More than 364,000 people descended on Shanghai last week to attend the four-day ChinaJoy event, one of Asia’s largest annual digital entertainment and gaming expos.

Visitor numbers have grown eightfold since it started in 2004.

Despite the record-high visitor figures, ChinaJoy saw a fall in gaming companies on show at the convention this year.

The country’s gaming sector is still in recovery mode after a year-long freeze on new licenses that only ended earlier in 2019.

For a lot of ACG fans, however, ChinaJoy represents one of the few reasons to leave the house this summer.

One attendee dressed as Roadhog from Overwatch told TechNode reporters that he was here just to see check out what Blizzard, the game’s developer, was going to display.

Ant Financial has hinted that its mutual aid platform could collaborate with insurance providers as user numbers continue to swell, Chinese media reported.

Why it matters: Mutual aid platforms like Ant’s Xianghubao started gaining traction in China last year, especially among those who have typically not been well-served by the country’s healthcare system.

They enable members to share treatment costs equally, and are often seen as more accessible and affordable than traditional products.

Other Chinese tech giants have also dipped their toes into mutual aid over the past year.

Tencent is a major investor in insurtech startup Waterdrop, which closed a RMB 1 billion ($142 million) funding round in June.

Xianghubao and other mutual aid platforms have faced regulatory scrutiny (in Chinese) from regulators for promoting their products as insurance products.

A research team at Baidu’s video platform iQiyi has released a new facial recognition dataset named iCartoonFace, Synced Review reports.

The researchers say the anime-based dataset can apply to recognition research, cartoon person modeling, and image classification.

Why it matters: For China’s competitive streaming industry, the use of innovative artificial intelligence applications can prove valuable.

The new dataset demonstrates iQiyi’s efforts to push boundaries in AI research as it looks to improve its animated content offering for users.

Details: iCartoonFace comprises over 68,000 annotated images with 2,639 identities from 739 anime and cartoon albums found online and in iQiyi’s video library.

The researchers also proposed a new “dataset fusion” method to improve performance in cartoon-based facial recognition algorithms.

Baidu is allocating $30 million for a joint company with Youzan, one of China’s largest third-party providers of in-app retail services, as the search giant looks to accelerate the development of its mini-program ecosystem.

Why it matters: Mini-programs, lightweight alternative to apps, are fast becoming a key channel for merchants to engage with users.

First introduced on Tencent’s WeChat, most of China’s tech players, including Alibaba and ByteDance, are aggressively exploring their potential.

The market for software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors that help companies to set up and maintain mini-programs is also booming.

Monthly active users (MAU) of Baidu mini-programs hit 250 million in July this year, just one year after their introduction on its search app.

In comparison, WeChat mini-programs boasted 400 million MAU as of April last year.

A group of Chinese state-backed hackers is also launching financially motivated attacks for personal gain in what cybersecurity researchers call a “remarkable” deviation from a singular focus on espionage.

Why it matters: The group, dubbed Advanced Persistent Threat 41 (APT41), is known for having targeted the healthcare, high-tech, and telecommunications sectors in 14 countries ranging from the US to Turkey and South Africa.

The group is unique among China’s state-backed hackers for its use of tools typically reserved for espionage operations in missions that fall outside state control.

“APT41 carries out an array of financially motivated intrusions, particularly against the video game industry, including stealing source code and digital certificates, virtual currency manipulation, and attempting to deploy ransomware.”

—Cybersecurity researchers wrote in their report

Details: The researchers from cybersecurity firm FireEye said the group’s skills gained from cybercrime activities have ultimately supported its state-sponsored operations.

A mobile title from Bilibili aimed at female users has stormed to the top of the paid game ranking on Apple’s app store in China.

Why it matters: Developers and publishers in China are putting more emphasis on games targeting female audiences as the user group’s purchasing power surges, as has been demonstrated by a stream of successful titles such as “Mr.

Details: The title, which translates to “Palms That Can’t Be Reached,” was first released in Japan by Capcom in 2016 with the name “Imprisoned Palm.” Bilibili won the rights to distribute the game in China some time ago but had been unable to move forward due to a freeze on new game approvals in the country, GameLook reported.

The game allows users to interact with two male non-playable characters stuck behind glass panels, who are imprisoned on a desert island.

Even when “visitations” are over, players can snoop on the characters using surveillance cameras and communicate with them using in-game phones.

