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Visit Laos Year 2024 Anticipated to Welcome 4.6 Million Visitors

Positive Momentum as Laos Moves Towards Visit Laos Year 2024, MICT Reports
Tourists in Luang Prabang. (Stock Photo)

The Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism (MICT) has revealed key milestones and achievements of the tourism industry in Laos from the first six months of this year, along with plans to welcome over 4 million visitors for “Visit Laos Year 2024.”

Heat Records Shattered: Earth Sweats Through Four Hottest Days Ever Recorded

Sunset over Taipei city.
Sunset over Taipei city.

Our planet has experienced unprecedented heat over the past three days, setting new records for the hottest days ever recorded three times in a row.

Alibaba Cloud Unveils AI Image Generation Model Tongyi Wanxiang to Help Businesses to Unleash Creativity and Productivity

ModelScopeGPT also launched to help users accomplish complex AI tasks

SHANGHAI, CHINA – Media OutReach – 7 July 2023 – Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, today unveiled its latest AI image generation model, Tongyi Wanxiang (‘Wanxiang’ means ‘tens of thousands of images’) at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2023. The cutting-edge generative AI model is now available for enterprise customers in China for beta testing.

In addition, the cloud pioneer announced the launch of ModelScopeGPT, a versatile framework designed to assist users in accomplishing complex and specialized AI tasks across language, vision, and speech domains by leveraging various AI models on ModelScope. ModelScope is an open-source Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform introduced by Alibaba Cloud last year, featuring over 900 AI models.

“Tongyi Wanxiang represents another significant milestone in our pursuit of advanced generative AI models as we continue to explore paradigm-shifting technologies that empower businesses and communities to unleash greater creativity and productivity,” said Jingren Zhou, CTO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

“With the release of Tongyi Wanxiang, high-quality generative AI imagery will become more accessible, facilitating the development of innovative AI art and creative expressions for businesses across a wide range of sectors, including e-commerce, gaming, design and advertising.”

Introducing Tongyi Wanxiang for Image Generation

The generative AI model is adept at handling various tasks, responding to text prompts in Chinese and English to generate detailed images in an array of styles, encompassing watercolours, oil and Chinese painting to animation, sketch, flat illustration, and 3D cartoons. Moreover, the model can transform any image into a new one with a similar style and stylize images through style transfer, which preserves the content of the original image while applying the visual style of another picture.

Powered by Alibaba Cloud’s trailblazing technologies in knowledge arrangement, visual AI and natural language processing (NLP), the model leverages multilingual materials for enhanced training. It boasts a robust semantic comprehension capability, resulting in more accurate and contextually relevant image generation.

Additionally, by optimizing the high-resolution diffusion process based on the signal-to-noise ratio, the model can strike a balance between composition accuracy and detail sharpness while enhancing its ability to generate high-contrast, visually stunning images with clean backgrounds.

Tongyi Wanxiang was developed using Composer, Alibaba Cloud’s proprietary large model that enables greater control over the final image output, such as spatial layout and palette, while maintaining image synthesis quality and creativity.

Text-to-image generation examples by Tongyi Wanxiang:

Prompt: Immersive, captivating, grayscale coloring, featuring a tiger in the tranquil mandala forest. The image is composed of lines and brushstrokes.
Prompt: Immersive, captivating, grayscale coloring, featuring a tiger in the tranquil mandala forest. The image is composed of lines and brushstrokes.

Please refer to the demo video of Tongyi Wanxiang here: https://www.alizila.com/video/wach-how-alibaba-tongyi-wanxiang-creates-generative-ai-image/. Enterprise customers in China can apply for beta testing of Tongyi Wanxiang at: https://wanxiang.aliyun.com/

ModelScopeGPT Launched for Sophisticated AI Tasks

Alibaba Cloud also unveiled ModelScopeGPT (https://modelscope.cn/studios/damo/ModelScopeGPT/), a powerful framework designed to harnesses the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) available on the platform. ModelScopeGPT will use LLMs as a controller to connect an extensive array of domain-specific expert models in the ModelScope open-source community. Built within the rich Model-as-a-Service ecosystem, ModelScopeGPT leverages the various AI capabilities offered on Alibaba Cloud. Enterprises and developers can leverage ModelScopeGPT for free to access and execute the best-suited models for performing sophisticated AI tasks based on users’ requests, such as developing multilingual videos.

Alibaba Cloud launched its LLM named Tongyi Qianwen in April, and it plans to integrate the LLM across Alibaba’s various businesses in order to improve the user experience in the near future. The company’s customers and developers will also have access to the model to create customized AI features in a cost-effective way. Since the model’s launch, over 300,000 beta testing requests were received from enterprises from a broad range of sectors, including fintech, electronics, transport, fashion and dairy.

