Month: October 2023

In a report by research firm Counterpoint, we found this set of data:
From 2014 to now less than ten years, India’s imports of cell phones from China have plummeted from 180 million to 2.19 million.
And India’s proportion of self-produced and self-sold cell phones, but also from the beginning of the 19% growth to the current 98%, and even news that India almost do not need to import cell phones from China.
Take the iPhone 15, for example, which has just been released, and which “Made in India” has already been involved in the first wave of sales.
This is also the first time that Apple has realized mass production in India before the release of a new model.

Last year, the iPhone 14 shipped in India half a year later than in China, and even a few years further back, India could only produce the previous generation of iPhones.
Now, not only will India be able to produce the new iPhone at about the same time as China, but Apple has also revealed that it plans to move 25 percent of its production lines to India by 2025.
Until now, most people certainly didn’t take Indian cell phone manufacturing too seriously, and there was a real glut of weird news from the country that was sometimes even entertaining to watch.
But from Counterpoint’s data and the shift in iPhone production capacity, it seems like all the articles are saying that India’s cell phone manufacturing industry is now stronger.
For a long time now, people have been more or less underestimating India’s phone manufacturing industry.

Take the whole machine assembly, in 2014 before, can make a complete smart phone in India, only Samsung one.
With the release of a series of investment policies in India, a number of cell phone manufacturers have disregarded the previous foreign enterprises in India’s “misery”, straight to the meat and potatoes of the Indian market. Investment investment, factory building factory.

Like Mi, OV and other cell phone manufacturers, at that time in the domestic cell phone market has reached a bottleneck, is also a decisive choice to go to sea in India.
At first they just exported the whole machine to earn a little money.
But after tasting the sweetness, these cell phone manufacturers gradually bold, began to invest in building factories, focusing on the development of the Indian market. Now, Mi alone has built seven factories in India.
Not only Mi, OV these domestic brand manufacturers, like the domestic well-known ODM (original design manufacturer) manufacturers wisdom HaiPai and Shanghai and Germany and other cell phone assembly factories also see the itch, began to transfer part of the production line to India.
At present, can produce the whole machine in India, just domestic manufacturers, there are more than 15. Production capacity, not to mention, in 2015, India has surpassed Vietnam to become the second largest cell phone manufacturing country.
Now, the assembly of smartphones in India as a whole is nearly twice that of Vietnam, and roughly a quarter of the domestic assembly.
And, India’s ambition has not only to meet the self-sufficiency of the country’s smartphones, but also reached out to the export of this piece. In the export of the whole machine, India in the past few years is also quite good.
During the nine years of “Make in India”, it has exported more than 2 billion units of the whole machine to the outside world.

Last year, 16% of the whole machine assembled in India were exported to other countries, and even in April and May this year, India’s smart phone exports reached 200 billion rupees, more than double the 900 billion in the same period last year.
Countries like UAE, USA, Holland, UK and Italy have been groomed by India as its fifth most stable ” customers”.
Even Rajiv Chandrasekhar, India’s Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, has made a bold statement that next year, cell phones will be one of the top 10 categories of Indian exports.
Picture of course, India’s whole machine manufacturing development up, upstream cell phone parts and components manufacturing will naturally be driven up.
Whole machine manufacturing in India to complete the layout of the production line, the card profit link runs to the head of the imported spare parts.
In order to cut these unnecessary expenses, cell phone parts manufacturers have also begun the transfer of production lines, such as Terra Nova Communications, HCLT, Changying Precision and so on have moved some of the parts production lines to India.
To cite the most intuitive example, in 2018, more than half of the manufacturers in the Indian cell phone market had to rely on imported semi-finished products, and only one-third of them imported their own parts for assembly.
And in 2019, this data came to a big flip, two thirds of the manufacturers have realized their own imported parts assembly, no longer rely on assembled semi-finished products.
Now, nearly 80% of the assembled cell phone parts, including motherboards, battery modules, packaging materials, and other components, manufacturers can completely buy locally in India.
Not only that, the transfer of parts manufacturers to India continues. Some time ago, the world’s largest foundry in the field of 3C Hon Hai (Foxconn) announced that it would make a big move in the Indian market, throwing 50 billion rupees to expand the cell phone parts and semiconductor business there.
India’s progress is indeed rapid, but, some media say ” India’s cell phone industry will soon surpass China “, is still too early.
Already at the bottom, how to go is up. Indian cell phone market appeared so exaggerated results, a large part of the reason is that its starting point is low enough.
After all, when the domestic smartphone market has been fighting to the end, on the contrary, India, has just started. In India began to make an impact in 2014, India has more than 900 million registered cell phone users, but the coverage rate of smart phones is pitifully small, less than 20%, only about 120 million people are using.
Equally important, labor costs in India are really too cheap. The minimum wage offered by the government is 178 rupees a day, which translates into 2 dollars.
Huge blue ocean market plus cheap labor, as long as when the Indian government a little turn, the major cell phone manufacturers will naturally run over to invest.
And from the point of view of India’s development over the years, their government is a little too able to live, uncertainty is too high. According to reason to develop the cell phone manufacturing industry, you have to get their own business environment, play their own human advantage, to create a win-win situation.
However, look at India’s policy changes in the past few years, it is clear that it puts the center of gravity to another means, by erecting trade barriers raw ” rob ” supply chain. Like Mi, OV these domestic cell phone manufacturers, more or less in India to build factories are a little pushed to go.

In 2016, in the implementation of ” Make in India ” less than two years, the Modi government began the whole job. In the years that followed, the tariffs on cell phones and their components were like rockets, soaring.
Among them, the tariffs charged on the whole cell phone is the most, the highest tax rate reached 20%, such as batteries, chargers, adapters, these cell phone parts are relatively low, the average tariff is 15%.
Now in front of the Chinese cell phone manufacturers have only two choices: either to give up the Indian market, or to build factories in the Indian market.
Of course, Mi these cell phone manufacturers choose the latter, after all, there is no more flavorful market than India.
When a group of domestic manufacturers to build the plant is almost, India and out of the preparation for further harvesting.
These two years, India’s tax review is a wave after wave, almost all domestic mainstream cell phone brands have not escaped.
Mi India was accused of tax evasion of 6.53 billion rupees, vivo in India 119 related bank accounts were frozen, OPPO was also required to pay nearly 43.9 billion rupees in taxes.
This battle, all the glory just out of the sea to dry blind, overnight fled out of the Indian market.
Even three months ago, the Indian Law Enforcement Agency threw out a document saying that it would confiscate the 4.8 billion yuan that Mi had frozen last year.
The industry chain is attracted to the industry chain and then engage in some trade barriers, in the end, they all become their own.
Although at present, India gives “benefits” is quite good, a large wave of manufacturers are rushing to go there to invest in factories.
But India’s urbane people are also clear, before the lesson has been a lot, who do not want to become the next Vodafone.
So now go to India to invest in manufacturers, are cautious and cautious. Take Apple for example, the expansion in India is also like a dragonfly like a test.
Like the Modi government introduced the ” Make in India ” policy, the original intention was to foster local cell phone manufacturers to come. As a result, the Mi, OV and other brands directly occupied the low-end market.
Comparison in the “Make in India” program before the implementation of the four little dragons of India Micromax, Intex, Lava and Karbonn (collectively referred to as “MILK”), which can still snatch a little bit of market share from the hands of Samsung.
After 2014, they have been squeezed by Mi, OV and others. By 2021, the MILK four manufacturers in the hands of the market share of less than 1%, basically can be said to be out of the smartphone market.
Components, as mentioned earlier, many cell phone semi-finished products can already be assembled and produced in India. But the local counterpart of the most basic parts supply chain is not developed at all, most of them still rely on imports.
Last year, India also thought to help a local parts manufacturers, so in February 9th to limit the import of cell phone displays, lens modules and other parts of the cell phone components.
Next, the interesting came. Restrictions on imports, overseas imports of key components group was detained in customs. And local parts manufacturers simply can not hold up, resulting in cell phone manufacturers to interrupt the supply chain, the entire production line directly paralyzed.
So on February 24th, India made another emergency announcement, restoring the free import of parts.
Another example is Foxconn, it wants to transfer the industrial chain from China to India is not a new thing, but the transfer of 30% of the production capacity, it has been planning for five to ten years.

The reason why so slow, the key process is stuck in the cell phone parts this piece, apple assembly with almost 90% of the parts are China’s special supply.
Even if it shifts some production capacity to India, most of the assembly parts still have to be imported from China.
Now China’s annual export of goods to India, cell phone components and equipment has ranked first, amounting to 1.74 billion U.S. dollars.
India to really make the cell phone manufacturing industry to get support flange up, or have to first get their own hard power, the local cell phone supply chain to cultivate up.

OpenAI宣布，他们的聊天机器人ChatGPT现在可以使用微软的必应进行网上搜索，这使得ChatGPT能与微软必应和谷歌Bard平起平坐。

目前，OpenAI正努力争夺蓬勃发展的人工智能行业的主导地位。微软和谷歌已经让旗下聊天机器人进行网上搜索，并提供原始材料的链接，以提高信息共享的可信度和范围。但是，ChatGPT迄今为止只接受了有时间限制的训练数据，这些数据仅限于从互联网上收集的2021年9月之前的信息。在周三的一系列推文中，OpenAI表示，ChatGPT现在可以利用更多的最新信息。

OpenAI首席执行官萨姆·奥尔特曼（Sam Altman）在一条推文中说：“我们回来了！”在过去的几周里，OpenAI、谷歌、微软、亚马逊和Meta都在竞相推出生成式人工智能产品的更新和新功能。尽管许多新工具仍然会出现错误，但这表明这些公司正面临巨大压力，他们需要让用户使用这些工具生成新数据并提高性能。在OpenAI发布最新消息的同一天，Meta也发布了一款新的聊天机器人，同样可以使用必应进行网上搜索。

在此之前，ChatGPT付费用户可以通过链接其他公司开发的浏览器插件，让其进行网上搜索。周三更新使ChatGPT的核心产品能够直接进行搜索，这可能会扩大其用户范围。一些用户也可以在OpenAI运行的特殊测试程序中使用这个网上搜索工具。

微软是第一家推出联网聊天机器人的公司，今年2月推出了必应人工智能工具。由于与OpenAI签署了价值数十亿美元的协议，必应采用了OpenAI的技术。今年3月，谷歌推出了自己的聊天机器人Bard，并在部分用户的搜索结果顶部添加了聊天机器人功能。

OpenAI一直在快速开发面向消费者的工具，本周早些时候对ChatGPT进行了升级，使其能够生成图像并以语音回应，而不仅仅是文本。

At around 16:00 local time on October 3, a shooting incident occurred at Siam Paragon Shopping Center in Bangkok, Thailand, with a number of Chinese tourists at the scene.
According to Xiao Zhou, a Chinese tourist who witnessed the whole incident, she was playing on the M level of the mall when suddenly three gunshots rang out from the toilet behind her. After the gunshots, people in the mall fled in all directions, panic spread to other floors and screams filled the mall. The young man, who was experiencing panic for the first time, described being “wrapped up in the crowd and running for his life.”
Local Thai media reported that the suspect in the case was arrested on the spot. Thai police revealed that the suspect, a 14-year-old boy with a gun, is currently under interrogation.
The shooting took place in the afternoon, when a thunderstorm was raging in downtown Bangkok, and a big traffic jam occurred in the city after the crowd poured out. Some Chinese tourists who could not get a taxi were sent back to their hotels by strangers, while others were not evacuated back to their accommodation until the early hours of the morning.
On October 4, according to the Chinese Embassy in Thailand, one Chinese citizen was killed and another injured in the shooting incident. At present, the victims have been identified, and the injured have been sent to the hospital in stable condition.
The Chinese Embassy in Thailand sent consular officials to the scene of the case at the first time to understand the situation, and went to the hospital to visit the injured, Thai Prime Minister Saita also went to the hospital to visit the injured Chinese.

