Flexibility to work helps attract talent, Morgan Stanley says Buffett targets WFH business opportunities

The Nikkei Asian Review reported on April 11 that Hitachi plans to offer 15,000 employees the option of flexible working hours starting this fiscal year, hoping to attract more talent. The report pointed out that Hitachi employees can choose to work 9 to 10 hours a day from Monday to Thursday (instead of the currently required 7 hours and 45 minutes) in exchange for a day off on Friday; they can also choose to extend their working hours in the first half of the month in exchange for the end of the month. Take a break.

A survey conducted by the University of Reading in November showed that 68% of 500 UK businesses that implemented a four-day work week said it helped recruit talent. In addition, 66% said flexible working hours helped reduce costs.

According to a survey of 10,737 knowledge workers in the US, Australia, France, Germany, Japan and the UK from November 1-30, 2021, Future Forum noted in January that 78% of respondents would like to have a job Flexibility in location was up from 76% in the previous quarter, and the percentage of respondents who wanted flexibility in working hours rose from 93% to 95%.

The survey also showed that half of the respondents said their company has offered flexible working hours, and 42% said business owners have offered flexible working location options.

Before Covid-19, roughly half of the world’s knowledge workers were in the office all day, but in November 2021 the proportion has dropped to 30%.

Morgan Stanley: Buffett bets on hybrid work
CNBC reported on April 8, Morgan Stanley pointed out that Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s investment in HP Inc. is Warren Buffett’s investment in hybrid jobs in the post-pandemic era. bet.

Morgan Stanley previously downgraded HP’s investment rating to “underweight” on the grounds that the general economic environment continues to present uncertainties and the outlook for the hardware industry tends to be conservative.

Berkshire disclosed on April 6 that it had bought nearly 121 million shares of HP Inc., making it the largest shareholder in the well-known PC maker.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) on March 18 put forward 10 recommendations to cut oil use, including “working from home (WFH)” three days a week as far as possible in advanced economies.

Nearly 5-month West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell $3.97 on Monday to close at $94.29, the lowest closing level since February 25.

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Shanghai continues to dynamically clear, Tesla may suspend work until May 15

Shanghai has finally ushered in the initial “micro-unblocking”, but under the premise of the continuous dynamic clearing policy, Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory is still unable to start construction, and the shutdown time may exceed original expectations.

Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory has been suspended since March 28, and it was originally expected to resume work in mid-April, but due to the continued tension of the epidemic, the resumption of work seems to be a long way off.

Shanghai announced the “micro-unblocking” of some areas yesterday. Only about one-fifth of the citizens can go out to take a breath, and most of the rest are still staying at home according to regulations. The Pudong Lingang Industrial Zone, where Giga Shanghai is located, is continuously closed. The latest news pointed out that the Shanghai Gigafactory may not resume work until May 15.

“According to local contacts in China, Tesla’s Shanghai plant will need to be shut down for at least a month.” Gordon Johnson, an analyst at research firm GLJ Research, said the worst thing is that the Shanghai plant is not expected to resume until the third quarter of 2022. maximum capacity.

Since the electric vehicle factory is not a necessity for people’s livelihood, and Tesla employees come from many different regions, the priority of reopening will be very low, and it is impossible to put all of them in place at one time. It must be partitioned to allow some employees to gradually return to the factory.

According to Tesla’s estimation, it will take 2-3 days to restore the original production capacity for one day of shutdown. If the dynamic clearing can be achieved on June 1, then Tesla will need at least the third quarter to restore the original production capacity. productivity. In other words, in the second quarter of this year, Tesla is likely to experience losses not seen in a long time.

“We don’t think the stock price has fully priced in the shutdown in Shanghai, and Tesla’s production in the second quarter of this year is likely to be less than 190,000 vehicles,” Gordon Johnson said. Compared to the 300,000-plus vehicles in the past two quarters, the second quarter does not look optimistic.

Tesla’s stock price has tumbled for two days in a row, causing many investors to panic, but don’t forget that Gordon Johnson is also a super black, always estimating Tesla’s situation from the worst angle, and this time is no exception. According to the current official statement, the resumption of work will be re-evaluated every week. Although the resumption of work in mid-April seems hopeless, it is uncertain whether it will be delayed until mid-May.

Don’t forget that the entire Shanghai city is heavily involved in the Chinese economy. Under political considerations, the city closure policy will be a “dynamic” decision, not a monolithic one, just like the reset policy.

Chinese game version numbers are restarted, 45 games are approved, and Baidu is listed

According to the Economic News Agency, China will start to regulate the game industry in 2021. In order to prevent teenagers from indulging in online games, it will limit the time of games and suspend the approval of game version numbers. After a lapse of more than 8 months, China restarted the distribution of game version numbers. On the 11th, the State Press and Publication Administration of China announced a list of a new batch of Chinese-made game version numbers. The version number distribution involves 45 games. The approval time is shown as April 8. However, none of Tencent and NetEase’s games have been included in this batch list.

