TECHNOLOGY
iPhone 5 launch dates issued
Apple announced that the latest version of the iPhone will be released in South Korea on Friday and in more than 50 other countries including Taiwan, Russia and Brazil later in the month.
The news indicated that the California-based company was on track to make the iPhone 5 available in 100 countries by the end of the year, despite being hard pressed to meet demand where the handsets are being sold. Apple last week unveiled plans to sell the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad in China starting on Friday, and the iPhone 5 will be available on Dec. 14, Apple said in a statement.
MINING
Miner reports budget drop
Brazil’s mining giant Vale on Monday announced a 24 percent drop in its investment budget for next year to US$16.3 billion, anticipating “a moderate expansion” of global demand in the sector. The world’s top iron ore producer said its board of directors approved capital expenditures of US$10.1 billion for project execution, US$5.1 billion for existing operations and US$1.1 billion for research and development. Capital and research and development expenditures for this year were estimated to reach US$17.5 billion, down from the US$18 billion for last year. In October, Vale reported a third-quarter net profit of US$1.66 billion, down from US$4.935 billion during the same period last year and US$2.66 billion in the second quarter of last year.
TOURISM
Agency to set up airline
One of Japan’s biggest travel agencies said yesterday it would set up a charter airline based in Bangkok as demand for air travel in Asia soars. H.I.S. said its Asia Pacific Airlines would begin operating flights in the summer, connecting Bangkok to locations across East Asia, including China, Japan and South Korea, a company official said. The carrier would initially operate two 767 mid-sized planes before expanding its fleet to 10 aircraft within several years, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
Adobe releases free toolkit
Adobe late on Monday released a free toolkit to make it easier for developers to create Flash-based games to ride the growing wave of playing on smartphones, tablets, and in Internet browsers. Game Developers Tools made available were the first tied to Adobe’s “Creative Cloud,” providing computing muscle from Adobe’s online datacenters. Flash-based games can be found among the top titles at social network Facebook as well as those popular for play using personal computer browsers.
MEDIA
Firm slams Reuters reports
Japan’s Universal Entertainment Corp yesterday accused Reuters of “misrecognition of the facts” in publishing stories about millions of dollars in payments from Universal to an ex-consultant to the Philippine gaming authority. The stories, published on Nov. 16 and on Friday last week, detailed a series of payments made to Rodolfo Soriano, a close associate of the former head of the gaming authority, between January and May of 2010 when Universal was lobbying for concessions for a casino resort on Manila Bay. Soriano is now at the center of a Philippine bribery investigation. The story published on Friday said Universal channeled at least US$30 million to companies controlled by Soriano, citing company records and people with knowledge of the transactions and related investigations.
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],”