Microsoft Corp yesterday said it would offer Web users a new browsing experience on March 20, with faster, easier and safer Internet surfing.
Microsoft Taiwan Corp unveiled the local version of its Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) platform at a press conference yesterday and introduced the domestic partners it worked with to make the platform more competitive, including FunP.com, UrMap, I’m TV, Pixnet (痞客邦), Ruten.com (露天拍賣) and 1111 Job Bank.
Although Microsoft Taiwan tops the domestic Internet browser market, the company said it hoped the new version of its Web browser would be more than a tool. The IE home page has been designed to woo users from rival Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩), the nation’s most popular search engine.
“The entire premise of our IE8 is to create user stickiness, so that Internet users don’t need to wander around the Web in search of their favorite sites because Microsoft has already thought ahead and consolidated the sites for them,” Microsoft Taiwan general manager Davis Tsai (蔡恩全) said.
Yahoo-Kimo’s site is tailored to the Taiwanese market, which has helped it secure the lion’s share of the market. The site has an arrival rate of 98 percent, meaning that during a given period of time, 98 percent of users surfing the Web in Taiwan visit its site.
Second in the search engine market is Google Taiwan, with an arrival rate of 80 percent last year.
“One of the many great features of IE8 is ‘accelerators,’ which give users instant access to local Web sites that [feature] maps, Web searches, translation, e-mail and blogging. Our local partnerships with these companies in essence creates a one-stop shop where users can access all this information on our site,” Juno Su (蘇倩慧), the company’s platform marketing manager, told reporters.
Another new function of the IE8 platform is “Web slices,” which allow personalization through subscriptions to specific content within a page to monitor auction items, sports scores, entertainment columns, weather reports and other information, Su said.
Other features include enhanced Web searching that includes images and Web site recommendations based on personal browsing history.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
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