■ Playstation 2
Sony to sell Web adapters
Sony Corp, the world's biggest maker of video-game consoles, will start selling equipment to hook its PlayStation2 to the Internet through retail stores in May, seeking to add users to its online game service in Japan. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc will sell adapters for ¥3,980 (US$33) at stores throughout Japan, the company said. The adapters will also be sold as a package with hard disk drives, the price of which has yet to be announced. PlayStation2 users currently have to buy or rent the devices from Internet providers such as NEC Corp's Biglobe and Fujitsu Ltd's Nifty Corp unit. Sony is trying to widen the gap with new rival Microsoft Corp by winning more online customers. Microsoft Xbox adapters are already available at stores. Sony plans to boost the number of online PlayStation2 users in Japan from 200,000 at present.
■ Computers
NEC works on `quantum'
Researcher in Japan have made a major step in the quest to develop a quantum computer -- a still largely hypothetical device -- Japanese electronics giant NEC said yesterday. In what they claimed was a world first, researchers at NEC and the state-funded Institute of Physical and Chemical Research successfully enabled the interaction of pairs of solid-state elemental particles in a circuit. The interaction -- known as quantum entanglement -- may enable scientists to build a computer capable of calculating in milliseconds what it would take today's supercomputers hundreds of millions of years to computer. The researchers published their results in the British science journal
Part of a quantum computer's power would stem from its ability to make multiple calculations simultaneously. Data units in a quantum computer, unlike those in today's machines, can exist in more than one state at a time.
■ ACNielsen
Former staff charged
Twelve former ACNielsen employees have been charged with falsifying interviews and questionnaires in a survey conducted for the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the anti-graft agency said yesterday. The 12 were arrested in July following a complaint alleging that a manager of ACNielsen (China) Ltd took bribes in exchange for allowing fake questionnaires, the Independent Commission Against Corruption said. The researchers were assigned to interview tourists leaving Hong Kong from the Chek Lap Kok airport between February and July last year, it said. The ICAC said some of them submitted questionnaires though they were absent from work. The Hong Kong Tourism Board and ACNielsen cooperated during the investigation, the agency said.
■ Research
China to spend billions
China will invest as much as 700 billion yuan (US$85 billion) in the next five years to develop genetically modified crops, a new mobile-phone standard and other new technologies, said Minister of Science and Technology Xu Guanhua. Last year, China spent 104.3 billion yuan, or 1.1 percent of the country's growth domestic product, on scientific research and development. Xu estimates China's central and provincial governments invested as much as 30 billion yuan in research and development.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique