TOKYO – Toyota Motor Corp on Monday said it would begin testing self-driving electric cars around 2020, which will use artificial intelligence (AI) to engage with drivers, as the company competes with tech firms to develop new vehicles.

The car, whose concept model was unveiled earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, will be able to converse with drivers, while building up knowledge of users’preferences, habits and emotions through deep learning, the company said.

“By using AI technology, we want to expand and enhance the driving experience, making cars an object of affection again,”said Makoto Okabe, general manager of Toyota’s EV business planning division.

Facing competition from rival automakers and tech companies to produce self-driving, intelligent cars, Toyota has committed $1 billion through 2020 to develop advanced automated driving and AI technology.

The Concept-i model, a battery-electric car which will have a cruising range of 300 kilometres (180 miles) on a single charge, will be able to estimate the emotions and alertness of drivers by reading their expressions, actions and tone of voice.

Using this information, the vehicle will be able to take over driving responsibilities when necessary – after assessing the driver is too tired to drive safely, for example – and also interact with the driver and passengers.

Facing a future where car ownership may be overtaken by new mobility services, automakers are ramping up investment to develop AI capabilities to enhance the driving experience.

Ford Motor Co earlier this year invested $1 billion in Argo AI, a start-up set up by former employees of Uber Technologies’ self-driving car development team, to develop an on-demand self-driving car service. General Motors Co has also been investing in AI start-ups.

Honda Motor Co and Softbank Corp announced last year that they were teaming up to use humanoid robotic technology in cars to enable them to communicate with drivers.

A taxi driver returned US$6,500 (S$8,110) to a Romanian tourist shortly after she dropper her purse in his taxi on Monday morning.

The FM 91 radio station organised a meeting between the taxi driver, Sunthorn Ankhian, 46, and the tourist, Chirila Gabriela, 58, at the station at 1.30pm.

The taxi driver spotted the purse on the floor in front of the passenger’s back seat at 10.50am and called the radio station to locate and alert the tourist.

Sunthorn said he picked up the tourist from Suvarnabhumi International Airport at 9.50am and delivered her to the Royal Princess Hotel at Sanam Luang. Sunthorn said he spotted the purse after drove a distance away from the hotel.

“I was excited to find that high amount of money … I felt sorry for the tourist. She would definitely be in trouble if she didn’t get it back,” the taxi driver said.

The tourist said she cried once she realised that she had lost her purse.

She said she called her husband but he calmed her down by saying that the taxi driver would return it because Thais are good.

She gave Sunthorn some money as a reward.

A homeless man was found killed behind a Bangkok market on Monday afternoon, police said.

Pol Captain Worapoj Tankaew, deputy inspector of Samsen police station, said the body of Yodchai Juntha, 33, was found in a pool of blood at 1pm near a campsite for construction workers behind the Maharaj Market on Si Ayutthaya road in Vajiraphayabal subdistrict of Bangkok’s Dusit district.

He had a severe wound above his left ear, apparently inflicted by a hard object.

Local residents told police that the man was often seen drinking with another homeless man, Wiroj Faengrit. Police said they are searching for Wiroj to question him.

SEOUL – Punters in North Korea who once risked three years hard labour for gambling are now able to bet on local horse races as the isolated country scrambles to unearth new sources of hard currency amid intensifying international sanctions.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been building resorts, swimming pools and other luxurious leisure facilities in what experts say is a bid to capture some of the individual wealth generated by growing private markets for goods and services.

A series of races took place at the Mirim Horse Riding Club, one of Kim’s flagship leisure developments, near Pyongyang on Sunday, according to North Korea’s official KCNA news agency.

Race goers aged 12 or older were allowed to bet on jockeys in a raffle-type system, broadcaster Korean Central Television said on Friday ahead of the races.

Pictures from KCNA showed hundreds of spectators watching and filming with their phones as a field of mostly white-grey horses and their riders stormed out of the starting gate.

In the communist North, horses – especially white ones – have traditionally been a propaganda symbol associated with the ruling Kim family.

“Kim has been pushing for vanity projects for a theme park, sky resort and the horse riding club for the sake of propping up the people’s well-being but their real purpose was to earn foreign currency,” said Na Jeong-won, head of the North Korea Industry-Economy Research Institute in Seoul.

North Korea’s access to foreign currency has been impacted by a series of international sanctions over its nuclear weapons programme, including bans on key exports such as coal, textiles and seafood.

Lee Sang-keun, a researcher at the Institute of Unification Studies of Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said the primary target for the leisure facilities is affluent North Koreans.

“You may have ridiculed Kim Jong Un for constructing lavish facilities while struggling to feed the people, but those things are to make foreign currency, not from foreigners but from the well-offs inside North Korea because you have to pay in US dollars or Chinese renminbi there,” said Lee.

“Many North Koreans make lots of money from the market, dine at hamburger restaurants and go shopping, all of which help fatten regime coffers. That’s part of the reason why the regime still has some financial latitude despite international sanctions.”

UNBRIDLED CAPITALISM

North Korea has already been operating casinos for foreigners in Pyongyang and Rason, where it jointly runs a special economic zone with China.

Last March, the government sent out investment proposals for new casinos in Namyang, near the border of China, and the Mount Kumkang region, home to a scenic tourist resort just north of the border with South Korea. The United Nations’ latest round of sanctions, however, bans any further joint ventures with North Korean companies.

Third generation leader Kim developed the Mirim riding club by transforming a military horseman training centre in 2012 and visited the site several times until its formal unveiling a year later, KCNA has reported.

The Mirim riding club has an indoor training facility, seven outdoor riding courses, a pavilion, restaurants and a sauna, as well as 120 horses including 67 famous Orlov Trotters from Russia, according to the website of Uri Tours, a US-based agency specialised in guided trips through the North.

The entrance fee is $35, which covers one-hour of horse riding with an instructor, riding gear and sauna.

The fee could be lower for North Koreans, reportedly at around $10 – still a hefty sum for many impoverished locals.

“There seems to be growing demand for such leisure activities among North Koreans as the gap between the rich and the poor has been widening,” said Na.