SMARTPHONES
BlackBerry updates BES12
BlackBerry Ltd said its core mobile device management service, known as BES12, is now available for users who do not want to run it off computers in their offices. The offering targets small and medium-sized businesses, as well as departments of larger companies that manage their own smartphones, BlackBerry chief operating officer Marty Beard said by telephone. Beard said the cloud product is cheaper to set up while maintaining the company’s high standards for security.
ECONOMY
S Korean ouptut plummets
South Korea’s industrial output fell 3.7 percent in January — the biggest monthly decline in six years — due to slowing automobile and machinery production, state data showed yesterday. The 3.7 percent fall in production of mining, manufacturing, gas and electricities followed a 3 percent increase in December last year. While the December monthly growth rate was the highest for five years, the January decline was the sharpest since December 2008, when output dropped 10.5 percent. Production of automobiles shrank 7.7 percent from a month earlier and machinery production also tumbled 6.8 percent. Retail sales fell 3.1 percent monthly. The nation’s 80 percent hike in cigarette prices that took effect in January played a role in dampening consumption, Yonhap news agency quoted a South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance official as saying. Investment also sagged 7.1 percent due to falling spending by automakers and machinery firms.
INTERNET
Google offers virtual jungle
For its next technological trick, Google Inc wants to show you what it is like to zip through trees in the Amazon rain forest. The images released yesterday are the latest addition to the diverse collection of photos supplementing Google’s widely used digital maps. The maps’ “Street View” option mostly provides panoramic views of cities and neighborhoods photographed by vehicle-mounted cameras, but Google has also found creative ways to depict exotic locations where there are no roads. In its latest foray into the wilderness, Google teamed up with environmental protection group Amazonas Sustainable Foundation, to explore a remote part of an Amazon rainforest. Google lent the foundation its Trekker device, a camera rigged to be carried like a backpack by hikers on trails. Google is renowned for going out on a technological limb, but even this project made the company nervous at first, said Karin Tuxen-Bettman, who oversees Google’s Street View partnerships.
SHIPPING
Maersk payout omits bonds
As A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S prepares to return a record US$6.5 billion to shareholders next month, its bond investors are losing out. Denmark’s biggest company is selling its 20 percent stake in Danske Bank A/S, which is set to trigger extra dividends of about US$5.5 billion next month. In addition, Maersk is set to pay ordinary shareholder dividends of about US$1 billion. “We see the sale as another step toward creating as much value for the shareholders as possible,” PFA Pension A/S managing director Jesper Langmack said in an e-mail. Copenhagen-based PFA owns about US$375 million in Maersk shares, but has not invested in the company’s bonds. Maersk said in its earnings report released on Wednesday last week that it expects the Danske sale to be “credit neutral.” However, according to a note published by Moody’s Investors Service the next day, the sale is “credit negative.”
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last