■PHONES
RIM faces US probe
The US will probe whether to ban imports of Research In Motion (RIM) Ltd’s BlackBerry smartphones based on a patent-infringement complaint filed by Motorola Inc. The US International Trade Commission (ITC) will look into claims that Research In Motion products infringe five patents, a notice on the ITC Web site said. Motorola filed the complaint with the agency on Jan. 22, targeting the Pearl, Curve, Bold, Storm and Tour smartphones, as well as their battery packs. The ITC case is just one legal dispute between Motorola, the largest US mobile-phone maker, and RIM, maker of the top-selling smart phone in the US. The companies had a license agreement in place between 2003 and 2007 and have been suing each other over patents since then after they were unable to reach terms on a new agreement. In February, a judge in London ruled that RIM didn’t infringe a UK patent owned by Motorola. Complaints are also pending in federal court in Texas. If a violation is found, the ITC can order US customs officials to prevent the products from entering the country.
■PHONES
Sprint goes WiMax
Sprint Nextel Corp, the third-largest US wireless carrier, rose in US trading after saying a mobile phone for its WiMax network will be available this summer, earlier than some analysts anticipated. The phone will operate on the Overland Park, Kansas-based company’s fastest wireless network, Scott Sloat, a Sprint spokesman, said in an interview yesterday. He declined to comment further. WiMax, offered through a partnership with Clearwire Corp, promises Internet access with speeds and capabilities similar to broadband speeds at home. Clearwire has said the service is at least four times faster, on average, than 3G. The handset will help Sprint’s brand, giving it a jump on 4G phone service from AT&T Inc and Verizon Wireless, Wells Fargo Securities LLC analyst Jennifer Fritzsche, said in a note. Fritzsche, who is based in Chicago and rates Sprint shares “market perform,” said she had expected the device to come out months later. Forbes magazine reported on the phone’s introduction on Friday.
■GREECE
Bond issue imminent
Athens will try to raise up to 5 billion euros (US$6.7 billion) through a syndicated bond issue “within days,” the Financial Times reported. The hire of Petros Christodoulou as the general manager for treasury global markets at the National Bank of Greece has led bankers in Athens to expect the bond issue, the FT reported, citing unidentified bankers. An unidentified finance ministry official said no decision on a bond issue has been made, the newspaper reported.
■TELECOMS
Brazil eyes media partners
Brazil’s plan for a national broadband network may provide service via partnerships with private companies, Planning Minister Paulo Bernardo said. Partnerships could include “big companies and small ones,” Bernado told reporters today in Brasilia. “Only those that don’t want to join in are staying out of it.” The framework for the government’s project could be released in the beginning of next month, he said The government said earlier this month that it was considering having state-owned Telecomunicacoes Brasileiras SA manage the network.
■CELLPHONES
MTouche seeks to expand
MTouche Technology BHD intends to expand operations in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand this year through its mobile device-based social networking services, the Edge newspaper said, citing chief executive officer Eugene Goh. The Malaysian wireless mobile content provider expects to post profits this year barring any impairment charges, because their new products will give them access to as many as 2 billion regional customers, the newspaper said.
■PHONES
Richard Li investigated
Hong Kong police are investigating PCCW Ltd (電訊盈科) chairman Richard Li’s (李澤凱) failed bid last year to buy the special administrative region’s biggest phone company, two people familiar with the matter said. Offices of at least one of Li’s companies were searched on Feb. 10, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is confidential. Police also searched the offices of Fortis Insurance Co (Asia), a Hong Kong insurer formerly controlled by Li’s Pacific Century Regional Developments Ltd (PCRD, 盈科拓展), the people said. Police had search warrants for Li’s residences as of Feb. 10, sources said. In April, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission won a court ruling to block Li’s US$2.1 billion buyout of PCCW after the regulator alleged that hundreds of people, including Fortis Asia agents, were given shares in the phone carrier to boost support for the deal. According to the court ruling last year, the shareholder ballot in February last year was manipulated and didn’t reflect the interests of PCCW minority investors.
■PENSION
Fund could reach NT$100bn
The National Pension Fund could reach NT$100 billion (US$3.1 billion) by next year, the Ministry of the Interior said. The ministry said yesterday that as of the end of last year, the fund reached NT$65.8 billion and its scale was expected to expand to NT$87.6 billion by the end of this year. The ministry said that since the national pension system was put into effect on Oct. 1, 2008, the system covered an estimated 4.1 million people, including the jobless, street vendors, housekeepers, naturalized foreign spouses and students older than 25. 1.03 million people have claimed a total of NT$ 40.1 billion from the fund thus far, the ministry said. The ministry said about 60 percent of those eligible for the National Pension Fund pays their premiums. This is on par with Japan and South Korea. The ministry said it was hoping to convince more people to join the system in order to consolidate the nation’s social security network.
■SINGAPORE
Stability for property market
The government announced measures meant to ensure a stable and sustainable property market in the city-state. The steps come after the island’s private home sales last year were just shy of the 2007 record, helped by the nation’s economic recovery. A total of 14,688 homes were sold last year, compared with the record 14,811 transacted in 2007, government data showed. The government said in a statement dated yesterday that it was levying a seller’s stamp duty on all residential properties and lands that are sold within one year from the date of purchase. The stamp duty will be 1 percent for the first S$180,000 (US$127,497), 2 percent for the next S$180,000 and 3 percent for the balance. “The objective of this new tax measure is to discourage short-term speculative activity that could distort underlying prices,” the government said in the statement.
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