Tech

The Chinese-owned social media app TikTok is wildly popular in the US, especially among teenagers who spend hours posting videos about the latest dance trends, their love-life complaints and personal unique talents.  As it grows into one of the world’s most used social media platforms, TikTok has found itself under increased scrutiny in the US, its third-largest market.  In an attempt to assuage concerns over censorship and user privacy, the head of the short video platform, Alex Zhu, is embarking on a goodwill tour to Capitol Hill.  The meetings with American lawmakers, scheduled for this week, come as the video app’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance is under increasing scrutiny to address cen

Nintendo has just launched its wildly popular Switch game console in China, more than two years after its global release. But in a country with the largest number of gamers in the world, Switch is facing some unique challenges. Gaming experts say Chinese gamers favor mobile phones and computers (not consoles like Switch) and the pace of introducing new games for Switch is slow due to existing regulations. On top of that, players in China won’t be able to play against gamers in other countries, due to region-locking. Chinese gamers can buy a Nintendo Switch bundle for 2,099 yuan ($298), which includes a copy of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. Titles like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Mario Od

From Batman to Transformers, self-driving cars have long captured the popular imagination. And China, where the pervasive use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies extends from sorting rubbish to traffic control, is a natural testing ground for companies jostling to make this sci-fi fantasy a reality. They are part of a global move towards autonomous vehicles, which are quickly becoming the world's first major AI revolution. The sector has drawn billions of dollars of investment over the past few years, with the global autonomous vehicles market projected to be worth $65.3 billion by 2027, according to a report by Market Research Future. Major US players such as Google, Tesla and Gene

China has introduced a new rule that requires people to have their faces scanned when signing up for mobile phone services, as experts and even state media raised concerns that there were insufficient measures in place to safeguard privacy rights. Before the introduction of the new requirement on Sunday, which had been announced in September by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, people registering for mobile phone services had to provide only a copy of their identity cards. The ministry said the new measure would help to stem the resale of sim cards and protect people from unknowingly signing up for phone services if their identities were stolen. Many online services and so

A Chinese technology firm is testing a new attack drone specifically designed to help ground troops in street-level combat, in the hope that it can sell the unit abroad, reports say. Engineers recently completed a successful air-to-ground test firing exercise for the mini quadcopter named Tianyi, Modern Weaponry reported. The developer, Tianjin Zhongwei Aerospace Data System Technology, said the unmanned aerial vehicle had been designed to carry out both reconnaissance missions and close-range strikes against armored vehicles or individuals in an urban environment. “It is suitable for circumstances that include asymmetric combat, counterterrorism and special forces [operations] and street ba

A TikTok video showing a teenager bringing attention to China’s mass detentions of Muslim minorities while curling her eyelashes has gone viral on the Chinese-owned social platform.  “Hi guys. I’m going to teach you guys how to get long lashes,” the creator, who describes herself as a teenage Muslim girl in the US, said in the clip that resembles a beauty tip video.  “The first thing you need to do is to grab your lash curler, curl your lashes obviously, and you are going to put them down, and use your phone that you are using right now, to search about what’s happening in China, how they are getting concentration camps throwing innocent Muslims in there.” i always wondered how girls get the

It took 20 minutes of arguing before the hotel in downtown Shenzhen, a tech hub in southern China, finally allowed Wang Qiyu to check in without taking a scan of his face. Wang, a software developer who returned to China two years ago after getting his doctorate in the US, said he felt harassed by the hotel.  “Airport, train stations, stores and hotels – almost every organization asks for facial data,” the 31-year-old said. “But no one tells me why they collect the data and how they protect it.” He is not alone: Chinese consumers, generally thought to be more accepting of trading privacy for security, are growing increasingly vocal about data privacy concerns as facial recognition becomes mo

Engineer Kuang Kaiming was assigned to a team developing artificial intelligence (AI) technology for a Shanghai start-up. The company went with two leading open-source software libraries, Google’s TensorFlow and Facebook’s Pytorch. The decision to adopt US core technology over Chinese alternatives was telling of China’s weakness in basic AI infrastructure.  Despite the country’s success in producing commercially successful AI companies, the open-source coding repositories used to build the technology tend to be American.  Kuang’s company, whose AI product detects abnormalities in X-rays, is by no means alone.  Nearly all small- to medium-sized Chinese AI companies rely on the US-originated o

Last week, China’s main payment apps, Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Ant Financial’s Alipay, opened their mobile payment systems to a demographic that had previously been left out: international tourists.  In China, mobile payments are used to pay for almost everything from $0.25 steamed buns at a takeout joint to sending prisoners money, highlighting the huge gap that exists between this system and the payment habits of 140 million annual tourists from overseas, who may be more used to cash or credit cards. Inkstone is owned by Alibaba, whose affiliate Ant Financial operates Alipay.  But will providing access be enough to convert tourists to start scanning QR codes?  How does mobile payments work

China’s ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing applied its carpooling “curfew” to all users on Thursday after the company was widely criticized for closing the service to female passengers after 8pm.  Didi said on Wednesday it would relaunch the UberPool-like service, named Hitch, later this month after the rape and murder of two female passengers, which plunged the company into crisis.  Didi had said it would begin a trial run starting in November in seven cities with improved safety features. Men would be able to use the carpooling service from 5am to 11pm, while women can access it from 5am to 8pm.  The earlier hour for women prompted outrage on social media. Gender equality advocates had called