Dubbed “Candy Tin”, the mini space station, which was launched on Thursday from Taiyuan, Shanxi province, has been positioned in orbit and is powered by Commsat Technology Development Co, a Beijing-based small satellite constellation operator. The Tmall Global communication satellite, meanwhile, is scheduled for launch just days ahead of the Nov 11 shopping extravaganza, known as Singles Day.

The launches commemorate the 10th such 24-hour e-commerce spending spree, which was first held by Alibaba in 2009, and also mark 10 years since the first Chinese astronaut walked in space, said Jing Jie, president of Alibaba’s Tmall shopping site.

According to the company, one major purpose of the plan is to enhance customers’ user experience during the gala, which clocked up 168.2 billion yuan ($24.2 billion) in sales last year. It said the space technology will better serve the integration of online and offline shopping interactions across the globe.

“The satellite collects the blessings of our consumers from different corners of the Earth and launches them together into outer space,” said Jing.

The satellite will orbit the Earth once every 90 minutes, broadcasting sentimental messages to consumers when the satellite passes over their location, the company said. Users will be able to access the feature via the Taobao app. The company did not disclose the function of the mini space station.

Liu Dingding, a veteran industry analyst in Beijing, sees no direct connection between the satellite launch and an immediate improvement in customer experience for the festival season, calling the launch “more of a publicity stunt”.

Cao Lei, director of the China E-Commerce Research Center, agreed, saying: “The satellite cannot yet exert a substantial influence on the current shopping procedure, from sourcing and purchasing to logistics.”

But he said the launches are likely to inject fresh vigor into the Singles Day promotion, which this year will prioritize globalization and the interaction of online and offline commerce.

Recruiting around 180,000 brands from home and abroad to offer discounts to buyers, Alibaba is using Tmall Global, the dedicated cross-border portal, to offer 3,700 categories of imported goods from 75 countries and regions on its platform.

Meanwhile, Alibaba’s subsidiary platforms, such as Tmall World, AliExpress and Lazada, will bring the event to hundreds of millions of overseas shoppers.

“Global tech powerhouses are elbowing their way into the likes of satellite and quantum computing, which are the launchpads for the next wave of commercial applications,” Cao said.

The US tech giant issued the statement from chief executive Sundar Pichai in response to a New York Times report that one senior Google employee, Android creator Andy Rubin, received an exit package worth $90 million as he faced allegations of misconduct, and that Google had covered up other claims of sexual harassment.

Asked by AFP and other media for its reaction, Google released an email sent to employees from Pichai stating that 48 people had been terminated for sexual harassment in the past two years, including 13 who were senior managers and above and that none received “an exit package.”

“In recent years, we’ve made a number of changes, including taking an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority,” Pichai said.

He added that the report on Rubin and others was “difficult to read” but he did not directly address the claims in the article.

“We are dead serious about making sure we provide a safe and inclusive workplace,” he said. “We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, we investigate and we take action.”

Sam Singer, a spokesman for Rubin, rejected the allegations against him in a statement to AFP, saying Rubin left Google of his own accord to launch venture capital firm and technology incubator Playground.

Sexist culture

Rubin went on to found smartphone company Essential. The Android operating system, which Google makes available to device makers free of charge, powers about 85 percent of the world’s smartphones.

The New York Times cited court documents and interviews while reporting that Rubin was one of three senior executives that Google has shielded in the past decade after complaints of inappropriate sexual behavior.

The Times cited two unnamed Google executives as saying that then-chief executive Larry Page asked for Rubin’s resignation after the company confirmed a complaint by a woman about a sexual encounter in a hotel in 2013.

A Google investigation found the woman’s complaint credible, the Times reported.

The latest revelation is certain to add to the growing chorus of voices denouncing sexist culture echoing through male-dominated Silicon Valley, which has knocked a number of internet industry executives at other tech giants from their perches.

Accusations concerning the lack of women in tech jobs and unfair or crude treatment endured by some in the industry have simmered for years, occasionally boiling over.

Uber’s embattled chief executive Travis Kalanick resigned last year, yielding to pressure from investors seeking to clean up the company’s allegedly toxic corporate culture.

Before Kalanick’s departure, Uber said it had fired 20 people after examining 215 claims of discrimination, harassment, unprofessional behavior and bullying.

– Eyes on ads –

The renewed spotlight on the tech sector came as Google’s parent company Alphabet reported its third-quarter profit rose 36 percent to $9.2 billion, fueled by gains in digital advertising delivered online and on smartphones.

Profits were better than expected for the technology giant, while revenues fell short of forecasts, rising 21 percent to $33.7 billion in the three months ending in September, compared with the same period a year earlier.

The mixed results came with Google also under scrutiny along with other tech firms for its privacy and data protection policies.

“Our business continues to have strong momentum globally, led by mobile search and our many products that help billions of people every day,” said chief financial officer Ruth Porat.

In after-hours trade following the report, Alphabet shares slid 3.4 percent to $1,066 on apparent disappointment with revenue growth.

“Alphabet is the ad revenue king, so any softness makes people nervous,” said independent technology analyst Rob Enderle.

The vast majority of revenue for Alphabet came from Google and more than $28 billion came from digital advertising, where it leads the market.

