Asia In Brief US Space Command last Friday warned that a Chinese Long March 6a rocket launched on August 6 broke up in orbit and created at least 300 pieces of debris.

Chinese state media reported a launch on that day: a mission to launch 18 low Earth orbit broadband-beaming satellites.

As The Register reported, Chinese authorities deemed that launch "a complete success" - at least in terms of getting the satellites into orbit.

Space Command could find "no immediate threats" from the new cloud of orbiting junk, but continues to watch for future problems.

Vietnam's PM to lead semiconductor push

The government of Vietnam last Friday announced the creation of a national steering committee for semiconductor industry development.

To be led by the prime minister, the committee will include a dozen ministers as members, and is charged with further development of the nation's semiconductor industry.

Vietnam is home to Intel's largest packaging plant and is a major semiconductor exporter. The nation aspires to host semiconductor fabrication plants, too.

Tesla crashes Thai factory plan

Elon Musk's electric car venture, Tesla, last week reportedly hit the brakes on plans to build a factory in Thailand.

Talks in late 2023 saw the southeast Asian nation's prime minister suggest a factory was a possibility - a fillip for the regional auto industry.

But amid falling sales, Tesla has apparently decided it does not need additional manufacturing capacity and will instead focus on developing more charging infrastructure in Thailand and neighboring nations.

Drones to fly trash off Mt Everest

Kathmandu authorities will use drones to fly trash left behind by climbers on Mount Everest, aka Chomolungma.

Trials of DJI drones have reportedly proven successful, with DJI's FlyCart 30 - a craft with 30kg payload capacity - to be put to work carrying material between Camp I at 5,943 meters and Base Camp at 5,364 meters.

The trip between the two typically takes six hours. The drones can reportedly carry 234kg of material per hour.

Qoo10 seeks to merge embattled brands

Qoo10 - the Singaporean e-commerce outfit whose Korean brands WeMakePrice and TMON have stopped paying merchants, necessitating the creation of a giant bailout fund - is trying to merge the two outfits.

Korean media report the merger effort is an attempt to address the brands' liquidity crisis.

Baidu Maps outage disrupts self-driving cars

Chinese web giant Baidu's mapping service experienced a brief outage on August 7, leaving some smart cars unable to access navigation tools. Reports in Chinese media claimed self-driving taxis were unable to plot routes during the brief incident.

APAC Dealbook

Deals, alliances and hook-ups we noticed around the region last week include:

• Real estate fund manager Centuria has taken a 50 percent stake in Reset Data, the Australian biz we last year reported installs immersed server racks in the basements of office buildings.
• Indian crypto exchange WazirX - which was attacked by suspected North Korean actors and lost $230 million of customers' assets - last week announced it has nullified all trades made on the platform between July 18 and 21. The attack took place on July 18 and reversing the transactions means customers' account balances will be restored to their pre-hack value. It's unclear how the org is funding the restoration of customer balances.
• AWS and Australia's Red Cross announced a project that used quantum computing to optimize nurse scheduling - resulting in a 44 percent drop in the cost of each blood donation.
• Australian telco and managed services provider Optus, a Singtel subsidiary, announced a threat monitoring service in partnership with real-time security data monitoring vendor Devo.

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https://www.theregister.com//2024/08/12/asia_tech_news_in_brief/