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This is good news for fitness enthusiasts the world over. As fitness trackers and smart-bands get ever popular and become essential for a healthy life, there’s a new range of fitness bands. They could be game-changers in the already competitive market for affordable wearable technology.

Following on the footsteps of other smartphone manufacturers, Chinese OEM OPPO has recently launched its own fitness band: the new OPPO Band is a premium offering that features a 1.1-inch AMOLED display in a pill-shaped body. The display is covered with a 2.5D scratch-resistant glass and covers 100 percent of the P3 color gamut for accurate color reproduction.

Although available only in China right now, at the starting price of CNY 199 ($28), the OPPO Band does pack in almost everything one would expect from a premium fitness band—including continuous blood oxygen monitoring for up to 480 minutes/28,800 times, sleep tracking, 12 different sports modes, continuous heart rate monitoring, over 160 watch faces, NFC support, and 5ATM water resistance. A 100mAh battery powers the fitness band and is rated for 14 days of use on a single 1.5-hour charge.

The OPPO Band is being offered in three variants—the vanilla OPPO Band, a Fashion edition, and an EVA limited edition—all under $50 market price.

Although the company has not announced a worldwide launch, considering OPPO’s recent expansions into the Indian and European market, it is expected to be available soon globally.

Although many of us expected the new budget to uplift the mood of the auto sector and support the emergence of electric vehicles, that didn’t quiet happen, did it now? Here is how the industry reacted to the budget. No, what follows is not much to cheer about.

Karan Chaudhary, Executive Director, CG Motocorp (Suzuki cars) 

We were hoping something concrete for the revival of the auto industry. Yet the government has doubled down on its earlier stand that vehicles are non-essential commodities. Instead of promoting EVs, duties on them have further risen. The budget has discourages their growth. Further, there has been no respite in credit limitation in auto financing. Yes, the duty structure in the internal combustion engine has not been changed, but this is too little too late.

While there are a few optimistic points, such as the removal of excise duty on spare parts and emphasis on auto assembly, overall, the measures fall woefully short of expectations. Because of this, the sector is unlikely to generate enough jobs and earning opportunities to make a significant contribution to the country’s economic revival. The automobile sector is clearly unimpressed by this budget.

Anish Lamichhane, AGM, KIA Motors Nepal

For a company like KIA Motors that has played a vital role in setting up an EV-centric ecosystem in the country, this budget is nothing but a disappointment. It has killed the aspirations of thousands of people who wanted to own an EV, something the government had been promoting of late. At a time the focus should have been on lifting the automotive sector and supporting the growth of electric cars, the new budget has pushed us deeper into debt and heralded an environmental crisis. Instead of increasing our self-reliance on energy, the government has worsened our dependence on petroleum.

Deepak Agrawal, VP, Jagdamba Motors Pvt. Ltd (TVS) 

We expected the budget to address the grievances of the automobile sector.  At a time the auto industry was already reeling under the pressure of the Covid-19 lockdown, the new budget has further deepened our woes. The government has done nothing to revamp duty structure, bank interest, or offered any kind of subsidies. Further, the shocking decision to increase the tax on EVs has made us lose faith in the government.

The government policies aren’t practical. These poorly drafted policies have hindered our investment plans time and again. For example, we have issues with the government’s CKD (Completely Knocked Down) policy. Although the government announced 50 percent discount on excise duties for CKD products, the discount was reduced to 25 percent after it came into operation. Hence, we request all concerned to draft long-term policies, sustainable policies.

Mahesh Kumar M, GM, United Traders Syndicate (Toyota) 

The industry anticipated innovative measures. However, the government seems to have no interest in reviving the industry. And out of nowhere, it increased the duties on EVs. This came at a time when the industry was growing so rapidly. On the one hand, the government is trying to promote the growth of EVs in Nepal. On the other, it has drastically increased duties on EVs. The huge gap in revenues coming from EVs and fossil-fuel-powered vehicles may be the reason for this. Although the taxation for ICEs hasn’t increased, most of our hopes have been dashed.

Kiran Acharya, Head-Marketing, IME Motors 

To mitigate the risks associated with Covid-19, the government has put forward many plans and policies, which is definitely a welcome step. But it should have skipped many yet-to-be implemented programs from last year instead of re-allocating funds for them.

Now, coming to the auto sector, this has been the most criticized budget. If you look at earlier trends, the government has never lent us any support, and the same is true this year as well. Our finance minister has increased taxes on electric cars, hitting the industry hard. Many of us expected this budget would be a dramatic departure from the past and would introduce bold reforms in petroleum dependence, renewable energy, and agriculture, etc., but it has failed to address any of these concerns.

Nawaraj Koirala, Marketing Manager, TVS 

The budget is a very regressive one, with increases in taxes on EVs, and no relief package for the auto industry. The auto sector, which is in a crisis, is now definitely headed for a prolonged slump. I expected the budget to support the emergence of electric vehicles, but no. The Ministry of Energy had issued a white paper two years ago focusing on increasing the import of electric vehicles by 50 percent. I wonder where that plan has now gone. This is not a budget for our sustainable future.

Auto technology major Bosch has developed a new emergency call system for motorcycles, called Help Connect. The system automatically sends out an alert to emergency services in the event of an accident. Bosch says the system can cut the response time of emergency services by as much as half.

The Bosch Help Connect system features an ‘intelligent crash algorithm’ installed in the motorcycle’s inertial sensor unit. The system, along with the Bosch Motorcycle Stability Control (MSC), measures acceleration and angular velocity 100 times a second. In the case of an accident, the system detects the sudden change in speed and angular position of the motorcycle, and automatically sends out an alert via the Bosch Vivatar smartphone app. The Help Connect sends the rider’s exact GPS location and other details to the Bosch Service Center, which then relays the information to emergency services. 

Bosch, for now, has introduced the Help Connect system for customers in Germany. 

In a world away from music, games and movies live man’s best friends—books. And in this digital age, accessing the world of books is just a click or two away.

eBook reader apps have replaced conventional printed books and now you can easily read your favorite book on your smartphone or tablet. Buy the books of your choice online, or select from the thousands of titles available for download. Read them whenever and wherever you want.

Amazon Kindle

Kindle—the most popular eBook readers in the world—offers a wide selection of books, magazines and newspapers, making it a comprehensive eBook reader app for smartphones and tablets. Also available on Kindle reading devices, the best part about the app is that you don’t have to own a Kindle device to enjoy the books on offer. It is available on both Android and iOS devices.

Powered by technology from Amazon, Kindle allows you to sync your last read page, bookmarks, highlights and notes across all devices. It also includes a built-in dictionary that makes it easy to look up new words while reading.

Aldiko Book Reader

Aldiko Book Reader is a great alternative to some of the more famous eBook reader apps. The app supports PDFs and its own ePub format in which you can find thousands of books. It is the perfect e-reader for books in PDF and ePub formats.

Since Aldiko Book Reader does not take up memory, it will not automatically save a book. But you can import the book to its virtual shelf, which allows you to save your reading session. Aldiko offers a great reading experience with its extensive features including options to adjust font size, font face, backgrounds, as well as settings to suit the reader’s needs.

Cool Reader

Cool Reader, as the name suggests, is indeed super-cool. It offers a fully customizable palette, text formatting for any font size, and extra smooth scrolling that makes reading a pleasure. It is probably the only e-reader app that provides text-to-speech for free.

Other features of Cool Reader include a day/night toggle that renders two sets of colors, and background and backlight levels for convenient reading. Supporting a wide range of file formats, such as ePub, fb2, html, rtf, txt and more, Cool Reader also provides information on page count, percentage read, and chapter marks at the top of the screen.