Alibaba Damo Academy announced the development of AI chips; ZTE requires employees to re-learn European and American laws; Amazon Prime members exceed 100 million | Lei Feng Morning News

Alibaba Damo Academy announces the development of AI chips, claiming that the cost-effectiveness is 40 times that of similar products

On the afternoon of April 19, Alibaba DAMO Academy revealed that it is developing a neural network chip Ali-NPU, which will be used for AI reasoning calculations such as image and video analysis and machine learning.

Alibaba DAMO Academy said that according to the design, Alibaba's Ali-NPU performance will be 10 times that of the mainstream CPU and GPU architecture AI chips on the market, while the manufacturing cost and power consumption are only half, and the cost performance is more than 40 times. In the future, the capabilities of Ali-NPU can not only better meet the needs of video and image processing, but also output computing power through Alibaba Cloud to empower all walks of life.

At present, the chip R&D team of DAMO Academy has dozens of people in the United States and Shanghai, and is expected to reach 100 people by the end of the year. Previously, Alibaba has invested in Cambricon, Barefoot Networks, DeePhi, Kneron, ASR, C-SKY Microelectronics and many other chip companies.

ZTE requires employees to re-learn European and American laws and pass the compliance exam with full marks

ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer that has been banned by the United States, is strengthening its compliance management.

On April 19, according to The Paper, after the United States activated the denial order, ZTE's senior management went out to mediate, and the rest of the employees continued to work normally. However, the company has been strengthening compliance management, requiring every employee to re-learn European and American laws, regulations, anti-bribery and other knowledge, and to pass the compliance exam with a score of 100 (full score).

In response to investors' inquiries, staff from ZTE Corporation's securities affairs representative office said that the company is actively seeking solutions and will disclose any progress to the public. They also said that there will definitely be some impact on the company's operations, but the company will try its best to overcome it.

LeTV's stock price hits daily limit; Tencent, JD.com, Suning and others to jointly invest

On April 19, LeTV's stock price hit the daily limit, closing at 5.12 yuan, with a market value of 20.426 billion yuan. According to an announcement released by LeTV, the new LeEco Smart Home capital increase plan has made new progress, and Tencent, JD.com, Suning and others will jointly invest in the new LeEco Smart Home.

According to the announcement, the investors that have signed the capital increase agreement include: LeTV.com invested RMB 300 million in debt; Tianjin Jiarui invested RMB 300 million in cash; Jiangsu Design Valley invested RMB 240 million from existing debt; and Jinrui Xian Digital invested a total of RMB 150 million in existing debt and a small amount of cash.

There are seven other companies that have reached investment intentions but have not yet signed the agreement, including Tencent, JD.com, Suning, TCL, etc., with a total capital increase of 1.9 billion yuan.

LeTV said that after the completion of this capital increase, the company's registered capital is expected to increase to RMB 407,577,201. In addition, if the capital increase is completed as intended, LeTV will still be the largest shareholder, Tianjin Jiarui will be the second largest shareholder, and LeTV Holdings will be the third largest shareholder, with shareholding ratios of 33.5%, 28.2%, and 14.1% respectively.

Baidu Apollo 2.5 opens high-speed autonomous driving in limited areas

On April 19, 2018, the first anniversary of Apollo, Baidu announced that BYD had become the 100th partner of the Apollo platform; Baidu released the Apollo 2.5 reference solution, which can support vision-based high-speed autonomous driving in a limited area, and the new hardware reference design is only a monocular wide-angle camera and a millimeter-wave radar; Baidu also took the lead in establishing the Apollo Automobile Information Security Laboratory to promote the "safe" implementation of autonomous driving.

Looking back at Apollo 1.0 - Apollo 2.0, 1.0 provides the capability of autonomous driving in closed areas, 1.5 provides the capability of autonomous driving in fixed lanes, and 2.0 provides the capability of autonomous driving under simple urban road conditions.

Currently, Baidu's 100 partners include traditional major car companies such as Chery, JAC, BAIC New Energy, FAW, Changan, and Great Wall, top suppliers such as Continental, Bosch, and Delphi, as well as travel companies, traditional automotive electronics suppliers, autonomous driving core component companies, autonomous driving technology integrators, autonomous driving communities and underlying software platforms, etc.

WeChat releases latest support policy for mini games

On April 19, WeChat announced that in order to support innovation and improve the user experience of gaming, it will provide support to mini-game developers, who can obtain higher profits.

Specific support includes: In 2018, for each mini-game's monthly Android in-app purchase turnover below 500,000 yuan (including 500,000 yuan), the 40% channel technical service fee collected by Tencent will be fed back to the mini-game developer, that is, Tencent will not charge this part of the channel technical service fee.

WeChat emphasized that the mini-game advertising revenue strategy will not be affected by this short-term support policy.

Tencent may invest $100 million in Indian online sports gaming platform Dream 11

According to India's Economic Times, Tencent is negotiating an investment agreement with India's online sports gaming platform Dream 11, with the investment amount possibly reaching US$100 million. The deal could change the landscape of this emerging industry in India.

According to industry experts, Dream 11 currently holds close to 90% of the market share in India. The number of operators in this field exceeds 60. The company has established partnerships with the Hero Caribbean Super League T20 tournament, the NBA and the Indian Super League. According to its website, it has 20 million users on its platform.

