■ LABOR
Employees protest layoffs
More than 100 employees protested yesterday at the Taiwan Fluorescent Lamp Co (台灣日光燈) after the local lamp maker unexpectedly announced it would lay off 300 employees, local cable TV channel ETTV reported. The report also said Taiwan Fluorescent would suspend operations at some of its factories, without elaborating. Taiwan Fluorescent was founded in 1954 in Jhutung Township (竹東), Hsinchu County, and is the largest light manufacturer and supplier in the country. It has NT$20 billion (US$621.6 million) in real estate assets in Sindian (新店), Jhubei (竹北) and Bali (八里), the report said. The company was delisted from the local bourse last July, following a series of financial difficulties, the report said.
■ PETROLEUM
Gas prices to stay same
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) announced on Friday that gasoline and diesel fuel prices will remain unchanged this month. Prices of natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas and fuel oil will also be maintained at the current level to help stabilize consumer prices and boost industrial competitiveness, CPC said in a statement. As a result, prices will remain at NT$32.2 per liter for 98-octane unleaded gasoline, NT$30.7 per liter for 95-octane unleaded, NT$30 per liter for 92-octane unleaded, and NT$27.5 per liter for super diesel fuel.Had it followed a floating price mechanism the government introduced in January last year, however, CPC would have raised the price of gasoline by more than NT$2 a liter.
■ RETAIL
Giant Hello Kitty unveiled
Hello Kitty may already loom large in the hearts of millions around the world, but now the bubble-headed feline can boast of being just plain big, too. Japan's Sanrio Co unveiled a 2.5m tall monument to its popular character at its flagship store in Tokyo's bustling Shinjuku District. "Tokyo is one of the biggest cities in the world, so Kitty must be here and must be big," Sanrio official Shuichi Chimura said. "She is really loved worldwide. This way, every person in the world can come here and see and touch Hello Kitty." The statue is the largest Hello Kitty figure in the world, the company said.
■ INTERNET
Another undersea cable cut
Another undersea Internet cable has been damaged, adding to the disruption in Indian online services caused when several lines were cut earlier this week, a cable operating firm said yesterday. The Falcon cable was cut 56km from Dubai, between Oman and the United Arab Emirates, according to its owner FLAG Telecom, part of India's Reliance Communications. The company said on its Web site that a repair ship had been notified and was expected to arrive at the site in the next few days. The cause of the latest cable damage was not immediately known. Flag Telecom also owns the undersea cable that was damaged off Egypt on Wednesday.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Toyota mulls China plant
Japanese auto giant Toyota is considering building a new plant in China to boost its presence in the country's rapidly growing car market, the Nikkei Shimbun reported yesterday. Toyota Motor Corp is studying a plan to build a new assembly factory in Changchun, Jilin Province, with an annual production capacity estimated at 100,000 units, the business daily said. It would likely invest US$469 million to construct the plant, with operations expected to begin in the early 2010s.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”