MINERALS
China rare earth quotas dip
China’s first round of rare earth export quotas for this year were actually cut by about half from first round quotas for last year, the China Securities Journal reported, citing an unidentified official. The 16,304 tonne quota from last year doesn’t include exports by foreign companies, while the 14,446 tonne quota for this year does include shipments by foreign companies, according to the Beijing-based newspaper. It didn’t give figures showing a decline of about half in the first round rare earth quotas. China also may not publicly announce a second round of rare earth quotas, the newspaper cited the official as saying.
COMMUNICATIONS
Skype not banned in China
Skype Technologies SA, the world’s largest carrier of international phone calls, said its services in China remain operational after the country said it’s cracking down on “illegal” Internet phone companies. “Skype is not banned,” Jennifer Caukin, a Palo Alto, California-based spokeswoman for the service provider, said in an e-mail. “Our users in China currently can access Skype via Tom Online, our majority joint venture partner.” China is working to fight “illegal Internet phone services,” the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a Dec. 10 posting on its Web site. The notice, which didn’t define “illegal” services or name any companies, was primarily to announce a consumer hotline for reporting any unauthorized services.
TECHNOLOGY
Nintendo issues warning
Nintendo Co says 3D games on its highly anticipated new handheld console could harm the eyesight of children aged 6 or younger, warning of possible ill effects from a technology on which many companies are betting big. Nintendo said some specialists believe that “there is a possibility that 3D images, which send different images to the left and right eye, could affect the development of vision in small children.” The undated statement appeared on a section of the company’s Japanese Web site devoted to its upcoming 3DS handheld.
RETAIL
Borders delays payments
Bookseller Borders Group Inc is delaying payments to some of its vendors, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday. The news came just weeks after the company said it was trying to obtain new financing to avoid violating the terms of its credit agreements early this year. “As part of this potential refinancing, Borders has determined that it is necessary to restructure its vendor financing arrangements and is delaying payments to certain of its vendors,” Borders spokeswoman Mary Davis said by telephone. The company, however, said: “There can be no assurance that it will be successful in refinancing its senior credit facilities or restructuring its vendor financing arrangements.”
TECHNOLOGY
Virus most powerful yet
A powerful virus targeting smartphones in China running Google Inc’s Android operating system may represent the most sophisticated bug to target mobile devices to date, security researchers said on Thursday. Anti-virus firm Lookout Mobile Security estimates that the number of phones that have been infected by the virus, dubbed Geinimi, ranges from the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Researchers said the virus has yet to wreak havoc and that they were unsure what its authors were seeking to accomplish.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to