The wires kept us busy as ever this week, with stories coming from Foxconn, Rakuten, Alibaba, and others. Here are our picks for the top stories this week:
Terence and Dewi’s pick: Foxconn using forced student labor to build Sony’s PS4
Terence: Foxconn is once again caught for exploitative labor practices, this time involving an unlikely contractor — a school. It makes one wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes, and whether there are other internship programs of a similar nature in China.
Dewi: This so called “internship” program between Foxconn and Xi’an Institute of Technology is suspicious, since this is their second case together.
Saiyai’s pick: Tumblr gradually extends its reach in Asia as it adds Korean language support
It’s interesting Tumblr is localizing and Asianizing its platform. Being under Yahoo now, Tumblr definitely has potential to make a sizeable footprint in Asia. Following the path of Facebook and Twitter, who translated their platform to Asian languages years ago, Tumblr now has Korean language support (in addition to Japanese, which it has had for some time). It will be interesting to see how fast the company rolls out other languages, especially for more diverse countries like Indonesia.
Paul’s pick: In a growing Asian trend, Samsung wants to acquire Valley companies
Asia’s tech giants that can’t find the talent they need locally are reaping the fruits of Silicon Valley startups to stay ahead of the competition. Samsung is but one example.
Willis’ pick: Rocket Internet looks to boost its real estate classifieds site in Myanmar
Despite having a population of over 50 million people, Myanmar isn’t a proven market, yet. It is predicted that Myanmar will only see six million smartphone users by the end 2017, and 3G will only be available next year. Given Rocket Internets track record for making decisions on data, the decision to move in to Myanmar could be perceived by some as premature. It is an opportunistic move and a good one, I believe.
Josh’s pick: Coursera partners with Netease to launch Chinese-language Coursera Zone platform
Coursera has potential to truly disrupt the American higher education space, providing a means for ambitious people of all ages to obtain certification in a skill set without having to pay for expensive degrees. Granted, it will take a while before its impact is measurable, and this is even more so the case as the for-profit firm ventures into China. With a culture accustomed to degree-seeking and an oversupply of skilled college graduates, the last thing a diaosi needs is another guy with the same skill set as him. But while Coursera might not be able to drastically alter higher education the way it could (and should) in the US, it can certainly provide education to those that would otherwise have no access to one – and that, of course, is tremendous.
Minh’s pick: Alibaba leads $206 million investment in US Amazon rival ShopRunner
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