World

BEIJING : China's SenseTime, which sells augmented reality technology to other companies, has seen global daily active users of that tech grow to 100 million from its launch of the business in 2016, a company executive said. Augmented reality (AR) features allow users to apply filters or effects such as cat ears or photos or even livestreamed video to visual content. Apps that employ SenseTime's AR tech include Twitter-like Weibo, video site Bilibili and social e-commerce app Xiaohongshu. The artificial intelligence company is best known for its facial recognition technology and has been on a Washington trade blacklist since 2019. It is aiming to raise as much as US$2 billion in a Hong Kong IPO https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinese-ai-startup-sensetime-file-hong-kong-ipo-by-end-augu...

BEIJING: China's exports unexpectedly grew at a faster pace in August thanks to solid global demand, helping take some of the pressure off the world's second-biggest economy as it navigates its way through headwinds from several fronts. China staged an impressive recovery from a coronavirus-battered slump, but economic momentum has weakened recently due to the Delta variant-driven COVID-19 outbreaks, high raw material prices, slowing exports, tighter measures to tame hot property prices and a campaign to reduce carbon emissions. Shipments from the world's biggest exporter in August rose at a faster-than-expected rate of 25.6 per cent from a year earlier, from a 19.3 per cent gain in July, pointing to some resilience in China's industrial sector. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast g...

U.S. stock futures rose slightly Monday after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs Friday. The S&P 500 ended above 4,500 for the first time ever. The Dow 's rally brought it to within 0.5% of its record close on Aug. 16. Stocks rallied Friday after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that central bankers are in no rush to raise interest rates. He said decision-making on rate hikes is on a different track than tapering bond purchases, which he acknowledged could start this year. (CNBC) With two days left in August , the Dow was up nearly 1.5%, the S&P 500 was 2.6% higher and the Nasdaq was up 3.1%. Whether Wall Street's gains can continue may depend on the government's latest monthly employment report, which is set for release on Friday. While saying the Fed has seen sufficient pro...

WASHINGTON : US job growth likely remained robust in July amid shifts in seasonal employment at schools caused by the pandemic, which could mask some softening in underlying labour market conditions as the boost from fiscal stimulus and the economy's reopening fades. The Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday (Aug 6) could show nonfarm payrolls surging by at least 1 million last month because of the so-called seasonal adjustment factors, which are also seen inflating employment at auto assembly plants and in the leisure and hospitality sector. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, education employment normally declined by about 1 million jobs in July as schools closed, while temporary plant shutdowns for summer retooling weighed on automobile payrolls. But this year man...

A 22-year-old Vietnamese woman who came to Japan with dreams of becoming an interpreter was sentenced in January to a prison term of a year and six months, suspended for three years. The Nagoya District Court handed down the ruling on the woman who obtained a forged residence card to get a job and earn a living. The case reveals the difficulties faced by some foreign nationals in Japan who lost their jobs amid the COVID-19 pandemic but were unable to return to their home country. “I’m worried. I feel lonesome. I just want to go back to Vietnam soon,” the woman said in broken Japanese when the writer visited her prior to the ruling. According to prosecutors’ statements and questioning of the defendant during the trial, she came to Japan in June 2017 as a student, with the corresponding ...

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden hailed the Senate passage on Tuesday (Aug 10) of a "historic" US$1.2 trillion infrastructure package, celebrating a major bipartisan win on a plan he vowed would "transform America". By funding work on roads, bridges and ports, as well as clean water and high-speech internet, Biden said the Bill - which still needs House approval - would create thousands of high-paying jobs for people without college degrees. "This historic investment infrastructure is what I believe you, the American people, want," Biden said in a White House address. "This Bill shows that we can work together," he said. Some seven weeks after the Democratic leader stood with senators from both parties hailing a preliminary agreement, the Bill received rare bipartisan support in Wash...

If that fails, social media companies like Facebook have hate speech policies that could help. Facebook defines attacks as violent or dehumanising speech, harmful stereotypes, statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt, disgust or dismissal, cursing, and calls for exclusion or segregation, Ms Kate Blashki from Facebook’s Content Policy team told CNA. Ms Blashki added that Facebook prohibits attacks on people based on their “protected characteristics”. This is defined as their race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease. For content that doesn’t violate hate speech policies, she noted that they may violate other community standards, like those related to bullying and harassment. “However,...

NEW YORK :Oil prices rose more than 2per cent on Tuesday, rebounding from recent losses on signs of rising fuel demand in the United States despite a surge in COVID-19 cases. Brent crude rose US$1.59, or 2.3per cent, to settle at US$70.63 a barrel and U.S. oil climbed US$1.81, or 2.7per cent, to end the session at US$68.29 a barrel. Both contracts dropped around 2.5per cent on Monday, and last week notched their biggest losses in months as infections surged in major global oil consumers. "Predicting short-term price swings has become extremely difficult given the arduous process of predicting the impact of the Delta variant on forward global oil demand, particularly in countries such as China where data is much less transparent than that of the U.S.," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of ...

HONG KONG : State-backed firms are set to take a sizeable stake in a key Ant Group asset for the first time, three people told Reuters, in a move that will loosen the Chinese fintech giant's grip on a data treasure trove of over 1 billion users but help revive its IPO. The partners plan to establish a personal credit-scoring firm, said the people, adding that such a firm and ownership structure was one aspect of restructuring ordered by regulators who put a sudden stop to Ant's blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) in November. The listing highlighted the outsized role of Ant and e-commerce affiliate Alibaba in China, triggering a regulatory clampdown on the business empire of billionaire founder Jack Ma. The result was a restructuring order for Ant, a record US$2.75 billion fine for...

NEW YORK : The dollar advanced for a second straight session on Tuesday, bolstered by safe-haven demand, as investors fretted about Afghanistan, a slowing Chinese economy, and the rapid spread of the Delta coronavirus variant which forced some lockdowns. The overall tone in financial markets was one of caution, with shares on Wall Street in the red. A much sharper decline than expected in Tuesday's U.S. retail sales curbed gains in the dollar, but that was offset by the higher-than-forecast rise in industrial production, which accelerated the greenback's gains. "This morning's retail sales report served to confirm that the U.S. consumer - the world's biggest and most dependable customer - is becoming more cautious," said Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist at Cambridge Global Paymen...