Facing severe budget cuts in almost all aspects of the Games, the Rio de Janeiro Olympics have been given a boost by Panasonic Corp’s decision to sign on as a sponsor for the opening and closing ceremonies.
In a statement, the Japanese electronics company said it would provide an array of equipment to project visual images and sound for the ceremonies of the Olympics and the Paralympics.
Panasonic is one of the International Olympic Committee’s top sponsors, but taking a role in the ceremonies is unusual and reflects the reality of Brazil’s dire economy.
The country is in the midst of a steep recession, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is fighting impeachment and inflation is running at more than 10 percent. Hanging over this is a massive bribery scandal involving Brazil’s state-owned oil giant Petrobras.
On Friday, police used tear gas, stun grenades and pepper spray to disperse sometimes violent demonstrations against an increase in bus and subway fares in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, while a similar but peaceful protest was held in Belo Horizonte.
Brazil’s attorney general last month said he was investigating allegations that bribes were paid to a powerful lawmaker to help secure contracts for venues and other works for Rio’s Games.
The Olympics’ organizers are trying to cut about US$500 million in expenditures to stay within a US$1.9 billion operating budget — with the Games opening in just under seven months.
The cuts reach everywhere, including the use of unpaid volunteers.
Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles — who is part of the creative team for the ceremonies — complained months ago about sharp cuts to the ceremony budgets.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained