Bike-Sharing Fares in Beijing Just Climbed Again, Holiday Base Rates Hit 2.5 RMB
If you’re riding around Beijing this week, brace yourself—Didi Qingju and Meituan shared bikes have officially announced another round of price adjustments. Starting mid-June, both platforms will roll out revised billing structures that will noticeably bump up the cost for longer trips.
Here’s how it breaks down for Didi Qingju: the changes hit in two phases. On June 19, holiday pricing kicks in, followed by standard weekday and weekend rates on June 22. Under the new system, weekday and weekend rides start at 1.99 RMB for your first hour, with a flat rate of 0.1 RMB per minute thereafter. But slip into a public holiday, and that base fare jumps to 2.5 RMB for the initial hour, keeping the 0.1 RMB/minute overtime charge.
Meituan shared bikes roll out their updated rates starting midnight on June 19 across Beijing’s six central districts. Riders will see a base fee plus overtime charges: 1.88 RMB covers the first 60 minutes on regular weekdays and weekends, ticking over at 0.1 RMB/minute after that. Interestingly, holiday pricing follows the exact same baseline structure, keeping things straightforward even during peak travel days.
Driver Napped Six Times While Cruising Over 100 km/h on Highway? Hello Issues Full Apology & Permanent Ban
A chilling ride-share recording from Guangdong has gone viral, sparking serious safety concerns across social media. Passenger Ms. Chen booked a cross-city trip via Hello Hitch, heading from Xuwen in Zhanjiang straight to Luohu in Shenzhen. Almost the entire route was highway, with the vehicle consistently clocking around 114 km/h. Even more alarming? The driver had the car’s advanced driver-assistance systems engaged for roughly 95% of the journey, only to lean his head back and fall asleep no fewer than six separate times. Despite Ms. Chen repeatedly shouting warnings, nothing shook him awake. Feeling completely unsafe, she eventually pulled out her phone and dialed emergency services.
Hello Rideshares responded swiftly on June 17, confirming they launched an immediate investigation upon receiving the report. The verdict? The driver’s actions clearly crossed into dangerous territory, violating core platform safety protocols. He’s been permanently banned from the app. “We deeply apologize for the terrifying experience our passengers faced,” a company spokesperson noted, adding that they’re currently working out a compensation package directly with Ms. Chen.
ByteDance Steps Up Bulk Orders for Domestic AI Chips
Data centers don’t run themselves, and ByteDance is clearly doubling down on homegrown silicon. According to recent reports from NUPIAO, the tech giant is actively discussing a major procurement deal with Illova (Tianshu Zhixin) for at least 50,000 AI inference chips. These processors will be primarily dedicated to handling large language model workloads, specifically matching Illova’s Zhikai series cloud inference GPUs, while training tasks will continue leveraging the Tianhai lineup. If the deal goes through, Illova becomes ByteDance’s third major GPU partner, sitting alongside Huawei and Cambricon. As of publication, neither ByteDance nor Illova has dropped an official comment.
New National Guidelines Crack Down on Food Delivery Subsidies; Meituan, Taobao, & JD All Pledge Compliance
Regulators are finally drawing a line under aggressive discount wars. On June 17, the State Administration for Market Regulation officially opened a public consultation period for the “Ten Guidelines on Regulating Food Delivery Platform Subsidy Practices.”
Meituan jumped on board immediately, issuing a statement promising full cooperation and strict adherence to the new standards. They emphasized that aligning with the Ten Guidelines will help steer the industry away from destructive price wars and toward healthier competition focused on service quality and product standards—ultimately benefiting consumers, merchants, and drivers alike.
Taobao Flash Shopping echoed similar sentiments, backing the regulatory body’s efforts to foster high-quality market development. They pledged to work alongside other industry players to uphold fair, transparent competition once the final rules drop.
JD Food Delivery also threw its weight behind the initiative, strongly endorsing the anti-race-to-the-bottom stance. They highlighted how maintaining equitable market conditions protects the hard-earned rights of everyday consumers, business owners, and delivery riders.
Xiaomi Announces Police Breakup AI-Driven Smear Campaign; Four Suspects Detained
Spam and fake news aren’t taking a day off, but neither is law enforcement. Xiaomi’s official spokesperson confirmed on June 17 that Xi’an cyber police successfully dismantled a criminal operation using AI tools to manufacture false rumors targeting the company. The raid netted three MCN agencies and fourteen individuals, resulting in four formal criminal detentions. Investigators traced over 340,000 RMB in illicit funds, confiscated 29 computers and 26 smartphones, and forced the shutdown of every involved account.
Preliminary probes revealed a highly automated scheme: these agencies maintained massive networks of shell accounts designed solely to spam AI-generated fake videos and articles across various social platforms without any fact-checking or editorial oversight.
Insta360 Exec Calls Out Organized Bot Attacks During Active Patent Dispute
Courtroom battles are one thing, but online smear campaigns during litigation? That’s a whole different ballgame. On June 17, Insta360 China head Yuan Yue published a detailed breakdown claiming the company faced a coordinated wave of malicious bot attacks right after filing a mutual patent infringement lawsuit against a competitor.
Internal data shows that within just 24 hours of the lawsuit announcement, nearly 1,500 suspicious accounts suddenly popped up across multiple platforms. These profiles were practically carbon copies of each other—identical IP ranges, nearly duplicate bios, synchronized posting schedules, and copy-pasted comment scripts. Some even tracked identical purchasing habits.
While hiring digital water armies to hype or suppress tech products might be an open secret in the automotive and consumer electronics circles, Yuan Yue drew a clear ethical boundary. Launching organized PR strikes while a case is still wading through judicial procedures crosses the line.
“Filing a lawsuit is merely step one,” Yuan pointed out. “These bot farms and their unseen orchestrators are trying to shortcut the entire legal process—bypassing evidence gathering, trials, and verdicts—to instantly brand our company as ‘copiers’ before a judge ever raises a gavel.”
Alibaba Cloud Expands Global Footprint with New Regions in Paris and Johor
Global connectivity is getting a serious boost. Alibaba Cloud officially activated its new data center regions in Paris, France, and Johor, Malaysia, while simultaneously expanding existing hubs in Tokyo and Mexico. The push is directly tied to surging international demand for AI deployment and skyrocketing token usage across global markets.
Once this expansion phase wraps up, Alibaba Cloud’s worldwide network will span an impressive 32 geographic regions housing 105 individual availability zones, giving enterprises far more localized low-latency options for their cloud workloads.
Samsung Targets Next-Year Production Ramp for 7th-Gen 1d DRAM
The memory race is heating up. Reports indicate Samsung Electronics is teaming up with key semiconductor suppliers to engineer mass-production equipment for its seventh-generation 10-nanometer-class (1d) DRAM. The goal? Have pilot manufacturing tools rolling by Q2 next year, which could pave the way for early volume production sometime before year-end.
Samsung has already wrapped up early prototype runs and internal stress tests for 1d DRAM, but heavy reliance on still-developing fabrication machinery forced a realistic timeline adjustment earlier this year. Still, the 1d architecture remains a cornerstone of Samsung’s AI storage strategy, slated to serve as the foundational die for HBM5E—a next-gen high-bandwidth memory stack projected for commercial rollout in 2029.
