Gadgets
Chinese Tech Firms ‘Self-Correct’ to Get Ahead of Potential Regulations
KE Holdings, China’s largest platform matching buyers and sellers of real estate, is one such example.
This year it quietly shut down its VIP services that promised fast-turnarounds for property sellers in exchange for exclusive listings and which had featured prominently on its popular Lianjia and Beike apps, two people familiar with the matter said.
The decision to pull the plug on the VIP services was not prompted by a regulatory request but KE, which is currently the subject of an antitrust probe, had wanted to move “proactively” and “voluntarily”, said the people who declined to be identified as KE has not publicised its actions.
“It wasn’t a big business but it had the potential to become one,” said one of the sources.
KE said in a statement to Reuters that any business adjustments on its part “were in compliance with government regulations and aimed at providing better services.”
So-called ‘self-correction’ is promising to become a major corporate trend as the government tears into regulatory norms to promote socialist values and rein in what critics have called reckless capitalist expansion. The term is increasingly used by state media and is similar in tone to ‘self-criticism’ – a practice encouraged by China’s Communist Party.
The new normal
One of the most high-profile examples has been Tencent’s decision this month to introduce new limits on kids’ time spent on Honor of Kings, its most popular video game. That came just hours after its shares were battered by a state media article which described online games as “spiritual opium”.
“Everyone is trying to get a clear read on the new normal and is resetting as fast as possible,” said Jeffery Towson, host of the Asia Tech Strategy podcast and former professor of investment at Peking University. “Nobody is doing ‘move fast and break things’ anymore. Nobody is using their market power too aggressively. Everyone is aligning their strategies more closely with the government’s priorities,” he said.
While Chinese regulators have clamped down on a range of sectors from property to cryptocurrencies to private tutoring, the tech sector has come in for some of the harshest measures to date.
Ant Group’s mega listing was scuppered at the eleventh hour last year, while regulators in July ordered newly listed ride-hailing giant Didi Global to take down its app from app stores in China.
A slew of antitrust probes have also been launched, fines imposed, for Alibaba Group, while new guidance and regulations have been introduced or are in the works.
Other ‘self-correcting’ companies include NetEase Music which announced last month it would not enter into exclusive contracts, a move that came after Tencent was barred by China’s market regulator from entering into exclusive music copyright agreements.
Twitter-like Weibo also pulled an online list that ranks celebrities by popularity after a state media report critical of celebrity culture.
“The brutal growth, disorder and greed of Chinese tech companies have caused a series of problems,” said Xie Pu, founder of Chinese tech website Techie Crab.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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