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Tag: asia

  • Meta will begin to label AI-generated content across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads

    Meta will begin to label AI-generated content across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads

    In an effort to bolster transparency, Meta — the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads — is implementing new measures on its platforms. The company recently made an announcement about its plans to label content created using artificial intelligence (AI) and its goal is to provide users with clearer context about what they see and share on social media.

    The company will begin this initiative by labeling images, stating that “In the near future we will start adding labels to images created by AI tools across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.” It is currently working on an automated detection system that can identify markers commonly used for AI-generated content, including watermarks and metadata. Meta’s initial focus will be on images, but the long-term goal is to be able to identify AI-generated videos and audio as well.

    Meta already applies the “Imagined with AI” label on images created with Meta AI, and by working with other industry partners, the company hopes to have the new detection capabilities ready in the coming months for content created outside of Meta’s own tools. So far, the company has determined that it is capable of labeling images from Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Adobe, Midjourney, and Shutterstock.

    However, a hurdle presents when it comes to video and audio. Because tools that generate this type of content have not yet widely embraced standardized markers, it is difficult for Meta to detect them.

    In order to address this issue, Meta has announced its intention to launch a new “disclosure and label tool,” which will enable the users to manually indicate when video and audio content has been generated using AI. Users will be required to make this disclosure for digitally created or altered “photorealistic videos or realistic-sounding audio,” and Meta has the authority to enforce penalties on those who do not comply.

    There is a growing concern about the potential misuse of AI-generated content, leading to a push for labeling. Deepfakes, for example, have the potential to be incredibly realistic, which can be concerning when it comes to spreading misinformation and manipulating content — specially when it comes to things like the upcoming U.S. elections.

    Although not a perfect solution, particularly when relying on the user to label video and audio, Meta hopes the detection system will be effective and not easily bypassed. It remains to be seen if Meta’s approach will successfully achieve its goals, but the initiative certainly ignites an important discussion about the responsible use of AI across social media.

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  • Snapchat’s parent company Snap loses 30% of its value after releasing its Q4 report

    Snapchat’s parent company Snap loses 30% of its value after releasing its Q4 report

    The parent company of social-media platform Snapchat, Snap Inc., lost over 30% of its valuation this afternoon after releasing its fourth-quarter earnings release. The company reported revenue of $1.36 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023 slightly topping the year-earlier figure of $1.30 billion. But the $1.38 billion in Q4 gross did not meet Wall Street expectations of $1.38 billion. And at $4.61 billion, 2023 revenue barely topped the $4.60 billion Snap generated in 2022.

    In a letter to stockholders, Snap said that its flat 2023 revenue was “reflecting a challenging operating environment.” Just yesterday, Snap said that it will lay off 10% of its workforce or approximately 500 employees. Back in 2022, Snap eliminated 20% of its headcount. Heavily reliant on advertising income, Snapchat has been unable to recover from Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature which allows iPhone users to choose whether they want to block advertisers from tracking them when using an app.

    In the letter to stockholders, Snap said that it was “encouraged by the progress we are making with our ad platform,” but noted that it is battling a headwind with the conflict in the Middle East. According to the company, violence in the region cost Snap about two percentage points in growth. Snapchat had 414 million active daily users during the fourth quarter of 2023, up 10% year-over-year. 800 million users worldwide visit Snapchat every month the company said.

    Half of the users are in North America and Europe, indicating that the social media platform will no longer focus on gaining users in emerging markets who mostly use Android phones. The company did note that the number of Daily Active Users DAUs rose both sequentially and year-over-year on both iOS and Android.

    CEO Evan Spiegel wrote in the stockholder’s letter, “We are shifting more of our focus toward user growth and deepening engagement in our most highly monetizable geographies. Focusing on these initiatives will help us increase daily active usage of Snapchat, deepen content engagement, improve performance for advertisers, and ultimately accelerate revenue growth and drive increased free cash flow.”

