TECHNOLOGY
Galaxy Tab hits Dutch stores
South Korean electronics giant Samsung launched its Galaxy Tab 10.1 yesterday on the Dutch market in the midst of a legal stand-off with rival US-based Apple and sales banned elsewhere in Europe. “The Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be on sale from Tuesday” in a large electronics chain around the country, Tamara Villani, Samsung spokeswoman in the Netherlands, said on Monday. From Wednesday next week, the tablet will be available in other stores, she added.
COMMUNICATIONS
Time Warner buys Insight
Time Warner Cable will spend US$3 billion to take over smaller rival Insight Communications in the newest consolidation in the US cable-based phone, TV and Internet market, the two companies announced on Monday. Time Warner Cable will pick up Insight’s 750,000 customers for cable television, telephone and Internet service in the states of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, in the all-cash deal. Time Warner is the country’s second-largest cable operator, while Insight is the ninth largest, by number of subscribers, according to industry data.
INTERNET
Facebook says contract fake
Facebook attorneys are revealing what they say is proof that a New York man’s claims of ownership in the social network are fraudulent. In a Monday night court filing, they attached a contract signed by Paul Ceglia of Wellsville and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg captured from Ceglia’s computer. The blurry image appears only to refer to a street-mapping database Ceglia hired Zuckerberg to work on in 2003 — and not Facebook. Ceglia is suing Zuckerberg based on a contract he says shows that when he hired Zuckerberg, he also invested in his then-fledgling Facebook project. Facebook says that contract’s a fake and they’ve now got the original.
AVIATION
Transaero, Airbus sign deal
Russia’s Transaero airline has signed a preliminary agreement with Airbus to buy up to 12 A320neo jets, a company spokesman said yesterday. Transaero, Russia’s second largest airline, and Airbus signed a “memorandum to buy eight A320neo planes. The agreement also gives Transaero the option of acquiring four more planes,” Transaero spokesman Sergei Bykhal said. The deal will see Airbus supply the planes starting from 2017 over a period of two years, Bykhal said.
FOODSTUFFS
Jamaica, Complant seal deal
Jamaica completed the sale of its three largest state-owned sugar factories to a China-based company in a deal worth US$9 million, the Jamaican government said on Monday. China National Complete Plant Import & Export Co Ltd, known as Complant, took over the Frome, Monymusk and Bernard Lodge factories yesterday, Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding said at a signing ceremony. The sale was first announced last year.
INDIA
Inflation edges lower
The country’s annual inflation edged lower to 9.22 percent last month, official data showed yesterday, still far above the comfort level of the country’s central bank, which has been raising rates aggressively. Inflation, according to the benchmark wholesale price index, the nation’s most-watched cost-of-living monitor, slipped to 9.22 percent last month from June’s 9.44 percent, the commerce ministry said.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day