Tag Himalayan

(media92news)
“Please enjoy your meal,” says Nepal’s first robot waiter, Ginger, as she delivers a plate of steaming dumplings to a table of hungry customers.

The poor Himalayan nation is better known for its soaring mountain peaks than technological prowess, but a group of self-taught young innovators are seeking to change that.

Local start-up Paaila Technology built Ginger, a 1.5 metre (five-foot) tall robot, from scratch and programmed her to understand both English and Nepali.

Read: Robot serves food at Multan pizzeria

The bilingual humanoid robot — named Ginger after a common ingredient in Nepali cuisine — can even crack jokes like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa.

Three ‘Gingers’ work at Naulo restaurant in the dusty capital Kathmandu, where pot-holed roads and crumbling buildings still bear the scars of a powerful earthquake that hit more than three years ago.

“This is our testing ground. We are fine tuning it with responses from our customers,” Binay Raut, CEO of the company, told AFP.

The team of 25 young engineers — Raut is the oldest at 27 — worked for months to build the robot, welding and moulding the prototype by hand in their tiny three-roomed office.

What Nepal lacks in tech infrastructure the engineers made up for in ingenuity — Ginger’s sleek-looking plastic body was painted in a neighbourhood car workshop.

Naulo opened its doors four months ago and their robot waiters have been a big draw, attracting curious customers of all ages.

Ginger, who is able to sense movement and obstacles, deftly navigates the crowded restaurant carrying trays laden with food.

Customers order via a touch screen menu fitted into the tables, and Ginger is called to the kitchen when dishes are ready.

“It was a completely new experience,” said 73-year-old Shalikram Sharma, who was born before televisions were available in Nepal.

Ginger has become quite a selfie-star and is often distracted from her work by children keen to get a photo with the sleek robot.

“They look so good. I could not believe they were made in Nepal,” said Neelam Kumar Bimali, a diner enjoying an evening meal with his family.

With its eyes on the global market, Paila Technology is in the process of patenting its design to sell at home and abroad.

The World Economic Forum recently predicted that by 2025 more than half of all jobs will be performed by robots — almost twice as many as today.

That is a trend Ginger’s creators are banking on.

At present, a few human waiters help Ginger but an upgrade is in the works that should make Naulo entirely robot-run.

KATHMANDU: Five South Korean climbers and their four Nepali guides have been killed after their base camp in the Himalayas was ravaged by a storm, local police and hiking officials said on Sunday.

The disaster, which claimed the life of record-breaking Korean climber Kim Chang-ho, is the worst climbing accident to hit the Himalayan nation in two years.

Police official Bir Bahadur Budhamagar said rescuers helped by locals retrieved the bodies of the nine climbers on Sunday from near their base camp at Mount Gurja, a 7,193 metre-high peak (23,600 feet), located roughly 216 kilometres (135 miles) northwest of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

“The bodies of all five Koreans and four Nepalis have been identified,” Budhamagar told Reuters from Myagdi district where the disaster took place.

On Saturday, police said locals had spotted seven bodies on the mountain slopes, but emergency workers were unable to retrieve them due to bad weather.

The Korean expedition was being led by Chang-ho, who set the record in 2013 for being the fastest to reach the summits of the world’s 14 highest mountains without using supplemental oxygen, according to climbing officials.

The victims included a four-man Korean team to the Gurja mountain. They were at the base camp located at 3,500 meters (11,482) at the time of the storm. The fifth Korean was a trekker, who joined the group, according to hiking officials.

Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains including Mount Everest, and the autumn climbing season is now at its peak. Income from foreign climbers is a major source of revenue for the cash-strapped nation.

Road crashes in India claim the lives of more than 150,000 people each year. Photo: AFP

Fifty people died when a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims plunged into a valley in southern India on Tuesday, one of the deadliest accidents on the country’s notorious roads in recent years.

Road crashes in India claim the lives of more than 150,000 people each year. Most accidents are blamed on poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.

The bus carrying 80 people was returning from the famous Hindu temple of Kondagattu Anjaneya Swamy in the hilly southern state of Telangana when it skidded off the road.

Broken glass, slippers and luggage lay scattered next to lifeless bodies that were lined up at the scene, as locals pulled out survivors from the mangled vehicle.

They then carried them uphill to get medical attention.

Some rescuers climbed onto the bus and others tried to reach the injured through the front portion which was completely smashed.

“More than half of those killed were women, and there were at least three children,” local official G. Narendhar told AFP.

Broadcaster NDTV quoted witnesses as saying the driver was speeding and lost control of the vehicle. The Hindu daily said it careened off the road on a sharp corner.

“We have pulled out the bodies and we are taking them to the hospital for autopsy,” B. Rajesham, another official, told AFP.

An investigation has been ordered.

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao expressed shock and announced 500,000 rupees ($7,000) each for the families of the deceased.

Tuesday is considered an auspicious day by Hindus, and there was a heavy rush of devotees to the temple.

On July 28 a bus carrying university workers plunged off a mountain road into a valley in western India, killing 33 people.

That vehicle was taking staff from the Dapoli Agriculture University to a popular hill station in the state of Maharashtra for a picnic.

The same month 48 people were killed and many others badly injured in the north of the country when an overcrowded bus hurtled into a gorge in the Himalayan foothills.