INTERNET
Web game maker eyes IPO
Online game creator Zynga Game Network Inc plans to file for an initial public offering (IPO) shortly, in a new test of US investors’ appetite for Internet companies, media reports said on Tuesday. The maker of FarmVille and other popular games such as Mafia Wars is seeking a valuation of between US$15 billion and US$20 billion, CNBC television and the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources close to the deal. Zynga could have filed its IPO papers with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as early as yesterday, the reports said. CNBC said the company would seek to raise between US$1.5 billion and US$2 billion in the offering.
EUROZONE
Consumer confidence drops
European confidence in the economic outlook dropped to the lowest in eight months this month as policy makers struggled to craft a second bailout package for Greece. An index of executive and consumer sentiment in the 17-nation eurozone fell to 105.1 from 105.5 last month, the European Commission said yesterday. That is the lowest since October last year. Economists had forecast a decline to 105, the median of 27 estimates in a Bloomberg survey showed. The eurozone recovery may falter after expanding at the fastest pace in almost a year in the first quarter as governments toughen budget cuts to keep Greece’s fiscal crisis from spreading.
INTERNET
Twitter co-founder exits
Isaac “Biz” Stone is moving on from Twitter, just five years after co-founding the microblogging site that has become integral to the social media scene around the globe. Stone, 37, said on Tuesday on his blog that he would work with the company “for many years to come,” but that the most effective use of his time now is to “get out of the way” of Twitter’s crew and leadership team until he is called upon to be of some specific use. Stone says he plans to focus on helping schools, nonprofits and company advisory boards. The move comes as Twitter has been trying to build upon its popularity to make more money by selling more ads.
PHARMACEUTICALS
UK says Roche pill too costly
The UK’s health cost watchdog has again rejected F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd’s Tarceva pill for long-term use in lung cancer patients who have had treatment to stabilize their disease because it is too costly for the benefit it offers. The decision is a blow for the Swiss drugmaker, which had appealed against an earlier rebuff by the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) last year. NICE, which decides if medicines should be paid for on the state-funded National Health Service, said it was not able to recommend the drug.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota issues hybrid recall
Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday it would recall more than 110,000 hybrid vehicles in the US, Japan and Europe because of faulty transistors in electrical power control boards. The US market is the most affected, with the Japanese auto giant recalling 45,500 units of its Highlander Hybrid and 36,700 Lexus RX 400h vehicles because of “inadequate soldering.” Toyota said certain transistors could be damaged from heat caused by a large current flow during high-load driving because of the defect. In most cases the vehicle will enter a fail-safe driving mode, resulting in reduced power in which the vehicle can still be driven for short distances. In the worst case the vehicle could stop, Toyota said.
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
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
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