■ Confectionery
`Peko-chan' faces ax
Japanese cake maker Fujiya is considering dropping its venerable mascot doll "Peko-chan" in a bid to change its image after a scandal in which it confessed to selling pastries made from stale ingredients. Life-sized Peko-chans, round-eyed mannequins with a lip-licking grin, have stood outside Fujiya cake stores since the firm adopted the eternal six-year-old after World War II. The company has assembled a team to consider a new mascot as one way of showing that it has reformed, the daily Yomiuri Shimbun said yesterday. The team would take about a year to mull the issue, it said.
■ Games consoles
Wii outsells rivals in US
US sales of Wii video game consoles last month nearly matched those of rivals Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 combined, figures released on Friday by NPD Group showed. While Nintendo's Wii was proving to be a powerful contender, it had a lot of ground to cover to catch up with the 5.1 million Xbox 360 consoles Microsoft had sold as of last month, NPD reported. Xbox was released a year before Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 made their US debuts in November last year. Neither Wii nor PlayStation 3 sales have breached 2 million units in the US, NPD said.
■ Investment
Blackstone mulls listing
The Blackstone Group, the US investment fund which specializes in taking publicly listed companies private, is mulling a partial stock market flotation, media reports said on Friday. The Wall Street Journal's online edition reported that Blackstone could be close to seeking a stock market listing for about 10 percent of the New York-based firm. Such a move would be somewhat ironic for a firm that has made a name for itself by taking large companies private.
■ Electronics
LG, Philips to lose tube firm
LG Electronics Inc and Royal Philips Electronics NV will lose control of their TV glass-tube company as early as this month, a spokeswoman for their venture said. The two companies will no longer own a combined controlling stake in the venture by the end of this month or beginning of next month, said Arleen Chipongian-Perez, a spokeswoman for Hong Kong-based LG.Philips Displays, the world's second-largest maker of cathode-ray tubes. Financial institutions and private equity firms will own shares of LG.Philips Displays, which will change its name to LP Displays starting next month, she said on Friday.
■ Wireless
Duo agree to drop claims
Qualcomm Inc and Broadcom Corp agreed to dismiss patent and trade-secret claims against each other, ending several skirmishes in the long-running legal battle between the two wireless technology companies. Qualcomm said the settlement on Friday eliminates five jury trials scheduled to start this year. The first was to begin on Monday in federal court in San Diego. The dismissed claims included allegations that Qualcomm violated six patents and Broadcom infringed on four patents, Qualcomm said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last