All About The New Honda Automated Network Assistant!

You must have already heard about Siri and Google Assistant. Well, Honda’s research division decided to offer its car owners a similar assistant that ultimately is like a companion that helps keep track of your personal and work lives, gauge your emotions. Predict your routes, and even make money for you! This latest smart assistant in the market is called Honda Automated Network Assistant or Hana for short.

Hana is similar to other smart assistants like Siri and Google Assistant, except the fact that it is specific to your car. The ability of Hana to recognize emotion makes it highly useful on the road. The New Electric Urban Vehicle launched by Honda last year comes with a curved display on the front that is accessible to the driver and the front seat passenger. Hana resides in this display. Hana is essentially an intelligent digital assistant that uses interior camera and sensors to collect data about you. This data is then used to build a profile of the owner and become a complete digital assistant over time. The ability of Hana to recognize the muscle movements and human face anatomy makes it easier for the driver to use while driving as well.

The interior camera placed above the display is always on and continuously maps the driver’s face. This adds an extra layer of security to the car as well. When the image ad sensor data is fed into Hana, the artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms process this data and pinpoints recurring patterns. This is used to identify the daily activities of the driver and prompt them during rush hours for alternate routes, make suggestions for coffee stops and so on. The ongoing collection of data by Hana means that it is constantly evolving and trying to make the driving experience easier and fun than before.

Family Movies That Have Passed The Test Of Time

Plenty of movies come out every single year. However, only a few have been able to find their way to the top preferred family movies. These movies are often preferred by families during the holiday season. Family movies often have a happy ending and seek to entertain the audience with a simple message of love and kindness.

Home Alone came out in the year 1990 and is popular even today, ever though several sequels came out, the first one still remains the top favorite for many families The movie is about how a young boy is left home alone when his parents travel to Paris for the holidays. He ends up saving the day as he defends his home from being burgled.

Mary Poppins is a gem of a movie that has many memorable songs. Julie Andrews did a wonderful job of portraying Mary Poppins and winning many hearts in the process. The antics of Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire makes it a favorite movie for many families all across the globe. Released in 1993, it still remains an evergreen family movie. Jumanji is a fast paced movie starring Robin Williams issued the latest computer graphics at the time. It was a huge hit when it was released and still has the ability to entice the young generation of today.

Piracy Threatens Music Industry

Recent studies have shown that stream-ripping is the fastest growing form of music piracy all over the world. Several websites and mobile apps allow their users to turn YouTube videos, Spotify songs and other streaming content into permanent files that can be stored on computer and phones. Record labels are concerned about the rising numbers of stream ripping cases taking place today. According to reports, at least ten million songs are illegally copied and distributed in the UK each month. This number will continue increasing unless record labels come up with a new solution.

According to the PRS FOR Music and the Intellectual Property Office, over fifteen percent of the adults in the UK regularly use websites and apps to download music from websites that stream music. Among this, about thirty three per cent of them fall in the 16-24 age bracket. In September 2016, these websites were accessed over 498,681 times in order to pirate music in the United Kingdom alone. Interestingly, file sharing services like BitTorrent and KickAss Torrent were used only 23,567 times. This is a clear indication of how people are finding it easier to use third party websites and apps to download music illegally.

The recent survey conducted by record labels in an attempt to understand the reason behind music piracy revealed that over 31% of the users downloaded illegal music because they already owned the same music file in another format. Around 21% of the downloaders claim not to be able to afford to pay for the music and another 20% claimed that they felt that the music was overpriced. Interestingly, the survey also shows that many people were not aware of the fact that their actions are in fact against the law. Experts in the music industry recommend educating the public about legal and illegal music in an attempt to reduce the piracy attempts.