    Snapchat incurred a loss of $248.7 million for the fourth quarter, an improvement from the $288 million in red ink Snap spilled during Q4 of 2022. For the three months, Snap lost 15 cents per share compared with an 18 cents per share loss during the same quarter in 2022. For all of 2023, Snap lost $1.32 billion which was a 7% improvement from the $1.43 billion it lost the preceding year. 2023 saw the company lose 82 cents per share, 8% lower than the 89 cents per share loss Snap suffered in 2022.

    During the regular trading day, Snap shares rose 70 cents or 4.18% to $17.45 right near the 52-week high of $17.90. But that peak now seems very far away after the stock tumbled $5.45 to $12 in after-hours trading following the report’s release. That is a decline of 31.23%.

  • WhatsApp is working on a pinning feature for its Android app

    WhatsApp is working on a pinning feature for its Android app

    WhatsApp’s next feature will allow users to pin channels. After gaining Channels a while ago, WhatsApp desperately needs a way to declutter the long list some users have joined.

    The ability to pin channels in WhatsApp is now in the works, WABetaInfo reports. The new feature popped up in version 2.24.4.3 of WhatsApp for Android, which means it’s actively being tested and should be rolled out to everyone if developers decide to give it the green light.

    As noted in the report, the new feature will probably be implemented with a slightly different interface for channels, which will reportedly look like the interface of the chats tab.

    Naturally, there’s no guarantee that this feature will make it in the stable version of WhatsApp, although chances are that it will be available in some form in the not-so-distant future. Stay tuned for more info about WhatsApp’s upcoming features.

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  • Banks see massive layoffs

    Banks see massive layoffs

    Faced with difficulties that are expected to linger, large western banks are slashing costs by downsizing their payrolls and increasing the use of artificial intelligence.

    Deutsche Bank has said it is laying off 3,500 employees, or 4% of its workforce, to reduce costs by 2.5 billion euros (US$2.7 billion) a year by 2025.

    One of the ways the German lender has chosen to cut costs is to promote “simplified workflows and automation,” and so most of the jobs will be shed in the back office. Its pre-tax net profit fell by 14% last year to 4.9 billion euros ($5.3 billion).

    Deutsche Bank is the latest of a number of lenders to announce layoffs in recent months. UBS is cutting 3,000 jobs in Switzerland, where it is headquartered.

    Citibank, the third largest American bank, last month said it would cut 20,000 jobs in the next two years, equivalent to 10% of its global workforce, to save $2.5 billion in the long term.

    January was also when the U.S. financial industry laid off the most workers, 23,238, since Sept. 2018, according to a report by recruitment company Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

    The layoff announcements continue in early 2024 amid massive downsizing by the global financial industry.

    Major banks around the world axed more than 60,000 jobs in 2023, among the highest in a year since the financial crisis.

    Citibank started sacking workers in November 2023.

    In the U.K., a number of lenders, including Barclays, Lloyds and Metro Bank, announced staff reduction at around the same time.

    Some banks cited increased automation and the use of artificial intelligence as reasons to reduce their payroll.
    Lloyds is eliminating certain roles and only hiring data and technology personnel.

    The downsizing is also intended to prepare for a more difficult business environment as rising interest rates impact the economy.

    Deutsche Bank said it had increased provisions for potential bad debts by 300 million euros to 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in 2023, which reflected “the continued challenging impact of macro-economic and interest rate conditions.

    Investment banks, which had to slash wage costs last year, are expected to continue downsizing.

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  • Dollar steps up over dong

    Dollar steps up over dong

    The U.S. dollar rose against the Vietnamese dong Wednesday morning.

    Vietcombank sold the dollar at VND24,570, up 0.16% from Tuesday.

    It fell 0.40% to VND24,850 on the black market.

    The greenback has increased by 0.61% against the dong since the beginning of the year.

    Globally the dollar remained under pressure on Wednesday after retreating from a nearly three-month high against the euro in the previous session with a decline in U.S. bond yields adding to the drag.

