HANDHELD DEVICES: Industry insiders believe personal digital assistants must become fun as well as something that helps people arrange their lives
By Amber Chung
The stagnant market for personal digital assistants (PDA) can only be revived by developing the handheld computers into devices for both work and play, industry insiders said yesterday.

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By Lisa Wang
Taiwansoft Technology Inc (台灣超軟), which sells consumer electronics under the Digimaster brand, aims to take one-fifth of the nation's digital camera market this year by expanding its lineup, a company executive said yesterday.

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APPOINTMENTS: Industry leaders said that they were pleased with the new heads of the economics ministry and Council for Economic Planning and Development
By Jessie Ho
The business sector yesterday welcomed the appointments of Hu Sheng-cheng (胡勝正) and Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) to two important economics positions in the government.

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MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: Chairman of the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp Morgan Hwang says the government-set privatization plan will not meet its July deadline
By Joyce Huang
The government-set privatization plan for Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp (台灣菸酒公司) -- the nation's largest alcohol-beverage producer -- is unlikely to meet its July deadline as a result of strong opposition from employees, its chairman, Morgan Hwang (黃營杉), said yesterday.

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By Jackie Lin
The launch of chip-embedded combo cards that combine multiple functions on one integrated-circuit (IC) chip has turned into a battle between two international credit card issuers, MasterCard and Visa.

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Tourism authorities have admitted that it will be hard to reach the government's goal of attracting 3.2 million tourists to Taiwan this year, after first-quarter number were more than 20 percent short of the official target.

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Stocks rose for the first day in seven yesterday, led by computer chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after an industry group said global semiconductor sales rose by almost a third in the first quarter.

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■ Uni-President sees small impact
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