INTERNET
Facebook settles lawsuit
Facebook Inc has agreed to pay US$10 million to charity to settle a lawsuit that accused the site of violating users’ rights to control the use of their own names, photographs and likenesses, according to court documents made public over the weekend. The lawsuit, brought by five Facebook members, alleged the social networking site violated California law by publicizing users’ “likes” of certain advertisers on its “Sponsored Stories” feature without paying them or giving them a way to opt out, the documents said. A “Sponsored Story” is an advertisement that appears on a member’s Facebook page and generally consists of another friend’s name, profile picture and an assertion that the person “likes” the advertiser.
AUSTRALIA
Mining expenditure booms
Mineral exploration spending in the country, the world’s biggest iron ore exporter, reached a record in March and has risen 35 percent since a new policy to tax carbon was unveiled last year, the government said. Spending rose 12 percent to a record A$1.086 billion (US$1.09 billion) in the March quarter and the investment pipeline in the resources industry reached an estimated A$500 billion on demand from Asia, Treasurer Wayne Swan said in his weekly economic note yesterday. The tax on carbon emissions, starting on July 1, will reap about A$6.5 billion over two years from the country’s biggest mining companies, including BHP Billiton Ltd. Canberra expects to raise A$24.7 billion in four years from the tax as the government tries to reduce emissions and spur investment in cleaner energy. While a resources boom has made the nation one of the fastest-growing economies in the developed world, the policy has not helping Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s approval ratings.
INVESTMENT
Omnibus raises Japan stake
OD05 Omnibus, an investment fund widely believed to be a Chinese government investment vehicle, has been increasing its stakes in Japanese companies, including Toyota and Honda, a report said yesterday. By the end of March, the OD05 Omnibus fund was the largest shareholder in 174 Japanese firms, the highest level ever recorded, the business daily Nikkei Shimbun reported, citing its own survey of listed companies. It estimated the total market value of the fund’s stock holdings in Japan at about ¥3.58 trillion (US$45 billion), also a record. The report, which highlights growing China-Japan economic ties, comes after China’s sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp reportedly said it would no longer buy European government debt.
TECHNOLOGY
Google unveils cultural map
Google on Saturday unveiled a cultural map of Brazil’s Surui indigenous people, a digital tool that will help the Amazonian tribe share its vast knowledge of the forest and fight illegal logging. The map, the result of a five-year partnership between Surui chief Almir and the US technology giant, was released online for the first time at a business forum held on the sidelines of the UN Rio+20 conference on sustainable development. The map, a collection of picture and videos mapping historical sites and offering 3-D visualization of Surui territory in the northwestern Brazilian state of Rondonia, is available on the site www.paiter.org as well as on Google Earth. Google Earth Outreach leader Rebecca Moore described it as the company’s first such project with an indigenous people.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”