Internet & Tech

Social seller Yunji on the verge of a Nasdaq IPO

Apr 5, 2019 (WiC 447)

Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma once compared his company to a crocodile in the Yangtze River. He wanted to distinguish it from Ebay, which he had likened to a shark in the ocean. The predatory implications were clear. But the Yangtze is the third ...

Chinese firms show off their AI capabilities at the electronic appliance expo

Mar 29, 2019 (WiC 446)

Made in China 2025. It sounds so much snappier than a policy to “advance the development of the manufacturing industry, enhance industrial fundamentals and accelerate China into a manufacturing powerhouse”. And that is perhaps why the ...

Tencent investors highlight their concerns

Mar 29, 2019 (WiC 446)

Fear of ‘the other’ is one of humankind’s most deeply rooted psychological tendencies. It is what kept us safe in ancient times, although today it is deemed an emotional rather than rational response. Stock market investors appear to ...

Zuckerberg’s Facebook to copy Chinese rival?

Mar 22, 2019 (WiC 445)

Last November Facebook quietly unveiled a new app called Lasso that allows users to record 15-second videos of themselves dancing and lip-synching. Doesn’t that sound a lot like TikTok, the international version of China’s smash hit ...

Meet the supplier behind Huawei’s foldable smartphone

Mar 15, 2019 (WiC 444)

In 2003 China’s TCL agreed to set up a joint venture with French firm Thomson to create the world’s largest TV producer. In the same year, another Chinese firm called Irico (known locally as Rainbow Group) paid Rmb600 million ($89.28 million) ...

NetEase and Amazon in talks to merge cross-border e-commerce units

Mar 1, 2019 (WiC 442)

In a recent episode of his car show The Grand Tour Jeremy Clarkson pointed out that Buckingham Palace was no longer the top UK attraction for Chinese tourists. More popular than the British queen’s main residence, he exclaimed, was ...

Tencent buys into US chat site with 330 million active users

Feb 22, 2019 (WiC 441)

Tencent’s grip on WeChat has given it a powerful launchpad into Chinese social media but it now faces a new challenges from its younger rival Bytedance. Starting out with massively popular platforms like Toutiao and Douyin at home, the seven ...

Why Megvii may be a company to watch over the next decade

Feb 22, 2019 (WiC 441)

Last week a Dutch security researcher discovered that SenseNets, a facial recognition company that worked for the Chinese police, has been monitoring the GPS coordinates of almost 2.6 million people in Xinjiang, the northwestern area of China ...

Xiaomi claims first with foldable phone screen, riling rival Royole

Feb 8, 2019 (WiC 440)

The world’s first mobile receiver with a touchscreen, known as IBM Simon, made its debut in 1992. But it was not until 2007, when Apple revolutionised the touchscreen interface for handsets, that cell phones became ‘smart’ and were ...

Worries in Wisconsin, but Foxconn’s factory in Guangzhou moves forward

Feb 8, 2019 (WiC 440)

“When elephants fight, the grass is trampled. Today, Canada is the grass.” That was the take from the Financial Times last weekend on the plight of the Canadian government, which has been caught in the crossfire of the Sino-US trade and tech ...