Video games: China's government is not a fan for kids

8/31/21 8:00PM

It's usually parents that are telling kids to stop playing video games, but in China this week it was the government. The CCP announced that minors would be banned from being able to play video games on weekdays, limiting them to just 3 hours most weekends.

The move comes after a state-owned media outlet described video games as "spiritual opium", and builds on earlier restrictions for young gamers, as China's government shows increasing concern about the influence of technology and video games on the country's economy and young people.

Tech crackdown continues

‍This latest move has followed months of increased scrutiny of China's burgeoning tech sector by the Chinese government, which has been flexing its authority in a wide-ranging set of policies designed to curb the power of large corporations in China. Those measures have sent the share price of Tencent, a tech giant and the world's largest gaming company, down more than 40% since February. That's at a time when almost all other global tech share prices have been doing the exact opposite — grinding higher.

The shift in focus to "curb capitalism" was arguably kickstarted in a speech given by Jack Ma, China's most famous entrepreneur, last October. Ma criticized Chinese regulators and some state-owned banks. Then he disappeared for a few months. Then Beijing pulled the plug on the eve of his company's IPO, with Ant Group literally just 2 days away from trading, leaving investors in total limbo.

For big tech the last 6 months have been a not-so-gentle reminder of who is running things in China.

Rani Molla11h

OpenAI’s models are officially coming to Amazon

Amazon is finally getting in on the hottest ticket in tech.

After Microsoft announced yesterday that it has agreed to give up its exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s models, Amazon, as expected, will start offering them to customers — something Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman says users have been asking for “for a really long time.” Some models are available now in preview, and the most powerful GPT versions will show up “in the coming weeks.”

This is a big shift in the AI cloud wars. Microsoft’s early bet on OpenAI gave Azure an edge by locking up the most in-demand models. Now that exclusivity is gone, Amazon and other competitors can finally offer them too, closing a key gap and competing more directly for AI customers.

Amazon Set to Sell OpenAI Tech After Microsoft Cedes Exclusivity

Claire Yubin Oh14h

Ship-tracking app surges as Iran war continues

As Middle East peace talks stretch on, with Tehran reportedly offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US lifts its blockade and the war ends, the owner of shipping intelligence platform MarineTraffic revealed that the app has gained millions of new users since the conflict began.

MarineTraffic’s user count jumped to 8.5 million this April, up from 3.5 million a year ago, the cofounder of its parent company, Kpler, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Paid subscribers, often workers within companies and governments looking for more data on supply chains and commodities trading, rose 11,000 in the same period.

Kpler, which also owns shipping intelligence platform FleetMon, draws its data from a range of sources, including the Automatic Identification System, satellites, and more than 500 people on-site, like port terminal operators.

Per Appfigures data, MarineTraffic is estimated to have raked in almost $1 million across March and April in app revenue (through April 27), more than double the ~$346,500 from the same months last year. Across the full year, Kpler expects to earn between $300 million and $400 million in annual recurring revenues.

Rani Molla

pedal to the meta

15h

Meta could be getting ready to post its highest revenue growth since 2021

Meta’s outlook and analyst estimates suggest more than 30% revenue growth in Q1.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visits U.S. Capitol for Senate meetings

Tom Jones19h

Google will supply AI models to Pentagon in classified deal, per The Information

Google has become the latest tech company to ink an agreement to supply the Department of Defense (War) with AI, having reportedly closed a classified deal that allows the Pentagon to use its AI for “any lawful government purpose,” according to The Information.

The Information initially reported talks between the Alphabet-owned company and the US government around two weeks ago, following the messy breakdown of the relationship between Anthropic and the Trump administration — and the rushed OpenAI deal that took its place.

The move has reportedly sparked opposition among Google employees, with The Washington Post reporting that over 600 workers signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai to ask him to bar the Defense Department from using the company’s AI models for any classified work.