Nvidia CEO skips Trump’s inauguration for Lunar New Year Asia visit, source says

Nvidia CEO skips Trump’s inauguration for Lunar New Year Asia visit, source says

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on January 20, bucking a trend among high-profile technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, according to a person familiar with the situation. He had never … Read more

Tech war: China’s TikTok sellers eye Amazon and Shein as US ban looms

Tech war: China’s TikTok sellers eye Amazon and Shein as US ban looms

Chinese merchants on TikTok are taking precautionary measures to prepare for a looming ban of the short-video app in the United States, including switching to competing platforms and focusing on other overseas markets. Qian Liu, a seller who runs 12 stores on TikTok targeting US consumers, has been marking down inventories and delaying the purchase … Read more

TikTok Shop triples US sales on Black Friday despite looming ban

TikTok Shop triples US sales on Black Friday despite looming ban

TikTok tripled its US shopping sales to more than US$100 million on Black Friday, a sign of the app’s growing popularity despite a looming ban. TikTok Shop, the app’s e-commerce feature, also drew a 165 per cent annual increase in shoppers for the two days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the company said. There … Read more

A Portrait of the Artist as an Amazon Reviewer

A Portrait of the Artist as an Amazon Reviewer

If you were a new parent in 2006, you might have stumbled across a lengthy Amazon review of Gerber’s Tender Harvest Sweet Potato Baby Food entitled “Mmm-Mmm Good.” The review, which gives the product five stars, begins with a description of the puréed foodstuff (a “tantalizing blend of organic goodness” with a “soft, piquant flavor … Read more

Tencent adds 3,000 jobs in third quarter, signalling Big Tech growth in China amid AI race

Tencent adds 3,000 jobs in third quarter, signalling Big Tech growth in China amid AI race

Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings added more than 3,000 jobs in the third quarter, in a sign that the country’s most valuable technology company is on a new growth trajectory after the industry was beset by downsizing in recent years. The Shenzhen-based company had 108,823 employees by the end of September, up 3 per cent … Read more

Discount shopping giant Temu enters Vietnam and Brunei as app faces ban in Indonesia

Discount shopping giant Temu enters Vietnam and Brunei as app faces ban in Indonesia

Temu’s website in Vietnam, however, showed that the company’s foray into one of the fastest-growing economies in the region was apparently rushed. It currently supports only English as well as transactions made via credit card and Google Pay, while excluding leading Vietnamese mobile payment service Momo. In affluent Brunei, Temu is available in both English … Read more

US weighs Google break-up in historic Big Tech antitrust case

US weighs Google break-up in historic Big Tech antitrust case

The US Justice Department is considering asking a federal judge to force Google to sell off parts of its business in what would be a historic break-up of one of the world’s biggest tech companies. Antitrust enforcers are weighing a break-up to mitigate the Alphabet business’s dominance in search, the agency said in a court … Read more

Intel rebuffs Arm after SoftBank-owned firm asked to buy US chip maker’s product unit

Intel rebuffs Arm after SoftBank-owned firm asked to buy US chip maker’s product unit

Arm Holdings approached Intel Corp about potentially buying the ailing chip maker’s product division, only to be told that the business is not for sale, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. In the high-level inquiry, Arm did not express interest in Intel’s manufacturing operations, said the person, who asked not to … Read more

TikTok to close music-streaming business in November amid tough competition

TikTok to close music-streaming business in November amid tough competition

ByteDance’s TikTok has announced that it will shut down the TikTok Music streaming service on November 28, which comes as the company has struggled to turn its success in marrying music and videos into a service that could take on the likes of Spotify and Google’s YouTube. “After this date, access to TikTok Music, including … Read more

Pinduoduo returns some service fees to sellers after parent PDD pledges US$1.4 bln waiver

Pinduoduo returns some service fees to sellers after parent PDD pledges US.4 bln waiver

Chinese budget e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, run by Temu owner PDD Holdings, is offering partial refunds of service fees to merchants, after company executives promised to waive 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) in charges. The main point of contention arose over so-called technical service fees, which are essentially sales commissions charged by Pinduoduo for merchants to … Read more