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Thailand to test mobile alerts after Bangkok building collapse criticism

Thailand to test mobile alerts after Bangkok building collapse criticism

Thailand will conduct tests of a cellphone disaster alert system, senior officials said on Wednesday, after criticism that no alarm was sent after last month's deadly Myanmar earthquake caused damage in Bangkok.
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Director General of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) Phasakorn Boonyalak said the Cell Broadcast System (CBS) will undergo a test run next month in localised areas including the sprawling capital, which was badly shaken by the 7.7-magnitude quake in neighbouring Myanmar.
The system will use three mobile networks to send warning messages 'quickly and with wide coverage, both on natural disaster and security threats', he told a news conference.
Starting on May 2 with the smallest target area – four city hall buildings – there will be three test runs, with the third and largest drill covering the whole of Bangkok and Chiang Mai provinces on May 13.
02:26
Powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes Myanmar, buildings sway and fall in Bangkok
Powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes Myanmar, buildings sway and fall in Bangkok
Residents' cellphones will get a pop-up message on their screens in Thai and English, accompanied by a siren, Phasakorn said.
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Huawei chief hasn't a chip worry in the world
Huawei chief hasn't a chip worry in the world

AllAfrica

time17-06-2025

  • AllAfrica

Huawei chief hasn't a chip worry in the world

In a recent interview with China's state-run People's Daily, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei provided an assessment of the Chinese semiconductor industry that many might find surprising. An English version of the interview was published by the Communist Party-run Global Times. 'There's actually no need to worry about the chip issue,' Huawei's chief said. 'By leveraging methods such as superposition and clustering, computational results can match the most advanced global standards. In terms of software, thousands upon thousands of open-source software will meet the needs of the entire society in the future.' This optimism comes from objective analysis supported by Huawei's own experience, with some self-deprecation: 'There are many companies in China making chips, and many are doing well; Huawei is just one of them. The US has exaggerated Huawei's achievements – the company isn't that powerful yet. We need to work hard to live up to their evaluation. 'Our single chips still lag behind the US by a generation. We use mathematics to compensate for physics, non-Moore's Law approaches to complement Moore's Law, and group computing to make up for single-chip limitations, which can also achieve practical results.' This squares with the conclusion of Dylan Patel and his colleague at SemiAnalysis, who found that Huawei's Ascend 910C AI processor is more impressive when used in the company's CloudMatrix 394 rack-scale AI data center solution, which is a complete system consisting of 384 Ascend 910C processors, servers, networking, storage, power management and cooling. In their estimation, the CloudMatrix 394 'competes directly' with Nvidia's top-end GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip. 'The engineering advantage,' they write, 'is at the system level not just at the chip level, with innovation at the accelerator, networking, optics, and software layers… Huawei is a generation behind in chips, but its scale-up solution is arguably a generation ahead of Nvidia and AMD's current products on the market.' With regard to the ongoing effort to develop the basic semiconductor devices needed to support the country's consumer electronics, automotive and other industries, Ren said, 'China has opportunities in low- and mid-range chips, with dozens or even hundreds of chip companies working hard. The opportunities are even greater for compound semiconductors.' One prominent example is China's rapid advance in silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors, which have become standard in electric vehicles (EVs). Approximately two-thirds of the world's electric vehicles (EVs) are manufactured in China, making this both an obvious opportunity and a strategic necessity. Compared with ordinary silicon, SiC-based power devices are more energy-efficient and reliable. They improve the performance of not only electric vehicles and battery chargers, but also industrial machinery, solar and wind power and data centers. In March, BYD announced a new high-speed EV charging system, which enables 400 kilometers of driving in five minutes – about twice the performance of Tesla's supercharger. According to DigiTimes, 'Silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors played an instrumental role in this technological advancement, as key advantages of the wide bandgap material, including high voltage and temperature resistance and low energy loss, help enhance the efficiency and reliability of electric drive systems to support high-voltage charging.' Nomad Semi wrote that, 'This achievement was made possible by BYD Semiconductor's breakthrough in high-power 1,500V SiC chips. It marks the first large-scale application of 1500V SiC chips in the global automotive industry.' 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Huawei is doing its part: 'We invest 180 billion yuan (US$25 billion) in research and development each year, with approximately 60 billion yuan allocated to basic theoretical research, which is not subject to performance evaluation. About 120 billion yuan is invested in product research and development, which is subject to evaluation. Without theoretical support, there can be no breakthroughs, and we will not be able to catch up with the US.' For example, more than 20 years of research into hybrid stochastic number systems has led to the development of a Hybrid Stochastic Computing SoC (System-on-Chip) for high-performance computing at the School of Electronic and Information Engineering of the Beijing University of Aeronautic and Astronautics (BUAA). Led by Professor Li Hongge, the research and development team combined binary (0 – 1) and stochastic (probability-based) values, in-memory computing, and heterogenous SoC design (multiple specialized processing units) using open-source RISC-V architecture, which is beyond the reach of US government sanctions. As reported by the Guangming Daily, the hybrid chip features higher fault tolerance, stronger resistance to interference, and much greater energy efficiency than conventional binary digital chips. As translated by TrendForce, 'Professor Li explains that stochastic computing expresses values through the probability of a CMOS logic signal remaining 'high' during a given time period. In other words, the frequency of high-level pulses represents the numerical probability.' BUAA is already applying the technology to touch recognition, instrument display panels, and flight control. Beyond that, the research team is working on more complex functions such as voice and image processing and AI model acceleration. The chips themselves are fabricated by the Chinese IC foundry SMIC. Similar R&D programs are underway in the US, Japan and Europe, but for the time being, China leads the world in the practical application of hybrid stochastic computing. The negative implications for the US policy of technology containment should be obvious. 'For the US semiconductor industry, China is gone,' electronics industry analyst Handel Jones told The New York Times. Jones is the founder and CEO of California consulting firm International Business Strategies, Inc. 'He projects that Chinese companies will have a majority share of chips in every major category in China by 2030.' Follow this writer on X: @ScottFo83517667

Social media, e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu – or RedNote in English – sets up office in Hong Kong
Social media, e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu – or RedNote in English – sets up office in Hong Kong

HKFP

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Social media, e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu – or RedNote in English – sets up office in Hong Kong

Chinese social network and e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu, known in English as RedNote, has set up an office in Hong Kong – its first outside mainland China. Finance chief Paul Chan officiated at an opening ceremony on Saturday, saying the new office would 'enhance the visibility of Hong Kong's tourism, retail, dining and creative industries,' according to a government press release. Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) said the move would help ensure enhanced services for cross-border users and brands. 'As a leading lifestyle community from China, Xiaohongshu's presence will foster creative collaboration among local content creators, brands and organisations, and promote East-meets-West cultural exchanges and content marketing development among Hong Kong, the Mainland and the global markets,' InvestHK's Director-General of Investment Promotion Alpha Lau said. Founded in 2013, Xiaohongshu – which literally means 'little red book' – allows its young user base to share fashion, beauty, travel, food, and other tips as a hub for consumption decision-making. It is particularly popular among affluent Gen Z users in urban China, according to Bloomberg. It was thrust into the international spotlight in January, gaining an influx of American users amid fears that the US would shut down the popular TikTok video app, owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance. However, it is also known for heavily censoring or limiting topics sensitive to Beijing. Taiwan's government banned public servants from using the app on official devices in 2022 over national security concerns.

Schools need more time to decide on AI's future in academia
Schools need more time to decide on AI's future in academia

South China Morning Post

time29-04-2025

  • South China Morning Post

Schools need more time to decide on AI's future in academia

Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us your Letter to the Editor at [email protected] or filling in this Google form . Submissions should not exceed 400 words, and must include your full name and address, plus a phone number for verification Advertisement As a university student, I am caught in the crossfire over artificial intelligence (AI). Almost every day, I can go from a class taught by a professor who is against AI use to another taught by a lecturer who, when asked whether ChatGPT can be used, invariably says, 'Go for it'. Their perspectives have given me food for thought on AI's role in higher education. Universities have the right to prohibit AI in science-related courses or any courses involving theoretical knowledge. Having studied linguistics, I have experienced the problems of using AI first-hand. AI does not appear well-suited to help students write about language acquisition theory or speech mechanisms in phonetics. These theories involve concepts and specialised terminology which must be explained in-depth. I've found that popular chatbots are unable to include direct quotes from research papers to support arguments, while often quoting from non-academic sources or even fabricating quotes. Regardless, many university students may learn foreign languages more efficiently with the help of AI. I've heard French teachers speak of the shock students experience when learning a new language – the initial loss of ability to articulate their ideas. Advertisement Acquiring a language often relies on students' knowledge of their native or second languages. While exposure to texts in a foreign language is vital, looking up a multitude of unfamiliar words in a dictionary can be tedious. Chatbots can help students by providing what seems like authentic French-English translation, for example. Synonyms can also be found in seconds with the help of AI.

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