According to three people familiar with the matter, based on the terms of the agreement provided by Tencent for the deal, Dream 11 could be valued at between $400 million and $450 million.

A Dream 11 spokesman said the company does not comment on market speculation. If the deal goes through, it would be Tencent’s second major deal in Asia’s third-largest economy in the past two months, after it agreed in February to invest $115 million in music streaming service Gaana.

Apple's new vulnerability: Hackers can use iTunes Wi-Fi sync to take over your iPhone

According to Leiphone.com (official account: Leiphone.com), on April 19, researchers from Symantec discovered a vulnerability in the Apple ecosystem. As long as the user's iPhone is paired with a Mac workstation or laptop, hackers can exploit the vulnerability (Trustjacking) to secretly "take over" the user's device.

As long as the user ticks the "iTunes Wi-Fi Sync" option in the iTunes options, when the new iPhone is synced with the Mac device, the user can connect to the smartphone via the wireless network, saving the troublesome data cable. Indeed, this feature is quite convenient. With the help of iTunes, users can restore or send data from the smartphone.

However, Symantec researchers believe that this feature has a design flaw because even if the iPhone is disconnected from the Mac device, the paired iPhone can still be viewed through local Wi-Fi. In this case, hackers can use iTunes to record the user's daily operations. In addition, hackers can install or uninstall applications on the victim's phone at will. They can even activate remote backups, command the iPhone to transfer data back, and then make profits by screening the data.

Facebook joins the AI ​​chip war

Just as the country is hotly discussing the "chip shortage", Facebook has announced that it is recruiting chip talent.

Facebook's official announcement stated that the company headquarters is currently recruiting ASIC & FPGA design engineers. Candidates are required to have expertise in architecture and design of semi-custom and fully-custom ASICs. They need to work with software and system engineers, understand the limitations of current hardware, and use their expertise to create customized solutions for a variety of applications (including AI/ML, compression, video decoding, etc.).

So far, the four giants in the United States, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, have all had intersections with AI chips.

Amazon Prime membership exceeds 100 million

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wrote to shareholders on Wednesday that the number of Amazon's paid Prime members has exceeded 100 million.

Bezos also said in the letter that the number of Amazon Prime members increased more than in any previous year in 2017, with more than 5 billion express parcels delivered by Prime members worldwide. In addition, 2017 was the best year for Amazon's hardware sales, and the company will continue to invest to expand its user base, brand and infrastructure.

Amazon shares rose 1.5% in after-hours trading after Bezos' letter to shareholders was released. Amazon investors are not currently focusing on its profits. Since 2011, Amazon's profit margin has been just over 2%. Instead, investors are looking at the profits of Amazon entering new markets and finding new revenue channels. Amazon's revenue grew 31% last year to $178 billion. Amazon's stock rose nearly 70% last year, nearly five times the increase of the S&P 500 index during the same period.

Qualcomm lays off 1,500 employees to cut costs

According to foreign media reports, in order to fulfill its previous promise to investors to cut costs by $1 billion, Qualcomm has begun to lay off about 1,500 people in California. Sources said that Qualcomm currently has about 34,000 employees worldwide. The layoffs in California are the main part of the entire layoff plan, and layoffs will also be carried out in other regions, but the scale will be relatively smaller.

Qualcomm's sales have been declining year by year since 2015 and are expected to fall 3% in fiscal 2018. Qualcomm pledged in January this year to cut $1 billion in expenses to increase profits.

This is not the first time Qualcomm has laid off employees. In 2015, the chip giant announced a restructuring under pressure from activist investors, resulting in thousands of layoffs.

It is reported that the latest layoff figures will be clarified in the next few days, when Qualcomm will issue a so-called "warning notice" or "employee adjustment and retraining notice." California stipulates that if a company lays off 50 or more employees, it must report a layoff notice within 30 days in advance.

Uber to hire VMware executive Rowe as CFO in preparation for IPO

According to foreign media reports, people familiar with the matter said that Uber has selected VMware executive Zane Rowe as its top candidate for CFO (chief financial officer) to lead preparations for Uber's IPO.

Earlier, Uber said it plans to go public in 2019 and is currently in the intensive preparation stage. Sources said that Uber and Zane Rowe are in the late stages of negotiations. Zane is currently the CFO of VMware. Before joining VMware, Zane Rowe was the CFO of Continental Airlines and also led Apple's sales in North America.

It is reported that the two sides have not yet finalized the agreement and the negotiations may still fail. If the negotiations are successful, he will become the latest high-profile executive to join Uber after Uber's current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

Apple unveils new recycling robot that can disassemble iPhones

A few days before Earth Day, Apple unveiled its latest recycling robot, Daisy, in a press release summarizing the company’s recent environmental achievements. Daisy is the successor to Liam, the recycling robot Apple announced in 2016.

The news also comes after Apple announced that it has achieved its goal of using 100% renewable energy for powering its global operations.

Daisy was developed in-house by Apple engineers using some of Liam's parts. The industrial robot is capable of disassembling nine different versions of the iPhone, sorting all the reusable components in the process. All in all, Daisy is able to disassemble a full 200 iPhones in a given hour.