At its annual developer summit in Indonesia on Tuesday, Hangzhou-based Alibaba Cloud said the latest products under its Tongyi Qianwen family of LLMs, such as the Qwen 2.5 series, as well as multimodal AI models – including the Qwen-VL series and visual generation-focused Tongyi Wanxiang – are now accessible to global developers via application programming … Read more
On the banks of the Kinugawa River in central Japan, a row of abandoned, crumbling hotels stands like a relic of a forgotten past. A destination that once thrived as a hot spring resort during Japan’s bubble economy era of the 1980s, many parts of Kinugawa Onsen have now fallen silent. But a revival is … Read more
In both Hinduism and Buddhism, the snake or Naga, Sanskrit for “serpent”, is often depicted as a divine or semidivine being with spiritual and physical powers. In Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, with Theravada Buddhism in their cultures, Naga is considered an auspicious creature, one that brings protection and blessings, and can … Read more
WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS? While private security corporations are nominally separate from China’s People Liberation Army (PLA), there is little to stop the PLA from infiltrating these organisations and influencing their operations on the ground. Having Chinese private security firms in Myanmar also creates a high likelihood of Chinese nationals being caught up in … Read more
Tickets for a voyage on board Walt Disney’s first Asia-based cruise ship go on sale this week, as the entertainment giant takes advantage of a tourism boom in Singapore to realise ambitious goals for its cruise business. Bookings for the Disney Adventure will open to the general public on December 10, a full year before … Read more
Popular budget-shopping platforms Temu and Shein have suspended operations in Vietnam, as they await approval from authorities to restart their local services. The country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade ordered Temu, owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, to halt its business after the platform failed to complete the required business registration process by the … Read more
The Dutch chipmaker and its Taiwanese partner Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (VIS) on Wednesday broke ground on a joint chip plant in Singapore’s east region. The partners are already working on a phase-two expansion, NXP executive vice-president Andy Micallef told Bloomberg News on the sidelines of the ceremony, though he said that addition has yet … Read more
Fewer Westerners are working in major Chinese cities as high-paying jobs dry up amid slow economic growth, with living costs and China’s geopolitical tensions with the West also taking their toll. But some of those gaps are being filled by professionals from Southeast Asia, as foreign firms increasingly turn to local or regional talent. Census … Read more
By Ko Dong-hwan The world needs more new varieties of coffee beans so that bean farmers and producers can make more profit and the market does not get monopolised by a few coffee-producing countries or roasters that offer limited choices, according to the head of World Coffee Research (WCR). Jennifer “Vern” Long, chief executive of … Read more
In Dubai, it works with a local partner that has experience with hospitals and the health authorities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the latter being the UAE’s capital and largest emirate. “It’s good to have experienced partners in the region,” he said. “I think both in Southeast Asia and Middle East, there’s a huge amount of trust … Read more
