Morning Brief
- Market regulator drafts compliance guidelines to curb “selling cars at a loss”
- Motion-sensing game console Nex Playground gains popularity in the U.S.
- Musk seeks evidence from Alipay in lawsuit accusing Apple of monopoly practices
- OpenAI begins selling physical merchandise
- Central authorities signal continuation of national subsidies next year, with policies to be optimized
- Doubao mobile assistant clarifies it cannot capture screenshots of banking keyboards
- Rumors You Can Just Glance At
Market regulator drafts compliance guidelines to curb “selling cars at a loss”
On December 12, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) released the Automobile Industry Price Conduct Compliance Guidelines (Draft for Public Comment) and opened it for public feedback. The document emphasizes that automobile manufacturers and dealers that “sell cars at a loss” through various means will face significant legal risks.
The Guidelines first detail pricing conduct requirements for automobile manufacturers, calling for: the establishment of end-to-end pricing management systems covering vehicle sales and financial services; clear and transparent rebate policies that respect dealers’ independent pricing rights; prohibitions on price collusion, below-cost sales aimed at excluding competitors, and price discrimination; and requirements that “paid unlock” features disclose free-use periods and fee standards to protect consumers’ right to be informed.
The Guidelines also specify pricing conduct requirements for automobile dealers, including: clear price marking and strict separation of vehicle prices from sales service fees; standardized promotions; bans on deceptive pricing, false reference prices, and failure to honor pricing commitments; encouragement for platforms to provide two-way alerts for conspicuously low prices; and strict prohibitions on charging without providing services, duplicate charges, and passing on improper fees.
In addition, the Guidelines encourage companies to establish internal compliance management systems covering price decision-making, contract management, internal oversight, and risk prevention, so as to prevent pricing violations at the source.
In response, automakers such as Changan Automobile, BYD, BAIC Group, and XPeng have successively stated their support and indicated they will actively comply with the Guidelines.
Since the beginning of this year, regulators have continued to roll out measures to curb “involution” in the auto industry. In March, a senior official at the National Development and Reform Commission criticized disorderly competition in the car market, noting that some companies were sacrificing profits to grab market share, and pledged efforts to rectify market chaos and regulate competition. In May, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said oversight of involution-style competition would be intensified. In June, under regulatory guidance, automakers committed to shortening supplier payment terms to 60 days; in September, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers further issued initiatives to standardize practices.
Motion-sensing game console Nex Playground gains popularity in the U.S.
According to The Wall Street Journal, during the 2025 U.S. holiday shopping season, a motion-sensing game console called Nex Playground unexpectedly emerged as a market “dark horse.” Launched by Silicon Valley startup Nex, Nex Playground topped Amazon’s Toys & Games rankings during Black Friday and sold out at brick-and-mortar retailers such as Walmart and Target. Data shows that its single-week sales surpassed Microsoft’s Xbox, trailing only Sony’s PS5 and Nintendo’s Switch 2, ranking third in overall U.S. game hardware sales.
Priced at $249 (approximately RMB 1,757), Nex Playground’s core appeal lies in completely abandoning traditional controllers in favor of capturing player movements via built-in cameras and AI-powered computer vision. Unlike conventional consoles, the product targets family and parent–child scenarios, encouraging kids to “get moving” in the living room rather than slumping on the couch—an approach that has resonated strongly with parents. In addition, Nex secured the IP licensing rights to Bluey, a children’s animated series with exceptionally high viewership on streaming platforms, which became a key driver behind the surge in sales.
Nex’s success stems from a high-risk business pivot. The company originally started by developing an AI basketball training app and once received investment from NBA star Steve Nash. After recognizing the market ceiling of a single sports-focused app, the team leveraged its core vision technology to first pivot into AR game development, and then crossed over into the supply-chain-intensive hardware sector, aiming to fill the gap left by the discontinuation of the Nintendo Wii in the motion-gaming market.
The commercial returns from this transformation have been striking. Two years ago, the device sold only 5,000 units; this year, sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday surpassed 300,000 units, with full-year sales projected to reach 600,000. Company revenue is expected to grow from roughly $3 million annually to $150 million, with profitability anticipated for the first time.
Musk seeks evidence from Alipay in lawsuit accusing Apple of monopoly practices
According to 9to5Mac, newly disclosed court filings show that in xAI’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI, Elon Musk’s company sought documentary evidence from foreign tech firms including China’s Alipay and South Korea’s Kakao. The aim is to argue that Apple preserves its iPhone hardware monopoly and high pricing by restricting the growth of “super apps.”
In the case, xAI alleges that Apple not only entered into exclusive agreements with OpenAI and suppressed the visibility of competitors such as Grok in the App Store, but also used ecosystem rules to block “super apps” that integrate instant messaging, payments, transportation, and e-commerce. Musk’s team contends that such apps reduce users’ dependence on a specific operating system, making it easier for consumers to switch from iPhones to other brands, and are therefore deliberately constrained by Apple.
Under evidence-gathering requests sent to judicial authorities in China and South Korea pursuant to the 1970 Hague Evidence Convention, xAI asked Alipay and KakaoTalk to provide their App Store ranking histories, revenue data, and internal strategic assessments on “how super apps affect users’ willingness to switch smartphones.” Under the Hague Convention, judicial authorities in one contracting state may request evidence from the competent authority of another contracting state in civil or commercial matters. xAI is expected to submit similar requests to other leading Asian app developers, including WeChat and Grab.
Musk has long sought to transform the social platform X (formerly Twitter) into a Western-style “super app” akin to WeChat. While the lawsuit initially appeared to stem from a dispute over Grok’s App Store ranking, the expanding scope of evidence collection suggests the case’s core has clearly shifted toward Musk’s ambitions for an all-in-one app.
