Nissan Motor Co yesterday said it has suspended a mobile application for a pair of electric vehicles, including the world’s top seller, after finding it can be easily hacked.
Concerns over hacking consumer products have skyrocketed in recent years, due to the profusion of smart technology that means that many functions and appliances can be controlled remotely via the Internet.
Nissan was forced to take its global Web site offline last month after it was brought down by an activist claiming to belong to the Anonymous collective in protest at Japanese whaling.
Japan’s No. 2 carmaker said the app, which controls the vehicles’ air-conditioning systems, was currently unavailable, but said no other “critical driving elements” were affected in the Leaf and eNV200 models.
“Drivers across the world can continue to use their cars safely and with total confidence,” it added.
The Leaf, the world’s best-selling electric car, has clocked up sales of more than 200,000 vehicles since its launch in 2010.
Nissan suspended the app following an internal probe and said it aims to update and relaunch the application “very soon.”
The automaker found the dedicated server for the app had a problem that meant the temperature control and other functions were accessible “via a non-secure route,” it said.
“The only functions that are affected are those controlled via the mobile phone — all of which can still be used manually,” it said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day