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 a substitute, it was disrupted by mass covid-19 infections and intense labor protests. (Remainder of World)
5. A brand new decentralized social media platform referred to as Damus had its 5 minutes (really, 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 Put up $)
6. Taiwan determined to close down all nuclear energy vegetation by 2025. However its renewable-energy business will not be able to fill within the hole, and now new fossil-fuel vegetation are being constructed to safe the vitality provide. (HuffPost)
7. The US Division of Justice suspects that executives of the San Diego–primarily based self-driving-truck firm TuSimple have improperly transferred know-how to China, nameless sources mentioned. (Wall Avenue Journal $)
Misplaced in translation
Renting smartphones is changing into a well-liked different to buying them in China, in accordance 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 most recent mannequin, or as a brief resolution 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 folks money. Whereas renting a cellphone prices just one or two bucks a day, the charges construct up over time, and lots of platforms require leases to be at the very least six months lengthy. Ultimately, 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 lease 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 lease a cellphone, solely to vanish as soon as they acquire the gadget.
Yet another factor
Born in Wuhan, I grew up consuming freshwater fish like Prussian carp. They style divine, however the standard varieties typically have extra small bones than saltwater fish, which may make the consuming expertise laborious and annoying. Final week, a crew of Chinese language hydrobiologists primarily based in Wuhan (duh) introduced that that they had 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.
