REAL ESTATE
Brokers out of work
As the slump in the local housing market continues, more than 1,000 real-estate brokers have lost their jobs in the past three years, Chinese Association of Real Estate Brokers chairman Lin Cheng-hsiung (林正雄) said yesterday. The Taipei-based association said the number of real-estate brokerages nationwide had dropped from 6,500 in 2014 to 5,400 last month, and the number could decline further given unfriendly government policies. The association is to continue discussing house and land sales tax cuts with the government to boost market transactions, Lin said. The regulations subject property transaction gains to income taxes of 45 percent if the houses are resold within one year of purchase, and 35 percent for houses sold within two years of purchase.
RETAIL
Mercy Wu to head Eslite
The Eslite Corp (誠品生活) board yesterday unanimously approved company vice chairwoman and president Mercy Wu (吳旻潔) as its new chairwoman with immediate effect, the bookstore chain operator said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The decision came one day after Wu’s father, Robert Wu (吳清友), the founder and chairman of Eslite, died of heart failure on Tuesday night. Mercy Wu started working as Robert Wu’s special assistant in 2005. She was promoted to executive vice president in 2007 and became vice chairwoman in 2010. Eslite shares dropped 0.67 percent to NT$148.5 on the Taipei Exchange yesterday.
TECHNOLOGY
Chipbond mum on rumors
Chipbond Technology Corp (頎邦), a driver integrated circuit packaging and testing-service provider, yesterday declined to comment on rumors that it plans to sell its Chinese unit to Chinese flat-panel manufacturer BOE Technology Group Co (京東方). The Chinese-language United Evening News reported that Chipbond might complete the sale of about 50 percent of its shares in Chipmore Technology Co Ltd (頎中科技) to BOE by the end of September. Chipbond has close business ties with BOE in China, where it runs Chipmore in Suzhou and International Semiconductor Technology Ltd (飛信) in Kunshan.
AVIATION
Fleet upgrade approved
Mandarin Airlines (華信航空), a subsidiary of China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), yesterday said its board approved a plan to introduce nine ATR72-600 aircraft to upgrade its fleet for domestic routes, beginning in November. The board has entrusted chairman Hsieh Shih-chien (謝世謙) to sign leasing agreements with British Aviation PLC for three ATR72-600 and letters of intent with Toulouse, France-based turboprop aircraft manufacturer ATR for another six 70-seat aircraft, Mandarin Airlines said.
TECHNOLOGY
Bixby to understand English
Samsung Electronics Co said its Bixby voice assistant for smartphones would start speaking English, but only in two countries: South Korea and the US. The firm said that starting yesterday, users of Galaxy S8 smartphones can ask their smartphones to turn on the flashlight, take a selfie or search for photographs in English. Samsung did not say why Bixby in English was not made available to users outside South Korea or the US, or when it might be available in other languages in other countries.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
It is challenging to build infrastructure in much of Europe. Constrained budgets and polarized politics tend to undermine long-term projects, forcing officials to react to emergencies rather than plan for the future. Not in Austria. Today, the country is to officially open its Koralmbahn tunnel, the 5.9 billion euro (US$6.9 billion) centerpiece of a groundbreaking new railway that will eventually run from Poland’s Baltic coast to the Adriatic Sea, transforming travel within Austria and positioning the Alpine nation at the forefront of logistics in Europe. “It is Austria’s biggest socio-economic experiment in over a century,” said Eric Kirschner, an economist at Graz-based Joanneum
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
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