Among the 45 games approved this time, 5 are client games (computer games) and one Switch console game, and the remaining 39 are mobile games (mobile games), including “Party Star” by Xinxin Company, Chuangmeng Tiandi’s “Be Careful” and Baidu’s “Attack Rabbit”; as well as the computer game “Jianwang 3 Origins” developed by Xishanju, a subsidiary of Kingsoft, the mobile game “Youth Three Kingdoms: Pocket Battle” by Youzu Network, and Sanqi Mutual Entertainment The “Dream Voyage” of “Dream Voyage”, as well as the games of Zhongqingbao are also on the list.

Inspired by the news of the restart of the game version number, the game industry index stocks rose more. As of the noon closing of A shares, Glacier Network, Dasheng Culture, and Youzu Network temporarily closed their daily limit, Zhongqingbao rose by more than 6%, and Sanqi Interactive Entertainment fell nearly 6%. In terms of Hong Kong stocks, as of around 11:30, Bilibili rose more than 7%, Xinxin company rose more than 6%, NetEase and Tencent rose more than 2%, and Baidu fell more than 1%.

Analysts believe that last year was a severe winter for the Chinese game industry. Under the dual pressure of the suspension of version number issuance and the protection policy for minors, the valuation of games has fallen to the lowest level for many years. With the restart of the version number, many analysts He said that in the medium and long term, the inflection point of the game industry’s valuation repair has come, and the future development of the game industry should be explored in a more high-tech direction. However, some analysts pointed out that as the tightening of the number of game version numbers issued has become the norm, it will guide game companies to improve the quality of games, which is also an important way to promote the industry’s high-quality development.

Amazon’s internal communication program, a large number of banned words list public

E-commerce platform Amazon (Amazon), which employs a large number of employees, is planning to launch an internal communication program in order to facilitate their internal communication. The foreign website The Intercept recently reported that, according to internal documents they obtained, Amazon will add a filter function to the communication program to prohibit employees from discussing certain topics.

The Intercept refers to Amazon’s plans to add automatic word monitoring to the messaging app, adding words that criticize the work environment like Slave Labor, Prison and Plantation (slave labor, prisons and plantations), and even Restrooms (toilet) to a banned list. It was reported earlier that Amazon was urinating in bottles instead of going to the toilet to avoid penalties. Other banned words include Living Wage, Diversity, Vaccine (living wage, diversity, vaccine), while Union, Pay Rise, Compensation (union, labor, compensation) are also on the list.

A person familiar with the matter said that Amazon executives met in November last year to study the establishment of an internal community platform. In response to foreign media inquiries, an Amazon spokesperson said that the team is always looking for new ways to help employees communicate, but the communication program project is currently not approved and may have major changes or will not be launched in the end.

Rectify the Google Play platform, outdated apps are not allowed to download and use

Google is preparing to remove outdated and unsuitable apps from the Google Play platform, hide apps that haven’t been updated within 2 years of the latest Android version, and prevent them from being downloaded to users’ mobile devices again, starting November 1, 2022 Effective; this also means that Android users who continue to use the latest software, or just bought a new device, will no longer be able to find or download outdated and inappropriate apps.

Developers are required to update their apps to meet Google Play’s target API level requirements within 1 year of the Android release. By setting your app to specify the latest API level, you can improve your user’s security, privacy, and performance experience while continuing to make your app work on older Android devices.

Therefore, taking the official version of Android 12 as an example, with the release in October last year, developers must accelerate App updates before October 2022; if it exceeds October 2023, apps that have not been updated will be hidden by Google Play , is not discovered by the user, and the user cannot download it again.

To help developers transition through this period, Google has published a technical guide and documentation that includes an exact timeline to help apps reach the target API level. If developers need more time, they can apply for a 6-month extension in the future through the form

Since those outdated and unsuitable apps have not been completely removed from Google Play, Android users still have a chance to find them, so it is not equivalent to the Apple App Store announcement a few years ago that tens of thousands of outdated, abandoned, and no longer updated apps were removed. However, Google’s intentions are actually similar to Apple’s, because outdated and unsuitable apps not only do not continuously improve the user experience, but also may pose security risks.

In addition, to further protect Android users, Google has recently removed apps from Google Play that covertly collect user data, such as QRcode scanners, highway speed cameras, and other apps that have been removed from millions of devices because of malicious code. Android devices steal user data.

Palo Alto Networks Ransomware Threat Report: Ransom Payments Hit Record High in 2021

The latest ransomware threat report recently released by cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks pointed out that more and more cybercriminals are using dark web “decryption sites” to threaten victims to pay ransoms and pay ransomware ransoms on the grounds of publishing sensitive information on the dark web. Reach new highs in 2021.

According to the 2022 Ransomware Threat Report, published by the Unit 42 Threat Intelligence Group, ransom payments will grow by an average of 144% to $2.2 million in 2021, and the average ransom payment will also increase by 78% to $541,010, while the world’s worst-hit industries include Professional and legal services, construction, wholesale and retail, medical, and manufacturing.

Jen Miller-Osborn, Deputy Director of Threat Intelligence at Unit 42, said Threatware attacks in 2021 impacted everyday activities people around the world were accustomed to, from buying groceries and gas to emergency calls to 119 for medical care.

You Huisheng, general manager of Palo Alto Networks Taiwan, said the number of threat software attacks in Taiwan has increased significantly over the past year. Attackers are becoming more and more creative, and ransomware as a service also greatly reduces the technical threshold for attacks.

The Conti ransomware group accounted for the largest ransomware campaign, with Unit 42 personnel linked to the group in more than 1 in 5 of the 42 attacks handled in 2021. Second place REvil (aka Sodinokibi) was at 7.1%, followed by Hello Kitty and Phobos (4.8% each). Conti also posted the names of 511 organizations on the dark web, the highest ranking.

The report also describes the growth of the online ransomware ecosystem in 2021, including the emergence of 35 new ransomware groups. The report depicts how criminal enterprises use ill-gotten gains to craft easy-to-use tools to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities.

The report shows that the number of victimized institutions whose data is posted on declassified websites will grow by 85% to 2,566 in 2021. 60% of victims of decrypted websites were in the Americas, followed by EMEA (31%), followed by Asia Pacific (9%).

Huawei Ren Zhengfei: Reasonable royalties should be charged, too low to curb innovation

The Economic News Agency reported that on the 6th, the Huawei employee forum Xinsheng community disclosed the minutes of the “Patent Licensing Business Report” meeting issued by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei. Ren Zhengfei pointed out that Huawei should continue to play the role of patents to protect the company’s global business security, and establish Huawei’s image as an innovator through reasonable fees; and patent fees cannot be charged for the sake of charging, nor can they be too low. If they are too low, they will be curbed. The innovation of the whole society, no one is willing to invest in research and development, will form a de facto monopoly, and it does not meet the principle of fairness, reasonableness and non-discrimination required by law.

The minutes pointed out that those who invest in R&D all expect a little more income than the investment, and there are bound to be many failures in R&D investment, and the cost of failure should also be included in the cost, so that everyone will be willing to continue to invest in in-depth R&D and form a positive cycle; At the same time, we must be prepared to fight a “protracted war.” We do not seek quick wins, nor are we afraid of defeat.

According to the “2021 Patent Index” report released by the European Patent Office (EPO) on the 5th, Huawei will apply for a total of 3,544 patents to the EPO in 2021, becoming the company with the largest number of patent applications to the EPO that year.

Clearing it into a political goal, experts: China will not deregulate until 2023

The strict closure of Shanghai has made the outside world question why such extreme measures are still needed to deal with the less toxic Omicron, and the fact that the spread of Omicron and its variants has been proved to be uncontrollable. However, foreign media analyzed that China took Hong Kong as a lesson, and the zero-clearing strategy has become mainstream political awareness, and China may not relax control until 2023.

For the past two years, Shanghai has been in a state of singing and dancing, and the Wuhan pneumonia period has not affected Shanghai. It seems that the virus has never crossed Shanghai in the future, but this time it cannot escape the rapidly spreading Omicron mutant strain. Shanghai is now in a state of war. According to Shanghai residents, community residents now rely on outsiders to be responsible for purchasing and cannot leave their homes. Some communities even have problems with material rationing, and they can even eat only one bowl of porridge a day. Large-scale people crowded hospitals for nucleic acid testing, and medical resources were crowded out, causing people who really needed medical assistance to lose their lives.

The sudden outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai has made the epidemic prevention control messy. Even with the strictest control measures, Shanghai has reported a total of 40,000 cases in March, becoming the new virus center in China. To keep businesses running, the Shanghai government kept port, factory and some office workers living in their workplaces, such as those in the financial industry who were forced to sleep in their offices for weeks.

The economic shock is already on the horizon, with the Caixin Markit monthly index showing that China’s manufacturing activity fell to a two-year low in March amid disruptions to the outbreak and export orders cancelled after Russia invaded Ukraine. One statistic using trucking estimates that China’s lost productivity due to the lockdown is close to $50 billion a month. While the port is still operating normally, a supply chain tracking company said there has been a reduction in seaborne volumes.

The loss caused by the reset policy is too great. Originally, many people expected that the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics would bring a turning point in China’s new crown policy, but now the reset policy has become a mainstream political task, including Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Believing that the threat of BA.2 is still great, the country must adhere to this approach, and Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan also urged Shanghai to take decisive and swift action to contain the epidemic, while emphasizing the need to adhere to a dynamic zero-epidemic policy.

