Yahoo Inc plans to fold up its online map service this month as it strives to recapture past glory by reinventing itself as a premier venue for digital lifestyles.
Word that Yahoo is to shut down an array of tools and services by the end of this month comes as the California-based Internet search pioneer spins off an Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) investment that bolstered the company’s coffers despite lackluster earnings from its own offerings.
“We continue to focus on our key product pillars: search, communications and digital content,” Yahoo chief architect Amotz Maimon said in an online post. “Part of that focus includes taking a hard look at our existing products and services, and ensuring our resources are spent smartly and with a clear purpose.”
Yahoo plans to continue to support maps in products such as search and Flickr, Maimon said.
“We made this decision to better align resources to Yahoo’s priorities, as our business has evolved since we first launched Yahoo Maps eight years ago,” he said.
Google Inc’s free online mapping service has soared in popularity and Apple Inc has been bolstering its own map capabilities for its popular mobile devices.
Yahoo plans to close Yahoo Music in France and Canada along with Yahoo Movies in Spain.
Also closing by month’s end are Yahoo TV in Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Canada, as well as Yahoo Autos in most of those countries.
Yahoo Entertainment in Singapore is also to be shuttered, Maimon said.
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