TECHNOLOGY
LG executive acquitted
A South Korean court yesterday acquitted a senior LG Electronics Co executive on charges of sabotaging rival Samsung Electronics Co’s washing machines at a trade fair in Germany last year. The Seoul Central District Court dismissed the case against Jo Seong-jin, the president of LG’s home appliance division, citing a lack of compelling evidence. The court ruled the prosecution failed to prove Jo actually broke the washers or had intended to do so.
TECHNOLOGY
Adobe tops estimates
Adobe Systems Inc on Thursday reported earnings that topped analysts’ estimates as the company signed up more customers for its cloud-based services. Revenue increased 22 percent to US$1.31 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter ending Nov. 27, the San Jose, California-based company said. Profit, excluding some items, was US$0.62 a share. The company also affirmed its fiscal 2016 forecast with sales expected to be about US$5.7 billion and profit excluding certain items of about US$2.70 a share. For the current quarter, Adobe forecast profit of US$0.56 to US$0.62 a share on sales of US$1.3 billion to US$1.35 billion.
TECHNOLOGY
Twitter expands ad promos
Twitter Inc said on Thursday it was expanding its advertising to allow marketers to reach people who use the messaging platform without logging in. The move potentially opens up new revenue streams to Twitter, which has struggled to expand its user base and has never made a profit. Twitter has 320 million active users, but claims its “total audience” is much larger, with many more people viewing tweets without joining or logging in. The company, which recently brought cofounder Jack Dorsey back as chief executive, saw its shares jump 7.4 percent on the news to US$26.11 in afternoon trade.
UNITED STATES
Unemployment filings rise
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 282,000 last week, the highest level since early July, the US Department of Labor said on Thursday. In a second report, the department said that import prices dropped 0.4 percent last month after decreasing 0.3 percent in October. Import prices have declined in 15 of the past 17 months. In the 12 months through November, prices tumbled 9.4 percent. The reports will probably do little to change views the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next Wednesday for the first time in nearly a decade.
CHINA
Lossmaking SOEs warned
China has set a two-year deadline for loss-making state-owned enterprises (SOE) to improve their performance, with firms that suffer losses for three straight years liable to be shut down, while sending a signal to firms controlled by provincial governments to step up its act. “By the end of 2017, a significant drop in losses is to be expected for enterprises whose losses are incurred from operations,” the State Council’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission said in a statement yesterday. Enterprises should leave the market through asset reorganization, transfer of property rights, closure or bankruptcy if they suffer three consecutive years of losses “and their business is not in line with the direction of structural adjustment,” the statement added.
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