Sunday, December 27, 2020

Alibaba's Ant Group Ordered by Chinese Regulators to Rectify Its Businesses

Chinese regulators have ordered Ant Group to rectify its businesses and comply with regulatory requirements amid increased scrutiny of anti-monopoly practices in the country's Internet sector. https://ift.tt/2KEenvi

Alibaba raises proposed stock repurchase program by $4B to $10B, but shares slide 5%+ to a six month low in early Hong Kong trading amid antitrust fears (Coco Liu/Bloomberg)

Coco Liu / Bloomberg:
Alibaba raises proposed stock repurchase program by $4B to $10B, but shares slide 5%+ to a six month low in early Hong Kong trading amid antitrust fears  —  - An upsized share buyback program fails to lift Alibaba shares  — It coincides with a harsh clampdown on part-owned Ant Group



Amazon app quiz December 28, 2020: Get answers to these five questions to win Rs 5,000 in Amazon Pay balance

Name of the winner of today’s quiz will be announced on December 29. https://ift.tt/37PPZj9

10 things Google, Apple, Amazon and other technology companies apologised for in 2020

https://ift.tt/38BUDk1

Eight themes for the near future of tech: from decentralized workplaces and the rise of community-as-a-service to quirky social apps for kids under 16 (Scott Belsky/Medium)

Scott Belsky / Medium:
Eight themes for the near future of tech: from decentralized workplaces and the rise of community-as-a-service to quirky social apps for kids under 16  —  As we pull ourselves out of the ditch that was 2020, there are a few major themes of the future I'm particularly excited about.



With traffic to Chatroulette booming amid COVID, the team is testing AI tools to moderate content; it now offers a filtered channel designed to exclude nudity (Kevin Randall/Wired)

Kevin Randall / Wired:
With traffic to Chatroulette booming amid COVID, the team is testing AI tools to moderate content; it now offers a filtered channel designed to exclude nudity  —  The hottest app of early 2010 faded quickly when it was flooded with unwanted nudity.  Smarter content moderation is helping to revive it.



Nashville mayor says the Christmas day explosion in the city appears to have targeted an AT&T building, amid reports the suspect was paranoid about 5G (Lee Brown/New York Post)

Lee Brown / New York Post:
Nashville mayor says the Christmas day explosion in the city appears to have targeted an AT&T building, amid reports the suspect was paranoid about 5G  —  Nashville's mayor said Sunday that the city's Christmas blast appeared to be an “infrastructure attack” on the AT&T building there …



Due to the pandemic, trends that normally may have taken years to unfold, like remote work or the shift from physical to virtual commerce, happened in months (Greg Ip/Wall Street Journal)

Greg Ip / Wall Street Journal:
Due to the pandemic, trends that normally may have taken years to unfold, like remote work or the shift from physical to virtual commerce, happened in months  —  Spurred by the pandemic, business changes that normally might have taken years unfolded in months.



Citing environmental concerns Xiaomi CEO says its flagship Mi 11 phone will not come with a charger in the box; Xiaomi mocked Apple earlier over the same issue (Kim Lyons/The Verge)

Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Citing environmental concerns Xiaomi CEO says its flagship Mi 11 phone will not come with a charger in the box; Xiaomi mocked Apple earlier over the same issue  —  Xiaomi's CEO confirmed the decision on social media site Weibo  —  Lei Jun, the CEO of Chinese phone maker Xiaomi …



Tesla adds Boombox feature which lets car owners play multiple sounds instead of honking

Tesla has added an interesting feature called Boombox in its latest software update that allows car owners to use farting or goat sound, among others, instead of the usual honking sound. https://ift.tt/3przwrd

China's central bank tells Ant it must overhaul its lending, insurance, and wealth management businesses and come up with a timetable as soon as possible (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
China's central bank tells Ant it must overhaul its lending, insurance, and wealth management businesses and come up with a timetable as soon as possible  —  - Authorities require Ant to overhaul business, set up timetable  — Ant was blasted over governance, disdain toward compliance



Kuo: Apple Car's unclear development schedule means it may launch in 2025-2027, while changes in EV/self-driving market may push the launch to 2028 (Joe Rossignol/MacRumors)

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Kuo: Apple Car's unclear development schedule means it may launch in 2025-2027, while changes in EV/self-driving market may push the launch to 2028  —  Earlier this week, Reuters reported that Apple is targeting 2024 for production of its long-rumored electric vehicle with “next level” …



Study: the median valuation for SaaS companies raising their Series C rose by 40% to $210M this year, while their median revenue grew 20% (Miles Kruppa/Financial Times)

Miles Kruppa / Financial Times:
Study: the median valuation for SaaS companies raising their Series C rose by 40% to $210M this year, while their median revenue grew 20%  —  Valuations soar in Silicon Valley with venture capitalists racing to find next big thing  —  The surging value of cloud software companies …



Beijing's frenzied drive to free itself from a reliance on imported chips could prove to be one of the enduring legacies of Trump's trade policies toward China (New York Times)

New York Times:
Beijing's frenzied drive to free itself from a reliance on imported chips could prove to be one of the enduring legacies of Trump's trade policies toward China  —  Beijing's drive to free itself from reliance on imported semiconductors has lifted start-ups and big firms alike.  Some have flamed out.



Analysis of the top 1M pages on the web finds that HTTP/2 is now more common than HTTP/1.1; jQuery, Google Analytics were the top JavaScript libraries by usage (Lars Eidnes/ITNEXT)

Lars Eidnes / ITNEXT:
Analysis of the top 1M pages on the web finds that HTTP/2 is now more common than HTTP/1.1; jQuery, Google Analytics were the top JavaScript libraries by usage  —  We rendered the top 1 million pages on the web, tracking every conceivable performance metric, logging every error, noting every requested URL.



Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 2028, as the state races to increase electricity production (Pranshu Verma/Washington Post)

Pranshu Verma / Washington Post : Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 202...