OpenAI begins selling physical merchandise
According to Business Insider, to mark its 10th anniversary, OpenAI has opened its official merchandise store, OpenAI Supply Co., to the public for the first time. Previously, the store was accessible only to internal employees. After OpenAI shared the store link on X, it quickly sparked a buying frenzy, with most popular sizes of hoodies and T-shirts already sold out.
The store currently lists 10 items available for purchase, largely themed around OpenAI’s technological vision and geek culture. For example, there is a set of Pokémon-style collectible trading cards featuring models such as Sora 2 and GPT-5, as well as several apparel designs incorporating elements of “artificial general intelligence” (AGI). Beyond the items for sale, the website also showcases a large archive of past merchandise, including hats printed with the “1-800-CHATGPT” phone number and retro designs featuring San Francisco city motifs.
Central authorities signal continuation of national subsidies next year, with policies to be optimized
According to Yicai, the Central Economic Work Conference held in Beijing from December 10 to 11 made it clear that next year China will “adhere to demand-driven growth and build a strong domestic market,” and will optimize the implementation of the “Two New” policies.
The so-called “Two New” policies refer to large-scale equipment upgrades and the trade-in program for consumer goods, the latter of which is commonly known as the “national subsidy.” The conference’s clarification that the “Two New” policies will be optimized in 2026 indicates that national subsidies will continue next year, though with adjustments to specific measures.
To boost consumption, China issued RMB 150 billion in ultra-long-term special government bonds in 2024 to support consumer goods trade-ins. Given the strong results that year, China doubled the amount in 2025, issuing RMB 300 billion in ultra-long-term special bonds for the same purpose. The 2025 national subsidy program also expanded on the 2024 scope, adding three categories of digital products—smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches/bands—as well as four categories of home appliances, including microwave ovens, water purifiers, dishwashers, and rice cookers.
Data from the Ministry of Commerce shows that from January to November this year, consumer goods trade-ins drove related product sales exceeding RMB 2.5 trillion, benefiting more than 360 million instances of consumers. Among them, over 11.2 million vehicles were traded in, more than 128.44 million home appliances were replaced, subsidies covered over 90.15 million purchases of phones and other digital products, more than 12.91 million electric bicycles were traded in, and over 120 million home renovation and kitchen/bathroom “refresh” items were upgraded.
Experts interviewed said that the national subsidy budget in 2026 may see a moderate increase over 2025 levels, with further optimization of funding allocation—potentially expanding into service consumption—to better leverage fiscal spending to stimulate consumption, promote industrial transformation and upgrading, and support economic growth.
Doubao mobile assistant clarifies it cannot capture screenshots of banking keyboards
On December 13, in response to recent online claims that the “Doubao Mobile Assistant” exploits special permissions to steal private information such as banking keyboard inputs, the Doubao team issued a statement clarifying that this interpretation is incorrect. The company said the assistant uses the system’s native screenshot APIs and strictly follows Android’s underlying security mechanisms, making it impossible to capture protected interfaces such as those used by banking apps.
The core of the controversy centers on the use of permissions such as READ_FRAME_BUFFER. Doubao explained that the assistant employs a “virtual screen” technology, running third-party apps within a virtualized environment. While this permission allows reading the graphics buffer for AI inference, on Android, once an app invokes the FLAG_SECURE interface (as is typically the case during sensitive steps like password entry), the system returns black-screen data at the graphics rendering layer for any screenshot or screen-recording request. As a result, even with screen-reading permissions, no actual content can be seen.
Regarding the CAPTURE_SECURE_VIDEO_OUTPUT permission, Doubao said its practical purpose is to ensure that users can visually view protected pages normally when operating in small-window modes such as the “Dynamic Island,” rather than seeing a completely black screen. This, however, does not change the page’s inherent screenshot-blocking properties.
Doubao added that the mobile assistant currently operates on a workflow of user command → screenshot upload to the cloud → model feedback. Because the multimodal large models required for interface analysis have massive parameter sizes and are constrained by current mobile chip performance, screenshots must be uploaded to the cloud for processing. The company emphasized that screenshots are taken only when explicitly triggered by user commands, and uploaded data is used solely for real-time visual understanding and reasoning, with no cloud storage after the task is completed.
The technical preview version of the “Doubao Mobile Assistant” was released on December 1 and preinstalled on the nubia M153 engineering prototype jointly developed by ByteDance and ZTE, which was sold in limited quantities. On December 3, after encountering risk-control restrictions that prevented normal use of WeChat, Doubao removed the assistant’s ability to operate WeChat. On December 5, Doubao announced plans to standardize and adjust certain AI phone-operation capabilities, including—but not limited to—score farming, incentive farming, and scenarios involving financial apps and games.
Rumors You Can Just Glance At
- According to Macworld, a leaked internal build of iOS 26 reveals some of Apple’s future development plans. Among them, iOS 26.4—expected to be released in spring 2026—will include a revamped Siri integrated with Apple Intelligence and based on Google’s Gemini model, along with a redesigned Health app interface. The code also indicates Apple is developing a new verification system that checks device integrity before Apple ID sign-in, meaning devices that have been “jailbroken” or otherwise modified without authorization may be unable to access online services such as iCloud. In addition, the Apple TV app may add a “Sports” subscription, and the Freeform app is set to gain folder management features.
- On the hardware side, AirPods Pro 3 will leverage the built-in U2 ultra-wideband chip to support “outdoor Precision Finding” within the Find My network. Looking further ahead, iOS 27 is expected to improve the Photos app’s “Featured” functionality and AirPods pairing mechanisms, while iOS 28 plans to add sleep-tracking metrics such as “time in bed” for Apple Watch. macOS 28 is also slated to receive the Health app.
