“Yandex Taxi” changed the rules for traveling in an emergency, children’s clothing from the distributor “Jamilko”: the main thing on March 28

World

• Sales of the first electric car from smartphone and home appliance maker Xiaomi have begun in China. Orders for the SU7 sedan will be accepted at 59 stores in 29 cities.
• Romania will begin issuing Schengen visas from March 31, 2024. The application can be submitted at the consulates in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don.
• Kazakh restaurant food search and ordering platform kook has attracted $200,000 in angel investment. The project, valued at $2 million, simplifies the process of searching and ordering products for new establishments and also allows for greater transparency in working with product suppliers.
• On April 1, the decision of the Eurasian Economic Commission to increase the threshold for duty-free import of goods from 200 euros to 1,000 euros will expire. To maintain the current threshold of 1,000 euros, a decision by the organization’s Council is necessary, but none of the participating countries has begun to prepare the documents.

Finance

• The Bank of Russia has announced a new scheme to deceive citizens: attackers pose as tax officials and offer to file a tax return via a link. After accessing the page, the victim is asked to enter personal data and bank card details.
• If Sberbank customers face card blocking after making cryptocurrency transactions, you can provide your account information on the website of the cryptocurrency exchange where the transaction was made to confirm the operation. Even screenshots of Internet pages will suffice.

Business

• Russian video game publisher Astrum and developer Astrum Entertainment have named a new CEO of the company: former head of Electronic Arts Russia, Tony Watkins. Watkins called his main goal “to make Astrum Ent the number one company in the Russian game development industry.” Astrum Entertainment’s portfolio includes games such as Atomic Heart, Warface, Perfect World, Lost Ark, Battle Teams 2 and others.
• The distributor “Jamilco” decided to start producing children’s clothing. It will most likely be released under the Motherbear brand. The company is already looking for personnel on Headhunter.
• From April 1, the threshold for duty-free import of goods will return to the level of 200 euros. The need for anti-crisis measures has disappeared and the bulk of international shipping is already included in this cost, writes Vedomosti.
• In 2023, the sales volume of Ozon sellers in Russia increased on average by 2.5 times. This was influenced by the expansion of logistics infrastructure and the development of services for entrepreneurs, as well as the growth of the site’s audience and the frequency of orders.

Technologies and services

• Yandex introduced the YandexGPT 3 line of neural networks. The first language model of the line, YandexGPT 3 Pro, works better with complex queries and more accurately follows the given response format. It can be used to solve real business problems and in IT products. Companies will also be able to additionally train a new neural network independently for specific business tasks.
• A beta version of the VK Video app has been released for Apple TV set-top boxes on tvOS. One of the main features of the tvOS application is the ability to view any content from the VK video library without authorization.

Transport

• Yandex Taxi rides during mass evacuations became free as of March 27. The company itself will return the funds and the drivers will keep their profits.
• The International Airports Association (IAA, which unites 17 airports, including Moscow and St. Petersburg) asked the Ministry of Transport not to prohibit escorts from entering the terminals without tickets, Kommersant writes.