TAIEX up on rotational buying
The TAIEX extended gains from the previous session yesterday as rotational buying emerged to recoup early losses, focusing on small and medium-sized electronics stocks, such as integrated circuit designers, as well as select old-economy firms, dealers said.
However, the upside was limited as market sentiment remained cautious on renewed concerns over the debt problems in the US in the face of a deadlock between the White House and Capitol Hill in negotiations on raising the debt ceiling, they said.
The benchmark index closed up 23.25 points, or 0.26 percent, at 8,817.49 after moving between 8,754.51 and 8,819.93 on turnover of NT$130.61 billion (US$4.53 billion).
The paper and pulp sector scored the highest gains, finishing up 1.8 percent, while the cement sector fell 1.8 percent, and plastics and chemicals lost 0.8 percent.
No Asian Chromebook plans
Google Inc said yesterday that it has no plans to sell notebook PCs running its Chrome operating system, or Chromebooks, in Taiwan or the rest of Asia, despite the Web-centric laptops having remained bestsellers on Amazon.com for seven weeks.
The Chromebooks are being sold in the US, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy.
“We don’t have any plans to sell the devices in the Asia-Pacific [region] in the next few months, as we want to test mature markets in the United States and Europe first, but we can talk if they [Acer] want to sell Chromebooks in Taiwan,” said Vince Wu, a Google senior product manager for the Chrome operating system.
Mac OS X violates S3 patents
Apple Inc’s Mac OS X operating system violates patents held by S3 Graphics Co, while the platform for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad tablet does not, the US International Trade Commission said in a July 1 ruling made public on Tuesday.
Mac computers have an operating system that infringes two S3 patents related to graphics chips, International Trade Commission judge James Gildea said.
S3, which agreed this month to be bought by Taiwanese smartphone company HTC Corp (宏達電), makes image-compression technology. If Gildea’s decision is upheld in a review by the full six-member commission, the commission can ban US imports of some Macs, which generated US$17.5 billion in sales in the last fiscal year, or 27 percent of Apple’s revenue.
Yahoo-Kimo gets into gaming
Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩), the Taiwan unit of Yahoo Inc, said on Monday it plans to launch a social gaming service on Wednesday next week and develop it into the largest gaming platform in the Chinese-language speaking world.
The service will initially have a total of 42 free Web-based games related to management, nurturing, adventure and role-playing, and the number will be extended to 100 by the end of this year, the search engine said.
“We’ve realized the potential of the social gaming industry and hope to create a new business model that will make an impact on the sector,” Frank Chen (陳建銘), vice president and managing director of Yahoo-Kimo, said at a press conference introducing the service.
The gaming service will be available on smartphones and tablet PCs in the near term, said Andy Lin (林榮一), president of local online game publisher Gameflier International Corp (遊戲新幹線), which is a partner of Yahoo-Kimo in the new social gaming venture.
Bank reins in NT dollar’s rise
The New Taiwan dollar continued gaining ground against the greenback yesterday, rising NT$0.027 to close at NT$28.802 amid lingering fears of a possible failure by the White House and Capitol Hill to reach an agreement to raise the US debt ceiling, dealers said.
To protect Taiwan’s exports, the central bank again stepped in to slow the pace of the local currency’s appreciation after the NT dollar hit an intra-day high, they said.
Turnover totaled US$693 million during the trading session, up from US$687 million the previous session.
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li
Dutch brewing company Heineken NV on Friday announced an investment of NT$13.5 billion (US$414.62 million) over the next five years in Taiwan. The first multinational brewing company to operate in Taiwan, Heineken made the statement at a ceremony held at its brewery in Pingtung County. It also outlined its efforts to make the brewery “net zero” by 2030. Heineken has been in the Taiwanese market for 20 years, Heineken Taiwan managing director Jeff Wu (吳建甫) said. With strong support from local consumers, the Dutch brewery decided to transition from sales to manufacturing in the country, Wu said. Heineken assumed majority ownership and management rights
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Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI