SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook tightens ad rules
Facebook on Monday said that pages that make a habit of linking to bogus news stories would no longer be able to advertise at the world’s leading online social network. The move is the latest shot fired by Facebook in its war against “fake news” used to deceive instead of enlighten. “If Pages repeatedly share stories marked as false, these repeat offenders will no longer be allowed to advertise on Facebook,” product managers Tessa Lyons and Satwik Shukla said in a blog. “This update will help to reduce the distribution of false news, which will keep pages that spread false news from making money.” The social network already did not allow ads that link stories determined to be false by third-party fact-checkers.
TECHNOLOGY
Robots to deliver pizza
Driverless pizza delivery is to take a test spin of sorts in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as Domino’s Pizza Inc and Ford Motor Co team up to research reactions to robots bringing dinner to the driveway. While the pizza is to arrive in an autonomous-capable Ford Fusion, there will still be a company engineer at the wheel, manually driving the car through the streets. The goal of the partnership is to examine how customers react to stepping out of their homes and walking to the car to fetch their pizza from a locked warming compartment, rather than having it carried to their doorstep. “The majority of our questions are about the last 50 feet [15m] of the delivery experience. For instance, how will customers react to coming outside to get their food?” Domino’s USA president Russell Weiner said in a statement.
DISTRIBUTION
Bunzl posts 18% profit rise
British business supplies distributor Bunzl PLC posted an 18 percent rise in first-half profit, as benefits from recent acquisitions continued to support its growth during the period. Adjusted pretax profit rose to £248.3 million (US$321.9 million) in the six months ended June 30, from £210.6 million a year ago, said the company, which supplies products ranging from safety gear for builders and packaging materials for supermarkets. Group revenue rose 20 percent to £4.11 billion, while organic revenue grew 3.7 percent. The company had in June estimated a 3 to 4 percent rise in first-half underlying revenue, helped by acquisitions as well as business wins in North America.
TRADE
Peru, Australia discuss FTA
Peru expects a “very ambitious” free-trade agreement (FTA) with Australia that covers goods, services and investments to be implemented as early as next year, Deputy Minister of Trade Edgar Vasquez said on Monday. The two nations resumed free-trade talks in Australia on Monday following a first round of negotiations last month in which “a lot of progress was made,” Vasquez said. “This is going to be an agreement that we should be able to implement as soon as possible, starting in 2018,” Vasquez said by telephone in Lima.
ENERGY
Total accused of fraud
The government of Equatorial Guinea on Monday said it has demanded 73 million euros (US$88 million) from French oil giant Total SA over “fraud” in fuel sales made between 2010 and 2012. “Following an investigation, we found a suspicious and fraudulent situation,” Minister of Finance Miguel Egonga Obiang said, as he announced the claim. No further details were immediately available on the alleged fraud, although the nation has also referred the case to its justice system.
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],”