Gabriel Daros / Rest of World: Brazil's AI-based social security app, launched in 2018, has cut bureaucracy in some cases but wrongly rejected hundreds of vulnerable people over minor errors — An algorithmic tool meant to reduce bureaucracy is misfiring on complex cases, and vulnerable Brazilians are paying the price.
Ananya Bhattacharya / Rest of World: A look at Foxconn's $2.5B “Project Elephant”, an upcoming factory on the outskirts of Bengaluru, its second-largest factory outside China, creating 40,000 jobs — The $2.5 billion “Project Elephant” will be the company's second-largest factory outside China and create 40,000 jobs.
Ananya Bhattacharya / Rest of World: How Foxconn's $2.5B “Project Elephant” to build iPhones, its second-largest factory outside China, is fueling a real estate boom in a town outside Bengaluru — The $2.5 billion “Project Elephant” will be the company's second-largest factory outside China and create 40,000 jobs.
Laura Rodríguez Salamanca / Rest of World: Workers and researchers say data annotation jobs that many Venezuelans relied on have become scarce and poorly paid with the rise of generative AI — Venezuela has long provided the tech industry with cheap, educated workers. But with the rise of generative AI, jobs have become less lucrative and harder to find.
Gabriela Sá Pessoa / Rest of World: A look at the battle between Uber and its unlikely ally, Chinese-owned rival 99, against the São Paulo city government, which banned motorcycle taxis in 2023 — The ride-hailing rivals are taking on the government of São Paulo, which banned motorcycle taxis.
Lam Le / Rest of World: A look at Shanghai municipal government-backed SpaceSail, a satellite internet company that has launched ~90 satellites so far and plans to have 15,000 by 2030 — The Shanghai satellite company is launching deals in countries where Starlink, X or Tesla are creating friction.
Anup Kaphle / Rest of World: Q&A with Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha on the MENA ride-hailing giant becoming a super app, the spinout of its non-ride-hailing services from Uber, AI, and more — • DUBAI, THE UAE — Mudassir Sheikha likes to tell the story of Careem's growth in chapters.
Ananya Bhattacharya / Rest of World: USCIS data shows Amazon got the most H-1B visas each year from 2020 to 2024; Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple ranked in the top 10 in 2024 — U.S. tech firms — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple — were the top 10 employers of H-1B recipients in 2024.
Ananya Bhattacharya / Rest of World: Former staff, investors, and industry experts reflect on the demise of Dunzo, the Indian online delivery pioneer undone by mismanagement, competition, and more — Dunzo was a trailblazer in India's online delivery sector, but things went awry when it shifted from its core strength.
Kinling Lo / Rest of World: A look at the adoption of DeepSeek across China, as Chinese automakers, smartphone sellers, and others rush to build services on top of the homegrown AI model — Chinese companies, as a signal of patriotism, are racing to build services on top of the homegrown AI model that has taken the world by storm since January.
Lam Le / Rest of World: GSMA Intelligence: ~61 countries, including the US and China, plan to shut down their 2G networks, raising digital exclusion concerns, mainly affecting the poor — Global leap to 4G and 5G would cut off phone access for millions of vulnerable people. — Last November, Nguyen Thi Que's …
Yashraj Sharma / Rest of World: An analysis by the Digital Witness Lab at Princeton of 8,000+ messages finds messages advertising guns across 234 publicly accessible WhatsApp groups in India — An analysis of more than 8,000 messages by Digital Witness Lab at Princeton University finds the Meta-owned platform is a thriving illegal firearms marketplace.
Damilare Dosunmu / Rest of World: Mastercard withdrew its commitment to invest $100M in 54 Collective, a top VC firm in Africa, where startup funding fell from $4.6B in 2022 to $2.2B in 2024 — The withdrawal leaves a gap in support for early-stage startups, as Africa's tech funding has been declining since 2022.
Lizzi C. Lee / Rest of World: China's first-of-its-kind policy letting companies mark data as an asset on balance sheets sees slow adoption, as compliance hurdles keep many on the sidelines — A first-of-its-kind policy allows Chinese firms to treat data as an asset, but compliance hurdles are keeping many companies on the sidelines.
Anup Kaphle / Rest of World: Q&A with Jürgen Schmidhuber, the controversial AI pioneer and director of AI at Saudi Arabia's KAUST, on the kingdom's AI ambitions, DeepSeek, AGI, and more — With a long track record of groundbreaking research, outspoken opinions, and grand visions, Jürgen Schmidhuber …
Hsiuwen Liu / Rest of World: Experts say Southeast Asian students in Taiwan's work-study programs often end up as low-paid labor in the chip industry under the guise of “practical training” — Student-interns are paid for low-skill factory tasks and spend little time in the classroom.
Viola Zhou / Rest of World: DeepSeek recruiting recent graduates from China's top universities reflects a growing trend among the country's top AI talent to pursue opportunities at home — Young Chinese engineers focus on homegrown innovation, drawn by fewer visa hurdles and the chance to build a future on their own terms.
Ananya Bhattacharya / Rest of World: A look at the daunting task for Google and others of mapping roads and maintaining accurate maps in India, amid growing reports of misdirections in the country — Maintaining accurate maps is a daunting task in a country where road names and addresses are not standardized.
Rest of World: Major Chinese social media apps have mastered the “shoppertainment” experience, blending social media with shopping, that Western competitors struggle to match — Addictive algorithms fuse social networking with shopping and entertainment. — In the days leading …
Rest of World: Eager to attract investments, politicians in Brazil, India, and other non-Western nations with nascent AI regulations have warmly welcomed major AI companies — Big AI companies have come out hard against comprehensive regulatory efforts in the West — but are receiving a warm welcome from leaders in many other countries.
Khadija Alam / Rest of World: Analysis: Chinese AI researchers produced ~46K collaborative papers with their US counterparts over the past decade, followed by ~19K with researchers in the UK — Over the past 10 years, the U.S. and China have been the most frequent partners in AI research.
Reeta Raman / Rest of World: Authorities in Singapore, which has a dire shortage of nurses, see the potential in AI tools to assist in preventive illness care, especially for the elderly — The country has a dire shortage of nurses, so to fill the manpower gap, it's using AI for preventive care. — • SINGAPORE
Rest of World: Starlink has disrupted Kenya's existing ISP industry since its launch in July 2023, forcing legacy providers to lower prices and increase internet speeds — In Ghana, Starlink is half the price of the local ISP. — Starlink, launched in 2019 by Elon Musk's SpaceX, has become the leading satellite internet provider in the world.
Rest of World: Sources: Foxconn stops sending Chinese employees to iPhone factories in India and recalls already stationed staff, while China stalls equipment shipments — In addition, equipment shipments are delayed, potentially disrupting next-generation iPhone production in India.
Yvonne Lau / Rest of World: Experts say national security and immigration policies could deprive US companies of AI talent from China, which had 47% of the top AI researchers in 2022 — The West may lose out in the talent race amid U.S. national security and immigration hurdles — The U.S. and China …
John Beck / Rest of World: The White Helmets, UNHCR, UNRWA, and other volunteer organizations describe how apps like WhatsApp have transformed communication in conflict and disaster zones — Meta's messaging app has transformed communication in conflict and crisis areas. — Fidaa Maksour, a dispatcher with the White Helmets …
Lillian Perlmutter / Rest of World: Mexico's Yucatán state says AI-powered app MeMind contributed to a 9% drop in suicides over the past two years by connecting 10,000 at-risk people to treatment — MeMind has connected 10,000 at-risk people with mental health treatment, contributing to a 9% drop in suicides.
Sonia Faleiro / Rest of World: How niche communities globally are repurposing WhatsApp, including broadcasting news and shows, matchmaking, organizing prayers, and finding blood donors — The world's most popular messaging platform is synonymous with the internet for millions of people. — • LAGOS, NIGERIA
Issie Lapowsky / Rest of World: How WhatsApp evolved from a messaging app into a business messaging growth platform, aggressively luring big businesses to its suite of paid messaging products — WhatsApp is already the world's most widely used messaging app. Meta wants it to be a lot more. — • PHILADELPHIA, UNITED STATES
Anisha Sircar / Rest of World: A look at Uber Shuttle, the shared bus service that has rolled out in over 20 cities and completed ~30M trips globally, as Uber awaits approval in Bengaluru — Uber Shuttle, a shared bus ride service, is available in two Indian cities. The company plans to launch in three more cities soon.
Michael Beltran / Rest of World: Call center workers in the Philippines, where an estimated 86% of white-collar workers already use AI, say generative AI tools have made work more demanding — BPO workers say AI tools are monitoring their calls, assisting them with customers, and scoring their performance. — • MANILA, PHILIPPINES
Sandy Ong / Rest of World: Singapore, which has clear AV guidelines, is deploying self-driving buses and more as a way to overcome labor shortages and use its scarce land more efficiently — The tiny country has embraced autonomous vehicles as a way to overcome labor shortages and use its scarce land more efficiently.
