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Tan Hooi Ling

Grab co-founder Tan Hooi Ling to step down from operational roles

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Tan Hooi Ling, a co-founder of Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd, announced on Thursday that she will leave her operations position at the ride-hailing business by the end of this year. Hooi Ling, who started Grab in 2012 alongside CEO Anthony Tan, will move into an advising position, the business announced.

Tan Hooi Ling
Image Source: todayonline.com

Tan stated in an internal message to staff that Hooi Ling will also give up her board directorship and that her succession plan has been in place for some time. An idea for a 2011 Harvard Business School venture challenge inspired Tan and Hooi Ling to create Southeast Asia’s largest ride-hailing and food delivery company.

Also Read: Micron expects revenue impact following China ban

Hooi Ling won’t be replaced right away, according to CEO Tan’s memo. Later this year, the nominating committee will consider individuals to strengthen the board. She has been a board member since the company’s public listing in December 2021 and presently serves as the head of Grab’s technology section.

Tan Hooi Ling is one of the co-founders of Grab, a Southeast Asian ride-hailing and on-demand delivery company. She, along with Anthony Tan, launched Grab (originally known as MyTeksi) in 2012. Tan Hooi Ling served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Grab until 2020.

As COO, she was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the company, ensuring smooth service delivery, and driving strategic initiatives. She was known for her operational expertise and played a pivotal role in expanding Grab’s services beyond ride-hailing to include food delivery, digital payments, and more.

Throughout her tenure at Grab, Tan Hooi Ling made significant contributions to the company’s success and helped shape its growth trajectory. She played a crucial role in building strategic partnerships, securing funding, and driving Grab’s expansion into new markets.

She has been recognized for her contributions to the industry and has received several accolades, including being named in Forbes Asia’s 2017 list of “30 Under 30” and Fortune’s 2018 “Most Powerful Women International” list.

Grab operates primarily in Southeast Asia, serving over 400 cities in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. It has become one of the leading super-app platforms in the region, offering various services through a single mobile application.

Also Read: Australia hits buy-now-pay-later sector with consumer credit law

Over the years, Grab has secured significant funding from investors and has engaged in strategic partnerships with other companies. It has also acquired several businesses, including Uber’s Southeast Asian operations in 2018. Grab has attracted significant funding from various investors, including SoftBank, Toyota, and Didi Chuxing, among others.

In 2021, Grab went public through a merger with Altimeter Growth Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The merger valued Grab at around $39.6 billion, making it one of the largest SPAC deals in history.

Windows 11

Windows 11 finally gets native RAR support

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Place a vote for WinRAR, since Microsoft has recently revealed that Windows 11 will have native support for RAR and several additional archive file formats, which users of Windows have been awaiting for years. This is ideal if you are swimming in a sea of documents.

Windows 11
Image Source: bleepstatic.com

“We have added native support for additional archive formats, including tar, 7-zip, rar, gz and many others using the lib archive open-source project,” says Windows chief Panos Panay in a blog post today. “You now can get improved performance of archive functionality during compression on Windows.”

Source: theverge.com

Microsoft said that following this week, compatibility with the new formats will likely be available in an updated work-in-progress version.

Also Read: Microsoft Build 2023: Big Announcements

In either scenario, those using Windows 11 will benefit greatly from the incorporation of tar, 7-zip, rar, and numerous other formats. You won’t need to download any additional programs in order to view these types of files. Although probably somewhat more effective compared to native ZIP functionality is the incorporation.

It went on for more than 30 years for Windows to finally allow support for the.rar file despite the need for any other software to be installed. It was one of many competing compression software or “applications,” because that’s how they were known back then, that were utilized to reduce large file collections so that they would be transported more quickly over our dreadfully slow internet connection.

But as time went on, the demand for applications such as WinRAR decreased because both drive space, as well as network bandwidth, expanded rapidly.

If you are considering calling your connection as broadband, the few MBs that used to take overnight to be downloaded and took up a sizeable section of the hard disc have become the absolute minimum that can be sent in just one second. Additionally, there are a growing number of open-source protocols and solutions, such as the “libarchive” project.

Also Read: WhatsApp to allow users to edit messages?

Given that many users pay bucks to utilize WinRaR’s file compression software, it is going to be fascinating to observe how it responds to this development, and what occurs to people who already purchased WinRaR given that everyone with a Windows 11 Computer can use it free of cost. 

“First of all, we feel honored with Microsoft’s decision. This will hopefully make RAR compression even more popular and more accessible to those users who are not familiar with WinRAR,” Louise in the sales and marketing division at Microsoft wrote.

Source: techcrunch.com
micron

Micron expects revenue impact following China ban

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A restriction by China on the distribution of Micron memory chips to important domestic corporations represented the most recent turning point in the Sino-American business spat, and a US-based micron technology corporation predicted a blow to earnings in the low-single to high-single-digit percent.

Micron
Image Source: investing.com

 late on Sunday, China’s cyberspace watchdog announced that Micron, the largest US memory chip manufacturer, was unsuccessful in its network safety examination and would be prohibited from selling to controllers of critical assets.

