Hello and welcome. Good news – soon there will be no more awkward taxi small talk in Beijing.
Xiaomi in India
Over the weekend, India’s anti-money-laundering agency took control of Xiaomi Technology India’s bank accounts, saying that Xiaomi made illegal payments disguised as royalty fees. The agency said that the money went to three foreign companies with ties to Xiaomi. This comes after Xiaomi India’s former head, Manu Jain, was pulled into an investigation after being accused of violating foreign exchange laws.
Wage gap costs Asian American women
A new US report found that Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women are making an average of US$3,000 less per year than their white male counterparts. If that gap were to stay the same, it would cost those women anywhere from US$120,000 to US$1 million over the course of their careers. More specifically, for AANHPI women, they stand to lose US$120,000 over the next 40 years if this gap isn’t addressed. But for Burmese, Cambodian, Hmong and Nepalese women, these communities can lose around US$1 million throughout their career.
Ethereum blockchain disrupted
The creators behind the Bored Ape NFT collection, Yuga Labs, raised what was considered the largest NFT mint in history, or around US$320 million in crypto, by selling virtual land NFTs called “Otherdeeds.” This land will reportedly be used for the creator’s metaverse project – an upcoming multiplayer game called Otherside. A total of 55,000 of these Otherdeeds were sold at a rate of 305 ApeCoin, which was around US$5,800 during the purchase.
With that, the huge popularity of Otherdeeds caused gas fees to skyrocket because the network became crowded. Yuga Lab apologized for the situation after the mint ended.
Beijing allows self-driving taxis
Two companies just got permission to have fully self-driving cars do taxi services in part of Beijing. One company, Baidu’s Apollo Go, got permission for ten cars, and Pony.ai got permission for four. They won’t be required to have a staff member in the driver’s seat like they used to, but they’ll need a supervisor somewhere in the car. They’ll also be limited to around 60 square kilometers in the suburban area of Yizhuang.
Both companies want more than that in the future, but a timeframe for that expansion is unclear.
In other news …
🇮🇩Three children died in Indonesia last month after contracting the mysterious acute hepatitis.
🇺🇦Hundreds are still stuck in Mariupol, and the US first lady, Jill Biden, is set to travel to Eastern Europe to meet with Ukrainian refugees.
🇪🇺The EU just accused Apple of antitrust violations by preventing other companies from competing with its contactless payment technologies.
🇿🇦South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was forced to leave a May Day rally after booing workers stormed the stage.
🇷🇺Russia will pull out of the International Space Station over sanctions.
🍷The Met Gala is back to its regular first Monday in May. Prepare yourself for the tsunami of photos for the next week.
Written and put together by Jake Shropshire, Christine Dulion and Krystal Lai
