The_King

SINGAPORE -The Carousell seller would call the couple at all hours of the day, claiming that he would return their money soon. The 27-year-old, who offered hotel stays in Marina Bay Sands, even gave them an address to pick up the $277,000 he took from them in a bag full of cash, but he always cancelled the meetings at the last minute. This was one of the 3,354 police reported e-commerce scams last year, the police announced on Tuesday (Feb 9) when releasing their yearly statistics. Ivan and Jessica (not their real names) eventually decided to report him to the police and the scammer was charged in court last month. "We usually go on Carousell for our staycations and we do that quite frequently. And so, when we chanced upon this seller, we went to look at his reviews as usual and saw he was quite reliable," said Ivan at a media conference held by the police on Monday. Ivan, 22, who is currently serving his National Service, and his girlfriend Jessica, 25, a business owner, paid $29,000 initially for nine hotel rooms with three-night stays. However, the Carousell seller made up excuses to siphon more money off them, such as by claiming that they needed to pay cancellation fees even though he did not secure the booking for them. He convinced them to transfer more money to him so that he could purportedly pay off other buyers and have his bank account unfrozen by the authorities. Eventually, the couple gave him more than $277,000 over a four-month period. The scammer offered fake Marina Bay Sands hotel stays through the e-commerce platform Carousell. ST PHOTO: JOEL CHAN "The reason why this amount went up so high is because we were so wrapped up in this situation and we didn't know what else to do, how to get this money back... (and) because he gave us hope that we will get this money back," said Ivan. A total of 15,756 scams were reported in 2020 – a 65.1 per cent jump in cases from the 9,545 reported in 2019. E-commerce scams, which rose by 19.1 per cent last year, were the most commonly reported type of scams last year. The total amount cheated in e-commerce scams increased to $6.9 million in 2020, from $2.3 million the year before. The largest sum cheated in a single case in 2020 was $1.9 million.

should i follow him and eat like there no tomorrow?

Heng no craving

Will try one in April. Just need another 2 month to heal

That one lazy YouTubers Do food court at least 5 dish all different locations or different vendors

The one in Changi road

Heng China cannot copy physics and it chemical

i guess the online order failed

Popular bak kwa brand Lim Chee Guan's walk-in sale started on Feb. 8 after overwhelming online sale. Members of the public can visit their physical outlets to buy bak kwa from Feb. 8 to Feb. 10. The news attracted queues for both outlets at People's Park Complex and New Bridge Road with the first customer arriving at the latter outlet at 4am on Feb. 8. Shorter queue at People's Park Complex Amongst Lim Chee Guan's four branches, two of them are located at Chinatown. Although the New Bridge road branch only opens at 9am, 8world reported that there were already more than 50 people in the queue outside the store at 8am on Feb. 8. Although there were no floor markings to enforce safe distancing, the customers instinctively maintained safe distancing amongst each other. When the store opened at 9am, the queue had grown to more than 140 people and stretched all the way to Temple Street with more people continuing to join the queue. The other branch at People's Park Complex opened at 9am, an hour earlier than usual. The queue for this branch only had over 20 people when 8world arrived at the scene at 9:10am. Both stores have different purchase limits. The New Bridge Road branch permits each customer to buy a maximum of 50kg of bak kwa while the People's Park Complex restricts each customer to a maximum of 20kg. The New Bridge Road outlet told 8world that they had prepared sufficient bak kwa stock for the day. "As long as we do not put up the 'end of queue' sign or advise customers to stop queueing, you can definitely make your purchase no matter how long you queue." First customer at 4am The first customer at the front of the queue at the New Bridge Road branch is a woman who wishes to remain anonymous. She had arrived at the store at 4am and was prepared to buy 6kg of bak kwa to share amongst her family and to gift to friends during the Chinese New Year. Another customer, a 50-year-old man, identified as Lee, had encountered problems when attempting to make his order online. Upon receiving the news that Lim Chee Guan was accepting walk-in purchases, he took leave off work just to come down to buy bak kwa with his friend as the second and third customers in the queue. Coming down to buy Lim Chee Guan bak kwa before Chinese New Year is a tradition that Lee has kept alive for more than 10 years. He believes, the people who queue are substantially lesser than in previous years. "Last time, they would hand out queue tickets, and I had encountered an instance when they were fully distributed by 8:30am. However, due to the pandemic, everyone is maintaining safe distancing. Yet, the queue is not as long as the queue for previous years." The fourth person in the queue, identified as Chen, is also a Lim Chee Guan fan. Chen had also tried to order online but encountered problems and did not succeed. As a result, he arrived at 5:30am to join the queue. He said, "Even if I arrive a little later, I still have to queue for three to four hours. I might as well arrive earlier, so I can return home earlier after making my purchase." Well-prepared to queue According to 8world's observations, some customers were seated on chairs that they had brought themselves while remaining in the queue, especially the first 10 or so customers at the New Bridge Road branch. Some people were either reading a book or watching videos on their mobile phones to kill time while waiting for their turn. Those who did not come with chairs were sitting on the ground or the edge of planters to reduce the discomfort of standing for too long. 60-year-old Zhou Cuimei had brought a bulky wooden chair all the way from her home. She was mentally prepared to queue for two to three hours, she said: "I don't know how to order online and I still need to wait. I like buying in-person because I can take it home immediately and eat it at night." 8world noticed that numerous people chose to try their luck at the People's Park Complex branch after seeing the long queue outside the New Bridge Road branch. One of them is 40-year-old Lin who had rushed down to buy bak kwa before going to work. She had not expected that the New Bridge Road would already have over 100 people in the queue. As a result, she decided to have a look at the People's Park Complex branch and was overjoyed to see that there were only over 10 people in the queue at that time. "It's the same taste of bak kwa after all. If I can buy it quicker here and don't need to queue as much, that's great!"