    Analysts pointed to technical factors for the dollar’s pullback, following a two-day rally of as much as 1.4% against the euro after unexpectedly strong U.S. jobs data and more hawkish rhetoric from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell scuppered bets for an early interest rate cut.

    The U.S. dollar index – which measures the currency against six major peers, including the euro – was flat at 104.14 after Tuesday’s 0.29% slide. On Monday, it had reached its highest since Nov. 14 at 104.60.

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  • VinFast recalls 5,900 EVs for headlight issue

    VinFast recalls 5,900 EVs for headlight issue

    VinFast is recalling 5,912 VF 5 Plus electric vehicles manufactured last year to fix the issue of headlights turning off when the left turn signal is switched on.

    The company said the headlights in some VF 5 Plus cars, the smallest in its EV lineup, could turn off when the car is traveling at 50-55 kilometers per hour and the headlights are in auto mode.

    This is due to a hardware issue in the circuit board the company received from its supplier, it said.

    The supplier would replace the necessary parts for free, and the task will take around 40 minutes, it added.

    There have been no incidents due to the issue so far, but the company is recalling all vehicles produced between March and December last year.

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  • Nokia signs 5G patent deal with vivo

    Nokia signs 5G patent deal with vivo

    Nokia has signed a lot of 5G patent agreements in the last year. The Finnish company recent convinced Oppo that it’s better to make use of technology that other companies patent by simply paying for it.

    Today, Nokia is signing yet another 5G patent agreement, this time with another Chinese smartphone maker, vivo. Granted, this is a multi-year cross-license agreement that will benefit both companies, it’s vivo that gains on the short run since it can now return to the German market after losing the lawsuit filed by Nokia.

    The announcement mentions that the new deal “resolved all pending patent litigations between the parties, in all jurisdictions.” However, the terms of the agreement remain confidential, so there’s not much we can add to this.

    With this licensing agreement, Nokia “has now almost completed its smartphone license renewal cycle,” the company notes. The Finnish giant signed similar agreements with other big smartphone companies like Samsung, Honor, Huawei, Oppo, and even Apple.

    “This is the sixth major smartphone patent license agreement we have signed in the past thirteen months, and we have now almost completed our smartphone license renewal cycle. Together these licensing agreements demonstrate Nokia’s significant contribution to developing key technologies relied upon by the entire smartphone industry and they will provide long-term stability to our licensing business for years to come,” said Jenni Lukander, President of Nokia Technologies.

    Nokia expects its intellectual property licensing business to generate around €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion) in the mid-term, which isn’t that much considering that the company invested around €150 billion in R&D.

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  • Cross-border e-commerce Vietnam’s next big thing in exports

    Cross-border e-commerce Vietnam’s next big thing in exports

    According to U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon, cross-border e-commerce is expected to be the fifth-highest value export of Vietnam by 2027, with a value of US$12 billion.

    “2023 Performance Report: Empowering Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Vietnam” published by the firm’s Amazon Global Selling Vietnam, a unit that supports sellers, said by 2027 cross-border e-commerce exports could reach $5 billion under “normal” circumstances and $12 billion in the best-case scenario if small, medium- and micro-sized businesses get support from the government.

    In the latter case, cross-border e-commerce will account for the country’s fifth biggest exports.

    Amazon Global Selling said online exports of Vietnamese goods could thrive since more and more global consumers are shifting from offline.

    Last year Vietnam’s exports were worth nearly $356 billion, according to the General Statistics Office.

    The top exports items, all exceeding $20 billion, are electronics – computers, phones and components, machinery – equipment, textiles, and agriculture – forestry – fisheries.

    Vietnamese retailers sold over 17 million products on Amazon last year, up 50% from 2022, according to the e-commerce platform.

    The number of sellers increased by 40% and those with revenues exceeding $100,000 increased by 70%.

