UNITED STATES
Firms to reveal data requests
AT&T Inc is to join rival Verizon Communications in disclosing details on US government requests for customer data starting next year. “Like Verizon recently announced, we intend to publish a semi-annual online report that will provide information on the number of law enforcement requests for customer information that our company receives in the countries in which we do business,” AT&T said in a statement on Friday.
EUROZONE
IMF releases Cyprus bailout
The IMF released the next installment of its bailout of Cyprus on Friday, launching the latest stage in its support plan for the desperately struggling eurozone economy. The IMF said 83.5 million euros (US$114 million) was newly available to Cyprus, bringing to 250 million euros the amount it has disbursed from the three-year loan extended to Cyprus.
PUBLISHING
News Corp acquires firm
News Corp said on Friday that it acquired Storyful, a company that gathers user-generated news and video, for US$25 million to help it grow its digital and video business. Storyful, which bills itself as a “news agency of the social media age,” finds, verifies and acquires news content that people share online. New York-based News Corp said its newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, is already a Storyful customer.
INVESTMENT
Morgan Stanley to divest
Investment bank Morgan Stanley on Friday announced plans to sell part of its commodity business to Russian oil giant Rosneft for an undisclosed sum. The transaction covers Morgan Stanley’s “global oil merchanting” business, which engages in global storage, trading and transportation of oil and petroleum products. While the deal includes physical holdings of oil and refined products associated with existing contracts, it will not not include Morgan Stanley’s stake in oil pipeline and terminal company TransMontaigne, the bank said.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Finnish Rail buying trains
Finnish Rail said on Friday it is buying 80 electric locomotives from Siemens for more than 300 million euros (US$410 million), in one of the largest such deals in Europe this year. The VR rail group says the entire fleet is to be delivered by 2026 with the first locomotives being operational in 2017. The purchase also includes an option for an additional 97 engines from Germany’s Siemens Rail Systems. VR Group said the deal is expected to close early next year.
BIOMEDICAL
Firm tests artificial heart
French biomedical firm Carmat on Friday said it had begun the first human trial of its prototype artificial heart, which aims at overcoming shortages of organs available for transplant. The implant operation, which took place on Wednesday at the Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris, “went satisfactorily,” it said in a statement.The patient, whom it did not name, is in intensive care, “is conscious and speaking to relatives,” Carmat said, adding that it was too early to draw wider conclusions about the operation.
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],”