EUROZONE
Bailout summit scheduled
Eurozone leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday to discuss a second bailout package for Greece and the financial stability of the euro area, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said on Friday. The summit, which will start at 10am, could prove a critical moment in determining what role private sector creditors play in further aid to Greece, and how EU leaders will stem the threat of debt contagion to Italy and Spain. “Our agenda will be the financial stability of the euro area as a whole and the future financing of the Greek programme,” Van Rompuy said in a statement posted on Twitter. The first priority is for the eurozone to agree on the terms of a second bailout package for Greece, which needs about 110 billion euros (US$156 billion) of extra funds to keep it financed until the end of 2014, when it is supposed to return to financial markets.
TECHNOLOGY
UltraViolet set for US debut
An UltraViolet platform for letting people buy lifetime viewing rights to films is poised to launch in the US. The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) alliance said on Friday that it is licensing the technology to retail businesses and that Ultra-Violet offerings should be available by October. Giants from Hollywood, technology and retail are out to rev up digital film sales by letting people buy lifetime rights to watch movies on whichever devices suit their fancies. UltraViolet lets people create free accounts in the Internet “cloud” where versions of movies they buy in DVD or digital formats are stored in online “lockers.” DECE members including Warner Brothers, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Sony, Walmart and Fox are working to break down walls between gadgets and services to catalyze demand for films.
AUTOMOBILES
Nissan keeps output target
Nissan Motor Co’s chief executive officer Carlos Ghosn said Japan’s second-biggest automaker will stick to its domestic output target even as the yen’s strength may damp manufacturing in Japan. “What I worry about is not just Nissan, but Japanese manufacturers losing motivation to maintain production in Japan,” Ghosn said yesterday at the carmaker’s wharf in Yokohama. “The high yen is definitely a headwind.” Larger Toyota Motor Corp has also said it will rely on leaner manufacturing methods, rather than moving production offshore, to cope with the yen’s 9.6 percent climb versus the dollar in the past 12 months. Ghosn said Nissan, which expects the yen’s gains to slash ¥135 billion (US$1.7 billion) off operating profit this fiscal year, intends to produce one million cars a year in Japan, unchanged from its previous target.
INTERNET
Zillow IPO price raised
Online real-estate listings Web site Zillow increased the price of its initial public offering on Friday, valuing the company at up to US$500 million. Zillow, in an updated filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, said it was increasing its debut price to between US$16 and US$18 a share from the initial US$12 to US$14 a share. Zillow, which will be listed on Wall Street using the ticker symbol “Z,” plans a placement of 3.46 million shares of common stock and as many as 3.98 million if there is strong demand from investors. That would raise between US$58.7 million and US$71.7 million depending on the price and give Zillow a valuation of as high as $496.6 million. Zillow said it will raise an additional US$5.5 million in a private placement of stock with Technology Crossover Ventures.
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
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
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