    The top five product categories were household appliances, kitchen tools, health-personal care, clothing, and beauty products.

    These reflect Vietnam’s long experience in manufacturing and exporting products such as furniture, home decor and apparel.

    “The growth of emerging sectors such as health and personal care and beauty products contributes to the increasing diversity of Vietnam’s online exports,” the report said.

    According to a study by the technology advisory firm Access Partnership, the main export markets were Southeast Asia and China.

    In the next five years the U.S. and Europe are likely be priority markets as consumers in those regions are growing increasingly fond of Vietnamese goods on online platforms, the study said.

    “E-commerce is one of the next major trends for businesses who are looking to expand globally,” Gijae Seong, head of Amazon Global Selling Vietnam, said.

    The challenge for these businesses is whether they could quickly leverage this trend, grasp global consumer demand and build long-term development plans, he said.

    Access Partnership said Vietnamese businesses face challenges in online transactions like high customs duties and post-clearance costs.

    It said businesses need more legal and financial support to capitalize on the opportunities for e-commerce exports.

    So measures like establishing cross-border e-commerce zones and providing grants for exports and e-commerce businesses would play a crucial role, it added.

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  • Cathay Cargo volume up 20 percent in December

    Cathay Cargo volume up 20 percent in December

    Cathay Pacific’s cargo business ended 2023 on a high note, finishing with around 1.4 million tonnes, compared with about 1.2 million tonnes in 2022, in what it described as ‘an encouraging result.’

    Cargo volume in December jumped 20.7 percent year on year, as the airline carried 128,546 tonnes with cargo revenue increasing 14.1 percent year on year for the month. The cargo load factor slid 6.5 percentage points to 60.8 percent, as capacity measured in available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs) increased by 26.3 percent year on year.

    In the full year of 2023, the tonnage increased by 19.6 percent against a 59.7 percent increase in AFTKs and a 40.3 percent increase in RFTKs, as compared with 2022, the airline noted.

    “Our cargo business performed well in December, and finished on a high, primarily driven by the strong year-end demand for e-commerce products. Additionally, there was increased demand for perishable goods for the holiday season. December also saw a pickup in our Live Animal solutions with significant numbers of racehorses being moved across our network in support of the Hong Kong international race events.

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  • Meet Rufus, Amazon’s new AI shopping assistant

    Meet Rufus, Amazon’s new AI shopping assistant

    Amazon is among the companies that has iterated a lot when it comes to artificial intelligence. The US-based giant continues to develop new AI tools, especially now that AI is the main buzzword in the tech world.

    The latest AI-powered feature introduced by Amazon is Rufus, an AI assistant that’s supposed to help users with their shopping sprees. As the biggest retailer in the United States, it’s only fitting for Amazon to launch such a product.

    According to Amazon, Rufus has been trained on its product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&As, as well as information from the web. The AI shopping assistant has been specifically designed to answer customer questions on a wide range of shopping needs and products. Rufus can even provide comparisons and make recommendations based on conversational context.

    Rufus is now available in beta, but Amazon will be starting to roll it out to customers in waves, beginning with a small subset of customers in the United States via the mobile app. Rufus will eventually be rolled out to the rest of the US customers in the coming weeks, Amazon says.

    If you’re interested in checking this one out, here are some of Rufus’ key features:

    • Learn what to look for while shopping product categories
    • Shop by occasion or purpose
    • Get help comparing product categories
    • Find the best recommendations
    • Ask questions about a specific product while on a product detail page

    To start using Rufus, simply start typing or speaking your question into the search bar in Amazon’s mobile app and the shopping assistant chat dialog box will pop up at the bottom of the screen. Keep in mind that this is only available for select customers in the US while it’s in beta.

  • Shopify has your back if you want to try the AI magic with a new image editor

    Shopify has your back if you want to try the AI magic with a new image editor

    Back in ancient times, supermarkets used to hand out paper brochures with the week’s top offers. Naturally, you didn’t pay much attention to the product image – you focused on the price.

