Knowledge Update

New York, March 31 (IANS) Do you become the "grammar police?" when reading emails? If yes, you could be an introvert, suggests new research that established a link between personality traits and reaction of typos and grammatical errors in emails.

Extroverted people are likely to overlook typos and grammatical errors that would cause introverted people to judge the person who makes such errors more negatively, said the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

"This is the first study to show that the personality traits of listeners/readers have an effect on the interpretation of language," said the study's lead author Julie Boland, professor of linguistics and psychology at the University of Michigan in the US.

"In this experiment, we examined the social judgments that readers made about the writers," Boland noted. 

Eighty three participants read email responses to an ad for a housemate that either contained no errors or had been altered to include either typos, such as mkae (make) or abuot (about), or grammar errors, such as to/too, it's/its or your/you're. 

They rated the email writers in terms of perceived intelligence, friendliness and other attributes, as well as provided information about themselves.

At the end of the experiment, participants were asked if they noticed any grammatical errors in the responses. If they answered "yes," they indicated how much the errors bothered them.

As expected, participants who reported grammar being important at the beginning of the experiment were more likely to be bothered by grammatical errors at the end, study co-author Robin Queen from the University of Michigan said..

In addition, less agreeable people are more sensitive to grammatical errors, while more conscientious and less open people are sensitive to typos, the researchers said.​

Macau, April 6 (IANS) In a biggest ever launch in 10 years, HP Inc on Wednesday launched an aggressive, New Age portfolio of business printers with a focus on enhanced data security, faster and low-cost printing and energy savings. The game changer among 15 newly launched printers that include OfficeJet Pro and LaserJet devices is HP PageWide Technology -- a reliable and scalable print technology that has so far delivered more than 140 billion high-quality digital pages including large format printers and web presses. "We are reinventing printing for every business, whether they are small and midsize business (SMB) who need to be more productive and secure at an affordable price-point or organisations grappling with the fast evolving security risks in their complex network," Richard Bailey, president, Asia Pacific and Japan, HP Inc, told reporters here. The new HP PageWide printers -- which included HP PageWide Enterprise Colour 556 and HP PageWide Enterprise Colour MFP 586 devices -- will provide professional colour, best-in-class ownership cost, faster speed, best energy efficiency and the world's most advanced security and management features. The PageWide printers are designed for small businesses and medium-sized firms, printing up to 15,000 pages a month with a print speed of up to 75 pages per minute. While HP PageWide Enterprise Colour MFP 586 is expected to be available in May starting at Rs.150,000, HP PageWide Enterprise Colour 556 printer is expected to be available also in May starting at Rs.71,400. The HP PageWide Pro 500 series includes HP PageWide Pro 552dw and HP PageWide Pro MFP 577dw. The 552dw and 577dw are designed for small businesses and work groups printing up to 6,000 pages a month, with print speeds of up to 70 pages per minute. The PageWide Pro 500 series is expected to be available in India in May beginning at Rs.51,600. The HP PageWide Pro 400 series includes the HP PageWide Pro 452dw and the HP PageWide Pro MFP 477dw. These printers are designed for small businesses and work groups printing up to 4,500 pages a month with print speeds of up to 55 pages per minute. The PageWide 400 series is also expected to be available in India in May, starting at Rs.45,580. For micro and small businesses printing up to 2,000 pages a month, the HP OfficeJet Pro 8710/8720/8730/8740 all-in-one printers and HP OfficeJet Pro 8210 printer provide professional quality printing at up to 50 percent lower cost per page than lasers. While OfficeJet Pro 8700 series is to be available starting at Rs.19,252 in May, OfficeJet Pro 8210 is expected to be available at Rs.11,561. For micro and home businesses printing up to 800 pages a month, the HP OfficeJet Pro 6960/6970 all-in-one printers provide professional-quality printing at less than half the cost of laser printing. The OfficeJet Pro 6900 series is expected to be available in July starting at Rs.12,999. In addition to A4 devices, HP will soon expand the reach of PageWide technology to a new portfolio of A3 multi-function printers (MFPs). The company also launched a new "Secure Managed Print Services". "HP Secure Managed Print Services is to help customers secure their print environment with the strongest protection available in the industry," HP Inc said. The new HP PageWide business portfolio will be available through channel partners and at select retail store. "In addition, the new portfolio increases the number of managed devices designed for contractual channel partners and managed print services engagements," the company added. The HP OfficeJet Pro 8000 series features HP "Print Forward Designa to provide customers productivity with high speeds in a space-saving design that helps preserve office real estate." These new printers also include enhanced manageability and security features as well as seamless mobile printing. The new LaserJet products include original HP toner cartridges with JetIntelligence technology, enabling the industry's most advanced laser printing platform that offer leaner, faster, smarter options to help customers accelerate their business. HP JetAdvantage Private Print also features support for HP Common Card Reader for fast authentication.​

