Bit by Bit 14th Feb || Lexus opens new guest experience centre in Kochi & more

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MARKET UPDATE

• NIFTY 50 : ₹17,770.90 (-0.48%)

• BSE SENSEX : ₹60,431.84 (-0.41%)

• NIFTY BANK : ₹41,282.20 (-0.67%)

• USD/INR : ₹82.592 (+0.10%)

• BRENTOIL : $86.61 (+0.25%)

• MCXGOLD : ₹56,486 (-0.40%)

• FII Net Cashflow : + ₹1322 crores

• DII Net Cashflow : + ₹522 crores

(Market Data as of 11:00 PM on 13/02/2022)

BFSI

Retail inflation in India exceeds The RBI's tolerance threshold, increased to 6.52% in January

Key Facts:

• The RBI has forecast retail inflation for FY23 at 6.5 per cent and for Q4 at 5.7 per cent.

• Retail inflation for FY24 has been forecast at 5.3 per cent with Q1 at 5 per cent, Q2 at 5.4 per cent, Q3 at 5.4 per cent and Q4 at 5.6 per cent.

• Inflation rate for vegetables contracted by 11.70 per cent against a contraction of 15.08 per cent in the previous month.

The Story:

According to information made public today by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, retail inflation in India, which had been declining for the previous two months, sharply increased in January to 6.52 percent.

Due to a negative base impact from the previous year, a rise was anticipated. But the significantly higher-than-expected annual growth rate of 6.52% in January compared to 5.722% in December last year has been partially fueled by growing food costs, which make up roughly 40% of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket. According to a January survey by the RBI, respondents anticipated greater price pressures for durable goods for the home and housing costs over the following three months compared to the previous survey round. The food group was predicted to see the most increase in consumption.

The RBI has raised the short-term lending rate by 225 basis points since May of last year in an effort to keep inflation under control.

Automotive

Lexus opens new guest experience centre in Kochi

The Story :

Lexus India today announced the opening of its new guest experience centre (GEC) in Kochi, Kerala. The luxury carmaker has similar facilities in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Chennai. It also has Lexus brand spaces, Meraki, in Gurugram and Coimbatore.

All Lexus GECs are aimed at bringing together the Japanese philosophy of 'Omotenashi', meaning exceptional hospitality with the Indian spirit of 'Athithi Devo Bhava', to anticipate guests' needs and to provide them with the amazing Lexus experience.

The company revealed the fifth-generation RX at the Auto Expo 2023. Available in two variants, RX 350h Luxury and RX 500h F Sport Performance, the SUV only comes with hybrid engines. Its deliveries in India will commence in March.

The Lexus RX uses two engines. There is a 2.5-litre turbo petrol paired to a CVT, which is mated to a strong-hybrid system. This produces a total of 247bhp. Lexus is offering this engine with front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive configuration, with the latter capable of launching from 0 to 100kmph in 7.9 seconds.

The 2.4-litre turbo petrol in the Lexus RX 500h F Sport Performance is mated to a 6-speed automatic. This too is paired with a strong-hybrid system, pushing out a total of 366bhp and 460Nm of torque. This variant gets all-wheel drive as standard, with a 0 to 100kmph launch time of 6.2 seconds.

TECH

Meta's Chief Business Officer Marne Levine, Appointed in 2021, Leaves Company

Meta Platforms said on Monday Chief Business Officer Marne Levine was leaving the owner of Facebook after a 13-year stint.

Fifty-two-year-old Levine, appointed as the company's first chief business officer in 2021, has served in various other executive positions at the social media company, including chief operating officer of Instagram.

The company said it expanded Nicola Mendelsohn's role as head of global business group and named Justin Osofsky as head of online sales, operations and partnerships, in the wake of Levine's imminent departure.

Mendelsohn will handle the company's relationships with top marketers and agencies for all of its apps, while Osofsky will be leading sales and operations focused on growing small- and medium-sized businesses on Meta's platforms.

The changes come at a time when Meta has promised to cut costs by $5 billion (nearly Rs. 41,320 crore) in the year to a range of $89 billion (nearly Rs. 7,35,450 crore) to $95 billion (nearly Rs. 7,85,000 crore), calling 2023 the "Year of Efficiency".

Anything Interesting

Shapeshifting Humanoid

The Story

Researchers have turned science fiction into, well, science fiction once more by developing a Terminator-like robot that can melt and re-solidify on command without compromising strength. This new robot combines the greatest features of "stiff" robots (hard-bodied, conventional robots) with "soft" robots (flexible but weak robots with difficult-to-control movement). "Giving robots the capacity to flip between liquid and solid phases endows them with additional capability," said Chengfeng Pan, research leader and engineer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, in a news release. The team’s study was published in the journal Matter, where they explained that this new phase-shifting material — the “magnetoactive solid-liquid phase transitional machine” — was created by embedding magnetic particles in gallium.

Gallium, it should be noted, is a metal with an incredibly low melting point of only about 85.6 degrees Fahrenheit (or 29.8 degrees Celsius). "The magnetic particles in our study serve two functions," stated Carmel Majidi, senior author and mechanical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University. "One is that they make the material sensitive to an alternating magnetic field, so you can, by induction, heat up the material and trigger the phase transition. The magnetic particles, on the other hand, provide the robots with mobility and the capacity to move in reaction to the magnetic field." The researchers were motivated to develop the gadget after seeing sea cucumbers, which could switch between "soft" and "stiff" states to protect themselves and increase the amount of weight they could carry.