2016 RIO OLYMPICS: Kom will not quit over Rio KO

India’s “Magnificent” Mary Kom yesterday said that she was heartbroken after she failed to obtain a wild-card for the Rio Olympics, but the five-time world champion said she was not about to quit boxing.

Kom, 33, failed to qualify after losing a crucial bout at the Women’s World Boxing Championships in Kazakhstan last month, raising speculation about her future.

The 2012 Olympic bronze medalist had been pinning her hopes on a last-ditch plea for a wild-card spot, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has now turned down her request.

“I have been duly informed that I won’t be getting a wild-card. It is heartbreaking,” Kom was quoted saying by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.

“I have to accept this decision, but I am not quitting the sport right now. I will continue to compete [while] I am feeling fit, and for the time being, I think I am fit,” Kom added.

Kom, a household name in India and the subject of a Bollywood film in 2014, always faced an uphill battle to secure a spot. Only one wild-card entry was on offer for each of the three women’s boxing categories in Rio in August.

“The IOC has ruled that the [wild-card] will be given only to countries which have had less than eight participants in the last two Olympics, and India had eight boxers in London,” said Kishen Narsi, chairman of India’s ad hoc boxing committee.

“They had taken the call in the previous meeting that they will stick to the rule of any country with less than eight participants in any sport. So it’s a call that they have taken and we have to fall in line,” Narsi said.

Despite her disappointment, Kom, a mother-of-three who hails from a poor family in the neglected and remote state of Manipur, said “the future is good.”

“I am aware that retirement is something that would be talked about a lot, but for the time being I have dropped the idea,” said Kom, dubbed “Magnificent Mary” after she won her fifth world championship title in 2010.

“Of course, I would be spending more time at my academy training young kids, but I will continue to devote as much time to my training as well,” Kom added.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/06/24/2003649349

WHO-Mary Kom

WHAT-he was heartbroken after she failed to obtain a wild-card for the Rio Olympics, but the five-time world champion said she was not about to quit boxing.

WHEN-yesterday

WHERE-India

WHY- -

HOW- -

KEYWORDS-Boxing,last-ditch plea,neglected,uphill,categories,quoted 

India’s “Magnificent” Mary Kom yesterday said that she was heartbroken after she failed to obtain a wild-card for the Rio Olympics, but the five-time world champion said she was not about to quit boxing.

Autopilot criticism may cause deaths: Musk AP, DETROIT, Michigan

Self-driving cars hold the promise of saving thousands of lives each year on US roads, but does pointing out flaws with the technology effectively put people in danger?

That claim was put forth on Wednesday by Tesla Motors Inc chief executive officer Elon Musk, who criticized the media for harping on the relatively few crashes involving Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving system called Autopilot, while saying little about the about the 1.2 million people who die worldwide each year in human-driven vehicles.

“If, in writing some article that’s negative, you effectively dissuade people from using autonomous vehicles, you’re killing people,” said Musk, who expects his self-driving technology to be at least twice as safe as cars driven by humans.

The comments came as Musk announced that all new Tesla vehicles — including the lower-cost Model 3 — will have the hardware needed to drive themselves. The talk is bold, but experts say it is premature until self-driving cars prove they are better drivers than humans under any circumstances.

“Over time, after the technology has established itself, one would expect there would be a decrease in fatalities,” said Raj Rajkumar, a computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, who leads its autonomous vehicle research. “But this is too premature to make this claim. Tesla’s technology is known to be imperfect.”

In May, an Ohio man using Autopilot died when his Tesla Model S failed to spot a tractor-trailer crossing a divided highway. Neither the car nor the driver braked and the Model S crashed into the side of the trailer. US federal investigators are looking into Autopilot’s role in the crash.

Tesla’s Autopilot, introduced last year, can maintain a set speed and distance and keep the car in its lane, but the technology works mainly on highways and must be monitored by the driver. Autopilot will turn itself off if drivers have their hands off the wheel for too long.

Musk said Autopilot has already shown itself to be safer than humans.

He tweeted earlier this month that Tesla vehicles have been driven about 357 million kilometers in Autopilot mode, with one confirmed driver death. By comparison, the US fatality rate in 2014 was 2.16 deaths per 322 million kilometers traveled, according to US government data.

The new autonomous system has been in testing for more than a year, and Musk said it could cut worldwide deaths in half if all cars used it.

Rajkumar was skeptical and called the Tesla announcement “marketing hype.”

