■ Corruption
HK executive arrested
The chairman of a Hong Kong listed company and one of China's richest men will appear in court on Thursday on charges of stealing company cheques worth US$6.2 million. Stephen Wong Wang-sang, 48, the chairman of television-maker Skyworth Digital, was one of 15 people arrested by corruption officers over the misappropriation of company funds. Wong was recently ranked by Forbes Magazine as China's 31st richest man with a net worth of about US$270 million. He is jointly charged with conspiracy to steal along with his executive director, Wong Pui-sing, 37. Both will appear in Eastern Magistrates Court on Thursday. A former executive director of Skyworth Digital was also among those arrested in the investigation by Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption.
■ Internet
Lycos suspends spam-killer
The Web portal Lycos Europe on Friday terminated a spam-fighting campaign that had been criticized as a breach of Internet civility. The decision follows complaints from security experts that Lycos was acting as a vigilante and could potentially harm legitimate Web sites by distributing a screensaver program that aims to overwhelm what Lycos defines as spam servers. Lycos spokesman Kay Oberbeck said the "Make Love, Not Spam" campaign was always meant to be temporary. He said Lycos decided to stop it solely because the company felt satisfied the program had managed to raise awareness and spark discussion. About 100,000 people had down-loaded the free screensaver. When a computer running the screensaver was idle, the program sent bogus traffic to alleged spam sites designated by Lycos, increasing band-width costs for the sites' operators.
■ Fast food
Better McDonald's promised
McDonald's Corp's new chief executive, Jim Skinner, pledged on Friday to maintain and even accelerate the fast-food giant's recent resurgence with more new products and a continuing focus on restaurant operations. Speaking publicly for the first time since succeeding the ailing Charlie Bell last week, Skinner emphasized that "changing leadership does not mean changing strategy." He told reporters he will carry on with existing initiatives aimed at making McDonald's "better, not just bigger." Skinner, 60, acknowledged mixed emotions because of the circumstances that elevated him to the top job after 33 years with the company. He was vice chairman until Bell stepped down on Nov. 29 to devote his energy to fighting colon cancer. Bell was diagnosed with cancer just two weeks after succeeding Jim Cantalupo, who died on the job of a heart attack in April.
■ Communications
Intelsat recovers satellite
Intelsat said on Friday it had regained control of a communications satellite whose failure had threatened the planned US$3.1 billion sale of the satellite operator. Although testing of the satellite's capabilities was ongoing, operations had been restored on a portion of the satellite's transponders and service was expected to be restored to several key customers by the end of the day, the company said. Service from the Americas-7 satellite was lost following a sudden "electrical distribution anomaly." The satellite provides service to North America, Alaska, Hawaii and parts of South America. Intelsat, which wasn't insured for the loss, said it made other satellites available to most of its customers.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to