Xiao Zhou and three companions have been traveling to Thailand for seven days, they plan to return home on October 4th. Their last day in Thailand was spent shopping at a mall in downtown Bangkok.
They chose the Siam Paragon Shopping Center, which is conveniently located near Bangkok’s BTS Siam station. Siam Paragon Shopping Center, which opened in 2005, was once the largest department store in Southeast Asia.
Thai time 16:00, she bought a bag in the shopping mall M layer, and friends, go to the bathroom next to the counter. 10 minutes later, Zhou just out of the bathroom soon, waiting for friends at the door, suddenly heard “bang, bang, bang” three consecutive gunshots. Xiao Zhou recalled that the gunfire from behind her inside the toilet, but also with echoes.
She was blindfolded in place and saw people in the mall screaming and running away, so she followed them. After running to the parking lot on level M, she heard another gunshot. She said she was afraid to stay in the parking lot and turned to run back, and saw a man in a restroom not far away beckoning her to hide in a bathroom stall.
Cho immediately ducked into one of the empty stalls and stood on the toilet, not daring to make a sound. She noticed that the cubicles next to her were filled with people from different countries.
Not long after entering the restroom, Xiao Zhou heard two more gunshots coming from the doorway. According to Xiao Zhou, this restroom was more than 100 meters away from the location where she first heard the gunshots, and this time the gunshots were louder and closer than the previous two, “My heart was about to jump out of my chest for fear of someone rushing in.”
After twenty minutes or so, another gunshot came from the other direction.
A few minutes later, there was no sound from outside. Gradually, someone went out of the cubicle, and Xiao Zhou stuck her head out to look outside and saw a uniformed Thai police officer, beckoning her to hurry. After Zhou went out of the restroom, she saw the crowd running without direction, and she ran all the way to the parking lot on the M level.
At the time of the shooting, Fu Qi (a pseudonym) was eating dessert with her boyfriend on the first floor. Suddenly, she heard a “loud bang”, which she first thought was a heavy object falling, then another bang, and the crowd began to run wildly.
Looking at the situation, she hesitated “for a second between hiding under the table and running away,” before being pulled by her boyfriend and running wildly outside the mall. She saw someone fall on the road, but had no time to care.
On the second floor of the mall, Ms. Zhang and her husband were on their honeymoon in Thailand, and had just gone up the escalator to go downstairs to buy gifts for their family when she saw someone running on the first floor. Ms. Zhang remembers that her husband yanked her while shouting “don’t go down, come back”, followed by two or three gunshots that she heard.
Ms. Zhang was so scared that she started to turn around and ran up the escalator, and because she was too panicked, she fell on the elevator and her leg hit the corner of the elevator. She was helped up by her husband several times before getting up.
As she recalled, when they ran back, there were quite a few people on the second floor who still didn’t know what had happened.
Ms. Zhang’s husband pulled her toward the second floor parking lot and ran, shouting “run” as they ran. “But there was a language barrier and everyone was in a state of confusion.” Then the crowd began to disperse, surrounded by screams.
Running to the intersection with the parking lot, Ms. Zhang’s knee began to bleed, her husband stopped to wipe her blood, when the crowd began to pour over, the two of them continued to run.
Fu Qi said she did not see the murderer, but was “wrapped up in running for her life”, and after fleeing the scene, the fear gradually came.
Fu Qi and her boyfriend ran outside the mall after heavy rain began to fall in Bangkok, and she said she saw people constantly running out and police cars and ambulances coming.
Min Chan and her family made their way along the mall’s security corridor, past the parking lot, and eventually escaped. Outside the mall, people were still screaming and running away. Chen Min and her family ran to another nearby mall before they dared to stop.
It was raining heavily outside, the road was waterlogged and the whole road was blocked. Zhou, who escaped, pulled open the door of a car and jumped in. Luckily, she met two local Thai girls who understood what Zhou was going through. Because she did not speak Thai, Xiao Zhou used cell phone software to communicate with them, and after more than an hour of traffic jam, she was sent to the hotel by the two girls.
Ms. Zhang and her husband both ran to the second floor parking lot and ran down to the road from the second floor parking lot.
She saw that there were still people outside who were ready to enter the mall, so she and her husband both ran and shouted in Chinese and English respectively, “Don’t enter, run.” Ms. Zhang recalls, “But again, the language wasn’t clear, and not everyone could understand us.”

The rainstorm got heavier and heavier, and Ms. Zhang and her husband didn’t get a taxi for a long time; later, they stopped a tricycle to leave. From the tricycle, they saw a police car heading in the direction of the incident.
She remembers that when they stopped to wipe the blood from their knees in the second-floor parking lot, crowds of people rushed by. There was a foreign girl who tugged on her arm as she passed by, saying in English, “Hurry up,” which she remembers still feeling touched, “I’m very grateful to her.”
On October 4, local time, the head of the Kyoto Police Department in Bangkok, Thailand, said police filed five preliminary charges against the suspect (male, 14 years old) who created the Siam Paragon shooting case, namely, intentional homicide, committing homicide, unlawful possession of a firearm, carrying a firearm into a public place without permission, and firing a firearm in a public place without permission.
Police said they are gathering more evidence on the other charges, and are currently investigating whether the suspect’s guardian violated the Child Protection Act, and prosecutors, medical and psychological experts are investigating to assess the suspect’s psychological state. The suspect is being held at the detention center of Bangkok’s Pathumwan police station and will be escorted to the juvenile court for trial on the afternoon of the 4th.

In addition, police have searched for bullets in the suspect’s home, which will be included in a separate investigation.
Chinese citizens injured in Bangkok, Thailand shopping center shooting in stable condition
According to CCTV News, on October 4, local time, the director of the Emergency Medical Service Center in Bangkok, Thailand, Yutana announced the treatment of the injured in the shooting incident at the Siam Paragon shopping center. Yuktana said that after the incident, the center transferred a total of 7 people, 1 person died on the spot, 2 people were sent to the police hospital, 1 person died on the way, 3 people were sent to Chulalongkorn Hospital, 1 person was sent to Bangkok Christian Hospital. Two of the five injured are still in the intensive care unit of the hospital. The condition of the one injured Chinese citizen is stable.

On September 26, the South Korean army held a military parade to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the army, displaying a large number of weapons and equipment, in addition to those conventional weapons often exported by South Korea, but also displayed a number of drones and unmanned aircraft weapons, the army, land, sea and air.

First of all, explain the anniversary of the founding of the South Korean army, South Koreans call it the Korean National Army Day, yes, but also the National Army, National Army Day dates back to August 15, 1948, the Americans will be the southern part of the peninsula of the Guard and Coast Guard integrated into the Korean National Army.

But National Army Day is set for Oct. 1 because that’s the day the U.S. and ROK troops crossed the 38th parallel and attacked to the north.

However, the parade is often held to avoid the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, so this year it was held on September 26th.

What was notable about the ROK’s current parade were the drone weapons used by the Army and Navy.

For example, the Army was accompanied by an unmanned vehicle in the Korean version of the Hummer.

This kind of unmanned vehicle for South Korea’s own development, called ARION-SMET, for 6×6 unmanned vehicles, but also participated in the U.S. Army unmanned vehicle bidding test, and do not know the U.S. Army will finally buy.

ARION-SMET is the English acronym, the full name is “cross-country intelligent navigation of the automatic robotic system – small multi-functional equipment transportation”.

And ARION is the name of a steed in ancient Greek mythology.

This naming system is very similar to that of the U.S. military, and it seems to be aimed at the U.S. military procurement.

The ARION-SMET is based on a 4×4 civilian unmanned vehicle, which is purportedly fitted with a remotely operated weapon station using deep neural network technology that can detect enemy targets and attack them, moving with the infantry company.

In addition to fire support, it can also transport weapons and ammunition, reconnaissance and transport the wounded.

Its maneuverability is a maximum speed of 43 kilometers per hour on the road and 34 kilometers per hour off-road, with a maximum travel of 100 metric centimeters and a maximum load of 550 kilograms.

The ROK’s unmanned combat ships were paraded on trailers, with a total of two types of surface unmanned combat boats and one unmanned submarine.

The surface ship on the left is the “Sea Sword-II” (해금-II) unmanned combat ship, first made public by South Korea in 2019, 12 meters long, 3.5 wide, fully loaded with 11 tons, 2 diesel engines, a maximum speed of 35 knots, 20 knots of the maximum range of 180 beavers.

There is a 12.7mm machine gun remote controlled weapon station, and 70mm multiple rocket launcher at the stern, mounted radar and other detection equipment.

Mainly used for patrols near military bases, there are also armed reconnaissance missions to the sea radar blind zone.

The right surface ship is “water ghost” (네이비 씨 고스트), public information is not much, from the South Korean Navy in the South Korean Navy base in Zhenhai on November 11, 2022 in the 77th anniversary of the founding of the South Korean army ceremony related information can be seen, this is a kind of unmanned boat can be mobilized, but also can be manned by manned ships.

From the parade picture speculation, it should be similar in size to the “Sea Sword – II”.

The name of the South Korean army’s unmanned submarine is very simple and crude, called ASWUUV, is the English acronym for anti-submarine underwater unmanned combat vehicle, in June 2022 had an operational test.

The ASWUUV is 6.5 meters long, has a maximum displacement of 9 tons, a maximum cruising speed of 10 knots, a maximum dive depth of 300 meters, an endurance of 30 days, and is equipped with passive and active sonar, acoustic sensors, a communications unit and a hydrogen fuel cell.

South Korea had unveiled the concept of these unmanned combat vessels in defense exhibitions, which is to be carried to the operational waters by a mothership and then formed into combat clusters to carry out combat missions.

On the drone front, a number of models were also on display.
The first is the KUS-FS/KUS-15, a medium altitude UAV that resembles the US RQ-4 Global Hawk.

It is said to be a UAV that South Korea started developing in 2011, and some people say that this UAV is called a MUAV, which is not true!

MUAV is the English acronym for Medium Altitude Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

It has a wingspan of 25 meters, a length of 13.1 meters, a maximum flight time of about 24 hours and a maximum altitude of 11.9 kilometers, and is mainly used for reconnaissance, with the main reconnaissance equipment being a synthetic caliber radar with an antenna of 1.2 meters in diameter, and is currently assigned to the 39th Reconnaissance Wing, which will be established in 2020.

The South Korean side has already begun to add weapons to the KUS-FS test, installed a weapon mount on each side of the wing, has successfully conducted a conventional bomb drop test, the future may be added to the anti-tank missile launch capability. In other words, it may be developed into an investigation and combat UAV. The second one looks like a U.S. MQ-9 Predator drone.

According to public information, this drone is actually still under development, and during the military parade, this drone had obvious shaking in front of the camera, most likely a model.

This drone is tentatively named the next generation UAV (차기 군단급 무인기-II or UAV-II), and is designed to have a cruising radius of 600 kilometers, a maximum takeoff weight of 1,700 kilograms, a maximum flight time of 18 hours, and is equipped with a synthetic aperture radar with satellite communication capabilities.

One of the unmanned helicopters is a previously undisclosed model that differs greatly in size and shape from the already disclosed KUS-VH unmanned helicopter, so I wonder if it’s a downsized model or a real drone?

Behind the unmanned helicopter are some small drones, the aerodynamic shape resembles South Korea’s first self-developed drone, the RQ-101/Night Invader-300, but the size doesn’t match and the writing on it should be FT-3.

So this would be the FT-3 of South Korea’s KUS-FT series of drones, there isn’t much publicized detailed performance data, but the public performance of the FT-2 from this series is:
3.7 meters long, 4.5 meters wide, 0.9 meters high, maximum takeoff weight of 150 kg, the engine is 35 hp, maximum speed of 200 km / h, cruise speed of 130 km / h.
It is mainly used for reconnaissance of ROK Army divisional units.

Behind the FT-3 is the KUS-7 UAV, which is used for reconnaissance and artillery unit calibration. It has a length of 3.4 meters, a wingspan of 4.2 meters, a cruising speed of 150 km/h and a flight radius of 50 km.

There are also a number of stealth-designed drones in the drone parade.

In terms of appearance, it looks like the KUS-FC unmanned fighter aircraft previously displayed by South Korea, but according to South Korea’s own public information, the KUS-FC unmanned fighter aircraft has a wingspan of 10 meters alone, which clearly does not match this.

So it is possible that these are models of drone fighters?
At the end of the drone parade are Harpy drones, Israel has exported Harpy drones to South Korea before, I wonder if these are imported Harpies or South Korean copies?