TECHNOLOGY
Yahoo details data requests
Yahoo Inc, the largest US Web portal, said it got as many as 13,000 requests for information from US law enforcement agencies, becoming the latest technology company to detail government data collection. The requests occurred in the six months ended last month, with the most common types related to fraud, homicides and criminal investigations, Yahoo said in a posting on Tumblr. The company said it cannot lawfully break out Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requests and it urged the US government to reconsider its stance on the issue. The company said it plans to issue its first global law-enforcement transparency report later this year and will refresh it every six months with new statistics.
MALAYSIA
1MDB to list power assets
Sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) plans to raise about US$1 billion through a public listing of its power assets in Malaysia next year, Dow Jones Newswires has reported. The funds raised through the share sale will help pay off some of the debts of the investment company, Dow Jones said in its report on Monday, quoting people familiar with the plans. Government-owned investor 1MDB has bought several power plants since last year, including tycoon Ananda Krishnan’s power generation business for US$2.7 billion and Genting Bhd’s domestic energy operations for 2.3 billion ringgit (US$730 million), Dow Jones said.
UNITED STATES
Homebuilders’ confidence up
Confidence among homebuilders surged this month, staging its biggest gain since 2002 in one of the strongest signs yet that the housing recovery is gaining traction. The closely watched National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, released on Monday, jumped to 52 this month from 44 the previous month, handily topping forecasts. The index has risen 23 points from a year earlier. Readings above 50 mean more builders see market conditions as favorable rather than poor. It was the first time the index has climbed above that dividing line since April 2006. The latest reading was also the highest since March of that year.
CHIPMAKERS
AMD unveils new products
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), struggling to compete with Intel Corp in the market for processors that run server computers, unveiled three new products aimed at making a dent in its larger rival’s sales. AMD will offer “Berlin” chips for data-center machines that handle basic tasks such as Web hosting, “Warsaw” for powerful servers that will compete at lower price and “Seattle,” AMD’s first server chip based on ARM Holdings PLC technology. AMD’s ARM-based chips will go on sale next year, the company said.
INTERNET
Facebook sparks buzz
A mysterious Facebook event set for tomorrow has sparked buzz that the leading social network could be adding video to Instagram smartphone picture-sharing service. The leading social network invited the media to its headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park where “a small team has been working on a big idea,” but remained hush about what will be unveiled. Online speculation at technology news Web site TechCrunch and elsewhere has included the possibility that Instagram will start letting people share video snippets in a style similar to a hit Vine app launched by Twitter in January.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy