■ COMPUTERS
Gateway taps China market
Gateway Inc says it has begun selling computers in China as part of a broader effort to increase its sales outside the US. To enter the Chinese market, Gateway said it has tapped China's largest electronics distributor, Digital China Holdings Ltd (神州數碼控股). As of last month, sales of outside of the US accounted for 9.5 percent of Gateway's retail sales, the company said in regulatory filings. The Gateway computers aimed at the Chinese market are similar to US models, except they have been modified to include, among other things, Chinese-language keyboards. Gateway ranks No. 3 in the US in terms of sales, behind Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc.
■ AGRICULTURE
Kentucky ginseng faces ban
Exports of wild US ginseng could be cut by some 20 percent if the US Fish and Wildlife Service bars Kentucky from selling the herb internationally. Kentucky, the leading US producer of ginseng, may have jeopardized its right to export the highly prized roots by not adequately policing their harvest and sale, said Pat Ford, a Fish and Wildlife Service botanist who oversees the US ginseng program. Industry representatives say barring Kentucky ginseng would reduce US exports of the roots to China and other Asian countries by about one-fifth and push the price to record levels. Kentucky accounts for 6.8 tonnes of the annual US ginseng exports, which total about 27 tonnes.
■ PATENTS
Lonestar sues Nintendo
A Texas company has sued Nintendo Co's US arm, charging that it infringed on a patent in designing the Wii video game system. Lonestar Inventions LP asked for triple damages, but no specific amount, and an injunction against Nintendo using the patented technology. The lawsuit was filed last week in federal district court in Tyler. In 1993, one of Lonestar's principals, Osman Akcasu, patented a structure for capacitors that took up less space on a semiconductor chip by using parallel conducting strips. Lonestar claimed that the same design shows up in Nintendo products but didn't identify any.
■ FINANCE
Tax bill worries Blackstone
As US lawmakers began a push to end favorable tax treatment for private equity firms, Blackstone Group said on Friday that such a move could harm its financial standing. Blackstone issued its caution a day after two senators unveiled legislation that seeks to impose higher tax rates on equity firms. The senators, Democrat Max Baucus and Republican Chuck Grassley, have also urged the US Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission to review their tax concerns about Blackstone's planned initial public offering. Blackstone said the measure would not impact the firm for several years.
■ TOOTHPASTE
PRC brands axed in Japan
Two Japanese companies have recalled hundreds of thousands of Chinese toothpaste products sold to hotels across the country after finding they contained chemicals used in antifreeze, the health ministry said. The products, which contained tiny amounts of diethylene glycol, or DEG, come in a small tube, each with a disposable toothbrush for hotel guests, the ministry said in a statement late on Friday. The ministry said there had been no reports of health problems caused by the toothpaste.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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