He said people should be skeptical of Tesla’s claims because of the Florida crash.

Self-driving technology “still needs to prove itself,” he said, adding that it has trouble operating in dense urban traffic and inclement weather.

Consumer Reports magazine is also concerned about semi-autonomous systems such as those that allow a car to steer itself. The magazine believes automakers like Tesla “should take stronger steps to ensure that vehicles with these systems are designed, deployed and marketed safely,” it said.

The new Tesla vehicles are to use Tesla-developed software and have more sensors. They will have eight cameras, compared with one in previous models, as well as advanced sonar and greater computing capacity.

Tesla said the system is fully autonomous and can work on city streets as well as highways. Buyers can pay US$3,000 for Autopilot or US$8,000 for the full self-driving system.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/10/22/2003657649

WHO- -

WHAT-Self-driving cars hold the promise of saving thousands of lives 

WHEN- -

WHERE- US

HOW- -

WHY- -

KEYWORDS- criticized,autonomous,circumstances.,premature, Autopilot, inclement 

Self-driving cars hold the promise of saving thousands of lives each year on US roads, but does pointing out flaws with the technology effectively put people in danger?

Japan searches for quake survivors

Shaken residents of a southern Japanese island rocked by a powerful earthquake that left at least nine dead lined up for water in rubble-strewn streets yesterday, with many facing a second night of uncertainty away from their ruined homes.

Rescuers continued to search through damaged buildings for possible survivors after the violent quake that also injured hundreds, although officials said the death toll was unlikely to rise significantly.

In Taipei, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) sent a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to extend the nation’s sympathies after the massive earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture on Thursday night, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The letter was forwarded to the Interchange Association, Japan through Taiwan’s representative office in Tokyo, the ministry said.

Tens of thousands of people fled their homes after the magnitude 6.5 quake struck the southwestern island of Kyushu, leaving lumps of concrete strewn in the streets.

Houses collapsed, factories stopped work and a high-speed train was derailed, while the roof of the treasured Kumamoto Castle in the southern city of the same name was also damaged.

“We tried our best to take all our belongings and go to a shelter by car,” said Haruki Ito, 62, whose house tilted 45 degrees after the quake.

“Our dogs got so scared and hid themselves inside the collapsed house,” he said, adding that he hoped he and his wife could stay in a local shelter with their pets.

Dozens of aftershocks followed the quake, which struck at 9:26pm on Thursday, and officials said the death toll could still rise as rescuers scoured the collapsed structures.

As rescue workers toiled through the night hours after the quake struck, an eight-month-old baby girl was pulled from the rubble alive and unharmed.

“As far as we can tell from infrared images from a police helicopter, there appears to be a significant number of houses destroyed or half-collapsed,” Japanese Minister of State for Disaster Management Taro Kono said.

Rescuers were concentrating their searches in Mashiki, near the epicenter of the quake, where eight of the nine deaths occurred.

On the streets, the remains of collapsed houses — many of them aged, wooden structures — could be seen, and damaged roof tiles lay in piles.

A rescue team with several search dogs patrolled around half-collapsed houses in the town, but no new deaths had been announced for more than 14 hours.

Scores of people spent the night huddled in front of Mashiki’s town hall, some in tears, while others wrapped themselves in blankets to ward off the night chill.

By yesterday afternoon, the government said it had confirmed that 881 people were injured, at least 52 seriously. An official from the local Kumamoto disaster agency said at least nine were dead.

However, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a regular press conference that the death toll was unlikely to sharply increase, but that search operations were continuing just to make sure. He added that Abe plans to visit Kumamoto today to meet victims.

Gen Aoki, a Japan Meteorological Agency seismologist, urged residents to be on guard for more aftershocks and warned that rain in coming days could make the situation worse.

About 24,900 households in Kumamoto have been left without water, according to the government, a big improvement from an earlier figure of about 57,000.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/04/16/2003644063

WHO-Shaken residents 

WHAT-Japanese island rocked by a powerful earthquake that left at least nine dead lined up for water in rubble-strewn streets

WHEN-yesterday

WHERE-Japanese island

HOW- -

KEYWORDS- magnitude, rubble,agency ,seismologist, survivors

Shaken residents of a southern Japanese island rocked by a powerful earthquake that left at least nine dead lined up for water in rubble-strewn streets yesterday, with many facing a second night of uncertainty away from their ruined homes