INTERNET
SurveyMonkey chief dies
SurveyMonkey chief executive officer Dave Goldberg, the husband of Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, died unexpectedly on Friday night, his brother said on Facebook on Saturday. Goldberg was known for his low-key demeanor and the grace and good humor with which he handled being married to one of the nation’s most recognizable executives. In her book Lean In, Sandberg attributed much of her own success to her marriage to Goldberg, who she said supported her career decisions and shared equally in the work of raising their young children. Goldberg, 47, joined SurveyMonkey, which helps organizations conduct surveys, in 2009.
VENEZUELA
Maduro makes food pledge
President Nicolas Maduro has promised to nationalize food distribution in the South American nation beset with record shortages of basic goods, runaway inflation and an escalating economic crisis. During a rally on Friday, on International Workers’ Day, the socialist leader allowed a union activist to ask for the nationalization of food and essential-item distribution. Citing new decree-making powers recently granted by the National Assembly, Maduro said he would carry out such a measure “in the coming days and weeks.” Maduro had pledged earlier in the week to announce economic reforms. Various estimates suggest the government already controls about half of the nation’s food distribution, but that has not stopped record shortages in shops and markets. Venezuela is struggling with a recession, 68.5 percent annual inflation and severe shortages of the basic goods that it relies on oil money to import.
AUTOMAKERS
US dismisses Toyota claim
US safety regulators have rejected a Rhode Island man’s request for an investigation into low-speed unintended acceleration problems with Toyota Corolla compact cars. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in documents posted on its Web site on Saturday, said it put more than 3,200km on a 2010 Corolla owned by Bob Ruginis, of Bristol, Rhode Island. However, the agency’s Ohio test lab could not find any problems with the throttle or transmission systems. The lab also found that the brakes could keep the car stationary even at full throttle. The decision is a victory for Toyota, which has been dogged by complaints of unwanted acceleration since 2009. The complaints brought investigations and recalls totaling 10 million vehicles, as well as multiple lawsuits and a US$1.2 billion penalty for hiding information from the NHTSA.
MACROECONOMICS
US Fed heads see rate rise
The US Federal Reserve could well raise interest rates as soon as next month, two top US central bankers said on Friday, as long as economic data strengthens as expected from a dismal first quarter. That view — from the hawkish-leaning Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester, and Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams — is at odds with the view of many traders, whose bets in the interest-rate futures markets suggest they have all but discounted a rate hike next month and now expect the Fed to wait until December before raising rates for the first time since 2006. The key, both Mester and Williams said, is that by a quirk of the calendar there will be two more months of data for many of the key gauges the Fed follows, including the US jobless rate, jobs gains, retail sales and others.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by