Sports lotto moves forward
The Ministry of Finance is expected to select the issuing bank for the much-anticipated sports lottery by Sept. 10, while the lotto operations should be launched by April 15 next year, it said in a press statement yesterday. Only local lenders are qualified to submit application, which they must do between July 23 and 31, it said.
Four financial institutions have expressed interest: Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀), Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行), Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) and Bank of Kaohsiung (高雄銀行).
ITRI to recruit in US
A delegation organized by the Taiwan-based Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is set to head to the US next month for recruitment in six major disciplines, ITRI sources reported on Thursday.
The group will hold two separate sessions of the "ITRI Forum 2007 and Career Fair" -- one in New Jersey on June 9 and the other in Silicon Valley, California on June 14.
According to the ITRI, the focus areas of this year's recruitment drive are "information and communications," "advanced manufacturing and systems," "material, chemical and nanotechnologies," "biomedical technologies," "electronics and optoelectronics," and "energy and environment."
NT dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar fell from a nearly three-month high on Thursday to close NT$0.04 lower at NT$33.019.
Turnover was US$1.139 billion on the Taiwan Forex Inc.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained