Daily Briefing: Home prices may fall by as much as 3% in 2019; Grab unveils 7th R&D centre in Malaysia

And Singpost customers will soon receive alerts 30 minutes before delivery.

From Bloomberg:

Singapore's property market can expect a 'standstill' in 2019 as government moves to curb aggressive land bids from developers and en-bloc or redevelopment transactions will continue to impact the slowly reviving market.

Home prices that are forecasted to climb as much as 10% this year could remain flat in 2019 and may decline as much as 3%, estimates from property brokers compiled by Bloomberg News show. Home sales that lagged behind 2017 levels this year may once again be below that mark in 2019, according to forecasts.

Additional guidelines that limit the number of “shoe-box sized” apartments developers can build, plus anti-money laundering safeguards that restrict builders, are further constrictions.

The government said earlier this month it also plans to slow its release of land sales for residential use in the first half of 2019, citing a spike in supply and a cooling in demand.

Read more here.

From e27:

Grab unveiled its 7th global research and development (R&D) centre in Kuala Lumpur which will focus on developing and enhancing real-time communication features such as voice over internet protocol (VOIP) calls via GrabChat.

It has centres based in Bangalore, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Seattle and Singapore.

The Malaysian centre will hire 100 tech employees in its first year of operations, including software engineers, data scientists and data analysts.

They will also develop new safety measures through machine learning. An example of this is Grabś Driver Fatigue feature, which calculates a “fatigue score” based on factors like how long the driver has been on the road, time of day, rest between shifts and even his or her age and profile.

Read more here.

From Channel News Asia:

Singapore Post customers may soon receive alerts half an hour before their courier arrives in a bid to improve parcel traceability, better plot courier routes and alert customers to deliveries thanks to its new artificial intelligence (AI) enabled logistics platform.

 The AI route planning software, which is from LogiNext, is expected to be integrated into LaMP by next year.

"LogiNext’s software is also able to analyse and proactively alert all stakeholders on courier movements. With this capability, customers will receive an alert half an hour before their parcel arrives, a significant improvement in terms of convenience," said SingPost.

Read more here.