It did not elaborate on the threats it had identified or the products of the business that would be impacted.

Experts noted that the majority of Micron’s major Chinese clients are firms in the customer electronics industry, and thus they foresaw little immediate effect on the company. However, they cautioned that political hazards may cause some businesses to remove Micron products from their supply networks.

Also Read: Australia hits buy-now-pay-later sector with consumer credit law

At a press conference, Mark Murphy, Chief Financial Officer of Micron, said it was unknown what worries Beijing had and those direct and indirect sales to businesses with headquarters in China were responsible for around a quarter of the chipmaker’s earnings.

“We are currently estimating a range of impact in the low single-digit percentage of our company’s total revenue at the low end, and high single-digit percentage of total company revenue at the high end,” Murphy said.

Source: malaymail.com

The comments allowed Micron’s stocks to recover some of their damages, the stock’s Nasdaq closing value was down 2.8 percent at US$66.23 (RM301.20).

Washington disagreed with Beijing’s action, however, it boosted the stock prices of Micron’s competitors in China along with South Korea, who are thought to profit as mainland enterprises look for memory chips from additional suppliers.

“We firmly oppose restrictions that have no basis in fact,” a spokesperson from the US Commerce Department said on Sunday.

“This action, along with recent raids and targeting of other American firms, is inconsistent with (China’s) assertions that it is opening its markets and committed to a transparent regulatory framework.”

Source: malaymail.com

Amid Chinese officials’ inspections and excursions to US management consultancy firm Bain and business surveillance group Mintz Group, hostilities between the US and China have risen recently.

Considering a succession of export restrictions by Washington on specific American products including chipmaking equipment to prevent them from being utilized to boost China’s defense potential, Beijing has now aimed at Micron as the primary US chip manufacturer.

Also Read: Will AI Take Over The World?

During an argument over semiconductor technology and deteriorating ties between Washington and Beijing, China started the assessment in late March.

The move also comes shortly after the Group of Seven nations agreed to “de-risk, not decouple” economic engagement with China and as US President Joe Biden called for an “open hotline” between Washington and Beijing.

The U.S. Business Department declared that it would communicate with Beijing officials officially to get more information about their conduct.

buy-now-pay-later

Australia hits buy-now-pay-later sector with consumer credit law

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Australia said that it would govern buy-now-pay-later assistance as customer credit under the new legislation, requiring providers of BNPL to conduct history checks before providing what it said is expected to be one of the strictest regulations worldwide for the emerging sector.

With this change, Block by Jack Dorsey Inc (SQ.N)-owned Afterpay as well as Zip Co would fall under the jurisdiction of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), putting Australia second only to the United Kingdom among nations that have attempted to monitor buy-now-pay-later as a normal credit product.

buy-now-pay-later
Image Source: finance.yahoo.com

Cash-strapped consumers who take on debt, often more than they can handle, frequently employ BNPL firms, which usually provide on-the-spot free-of-interest loans for short periods with minimum verification of credit which disperse payments throughout weeks or months.

Also Read: OpenAI to introduce ChatGPT app for iOS

Since BNPL service providers refrain from charging interest, they are now immune from customer credit regulations. As a result, their company has soared during the e-commerce craze sparked by COVID-19 stimulus funds and extremely low-interest rates.

However, as Australia faces rising prices, which are currently at close to 30-year peaks, worries about repaying have grown. According to Australia’s center-left Labour administration, BNPL needs to be deemed credit as it exerts the same effect on debtors.

“BNPL looks like credit, it acts like credit, it carries the risks of credit,” Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones said in a speech in Sydney on Monday.

“Our plan prevents lending to those who cannot afford it, without stopping safe, prudent BNPL use.”

Source: reuters.com

Australia, which has approximately a dozen registered BNPL service providers, had roughly seven million operational BNPL user accounts throughout 2021–22, generating A$16 billion which is $11 billion in dealings, an increase of 37 percent.

Shopping industry data reveals that Australians made A$63.8 billion in transactions via the Internet in 2022, with 26 percent of Australians claiming to have paid using buy-now-pay-later.

The majority of the money made by BNPL companies comes from costing merchants a share of their earnings in return for sending customers to them. They impose late fees on borrowers but claim that by promising increased credit limits, they promote timely returns.

Although BNPL companies claim to carefully track the debtor’s behavior, a recently enacted Australian law would oblige these individuals to adhere to “responsible lending” constraints, which involve carrying out credit checks before lending, informing clients when their credit limits are increased, and adhering to legally mandated settlement procedures.

Also Read: Meta announces AI training and inference chip project

Later in the year, government officials will make the draught law available for comment, and by the finish of the year, the measure will have been submitted to parliament.

“The buy now, pay later business model is still a structural growth model,” said Shaun Ler, a Morningstar analyst.

“You end up in a situation where everyone is suffering but your competitors are suffering even more and the demand is still there,” Ler added.