Employees work on a lithography machine at ASML in the Netherlands. While in-house technical personnel can be trained in the basic operation of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, chip makers will always need on-site support. Photo: Bloomberg After reading a report last week that said China was stockpiling chip-making equipment to protect against future US trade sanctions, I was reminded of two old proverbs: “There’s a sucker born every minute” and “laughing all the way to the bank”. Last year, Chinese companies spent almost US$32 billion buying such equipment from suppliers in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere, a 20 per cent jump from 2019, according to a Bloomberg analysis of official trade data. Separately, trade group SEMI forecast that total chip equipment sales by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to China reached US$18.1 billion last year, up from US$13.4 billion in 2019. Stockpiling semiconductors is one thing, but stockpiling the complex, high-priced machinery that makes them, is another – and comes with risks. This can only end badly for both sides. While it might make sense to stockpile machinery used to manufacture, say, smartphones or laptops, the approach won’t work for wafer fabrication gear that can cost several tens of millions of dollars apiece. It’s like trying to secure the supply of Coca-Cola by acquiring the bottling plants, but without the “secret” ingredients needed for its signature taste. Chips, unlike Coke, not only require secret ingredients – chemicals, gases, and even lightwaves – but also highly skilled people who know and understand the complex “recipes” to achieve the finished product. And different recipes are needed depending on the type of chip being made. While in-house technical personnel can be trained in the basic operation of the machines, a chip maker will always need on-site support from the OEM that designed and built the machine in the first place. To illustrate why having the machines alone won’t help, look at the case of Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co, a Chinese DRAM start up. It had US$5.65 billion in state funding to build a new wafer fab and fit it out with the latest chip making tools – including gear from US suppliers like Applied Materials and Lam Research. But after Jinhua was indicted by the US Justice Department in November 2018 for alleged economic espionage against US-based Micron Technology, Jinhua was blacklisted and US companies were not allowed to do business with it. Within days of the announcement, Applied, Lam and other foreign equipment suppliers recalled their on-site engineers, leaving the machines sitting idle on the wafer fab floor. Jinhua never produced a single DRAM and is now out of business. Laughing all the way to the bank Semiconductor equipment vendors have been posting record quarterly results that have propelled their share prices upwards – and much of that is driven by China’s chip-equipment buying binge. Applied Materials, the largest US maker of chip tools, reported that 34 per cent of its fourth quarter sales went to China, up from 29 per cent for the full year of 2019 Lam Research, one of the biggest suppliers to Chinese foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, is even more dependent on China sales. As a proportion of its total revenue, China has grown from 16 percent in fiscal 2018 to 31 per cent in fiscal 2020 – and that figure was 35 per cent in the fourth quarter last year. Japan’s biggest chip equipment maker, Tokyo Electron, now sells more gear to China than to its home market. For the nine months ending December 31, its sales to China amounted to 223,622 million yen (US$2.1 billion). A Chinese flag hangs from a pole near the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. headquarters in Shanghai Photo: Bloomberg But this party won’t last forever. The semiconductor capital equipment business is prone to boom and bust cycles, which have laid waste to many companies in the past. While the survivors have learned to live with the feast and famine of the market, China’s binge on equipment is inflating the boom part of the cycle even more. That means the bust, when it comes, will be even more painful for the vendors. To be sure, Chinese chip makers are in a tough spot. While they are primarily producing chips for commercial applications, their products could end up in weapons used by the People’s Liberation Army in a future conflict, making them national security threats to the US. So they may have little choice but to stockpile some foreign equipment for fear of losing access to it due to geopolitical factors. However, if China truly wants to achieve the goal of becoming independent from foreign semiconductor technology, some of that money might be better spent on research and development. But that will take more than a decade – and it will be a chaotic and expensive process with many failures along the way. No pain, no gain.