    It’s only after you try to sell something online – and you need a cool product photo – that you realize there’s a thing called “product photography” and the eggs, ham or pineapple images didn’t just materialize out of thin air on the brochure’s pages.

    See, the better photo an offer has, the higher the chances for a successful deal.

    That’s why Shopify introduces a new tool to help out all who are selling products online. It’s an AI image editor that should aid users in creating more appealing and attractive images for their offers.

    Moving beyond the product-on-a-rug aesthetic can be challenging, and you’ll be surprised to see just how much money big companies spend on setting up dedicated product photography studios with expensive backdrops. Not to mention the cameras, lenses and manpower a brand has to invest in.

    Most people don’t have anything close to that, most people just have their iPhones and their bedrooms.

    The way Shopify’s AI editor will operate is you’ll upload an image of your product, and suggest certain edits that can be made to it. For example, if you have a picture of a pair of headphones, and you want to look like they are in the sky, you can upload the image and ask the AI to generate a background of the sky. Just like other image generators, this tool has different visual styles.

  • Vietcombank continues to achieve record profits

    Vietcombank continues to achieve record profits

    State-owned lender Vietcombank reported record pre-tax profits of VND41.2 trillion (US$1.68 billion) for 2023.

    Its previous highest was VND37.4 trillion a year earlier.

    It made the bank the most profitable in the industry by a margin of tens of trillions of dong.

    Profits before credit risk provisioning were worth VND45.8 trillion, a 2.2% decline.

    But halving the provisioning to VND4.5 trillion meant the lender maintained profit growth.

    Vietcombank’s bad debts ratio (groups three to five) increased from 0.68% at the beginning of the year to 1% by the end, while loans that require attention (group two debts) surged by 40% to over VND5.55 trillion.

  • Apple chip builder TSMC not yet ready to move to next-gen lithography system

    Apple chip builder TSMC not yet ready to move to next-gen lithography system

    Back in December, Dutch tech giant ASML shipped its first High-NA Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine (EXE:5000) to Intel. The $400 million machine will take us to the next tier of chip production with a process node of 2nm and less. The original EUV machines, also made by ASML, were necessary to get chip foundries to manufacture components under 10nm. A lower process node means smaller transistors, meaning more can fit inside a chip. The higher a chip’s transistor count, the more powerful and/or energy efficient it is.

    The reason that the EUV machine is so important is that it prints circuitry patterns on silicon wafers that are thinner than human hair. This is required when you are building a chip with billions of transistors inside. The 7nm A13 Bionic SoC, used to power 2019’s iPhone 11 series, contained 8.5 billion transistors. The 3nm A17 Pro used to run the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max sports 19 billion transistors.

    The 8 nm resolution of the EXE:5000 means that chipmakers can pack more transistors into a single chip. Smaller transistors are more energy efficient – that means the chips will be able to do more with less.-ASML

    The new High-NA EUV machine has a 0.55 numerical aperture (NA) lens giving it a resolution of 8nm compared to the current machines’ resolution of 13nm (.33 NA). This means that the new machines can print transistors 1.7 times smaller resulting in transistor densities 2.9 times larger with a single exposure. The result? More powerful or energy-efficient chips. The new machines can also print 185 wafers per hour, rising to 220 by 2025. That compares to the 160 wafers per hour that can be printed with the current EUV machines.

    The current Low-NA EUV machines can produce the same resolution but only after two exposures are made using double patterning. However, there are risks with double patterning including longer production times, and increased risk that a defect will occur. It can also lead to performance variability among manufactured chips.

    ASML is quick to tell you what can go wrong with double patterning since it would prefer foundries spend the bigger bucks on the newer machines. But TSMC’s N3B process node, which supposedly relies on double patterning, was used to manufacture the A17 Pro application processor used on all of those iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max units made by Apple, and the M3 chip used to power high-end Macs. ASML says that its clients are just now doing their research into the High-NA EUV.

