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World Business Quick Take

■ Internet
Scented e-mail a possibility
Internet users in Britain might soon be able to spice up their e-mails with an added whiff of a well-chosen scent, according to a report yesterday. A British Internet service provider plans to market a "scent dome," which would plug into customers' computers much like a printer, The Times said. Inside the device would be 20 disposable pockets of different scents, which could be combined -- much like the colored-ink cartridges on a printer -- to make up to 60 identifiable different smells, the paper reported. These would be released by electronic signals sent along a broadband Internet line. Telewest Broadband, the company involved, is testing the scent pods and hopes to make them available for around ?200 (US$380), the paper added.

■ Copyrights
US accused of being unfair
A maker of DVD-copying software accused the US and its movie industry of unfairly influencing copyright and privacy matters overseas, perhaps accounting for the product being pulled off shelves in Australia. Though Australia is a sliver of 321 Studios Inc's global market, a distributor's yanking DVD X Copy from Australian store shelves under threats of lawsuits by a movie industry lobbying group reflects Hollywood's troubling reach, 321 chief executive Rob Semaan said Wednesday. The company since has replaced the original software with a version unable to unlock copyright-protecting encryption, though such tools readily can be bought from 321 or other Web sites.

■ Banking
Shinsei IPO goes well
Japan's Shinsei Bank Ltd -- bailed out by the government then bought by foreign investors -- made a strong debut with its initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday. Massive buying orders were received for the 440 million shares being offered at ?525 (US$5). The stock rose to ?872 in the afternoon before finishing at ?827, about 57 percent higher than the IPO price, according to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. A total of 247 million Shinsei Bank shares changed hands, making it by far the most actively traded issue on the TSE's first section. Shinsei Bank was created in 2000 from the remains of the collapsed Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan. The government piled more than ?7 trillion (US$66 billion) of public money into LTCB, and the nationalized institution was then bought by a consortium led by US investment firm Ripplewood Holdings.

■ Cars
Beijing to rein in purchases
Beijing is considering putting limitations on the number of government procured automobiles in a move that could have a large impact on China's booming car industry, state press said yesterday. Deputies at the ongoing Beijing municipal congress have urged the city government to limit the number of cars used exclusively by government officials in an effort to relieve the Chinese capital's increasingly snarled traffic congestion, the China Daily said. "To cancel cars exclusively used by government official will also save a big amount of money and gasoline," Zhang Yun, a delegate to the congress, told the newspaper. According to official statistics at the end of 2002, Beijing had a total of 1.12 million passenger cars, of which only 729,000 were privately-owned, non-government cars, meaning some 471,000 were government or state-owned-enterprise vehicles.

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