Pegatron Corp (和碩) chairman Tung Tsu-hsien (童子賢) yesterday said he has donated “tens of millions” of New Taiwan dollars to newly established online media outlet the Reporter in the hope of raising the quality of the nation’s journalism.
“Taiwan’s media spend too much time on reporting breaking news and too little on reporting non-political and non-industry-related news,” Tung said at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
“I hope this new media outlet will contribute to a change in this regard,” Tung said.
Tung declined to confirm if he had donated NT$20 million (US$611,995) or if his contribution was the largest among nine other donors.
He said that neither he nor the other sponsors are the owners of the media outlet.
“To ensure the independence of the outlet, I decided on three principles: I would not own shares in it, I would not intervene in its operations and I would not profit from it,” Tung said, adding that the other sponsors had also agreed to abide by these tenets.
The Reporter is the first online media outlet operated by a non-profit foundation in Taiwan and does not have a specific owner overseeing it, said Ho Jung-shin (何榮幸), cofounder of the Reporter and former editor-in-chief of the Chinese-language CommonWealth Magazine.
Ho said that the Reporter would not rely on income from advertising and aims to provide investigative reports, exclusive interviews and analysis to readers.
“We aim to offer insightful news stories rather than breaking news to readers,” Ho said at the news conference.
Ho said that funding for the Reporter would mainly come from large donations from various sources before it is officially launched by the end of this year and after that the outlet plans to launch a membership program to draw a steady revenue stream from subscribers.
“We hope to gradually reduce our reliance on large donations as we think small and steady donations from individuals would keep this new media outlet running longer,” he said.
Ho said it would cost approximately NT$35 million per year to run the Reporter and he hopes that eventually more than 50 percent of the funds would come from the outlet’s registered members.
Tung said that an increase in registered members would suggest that readers agree with the Reporter’s mission of providing insightful news stories instead of breaking news.
Separately, Tung reiterated that Pegatron, an assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, would enjoy revenue growth in the second half of this year from the first half’s NT$493.4 billion, due to the upcoming launch of a new generation of iPhones.
“We are very busy at the moment,” Tung said.
“We’ve been recruiting staff to meet clients’ demand,” he said.
Commenting on Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) strategic alliance with Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密), Tung said he does not think the cooperation between the two companies would affect Pegatron’s business outlook, as Pegatron’s silicon substrate subsidiary, Kinsus Interconnect Technology Corp (景碩科技), has been in the semiconductor industry for decades and has it own position in the market.
Pegatron shares dropped 0.95 percent to NT$83.4 in Taipei trading yesterday, outperforming the TAIEX, which lost 1.92 percent.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”