Silicon Valley Tech News Roundup – December 17th
Amazon hosts summit in China to appeal to China-based sellers – 12/14
This week, Amazon hosted a summit in China and launched a fresh appeal to attract Chinese-based sellers to its platform. It is an attempt to fend off the competition from Shein and Temu.
At the conference that began on Tuesday and ran until Friday, Amazon announced it plans to open an innovation center in Shenzhen, the Chinese equivalent of Silicon Valley. The city is a hub for technology companies and cross-border E-commerce. Likewise, Amazon offers China-based sellers access to its “end-to-end” supply chain service. The service enables sellers to move the goods from factories overseas and replenish them on Amazon “in one stop.” It debuted in the United States in September.
Amazon no longer operates in China, but the annual summit attracts thousands of regional sellers. In 2023, the company released information that items sold by Chinese sellers on the platform grew more than 20% year over year. Meanwhile, the number of Chinese sellers whose sales surpassed $10 million increased 30%.
Amazon is facing growing competition from Shein and Temu. Shein initially focused on fast fashion, but this year, they launched a marketplace offering products like home wares and electronics. Temu offers a mixture of products and has been on a marketing blitz this year. According to the reports, Temu shoppers spend twice as much time on the app than on Amazon.
Threads launch in the EU – 12/15
Meta’s rival to X (former Twitter) finally launched in the European Union. The platform debuted five months after the social media app launched in the United States. Mark Zuckerberg announced the news with a post on Threads that welcomed new users from the EU.
Threads failed to launch in the European Union earlier because of its strict regulations regarding Big Tech, data, and security.
The social media app amassed over 100 million users during the first week of its launch. But the numbers went down massively after the novelty wore off and because of the lack of some of the key features like the search function.
According to the Meta’s spokesperson, Threads experienced “significant improvements” since its launch in July. The company stated: “Starting today, people in the EU can choose to create a Threads profile that is connected to their Instagram account – which means they get the same experience as everyone else around the world – or use Threads without a profile.“
Activision Blizzard settles a sex discrimination case in California – 12/15
In a statement released on Friday, California’s Civic Rights Department confirmed Activision Blizzard agreed to settle a sex discrimination case that alleged the company used systemic gender discrimination against women by paying them less and denying them promotion opportunities.
The statement also revealed Activision Blizzard has to pay $55 million to provide relief to female employees and contractors who worked for the company between October 2015 and December 2020. Over $45 million will go towards the fund to compensate the workers affected. Likewise, the company has to cover their legal fees.
In 2021, the agency filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard claiming the company discriminated and retaliated against women. Furthermore, the lawsuit accused the company of sexual harassment. The Wall Street Journal later reported Bobby Kotick (the CEO of Activision Blizzard) was aware of the allegations but did not share them with the board.
Following the settlement, the company released a statement saying: “We appreciate the importance of the issues addressed in this agreement and we are dedicated to fully implementing all the new obligations we have assumed as part of it.“
Over 2 million Tesla vehicles in the U. S. recalled over autopilot issue – 12/14
Tesla has to recall over 2 million vehicles in the United States over an AutoPilot issue. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted a 2-year investigation of 956 Tesla crashes. It concluded the problems stemmed from a partly defective AutoPilot feature.
In a statement, NHTSA said about the AutoPilot feature: “The prominence and scope of the feature’s controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse… Automated technology holds great promise for improving safety but only when it is deployed responsibly.“ The recall applies to almost all Tesla vehicles sold in the United States since 2015 (or when the AutoPilot feature launched).
Tesla did not agree with the regulator’s analysis but agreed to add new software features to resolve concerns. The company will fix the issue via a software update “over the air.” Tesla did not reply to requests for comment.
The news comes after a former Tesla employee stated he believes the technology is unsafe. Lukasz Krupski, a former Tesla employee who won the Blueprint Prize that awards whistleblowers, stated: “I don’t think the hardware is ready and the software is ready… It affects all of us because we are essentially experiments in public roads.“
