SEA
Thailand and Japan have reached an agreement to form a consortium for the development of robotics specialists, in a bid to to promote and support the usage of robotics. (Bangkok Post)
China
China’s largest ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing announced on Friday its plan to launch in Melbourne on June 25 in a globalization push. The Beijing-based company has started signing up drivers since June 1 and has started a trial in the Australian city of Geelong last month. (KrASIA)
Tencent Flagship store on Tmall has been taken down in less than 24 hours. Speculations says it has to do with Tencent’s strong ties with JD.com. (Technode)
More than 500 Chinese government agencies, Communist Party organisations, and official media are partaking in short video app, Douyin, to gain a stronger connection with the youths to communicate “core socialist values”. Amid the rise of the short video industry, short messages and emojis on social media is not enough. (SCMP)
Chinese regulators have given the green light to the proposed US$44 billion merger between U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors, according to SCMP. This will give Qualcomm a distribution presence in some of the end markets like automotive. (CNBC)
China’s largest news aggregator Jinri Toutiao has launched a new service “Jinri Games” which is currently only available for Android users. (Technode)
Mobile video apps in China are seen as a complementary to cinemas, as they have enhanced content production which is crucial for the development of the Chinese movie industry, said Nate Fan, president of distribution with Shanghai Bliss Media Ltd. (SCMP)
Ericsson said it hasn’t reconciled with Xiaomi over the patent case. Ericsson sued Xiaomi in 2014 for alledged patent infringement in India. (PingWest)
Perfect World, the Chinese game company, reached a partnership with Valve, the the parent company of Steam, to launch Steam China. (Technode)
Devices of China-based smartphone manufacturer TRANSSION Holdings make up nearly half phones that are sold in Africa. (Technode)
Tencent has upgraded its WeChat mini programs’ user experience and developers’ tools. (Technode)
Rest of Asia
SoftBank will invest US$60 billion-US$100 billion in solar power generation in India. SoftBank is expected to reach a formal agreement with the Indian government soon after final arrangements are made. (Deal Steet Asia)
World
Apple in talks with animation studio Cartoon Saloon to buy distribution rights for the U.S. and some other countries to take on Netflix, Google and Amazon. (Bloomberg)
More people turning to platforms like WhatsApp instead of Facebook to find and share news. The use of Facebook for news dropped by 9% from 2017 to 2018 in the U.S according to a report. (CNBC)
Google announced it will open an AI research center in Accra, Ghana, later this year. The center will be its first in Africa. (CNBC)
Microsoft looks to challenge Amazon in staffless stores. The company is working on technologies which would eliminate cashiers and checkout lines from stores. (Reuters)
Gadgets
Some Nokia 7 Plus users who are presently testing the Android P beta have started receiving error messages after installing the June Android security patch. (Gadgets360)
Good News Bad News
M17 became the first company ever to ring the bell and postpone its listing on the NYSE. The cancellation was due to “settlement issues” as said by the company, which remains as a private company. It received investments of US$35 million from existing investors. (Techcrunch)
