Apple Computer Inc yesterday introduced a broadcast feature to its red-hot iPod digital music players in Taiwan, hoping to secure a bigger market among music lovers locally.
The feature, Podcast Directory service, is an audio program that users pull off the Internet and download onto digital music players or similar devices for listening to at their leisure.
"We are working with 10 radio stations here and consumers will be able to listen to them over at iTunes within a month," Yeo Eng Yiong, Apple's product marketing manager for portables in the Asia-Pacific region, said at a media briefing yesterday.
These radio stations include UFO Radio (飛碟電台), Kiss Radio, Broadcasting Corp of China (中廣) and International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT), he said, adding that the company may add more partners to the service at a later stage.
Besides the 10 channels, the service in iTunes, its digital music software and online music store, features over 3,000 free overseas audio programs, making it one of the largest Podcast directories in the world, featuring favorites such as ABC News, BBC, Disney, ESPN and Newsweek.
According to Yeo, integrating broadcasting with digital music players has been gaining popularity among consumers over the last two years. The company therefore incorporated this new feature in iTunes in June this year, "hoping to offer more content to users," he said.
The company claimed that just two days after the launch of its Podcast Directory in the US, iTunes customers have subscribed to more than 1 million Podcasts.
According to Yeo, over 20 million iPods have been sold worldwide as of June. He declined to reveal the sales figures in Taiwan.
According to the latest statistics from research company GfK, iPod is Taiwan's No. 1 digital music player in terms of sales.
Despite reaping great profits from iPod sales, Apple is still hesitant to bring its iTunes Music Store to Taiwan, because local consumers are still downloading songs via peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing Web sites instead of using online music stores.
A court ruling that favors P2P file-sharing platforms further scares prospective online music vendors from entering the market.
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS