TECHNOLOGY
Samsung seeks iPhone ban
Samsung Electronics is asking Japanese and Australian courts to block sales of Apple’s new iPhone 4S in those countries. The preliminary injunctions Samsung filed yesterday in Tokyo District Court and the Federal Court in Australia are part of an intensifying patent battle between the smartphone giants. Samsung said Apple Inc continued to violate its patent rights and “free ride on our technology.” Samsung is also appealing an Australian court’s decision last week to temporarily ban sales of Samsung’s new Galaxy tablet computer. Apple accused Samsung of copying the iPad and iPhone and violating Apple’s patents. Samsung said it was also asking a Japanese court to immediately bar sales of the iPhone 4 and iPad 2.
MINING
Rio divesting Alcan business
Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto said yesterday it planned to sell 13 aluminium businesses in Australia, Europe and the US as it looks to trim its Alcan business. The company, which did not reveal how much it expected to raise from the asset sales, said refineries and smelters would go on the auction block as it looked to focus on so-called tier-one assets. Rio bought Canada’s Alcan at the top of the market in 2007 for about US$38 billion, driving up debt and forcing it to sell businesses and slash costs when the market turned amid the global financial crisis. Rio Tinto chief executive Tom Albanese said the assets were well-managed businesses with productive workforces, but no longer aligned with Rio’s strategy.
AVIATION
Air France to vote on CEO
Air France-KLM Group’s board were to meet yesterday to vote on ousting Air France-KLM chief executive officer Pierre-Henri Gourgeon and replacing him with Alexandre de Juniac, a former chief of staff to IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, according to two people with knowledge of the proposals. Gourgeon, 65, who has been chief executive since January 2009, was previously slated to stay in his position until January. Instead, he will leave the company within a short period of time, said the sources, who declined to be identified because the change is not yet official. Les Echos reported the board’s plan late on Sunday, saying Gourgeon was told on Friday that he would be replaced. The decision was attributed to disappointment with the firm’s performance.
JAPAN
Forecasts downgraded
The government yesterday downgraded its view of the economy for the first time in six months as an overseas slowdown weighed on output and exports, while a strong yen further clouded the outlook. In its monthly report for this month, the Cabinet Office said: “The Japanese economy is still picking up, although the pace has decelerated, while difficulties continue to prevail.” Last month’s report gave no reference to a slowing recovery. Tokyo lowered its assessment of exports, industrial production and personal consumption, while warning that deflation still poses a threat.
PHILIPPINES
Remittances rise 11.1%
Remittances sent home by citizens abroad increased at a faster pace in August, aiding domestic consumption even as a weakening global economy hurts the nation’s exports. The funds increased 11.1 percent from a year earlier to US$1.67 billion, the central bank said in a statement in Manila yesterday. Remittances grew 6.1 percent in July. The gain was the fastest since 2009, Bloomberg data showed.
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