TECHNOLOGY
HP begins laying off workers
Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) said on Tuesday that it has begun laying off workers as part of its move to give up on the webOS mobile operating system it got when it bought Palm. An HP spokesperson did not say how many employees were being let go in line with the computer maker’s announcement last month that it was discontinuing the development of webOS devices. HP promised that it would stand by webOS customers and said it was looking for ways to “leverage” the mobile operating system, perhaps by selling it to another company.
TECHNOLOGY
Oracle sees higher earnings
Oracle Corp forecast earnings for the current quarter that are higher than expected, as well as robust software sales, offering some reassurance to investors hoping that global technology spending is holding up. The company said new software sales, a gauge of future profit because they generate high-margin long-term service contracts, increased 17 percent in its first fiscal quarter, ended Aug. 31. It also forecast software sales growth for the current quarter in a range of 6 percent to 16 percent. Oracle forecast a 4 percent to 8 percent gain in revenue this quarter, translating into sales of US$9 billion to US$9.3 billion, and predicted earnings before one-time items of US$0.56 to US$0.58 per share for the current quarter.
AVIATION
Goodrich deal close: sources
United Technologies Corp is moving closer to an agreement to buy Goodrich Corp in an all-cash deal and it may announce a takeover soon, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. The companies were negotiating a price of US$110 to US$120 a share at the end of last week, said one of the people, who declined to be identified because the matter is private. The gap had narrowed to US$5 a share as of Sept. 18, the person said. Buying Goodrich would add the world’s largest maker of aircraft landing gear to an aerospace portfolio at Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies that includes Sikorsky helicopters, Pratt & Whitney jet engines and the Hamilton Sundstrand unit, whose products include aviation electronics.
JAPAN
Trade deficit hits US$10bn
Tokyo logged a huge trade deficit last month, data showed yesterday, as utility firms imported fuel to meet electricity demand with many nuclear reactors still offline amid the post-Fukushima Dai-ichi disquiet. The country’s trade deficit reached ¥775.3 billion (US$10 billion), the biggest red-ink figure for August since the finance ministry began gathering data in 1979. Exports posted their first growth since the March earthquake and tsunami, rising 2.8 percent year-on-year to ¥5.36 trillion, but imports grew by a much faster 19.2 percent to ¥6.13 trillion because of rises in oil prices and record purchases of liquefied natural gas.
SOUTH KOREA
Unemployment rate falls
The unemployment rate fell last month from the previous month, official figures showed yesterday. The rate was 3 percent compared with 3.3 percent in July, Statistics Korea said. The number of people with jobs rose by 490,000 from a year earlier to 24.5 million, compared with a 335,000 rise in July. Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan said the data indicated the country’s strong fundamentals, but stressed the need for global cooperation to ease market fears arising from woes in the US and the eurozone.
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