (US$29.5 billion) in fines, buybacks and compensation, and senior executives are under investigation over their roles in the cheating.
In the years since 2015, other German carmakers have also been forced to recall vehicles to fix manipulated software, although none has so far admitted to mass cheating as Volkswagen did.
Recent weeks have seen Germany’s KBA vehicle licensing authority hit Volkswagen subsidiaries Audi and Porsche with mass recall orders over their engine control software, as well as a smaller batch of cars from rival BMW.
Prosecutors raided Munich-based BMW in March, saying their investigation was “only just getting started” after gathering evidence, and announced on Monday they suspect Audi chief executive Richard Stadler of fraud.
“The whole European car industry is still stuck in this diesel quagmire, and everything that’s been done so far has done nothing to set it free,” auto industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the CAR research centre told AFP – pointing also to Italian and French automakers.
The German government should approve hardware, rather than software alterations to manipulated vehicles to produce “an honest solution” to excessive emissions, Dudenhoeffer charged.
Otherwise, “car firms will continue to stumble into the future and watch as their reputations are destroyed,” he warned.
“The pressure is rising, but it’s of course up to the politicians” how much progress is made, Dudenhoeffer said.
For their part, German firms have announced dozens of new electric and hybrid models for the coming years in a bid to bring down emissions of both greenhouse gas CO2 – the original reason they turned to diesel – and of harmful NOx.
But they continue to bet on the internal combustion engine and diesel into the future, with Daimler and component maker Bosch recently touting upgraded diesel technology they say solves the motors’ exhaust issues.
HÀ NỘI — Vietnam Railways (VNR) recently imposed sanctions on and fired more than 10 directors and officers after consecutive train accidents last month, reported the Vietnam News Agency.
In a severe accident on May 24 between a train numbered SE19 and a truck in Tĩnh Gia District in the central province of Thanh Hóa, Thanh Hóa Railways Company sentenced its deputy director, Nguyễn Văn Minh, and dismissed Lê Nhân Bảo, head of Hoàng Mai barriers keeper team, and Đào Khánh Thiện, head of the No 5 railway management department.
The company has also decided to prolong the pay raise periods of three other officers.
Two persons were killed, and eight others were injured in the accident.
“Whether these sentences will be aggravated or mitigated depends on the conclusion of the police investigation into the case,” said Vũ Anh Mình, head of VNR Members’ Council.
Regarding the collision between two rail freights at the Núi Thành station in Quảng Nam province on May 26, seven officers were sentenced to imprisonment, including station head Dương Văn Minh and freight driver Dương Trần Chí Hiếu, who were also suspended.
Another accident on May 26 at the Yên Xuân station in Nghệ An province, in which a train was derailed, forced VNR to reduce the pay of two officers.
At a meeting of the VNR Disciplinary Council, VNR director Vũ Tá Tùng and deputy director Đoàn Duy Hoạch volunteered to receive strong sentences. However, the council voted against it and decided to serve them lighter ones.
In May last year, the railways connecting Hà Nội and HCM City witnessed five accidents, which killed two and injured 11. VNR was blamed for three of the collisions.
From December 16, 2017, to May 15, 2018, there were 122 train accidents in Việt Nam, a reduction of 30 cases
