AUTOMOBILES
VW tries to save partnership
German auto giant Volkswagen (VW) said late on Monday it was seeking talks with Japanese partner Suzuki, after the latter announced its intention to end their two-year-old alliance. “We want to talk. We haven’t changed our view of Suzuki as an investment,” Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn said at a press event for the IAA motor show in Frankfurt, Germany. “We’re not working on any alternative scenarios” to the cooperation with Suzuki and Europe’s biggest car maker has no plans to sell its 19.9 percent stake in the Japanese group, Volkswagen chief financial officer Hans Dieter Poetsch said. Earlier, Suzuki said it wanted to sever ties with Volkswagen, claiming its autonomy was under threat and it was being treated as a subsidiary.
SOFTWARE
HP extends offer deadline
Hewlett-Packard (HP) extended the deadline for its US$11.2 billion takeover offer for British software company Autonomy to Oct. 3 after gaining acceptances from only 41.6 percent of shareholders at the first closing date. HP offered an agreed £25.50 per autonomy share on Aug. 18, which it said valued the enterprise search software company’s fully diluted share capital at £7.09 billion (US$11.2 billion). Autonomy shareholders had been expected to snap up the offer, made at a 79 percent premium to the closing share price the day before the agreed deal was announced and equivalent to 10 times annual sales.
TECHNOLOGY
RIM to pay Dolby royalties
Research In Motion Ltd (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry smartphone and Playbook tablet computer, agreed to pay patent royalties to Dolby Laboratories Inc to end a legal battle over technology to improve audio quality. RIM will pay “standard terms,” San Francisco-based Dolby said in a statement on Monday, settling patent--infringement lawsuits filed in June in the US and Germany. Terms were not disclosed. Dolby, inventor of surround sound, said the patents cover ways to compress digital audio files using less storage while maintaining quality.
SOUTH KOREA
Growth outlook could drop
The finance minister has hinted the government could lower its growth forecast for next year, citing “downside risks” to the economy, a report said yesterday. “The growth prediction could change when the government submits its 2012 budget plan to parliament,” Minister of Strategy and Finance Bahk Jae-wan told Yonhap news agency. “It is so evident that there exist downside risks.” The ministry had projected 4.5 percent growth for this year and 4.8 percent next year. Bahk said he would continue to make his top policy priority taming inflation and creating more jobs.
TELECOMS
Brazil plans 4G network
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said her country would have access to high-speed Internet via the latest generation of cellphones before its hosts the 2014 World Cup. Rousseff said 4G cellphones would be available in time to watch the matches. Rousseff authorized the national telecommunications company, Telebras, to invest US$119 million to bring high-speed Internet to underserved parts of the country. The government plan aims to make high-speed connections available for US$21 a month, less than the average current cost of US$42. Rousseff also said she wants more than 70 percent of homes to have Internet connections by 2014. About 27 percent of
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