■ Taipower turns to solar panels
State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), the nation's biggest electricity generator, plans to spend NT$3.57 billion (US$108 million) installing solar panels as the government aims to reduce dependency on energy imports.
The project, pending the approval of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, will increase Taipower's capacity by 10 megawatts, or 71 times, by 2011, Yu Shang-hsiung (余勝雄), Taipower's development director, said over the telephone yesterday.
Taipower's solar power capacity is 140 kilowatts, Yu said.
■ Nation ranks 19th in survey
The nation's potential competitiveness ranked 19th among the world's 50 major economies last year, up two notches from the previous year to share position with South Korea, the results of a survey released yesterday by the Japan Center for Economic Research showed.
The top tspots went to Hong Kong, Singapore and the US, in that order, while Japan took 12th and China ranked 35th.
Among the eight criteria of the survey, Taiwan ranked the 18th in internationalization, 25th in business efficiency, 16th in education, 18th in financial system, 43rd in government efficiency, seventh in technological development, sixth in social infrastructure and 13th in information technology, the survey said.
■ NT drops against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday,declining NT$0.032 to close at NT$32.970 on turnover of US$941 million.
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
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