3. Baidu, China’s leading AI and search company, is planning to release its own version of ChatGPT in March. (Bloomberg $)
4. The past three months should have been the busiest for Foxconn’s iPhone assembly plant in China. Instead, it was disrupted by mass covid-19 infections and violent labor protests. (The rest of the world)
5. A new decentralized social media platform called Damus was popular in China for 5 minutes (actually 2 days) before Apple quickly removed it from China’s App Store for violating security laws. domestic network security. (South China Morning Post $)
6. Taiwan decided to close all nuclear power plants by 2025. But its renewable energy sector is not ready to fill the gap, and now new fossil fuel plants are being built. built to ensure energy supply. (HuffPost)
7. The US Department of Justice suspects that executives at San Diego-based self-driving truck company TuSimple illegally transferred technology to China, anonymous sources said. . (Wall Street Journal $)
Lost in translation
Renting smartphones is becoming a popular alternative to buying them in China, according to the report. Shenran Caijing Chinese Publications. With 19 billion RMB ($2.79 billion) spent on smartphone rentals in 2021, it is a niche but growing market in the country. Many people choose to rent so they can brag about having the latest model or as a temporary solution, such as when their phone breaks and a new iPhone doesn’t come out for several months.
But this isn’t exactly a cash saver for everyone. While renting a phone costs only a dollar or two a day, fees add up over time, and many platforms require leases to be at least six months long. Ultimately, it may not be as cost-effective as buying a phone outright.
High costs and lack of regulation have led some individuals to exploit the system. Some people use it as a form of cash loan: they rent a high-end phone, immediately sell it for cash, and slowly pay back the rental and redemption fees. There are also cases of scams where people use someone else’s identity to rent phones, only to disappear after they get hold of the device.
One more thing
Born in Wuhan, I grew up eating freshwater fish like Prussian carp. They taste divine, but the popular ones often have more small bones than saltwater fish, which can make eating difficult and uncomfortable. Last week, a group of Chinese aquatic biologists based in Wuhan (duh) notice that they used the gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 to create a small boneless mutant Prussian carp. Don’t lie, this is THAT’S RIGHT innovation for me.
