3. Baidu, China’s main search engine and AI firm, is planning to launch its personal model of ChatGPT in March. (Bloomberg $)
4. The previous three months ought to have been the busiest season for Foxconn’s iPhone meeting manufacturing unit in China. As an alternative, it was disrupted by mass covid-19 infections and intense labor protests. (Remainder of World)
5. A brand new decentralized social media platform known as Damus had its 5 minutes (truly, two days) of fame in China earlier than Apple swiftly eliminated it from China’s App Retailer for violating home cybersecurity legal guidelines. (South China Morning Submit $)
6. Taiwan determined to close down all nuclear energy crops by 2025. However its renewable-energy trade shouldn’t be able to fill within the hole, and now new fossil-fuel crops are being constructed to safe the power provide. (HuffPost)
7. The US Division of Justice suspects that executives of the San Diego–based mostly self-driving-truck firm TuSimple have improperly transferred know-how to China, nameless sources mentioned. (Wall Avenue Journal $)
Misplaced in translation
Renting smartphones is turning into a preferred different to buying them in China, in keeping with the Chinese language publication Shenran Caijing. With 19 billion RMB ($2.79 billion) spent on smartphone leases in 2021, it’s a area of interest however rising market within the nation. Many individuals go for leases to have the ability to brag about having the newest mannequin, or as a brief answer when, for instance, their cellphone breaks down and the brand new iPhone doesn’t come out for a number of months.
However this isn’t precisely saving individuals money. Whereas renting a cellphone prices just one or two bucks a day, the charges construct up over time, and plenty of platforms require leases to be not less than six months lengthy. In the long run, it might not be as cost-effective as shopping for a cellphone outright.
The excessive prices and lack of regulation have led some people to take advantage of the system. Some individuals use it as a type of money mortgage: they lease a high-end cellphone, instantly promote it for money, and slowly pay again the rental and buyout charges. There are additionally circumstances of scams the place individuals use another person’s identification to lease a cellphone, solely to vanish as soon as they receive the system.
Yet one more factor
Born in Wuhan, I grew up consuming freshwater fish like Prussian carp. They style divine, however the in style varieties typically have extra small bones than saltwater fish, which might make the consuming expertise laborious and annoying. Final week, a crew of Chinese language hydrobiologists based mostly in Wuhan (duh) introduced that they’d used CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing know-how to create a Prussian carp mutant that is freed from the small bones. Not gonna lie, that is true innovation to me.
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