Category: Business
In from the cold: Scandi wines hope to win over drinkers
Sipping a glass of local wine is likely not what springs to mind when visiting Scandinavia, but this colder, northerly region is emerging as a new wine frontier. Hundreds of commercial vineyards are now dotted across Denmark, Sweden, and even Norway, as a first generation of professional winemakers transform what was once a niche hobby into a small but flourishing industry. Far north of France’s Bordeaux or California’s Napa Valley, more than 10,000 vines grow on a hillside on Zealand, Denmark’s biggest island. “People have found out that it is actually possible to grow wine in Denmark, so newcomers are coming, year [Read More…]
China opens probe into Nvidia, accusing company of violating its anti-monopoly law
The action follows the Biden administration’s announcement of new limits on the ability of Chinese firms to use U.S.-made chips. China on Monday accused U.S. chipmaker Nvidia of violating its anti-monopoly law, a move likely to escalate already-tense trade relations between the two countries as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office for a second time. China’s state market regulatory arm said the probe is related to Nvidia’s 2019 acquisition of Mellanox, a global supplier of computer networking equipment. China had conditionally approved that acquisition in 2020. A Nvidia spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The [Read More…]
Telegram U-turns and joins child safety scheme
After years of ignoring pleas to sign up to child protection schemes, the controversial messaging app Telegram has agreed to work with an internationally recognised body to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is used by major online services to help them detect and remove CSAM, and prevent its spread. Telegram had repeatedly refused to engage with it or any similar scheme. But, four months after its founder Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris for Telegram’s alleged failure to moderate extreme content, the platform has announced a U-turn. The IWF has described Telegram’s decision as “transformational” [Read More…]
Germany’s Bosch MOU with Tencent
Global companies are entering China’s self-driving market one after another. This is because the Chinese market is larger than other regions and the technology growth rate is fast. According to foreign media on the 2nd, German auto parts maker Bosch recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China’s largest information technology (IT) company, Tencent, to establish a cooperative system in various fields for autonomous driving services, including cloud computing. In particular, the contract was made as Tencent aggressively operates its artificial intelligence (AI) service “Hunyuan” to local electric vehicle manufacturers in China that develop next-generation smart cars. Tencent has [Read More…]
India’s luxury airline Vistara flies into the sunset
Indian full-service carrier Vistara will operate its last flight on Monday, after nine years in existence. A joint venture between Singapore Airlines and the Tata Sons, Vistara will merge with Tata-owned Air India to form a single entity with an expanded network and broader fleet. This means that all Vistara operations will be transferred to and managed by Air India, including helpdesk kiosks and ticketing offices. The process of migrating passengers with existing Vistara bookings and loyalty programmes to Air India has been under way over the past few months. “As part of the merger process, meals, service ware and [Read More…]
CrowdStrike and Microsoft: What we know about global IT outage
A massive tech failure has caused travel chaos around the world, with banking and healthcare services also badly hit. Flights have been grounded because of the IT outage – a flaw which left many computers displaying blue error screens. There were long queues, delays and flight cancellations at airports around the world, as passengers had to be manually checked in. Cyber-security firm CrowdStrike has admitted that the problem was caused by an update to its antivirus software, which is designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from malicious attacks. Microsoft has said it is taking “mitigation action” to deal with “the [Read More…]
Google looks to AI paywall option, claims report
Google, the search engine used by more than a billion people around the world, is reported to be considering charging for premium content generated by artificial intelligence (AI). The company, owned by Alphabet Inc, is said to be revamping its business model and looking at putting some of its core product behind a paywall. It would be the first time Google had charged for any of its content. Google said it did not have anything to announce “right now”. According to the Financial Times (FT) it is said to be looking at whether to add certain AI-powered search features to [Read More…]
Apple overtakes Samsung as world’s biggest phonemaker
Apple now has the lion’s share of the global smartphone market, knocking Samsung off the top spot for the first time in 12 years. The American phone giant accounted for more than a fifth of phones shipped last year, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC). Samsung took 19.4% of the market share with Chinese phonemakers Xiaomi, OPPO and Transsion following behind. Smartphone sales have been faltering as many people upgraded in the pandemic. The IDC reports that almost 1.2 billion smartphones were sold last year – a drop of more than 3% on the previous year. It [Read More…]
Binance accused of ‘web of deception’ in US
Crypto giant Binance has been accused of engaging in a “web of deception” as it was hit with another lawsuit by US financial regulators. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the trading platform and its founder Changpeng Zhao ignored the rules meant to protect investors to keep operating in the US. Both the company and Mr Zhao are accused of mishandling customer funds. Binance said it would defend the platform “vigorously”. The complaint from the SEC is the second lawsuit filed against the firm this year and follows promises by the US to police the crypto industry more aggressively. [Read More…]
US firms ‘more negative’ about doing business in China
US companies are “more negative than they’ve been in a long time” about doing business in China, according to the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China). As tensions continue to grow between the world’s two biggest economies, Michael Hart says that the rivalry has “made business very challenging”. The governments of President Xi and President Biden have been disagreeing on what seems like an ever-increasing number of issues; ranging from Ukraine, to coronavirus, and Taiwan, to Tiktok, and semiconductors. That is reflected in AmCham China’s latest annual survey of its more than 900 members. For the first [Read More…]
