AUTOMAKERS
Ford buys laser developer
Ford Motor Co’s autonomous car software and robotics subsidiary has purchased a laser detection company. Ford on Friday announced that Pittsburgh-based Argo AI had purchased Princeton Lightwave of New Jersey for an undisclosed price. The acquisition gives Argo expertise in laser systems needed to guide cars through challenging conditions such as bad weather. Ford said Princeton was founded in 2000 to develop lasers for the telecommunications industry. In 2003, it began work on detection and imaging.
AVIATION
EasyJet buys AirBerlin slots
British low-cost carrier EasyJet yesterday announced that it has agreed to buy part of bankrupt German carrier Air Berlin’s operations at Berlin Tegel Airport for 40 million euros (US$46.4 million). EasyJet will enter into leases for up to 25 A320 aircraft and take over slots, it said. The company also said it was hoping to recruit around 1,000 Air Berlin pilots and cabin crew over the coming months, to be employed on German contracts.
TECHNOLOGY
Uber hires legal officer
Uber Technologies Inc on Friday said it has hired a new top legal officer as the ride-sharing star battles controversy in the workplace as well as on the streets. Tony West will begin working at next month, leaving a post as chief legal officer at PepsiCo Inc, Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in an e-mail to employees. West will be starting at Uber the same month as a trial is to begin in a civil suit filed by Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc.
TECHNOLOGY
Sogou announces US IPO
Sogou Inc (搜狗), the Chinese search engine backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), aims to raise as much as US$585 million in a US initial public offering (IPO). The company is marketing 45 million American depositary shares for US$11 to US$13 apiece, according to a Friday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Sogou said it intends to use the proceeds for research and development, as well as sales and marketing. Sogou is the default search engine in Tencent’s Mobile QQ browser and on qq.com.
SOUTH KOREA
Annual GDP growth hits 36%
South Korea’s economy grew at the fastest pace since 2010 in the third quarter, buoyed by exports and the government’s supplementary budget. The positive data will bolster views expecting a rate increase by the central bank. GDP expanded 1.4 percent in the three months through September from the previous quarter, when it grew 0.6 percent, the Bank of Korea said on Thursday. From a year earlier, the economy expanded 3.6 percent, the bank said.
AUCTIONS
Harper Lee letters sold
A batch of letters handwritten by To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee to a friend has sold for more than US$12,000. A statement from Los Angeles-based Nate D. Sanders Auctions said 38 letters from the late novelist to her late friend Felice Itzkoff went for US$12,500 in a sale that ended on Thursday night. The minimum bid was US$10,000. The letters span the period from December 2005 to May 2010.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last