INTERNET
Chromebooks rise: WitsView
Adoption of Google Inc’s Web-based Chromebook computers could hit 3 or 4 percent of the global market this year, market researcher WitsView said, adding that penetration of Chromebooks looks ready to pick up as clients become more reliant on Google services. Many major brands have started developing their own Chromebooks, and more retail channels have boosted product exposure and consumer choice.
AVIATION
Boeing wins 71 orders
US aerospace giant Boeing said on Thursday it had won 71 new orders for its best-selling 737 commercial jetliner in a week, with more than half for its new 737 MAX. Boeing did not disclose the name of the buyer or the buyers of the short to medium-haul aircraft in the week through Tuesday. The Chicago-based company said it had a total of 176 net new orders since the year started, including 170 orders for the single-aisle 737. The first flights of both planes are scheduled in 2016, with deliveries to customers beginning in 2017, Boeing said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Sony plans TV series
Sony’s PlayStation Network has followed online media giants Netflix and Amazon in commissioning its first original drama series, a spokesman said on Thursday. Powers, based on a comic book of the same name, combines the genres of superhero fantasy, crime noir and police procedural, and is produced by Sony Pictures, he said. Sony, aiming to compete with its main video games console rival Microsoft’s Xbox Live in offering TV-style programing, has ordered 10 episodes of the show, according to CNN.
SECURITY
Symantec fires president
Security software maker Symantec on Thursday fired its president and CEO Steve Bennett and named director Michael Brown as his temporary replacement. It is the second time in less than two years that Symantec has fired its CEO. Bennett became president and CEO in July 2012, when Enrique Salem was fired after three years in charge of the company. The Mountain View, California, company behind Norton Antivirus software did not cite a precise reason for Bennett’s ouster.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota to end lockout
Toyota said that it would lift a lockout next week on its Indian assembly plants after a meeting with labor groups and a local government mediator to resolve a pay dispute. A total of 17 workers have been suspended for alleged misconduct and indiscipline over the protests at two factories in southern India. Toyota decided to resume production on March 24 after talks with its workers’ union and a senior state labor official on Thursday.
RAILWAYS
Hitachi eyes London move
Japanese electronics giant Hitachi will move its global rail business to London, as it seeks expansion in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, the firm said on Thursday. The group appointed London-based Alistair Dormer, the former head of Hitachi Rail Europe, as the new chief executive officer of its global rail systems business with effect from April 1, it said in a statement. Hitachi aims to bid for lucrative contracts on Britain’s new £50 billion (US$82.5 billion) High Speed 2 railway.
RETAIL
Study tracks UK closures
The gap between store closures and openings in Britain’s 500 largest town centers fell by 80 percent last year as the economy improved, though 16 stores a day are still closed, according to a survey published by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Local Data Company yesterday. The survey found fashion shops, banks, video libraries, travel agents, mobile phone outlets, recruitment agencies and shoe shops were falling in numbers. However, charity shops, convenience stores, betting shops, check cashing, sports good shops and coffee shops were bucking the trend.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts