China Tech News

Baidu is a poorly-executed search engine. But with both government regulations handcuffing its development and lack of competition in China, it has never needed to be a great tool that delivers relevant results to Chinese netizens.

Competition is vital for innovation, and a new offering from Baidu's rival Tencent may push Baidu to try to innovate. Tencent revealed last week that is is now offering a search function within its WeChat application for users to track keywords and dive deeper into conversations.

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Hon Hai Group plans to build an innovation research and development center in Wuhan.

Apart from smart manufacturing, this new R&D center will further tap smart research and development. Its goal is to double output value within three years, reaching CNY460 billion, according to reports in Taiwanese local media.
Hon Hai Group, which is Foxconn's parent company, and its technological cooperating partners and local funds will jointly invest in this R&D center. Its initial fund scale will be CNY5 billion and its total investments will reach billions of RMB with gradual increments in the future.

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Chinese B2C e-commerce group JD is heading to Shaanxi Province in central China to begin roll-outs and development of unmanned delivery of e-commerce purchases to consumers.
JD signed a cooperation agreement with Xi'an National Civil Aerospace Industrial Base to build JD Group's largest comprehensive smart logistics industrial base.

According to the agreement, JD plans to invest CNY20.5 billion to implement an in-depth cooperation with Xi'an National Civil Aerospace Industrial Base over the next five years.

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Japan's organic EL materials supplier Idemitsu announced that the company is in discussions with China's leading LCD panel manufacturer BOE Technology Group about cooperation in the organic EL business sector.
Idemitsu has many exclusive patented technologies in blue luminescent material, which is indispensable for organic EL panels.

To realize the volume production of organic EL panels, BOE is promoting related development in several factories in China. The company hopes to accelerate the development of volume production technologies by cooperating with Idemitsu.

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Chinese Internet and technology company LeEco announced plans to cut about 325 employees and significantly reduce its research and development business in the U.S.

According to LeEco, this employee layoff will affect all departments. However, the research and development team was hit the hardest. The company's San Diego office, which is mainly comprised of its R&D team, will be closed, and employees who survived this layoff will mainly provide services to customers who already bought LeEco's products.
An insider revealed that after this restructuring, LeEco's employees of American business will decrease to about 50 people.

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Kumai.jd.com, the second-hand trading platform of JD.com will partially close its e-commerce platform services starting from June 22, 2017.

Then after a two-month transitional period, Kumai will also shut down the follow-up post-sales services starting from August 22, 2017.

Kumai said that the platform may have unpredictable transaction risks and they will help users keep order records and transfer the amounts in their accounts, if any.

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Hospitality exchange service Airbnb announced to appoint Ge Hong as new global vice president of Airbnb and he will be fully responsible for Airbnb's China business.

Airbnb said that they need a candidate who knows demands of Chinese users, understands IT technologies, and is in line with the culture of Airbnb. The company says he will embody the perfect combination of his technology background and the Chinese market demands.

In his new role, Ge will directly report to Brian Chesky, global executive officer of Airbnb.

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In May 2017, the Bitcoin trading value in China reached CNY21.708 billion, four times that of April 2017. And the total Bitcoin value reached CNY19,200, a record high price.

China's National Committee of Experts on the Internet Financial Security Technology the latest numbers and showed that by the end of May 2017, the world's Bitcoin market value saw an increase of 61% over the previous month to USD37.48 billion. However, the ratio of its market value among global virtual currencies decreased to 45.62%, due to the rapid growth of other competing currencies.

In addition, with the growing of trading volume, China's Bitcoin trading price was over CNY10,000 for the first time on May 10 and the price continued to increase in the following two weeks. On May 25, it reached a record high price of CNY19,200.

Bitcoin was born in 2009 and a global virtual currency ecosphere was established around it, covering coin generation, storage, trade, and applications; and it further promoted the emergence of hundreds of kinds of encrypted digital currencies.

At the beginning of 2017, the People's Bank of China implemented inspections targeting the Bitcoin market, including foreign exchange management of trading platforms and realization of an anti-money laundering system. So for all intents and purposes, Bitcoin in China is still not fully legal.

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Google's mobile payment service Android Pay has been fully launched in Taiwan.

Taiwan is reportedly the fourth Asian market to support Android Pay.

For Android smartphone users in Taiwan, they can use Android Pay to realize mobile payments rapidly and securely. Android Pay has reached deals with many banks in Taiwan, including CTBC Bank, First Bank, Entie Commercial Bank, Hua Nan Bank, and Shin Kong Bank.

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The Chinese government's tightening noose on illegal Internet content has found its latest victim: LeEco.
LeEco's cloud disk service announced service closure to individual users, and the company has informed users to back up their files before the deadline on June 30, 2017. Thereafter, all files will be deleted from LeEco's servers.
LeEco stated that some people used its cloud disk service to store illegal files such as pirated movies or *****graphic content. Therefore, the company decided to stop providing services to individual cloud disk users.
LeEco previously suspended its cloud disk video upload function in October 2016. It said in a notice then that to cooperate with Chinese government's special rectification campaign against *****graphic contents spreading via cloud disks, they had suspended video upload service. Meanwhile, users' existing video data would be maintained at that time.

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