TECHNOLOGY
Google targets meetings
Google took aim at office meeting rooms on Thursday with the release of a Chromebox for videoconferencing. “These days, we often connect with each other from far-flung locations, coordinating time zones and dialing into conference calls from our phones,” Google product management vice president Caesar Sengupta said in a blog post. “Meetings need to catch up with the way we work — they need to be face-to-face, easier to join, and available from anywhere and any device.” Chromebox-for-meetings is available in the US at a starting price of US$999 and is to be released later this year in Australia, the UK, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand and Spain. As many as 15 people can take part in a Chromebox video conference using smartphones, tablets, laptops or other Internet-linked computers.
ECONOMY
Australia lifts GDP forecast
Australia’s central bank lifted its economic growth forecasts yesterday as the local currency weakens and lower interest rates boost spending, but it sounded a warning on inflation and said unemployment would rise. The Reserve Bank of Australia said it now expected the economy to expand 2.75 percent in the year to June 30, and between 2.25 percent and 3.25 percent in the year to Dec. 31. That compares with the forecasts in November last year of 2.5 percent and 2 percent to 3 percent. “The revision reflects, in part, the effect of the lower exchange rate, which is expected to provide some boost to activity in the traded sector,” the bank said in its quarterly monetary policy update. However, the bank said GDP would only come in at “trend at best” as the decade-long Asia-led mining investment boom unwinds.
COMPANIES
LinkedIn expects less sales
LinkedIn Corp forecast sales that trailed analysts’ estimates, pushing the stock down as much as 15 percent in extended trading, as growth slows in all three of the professional-networking site’s businesses. First-quarter revenue will be US$455 million to US$460 million, the Mountain View, California-based company said yesterday in a statement. Analysts on average projected sales of US$469.4 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The shares fell as low as US$191.13 in extended trading after rising 4.2 percent to US$223.45 at yesterday’s close in New York. Net income dropped 67 percent in the fourth quarter to US$3.78 million, or 3 cents a share, from US$11.5 million, or 10 cents, a year earlier, the company said. Sales in the period jumped 47 percent to US$447.2 million, exceeding the US$437.6 million average analyst estimate, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
E-COMMERCE
Sony closes ebook store
Sony announced on Thursday it was closing its ebook store for North America and giving its customer list to rival Kobo. The Japanese company, which earlier unveiled a major reorganization, said it would close its Reader Store in the US and Canada on March 20. “Although we’re sorry to say goodbye to the Reader Store, we’re also glad to share the new and exciting future for our readers: Reader Store will transfer customers to Toronto-based eReading company, Kobo — an admired ebook seller with a passionate reading community,” a blog post at the Sony Reader Web site said. Sony said customers and their current ebook libraries “will transfer to the Kobo ecosystem” under the change.
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