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Apple is looking into reports of iPhone 8 batteries swelling

Posted on October 6, 2017 //

Reports from a few iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus buyers have suggested there could be an issue with the battery inside some of the devices swelling, causing the case of Apple’s new iPhone to split open and expose the smartphone’s internals.

Apple has now confirmed it is looking into it, although a spokeswoman declined to comment further when asked how many devices are affected.

From what we’ve heard the number of reports so far is very few.

Yesterday CNET rounded up the handful of reports that have emerged — saying there are at least six different reports in at least five countries of the iPhone 8 splitting along its seams.

Today Reuters also noted a report in Chinese state media of an iPhone buyer claiming a newly purchased iPhone 8 Plus arrived cracked open on October 5, though apparently without any signs of scorching or an explosion.

Apple rival Samsung had big problems with smartphone batteries in its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. In that instance some Note 7 batteries caught fire, and the problem was extensive enough that it led Samsung to recall all Note 7 handsets — at great expense.

In the case of the iPhone 8 the issue appears to be limited to batteries bloating/swelling, rather than catching fire — at least as reported so far.

Although the phone only went on sale on September 22 so it’s still early days for the device.

Apple did not release figures for the first weekend sales of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, as it has in the past with new iPhones, so it’s also not yet clear how many of these handsets are in the hands of buyers at this point.

Some analysts have suggested consumers may be holding off on upgrading their iPhone to buy the top-of-the-range iPhone X, which Apple also announced at the same time, but with a later release date.

Pre-sales for the iPhone X are due to begin on October 27, with the handset slated to ship on November 3.

Source: TechCrunch

Filed Under: Business Tech, Technology //

以知识造福人群

Posted on September 7, 2017 //

JuiceAPac成立了15年，从本国的客户扩展到15个不同的国家，也从实体办公室发展到云端远距工作的团队。在今天这个进入云端的时代，JuiceAPac以改採分散人力模式，将工作模式分佈于不同国家的地区，甚至不需要在同一时段一起工作。在当今的云端世代，JuiceAPac更致力推广知识成长（成立社群读书会），为本身与客户提升价值及思维上的广阔。

透过分享及聆听的方式，以致集体创造的意义。智力及心智模式成长是必备的条件，不但能激发智慧的成长，我们更不断地精进及自我提升，并推己及人，把知识扩大到事业上，对客户一律贯彻“从内而外”的服务精神，即用心协助客户扩展生意及提升价值，而不只是纯粹做交易。

Filed Under: Business Tech //

China forbidding anonymous online posts

Posted on August 30, 2017 //

China’s crackdown on Internet freedom is getting even more intense. Last Friday, the country’s top Internet censor announced a new set of regulations meant to eliminate posts by anonymous users on Internet forums and other platforms. The Cyberspace Administration of China will start enforcing those rules on Oct. 1.

According to the new regulations, Internet companies and service providers are responsible for requesting and verifying real names from users when they register and must immediately report illegal content to the authorities. Tech firms, including Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, are under more pressure to serve as the government’s gatekeepers as China prepares for the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party this fall, which is expected to place new people in several key leadership positions.

Furthermore, a new cybersecurity law that went into effect at the beginning of June requires tech companies to store important data on servers within China. While this is supposedly meant to protect sensitive information, it can also make it easier for the government to track and persecute Internet users.

Along with announcing its new regulations about anonymous posts on Friday, the CAC also specified what content is forbidden from being published online (link and translation via Google Translate), citing a passage from a bill that was passed in 2000 to regulate Internet information services in China. The list is so broad that it can cover almost anything:

Article 15 of the Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services stipulates that Internet information service providers shall not make, reproduce, publish or disseminate information containing the following: (1) opposing the basic principles as defined in the Constitution; (2) endangering national security (3) to damage national honor and interests; (4) to incite national hatred, ethnic discrimination and undermine national unity; (v) to undermine national religious policies and to promote cults and (6) spreading rumors, disrupting social order and destroying social stability; (7) spreading pornography, pornography, gambling, violence, murder, terror or abetting a crime; (8) insulting or slandering others and infringing upon others (9) Any other content that is prohibited by laws and administrative regulations.