Terms of the partnership allows Bacom rights to sell and distribute themajority of the Genetec open-architecturesecurity solutions portfolio. Bacom will introduce the benefits of unified IP security and supporting applications from Genetec into new markets across Thailand, Genetec said in a press statement.

As Genetec grows across Asia Pacific, the company is bringing its physical securityinnovations to Thailand-a country rapidly migrating to IP-based security technologies.Bacom hosts an established network of certified channel partners, system integrators, training and support specialists, that will offer extended choice and flexibility for Genetec customers across Thailand.

“Genetec is a globally-respected innovator of unified physical IP security solutions, and Bacom is very happy to enter into this distribution partnership,” said Tanakrit Rodjanasiraprapha, Managing Director at Bacom Internetwork Co., LTD. “Together we will be able to offer sophisticated and powerful Genetec security solutions, withlocalized training and support to help end-users achieve operational efficiency,” added Rodjanasiraprapha.

Since 2000, Bacom has been a pioneering marketer and distributor of some of the mostintelligent and innovative security technologies in Thailand. With the help ofpartners servicing all regions of the country, supported by a team of specialists, new customers will now be able to benefit from a truly unified, open-architecture platform to meet their security needs, the statement added.

“In the last eight years, Genetec has brought the benefits of unified IP security toenterprise and retail customers in Thailand,”said Dr. Tussanai Kanuanghead, Regional Sales Manager for Thailand and Indochina , Genetec.  “This newly formed distribution partnership with Bacom will open a broader market to the physical security innovations Genetec is globally recognized for,” added Kanuanghead.

“We are honored to enter into this distribution relationship with Bacom in Thailand and introduce innovative technology from Genetec that will support the physical security mandates in this growing region,”said Daniel Lee, Managing Director for Genetec APAC.

Through the partnership, NetApp’s engineers are working closely with DreamWorks’ IT team to optimise the Data Fabric and meet the studio’s unique, rapidly expanding data storage and management needs, NetApp said in a press statement.

The incredibly detailed and immersive graphics that DreamWorks artists create represent enormous volumes of data and add the challenge of complexity to the Dreamworks IT environment.

The NetApp and DreamWorks partnership represents an innovative approach to this challenge, focused on predictive analytics and other new capabilities to power real-time access to large datasets. The approach also simplifies the overall integration and orchestration of data across a hybrid IT infrastructure, NetApp said.

“NetApp is the leader in hybrid cloud data services,” said Kate Swanborg, senior vice president of Technology Communications and Strategic Alliances at DreamWorks. “Having used NetApp solutions on all of our CG animated feature films, DreamWorks trusts NetApp to deliver the data services our filmmakers rely on to innovate today and tomorrow, as they unleash creativity and dream new realities.”

Dreamworks is a rapidly expanding digital business, and the amount of data to which its teams must have immediate and widespread access is staggering. An average animated feature film requires hundreds of artists and engineers, over 600 terabytes of data, more than 100 million compute hours, and half a billion digital files. And, as the studio grows its business and brings its world-class digital assets to new channels, its data requirements continue to expand exponentially.

“DreamWorks’ world-class filmmakers, storytellers, and artists are all focused on creating experiences of incredibly high quality, like the studio’s next film, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which features over 60,000 distinct dragons on camera at one time,” said Jeff Wike, chief technology officer of DreamWorks. “While we’ve traditionally specialised in animated films and television series, increasingly our creators are also developing content for theme parks, live entertainment, and emerging platforms like AR and VR. This data-driven transformation of our business requires that we pursue greater efficiencies for sharing workflows across multiple platforms and preserving assets for future content extensions.”

As DreamWorks and NetApp continue to work together on solutions that NetApp will eventually roll out more widely to its customers, the teams are finding innovative ways to:

– Empower production workflows.Optimise and take advantage of a massive amount of content-creation data across multiple, simultaneous productions.

– Maximise creative development.Ensure on-demand availability of filmmaking data for artists’ creation, iterations and reviews.

– Streamline operations. Simplify and automate infrastructure architectures to maximise production uptime.

“Ultimately, it is data that is the foundation for DreamWorks to create immersive experiences within worlds we could not otherwise possibly imagine,” said Scott Dawkins, NetApp chief technology officer of Storage Systems and Software. “As Jeff mentioned, DreamWorks’ next film, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, has a level of graphical innovation that places unprecedented demands on the performance, speed, accessibility and stability of data in the IT environment. NetApp’s Data Fabric, combined with DreamWorks’ IT team’s own expertise, is central to building the infrastructure and data services necessary to make on-demand, real-time content creation a reality for their artists, who expect to work at the speed of their imagination.”

DreamWorks will give the keynote address at NetApp Insight 2018 and share more details about how it has transformed its business with data and what it means to be data-driven.

Apple Thailand confirmed the date in a statement on Thursday.

The company said the riverside store could provide inspirations for a lot of people to learn about technology.

Apart from selling Apple products, the store will also have a Genius Bar to provide help to Apple users regarding services and software.

The website said school field trips are welcome at the store.

The website added that staff at the store will be ready to help users to get their products up and running and there will also be a team of experts to provide advice on business solutions for companies.