The outside world believes that the epidemic in Hong Kong has made China afraid. Low vaccination rates among the elderly are one of the reasons for the high COVID-19 mortality rate in Hong Kong, and these risk factors are also present in China. Only half of China’s population over the age of 80 has been twice vaccinated, and Chinese health authorities have repeatedly warned that the health system could be overwhelmed if the virus spreads widely among its 1.4 billion people, especially if vaccinations for older people lag behind.

According to QUARTZ, what China is doing now is to find as many infected people as possible, buy time to ensure adequate medical capacity and increase vaccination rates. The former chief economist at UBS said China must make sure there is no Hong Kong situation ahead of the Communist Party Congress this fall.

In addition, the new five-year development plan released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China in January, which describes 2023-2025 as a period of growth for domestic and international travel, is also a signal for China to relax its zero-clearing strategy. The Chinese government is expected to keep restrictions on and off for the rest of 2022, with major changes only in 2023.

iPhone is trendy! Survey: 87% of teenagers want to buy an iPhone

According to the latest survey of American teens by investment firm Piper Sandler, the number of teens planning to buy their first iPhone is near a record high; Piper Sandler analyst Harsh Kumar pointed out that 87% of the teens surveyed said that their next iPhone The mobile phone will be the iPhone, which is also close to an all-time high.

The Piper Sandler survey is the company’s 43rd (semi-annual) survey of teens; the reason why the survey results are close to an all-time high is because Piper Sandler’s survey in the spring of 2021 has as many as 90 people. % of teens said their next phone will be an iOS phone, and a whopping 88% of teens surveyed at the time said they already owned an iPhone.

Teens’ love for the iPhone has also indirectly boosted the popularity of other Apple services; according to survey results, the most popular personal money transfer app among American teens is Apple Pay (a feature not yet available in Taiwan), beating out PayPal’s Venmo service.

And Harsh Kumar also believes that the performance of Apple’s service sector will also grow further. Its services include App Store, Apple Pay, Apple Care+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Card, Apple TV+, Apple News+, Apple Fitness+, iCloud , iTunes Store, etc.

There are now more than 1 billion active iPhones around the world, which also means that Apple services have a large number of users who are ready and willing to subscribe to multiple Apple services.

The closure of the city of Kunshan, China is extended to 4/8, and the legal person estimates the impact on the PCB supply chain

With the spread of the new crown epidemic in China, the Kunshan Municipal Government announced that it would extend the closure and control measures to April 8, requiring all personnel not to leave Kunshan unless necessary, and requiring enterprises to implement closed management in an all-round way to effectively prevent the spread of the new crown epidemic, and because Kunshan is a PCB supply chain Therefore, it is estimated that the legal person will impact the operation of some manufacturers.

The Kunshan New Crown Epidemic Joint Prevention and Control Headquarters issued Circular No. 32 on April 5. From 0:00 on April 6 to 24:00 on April 8, prevention and control measures will be further strengthened, mainly including not leaving Kunshan unless it is necessary, and the public will reduce the number of people suffering from For necessary activities, the city remains relatively silent, and enterprises that reduce production take turns to implement closed management in an all-round way.

Xinxing announced that its Kunshan subsidiaries are temporarily suspended, including Kunshan Dingxin, a subsidiary that mainly produces PCB and HDI, and Xinxing Tongtai, a subsidiary that mainly produces soft boards. The production capacity accounts for about 20~25%. According to the current prevention and control measures Calculated from April 2 to 8, the legal person estimates that it will affect April revenue by about 4~6%.

Taiwan Optoelectronics announced that its Kunshan subsidiary will temporarily suspend production. The legal person estimates that the production capacity will account for about 30~40%. According to the current prevention and control measures from April 2 to 8, it is estimated that it will affect the April revenue by about 7~10%.

Nandian announced that the Kunshan plant is under closed-loop management, which does not affect the company’s operations. The legal person estimates that the production capacity accounts for about 40%, mainly producing PCB and BT carrier boards.

Dingying announced that it will implement rotating holidays in line with government policies. The legal person estimates that Kunshan’s production capacity will account for about 60-65%; Taijun has not yet made relevant announcements, and the legal person estimates that the empty board manufacturing capacity in the front section of Kunshan will account for about 40%.

As China’s new crown epidemic continues to be severe, Taiwan’s major PCB manufacturers Xinxing, Nanya Circuit Board, Taiwan Optoelectronics, Wistron, and Pegatron have all announced suspension of work recently, and with the upgrade of Kunshan’s sealing and control, as a printed circuit board PCB supply chain It is estimated that the legal person will impact the PCB supply chain.