Why so many electric vehicle startups fail

As the electric vehicle industry faces a string of high-profile failures, several startups that have surfaced in recent years have underestimated their capital needs by billions of dollars, industry insiders said. Many of the companies that have tried to bring products to market or go public, especially through Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs, are … Read more

TikTok owner ByteDance’s ‘AI homework helper’ Gauth soars in US education apps market despite political headwinds

A screenshot of the landing page for Gauth: AI Study Companion on Apple’s App Store. Photo: SCMP In July 2021, the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council banned private tutoring firms from making a profit via off-campus courses covering school curricula. Listed companies and overseas entities were also barred from … Read more

Alibaba-backed Moonshot AI claims breakthrough in expanded Chinese-character prompt for Kimi chatbot

Chinese artificial intelligence company Moonshot AI claims that its Kimi chatbot can now handle up to 2 million Chinese characters in a single prompt – the instruction or query a user enters into the interface of a ChatGPT-like service – to surpass the capabilities of existing home-grown AI tools. The Beijing-based start-up, known in Chinese … Read more

ChatGPT creator OpenAI slams Elon Musk’s claims as ‘incoherent’ in Microsoft-backed start-up’s first legal response to tech billionaire’s lawsuit

ChatGPT creator OpenAI has lambasted Elon Musk’s allegations against it, saying in a court filing that the billionaire entrepreneur’s claims “rest on convoluted – often incoherent – factual premises”. In the filing, OpenAI said that it did not violate its agreement with Musk because “there is no founding agreement, or any agreement at all with … Read more

Alibaba said to lead new financing round for Chinese AI firm MiniMax that would value the start-up at over US$2 billion

Shanghai-based MiniMax, which was founded in 2021, is in the process of raising new funding that would value the company at more than US$2 billion, another investor with knowledge of the matter said. The two investors requested anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media. A report by Bloomberg on Tuesday said … Read more

‘Shining on international stage’: Chinese developers of OpenAI’s text-to-video generator Sora receive acclaim at home

At least two Chinese developers involved in building Sora, the newly released text-to-video generator from ChatGPT creator OpenAI, have received acclaim on the mainland for their efforts, showing how the advanced generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology has ignited interest across the country where the Microsoft-backed start-up’s services are not officially available. Unveiled by OpenAI on … Read more

EV boat maker Arc debuts a premium wake sport model for $258,000

Arc Boat Company’s fully electric Arc Sport model gets four to six hours of typical use on a single charge. Arc Boat Company Arc Boat Company began sales of its second electric boat model in just three years this week. The new $258,000 Arc Sport was designed for wake sports enthusiasts and follows the company’s … Read more

Chinese start-up Moonshot AI raises US$1 billion in funding round led by Alibaba and VC HongShan amid strong interest for OpenAI-type firms

The start-up in October launched smart chatbot Kimi Chat, built on its self-developed Moonshot large language model (LLM), which can process as many as 200,000 Chinese characters in a context window – referring to the swathe of text that an AI model can process during conversation with users. A screenshot of smart chatbot Kimi Chat. … Read more

Chinese start-up EmdoorVR counts on Apple Vision Pro lookalike to break into consumer headset market

From its white straps and curved front screen down to its name, the Vision SE shows remarkable similarities with Apple’s headset. Yet, their functionality and prices are starkly different. A customer tests a Vision Pro headset at an Apple store in Palo Alto, California. Photo: Bloomberg For less than 2,000 yuan (US$280), the Vision SE … Read more

Apple’s Vision Pro raises interest for extended reality technology, spurring broader demand for more affordable headsets, Rokid CEO says

The Vision Pro, which Apple first rolled out in the United States earlier this month, will help the whole extended reality (XR) sector grow and generate greater consumer interest, while expanding the development of relevant software and content, according to Rokid founder and chief executive Misa Zhu Mingming. “We’re very happy that Apple got into … Read more