Tongyi Qianwen has also been integrated into Alibaba Cloud’s intelligent assistant, Tingwu, enabling the assistant to comprehend and analyze multimedia content with high levels of accuracy and efficiency. Over 360,000 users have accessed to the AI-powered assistant since its launch.

AI Hackathon Competition to Inspire Innovation

ModelScope also hosted its first ever AI Hackathon in China to facilitate the industrial applications of AI models, with cash prize awards and funding opportunities from leading venture capital firms as incentives.

From over 300 participating teams, 56 teams made it to the final round. Participants competed for the grand prize on two tracks. One is to innovate upon a large language model to solve a real-life problem. The second is to leverage existing pretrained models to complete an assigned task, such as text-to-image generation or to build an LLM-powered autonomous agent to utilize the right models for specific tasks.

“By hosting competitions and other community events, we want to engage with more developers and entrepreneurs, and to encourage them to bring their ideas to life, unlock productivity, and create more versatile AI tools that transform and shape the future of our industries,” said Jingren Zhou.

Hashtag: #AlibabaCloud

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Alibaba Cloud

Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud (www.alibabacloud.com) is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large-scale computing, security, management and application services, big data analytics, a machine learning platform and IoT services. Alibaba maintained its position as the third leading public cloud IaaS service provider globally since 2018, according to IDC. Alibaba is the world’s third leading and Asia Pacific’s leading IaaS provider by revenue in U.S. dollars since 2018, according to Gartner.

Philippines Raises Alarm over Illicit Fentanyl Imports from Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand

Philippines Raises Concerns Over Growing Fentanyl Problem Imported from Laos
FILE: this image is used only for representational purpose (photo: CNN Health)

The Philippines has raised concerns about the growing misuse of fentanyl in the country that is being illegally imported from Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. 

Thailand Allows Stay for 500,000 Migrant Workers from Laos and Neighboring Countries

 Migrants Permitted to Extend Stay on Amnesty
Migrant Workers Stream Home as Thailand's Economy Goes into Covid-19 Lockdown. (Photo: IOM)

Thailand’s cabinet has agreed to allow 500,000 foreign workers from Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam to stay until the end of the month, to sort out their work permits to legally work and live in the country.

Lao Tourists Form Vietnam’s Third Largest Growing Tourist Market in 2023

Tourists walk along Gold Bridge on Ba Na hill near Da Nang city, Vietnam (Photo: VOA)

Lao tourist arrivals in Vietnam soared in the first half of the year, with a growth rate of 117%, which is the third-highest rate among all global tourist arrivals to Vietnam, following Cambodia (338%) and India (236%).

Company in Bokeo Collects Garbage Fees in Baht as Kip Continues Depreciating

Lao Company Found Collecting Fees in THB as Local Currency Continues Depreciating
A trash collection receipt from a local in Ton Pheung District, Bokeo province. (Photo: Tholakhong)

A company in Bokeo, which holds a garbage collection concession from the government, was recently found to be collecting fees in Thai Baht. This incident highlights the challenges faced by the Lao government in controlling the use of foreign currency within the country.

ROSEN, LEADING INVESTOR COUNSEL, Encourages DouYu International Holdings Limited Investors to Secure Counsel Before Important Deadline in the Securities Class Action First Filed by the Firm – DOYU

New York, New York – Newsfile Corp. – July 6, 2023 – WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the securities of DouYu International Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: DOYU) between April 30, 2021 and May 9, 2023, both dates inclusive (the “Class Period”) of the important August 8, 2023 lead plaintiff deadline in the securities class action first filed by the Firm.

SO WHAT: If you purchased DouYu securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.

WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the DouYu class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=15999 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than August 8, 2023. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.

WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs’ Bar. Many of the firm’s attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.

DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose, among other things, that: (1) The Chinese government, due to concerns about issues such as video game and computer addiction, as well as content challenging its authority, could become increasingly aggressive towards DouYu regardless of how effective or sincere its attempts to comply with Chinese law were; (2) this increasingly aggressive posture subjected DouYu to a heightened risk of an investigation and subsequent government enforcement action and ultimately resulted in enforcement action; and (3) as a result, defendants’ statements about its business, operations, and prospects, were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.

To join the DouYu class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=15999 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action

No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor’s ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.

Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm or on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm.

Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm’s attorneys are ranked and recognized by numerous independent and respected sources. Rosen Law Firm has secured hundreds of millions of dollars for investors.

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

——————————-

Contact Information:

Laurence Rosen, Esq.
Phillip Kim, Esq.
The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.
275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Tel: (212) 686-1060
Toll Free: (866) 767-3653
Fax: (212) 202-3827
lrosen@rosenlegal.com
pkim@rosenlegal.com
cases@rosenlegal.com
www.rosenlegal.com

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.