While China has issued various rules requiring online real-name registration for years, the CAC’s new regulations are another sign that the government is becoming increasingly stringent about censorship. For example, using VPNs to access blocked sites like Facebook and Twitter was relatively easy until earlier this year when the government began a crackdown that many observers believe is much more serious than previous attempts to enforce the ban.

As The Diplomat notes, China is taking a multi-pronged approach as it doubles down on censorship, placing more pressure on international publishers as well.

Source: TechCrunch

Filed Under: Business Tech, Security //

Alibaba leads $1.1B investment in Indonesia-based e-commerce firm Tokopedia

Posted on August 24, 2017 //

Alibaba has continued its push into Southeast Asia after it led a $1.1 billion investment in Tokopedia, an e-commerce firm based in Indonesia.

A valuation for the deal was not announced, but the companies did say that Alibaba has become a minority shareholder.

Tokopedia, which was founded in 2009, operates a marketplace that allows small retailers and large brands to sell to consumers in Indonesia, which is Southeast Asia’s largest economy. The company previously raised $100 million from SoftBank and Sequoia in 2014, and it counts East Ventures, CyberAgent and Beenos Partners among its early backers. Tokopedia said a number of undisclosed existing investors also took part in this newest round.

“The partnership with Alibaba will enhance the scale and quality of Tokopedia’s offerings to its customers and make it easier for merchants and partners to do business across the archipelago and beyond,” the companies said in an announcement.

“We have always thought of Alibaba as our teacher and role model,” Tokopedia CEO and co-founder William Tanuwijaya said in a statement. “Today, we are excited to welcome them as a shareholder and we believe that our partnership will further accelerate Tokopedia’s mission, to democratize commerce through technology.”

There’s plenty at stake in Southeast Asia. A recent report co-authored by Google predicted that annual e-commerce spend in the region will jump from $5.5 billion in 2015 to $88 billion in 2025. It estimated that half of that revenue will come from Indonesia, which is the world’s fourth largest country.

Tokopedia had been heavily linked with an investment from China lately, with sources telling TechCrunch last month that it had held talks with both Alibaba and JD.com, a rival company backed by Tencent.

Alibaba announced another blockbuster quarter of business today, which included impressive growth from its overseas commerce businesses. The firm credit Lazada, the Southeast Asia-based marketplace it invested $2 billion in, for growing its international commerce revenue by 136 percent to 2.6 billion RMB ($389 million). While that is only a small portion of its total revenue of 50.2 billion CNY ($7.4 billion), Alibaba is clearly bullish on Southeast Asia and this Tokopedia investment reaffirms that.

The deal marks the second major investment in a startup from Indonesia in the past month. Expedia put $350 million into booking platform Traveloka in a deal that valued the startup at more than $1 billion. Earlier this year, Go-Jek agreed to a new $1.2 billion round led by Tencent. That deal hasn’t been announced but TechCrunch understands that it will be made official soon.

Source: TechCrunch

Filed Under: Business Tech //

Xiaomi is world’s top wearable maker for first time as Fitbit sales slide

Posted on August 9, 2017 //

Xiaomi’s good run has continued after a research firm found that the Chinese firm has ranked top for sales of wearable devices worldwide for the first. Sales of Fitbit devices, meanwhile, plunged by 40 percent

Coming off the back of Xiaomi’s reentry into the world’s top five smartphone sellers, a new Strategy Analytics report found that it leapfrogged Apple and Fitbit to become the top seller of wearables in Q2 2017 with 3.7 million units shipped. Fitbit logged 3.4 million shipments during the quarter with Apple coming in at 2.8 million — the U.S. firm actually posted higher sales growth than Xiaomi. The rest of the field was responsible for a further 11.7 million units, or 54 percent of all wearables shipped during the quarter.

Xiaomi and Apple both grew their marketshare year-on-year (from 15 percent to 17 percent, and nine percent to 13 percent, respectively), but Fitbit’s share cratered from 29 percent to 16 percent.

