COMMUNICATIONS
SK eyes mobile software
SK Telecom Co, South Korea’s largest mobile-phone operator, plans to spend 1 trillion won (US$896 million) to develop software for handsets and fend off the gaining popularity of Facebook Inc and Apple Inc. The mobile-phone operator will provide services similar to mobile map, instant messaging and social networking offered by Google Inc and other companies, Seoul-based SK said in a statement yesterday. The investment, spread over three years starting next year, will be made mostly in research and development, SK Telecom chief executive officer Jung Man-won told reporters in Seoul. The plan is the company’s biggest push toward software development as Facebook makes inroads in South Korea and rival KT Corp.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota’s production falls
Toyota Motor Corp’s global production fell last month for the first time in a year, while rivals Honda and Nissan increased output thanks to strong demand in China. Toyota said yesterday its worldwide production dropped 1.3 percent to 672,604 vehicles, marking the first year-on-year decrease in 12 months. The world No. 1 automaker said the fall was because of weak production in Europe and North America.
CURRENCIES
IMF likes Russia’s move
The IMF considers Russia’s decision to widen the trading band used to manage the Russian ruble’s exchange rate against the US dollar and euro a move in the “right direction.” A more flexible exchange rate will help Bank Rossii target inflation more effectively, Odd Per Brekk, the IMF’s senior representative in Moscow, told reporters yesterday.
ELECTRONICS
Sony cuts PSP Go price
Sony Corp slashed the Japan price of its handheld game machine yesterday ahead of the critical year-end shopping season. Sony said the PlayStation Portable (PSP) Go will drop in price starting today to ¥16,800 (US$200) from ¥26,800. Its price has already been coming down in the US since last week from US$250 to US$199, according to Sony Computer Entertainment, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company’s game unit. Separately, Sony said it was sending its cassette tape Walkman player into retirement in Japan as demand for a music player that was groundbreaking in its day dwindles to a tiny niche in the era of digital technology. Sony stopped Japanese production of the portable music player in April and sales will end once the last batch disappears from stores, company spokeswoman Hiroko Nakamura said yesterday.
BANKING
BOA admits finding errors
Even as Bank of America (BOA) was to begin restarting foreclosure proceedings in 23 US states yesterday, the bank confirmed that it had discovered errors, including incorrect data and misspelled names, in the paperwork it has reviewed. For weeks, Bank of America has insisted its review had not turned up any serious errors and emphasized that it had not found a single case where a homeowner was facing foreclosure in error. However, on Sunday, the bank revised its fairly combative public stance. Bank of America had found errors, but only in a tiny number of cases, Dan Frahm, a spokesman for the bank, said late on Sunday.
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