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Toyota Motor (7203.T) unit Woven Planet has joined Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) in trying to advance self-driving technology without expensive sensors such as lidars, Reuters reported.

Woven Planet told Reuters it is able to use low-cost cameras to collect data and effectively train its self-driving system, a “breakthrough” that it hopes will help drive down costs and scale up the technology.

Gathering diverse driving data using a massive fleet of cars is critical to developing a robust self-driving car system, but it is costly and not scalable to test autonomous vehicles with expensive sensors, it said.

Tesla has been betting on cameras to collect data from over 1 million vehicles on the road to develop its automated driving technology, while Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Waymo and other self-driving car firms added expensive sensors like lidars to a small number of vehicles.

“We need a lot of data. And it’s not sufficient to just have a small amount of data that can be collected from a small fleet of very expensive autonomous vehicles,” Michael Benisch, vice president of Engineering at Woven Planet, said in an interview with Reuters.

“Rather, we’re trying to demonstrate that we can unlock the advantage that Toyota and a large automaker would have, which is access to a huge corpus of data, but with a much lower fidelity,” said Benisch, a former engineering director at Lyft’s (LYFT.O) self-driving division, which Toyota acquired last year, according to Reuters.

Woven Planet uses cameras that are 90% cheaper than sensors that it used before and can be easily installed in fleets of passenger cars.

It said using a majority of data coming from low-cost cameras increased its system’s performance to a level similar to when the system was trained exclusively on high-cost sensor data.

He said, however, Toyota would still use multiple sensors such as lidars and radars for robotaxis and other autonomous vehicles to be deployed on the road, as this currently seemed to be the best, safest approach to developing robotaxis.

“But in many, many years, it’s entirely possible that camera type technology can catch up and overtake some of the more advanced sensors,” he said.

“The question may be more about when and how long it will take to reach a level of safety and reliability. I don’t believe we know that yet.”

Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk said it can achieve full autonomy with cameras this year after missing his previous targets several times, Reuters reported.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba inaugurated the typhoid vaccination campaign amidst a function organised at the Durbar High School, Ranipokhari on Thursday. 

The vaccination campaign is to be rolled out throughout the country from tomorrow till May 1. The typhoid vaccination programme will also be included in the regular national immunization programme.

Under the programme children between the ages of one year three months to 15 years would be administered the vaccines against typhoid.  

On the occasion, Prime Minister Deuba expressed the confidence that like in controlling COVID-19 infection, the country will become successful in typhoid control programme as well. He said around 7.5 million children between the age of one year three months to 15 years would be administered the vaccines against typhoid as part of the campaign. 

PM Deuba urged the local bodies to work towards producing gas and electricity from waste by setting up waste treatment plants for the long-term solution of the problem related to waste management in the urban areas, including the capital.

“Energy has been generated by setting up waste treatment plants in several cities, including Dharan. Vehicles have been run by using this gas generated from these plants. The government will also provide the necessary support if the local levels adopt such technology that can be possible through own investment,” he suggested. 

The Prime Minister called for paying attention to waste management as the problem of unmanaged waste will spoil the environment and the beauty of the city as well as increase the risk of several types of infections. 

Minister for Health and Population Birodh Khatiwada said Nepal has achieved exemplary success in the whole world in the prevention and control of COVID-19 infection and it was the first country to launch the typhoid vaccination campaign in the whole of South Asia. 

Stating that so far 16 various types of vaccines have been produced in the world so far and only a few countries have been able to avail many of these vaccines, the Health Minister said Nepal has used 13 types of these vaccines. 

Bagmati Province Health Minister Neema Lama expressed commitment to make the typhoid vaccination campaign a success. He said the Bagmati province had attained the first success in the COVID-19 vaccination programme. 

Dr Ramparth Bichha, health advisor to PM Deuba, expressed his confidence that the vaccine against typhoid brought into use after 10 years of research would be highly effective.

Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Population Dr Rajesh Kharel said that the anti-typhoid vaccine was free, safe and effective. According to him, it would be provided to children from 15 months to 15 years and appealed to all the sides concerned for their cooperation for the same. 

Kathmandu Metropolitan City mayor Bidhya Sundar Shakya informed that around 600 vaccination centres were designated in the Kathmandu district including in schools to make sure no children are deprived of the vaccine. 

Efforts were also coordinated with the local level and women community health volunteers to make the vaccination campaign a success, according to him.

On a different note, the mayor urged the government for necessary coordination as he shared that the garbage in Kathmandu was not picked up for some days. 

Present at the event were representatives from the World Health Organization, and UNICEF among others. 

The national vaccination campaign is considered the first priority of the government and it has been a successful public health programme. Effective implementation of regular vaccination campaigns is expected to significantly reduce the cases of childhood illness, disability, and infant and child mortality among others.

Nepal is still at high risk of typhoid which is highly contagious. It has been one of the top five reasons for hospitalization in Nepal. The vaccine against typhoid will be provided to children from 15 months to 15 years during this campaign and later will be provided regularly for children of 15 months, it was shared. RSS

Nepal reported seven new Covid-19 cases on Thursday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 2, 819 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which seven returned positive. Likewise, 1, 449 people underwent antigen tests, of which no one were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 25 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 747 active cases in the country.

Among them, 717 are in home isolation and 30 are in institutionalized isolation.

Of the infected persons, 11 are in Intensive Care Units and one is on ventilator.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) gained 35.66 points to close at 2,464.31 points on Thursday.

Similarly, the sensitive index plunged by 8.13 points to close at 463. 73 points.

Meanwhile, a total of 5,444,738 unit shares of 224 companies were traded for Rs 2. 12 billion.

In today’s market, all sub-indices saw green. Life Insurance topped the chart with 258. 56 points.

Meanwhile, Himalayan Power Partner Limited was the top gainer today, with its price surging by 10. 00 percent. Rastra Utthan Laghubitta  Sanstha Limited was the top loser as its price fell by 7.71 percent.

The CPN-UML has expressed its dissatisfaction on six issues of the local level election code of conduct issued by the Election Commission.

The main opposition party, however, has expressed its commitment to abide by the other rules that do not contradict with the Constitution.

A team including UML General Secretary Shankar Pokharel and Deputy General Secretary Bishnu Rimal reached the Election Commission this afternoon and drew the attention of Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Thapaliya towards the election code.

The UML has expressed its dissatisfaction over the election code of conduct's requirement for incumbent local representatives to resign from their post before filing nomination papers and the provision to ban campaigning through social media among others.

The Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) has directed the service providers to tighten the sales and distribution of SIM and RIM cards. 

The instruction by the telecommunication regulatory body comes in the wake of rife complaints received by it regarding the indiscriminate distribution of SIM and RIM cards by the service providers.

Issuing a notice here today, the NTA instructed the service providers to distribute the SIM and RIM cards after letting the service-seekers fill the KYC form properly, after following proper procedures as well as verifying the details. 

The NTA has also directed the service providers to comply with the rules and regulations of the NTA while selling and distributing SIM and RIM cards. 

Similarly, the service-seekers are also urged to purchase SIM and RIM Cards on the basis of their actual details. Those violating the rules and regulations shall be punished as per the prevailing law, the NTA warned. RSS

Nepali Congress (NC) leader Dilendra Prasad Badu has been appointed as the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari appointed Badu as the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies on the recommendation of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

According to the President's office, Badu was appointed the minister as per Article 78 (1) of the Constitution.

Advocate Govinda Bandi has been appointed as the Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari appointed Bandi as the Law Minister on the recommendation of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

According to the President's office, preparations are being made to administer the oath of office and secrecy today itself.

Prime Minister Deuba appointed non-MP Bandi as the minister.