BRAZIL
Official GDP forecast cut
The government said on Friday it was cutting its economic growth forecast for this year from 4.5 percent to 3 percent because of the impact of the global slowdown. The figure was still higher than the 2.5 percent predicted by the central bank or analysts’ expectations of 2.05 percent. In the first quarter of the year, the GDP of Latin America’s dominant power grew only 0.2 percent compared with the previous quarter and only 0.8 percent when compared with the same period of last year. Over the past few months, the government has taken a series of steps to stimulate the economy and boost growth, including lowering taxes and bringing the base interest rate to a historic low of 8 percent to spur domestic consumption.
ELECTRONICS
Judge limits Apple evidence
Apple Inc was barred by a federal judge from using a court order blocking US sales of Samsung Electronics Co’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer as evidence in a patent-infringement trial set to start on July 30 in San Jose, California. US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose ruled her order last month barring sales of the Tab is of “limited value” in the upcoming trial, and the “prejudicial effect to Samsung would greatly outweigh any relevance for the jury,” according to a Thursday ruling made public yesterday. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday denied Samsung’s request to lift a ban on sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer pending appeal.
INTERNET
Facebook buys out Acrylic
The engineer behind Canadian startup Acrylic said on Friday that he was closing up his one-man shop and joining the design team at leading social network Facebook. Facebook confirmed that it has bought Acrylic in an “acqui-hire” that brings on board founder Dustin MacDonald, the creator of mobile gadget applications for newsfeeds and digital wallets. Acrylic’s best-known applications — Wallet and Newsfeed — were not acquired by Facebook in the deal. Facebook recently bought startups Spool and TagTile in “talent acquisitions” aimed at helping it stay in synch with users as they shift increasingly to using smartphones and tablet computers.
SRI LANKA
Fresh IMF funding sought
The nation yesterday announced the completion of a US$2.6 billion IMF bailout, but said it was seeking fresh loans to support an economy emerging from decades of war. The IMF on Friday released the final installment of the bailout agreed in July 2009, two months after Colombo defeated Tamil rebels in a major offensive to end the drawn-out conflict. The drawing down of the final installment of the bailout package marked the longest engagement Sri Lanka has had with the IMF and the single largest facility from a multilateral institution, the central bank said. It did not say how much Colombo hoped to secure from the IMF by way of fresh loans, but Ministry of Finance sources said the government was looking at more than US$500 million as a first step. The original July 2009 IMF bailout was secured when the nation’s foreign reserves had dropped to the dangerously low level of US$1 billion, or just sufficient to support a couple of weeks’ imports.
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],”