ya, expensive too

cny start in a few day times, good to look for out for the deal

@Camper try already?

update: i go insde the shop to take more pictures

1 x Supporting DVD. this mobo is at least $580 https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-Crosshair-VIII-Dark-Hero/specifications/

i walk pass many time but never spotted anyone using it. Augmented reality failed

SINGAPORE - Users will now be able to top up their GrabPay, Liquid Pay and Singtel Dash e-wallets directly from their bank accounts and transfer funds between these e-wallets via instant fund transfer service PayNow. Most e-wallets had typically required users to top up their funds using debit or credit cards, and transfers between e-wallets were not allowed. This is the first time PayNow is being offered by financial institutions which are not banks, with Grab, Liquid and Singtel joining the existing nine banks that already have the service. The move, announced by the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) on Monday (Feb 8), also streamlines the fragmented e-payments sector here by enabling merchants to accept payments through PayNow from users of both e-wallets and banking apps such as DBS PayLah! or OCBC Pay Anyone. Previously, a merchant offering the GrabPay, Liquid Pay and DBS PayLah! payment options, for example, would have needed to form payment settlement relationships with each of the three payment providers. Consumers will also be able to use the three e-wallets to make PayNow payments to merchants by scanning the Singapore Quick Response Code (SGQR) labels displayed at stores. PayNow works by mapping users' bank accounts to their NRIC or mobile phone numbers, or Unique Entity Number (UEN) for businesses. "The welcomed addition of the three NFIs (non-bank financial institutions) will boost the adoption and usage of PayNow and accelerate Singapore's path towards a less-cash, digital economy," the ABS said in a statement. The PayNow integration with e-wallets makes use of a fourth payment proxy, called the Virtual Payment Address (VPA). VPA allows individuals to link their mobile number - already linked to their bank account under their existing PayNow registration - to an e-wallet as well. When sending money via PayNow to an e-wallet, users simply need to enter the recipient's mobile number as usual, followed by the country code, a "#" and the name of the e-wallet the recipient is using, such as "+6591234567#DASH" or "+6591234567#GRAB". The VPA must always begin with the country code for it to work. There have been almost five million PayNow registrations as at last month, with more than $50 billion being transacted since the service's launch in July 2017. PayNow monthly transaction values crossed $5 billion last December alone.

SINGAPORE - A scientist from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) allegedly exposed himself and performed a sexual act in a backyard at a condominium last year. Chinese national Xie Danpeng, 30, whose pre-trial conference was held at the State Courts on Monday (Feb 8), is accused of committing the offence on April 12 last year. He is said to have lowered his shorts before sexually stimulating himself in the presence of two others at the Barossa Gardens condominium in Pasir Panjang Road between 8am and 9am that day. Details about his alleged victims have been redacted from court documents. Xie is also accused of other offences, including two counts each of theft and criminal trespass. His next pre-trial conference will be on April 5. A*Star told The Straits Times in a statement that he has been an employee at its Institute of Microelectronics since 2019. Its spokesman added: "A*Star holds our employees to the highest standards of conduct and behaviour and will take appropriate action when the outcome is clear. "The case is now before the courts, and A*Star has no further comment." According to Xie's LinkedIn page, he holds a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Macau. The university's website states: "Xie Danpeng, a PhD student from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology... received the Best Student Paper Award at the International Conference on Microwave and Millimeter Wave Technology 2018. "Titled 'Microstrip Leaky-Wave Antennas with Periodical Loading of Shorting Pins', Xie's paper was ranked No. 1 with the highest total score among all student papers at the conference." If convicted of exposing himself, he can be jailed for up to a year and fined.