iPhone 11 Shock As 'All-New' Apple iPhone Revealed

“The new iPhones are jam-packed with new capabilities and an incredible new design.” – Tim Cook

Apple unveiled its iPhone 11 models last night (Thai time) with a price cut for the most basic models while also laying out plans for streaming and gaming services as it bids to weather the slump in the global smartphone market.

No major surprises. But in a surprising tone for the tech leader, Apple focussed on ‘price’ as a key strategy in today’s announcements.

Price appeared to be a key consideration as the tech giant reduced the entry level price for the iPhone 11 to $699 and undercut rivals for its gaming and streaming television subscriptions.

Apple unveiled three versions of the iPhone 11 including “Pro” models with triple camera and other advanced features starting at $999 and $1,099, unchanged from last year’s prices, touting upgraded features including ultra-wide camera lenses.

The surprise from Apple was the reduction in the starting price at $699, down from $749 for the iPhone XR a year ago even as many premium devices are being priced around $1,000.

The new iPhones are “jam-packed with new capabilities and an incredible new design,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook told a launch event in Cupertino, California as the company set plans to sell the new handsets on September 20.

.

 . 

Apple’s announcements appeared to be aimed at emphasising value as the company looks to shift its business model to reduce its dependence on smartphones and tie in digital content and other services to its devices.

“We got a stream of nonstop product launches, with content being used as a sweetener,” said Avi Greengart, analyst and consultant with Techsponential.

“I think the iPhone 11 is compelling and may convince people to upgrade earlier than they might have otherwise given the lower price and longer battery life, not just an improved camera.”

With the new devices and services, “I think there are more reasons to stay with Apple than to defect from Apple,” said Patrick Moorhead, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

Apple TV+ service will launch November 1 in more than 100 countries at US$4.99 per month and will include a “powerful and inspiring lineup of original shows, movies and documentaries.”

While Apple’s streaming service will have limited content at first, its price is below the $6.99 for the forthcoming Disney+ service and the more expensive plans from Netflix.

 “Clearly Cupertino is looking for market share coming out of the gates with these surprising price points that we loudly applaud,” said Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities.

.

 .

Apple is featuring scripted dramas, comedies and movies as well as children’s programs in the service, which will compete against streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon.

“With Apple TV+, we are presenting all-original stories from the best, brightest and most creative minds, and we know viewers will find their new favorite show or movie on our service,” said Zack Van Amburg, Apple’s head of video.

Apple said customers who purchase an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch or Mac will get the first year of the service for free.

The company’s online gaming subscription service, Apple Arcade, will launch next week, offering exclusive titles for mobile and desktop users.

The new service, which will also cost $4.99 per month, will include more than 100 game titles made for Apple devices and will be available in some 150 countries.

“You can’t find these games on any other mobile platform or subscription service. No game service ever launched as many games, and we can’t wait for you to play all of that,” product manager Ann Thai told the Apple media event.

Apple also unveiled updates to its iPad tablet and Apple Watch smartwatch, also emphasising stable or lower prices with cuts to older versions.

“We think the lower iPhone 11 price point and trade-in program will help promote upgrades, specifically in China, while the Apple Arcade and TV+ offerings will help accelerate services growth,” CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino said in a note about Apple.

Apple shares ended the formal trading day up slightly to $216.70, while streaming television rivals Netflix and Disney both finished down about two percent.

.

Source - The Thaiger

Bangkok tops in 2018 for international visitors: Report

Bangkok ranked first in 2018 for the fourth straight year as the city with the most international visitors, according to an annual report by Mastercard released Wednesday.

With almost 23 million international visitors last year, the Thai capital outpaced both Paris and London, which were second and third with just over 19 million visitors. 

Other top cities in order were: Dubai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, New York, Istanbul, Tokyo and Antalya, Turkey.

The report pointed to broad increases in international travel, with the total number of international visits up 76 percent since 2009.

Nine of the top 10 cities saw increases in 2018 compared with the prior year. London was the exception, with a drop of four percent.

Dubai topped the list as far as consumption, with travelers spending an average of $553 per day and visitors spending a total of nearly $31 billion. Mecca, Saudi Arabia and Bangkok were second and third as far as spending.

Established in 2011, the Global Destination Cities ranks 200 cities based on visitor arrivals and cross-border spending.

Source - TheJakartaPost

 

#Vietnam - CNN names Hoi An among Asia’s most beautiful towns

.

U.S. cable news channel CNN has listed the 400-year-old Hoi An Town in central Vietnam among “the most picturesque” in Asia.

The UNESCO heritage site in Quang Nam Province ranks fourth in the list of 13 most beautiful towns in Asia, behind another UNESCO site, George Town in Malaysia, the beautiful river town of Zhouzhuang in China and Japan’s Yufuin.

