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Saturday, April 20, 2024

Kuala Lumpur ranked 22 in list of 100 best cities for remote work

KL ranked 22nd for remote work - The Star

The city to be in: Malaysia is a prime destination for employers looking for quality team members, and for many businesses to establish an Asian hub in Kuala Lumpur. — IZZRAFIQ ALIAS/The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: Kuala Lumpur made a significant leap to the 22nd position, a significant climb from its 84th place in the 2022 rankings, cementing its status as one of the premier global destinations for remote work.

This upward trajectory is mirrored by other Southeast Asian cities like Taipei, securing the 8th spot, and Bangkok, ranking 18th, according to Remote, a prominent global HR platform.

Published by Remote, the list of the top 100 global destinations for remote work showcases cities such as Madrid (Spain), Madeira (Portugal), Toronto (Canada), Auckland (New Zealand), and Tokyo (Japan) among the top 10 choices.

Factors such as quality of life, safety, internet infrastructure, cost of living, inflation, attractiveness, openness, and incentives for remote workers were meticulously considered in the analysis.

Utilising the latest data, the list aims to guide digital nomads and remote professionals in making informed decisions aligned with their personal preferences and career goals. Kuala Lumpur particularly stands out, ranking in the top five for its favourable remote work visa and incentive programs.

Remote underscores the increasing significance of selecting the right destination as remote work evolves into a lifestyle choice.

It highlighted Kuala Lumpur's appeal as a magnet for remote workers, reflecting the proactive stance of the Malaysian government in positioning itself as a prime destination for digital nomads within the ASEAN region.

The allure of Kuala Lumpur lies in its blend of a relatively low cost of living, attractive incentives for digital nomads, and the availability of fast and reliable internet services. Nonetheless, factors such as quality of life and openness have also played a pivotal role in shaping its overall ranking, it said.

Job van der Voort, co-founder and chief executive officer of Remote, highlighted the transformative nature of remote work, enabling professionals to sustain careers in environments that inspire productivity and balance.

This year's list reflects not only the best places for remote living and working but also the evolving needs of remote professionals in a post-pandemic world, he said.

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NATION Nov 22, 2023 @ 4:48pm

Job-seekers put high value on remote work

Friday, April 19, 2024

Eruption of Mount Ruang volcano puts paid to travel plans, Volcano’s fury sparks tsunami alert

Fury unleashed: A handout from Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency showing people in Sitaro, North Sulawesi, looking at the Mount Ruang volcano, as it spews smoke. — AFP/National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas

Volcano’s fury sparks tsunami alert

Lives interrupted: Sharul’s daughter’s flight was among the flights cancelled. (Right) Miguel says suspended flights meant students couldn’t get back to their classes in Sarawak.

PETALING JAYA: From family members and students to a would-be bridegroom, the eruption of Mount Ruang volcano in Sulawesi, Indonesia, has caused widespread disruptions to Malaysians – and even their pets – between the peninsula and the South China Sea.

Those affected by the cancelled flights to and from Sabah and Sarawak took to social media to share their experiences yesterday.

On X (formerly Twitter), Tiffa Riza expressed sadness for being unable to return to Kuching to pick up her cats.

“Please pray that my flight doesn’t get delayed because of the volcano eruption. I want to go pick up my cats,” she wrote before finding out about the cancellation of her flight.

She later updated her X status: “I can’t go home because of the volcano. Inbound and outbound flights from Sabah and Sarawak are all cancelled for today and tomorrow.”

A Facebook user, Han Budak Cina, said he was making a trip back to Sarawak yesterday for his wedding tomorrow.

“I was planning to go to Sarawak today (yesterday) ... I’m getting married this Saturday,” he wrote.

Another X user known as Miguel said many Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) students from Peninsular Malaysia couldn’t return to their classes in Sarawak following the suspended flights.

“Unimas students from the peninsula who want to go to Sabah and Sarawak this week can’t do so as all flights have been suspended,” he wrote.

Ju Razalli, whose flight from Penang to Sabah was suspended, attached a video of passengers queueing up to leave the aircraft with her post on Facebook.

“All passengers were instructed to leave (the aircraft).

“All flights to Sabah are cancelled effective immediately. Sabah’s airspace is closed,” she wrote.

Sharul Wong posted on Facebook that her daughter’s Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight from Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) scheduled for departure at 9.50am yesterday was also cancelled.

“Now, she is at KKIA, waiting for MAS to reschedule her flight,” he said.

According to news reports, over 2,000 passengers were stranded at Terminal 2 of KLIA due to the eruption of Mount Ruang.

The cancelled flights involve those to Sandakan, Labuan, Miri, Sibu, Bintulu, Kuching and Brunei, which are expected to be affected until 8am today.

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Thursday, April 18, 2024

Ernie Bot helps Chinese tech giant Baidu double down on AI push

Ernie LLM has emerged as China’s leading AI foundation model with the broadest range of applications. — China Daily

SHENZHEN: Chinese tech heavyweight Baidu Inc says its large language model and ChatGPT-like chatbot, Ernie Bot, has garnered more than 200 million users since its debut in March 2023.

The company said it is ramping up efforts to bolster the commercial application of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

On Tuesday, Baidu showcased a suite of AI models and development toolkits to empower individuals with accessible and easy-to-use tools to create AI applications at the Create 2024 Baidu AI Developer Conference in Shenzhen, Guangdong.

Robin Li, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu, said at the event that the Ernie LLM has now emerged as China’s leading AI foundation model with the broadest range of applications.

LLMs refer to AI models fed with huge amounts of text data for use in a variety of tasks, ranging from natural language processing to machine translation.

Li said the Ernie model has achieved an obvious upgrade with improved performance in code generation, code interpretation, and code optimisation in recent months, and its capabilities have reached a world-leading level.

The inference performance of the Ernie model has improved by 105 times compared with the one launched last March, and its inference cost has been reduced to only 1% of the previous version, he said.

Furthermore, more than 85,000 enterprise clients have used Baidu’s enterprise-level LLM platform, Qianfan, to create 190,000 AI applications.

“AI is catalysing a revolution in creativity. In the future, developing an AI application will be as straightforward as creating a short video. Everyone can be a developer and create,” Li said.

Li also said multimodal LLMs that integrate different types of content like text, images, speech and video into AI models are key to the future development of AI.

This approach has been largely regarded as essential for realising artificial general intelligence, which is a theoretical AI system with capabilities that rival those of a human, Li said.

Charlie Dai, vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester, a research firm, said that as one of the leaders in the AI software market in China, Baidu has made substantial progress in the technological evolution of foundation models, which are becoming critical for next-generation AI applications.

He added that the company was expanding its business ecosystem of generative AI technology.

At the event, Li also noted that “the most significant use for large visual models is in autonomous driving systems”.

Baidu’s goal is not just about teaching AI to create video but also about enabling AI to comprehend real-world dynamics and predict future events, which are critical for driving autonomously.

He said the company has utilised extensive data from over 100 million kilometres of testing on complex city roads in China to develop the visual model for its autonomous driving platform, Apollo.

The multimodal LLM is an undeniable future development direction for generative AI technology, said Lu Yanxia, research director at market consultancy IDC China.

She added that the LLMs necessitate a higher demand for data and knowledge in professional fields and for talent that can fine-tune specialised models based on diverse industrial demands.

Lu said Chinese tech companies should pool more resources into improving computing power, algorithms and the quality of data to gain a competitive edge in the global AI chatbot race.

Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee for Information and Communication Economy, which operates under the aegis of the Industry and Information Technology Ministry, said the Ernie model made achievements in some specialised application scenarios like AI programming.

Pan said more efforts should be made to bolster the vertical industrial application of LLMs in a wider range of sectors. — China Daily/ANN

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Related:

Chinese internet giants speed up development of AI to tap vast market

Chinese internet giants JD.com and Baidu are aiming to speed up the development and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) large language models (LLMs), as they hope to deploy their latest technologies to tap China's massive online market.

Baidu's AI generative product ERNIE Bot amasses over 100 million users as China welcomes a 'battle

Baidu launches enhanced ERNIE 4.0 AI generative bot

unlimited opportunities for new innovations.nbsp;brbrIn his keynote, Li showcased the new ERNIE Bot...
2023/10/17 Source: Global Times | Author: Global Times | Column: Economy

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