Alibaba’s market capitalization ranks first in Asia

According to news on the afternoon of September 17, as of the close of U.S. stocks on Friday, Alibaba Group (stock code: BABA) shares rose 0.18% on the New York Stock Exchange, with a closing price of US$104.64, and a market value of approximately US$266.413 billion.

Alibaba thus topped the list of all listed companies in Asia in terms of market capitalization. Over the past ten years, Alibaba has built a huge business system from core e-commerce to payment and finance, big data cloud computing, big entertainment, and smart logistics networks. From the data disclosed in the financial report for the first fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2017, we can see that e-commerce is still the majority of Alibaba's revenue, but the ones that attract the most attention from investors are cloud computing, digital media and entertainment, and innovation projects, which have been identified as the "three new engines."

The three major sectors outside of core e-commerce reflect Jack Ma's plan for Alibaba's "crawler-like advancement" of business, that is, its businesses will take turns to lead. According to the plan: from 2017 to 2019, Ant Financial, which is currently valued at US$60 billion, will lead; from 2019 to 2021, Alibaba Cloud will take over; from 2021 to 2024, rookies will take the lead.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released a VR white paper: poor usability and little attention to hearing and touch

According to Xinhua News Agency on September 17, the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently released the "2016 Virtual Reality Industry Development White Paper". The report pointed out that China's virtual reality technology industry has huge potential, but there are still many challenges in the application process.

Limitations in hardware technology are the main challenge. At present, problems such as inconvenient use and poor performance of equipment are still prominent, and the processing speed of the hardware is far from meeting the needs of processing large amounts of data in real time in the virtual world. The price of related equipment is also very high. The cost of a helmet-mounted display plus a host computer can easily reach tens of thousands of yuan.

Secondly, software usability is poor. Affected by hardware limitations, virtual reality software development is expensive and has limited effects, and related algorithms and theories are not yet mature. In the fields of new sensing mechanisms, ensemble and physical modeling methods, high-speed graphics and image processing, artificial intelligence, etc., there are many problems that need to be solved urgently. Three-dimensional modeling technology also needs to be further improved.

The report points out that the virtual reality industry is on the eve of an explosion and is about to enter a window period for sustained and rapid development. Data released by Internet research organization iResearch shows that the market size of China's virtual reality industry was 1.54 billion yuan in 2015 and is expected to reach 5.66 billion yuan in 2016. The domestic market size is expected to exceed 55 billion yuan in 2020.

Musk talks about artificial intelligence: He is most looking forward to realizing AI (artificial intelligence) democracy

On September 17, “Iron Man” Elon Musk, who has been in trouble recently, accepted an interview with YC partner Sam Altman.

Musk said, "I think if someone is doing something that can benefit society, it should be valuable in general. It does not necessarily need to 'change the world,' as long as it creates high value for people, even if it is a game or helps people share photos better, if it can benefit enough people, even if it is just a small improvement, I think it is valuable."

But what will have the greatest impact on future humans? Musk thinks it’s still AI, AIIt’s something we need to take seriously in the near future.

Allowing AI to play a positive role is crucial in the future. We have talked too many times about the possible harms of AI, now we need to really make it right. Therefore, working on AI and confirming that it "works correctly" is the first important thing in the future.

Online ride-hailing “prices” increased, many platforms said due to tight supply and demand

The new policies for private cars have not yet been implemented in various cities, but the online car-hailing market is experiencing an undercurrent. Recently, many online car-hailing platforms have quietly canceled order subsidy, and passenger discounts have also been significantly reduced. Car costs, which are the most sensitive to users, are also "rising". A reporter from the "Beijing News" found that the current car prices for the same journey are 5% to 10% higher than before August.

On September 17, reporters from the "Beijing News" sampled private car orders from Didi, Yidao, Shenzhou, and Shouqi. For orders with the same starting and ending points, the prices of orders in September were about 5% to 10% higher than those ordered before August. Regarding the price difference before and after, staff from several ride-hailing platforms said that the increase in premiums in September was related to tight supply and demand.

About 3.9 billion people in the world do not have access to the Internet, with Africa having the lowest penetration rate

Xinhua News Agency, Geneva, September 15th: The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) released a report on the 15th stating that approximately 3.9 billion people around the world still do not have access to the Internet. Among them, due to their population base, the total unconnected population in China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria accounts for 55%.

ITU pointed out in the 2016 edition of the "Broadband Status Report" that by the end of 2016, the number of global Internet users will reach 3.5 billion, equivalent to 47% of the global population. The number of Internet users in China has reached 721 million, ranking first in the world; the number of Internet users in India has reached 333 million, surpassing the United States and ranking second.

The countries with the lowest Internet usage rates are all in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the report, countries with Internet users accounting for less than 3% of the national population are Chad, Sierra Leone, Niger, Somalia and Eritrea.

Banks allowed to participate in equity investment "national team" to ease capital winter

On September 17, according to the Financial Associated Press, Shang Fulin, Chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, recently stated at the second meeting of the Seventh Member Conference of the China Banking Association that qualified banks should be allowed to set up subsidiaries to engage in equity investment in technological innovation, and use investment income to hedge loan risk losses through consolidated and comprehensive accounting. Shang Fulin’s statement may mean that the “Venture Capital National Team” is about to debut.

Previously, some financial institutions such as securities companies, trust companies, and insurance companies have been allowed to carry out venture capital business. However, commercial banks with the most financial resources in China have been restricted by the "Commercial Bank Law" and have been unable to directly engage in equity investments.

Article 43 of the "Commercial Bank Law" stipulates that commercial banks "are not allowed to invest in non-self-use real estate or in non-bank financial institutions and enterprises, unless otherwise stipulated by the state." After receiving policy support from the China Banking Regulatory Commission, commercial banks are expected to use the pretext of "other provisions of the state" to circumvent compliance issues and carry out direct investment business.

Currently, China Construction Bank,Relevant people from Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and other institutions said that although investment functional subsidiaries have not yet been established, they have tried to carry out "investment and loan linkage" business through investment banking platforms such as China Construction Bank International, Bank of China International, and ICBC International.

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