TELECOM
Suit loss adds to RIM’s woes
A US federal jury in San Francisco has found beleaguered Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd (RIM) liable for US$147.2 million in damages for infringing on patents held by Mformation Technologies Inc. Amar Thakur, a lawyer for Mformation, said Saturday that the verdict late on Friday followed a three-week trial and a week of deliberations by an eight-person jury. Mformation, of Edison, New Jersey, sued Research in Motion in October 2008, alleging that Canada-based RIM infringed on its 1999 invention for remotely managing wireless devices. Mformation’s software allows companies to remotely access employee cellphones to do software upgrades, change passwords or to wipe data from phones that have been stolen. Thakur said the jury ruled that RIM should pay his client US$8 for each of the 18.4 million BlackBerrys that were connected to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, from the day the lawsuit was filed until the time of the trial.
SPORTSWEAR
Bolt key to Puma strategy
With the London Olympic games just days away, German sportswear giant Puma is pinning its hopes on sprint legend Usain Bolt to speed up sales and outpace its bigger competitors Adidas and Nike. Bolt, the world’s fastest man who blew away his rivals to win three gold medals in Beijing four years ago, is also a key plank in the firm’s strategy to shift its focus from lifestyle clothing to sportswear. Sportswear currently accounts for 35 percent of Puma sales, but the firm’s boss Franz Koch wants to boost that to 40 percent and the company sees its sponsorship of double world record holder Bolt as key to that aim.
For the full year, Puma is aiming at an increase of between 5 and 10 percent in turnover with a roughly 5 percent boost in net profits.
AVIATION
Kingfisher strike over
India’s struggling Kingfisher Airlines said late on Saturday its services would return to normal after a strike by employees over long overdue pay forced cancellation of more than three dozen flights. The announcement came after the airline’s owner, Vijay Mallya, told workers in an open letter that “damaging the future of Kingfisher in the public’s eyes is not going to produce cash” to pay wages and keep the carrier aloft. The walkout, the third in under two weeks, came after the airline — which owes vast sums to banks, suppliers and staff — won more time from lenders this month to come up with a recovery plan to avert bankruptcy. Kingfisher, which has US$1.4 billion in debts, is flying some 15 aircraft, down from an earlier 64 planes, as it battles to curb costs.
PHARMACEUTICALS
EU medicine body opens up
Europe’s medicines regulator, criticized in the past for excessive secrecy, is opening its data vaults to systematic scrutiny in a move that will let independent researchers trawl through millions of pages of clinical trial information. The change is a landmark in transparency that puts Europe ahead of the US, according to critics of the US$1 trillion-a-year global drugs industry, who have long argued for full access to trial data. Such information is a treasure trove for scientists wanting to test drug company claims and potentially expose product deficiencies. It is blow for the pharmaceutical industry, which guards its commercial secrets fiercely and has not before been required to share its data with independent researchers or academics.
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],”