Editor’s note:
Toyota aims to deliver an Uber-like taxi dispatch system for Taxis in Tokyo. With the participation of Toyota’s investee Japan Taxi, an Uber rival, the project reports 94 percent accuracy rate.
The Japanese automaker has been actively seeking partnership with tech companies, including Grab, Tesla, Getaround and Preferred Networks.
KrASIA Daily is a five-minute read to brief you everything you need to know to start your day. We only choose the latest tech & startup news that is worth your time, with a focus on Southeast Asia and China.
Southeast Asia:
Singapore: A Singapore court on Friday ruled that realty portal 99.co had partially breached a settlement agreement it had earlier reached with rival PropertyGuru. (Deal Street Asia)
Vietnam: KEB Hana Bank, a subsidiary of Korea’s Hana Financial Group, plans to acquire a stake at Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) as part of its business expansion, Business Korea reported. (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: Aerodyne Group, Malaysia’s leading drone specialist has bought a 60 percent stake in AtSite, a wind turbine blade inspection company, for RM10.6 million ($2.7 million). (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: Malaysian conglomerate DRB-Hicom Bhd said on Thursday it was selling much of its non-industrial property assets and the entire hospitality portfolio for a total of 1.9 billion ringgit ($486.31 million). (Deal Street Asia)
China:
Toutiao’s Musical.ly, the lip-synching app that is wildly popular with younger users, is struggling to catch up to other teen-friendly social apps like Instagram or Tumblr in how it moderates and filters certain types of dangerous content. After people criticized the app this week for allowing users to search for hashtags related to self-harm or eating disorders, like #cutting or #proana, Musical.ly blocked some of these search terms. (Buzz Feed)
Chinese mobile news aggregator app NewsDog is looking to expand its presence in the booming Indian market, unveiling a plan to attract 100 million users a day over the next two years, as it scents opportunity in a country with a growing tech-savvy population. (SCMP)
Enlight Media sells 27.64 percent stake in New Classics Media to Tencent for RMB 3.317 billion. (36Kr)
Lenovo said its subsidiary Motorola Mobility is adjusting its personnel structure and the massive layoff is not true. (IT Home)
China’s smartphone maker Gionee is reportedly raising a new round from Hisense to pay debt and to solve problems in its value chain. (Techweb)
JING Xiandong, CEO of Alibaba’s financial arm Ant Financial, said the company will plant 500 million trees that cover an area equals to 5 New York cities. (Techweb)
Viomi, a home appliance maker and also part of Xiaomi ecosystem, is said to have infringed the intellectual property right with its dishwasher. At Appliance&electronics World Expo in Shanghai, the company was asked to suspend the exhibition of its dishwasher, while the company denied the allegation. (Techweb)
Jack Ma and CAI Chongxin, executive VP at Alibaba, are reportedly investing USD 20 million through Blue Pool Capital in Rent the Runway, an online e-commerce website that allows women to rent clothes. (Techweb)
World:
Toyota Motor, Asia’s biggest car manufacturer began testing a new taxi-dispatch system last month by using data from smartphones, cab locations, weather patterns and other factors to determine the most efficient distribution of Tokyo’s taxi fleet. (Bloomberg)
Elon Musk said his tunneling startup, Boring Co., will prioritize pedestrians and cyclists in its hyperloop plan. (Bloomberg)
Intel Corp. is considering a bid for Broadcom Ltd. as part of a range of acquisition alternatives in reaction to the Singapore-based chipmaker’s bid for U.S. rival Qualcomm Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. (Bloomberg)
More than half of Americans (58%) believe that artificial intelligence poses a greater threat to U.S. jobs over the next 10 years than immigration and offshoring (42%,) according to a new Northeastern University/Gallup survey. (Axios)
Continuing its battle against the “tweetdeckers,” Twitter suspended on Friday several popular accounts known for stealing tweets or mass-retweeting tweets into manufactured virality. (Buzz Feed)
This year, HBO and its agency Giant Spoon have SXSW’s break-out exhibition — a massive replica of Sweetwater, the town featured in HBO’s blockbuster hit Westworld, built 15 miles outside Austin, Texas. (Axios)
