Carbon emissions cut
The consumption of electricity by government agencies and schools has declined for a third consecutive year thanks to a program that began in 2008, government statistics showed.
The public sector used about 6.59 percent less electricity between 2008 and last year, while the rate of oil saved was 2.53 percent, a 204,000 tonne reduction in carbon emissions, an amount equal to what 547 of Taipei’s Da-an Forest Park can absorb, the Bureau of Energy said.
The annual evaluation of energy conservation efforts at government offices and schools has extended from electricity and oil to water and paper, the bureau said.
The carbon reduction target for 2015 has also been increased to 10 percent less than the levels in 2007, it added.
HTC unveils ‘QQ phone’
Taiwan’s HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s fifth-largest smartphone maker, has released its first “QQ phone” equipped with QQ Service solutions to tap the vast Chinese social networking market.
The HTC Chacha is the first model the company has produced in collaboration with Tencent Inc (騰訊), China’s largest and most used Internet service portal, HTC China division president Ray Yam (任偉光) said.
Statistics show that as of June 30, the number of Internet users in China had reached 485 million, 65.5 percent, or 318 million, of them connected to the Internet via their smartphone.
AU Optronics buys back bonds
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the nation’s second-largest LCD panel maker, paid US$78.7 million to buy back convertible bonds with a face value of US$100 million, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday.
U-Ming buys Asia Cement bonds
U-Ming Marine Transport Corp (裕民航運) said its Hong Kong unit bought 240 million yuan (US$37.6 million) of Hong Kong-listed Asia Cement China Holdings Corp (亞泥中國) three-year bonds at a yield of 2.95 percent yesterday, while its Singapore unit purchased 128 million yuan of the same bonds, according to statements sent to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Publishers set up subsidiary
Taiwan’s top publishing group, Cite Media Holding Group (城邦媒體), said on Thursday that it had joined with Japan’s leading publisher, Kodansha Ltd, whose products include manga and literary magazines, to establish a digital publishing subsidiary in Taiwan to tap the booming cross-strait digital publishing sector.
The subsidiary has an initial capitalization of NT$50 million (US$1.65 million). It will focus on the Taiwanese market in the initial phase, with about 20,000 electronic titles licensed by Kodansha.
The publisher may move into the Chinese market as soon as the first half of next year and it has plans to develop e-content for digital platforms, such as Apple Inc’s iOS.
Harley marks ROC centennial
Iconic US motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson has produced 100 limited edition bikes engraved with the Chinese characters for “Harley” (哈雷) and “peace” (和平) to mark the Republic of China’s (ROC) centennial, the company’s agent in Taiwan said on Thursday.
The special commemorative edition includes various models, such as the Dyna Super Glide Custom, the Heritage Softail Classic, the Fat Boy, the Road King Classic, the Street Glide and the Ultra Classic Electra Glide, said David Tung (佟德望), a board member of Harley-Davidson’s local agent Swire Pacific Ltd (太古鼎翰).
The 100 limited edition motorcycles are priced between NT$999,000 and NT$1.649 million.
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