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 facility in China. Instead, it was disrupted by mass covid-19 infections and intense labor protests. (Rest of World)
5. A brand new decentralized social media platform referred to as Damus had its 5 minutes (truly, two days) of fame in China earlier than Apple swiftly eliminated it from China’s App Store for violating home cybersecurity legal guidelines. (South China Morning Post $)
6. Taiwan determined to close down all nuclear energy crops by 2025. But its renewable-energy trade isn’t able to fill within the hole, and now new fossil-fuel crops are being constructed to safe the power provide. (HuffPost)
7. The US Department of Justice suspects that executives of the San Diego–based mostly self-driving-truck firm TuSimple have improperly transferred expertise to China, nameless sources stated. (Wall Street Journal $)
Lost in translation
Renting smartphones is changing into a well-liked different to buying them in China, in keeping with the Chinese 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 folks go for leases to have the ability to brag about having the newest mannequin, or as a brief resolution when, for instance, their cellphone breaks down and the brand new iPhone doesn’t come out for just a few months.
But this isn’t precisely saving folks money. While 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 tip, it is probably not 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 folks use it as a type of money mortgage: they hire a high-end cellphone, instantly promote it for money, and slowly pay again the rental and buyout charges. There are additionally instances of scams the place folks use another person’s id to hire a cellphone, solely to vanish as soon as they receive the gadget.
One other thing
Born in Wuhan, I grew up consuming freshwater fish like Prussian carp. They style divine, however the fashionable varieties usually have extra small bones than saltwater fish, which might make the consuming expertise laborious and annoying. Last week, a staff of Chinese hydrobiologists based mostly in Wuhan (duh) introduced that that they had used CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing expertise to create a Prussian carp mutant that is freed from the small bones. Not gonna lie, that is true innovation to me.