Daniela Dib / Rest of World: Research center Bitácora Social estimates that six out of 10 catalog sellers in Mexico now sell products from online platforms, including Shein and Temu — A large community of catalog saleswomen are selling items from the Chinese platform. — • MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
Michelle Anindya / Rest of World: How Grab built GrabMaps by using data from drivers, users, and merchants in 500+ Southeast Asian cities, adding 800,000+ km of missing roads to OpenStreetMap — The super-app uses its own drivers and cameras to create hyperlocal maps in eight countries. — • JAKARTA, INDONESIA
Rest of World: Indian mom-and-pop “kirana” stores are struggling to compete with quick commerce on discounts and delivery; ~200K kirana stores have closed in the past year — Services like Blinkit and Zepto are estimated to put more than 25% of India's neighborhood kirana stores out of business by 2030.
Rest of World: Malaysia's Johor state has drawn ~50 data center projects in the last three years, creating 40,000 jobs but raising concerns about power and water shortages — Data centers for companies like Google, Amazon, and Nvidia are transforming Johor state, with locals bracing for higher real estate costs and resource shortages.
Patrick Kho / Rest of World: Support groups in the Philippines blame GCash, the country's most popular payment app with 90M+ active users, for a rise in gambling addiction in the country — The GCash app is ubiquitous in the Philippines, and is being blamed for rising gambling addiction in the country, particularly among women.
Lizzi C. Lee / Rest of World: Chinese state media has embraced the success of Black Myth: Wukong, a Chinese AAA game that has sold 20M+ copies globally, hailing it as a soft power export — China is changing its long-critical stance thanks to the smash hit, according to Chinese game developers and industry analysts.
Joanna Chiu / Rest of World: A look at GFWeb, which tracks millions of domains to uncover the Great Firewall's domain blocklists; GFWeb data reveals China blocked ChatGPT on March 2, 2023 — Rest of World received exclusive access to a platform that tracks patterns and timing of Chinese online censorship.
Viola Zhou / Rest of World: Q&A with Alibaba.com president Kuo Zhang on the enduring importance of the US market, navigating geopolitical tensions, competing with Shein and Temu, and more — • LAS VEGAS, UNITED STATES — E-commerce giant Alibabai .com is setting its sights on America's mom-and-pop businesses.
Kunwar Khuldune Shahid / Rest of World: Startups say Pakistan's new China-like firewall is making it harder for them to raise funds, amid complaints about censorship and internet speeds falling by 40% — Internet speeds in the country have dropped by up to 40% due to the government's efforts to monitor internet traffic, said service providers.
Tianyu Fang / Rest of World: As Chinese EV manufacturers consolidate and close, EV owners say they're losing access to smartphone app updates and features that rely on cloud services — As Chinese EV makers close, drivers of “smartphones on wheels” say software updates and maintenance are in jeopardy.
Stan Alcorn / Rest of World: A look at the consequences of Spotify's disinvestment in podcasts in Latin America, where one survey found 90% of podcast listeners used Spotify — In Latin America, “podcast” and “Spotify” became synonymous; now the audio industry is reckoning with the company's retreat. — • BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
Joanna Chiu / Rest of World: Citizen Lab: Microsoft censors its Bing translation service more extensively in China than its competitors like Baidu Translate and Tencent Machine Translation — New Citizen Lab study comes as U.S. lawmakers scrutinize Microsoft's willingness to comply with demands from Beijing.
Varsha Bansal / Rest of World: Sources detail struggles at Koo, an Indian rival to X, including laying off ~80% of its workforce in recent months and being unable to raise more funds — The microblogging platform — India's first in over 10 languages — went from booming international expansion to near closure in just four years.
Zuha Siddiqui / Rest of World: How Uber-owned Careem went from Pakistan's ride-hailing leader to a distant third player after deprioritizing the country due to its unstable economy — After falling from dominance, Careem is experimenting — from corporate rides to price bidding — to maintain its presence in Pakistan.
Rest of World: A look at activist groups' efforts to keep Amazon, Google, and Microsoft from building more data centers in Chile, amid a drought expected to last until 2040 — Multiple groups are working to keep Amazon, Google, and Microsoft from doubling the number of centers in the country, fearing environmental devastation.
Viola Zhou / Rest of World: How Threads became a gathering space for young progressives in Taiwan, who now use the app to organize protests against pro-China opposition parties — Despite Meta's promise to crack down on political content in the app, Taiwanese activists are using it to organize.
Rest of World: A test of 11 WhatsApp-based fact-checking “tip lines” during elections in India finds long delays and inconsistencies in responses — Rest of World tested 11 leading WhatsApp-based chatbots that promise to help Indian voters identify misinformation.
Srishti Jaswal / Rest of World: As India's elections run from April 19 to June 1, a look at the BJP's vast WhatsApp operations, including using the app to campaign free from public scrutiny — An analysis of thousands of messages reveals how India's ruling party uses the app to campaign free from public scrutiny. — • MANDI, INDIA