If there is one company that has enjoyed a bit of good press from the Sony Corp hacking scandal, it is BlackBerry Ltd.
The beleaguered entertainment company had to dig up old BlackBerry phones to use after Sony’s computers and landlines went down and company e-mail was unusable after a cyberattack that began last month, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The emergence of the old devices as a haven for Sony executives has served as a free advertisement of sorts and bolstered BlackBerry chief executive officer John Chen’s (程守宗) focus on security to win government and business customers.
That Sony had to unearth the devices, long since relegated to storage, also highlighted that BlackBerry’s share of the global smartphone market has fallen to less than 1 percent, as iPhones and Android devices have gained ground.
“It’s proven that BlackBerry devices and the server are a lot more secure than any other solutions out there commercially available,” Chen said in a CNBC interview on Dec. 19.
He declined to comment on whether Sony would have been protected against the hackers if it had been using BlackBerry’s services, because he did not know the specifics of the attacks.
BlackBerry spokeswoman Lisette Kwong declined to comment on whether BlackBerry is working with Sony to bolster security.
Data on a BlackBerry is encrypted and secured on the device, and the Waterloo, Ontario-based company operates a network of servers on behalf of its clients.
The cyberattack that crippled the computers at Sony’s entertainment division stemmed from the studio’s film The Interview — a farcical comedy about a US TV crew that is recruited to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
While it is not completely clear who carried out the attacks or how they gained entry to Sony’s confidential documents and correspondence, the FBI has linked the hacking group to North Korea.
Amid the attack, Sony’s use of BlackBerrys served as yet another reminder that the company has been down, but not out. The focus on preventing leaks and hacks has helped BlackBerry maintain a devoted following among heads of state, such as US President Barack Obama, and celebrities like Kim Kardashian.
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