Apple has released the new iPad Air and iPad Pro and their accessories
At 10 p.m. on May 7, Apple held a press conference. At the event, Apple unveiled the new iPad Pro with the M4 chip, the new iPad Air in two sizes, the Apple Pencil, and the Magic Keyboard. Among them, the new iPad Pro will be Apple's most powerful and smallest iPad product.
The new iPad Air, newly released, is available in two sizes for the first time, 11-inch and 13-inch. Apple says the new iPad Air is 50% faster and comes with an M2 chip. After the press conference, the price of the iPad Air China version was announced on the official website, starting at 4799 yuan for the 11-inch model and 6499 yuan for the 13-inch model.
The new iPad Pro will also be powered by Apple's M4 chip, which is known as Apple's most powerful iPad. Apple said that the new iPad Pro is the thinnest Apple product, and that the M4 chip is "the most powerful chip for artificial intelligence", and introduced the company's Neural Engine, a chip dedicated to artificial intelligence software that can quickly separate the subject of a video from the background. Speaking at the event, John Ternus, Apple's head of hardware, said, "This stunning design and groundbreaking display allows us to move towards the next generation of Apple silicon."
Finally, Apple will also unveil a new Magic Keyboard designed specifically for the iPad Pro at the event, as well as the Apple Pencil. Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "This is the most important day since the iPad was introduced."
Apple's new iPad Pro 11-inch model starts at 8999 yuan, and 13-inch starts at 11499 yuan. Orders will be accepted at 9 a.m. on May 9 and will go on sale on May 15.
Amazon plans to invest $9 billion to expand its cloud computing business in Singapore
On May 7, Amazon announced plans to spend $9 billion to expand its cloud computing infrastructure in Singapore. The investment, which will be completed over the next four years, will double AWS's investment in Singapore. Including this investment in Singapore, AWS has already announced plans to invest approximately $35 billion outside of the U.S. so far this year. (Source: Bull Reuters)
TikTok has formally sued the U.S. government to stop the "sell or ban" law
On May 8, TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, filed a lawsuit with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., asking the court to order an order to block the U.S. from enforcing the TikTok divestiture law signed by President Biden last month. The law requires ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. operations by mid-January next year or TikTok will be taken off the U.S. shelves.
TikTok and ByteDance are in a lawsuit accusing the U.S. government of trampling on TikTok's First Amendment rights, as well as the free speech rights of millions of Americans, in the name of national security, by illegally singled out individual companies for punishment.
"There's no doubt about it: this bill will force TikTok to shut down by January 19, 2025, silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in a way that can't be replicated elsewhere." The lawsuit alleges. (Source: Phoenix Technology)
Disney's fiscal second quarter revenue was $22.1 billion, and its core streaming business was profitable for the first time
On May 7, Disney released its financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2024, with revenue of $22.1 billion, in line with analysts' expectations and up from $21.82 billion in the same period last year. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.21, beating analysts' expectations of $1.10 and $0.93 in the year-ago quarter.
In addition, Disney's core streaming business turned a profit for the first time in the second fiscal quarter. According to the financial report, Disney Entertainment's direct-to-consumer (DTC) business, which includes Disney+ and Hulu, achieved an operating profit of $47 million, compared with a loss of $587 million in the same period last year.
This doesn't mean that all of Disney's streaming services are profitable. Including ESPN+, the DTC business as a whole reported a loss of $18 million, compared to a loss of $659 million in the year-ago quarter. Disney expects the overall streaming business to be fully profitable by the fourth quarter of this year. (Source: Sina Technology)
Ctrip announced a new policy: customer service will return to their hometowns for work 1 month earlier during the Spring Festival next year
On May 7, Trip.com Group announced that its customer service team will fully implement the policy of returning to their hometowns during the Spring Festival, and each customer service team can implement the policy according to actual needs.
Taking the 2025 Spring Festival as an example, employees can apply to return to their hometowns from December 29, 2024 to February 15, 2025. After becoming the first company in China to implement a hybrid work policy, Ctrip extended hybrid work to an ultra-long period of one and a half months during the Chinese New Year.
According to Ctrip, the release of the Spring Festival homecoming policy is based on the results of an experiment in which more than 600 employees returned to their hometowns from January 20 to March 1, 2024.
According to the data, compared with the employees who worked in the company during the Spring Festival, the unit efficiency of employees returning to their hometowns increased by 5.2%, the praise rate of employees for the company increased by 10%, and the absenteeism rate decreased by 44%; Compared with the company's office efficiency during the National Day of 2023, the office efficiency of returning to their hometowns during the Spring Festival has increased by 5.5%, and the praise rate of employees for the company has increased by 22%. (Source: Sina Technology)
360 said that there was no financial difficulty, and that it would resolutely pursue legal responsibility for the rumors
On May 7, it was recently rumored that 360 Zhou Hongyi is now struggling, with more than 20 billion debts due and all equity pledged.
In this regard, 360 announced today that the company was successfully delisted from the U.S. stock market in July 2016 and successfully returned to A-shares in February 2018. In order to complete the privatization merger, Tianjin Qixin Zhicheng Technology Co., Ltd., the company's largest shareholder, borrowed US$3 billion (about RMB 20.13 billion at the time) from China Merchants Bank, and pledged its 360 shares.
360 Company said that according to the announcement disclosed by 360, the principal and interest of the loan have been fully repaid as early as June 30, 2023, and the share pledge has been fully released on July 31, 2023. As of March 31, 2024, 360 held about 26.9 billion yuan in monetary funds, and there was no financial difficulty. For false rumors fabricated out of thin air, 360 will resolutely pursue legal responsibility. (Source: IT House)
Elon Musk: Artificial intelligence is currently underperforming in the field of space exploration
On May 7, Elon Musk attended the 27th Milken Global Conference, in which the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX expressed his optimism about artificial intelligence, believing that artificial intelligence that "pursues truth" can "promote the development of human civilization". However, when asked if AI could "accelerate" space exploration, he was less eager.
"Can AI help you achieve your space exploration goals faster?" Moderator Michael Milken asked.
Musk replied, "In fact, there is almost no use of artificial intelligence in the field of space exploration. SpaceX and Starlink largely do not use AI technology. It's not because I'm against it, it's because we haven't found a suitable application so far."
Musk said that he had tried to learn about space with an improved AI language model, but the results were not ideal. "I've asked questions about the model Fermi paradox, rocket engine design, electrochemistry, and so far, they've been poor," Musk said, adding that the Fermi paradox is that if there are a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy, then we should be able to easily observe them, but the reality is not. As a result, AI still has a long way to go in the field of space exploration. (Source: IT House)
Demand for generative AI jobs skyrockets by more than 300%
On May 7, it was reported that the hiring market for generative artificial intelligence (AIGC) is booming with the explosion of AI applications. Data shows that in the first quarter of this year, the demand for generative AI-related jobs increased more than threefold year-on-year.
Higher salaries are a big reason for the popularity of generative AI-related jobs. According to industry insiders, the average annual salary for AIGC-related positions is more than 400,000 yuan, and the top three natural language processing experts, image algorithm engineers and architects all have annual salaries of more than 500,000 yuan. (Source: 36Kr)
Nintendo officially announced the "existence" of the successor model of the Switch, and "will not announce hardware information" in June.
On May 7, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa announced in a post that the company is working on a successor to the Switch console. He said the console is expected to be announced within the current fiscal year, i.e., by March 2025.
Shuntaro Furukawa also revealed that a Nintendo face-to-face meeting will be held in June, when the lineup of games for Switch in the second half of 2024 will be showcased. However, please note that no information related to the new aircraft will be released during this face-to-face meeting.
Previously, it was reported that rumors showed that the Nintendo Switch 2 will have an 8-inch display and support up to 1080p picture output, and it can also reach 4K quality in dock mode. In terms of processors, it is expected to use a custom version of the NVIDIA Tegra T239 chip, with support for select Ada Lovelace GPU technologies such as ray tracing and DLSS 3.1. Storage options include 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB of eMMC storage, as well as NVMe SSDs. (Source: Zhongguancun Online)
HUAWEI WATCH FIT 3 SMARTWATCH RELEASED OVERSEAS: 1.82-INCH AMOLED SCREEN FROM 159.99 EUROS
ON MAY 8, THE HUAWEI WATCH FIT 3 SMARTWATCH WAS RELEASED OVERSEAS, EQUIPPED WITH A NEW 1.82-INCH AMOLED ROUNDED RECTANGULAR SCREEN, WITH UP TO 10 DAYS OF BATTERY LIFE, PRICED FROM 159.99 EUROS (CURRENTLY ABOUT 1243 YUAN).
The HUAWEI WATCH FIT 3 is a different design from the previous two generations, with a 9.9mm thick aluminum alloy body, a weight of 26g, and a metal rotating crown. The watch features a 1.82-inch rectangular AMOLED display with rounded corners, a maximum brightness of 1500 nits, a PPI of 347, a 60Hz refresh rate, and a screen-to-body ratio of 77.4%.
The new watch is equipped with Huawei's TruSeen 5.5 heart rate monitoring system, which features multi-channel sensors and intelligent fusion algorithms to ensure accurate heart rate monitoring even during exercise. At the same time, the speed of blood oxygen detection has been improved, and the PPG sensor supports timely alerts for potential risks of atrial fibrillation and premature contractions.
The watch also supports Bluetooth calls, independent music playback, and more, and is equipped with a 400mAh battery that provides a battery life of 7 days and up to 10 days in typical usage scenarios, and 4 days with AOD on-screen display. (Source: IT House)
Pinduoduo will enter the express station and has obtained the business license of the post station in many places
On May 7, according to the media's inquiry on the government service portal of the State Post Bureau, Pinduoduo's Duodi Yucan Information Technology Co., Ltd. has obtained a license to open a service station to operate express delivery business (except letters), with the brand name "Pinduoduo Station".
The companies have been granted licenses in Wuxi, Xuzhou, Nanjing, Binzhou, Zibo, Jinan, Nanning, Jinzhong, Changsha, Chenzhou, Hengyang and Shanghai.
The State Post Bureau stipulates that the operation of express stations must be recorded, and the filing entity needs to obtain an express business license, which means that Pinduoduo will enter the express station and officially enter the field of express terminal services. (Source: IT House)
The first instance verdict of the country's first "AI plug-in" case was publicly announced
On May 7, the Yujiang District People's Court of Yingtan City publicly announced the country's first "AI plug-in" case on the afternoon of May 6, and sentenced the defendant Wang Mouhe to three years in prison, suspended for five years, and fined for the crime of providing programs and tools for invading and illegally controlling computer information systems; Unlawful gains that have been returned and seized tools for committing crimes are to be confiscated and turned over to the state treasury; The remaining unlawful gains of individuals who have not been returned will continue to be recovered. After the verdict was announced, the defendant Wang Mouhe expressed his obedience to the verdict and did not appeal. (Source: Finance Associated Press)