Hoi An, which used to be the busiest trading port in Southeast Asia in the 16th century and was famous for ceramics and high-quality silk, is now "a heaven for photographers, foodies and architecture lovers", CNN said.

"Thanks to centuries as an important trade hub, the narrow streets of Hoi An ancient town feature rows and rows of charming mustard-hued merchant houses though many have since been transformed into low-key restaurants, bars, design boutiques and tailors' shops."

For many, Hoi An is not just a collection of 16th century houses for which the former port town has been recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site. A cuisine particular to the town, influenced by many different cultures including Japan, China and Portugal, is a major part of its attraction too.

.

Don’t miss the array of delicious food experiences, from banh mi, a Vietnamese single-serving baguette filled with various savory ingredients, at the famous Banh Mi Phuong Restaurant (2B Phan Chau Trinh) that has been praised by bloggers and foreign media for several years now. Anthony Bourdain referred to the banh mi here as "the world's best", CNN said.

"Foodies can also enjoy local staples like herb-covered rice rolls, white rose dumplings and fresh seafood at Ms Ly’s café."

.

.

 Famous towns in Southeast Asia appearing on the CNN list also include Vigan in the Philippines, Luang Prabang in Laos, Kampot in Cambodia, Kota Gede in Indonesia, and Phuket Old Town in Thailand.

Hoi An has been earning one laurel after another this year including topping this year’s tourism hotspot listing by New York-based magazine Travel + Leisure.

On July 16 Google Doodle featured an image of Hoi An with symbols of Chua Cau (Pagoda Bridge) and colorful lanterns, the first Vietnamese destination to be honored thus.

The number of foreign visitors to Hoi An skyrocketed by 90 percent last year to 3.7 million.

.

Source - VN Express

 

#Cambodia - Ministry proposes aviation association

Phnom Phen International Airport 

The Ministry of Tourism on Wednesday proposed the creation of an aviation association in a meeting with the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation and five airlines.

Tourism Minister Thong Khon said having an association for the industry will facilitate dialogue among all actors and help them find solutions to the challenges the industry faces.

“The association will play a significant role in finding solutions and will help the industry develop smoothly,” the minister said during the meeting, which included representatives of the national flag carrier, Cambodia Angkor Air.

Flight delays and cancellations, problems that beset the local aviation industry, were also discussed in the meeting.

Ministry spokesperson Top Sopheak told Khmer Times yesterday that the ministry’s proposal has had a positive reception among players in the industry.

“SSCA will look into the possibility of forming the association,” he said.

SSCA’s spokesperson Sin Chan Sereyvutha could not be reached for comment yesterday.

According to SSCA, the Kingdom’s three international airports handled 29,705 flights in the first six months of the year.

Source - Khmer Times

No plastic bottles and bags in Everest region from January

.

 Come January, the Everest region is set to become a no-plastic zone.

After scrambling for years to deal with the piles of waste in the Everest region, which has gained notoriety as the ‘world’s highest garbage dump’, the local authority has endorsed a plan to declare the whole area a ‘no plastic’ zone from the next year.

The Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality in Solukhumbu district has decided that starting January 1, 2020, it will impose a ban on the use of plastic bags, bottles and other plastic items, citing their adverse effects on human health, especially in the whole Everest region.

The rural municipality, passing its policies and programmes for the current fiscal year, decided that the use of plastic bags less than 30 microns will be prohibited in the Everest region, according to Ganesh Ghimire, chief administrative officer at the local authority.

With the new rule, even bottled drinks will be barred from the area. Now onwards, all the bottled beverages will have to be taken in cans only.

 “Over the years, plastic has created havoc in a region that is fragile and home to the world’s tallest peaks,” Ghimire told the Post. “As the number of tourists visiting the area went up, the Everest region was flooded with plastics. The initiative is taken to rid the region of plastics.”

Once the rule comes into force, no one—locals or tourists—will be allowed to use and carry plastic bags, and plastic bottles inside the rural municipality, according to Ghimire.

“We will only allow canned drinks because cans are not as hazardous for the environment like plastic. Locals can also recycle cans,” Ghimire said. “It was necessary to impose such a strict ban because the region was plastered with plastic and other items made of plastic.”

The Everest region has long been struggling to manage solid waste that visitors to the region bring along every year. Hundreds of mountaineers, Sherpas, guides and other high altitude porters en route to Everest leave behind tonnes of both biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes that include empty oxygen canisters, bottles, ropes, kitchen waste, and faecal matter, polluting the area and the settlements downstream.

