SSPAI Morning Brief:China Summons Major E-Commerce Platforms Over Subsidy Practices as SANWA Unveils Innovative Pen-Style Wireless Mouse

少数派编辑部

Morning Brief

  1. Five E-Commerce Platforms Summoned Over “Billion-Yuan Subsidy” Issues
  2. Xbox Launches Business Reset Plan
  3. BOOX Unveils the Second-Generation BOOX Go 6
  4. Xiaomi Launches MiMo Code AI Coding Assistant
  5. SANWA Introduces a Pen-Style Mouse
  6. Philips Hue Launches World Cup-Themed Lighting Effects
  7. News Worth a Quick Look

Five E-Commerce Platforms Summoned Over “Billion-Yuan Subsidy” Issues

On June 11, the Beijing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation summoned Taobao (Tmall), JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, notifying them of a second batch of typical issues identified during a comprehensive campaign targeting “involution-style” competition among online platforms and requiring corrective action. The issues involved misleading promotional claims, non-compliant formulation and disclosure of promotional rules, and failure to disclose information about product sellers. Among the findings, Taobao widely promoted its long-running “Billion-Yuan Subsidy” program as a “6.18 Billion-Yuan Subsidy” campaign, repeatedly refused to provide the actual subsidy amounts and the respective contribution ratios of the platform and merchants during the promotion period, failed to prominently disclose relevant rules, and did not display the qualifications of actual sellers for some products. Pinduoduo failed to clearly disclose the actual subsidy amount and funding ratio of its “Billion-Yuan Subsidy” program, could not provide supporting documentation, and included terms that unilaterally exempted the platform from its statutory responsibilities. JD.com’s “Billion-Yuan Subsidy” and “Billion-Yuan Agricultural Subsidy” campaigns did not disclose promotion periods, subsidy amounts, or funding ratios and could not provide evidence when requested, while its “Billion-Yuan Supermarket” campaign failed to disclose promotional rules. Douyin’s “6.18 Good Products Festival” and “Billion-Yuan Consumer Coupons” campaigns did not disclose promotional rules to consumers, and rule changes were made without a public consultation process for merchants. Xiaohongshu’s “Redeem Points for Gifts” campaign only disclosed the total number of prizes available, without specifying winning probabilities or prize forfeiture rules, and used wording such as “continued participation constitutes acceptance” to exclude consumers’ right to negotiate.

Regulatory experts noted that irrational large-scale subsidies may distort market pricing mechanisms and squeeze merchant profit margins, while platform clauses that unilaterally waive responsibility could increase risks for consumers. Source


Xbox Launches Business Reset Plan

On June 10, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and Chief Content Officer Matt Booty unveiled the 100-day Xbox Reset business restructuring plan. They stated that Xbox’s internally calculated operating margin for the current fiscal year was approximately 3%, down year-over-year and below the industry average. Excluding the acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, Xbox has invested more than $20 billion in subsidies across content, platform, and hardware over the past five years, while annual revenue declined by nearly $500 million during the same period. Xbox acknowledged that it had expanded too aggressively and failed to invest adequately in its core franchises. Going forward, the company plans to refocus on building a stronger lineup of stable first-party and third-party exclusive titles. On the hardware side, Xbox stated that procurement costs for console storage components have risen more than fourfold since autumn 2025 and are expected to exceed five times their level from two years earlier by the 2027 holiday season. Current production capacity is unable to meet demand, prompting Xbox to explore new business models and hardware partnerships for Project Helix, which is designed to run both Xbox and PC games. Bloomberg reported on the same day that Xbox plans to conduct layoffs after Microsoft’s fiscal year ends on June 30, although the exact number of affected employees has not yet been determined. Budgets for marketing and several other departments are also expected to be significantly reduced. Source


BOOX Unveils the Second-Generation BOOX Go 6

On June 11, BOOX launched the second-generation BOOX Go 6, a 6-inch ePaper reader, in overseas markets. The new BOOX Go 6 adds handwriting note-taking capabilities and can be paired with the separately sold InkSense Plus stylus, allowing users to annotate books, highlight passages, and create handwritten notes and to-do lists within the native note-taking application. The device features a 6-inch monochrome ePaper display with a resolution of 1448 × 1072 and 300 PPI, protected by a flat AG glass cover lens. It supports dual-tone front lighting with adjustable warm and cool color temperatures. The reader is equipped with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, supports microSD card expansion, runs Android 11, and comes with the Google Play Store pre-installed. Connectivity options include 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, and USB Type-C. It is powered by a 1500mAh lithium-polymer battery and measures 6.8mm thick while weighing approximately 160g. Color options include Plum, Stone, Shell, and Custard.

