■ Copyright
Parents ignorant of law
Nearly 40 percent of parents in a US survey were unaware they were violating copyrights by swapping music or movies over the Internet, according to a survey released Wednesday. The survey by Nielsen NRG for the Motion Picture Association of America found that despite increasing media attention, two out of five parents who participated in the survey know that their kids download music and movies over the Internet but did not know it was illegal. In addition, the survey found one-third of those parents who have downloaded movies and music learned how to do so from their kids. The survey of 396 people was conducted between Feb. 25 and March 4. All respondents were parents with children between the ages of 12 and 17 and had a computer with Internet access.
■ Music
Personalized radio unveiled
Sony Corp announced what it called the first "personalized radio" service for mobile phones. Under the still-unnamed music streaming service, subscribers would not own any of the songs but could create a customized channel to listen to the music they want, storing favorite tunes in personal playlists. Users would also be able to listen to music from a collection of predefined channels. A "smart personalization" feature could also keep track of the subscriber's music preferences and make song suggestions. Some mobile phone operators already offer music streaming services, but Sony said it is the first to let consumers tailor the music to their own tastes.
■ Mobile Phones
NEC to ship more to China
Japanese hi-tech giants NEC and Matsushita plan to double their mobile phone shipments to China, the world's largest cellphone market, on the back of surging demand, a business daily said yesterday. NEC will raise China-bound shipments to 2 million to 3 million units in the upcoming financial year starting next month from 1 million in the current fiscal year, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. The company will also introduce several new high-end models, including a super-thin cellphone equipped with a camera, the daily said. Matsushita's mobile phone arm Panasonic Mobile Communications Co will double its China-bound shipments to 4 million from 2 million in the current fiscal year, it said.
Chinese get more spam
China's Internet servers were hit by at least 150 billion junk e-mails last year, becoming the world's second-largest destination for spam after the US. Junk e-mails accounted for nearly one-third of all e-mails last year, Xinhua news agency said, quoting the Internet Society of China. "It's a great waste of resources," Gong Shaohui, a member of an anti-spam association, was quoted as saying. "Moreover, if China is dumped on with junk mail, less servers will be left in use here." China already has the world's second-largest population of Web surfers after the US. E-mail users often find messages selling get-rich schemes, Viagra and penile enlargements in their inboxes. The government has said it plans to clean up e-mail spam for fear some messages may have content deemed "subversive," such as pornography and anti-Communist opinions. Internet experts around the world also criticize China for allowing too much spam to be sent to other countries.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
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
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft