China targets livestreaming in latest censorship crackdown

The country has a history of censoring its media platforms and this latest move isn’t terribly surprising. Combing through and removing all of the content it deems inappropriate takes a fair amount of resources and livestreaming adds a layer of difficulty to those processes. Recently, Chinese authorities have shut down celebrity gossip accounts, made VPNs illegal and began requiring app stores to register with the government. They’ve also added restrictions on internet news outlets.

This latest move has already hurt companies like Weibo — China’s version of Twitter — which rely on livestreaming to bring in revenue. After the announcement of the ban, Weibo’s shares fell over six percent, shaving nearly a $1 billion off of the company’s market capitalization. It’s not clear if the ban is permanent.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sharp will reportedly start building OLED TV panels next year

Now that Sharp is under new ownership by Foxconn , it may have big plans for a return to TV prominence. In a move that could explain a sudden push to recover the use of its name from Hisense , the Japanese company apparently has a plan to add OLED TV production lines at one of its plants next year. The Japan Times reports that at a cost of 57.4 billion yen ($515 million US), it could have production operation at two plants in the spring of 2018. While one would work on small and medium screens for phones (like, maybe a new iPhone?) and laptops, the other would focus on TVs, where LG dominates the segment, producing OLED panels for its own TVs as well as other brands.
Keep reading

Car buyers aren’t thrilled about semi-autonomous features

Overall, the trend for buyers is to be quite positive about the quality and performance of their new vehicle, especially if it’s a Kia. “Autonomous Technology” was, in fact, the only category where user complaints increased between 2016 and 2017, although only by a tiny amount. The Wall Street Journal points out that of all the issues consumers raised, 34 percent of them were tied in to adaptive cruise control. If left unchecked, users may prefer to opt for cars with fewer autonomous systems, or prefer to drive with them deactivated. Issues with existing smart driving features could also sour the general public’s feeling towards our rapidly-approaching autonomous future. It’s easy for consumers to think that, if manufacturers can’t get lane assistance right, what chance do they have of building a car that can think, and drive, for itself? It’s clear that the auto industry will have to work to tackle this issue on both a technical and perception level before it becomes a problem. E...
Keep reading

Control this insane $16,000 laundry-folding robot with your voice

Instead, Laundroid will only work with Cerevo’s Lumigent, a desk lamp that responds to voice control. “Lumigent lights up automatically when spoken to. The integration will enable Lumigent to command the basic Laundroid operations,” says the press release . Pricing on the lamp isn’t available, but it will likely set you back between $400 and $700 . It’s not clear what other IoT devices, if any, that Laundroid will connect with (it comes with onboard WiFi and is controlled by an app), though presumably Seven Dreamers is working on further integration. Adding insult to injury, Laundroid is ridiculously expensive —the first-run units are expected to be priced around 1.85 million yen, which is roughly $16,500. The company is accepting limited reservations for units in Japan starting today. While adding new features and integrations such as voice control is a good idea, doing so in such a limited, proprietary way is frustrating. Why not open the Laundroid for use with Siri, Amazon Alexa a...
Keep reading