The second-generation BOOX Go 6 is now available for pre-order through the official BOOX online store at a price of $199.99 and is expected to begin shipping around June 17. Source


Xiaomi Launches MiMo Code AI Coding Assistant

On June 11, Xiaomi MiMo officially released and open-sourced MiMo Code v0.1.0. Built on top of OpenCode and licensed under MIT, MiMo Code comes with the multimodal MiMo-V2.5 model available free of charge for a limited time. It also supports integration with mainstream models including DeepSeek, Kimi, and GLM, as well as third-party Token Plans, providing flexibility for developers with different needs.

MiMo Code features a built-in persistent memory system that addresses long-session memory limitations through a three-layer mechanism consisting of project memory, conversation checkpoints, and task progress tracking. Xiaomi has also developed a dedicated Harness system specifically optimized for the MiMo model family, enabling deep integration between the models and the framework. Combined with Compose Mode, MiMo Code can automatically handle the entire workflow from design and planning to coding, testing, and review, aiming to deliver production-ready results. In addition, MiMo Code includes a built-in /dream command that is automatically triggered every seven days. A dedicated agent reads historical conversations and existing memory files, performs merging, deduplication, path validation, and compression, then consolidates fragmented memories into a compact and up-to-date state before updating global memory. MiMo Code also comes with integrated voice input and control capabilities powered by MiMo-V2.5-ASR speech recognition technology. Source


SANWA Introduces a Pen-Style Mouse

Japanese peripheral manufacturer SANWA has announced the 400-MAWB231 pen-style wireless mouse. Slightly larger than a standard ballpoint pen and weighing just 25g, the device is priced at 5,680 yen (approximately RMB 240.2).

Users can operate the 400-MAWB231 much like holding a pen. A light touch on the tip performs a left-click, while the body includes buttons for right-click, scrolling, back, and forward functions. The 400-MAWB231 is equipped with a 1600 DPI blue LED optical sensor system and supports a tilt angle range of 40° to 70°. It offers both 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity, with a battery life of approximately 4.5 months on a full charge. Source


Philips Hue Launches World Cup-Themed Lighting Effects

Signify has launched the “Sports Live” real-time match lighting effects feature for Philips Hue and Philips Smart Lighting products. Available for a limited time starting June 11 in conjunction with major international football tournaments in 2026, the feature can be configured through the “Sync” page in the latest Hue app. Once enabled, the system uses live match data to trigger lighting effects during key moments such as goals, yellow cards, red cards, set pieces, and penalty kicks. It also provides pre-match countdown effects, victory-color animations for the winning team after the final whistle, and lighting effects reflecting whether a team is leading or the match is tied. Users can choose compatible color-capable lights, select their favorite team and room, and adjust lighting scenes, brightness levels, and delay settings to better synchronize with television broadcasts. Lighting effects will pause when playback is paused and automatically resynchronize with live match data when viewing resumes. Source


News Worth a Quick Look

  • On June 10, Google released DiffusionGemma, an experimental open model that uses text diffusion and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. Built on research from Gemma 4 and Gemini Diffusion, the model can generate text up to four times faster than traditional autoregressive models on a standalone GPU. Generation speeds can exceed 1,000 tokens per second on a single NVIDIA H100 and more than 700 tokens per second on a GeForce RTX 5090. After quantization, the model can run on systems with as little as 18GB of VRAM. Source
  • In the latest announcement for the WindowsAppsSDK project, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 11’s local language model API requires only an RTX 30-series GPU or newer and at least 6GB of VRAM to run. The API allows developers to download Microsoft’s Phi Silica small language model and access local AI generation capabilities on-device. Previously, similar AI features on Windows generally required hardware that met Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC specifications. Source
  • Spider-Man: Brand New Day has officially been scheduled for release in mainland China on July 29. Source
  • iFixit has published its teardown of the Trump Mobile T1 smartphone, confirming that its internal structure is nearly identical to that of the HTC U24 Pro. According to the teardown, the HTC U24 Pro motherboard can even be installed directly into the T1 chassis and operate normally. Based on production timelines, component sourcing, and existing manufacturing lines, iFixit also concluded that the T1’s design, manufacturing, and the vast majority of its components originate from China, falling short of the “Made in USA” standard previously claimed by Trump. Source

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