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.
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
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
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