    Financial institution China Renaissance (via

    Eventually, TSMC, Samsung Foundry, and others will have to join Intel and start making the investments needed to move to the High-NA EUV. That time might end up being soon with TSMC and Samsung looking to start 2nm production in 2025 moving to 1.4nm production in 2027.

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  • Google expands passkey support to more devices with new partners in tow

    Google expands passkey support to more devices with new partners in tow

    Logging into internet accounts can be quite a challenge, especially when you have to keep track of multiple passwords. This is why Passkeys, the sign-in method that is touted as the safer alternative to passwords, have become Google’s preferred authentication method for personal accounts.

    Last year, Google made a concerted effort to encourage more people to use passkeys, going as far as working with industry partners to ensure that passkeys are easily accessible on various websites and apps. However, there is still work to be done.

    As part of the December Pixel Feature Drop, Google introduced a new feature to Google Password Manager, allowing users to easily identify which of their accounts support passkeys and upgrade to them with just a few taps. This feature is currently accessible on the Pixel 5a and newer as well as the Pixel tablet, with plans to expand its availability to other platforms shortly.

    However, in a blog post today, Google announced that it has partnered with several companies, such as Adobe, Best Buy, DocuSign, eBay, Kayak, Money Forward, Nintendo, PayPal, Uber, and Yahoo! Japan, to enhance the passkey update process for more users. For users who are already signed up with one of the early launch partners, Google Password Manager for Pixel will assist in locating the precise location on the website or app where users can easily upgrade to a passkey, essentially eliminating the need for manual searching in account settings.

    Passkeys provide an added layer of security as they are unique to each account, making them more resistant to phishing attacks compared to regular passwords. They are also more user-friendly since users don’t have to remember a complicated password, and can instead have the option to sign in using their fingerprint, face recognition, or PIN. With the increasing adoption of passkeys by websites and apps, they seem to be on their way to becoming the standard for online authentication.

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  • UBS It’s Major Shareholders Pull in Opposite Directions

    UBS It’s Major Shareholders Pull in Opposite Directions

    UBS can’t grow fast enough for newly onboarded financial investor Cevian. Meanwhile, two other major shareholders are now expressing concerns about the size of the new megabank in Switzerland.

    The program for integrating Credit Suisse is in place, and UBS will start acquiring the clients and legal units of the crisis-hit bank over the next few months. But the company’s major shareholders are now flexing their muscles.

    Shareholder representative Ethos Foundation expressed its concerns. The even larger banking behemoth could influence regulation in the country and undermine Switzerland’s ability to rein in banks’ risk-taking, the Western Switzerland-based organization says. Ethos advises investors who own up to 5 percent of all UBS shares.

    That is not all. Another investor, apparently one of the bank’s top ten shareholders, also voiced unease on condition of anonymity.

    According to the report, the professional investor fears a conflict may arise between UBS and the Swiss authorities and lawmakers over the bank’s size. Such a dispute could hamper the smooth running of the institution.

    In fact, an evaluation commissioned by the Federal Council on the «new» UBS and expected to be published in April is already causing nervousness. Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter recently said that the primary goal of bank regulation was to protect the state and taxpayers.

    While Ethos and Co. may be expressing concerns in this regard, the big bank cannot grow quickly enough for Cevian. The Swedish financial investor acquired UBS shares worth around 1.2 billion euros last December and expressed high hopes when it stepped onboard. Cevian thinks the major bank could double its stock price to 50 Swiss francs within a reasonable period.

    Among major shareholders, this has produced a tug-of-war between these parties – another focal point that the bank management, already busy with the Credit Suisse integration, has to grapple with.

    UBS has already commented on the report. The bank believes the focus on its balance sheet is misleading. About 20 percent of total assets are highly liquid, while 15 percent are mortgages for retail clients and wealthy private clients, which would only pose very low risks.

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