TECHNOLOGY
White iPhone 4 on the way
Apple Inc will start selling a white version of its iPhone 4 in the next few weeks, following a delay of 10 months, according to three people with knowledge of the plans. The new model will be available from AT&T Inc and Verizon Wireless by the end of the month, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. The release was stalled as Apple resolved manufacturing challenges, including paint that peeled under heat, one person said. The iPhone accounted for 39 percent of Apple’s sales in the fiscal first quarter.
INTERNET
Google, Bing gain ground
Google and Bing gained ground in the US Internet search market last month at the expense of Ask, AOL and Yahoo, according to figures released on Wednesday by industry tracker comScore. Google continued to be the prime tool used to seek online information, handling 65.7 percent of “explicit” queries, after 65.4 percent the previous month, comScore reported. Yahoo Web sites remained the second-most popular place for Internet searches, but its portion of queries slid 0.4 percent in the month to 15.7 percent, according to comScore. The number of online searches done using Microsoft’s Bing service rose 0.3 percent to 13.9 percent compared with February.
FINANCE
US banks told to tighten up
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday asked some of the largest US banks to tighten up their mortgage procedures and warned of coming fines, following a scandal over homes being unfairly repossessed. The Fed issued so-called “consent orders” against 14 lenders — including Bank of America, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — calling for better monitoring, standards and documentation. The banks were told “to address a pattern of misconduct and negligence” related to foreclosure processing. Banks moved to repossess a record 2.87 million US homes last year, according to foreclosure specialist RealtyTrac.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Roche sales drop 9%
Swiss drug maker Roche Holding AG blamed the strength of the franc yesterday for a 9 percent year-on-year drop in first quarter sales. The company said sales were stable in local currencies, but fell to 11.12 billion Swiss francs (US$12.4 billion) from SF12.25 billion a year earlier because of the weakness of the US dollar and euro. Orders for its best--selling anti-influenza drug Tamiflu halved to SF252 million as predicted, because of lower demand from governments as the perceived threat of swine flu ebbed. The pharmaceuticals division reported a 10 percent drop in turnover to SF8.71 billion, while sales of diagnostics dipped 4 percent to SF2.41 billion.
IRELAND
Bank’s losses narrow
Bank of Ireland says its net loss last year narrowed more than expected to 609 million euros (US$883 million) because of hefty discounts it negotiated in debt--restructuring deals with bondholders. Yesterday’s full-year results surprised analysts, who had forecast double those losses in line with the wider bloodbath in Dublin’s banking sector. The bank lost 1.76 billion euros in 2009. Bank of Ireland still faces a struggle to avoid a state takeover because the government requires the bank to raise 4.2 billion euros to cover its worst-case scenario for future loan losses. The government is already Bank of Ireland’s biggest shareholder with a 36 percent stake.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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