The government rule for every climber to bring back at least 8 kgs of garbage—the amount of trash estimated to be produced by one climber on average—has remained mostly ineffective.

 Earlier this year, a 45-day ‘Everest Cleaning Campaign’, led by the rural municipality and supported by various governmental and non-governmental agencies, had brought down nearly 11,000 kgs of garbage from the world’s tallest peak. Plastic in various forms and sizes was the major item in the collected trash.

The campaign, which was one of the most ambitious clean-up projects on Everest, had cost over Rs25million.

“Besides disturbing the local environment, we have to spend a huge amount of money clearing this trash every year,” said Ghimire.

As a replacement for plastic bags, the local authority will distribute five alternative bags free of cost to each resident in the rural municipality with approximately 2,000 households.

The local authority fears that with the opening of a road that connects Kharikhola in ward-1 of the rural municipality with Chaurikharka in ward-3 would exacerbate plastic pollution.

According to the rural municipality’s estimate, nearly 150,000 tourists use the route. The number is predicted to go up to 500,000 next year.

“More tourists on the route will mean more plastics in the region,” Ghimire said. “Before we face an unprecedented amount of plastic in future, this is the right time to prohibit plastics here.”

Source - Eleven Myanmar

Lonely Planet names #Vietnam’s north-south rail journey among world’s best

Vietnam’s north-south railway is listed by the British travel guide, Lonely Planet, as one of 10 world’s ‘most amazing’ train journeys for 2019.

The Reunification Express, known as the Thong Nhat Railway, traverses more than 1,726 kilometers (1,072 miles) between Hanoi and Saigon, the country’s two biggest cities, in two days.

"There is no more atmospheric way to haul into Vietnam’s twin metropolises. And there’s no better way of exploring all the glories in between," Lonely Planet said.

The journey allows passengers to sit and enjoy romantic scenery and rural landscapes along coastal towns in the central region including the former imperial capital of Hue, the Da Nang City Port which was initially built in the French colonial time and the ancient town of Hoi An.

.

.

The other train journeys Lonely Planet lists are the California Zephyr in the U.S., Baikal–Amur Mainline in Russia, China’s Beijing to Lhasa Express, and the TranzAlpine in New Zealand.

The north-south rail has been deteriorating after decades of use since being built by the French in the 1930s. Rail transport is rapidly losing popularity given the rise of cheap air travel.

Vietnam’s aviation industry has been growing at the third fastest pace in the Asia-Pacific, according to the International Air Transport Association.

The railways carried 9.4 million passengers last year, down 3.5 percent from 2017, according to government data.

Some companies have been trying to revive the romance of train travel, offering first-class trips with attached restaurant cars like the five-star services launched in 2017 from Saigon to the coastal resort town of Nha Trang and from Hanoi to the northern highlands town of Sa Pa.

Russian news agency Sputnik recently included the north-south rail among world’s 10 most beautiful.

Last year travel publisher Rough Guides named it as one of the most scenic in Asia, where one can watch buffalos grazing in rice paddies, fishermen casting their nets in the sea, deserted white beaches, and lush rainforests.

.

Source - VN Express

Bars and clubs in #Thailand open until 4.00am? Not everyone is in favour

Some academics oppose the Tourism and Sports Minister’s idea to allow entertainment venues to remain open until 4.00am.

Udomsak Saengow of the Centre for Alcohol Studies is one of those suggesting that more research is needed before such a move.

“Civic groups have worked hard to limit access to alcohol and they succeeded in lobbying for shortening the closing times from 4am to 2am. When opening times are extended, drinking hours are also extended. The more people drink, the less they can control themselves.”

But Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn argues that extended opening hours would boost the economy and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) agrees.

TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn says extending opening times would increase spending, particularly when some foreign visitors find that a closing time of 2.00am is too early. He also stresses that the new opening hours would not apply everywhere.

“The 4am closing time would be restricted to destinations which mainly cater to foreign visitors.”

But coordinator of Alcohol Watch Network, Chuwit Chantaros, disagrees that the move would help the economy, arguing that it may lead to an increase in injuries or deaths among drunk tourists. Such an increase would only end up costing businesses.

“We have research findings showing that we lose 2 baht for every one baht we gain because of property losses as well as deaths and injuries which cause further material losses. If the operating hours are extended, more losses are anticipated.”

But Weerawich Kruasombat, head of the Patong entertainment business operators’ union, is in favour of the move.

“For years, we have been pushing for extended closing times in the Patong and Bang La areas. These districts currently generate 20-30 million baht in income per night and the extra two hours will boost income by 30%-40%.”

The debate rages on, with interested parties in the relevant tourist areas planning to meet with the TAT to discuss the matter further.

Source - The Thaiger