HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone maker, has announced that it will hold promotional parties in Europe to advertise its new phones on Sept. 1, a day before the opening of Germany’s IFA 2011 tech fair.
On Friday, HTC said on its Facebook page that consumers would be welcome to attend the parties in the UK, France, Spain and Germany, where there would be “a few phone treats” for fans to enjoy.
The date of the parties is just ahead of the IFA 2011, the world’s largest trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, which is scheduled to take place from Sept. 2 to Sept. 7 in Berlin.
The market anticipates that the new HTC phones will run on Microsoft Corp’s Mango operating system, the latest version of its Windows Phone 7, because the software powerhouse is also planning to showcase the platform on Sept. 1 with partners such as Nokia Oyj, HTC, Samsung Electronics Co, Acer Inc (宏碁) and ZTE Corp (中興).
To take advantage of the Christmas shopping season, HTC is also expected to launch other high-end smartphones running Google’s Android OS at the parties, with built-in sound effects from Beats Electronics LLC.
Earlier this month, HTC announced it would buy a 51 percent stake in the US-based headphone maker for US$309 million, saying it expected to have a number of products that incorporate Beats technology on the market by the end of the year.
Local media reports have said that the new Android phones could include the HTC Vigor, which will be sold in the US supporting LTE (Long-Term Evolution) network, and the HTC Ruby, which will go on sale in Europe and Asia with HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) connectivity.
Both the Vigor and the Ruby will be powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and will have an 8-megapixel camera, as well as a 4.3-inch touchscreen enabling a resolution of 1280x720, which is higher than the iPhone 4’s resolution of 960x640, the reports 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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained