ENTERTAINMENT
Sony halts PS2 production
Sony Corp said it has stopped producing its PlayStation 2 (PS2) consoles in Japan, fueling online rumors a PlayStation 4 is in the pipeline. Since launching in 2000 the PS2, which has a Blu-ray player, has sold more than 150 million units worldwide, making it the best selling console of all time and was so popular it outsold its replacement for the first three years. Shipments have been “completed” for the hardware of the PS2, the Japanese Web site of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc said, with no further comment.
ENTERTAINMENT
Zynga packs up 11 titles
Social games publisher Zynga Inc confirmed on Monday that it has carried out 11 of the planned shutdowns of 13 game titles, with Petville being the latest game on which it pulled the plug. Zynga in October said it would shut down 13 underperforming titles after warning that its revenues were slowing as gamers fled from its once-popular titles published on the Facebook platform in large numbers and sharply revised its full-year outlook.
INTERNET
Amazon regrets Web error
Amazon on Monday said it was sorry for a Web Services mishap that put online film streaming service Netflix out of commission on Christmas Eve. “We want to apologize,” Amazon said in a message posted at its Web site. “We know how critical our services are to our customers’ businesses, and we know this disruption came at an inopportune time for some of our customers.” Amazon.com attributed the outage to a mistake by one of its developers that caused a problem with load balancers at data centers the company uses to provide “web services” to clients such as Netflix.
AVIATION
Kingfisher loses permit
India’s troubled Kingfisher Airlines has lost its permit to fly after a deadline to renew its suspended license expired, India’s aviation regulator said yesterday. The news is a fresh blow for the debt-laden carrier whose operations have been grounded since October after employees went on strike over unpaid wages. However, the airline said there is no “cause for concern” as the rules allow for the renewal of a permit within two years of expiry.
LUXURY GOODS
Bulgari accused of tax fraud
Italian jeweler Bulgari, which was bought last year by French luxury giant LVMH, is being investigated for alleged tax evasion via Ireland and Luxembourg, Italian media reported on Monday. The company is accused of routing its revenues through countries with lower taxes to avoid paying higher taxes in Italy and thereby dodging about 70 million euros (US$93 million) in taxes, the Corriere della Sera and Messaggero dailies reported. Contacted by reporters, representatives of LVMH and Italian tax police could not be reached.
ECONOMY
Growth in Singapore slows
Singapore likely slipped into recession in the three months to last month, analysts said on Monday, as data showed growth last year came in lower than expected. In his New Year’s message, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) said “growth was slower this year, at 1.2 percent,” which is well off the official growth forecast of 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent. Lee said growth had been hit by weakness in the city-state’s key export markets of Europe, which is battling a debt crisis, and the US and Japan, where economic recovery is sputtering.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is