Although the title is priced at RMB 6 ($0.85) in Apple’s China App Store, users need to pay RMB 56 through in-game purchases to unlock the game’s most essential content.

Huawei on Friday unveiled its long-awaited self-developed operating system HarmonyOS on its smart television product, but it may not be an Android alternative as previously rumored.

Why it matters: HarmonyOS, also known as Hongmeng OS, was deemed to be Huawei’s alternative to Google’s Android after the Chinese firm was cut off from US technology.

The debut of the operating system was on Huawei’s TV set, but it is not yet available on smartphones.

The current version of the operating system, or the HarmonyOS 1.0, runs on the company’s TV product, which was released last month.

The future HarmonyOS will support a wide range of devices from personal computers to smartwatches, as well as virtual reality glasses, said Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, at the Huawei Developer Conference in Dongguan on Friday, without mentioning any plan to install it on smartphones.

It is a microkernel-based, distributed OS that delivers a smooth experience across all scenarios.”

Nio is opening battery swap stations in major Chinese cities this week.

This is the company’s latest push to allay fears that electric vehicles are limited due to their inefficient range.

Why it matters: Range is often one of the biggest issues consumers have when considering an electric car.

Battery swapping is theoretically a quicker, safer and more convenient choice than a fast charge.

Nio is one of the few EV makers that support battery swapping and has invested heavily in urban facilities.

Previously, Nio provided swapping points for owners along Chinese highways, while those in urban areas had to rely on battery delivery services.

The Trump administration released details of a rule on Wednesday that will officially bar US government agencies from buying telecommunications equipment from Huawei, despite the Chinese firm’s efforts to fight the move in court.

Why it matters: The rule comes after the latest round of trade talks between the US and China ended without a deal, making Huawei, again, a bargaining chip in a stand-off between the world’s two largest economies.

The prohibition cites the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed last year, which restricts the use of federal money to purchase telecom equipment from companies that pose national security risks, which include Huawei.

The ban is also part of a broader US push against Huawei over the fears that Huawei gear may provide backdoors for the Chinese government into American and its allies’ networks.

“The law provides Huawei with no opportunity to rebut the accusations, to present evidence in its defense, or to avail itself of other procedures that impartial adjudicators provide to ensure a fair search for the truth.”

—Song Liuping, the chief legal officer at Huawei, commenting on the NDAA

Tesla is offering a 50% discount on the “fully driverless” version of its Autopilot assistance system in China, part of efforts to boost its adoption in the country.

Why it matters: Increased use of full Autopilot in China will help Tesla to optimize its localized self-driving solution for the Chinese market, which is its second-largest globally after the US.

Tesla’s China software team currently sends data and feedback from local users to the US for processing, according to a media report.

It will finish work on a local research and development center in Beijing later this year to handle optimization efforts for the Chinese market in the future.

Tesla, which enjoys support from the Chinese government, released a picture of its Gigafactory 3 Shanghai on its social media account on Wednesday, saying it will go into operation by the year-end.

Details: Chinese Model S and Model X owners who bought the enhanced version of the Autopilot, can spend 50% less on replacing their system with the full self-driving package at RMB 27,800 (roughly $3,950).

Hackers have attempted to steal information from Chinese government employees by faking email login pages for several high profile agencies and state-owned enterprises, cybersecurity researchers say.

Why it matters: The apparent espionage attempt may be linked to an advanced persistent threat (APT) group, an organization that accesses private information for a prolonged period while remaining undetected.

The offensive began as early as the second half of 2018.

The hackers targeted China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, state planner the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Commerce, among others.

“By stealing email credentials, and accessing internal email content, it would be possible to gain insight into what decisions are being made within the target organization and could lead to the theft of sensitive information.”

—Cybersecurity researchers said in a report published on Thursday

NetEase recorded steady growth in the second quarter of 2019 with gains of more than 10% in net revenue and gross profit, driven primarily by the company’s online gaming and e-commerce businesses.

Why it matters: Since China has eased up on restricting new game approvals, NetEase has pushed to diversify its portfolio of titles.

It has launched several mobile games and expedited the development of upcoming titles, including the country’s first official Pokémon mobile game.

Details: NetEase’s net revenue rose 15.3% year on year to $2.7 billion, of which more than 60% came from online game services, which itself grew 13.6%.

Income from mobile games accounted for nearly three-quarters of the company’s total gaming turnover for the period.

Net revenue from e-commerce grew by one-fifth to reach $764.3 million.