Asia's tech news, weekly: November 29th
In this edition: ASEAN FinTech Movement launches; Australia & semiconductors; China's bid for energy from space; India's fake reviews headaches; and more
• 6 national fintech associations join to ink MOU forming ASEAN FinTech Movement - organisations in Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand & Vietnam
• MOU on Cooperation in Regional Payment Connectivity recently signed by central banks of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand
• Australia: The Smith Family charity becomes the latest cyber-attack victim with near 80K donor details potentially exposed
• China: Tiangong space station reportedly to join 1km-wide space-based project to collect solar power from space and send it to Earth in a high-energy microwave beam
State-level hacking: "...defenders will have to contend with masses of nameless civil servants, each specializing in any one particular skillset, managed by a bureaucracy that has matured over the last decade."
• ‘Australia's Place In The Semiconductor World', a 4-part examination of the challenges, opportunities and risks for the country in advanced chip manufacturing
• Singapore's DBS completes trade on Onyx, JPMorgan's blockchain platform which allows investors to lend for a period of hours without assets leaving balance sheets
• Philippines: PLDT telco expands cable network with 9400km subsea Asia Direct Cable, linking to SG, HK, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam & China
• Australia: Senate votes for new 'foreign interference through social media' inquiry amid scrutiny of major tech platforms, citing 'risk posed to Australia's democracy'
• UK gov't departments advised not to connect China-made camera equipment to core networks, and to consider removal
• Philippines: BayaniPay raises $4.5M with cross-border digital financial services for the Filipino American community
• South Korea: Laundrygo on-demand services startup raises $37M Series C, seeing opportunity in the mostly-offline laundry services space
What We Lose If We Lose Twitter:
"With all of its shortcomings,
Twitter has been a powerful agent
in the democratization of information
over the past generation."
• Australia: Touch-responsive material unveiled, a fraction of the thickness of current 'phone screens, capable of being manufactured 'like a printed newspaper'
• Philippines: Dept of Trade and Industry aims to roll out $4M Startup Venture Fund by early 2023, citing change in administration for delays
• Taiwan Semiconductor 5-nanometre Arizona plant expected to hold official launch next month, with expansion to 3-nm process planned for the site
• Philippines: First low-earth orbit satellite broadband service in Southeast Asia set to launch in the Philippines with USAID support and partnership with SpaceX Starlink
• Bureau of Indian Standards guidelines aim to guard customers from fake online reviews of products, with tech giants and homegrown firms to face close scrutiny
• Startup Island Taiwan podcast hosts discussion of digital cryptography tools and the approaching quantum computing era
• Australia: Buy now, pay later - BNPL - sector faces crackdown, with government inviting discussion of 3 reform options
• Tencent and Alibaba lead $40M investment in Sweden's Yahaha drag-and-drop metaverse creation tools, sighting userbase of over 100K games content creators
"…metaverse could contribute between
$0.8TN and $1.4TN per year to Asia's GDP
by 2035 if investments...are sustained
in the next five to 10 years,
according to research by Deloitte."
• Japan: NEC to open new research hub, allowing tenants to use new AI-driven supercomputer to create new products, and accommodating up to 5000 researchers
• China's SinoSynergy hydrogen fuel cell firm makes IPO listing application to HK Stock Exchange, building on lead position in production and national standards
• Philippines: Filipino startups can now apply for the Dep't of Info and Comm's Technology Startup Grant Fund, potentially receiving grants of up to PHP1 million
• An overview of the goals and agreements arising from the recent ESG Opportunity Matchmaking and Exchange Forum for Taiwan-Japan Innovation Community
• Philippines: Nanotronics takes Shell LiveWIRE award with sustainable nanomaterials derived from renewable indigenous plants, for industrial uses
• Cambodia: 3 health-focused startups selected by Lafiya Innovators program gain 10-day Switzerland trip to develop business experience
• RedBrick AI raises $4.6M, automating annotations in medical imagery, saving up to 60% of time processing CT scans, X-rays, MRIs and ultrasounds
• Tennis Australia unveils AO StartUps, providing startups with opportunity to prove business models and test in real time with exposure at the Australian Open
Startup Island Taiwan Podcast:
'Taiwan Stablecoin will Move Everyone
a Step Further into the Web3 World'
• South Korea: A deep-dive into those startups selected for the 'best of' category in the recent COMEUP 2022 Global Startup Festival, spanning medtech, retailtech, metaverse avatars and more
• Vietnam: ThinkZone VC firm launches Global Minds Accelerator program, aiming to back 5-7 early-stage market-ready startups per batch
• Accelerating Asia VC unveils 10 new Asia Pacific firms from 7th cohort working in healthtech, retailtech, e-commerce and more
• New Zealand: Opo Bio gains $1.5M with production-ready cells for alt-meat, allowing 'researchers to focus on their big questions'
In other news…
Wider-world technology news with broad relevance, or simply providing larger points of reference and food for thought.
» Gov’t of El Salvador, first country globally to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, seeks congressional approval to issue investment bonds in the cryptocurrency
» European Parliament website struck by 'sophisticated' cyberattack moments after members voted to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism
» Nike unveils metaverse play, Swoosh Web3 marketplace allowing users to customize digital-only products
» ConsenSys revises self-custody MetaMask wallet policy, affecting 21M monthly users, to start collecting Ethereum addresses and IPs during on-chain transactions
» Travel NFTs are the new passport stamp. Here’s how they work and why they're collectable
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