​Seoul, April 5 (IANS) South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors on Tuesday announced a plan to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-based, internet-connected car to create a new future lifestyle with a "driving, high-performing computer". The driving computer means a car will become a high-performing computer itself as the car, to be developed by Hyundai and Kia, will self-drive based on AI and connect to electronic devices while driving based on internet connectivity, Xinhua cited a joint statement as saying. The main concept of the project is a "hyper-connected and intelligent car", which means an interaction between cars home as well as home and office in addition to AI-based self-driving. To achieve the goal, the automakers will focus on four major themes, intelligent remote-controlling support service, perfect self-driving, smart traffic and mobility hub. The remote-controlling support service aims to check and examine cars on a real-time basis to detect potential emergency situations in advance. The perfect self-driving is aimed at creating a safe-driving environment by exchanging information with everything, including cars and roads. Smart traffic is designed to reduce time and energy by analysing traffic conditions and finding an optimised route of getting to a destination. Mobility hub means a car becomes a hub to link internet-connected devices. The hyper-connected and intelligent car also aims to enable smartphone functions to be reproduced within a car. The smart home connection service targets a remote control of home appliances within the car.​

London, April 5 (IANS) In older adults, especially women, higher dietary calcium intake may lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, but not of stroke and fracture, new research suggests.

"The role of dietary calcium intake in cardiovascular disease, stroke and fracture is controversial. We aimed to evaluate whether high dietary calcium intake increases the risk of CVD, stroke and fracture in a population with low calcium intake," said lead study author Sung Hye Kong from Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul, South Korea.

Researchers conducted their study among individuals in Korea's ongoing prospective community-based Ansung and Ansan Cohort Study that began in 2001.

The authors performed their analyses in 2,199 men and 2,704 women over 50 years of age without previous cardiovascular disease and stroke.

The participants in the study reported their dietary food intake in periodic food frequency questionnaires.

Cardiovascular disease, stroke and fractures were recorded during interviews and examinations every two years.

The findings suggest, in older women in this population with low dietary calcium intake, higher dietary calcium intake was significantly associated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, but not significantly associated with risk of stroke and fracture.​

​Tokyo, April 5 (IANS) Japanese carmaker Toyota on Tuesday announced it will collaborate with US tech giant Microsoft to improve services for cars connected to the internet in the future.

​Abu Dhabi, April 5 (IANS/WAM) Abu Dhabi-based investment company Reem Investments has announced a net profit of $57.4 million for the financial year 2015.

The company's board of directors approved the 12 percent cash dividend -- an increase of 20 percent over the 2014 dividend.

​Washington, April 6 (IANS) US President Barack Obama has called on Congress to reform the business tax system to close the loophole that allows for a financial practice known as corporate inversions.

​Hong Kong, April 6 (IANS) A rare blue diamond bucked the recent downturn in the auction market when it was sold for $30.8 million at Sotheby's, setting a new record.

The "De Beers Millennium Jewel 4", a 10.10-carat oval-shaped fancy vivid blue diamond, fetched more money than any other jewel at an auction in Asia ever, Efe news agency

​Kathmandu, April 5 (IANS) Indian infrastructure major GMR is in talks with global lenders to raise $1.5 billion to develop the 900 MW Upper Karnali hydel project in Nepal.

Coordinated by the Investment Board Nepal (IBN), representatives from GMR, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Finance Corporation (IFC), International

​London, April 5 (IANS) British scientists have found that by getting robots to "talk with their hands", we can understand them as well as we do our fellow human beings.

In a study aimed at improving communication with robots, Paul Bremner from the University of the West of England and Ute Leonards from the University of Bristol focused on