INDIA
Rajan introduces stimulus
New Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan started his first day in office on Wednesday by announcing short-term measures to boost confidence as the troubled Indian economy slows and the currency tumbles. Rajan had not been expected to make specific policy changes on the day he was sworn into office, but he announced the measures at a televised news conference. Among the measures he promised for the coming months were that existing banks would be able to open new domestic branches without the central bank’s permission and that long-awaited new banking licenses would be issued by January. The central bank will also soon issue inflation-indexed savings certificates and take steps to encourage financial services for the poor, including making payments easier through mobile banking, he said.
ENERGY
Caracas told to pay Conoco
An international arbitrator has ruled that Venezuela made no genuine effort to fairly compensate ConocoPhillips after seizing the US oil company’s assets in the country. The World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes effectively ruled on Tuesday that Caracas is bound to pay Conoco fairly for the assets, which were nationalized in 2007 by the government of then-president Hugo Chavez. Venezuela “breached its obligation to negotiate in good faith for compensation for its taking of the ConocoPhillips assets in the three projects on the basis of market value,” the tribunal said.
TECHNOLOGY
Motorola loses patent case
Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility did not act in good faith when it demanded patent royalties from Microsoft Corp for use of video-compression and Wi-Fi technology, a federal jury said on Wednesday. The jury in Seattle acted in its first day of deliberations. Microsoft was awarded about US$14.5 million in damages, the Seattle Times newspaper reported in a blog post. The verdict could help the two companies resolve a dispute over patent royalties for both fundamental technologies in electronic devices and features that make them easier to use. More broadly, the case is one front in a global debate on how to handle patents that relate to technology included in industry standards used by all manufacturers.
INTERNET
Yahoo unveils new logo
Yahoo has adopted a new logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company’s founding 18 years ago. The redesigned look unveiled late on Wednesday is part of a makeover that Yahoo has been undergoing since the company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become its CEO 14 months ago. Mayer has already spruced up Yahoo’s front page, e-mail and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well as engineered a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices. The logo was shown both with purple letters and in white with a purple background spelling out the word Yahoo!, with no letters touching and ending with an exclamation point.
VIDEO GAmes
Xbox coming in November
Microsoft’s new Xbox One console will go on sale on Nov. 22 in 13 launch countries, the US tech giant said on Wednesday. The company had previously said the entertainment and gaming console would be available sometime in November. In June, Microsoft said the launch would be in 21 countries, but last month cut that back to 13, saying the plan had been too ambitious.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last