Plus, dtac accelerate reveals latest cohort and Mobike looks set to launch in India

Singapore blocks dozens of websites over piracy concerns — [Straits Times]

The Singapre government has blocked 53 websites related to online piracy after the Motion Pictures Association of America made the request under the country’s updated copyright laws.

According to The Straits Times, the ban hits famous torrent websites like The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents.

The country’s major internet providers — Singtel, StarHub, M1, MyRepublic and ViewQuest— were all ordered to restrict access to websites.

The websites blocked were described as “flagrantly violating” intellectual property laws.

Grab partners with Maybank to launch mobile wallet in Malaysia — [Reuters]

Grab today continued its regional push into the finance space after it announced a partnership with Maybank to help launch its GrabPay mobile wallet in Malaysia, according to Reuters.

The wallet is expected to see its beta-version launched in Malaysia in the coming weeks.

Upon its launch, Malaysians should be able to use the product to buy goods from offline merchants, which would make it the second country with such a feature after Singapore. Other countries have GrabPay but it’s used only as a way to pay for rides and redeem rewards within the app.

dtac Accelerate announces its latest batch — [e27]

dtac accelerate — one of the leading accelerator programmes in Thailand — announced the 11 startups that were accepted into the latest cohort.

A very basic idea of each startups vertical is below, with more details being in the original article.

Kohlife – Travel and transportation
Zwiz.AI – Artificial intelligence
PenguinT – Travel
Kochii – Entertainment
Event Banana – Uber for events
GoWabi – Beauty
Ooca – Health tech
Somjai Home Loan – Lending
CareerVisa – Edtech
Noburo – Fintech
Doctor A-Z – Health tech

Alibaba and SenseTime set to launch AI-Hub in Hong Kong — [South China Morning Post]

SenseTime, a Hong Kong-based artificial intelligence company, is preparing to launch an AI-hub in conjunction with Alibaba in the city, according to the South China Morning Post.

From Alibaba’s perspective, the hub will be financed by the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund.

To kick things off, the hub will collaborate with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation to launch a 6-month-long accelerator programme for local AI-based startups.The programme will start in September and moving forward will onboard 6-10 startups over two cohorts bi-annually.

MoBike set to enter India following trail blazed by ofo — [India Today]

The Chinese bike-sharing company MoBike are in “advanced discussions” with Indian government authorities to launch their service in the next few weeks, according to India Today.

Should they launch soon, they will be about six-months behind ofo, their top competitor that has already surpassed the 1 million ride marks in India.

The expected launch cities for MoBike are Nagpur, Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune and Ahmedabad.

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