H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (14 December 2018) – Tencent CEO Pony Ma tells staff that ‘responsibility’ was the main lesson learned from a tough year

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (14 December 2018) – Tencent CEO Pony Ma tells staff that ‘responsibility’ was the main lesson learned from a tough year

Companies

• How Line is giving its online communities offline experiences (TIA)
• Japan Display Inc., a struggling supplier of screens for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, needs another cash cow amid sputtering smartphone demand. The company thinks it’s found the answer in sensors. (Bloomberg)
• Chinese gaming giant NetEase sells comics business to rival Bilibili, retains rights to Marvel series (SCMP)
• Meet the coder-turned entrepreneur who introduced Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja to China (SCMP)
• Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi restructures to put more focus on its home market (SCMP)
• Tencent Music Is Better Than Spotify At Making Money, But Growth Uncertainties Still Loom (Forbes)
• Pinduoduo launches program to support Chinese OEMs (Technode)

BATTS – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, TSMC, Samsung

• Tencent’s Roster of IPOs Doesn’t Live Up to the Hype (WSJ)
• Tencent CEO Pony Ma tells staff that ‘responsibility’ was the main lesson learned from a tough year (SCMP)
• Alibaba brings face-scan payments to tablet for shopkeepers; New checkout technology lets customers keep phones in pockets (Nikkei)

FAANNMG – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Netflix, Microsoft, Google

• How PayPal, Facebook Could Create a ‘Match Made in Heaven’ (Barron’s)
• YouTube, under pressure for problem content, takes down 58 million videos in quarter (Reuters)
• Google launches AI health service in Thailand to screen for diabetic eye disease that causes blindness (SCMP)
• Google’s Cloud Unit Won’t Sell a Type of Facial Recognition Tech (Bloomberg)
• On stock prices and Nvidia (Techcrunch)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

• Leadership crisis is latest woe for Bullet Messenger operator Smartisan (Technode)
• As the home front cools, Chinese tech looks to Asia (Technode)
• LemonBox, which brings US vitamins to Chinese consumers, raises $2M (Techcrunch)
• Home robotics maker Trifo joins wave of Chinese Silicon Valley start-ups returning home to fulfil AI dreams (SCMP)
• Huawei Is Planning a $2 Billion Cybersecurity Reboot (Bloomberg)
• Grab lands $150M for Yamaha Motor to double down on motorbike on-demand services (Techcrunch)
• The motley YouTube stars; India’s new YouTube celebrities are going well beyond urban audiences, with varied languages and content (Forbes)
• ‘We’re less than 1% done’: $1b startup Canva has designs on China (Age)
• James Packer-backed shopping app Booodl goes into liquidation (Age)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

• Adobe’s quarterly revenue surges 23 percent (Reuters)
• Paypal is thriving by defying conventional wisdom; The company’s “refounder” boss saved it from conflict and possible irrelevance (Economist)
• German online listings company Scout24 explores €5bn sale; US buyout group Silver Lake expected to be among bidders (FT)
• Postmates Introduces a Robot to Roam Sidewalks Delivering Food; Little rover named Serve aims to lower costs, speed service (Bloomberg)
• Investors Are Obsessed With Handmade Crafts Right Now (Bloomberg)
• The cofounder of Casper wants to make home renovations less hellish (FastCo)
• GE Forms New Software Company in Overhaul of Digital Strategy (Bloomberg)
• Instacart Will Stop Delivering Groceries From Amazon’s Whole Foods (Bloomberg)
• The Making of a Computer-Generated Influencer; ‘Lil Miquela’ tests power of fabricated social-media celebrity, and investor interest in fake characters (WSJ)

Life

• Hong Kong Firm Fined $3M for Accounting Fraud; The SEC says Agria Corp. hid from investors a $17.5 million loss from the sale of its primary operating entity in China. Agria overstated the value of the shares it received from Xue by $17 million and assigned a value of nearly $60 million to the “effectively worthless” land rights (CFO)