INTERNET
Yahoo eyeing RayV: report
Yahoo Inc, eager to strengthen its video streaming activities, is close to buying the Israeli startup firm RayV, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The paper, quoting people familiar with the deal, said negotiations are nearly complete. It did not say what the sale price might be. Founded in 2006, video streaming startup RayV specializes in developing software for high-definition video streaming over the Internet. Acquiring RayV would be a boost for Yahoo, which has suffered several setbacks of late in its strategy of broadening its video offerings. Bids to acquire the French video site Dailymotion and TV portal Hulu failed.
AVIATION
First China-made jet ready
A state-owned aircraft maker yesterday said it is ready to deliver China’s first homegrown regional airliner and should complete a bigger plane in 2018. The first two of the ARJ21-700 regional jets have been completed for a Chinese carrier, Chengdu Airlines, and are coming to the end of the certification process, according to Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd (Comac, 中國商用飛機). The company said it has 252 orders. The ARJ21-700 can seat 78 to 90 passengers depending on its configuration, with a range of 2,225km to 3,700km.
FASHION
Burberry profit rallies 27%
Luxury fashion group Burberry yesterday reported a jump in annual profit, as new head Christopher Bailey said expansion in Japan would help the company build on record sales. Profit after tax rallied 27 percent to £322.5 million (US$543 million) in the 12 months to the end of March, compared with its performance a year earlier, the British company said in an earnings statement. Revenue increased 17 percent to £2.33 billion, while adjusted pre-tax profit grew 8 percent to £461 million.
TECHNOLOGY
Lenovo profit jumps 29%
Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group (聯想) yesterday announced a jump in full-year net profit of 29 percent, driven by record sales of smartphones. The Hong Kong-listed firm, the world’s leader in the PC market, said net profit for the fiscal year ending March 31 rose to US$817.23 million, up 28.7 percent year-on-year. Revenues were up 14.3 percent to US$38.71 billion, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
TECHNOLOGY
New Surface Pro tablet out
Microsoft Corp on Tuesday unveiled a new Surface Pro tablet designed as a powerful all-purpose computer fit to replace a laptop. Surface Pro 3 was touted as lighter, thinner, bigger and more powerful than its predecessor and crafted for a world in which people want to work as well as play on tablets. It has a 12-inch high-resolution screen, weighs about 800g and is less than 1cm deep. Pre-orders for the new tablet began yesterday, with a starting price of US$799.
ENERGY
Woodside drops Israel deal
Australian energy giant Woodside Petroleum yesterday said it has pulled out of the massive Leviathan gas joint venture off the coast of Israel — one of the largest deposits found in the world. The company said it had terminated an early-stage agreement with the Leviathan partners, led by US oil producer Noble Energy, to take a 25 percent stake worth an estimated US$2.5 billion in the discovery.
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