INTERNET
Google lawsuit dismissed
A US judge on Thursday dismissed a long-running lawsuit challenging Google’s huge book digitization project, ruling that the scanning of millions of books is not copyright infringement. Judge Denny Chin dismissed the case which dates back to 2005, saying Google’s project is “fair use” under copyright law and “does not supersede or supplant books because it is not a tool to be used to read books.” Plaintiffs, led by the Authors Guild, had argued that Google’s “Library Project” violated the rights of authors by scanning works without obtaining approval from the authors. However, Chin concluded that Google’s use of the copyrighted works is “highly transformative” in that it enables readers to find out about new books and permits book text to be transformed “for purposes of substantive research, including data mining and text mining ... thereby opening up new fields of research.”
SOLAR ENERGY
Firms invest in solar plants
Internet giant Google and investment firm KKR will invest US$400 million in six solar plants in California and Arizona, the companies announced on Thursday. The plants are expected to be operational by January next year. They will be managed by Recurrent Energy, a California solar developer. The companies plan to sell the electricity to municipal users and local utilities, including Southern California Edison. Five of the plants are in California and the sixth is in Arizona. A Google spokeswoman said the total investment in the projects is US$400 million.
RETAIL
Wal-Mart sees Q3 profit
US retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Thursday notched a 2.8 percent rise in third quarter profit from a year ago, but trimmed its full-year profit forecast against a tough competitive backdrop. Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer, said net income for the third quarter came in at US$3.7 billion on revenue of US$115.7 billion. Earnings translated into US$1.14 per share, a cent above analyst forecasts. Revenue, up 1.7 percent from last year’s third quarter, was well below the US$116.8 billion consensus estimate.
GAMING
Firm buys Dwango shares
Nintendo Co, the creator of the game franchises Mario and Zelda, bought 612,200 shares in Dwango Co, a company that provides content through mobile phones, according to a statement filed with the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday. Nintendo is not planning to distribute games through Dwango’s video delivery system Niconico, Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said. Nintendo currently promotes its games through the system, he said. Nintendo acquired the shares at the request of Dwango chairman Nobuo Kawakami for his personal funding needs, he added.
HEALTHCARE
Kleenex maker to divest
Kimberly-Clark Corp, the maker of Kleenex tissues and Huggies diapers, plans to spin off its healthcare business, leaving management to focus on its consumer and professional brands. The tax-free deal would create a stand-alone, publicly traded company with about US$1.6 billion in annual sales, Dallas-based Kimberly-Clark said in a statement on Thursday. The unit that would be separated makes products such as sterile wraps, surgical face masks and catheters. About 70 percent of its sales last year were in North America, with most of the rest in Europe and Asia. In the third quarter, revenue rose after the division posted declines in the previous four quarters.
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],”
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
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