Elon Musk wrote an article for China’s Internet Regulator • The Register

Asia in brief Elon Musk has written an article for the Cyberspace Administration in a leading Chinese magazine.

a Translation From the article he posted Beijing channel – Blog run by Yang Liu, a journalist with a state-controlled apparatus Xinhua He reveals that Musk’s message was mostly self-promotion.

A rocket scientist, artificial intelligence, energy, automobile, tequila, and (possibly) social media entrepreneur touched upon familiar talking points about humanity’s need to colonize Mars and transition to electric vehicles powered by solar and wind energy.

“Chinese companies will be a force to be reckoned with in the cause of energy innovation,” Musk said in the article.

also touched Android Android Tesla, which he said is using this model so it can fit into a world designed for human-sized entities and human hands. And Musk predicted that machine sales would accelerate so that “maybe in less than a decade, people will be able to buy a robot for their parents as a birthday present.”

This is a phrase that will appeal to China, where the country’s aged care policies emphasize the elderly staying at home and being cared for by the family. As many Chinese families find it difficult to get ahead, the prospect of having automated home help could be attractive if more family members can go out to work.

And Musk’s appearance in the magazine at all is significant, as it indicates the approval of the Chinese authorities for his positions. Few other foreign entrepreneurs hold this position, and some Chinese innovators have had limited access to public forums in recent months.

The Tesla CEO made no mention of his planned purchase of Twitter.

– Simon Sherwood

Vietnam spends 10% of R&D funds on ICT

The Vietnamese government has set its IT strategy to maintain a satisfactory rating on the Global Cybersecurity Index. At its core is to prioritize LAN information security products.

As part of this effort, cybersecurity is funded specific To compensate for at least ten percent of the state’s spending on science, technology, digital transformation and information technology applications.

At least annually, the country will organize incident response exercises and inspections for its IT systems.

Furthermore, the government is developing emergency response teams in 11 critical areas of security. They include transportation, energy, natural resources, environment, information, health, finance, banking, defense and security, social order, safety, urban areas, and government directives and management.

Vietnam jump 25 places between 2019 and 2020, reaching 7th in the Asia-Pacific region, 4th in ASEAN and 25th globally. The government said it would now strive to stay between 25 and 30 in the global ranking.

Philippine telecom companies make conflicting claims about anti-competitive behavior

Philippines-based Dato Telecommunity backed by China Telecom last week criticized its rivals for alleged anti-competitive behavior – accusations that led it to file a complaint with the country’s antitrust authority.

“Interconnection is an essential component of the telecom industry because it enables interoperability and the exchange of calls, SMS and other information from one network to another. As such, our Competition Enforcement Office (CEO) is now assessing the merits of Dito complaints,” replied Philippine Competition Commission.

The commission said it would decide whether to grant the complaint “in due course” within ten days.

Dito has accused both PLDT and Globe Telecom of not allowing Dito subscribers to connect on their networks, it is reported. Nikki Asia

In response, Globe accused Dito of being riddled with fraudulent calls and demanded that the National Communications Commission impose a $11.2 million fine on Dito.

“An average of 1,000 fraudulent calls – originally identified as international but disguised as local – are allowed to pass through Dito’s network to Globe users each day in violation of interconnection rules,” Globe said, according to state-sponsored media.

Ditto’s chief administrative officer Adil Tamano reportedly said his company also encountered fraudulent calls, and that the calls in question by Globe were not from Ditto.

Australia removes COVID-19 app that found only two cases in two years

The Australian government has removed the COVIDsafe app after it was found to be woefully ineffective.

Health Secretary Mark Butler last week claimed The app found only two positive COVID-19 cases and 17 close contacts that were not found by manual contact tracing tools.

The last upload of data from users to the national COVIDSafe data store supporting the app occurred in May 2021, and authorities have not been able to access the data since January 2022.

The app cost more than A$21 million ($14.6 million) to develop, maintain and operate. A lot of that went to Amazon Web Services, which hosted its back end.

– Simon Sherwood

Korean companies “enthusiastically lower prices” for memory

TrendForce analyst firm has I noticed Sharp drop in the price of memory.

“Korean manufacturers have significantly increased their willingness to compromise prices in order to stimulate buying from distributors and customers, which leads to a steady expansion of lower prices,” the company Mentioned last week. “In addition to enthusiastically lowering prices by Korean manufacturers, lower-priced chips from the spot market are also circulating in the market.”

TrendForce believes that suppliers in other countries “have no choice but to follow suit and sharply reduce sales prices.”

The result will be a 13-18 percent reduction in dynamic memory—particularly DDR3.

Further declines of up to eight percent are expected in the fourth quarter, as DDR4 prices also begin to decline as production volume increases.

– Simon Sherwood

Selling the largest mobile telecom company in Afghanistan

South Africa’s MTN Group, the largest mobile network operator in Africa, has announced the sale of its operations in Afghanistan. MTN Afghanistan’s customer base of more than 2.3 million means that it is the largest mobile operator in the country.

MTN Group said it has accepted a $35 million offer for the operation.

The sale will mean that MTN Group has abandoned all of its operations in the Middle East – a region that it once viewed as an opportunity for growth but has now stopped focusing on African countries.

– Simon Sherwood

In other news…

Our Asian coverage from last week included news about layoffs in alibabawhich also launched a carbon counting app to encourage customers to do so Greener shopping options – And also buy more things from Alibaba.

Google Cloud demonstrated confidence in regional growth by expanding in Malaysia, Thailand and New Zealandalthough the timeline is uncertain.

Cyberspace management in China Strict action against the promotion of cryptocurrency And the warned of online scams targeting the nation’s youth.

Also in China, reports indicate execs in China’s largest chip-making fund They were accused of corruption. Whether the charges are truthful, or simply reflect political frustration with slow progress in China’s chip industry, is a matter of great speculation.

Taiwanese iPhone spare parts supplier Pegatron to reject Chinese authorities have reportedly imposed a customs blockade that has blocked access to parts of its factories on the mainland, as tensions persist in the Taiwan Strait.

Claims that ZTE found a A new way to sell to Iran. ZTE should really know better, after it used to be Paying the largest fine in US history for the same procedure.

Australia announced experiments To determine whether central bank digital currency has any useful applications – a direct question below, where the reform of payment systems allows instant peer-to-peer payments. ®