Both Xiaomi and Apple take very different approaches to wearables. Xiaomi has a wide range of products that are priced competitively and feature heart-rate monitors and alerts — the Mi Band is priced as low as $14.99 in the U.S. — while the Apple Watch, at upwards of $269, is a more premium approach that’s packed with a fuller set of features. While they both stand for something at different ends of the market, Fitbit’s position is less certain.

“Fitbit is at risk of being trapped in a pincer movement between the low-end fitness bands sold by Xiaomi and the fitness-led, high-end smartwatches sold by Apple,” Strategy Analytics’ Neil Mawston said in a statement.

As for the other two, Strategy Analytics said reports that the next Apple Watch may include extended health tracking capabilities could help Apple reclaim the top spot. But for now its lack of health band options is what the firm believes is keeping Xiaomi ahead, the firm concluded.

Xiaomi has had a resurgent 2017 so far, bouncing back from two disappointing years in which it struggled to maintain once-explosive growth and missed sales targets. A push into offline retail in China and progress in India, where the company cracked $1 billion in revenue last year, have contributed to a more optimistic outlook this year, with CEO Lei Jun claiming it has reached “a major inflection point in its growth.”

The company said its phone sales were up 70 percent quarter-on-quarter in Q2 with 23 million sold in Q2. Now it is pushing on with its offline retail strategy and furthering its global expansion plan thanks to a $1 billion loan that was secured last month.

Source: TechCrunch

Filed Under: Business Tech, Mobile World, Technology //

China’s Great Firewall – VPN crackdown

Posted on August 2, 2017 //

China says VPN crackdown aimed at ‘cleaning’ the internet

FILE PHOTO: A computer network cable is seen above a Chinese flag in this July 12, 2017 illustration photo.
REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration/File Photo

Scaling China’s Great Firewall is getting a whole lot harder.

Beijing said in January it would restrict virtual private networks, or VPNs, and this month reportedly told the three big telecoms companies to block individuals’ access to them by early next year.

China’s regulator defended the crackdown on Tuesday, saying recent measures were part of an ongoing campaign aimed at “cleaning and standardizing” access to the internet.

“Our restrictions target service providers without licenses or operating illegally,” said Zhang Feng, spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, at a press conference.

“Law-abiding individuals and businesses won’t be affected,” he said.

China’s internet is tightly controlled by censors, who block access to services such as Google, Facebook and even the New York Times. To get around the firewall, many people use VPNs, which use encryption to disguise internet traffic.

Authorities are cracking down on local Chinese companies offering VPN services without registering properly with the authorities, said Charlie Smith of GreatFire.org, a group that monitors internet censorship in the country.

“These companies largely offer cheap access to VPNs, so in that regard, Chinese are losing an affordable way to access internet freedom,” Smith said.

The ministry’s comments followed widespread reports of dozens of popular China-based VPNs being shut down, and the country’s largest internet provider telling corporate customers that VPNs can only be used to connect to a company’s overseas headquarters.

The moves mean it will become increasingly difficult to find a working VPN. Soon, only technically savvy people will be able to get around China’s Great Firewall, says Maya Wang, senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.

“All this means the difficulty of getting access to an uncensored, unmonitored internet is ever increasing,” she said.

Beijing acknowledges, however, that China can’t completely get rid of VPNs — certainly not for businesses.

“We have noticed the need for direct international connections by foreign trade companies and international businesses. They can apply for such services with approved providers,” Zhang said.

“This is one of the rare instances when the authorities admit to the necessity of VPNs,” said Smith.

The U.S. views China’s censorship as a barrier to trade, arguing in an annual report that China’s “extensive blocking of legitimate websites” imposes significant costs on suppliers and users of services and products.

“U.S. industry research has calculated that up to 3,000 sites in total are blocked, affecting billions of dollars in business, including communications, networking, news and other sites,” according to the report published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

China has tightened internet censorship across the board ahead of the Communist Party’s 19th Congress this fall, where a major senior leadership reshuffle is expected. A new cybersecurity law that took effect in June is expected to make it harder for foreign firms to operate in China.

— CNN’s Steven Jiang contributed to this report.

Source: CNNMoney (Hong Kong)

Filed Under: Business Tech //