Yandex is planning on starting field tests for its self driving taxis in Moscow, Russia. This would allow the people living in the Capital city to experience the future by taking a ride in the new autonomous vehicles later this year.

The Russian tech based firm made the announced earlier this week, revealing its plans for a late 2021 testing phase. For those unaware, Yandex runs a vast majority of services in the region, ranging from online search to even food delivery, and for the past three years, the company is also looking to test self driving technology in Russia, Israel, and even the United States of America.

According to the tech giant, Robotaxis will be available from its Yandex.Go application in one Moscow district for certain customers. The company added that “The launch in Yasenevo is the first stage of a large Yandex project to launch driverless taxis. Over time, there will be more cars, the number of locations you can go to and from will increase, and ever more people will be able to hail driverless taxis.”

Unfortunately, the Russian legislation does not permit such autonomous vehicles to travel without a person at the wheel as of right now. Although, there are exception based on special economic zones, like the city of Innopolis in the Tatarstan region. Furthermore, there is also a restriction on their use in certain areas of large cities that could be partially lifted after a law recently came into force earlier this year. At the moment, Yandex owns a sizeable 170 driverless cars that have collectively traveled over 14 million kilometers. It has even employed robots that deliver restaurant meals in central Moscow.

RELATED:

• Yandex rolls out robots that deliver restaurant meals in central Moscow
• Russia’s Yandex launches its first phone with its own voice assistant
• Interactio, a remote interpretation platform saw a 12 fold growth fuelled by COVID-19 lockdown

The post Russia’s Yandex to start tests for Self Driving Taxis in Moscow appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei is strengthening its relationship with Russian companies like Yandex and Mail.ru. The latter is reportedly in talks with the Chinese telecommunications giant to pre-install its apps inside Huawei smartphones. Given that Huawei is currently the world’s second-largest smartphone manufacturer, this could be a big deal for the Russian internet company.

Mail.ru Group has a lot of apps and services under its belt like VKontakte (VK), Delivery Club (Food delivery app), and Odnoklassniki (OK). While these apps are traditionally popular among the Russian speaking individuals, they still have a pretty strong fan following. For example, OK has over 2 million downloads on the Google Play store.

Editor’s Pick: Huawei to announce Google Maps rival called Map Kit in October

Huawei is also reportedly in talks with another big Russian company, Yandex. The company is planning to install Yandex’s digital assistant – Alice on its smartphones. The two companies are also said to be working on other collaboration opportunities in areas such as search engine, music, taxi, and weather services.

However, both these deals have not yet been finalized. So there’s still time before we start seeing Huawei smartphones coming pre-installed with Mail.ru and Yandex apps.

UP NEXT: Huawei Mate 30 could feature ultra-fast 25W Wireless Charging

(Source)

The post Mail.ru is planning to pre-install its apps on Huawei phones appeared first on Gizmochina.

Google may be the most popular search engine in the world but in some countries, it takes the back seat. For example, in Russia, the popular search engine is Yandex. The latest news is that Yandex has launched its first smartphone, the Yandex Telephone and it comes with its own voice assistant pronounced Alissa (sounds familiar?) but translates to Alice.

When it comes to specs, the Yandex Telephone can’t hold a candle to Google’s new Pixel smartphones. It has a 5.65-inch FHD+ LCD display, a Snapdragon 63. processor and 4GB of RAM. Built-in storage is 64GB and a hybrid dual SIM slot will let you use a MicroSD card for adding up to an extra 128GB.

On its rear is a 16MP + 5MP dual camera combo and a fingerprint scanner while the front is home to a 5MP camera with its own LED flash for brighter selfies.

The Yandex Telephone has an audio jack on top and Qualcomm Aqstic on board for better audio quality. There is NFC for contactless payment and it works with Yandex.Money, the search engine’s version of Google Pay.

The phone has a 3,050mAh battery with support for Quick Charge 3.0, a USB-C port and dual-SIM dual LTE support,

Another main feature of the phone is its own voice assistant, Alissa/Alice which can do a lot of stuff such as identify songs, set reminders and alarms, give directions, make calls, and tell you about the weather etc.. You can also chat with it and play games with it if you are bored.

Yandex also says the phone has unlimited photo and video storage backup just like the Pixels. There are also some bunch of official cases made from different materials including silicone and fabric and a protective film to cover the screen.

READ MORE: Google Pixel 3 Lite to be powered by Snapdragon 670 chipset, will feature the same camera as Pixel 3

The Yandex Telephone is priced at RUB 17,990 (~$270) while the cases start at RUB 290 (~$4). You can purchase it on the official online store here.

(Source, Via)

The post Russia’s Yandex launches its first phone with its own voice assistant appeared first on Gizmochina.