TECHNOLOGY
Google toughens jab rules
Google told its employees that they would lose pay and eventually be fired if they do not follow its COVID-19 vaccination rules, CNBC reported on Tuesday. A memo circulated by Google’s leadership said that employees had until Dec. 3 to declare their vaccination status and upload documentation, or to apply for a medical or religious exemption, the report said. After that date, Google would start contacting employees who had not uploaded their status or were unvaccinated, and those whose exemption requests were not approved, CNBC reported. Employees who have not complied with the rules by Jan. 18 would be placed on “paid administrative leave” for 30 days, followed by “unpaid personal leave” for up to six months and termination, it reported.
SINGAPORE
Home sales soaring
Singapore home sales surged to a four-month high after the city-state gradually eased social restrictions in a bid to live with COVID-19. Purchases of new private apartments last month climbed to 1,547 units, figures released yesterday by the Singaporean Urban Redevelopment Authority showed. That was higher than the 911 units sold in October and the most since July. The rebound came after Singapore began to relax its strict virus curbs early last month, allowing more people to view new homes. “Developers were eager to ride the wave of positive sales momentum and close more deals before the year ends,” OrangeTee & Tie (橙易產業) senior vice president of research and analytics Christine Sun (孫燕清) said.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Binance grows in Indonesia
Binance Holdings Ltd has set up a joint venture to develop a digital asset exchange in Indonesia with a unit of a local telecommunications operator. The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is partnering with a consortium led by MDI Ventures, the venture-capital arm of state-owned telecom PT Telkom Indonesia, the two entities said in joint statement yesterday. The deal would also expand the use of blockchain in the world’s fourth-most populous country. The partnership gives Binance greater access to a country where it has an investment in Tokocrypto, a major trading platform for digital coins. Telkom Indonesia is the country’s largest telecom.
TECHNOLOGY
Uber looks to sell Didi stake
Uber Technologies Inc is looking to sell stakes in what it considers nonstrategic investments in other companies, including its shares in ride-hailing company Didi Global Inc (滴滴), Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on Tuesday. “Our Didi stake we don’t believe is strategic. They’re a competitor. China is a pretty difficult environment, with very little transparency,” Khosrowshahi said in a virtual interview with a UBS analyst. “Those kinds of stakes we look to monetize smartly over time,” Khosrowshahi added.
TECHNOLOGY
Musk is ‘Person of the Year’
The Financial Times followed Time magazine in naming Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk “Person of the Year,” with the British newspaper lauding the world’s richest man’s role in shifting the automotive industry toward an all-electric future. “Even if Tesla were somehow to collapse next year ... Musk would have transformed one of the world’s most important industries in ways that could have profound implications for governments, investors — and for the climate,” the paper said.
OpenAI has warned US lawmakers that its Chinese rival DeepSeek (深度求索) is using unfair and increasingly sophisticated methods to extract results from leading US artificial intelligence (AI) models to train the next generation of its breakthrough R1 chatbot, a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News showed. In the memo, sent on Thursday to the US House of Representatives Select Committee on China, OpenAI said that DeepSeek had used so-called distillation techniques as part of “ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs.” The company said it had detected “new, obfuscated methods” designed to evade OpenAI’s defenses
NEW IMPORTS: Car dealer PG Union Corp said it would consider introducing US-made models such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Stellantis’ RAM 1500 to Taiwan Tesla Taiwan yesterday said that it does not plan to cut its car prices in the wake of Washington and Taipei signing the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade on Thursday to eliminate tariffs on US-made cars. On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan said it is planning to lower the price of its five models imported from the US after the zero tariff comes into effect. Tesla in a statement said it has no plan to adjust the prices of the US-made Model 3, Model S and Model X as tariffs are not the only factor the automaker uses to determine pricing policies. Tesla said
Australian singer Kylie Minogue says “nothing compares” to performing live, but becoming an international wine magnate in under six years has been quite a thrill for the Spinning Around star. Minogue launched her first own-label wine in 2020 in partnership with celebrity drinks expert Paul Schaafsma, starting with a basic rose but quickly expanding to include sparkling, no-alcohol and premium rose offerings. The actress and singer has since wracked up sales of around 25 million bottles, with her carefully branded products pitched at low-to mid-range prices in dozens of countries. Britain, Australia and the United States are the biggest markets. “Nothing compares to performing
It is not just people — in China, the robots are also getting ready to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Friday was dress rehearsal day for four cute humanoid robots, each about 95 centimeters tall, at a mall in western Beijing. Curious onlookers stopped to watch. Each robot got a colorful lion costume and within minutes the moves started: Bend the knees, up, to the left, to the right, shake the mask, and do it all again. Ahead of the Lunar New Year, and as part of different “fairs” and activities around Beijing, some venues have been busy setting up their stages and
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