Source: reuters.com
Meta

Meta announces AI training and inference chip project

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To further assist artificial intelligence work, Meta Platforms (META.O) revealed additional information on its data centre initiatives on Thursday. This information included a proprietary chip “family” that is being developed internally.

In a collection of blog articles, the owner of Instagram, as well as Facebook, said that as an element of the Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) programme, it would be developing a first-generation microprocessor in 2020. The goal was to make suggestive models, which are used to distribute adverts and other material in news feeds, more effective.

Meta
Image Source: moneycontrol.com

It was previously reported by Reuters that the company was already working on an upgrade and did not have intentions to fully use its first internal AI processor. In the blog posts, the very first MTIA chip was advertised as an educational tool.

Also Read: OpenAI to introduce ChatGPT app for iOS

The articles claim that the early MTIA chip focused exclusively on the inference AI method, which uses computers educated on massive amounts of data to decide what should be displayed.

Software developer Joel Coburn from Meta stated amid a talk on the new processor that the company had first used GPUs, for inference operations but had discovered that these devices were not the best option.

“Their efficiency is low for real models, despite significant software optimizations. This makes them challenging and expensive to deploy in practice,” Coburn said. “This is why we need MTIA.”

Source: reuters.com

A Meta representative did not provide details on the forthcoming chip’s release schedule or go into further detail about the organization’s plans to create chips that might additionally train the models.

Since executives realised, the chip needed the technology and software to handle requirements from product teams developing AI-powered innovations, Meta has been working on a significant effort to update its AI architecture.

Consequently, the business abandoned intentions for a wide-scale release of an internal inference chip and began developing a more ambitious chip that could conduct training as well as inference, according to Reuters.

Although Meta’s original MTIA chip struggled with high-complexity artificial intelligence (AI) models, it tackled low- & medium-complexity models more effectively than rival chips, according to Meta’s blog entries.

The MTIA chip also utilised an open-source chip structure known as RISC-V and consumed only 25 watts of power, which is significantly less than that of renowned chips in the market from suppliers like Nvidia Corporation, according to Meta.

Also Read: Will AI Take Over The World?

The company Meta said it would start construction on the company’s initial structure this year as well as offered further details on intentions to restructure its data centres towards more advanced AI-focused networking along with cooling technologies.

In a video describing the improvements, a staff member claimed that the updated layout would be 31 per cent less expensive and could be constructed twice as rapidly as the company’s present data centres.

To assist its developers in writing computer code, Meta claimed to have a system driven by artificial intelligence, which is comparable to that provided by Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., alongside Microsoft Corp.

OpenAI

OpenAI to introduce ChatGPT app for iOS

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The ChatGPT app is going mobile. After the App Store was flooded with questionable, unofficial services for several months, OpenAI announced the release of an official iOS app that enables users to use its well-known AI chatbot while on the road.

The company claims that the newly released ChatGPT app will be free to download and use, ad-free, and voice-enabled, but it will only be available to users in the United States at first.

OpenAI
Image Source: freemalaysiatoday.com

The ChatGPT app, like its desktop equivalent, enables users to communicate with an AI chatbot to ask queries without performing a standard online search and to receive advice, discover inspiration, study, conduct research, and do other things.

Also Read: Google to delete inactive accounts starting December

Given the problems with Apple’s own voice assistant, Siri, and Apple’s own lack of advancement in artificial intelligence, the latest update may encourage more customers to adopt ChatGPT as their primary mobile assistant.

Since Google now reaps the benefits of serving as the default search provider in Safari on Apple’s iPhone, the launch may also have an effect on Google.

When using ChatGPT on a mobile device, the app will sync your history across devices, which means it will remember any searches you’ve made through its web interface and make those results available to you.

In order to support voice input, Whisper, an open-source speech recognition technology from OpenAI, is also integrated into the app.

OpenAI claims that ChatGPT Plus members will have early access to additional features and quicker response times in addition to being able to use GPT-4’s capabilities through the new app. “ChatGPT Plus subscribers get exclusive access to GPT-4’s capabilities, early access to features, and faster response times, all on iOS,” the company stated.

The technology that underpins the highly successful ChatGPT has been replaced by the potent artificial intelligence model GPT-4. Earlier in February, OpenAI unveiled a $20 per month test subscription package for their well-known AI-powered chatbot, named ChatGPT Plus.

Also Read: WhatsApp Lock Feature to Protect ‘Extra Special’ Chats?

According to the corporation, the roll-out of iOS is already underway in the United States and will soon be extended to new nations. With the release of ChatGPT at the end of last year, the public competition to control the AI technology market began. This spurred big giants like Alphabet Inc. and Meta to promote their own products.

The release of the ChatGPT app coincides with major tech companies, such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, experimenting with AI. Google and Microsoft have also integrated artificial intelligence (AI) features into their search engines, the latter of which was accomplished through a costly partnership with OpenAI.

But having direct access to ChatGPT on a mobile device rather than through a search engine or browser may significantly alter how users now use their phones to look for and engage with information.