TRANSPORTATION
Uber to tout public transport
Ride-hailing app Uber yesterday said it was joining a global public transport association to improve mobility in the cities it operates in. Uber also said it was joining the International Association of Public Transportation (UITP) to connect more people to public transport. Aligning the company with public transport authorities is a good way to make Uber a better partner for cities, Uber head of transportation policy and research Andrew Salzberg said. UITP represents public transport providers around the world, including Transport for London, which in September stripped Uber of its operating license.
INTERNET
Facebook expands UK staff
Facebook Inc is to hire 800 new staff in London, expanding its UK headquarters despite coming under increasing scrutiny from the nation’s lawmakers. The new hires — predominately in engineering roles and to be recruited over the next year — would bring the number of staff working for Facebook in the UK to 2,300. Facebook’s expansion comes at a time when Britain is so alarmed by the extent and scale of Russian interference in UK politics via social media networks that its lawmakers are getting ready to interrogate Silicon Valley giants — including Facebook and Twitter Inc — in Washington.
GAMBLING
Crown hit with class action
Australian gambling giant Crown was yesterday hit with a class action after 18 employees were arrested in China, alleging it did not give shareholders enough information about the risks being taken. The employees, who pleaded guilty, were held for 10 months on charges of luring rich Chinese to Australia, before being released in August. The case hurt the James Packer-controlled casino operator’s high-roller revenues, with anti-corruption laws in China banning organizing gambling activities overseas for wealthy Chinese. Class action specialists Maurice Blackburn Lawyers said the case on behalf of hundreds of investors centered on a sharp share price drop of almost 14 percent when news of the arrests emerged.
UNITED STATES
NAFTA rewrite impact feared
Economists expect a tax overhaul to provide a modest boost to the US economy, but are increasingly worried that a rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would take a toll on growth. A National Association of Business Economics (NABE) survey found that forecasters expect tax law changes to add 0.2 percentage points of growth to the US economy, down slightly from what they expected in the previous NABE survey in September. The survey was taken from Nov. 6 to Nov. 15, before the Senate passed a major tax overhaul early on Saturday. Forty-six percent of 51 panelists believe the renegotiation of NAFTA would do at least some damage to the US economy, up from 27 percent in September.
CHINA
Banking stress indicator falls
A warning indicator for banking stress in China fell for a fifth straight quarter, signaling that Beijing’s drive to squeeze risk from the financial system is making progress. China’s credit-to-gross domestic product “gap” declined to 18.9 percent in the second quarter from 22.1 percent in the first three months of this year, according to data released on Sunday by the Bank for International Settlements. That is down from a high of 28.8 percent in the first quarter of last year.
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],”