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Tiktok experiences brief outage, launches new Ad Platform amidst calls for ban

July 10, 2020June 6, 2023 Editor

TikTok has had a difficult week, to say the least and rival Instagram just made it much harder. For a few hours on Thursday afternoon, videos that appeared on TikTok user pages, following feeds, and the For You Page all displayed broken Like totals for some users across the globe. TikTok showed that these videos had zero likes. “Earlier today, some of our users experienced app issues around notifications, the display of likes and view counts, and trouble loading videos on some pages of the app,” TikTok said in a…

AI Diagnoses childhood diseases like doctors

January 8, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

An artificial intelligence (AI) programme developed in China that combs through test results, health records and even handwritten notes diagnosed childhood diseases as accurately as doctors, researchers said. From the flu and asthma to life-threatening pneumonia and meningitis, the system consistently matched or out-performed primary care pediatricians, they reported in Nature Medicine. Dozens of studies in recent months have detailed how AI is revolutionizing the detection of diseases including cancers, genetic disorders and Alzheimer’s. AI-based technology learns and improves in a way similar to humans, but has virtually unlimited capacity…

Amazon retreats from its China business in defeat, could it also mean anything for its India market?

April 29, 2019April 29, 2019 Editor

Is it possible that the almighty Amazon, global dominator of all things retail and pulveriser of hapless competitors, has finally conceded defeat in China? It certainly seems that way, as the US-based global e-commerce Goliath announced it would bring the curtain down on its Chinese marketplace business in July and will revert to offering only overseas products to domestic Chinese customers. “We are notifying sellers we will no longer operate a marketplace on Amazon.cn, and we will no longer be providing seller services on Amazon.cn effective July 18,” the company…

China’s largest car-hailing service Didi redesigns ar-pooling platform after passenger death

May 22, 2018

China’s largest car-hailing service Didi, has redesigned its platform after being criticized for the ‘socialization’ feature that saw drivers inappropriately commenting on the looks of female passengers reports ZDNet. The service has been halted since May 12 after a 21-year-old flight attendant reportedly died at the hands of a 26-year-old driver in China’s Henan province on May 6. The flight attendant had booked a ride through Didi and was allegedly killed by the driver who was also found dead in a river by police, according to Chinese news reports. Didi…

Brookings Study estimates cost of internet shutdowns in 2015 at $2.4 billion

October 25, 2016 Dianne Jacobs

Whenever there’s a shutdown of internet access or restrictions placed on an app, we shake our heads disapprovingly because we know it’s a fundamentally bad idea to do that. But what exactly is the cost of those shutdowns? A new study from the Brookings Institution suggests well over $2 billion over the last year. The study, by Brookings analyst Darrell West, is a very rough estimate of these costs. We’re talking back-of-napkin rough — well, assuming you were sitting at the bar with MIT and World Bank economists. Essentially, West…

Cybercriminals Are Misappropriating Businesses’ Web Addresses

March 12, 2015February 16, 2016 Staff Writer

As a Result, Customers Can’t Find the Real Companies on the Web Cybercriminals targeting businesses are stealing more than customer passwords and credit-card numbers these days. Some are misappropriating the very Web addresses—or domain names—of the businesses themselves. When Pablo Palatnik of Miami glanced at a Google analytics report showing Web traffic on his office TV monitor one day last month, he was alarmed to discover that traffic to his business website, Shadesdaddy.com, had plunged 80% from its usual level of as many as 10,000 visitors a day. At first,…

Apple posts $18 billion profit, the largest in its history

January 29, 2015February 17, 2016

Apple just posted its first quarter results, and as expected, it was a big one. Led once again by record sales of new iPhones and holiday sales of iPads and Macs, Apple posted earnings of $18 billion on $74.6 billion in revenue, far above what it forecasted back in October, and marking the highest quarterly profit in its history. By product, Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones, 21.4 million iPads, and 5.52 million Macs. Those numbers were up big from the number of iPhones and Macs Apple sold during the same time…

China gets its first online private bank, courtesy of Tencent

January 6, 2015February 17, 2016

Chinese internet and social giant Tencent has launched the country’s first private online bank. The bank, which is called WeBank in a clear allusion to its massively popular instant messaging service WeChat, is also China’s first internet-based financial institution. The launch of WeBank sees Tencent steal a march on Alibaba and eight other private investors who were last year given permission to launch five private online banks. As Technode pointed out at the time, the pilot programme is designed to help make funding more accessible to startups and small businesses.…

Russia and China Edge Out US With Proposed Cyber Security Pact

October 24, 2014February 17, 2016 Staff Writer

Russia and China look set to sign a bilateral cyber security agreement next month in a move which could further isolate the US on the world stage. Russian newspaper Kommersant, whose owner has ties to Vladamir Putin, cited sources “close to the Kremlin” as saying the “two-sided agreement” would probably be ready by November 10, when the president will be in Beijing to attend the APEC summit. Putin and China’s president Xi Jinping are also expected to hold a joint address on information security during the visit, the report said. The…

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg speaks Chinese in Beijing visit

October 23, 2014February 17, 2016 Staff Writer

Facebook has been blocked by Chinese authorities for over five years, but company founder Mark Zuckerberg appears to be on a new charm offensive to crack the massive market. In a move that has sent tongues wagging across China and around the globe, Zuckerberg on Wednesday showed off his nascent Chinese language skills in Beijing by participating in a 30-minute question-and-answer session conducted entirely in Mandarin. When asked about Facebook’s plans in China, Zuckerberg said the company already has a presence in the country, focused on helping Chinese companies grow in…