15/11/2017 Asia Business Report

Now on BBC News, all the latest

business news live from Singapore.

It's a "yes" vote

It's a "yes" vote for legalising

same-sex marriage in Australia. We

look at how the pink dollar could

boost the economy. Hack or fact? A

BBC team investigates claims Apple's

face identification system on its

iPhone X is not secure.

Hello and welcome to Asia Business

Report, I'm Sharanjit Leyl.

Australians have voted in favour of

same-sex marriage, the results were

announced this morning. It paves the

way for legislation that will make

Australia the 26th nation to

legalise same-sex unions, and there

could be economic benefits. By some

estimates same-sex weddings could

give a $1 billion boost to the

economy assuming every same-sex

couple rushes out to tie the knot in

the first year but that could be a

tad optimistic. But research

suggests same-sex couples in

Australia earn more than their

opposite sex counterparts. Earlier I

spoke to her Leigh Fisher from the

economics and asked what the pink

dollar could mean for Australia.

We

would expect about half of the

same-sex couples in Australia to

want to get married and do so in the

next two to three years based on

survey evidence and what's happened

in other countries, of the 47,000.

We expect 25,000 weddings in the

short-term, that's about another 10%

of weddings based on the current

level of weddings happening from

year to year. In terms of costs, the

average couple spends somewhere from

$36,000 to as much as $90,000 on a

wedding, depending on what measures

you use so we can expect to see an

increase or an impact on the economy

of up to anything from $900 million

upwards over the next two to three

years.

Doctor Fisher, your research

suggests same-sex couples generally

earn more, why is that? Does that

necessarily translate to them

spending more?

Well, the same-sex

couples tend to be more likely to be

jewel income no kids households, so

that tends to put them into the part

of society that has higher incomes.

Same-sex male couples aren't

suffering from the gender pay cap,

so they tend to have higher incomes,

so we might think that would

translate to being on the higher

spending on weddings. Same-sex

couples sometimes face lower levels

of support from their family, they

might have lower transfers from

their families to pay for their

wedding. It could be more but there

could be some moderation on that

spending.

Hey Leigh Fisher speaking

to me earlier.

A Hanoi based firm that says they

have proved the iPhone X face IDE

system isn't as secure as Apple

suggests has shown off its hack to

the BBC -- ID system. They have

shown the handset can be unlocked by

a specially crafted mask. Apple

hasn't commented beyond directing

the public to details published

online about the system but other

experts have cast doubt about

whether the demonstration truly

undermines the alternative to

fingerprint checks.

TRANSLATION:

We are talking about

PRC, or proof of concept. During the

process of creating this mask, we

went through several steps. First

the phone has to recognise a real

human face, and then we test each

part of the mask to see whether the

phone camera kit nice it is a real

face. When I do each experiment, I

have to unlock the phone with my

face, so the phone isn't trying to

recognise the mask but the real

human face. -- can recognise it as a

real

These are actual masks used by the

engineering team to train the neural

networks to protect against them,

face IDE. It's incredible. -- face

IDE. -- face IDE. -- face IDE.

TRANSLATION:

I don't deny that what

we did would strengthen our

company's reputation, but we should

see that as our job. This is

something we've done for nearly 20

years. We were the first to point

out facial recognition technology

was not entirely secure and it's

understandable we're still keeping

an eye on it and proving whether the

tech is mature.

A BBC investigation there.

Uber has had another high-level

departure. It's true for policy for

India and South Asia has quit but

it's not all bad news for users in

the rapidly growing market, news

Japan's Softbank has rest,

registered interest in investing in

Uber could change the course of a

fierce war over taxi apps in India.

Yogita Limaye explains.

Many of these cars are taxis that

can be hailed using Uber or its

Indian equivalent. The two companies

are fighting a stiff battle against

each other in a fast-growing Indian

market. Uber is a global giant and

the Indian one is a homegrown brand,

but now their fight could get

complicated in the months to come.

One of their biggest investors is

Softbank, which has put in millions

of dollars into the company in the

past two years. But now Japan's

Softbank has said it is also

considering an investment in Uber.

No deal has yet been reached but

Uber has said that progress has been

made. They have declined to comment

on the development but what did it

all mean for these two firms in

India? Ultimately there is

speculation that if Softbank became

an investor in both companies it

would try to merge them. We've

already seen something similar this

year. Softbank is an investor in two

of India's biggest e-commerce

companies, and it tried very hard

for Flipkart to buy out the other

one but things didn't work out

because other investors blocked the

deal. India is a tricky market for

investors and operators, but for

Uber it is also the most important

market after the US, especially as

it exited China. Nevertheless, it's

also had its share of challenges

here. Just yesterday the head of

policy for Uber in India and South

Asia announced she was leaving after

only a year and earlier this year a

top global executive had to quit

after revelations he obtained

medical records of a woman raped by

an Uber driver in 2014. In the span

of less than three years, Uber and

Ola have changed the way people in

Indian cities travel and so these

constables will be watching closely

to see how these changes affect them

in the future -- customers.

Japan's economy continues its slow

march to stability, if not outright

strength. Data in the last few hours

shows the well's third-largest

economy showing another quarter of

games. Here's business reporter Matt

Morrison. What has led to the

change?

-- games. The name of the

game is exports and that's what is

driving this. The economy minister

came out and said to reporters after

this announcement that there is no

change to our view that the economy

is recovering moderately as a trend.

What he is talking about is the

economy grew 1.4% in the past

quarter compared to last year. That

is mostly among expectations, better

than some thought it, it's the

second quarter of growth, the

longest run since the beginning of

the century. You have to go back to

1999 to 2001 for the last time that

happened and it's all about exports.

One economist I spoke to say they

are the gorilla in the room and they

are offsetting what has been weak

demand at home, especially when it

comes to consumption. The Japanese

consumer is just not along the ride

for this recovery. While that

remains flat, that's going to be a

problem moving forward because

basically everyone has a job in

Japan and if they're not spending

now, when are they going to spend?

Matt, thanks very much, ending this

edition of Asia Business Report.

Thanks very much for that watching.