In a race to close the gap on Apple’s App Store, Google Inc yesterday announced that developers from 20 countries, including Taiwan, could start developing and selling applications on Android Market. Taiwanese consumers will also be able to purchase apps on Android Market over the next two weeks.
Introduced in August 2008, -Android Market now offers more than 80,000 apps to download for free or at a fee. The number still lags a long way behind the 250,000 apps available at the App Store.
The announcement yesterday meant Google’s “paid apps support” will be expanded to developers in 20 more markets, increasing the total to 29 markets worldwide.
The new markets include Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.
“We are committed to the rollout,” Google Taiwan’s head of communications Caroline Hsu (許佳齡) said.
“In the past two years, our aim was to gear up to launch as many Android devices as possible. The rollout process for more developers to join Android Market and buyers to buy apps took time,” she said.
Google said that to date, more than 90 smartphones run on its Android operating system in 49 countries.
According to industry estimates, the Android platform offers more than 80,000 application programs, while Research In Motion’s Blackberry App World allows users to download more than 10,000 programs. Both, however, are still far behind Apple’s App Store which has more than 250,000 programs.
Google Taiwan said that Taiwanese developers will have to register with Google if they plan to upload and sell their apps on Android Market.
Developers are free to determine the prices of their apps, within a range of US$0.99 to US$200, it said.
Developers will take 70 percent of the money, while the rest goes to Google.
Hsu said Google welcomed any form of app upload to Android Market and would remove any deemed inappropriate if complaints were received.
Over the next two weeks, users in 18 additional markets will be able to purchase apps from -Android Market. That means a total of 32 markets could soon buy Android apps.
These include Taiwan, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Russia and Singapore.
“We remain committed to continuing to improve the buyer and seller experiences on Android Market. Among other initiatives, we look forward to bringing the Android Market paid apps ecosystem to even more countries in the coming months,” Google said in its Android Developers’ blog.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six