■ Entertainment
Sony warns of hacked files
Sony Corp warned users of its new PlayStation Portable game player not to down-load files taken by hackers from a company Web site and posted on the Internet because they are incom-plete and will cause the device to shut down. The "dummy" files, which promise to add functions such as Web browsing and e-mail to the console, were intended for use by the company's software developers, said Yoshiko Furusawa, a spokeswoman for Sony Computer Enter-tainment in Tokyo. Sony hasn't decided which functions it will add to the PSP and is looking at "various possibilities," she said. Computer hackers tracked down the files by breaking into a Web site Sony was still developing.
■ Publishing
Hollinger legal fees pile up
Conrad Black's alleged corporate misdeeds have cost newspaper publisher Hollinger International Inc more than US$57 million in legal fees and other costs, according to a company filing. Chicago-based Hollinger International, the parent company of the Chicago Sun-Times, said Tuesday that an investi-gation into alleged corpo-rate malfeasance and the litigation it has spawned cost the company US$10.1 million in 2003 and US$46.3 million in the first nine months of last year. The company reported a loss of US$74.3 million in 2003, according to a filing on Tuesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It also con-tained restated financial results for the years 1999 to 2002. Black stepped down as CEO in November 2003.
■ Internet
Firefox gnaws at Explorer
The upstart free Web browser Firefox nibbled away more ground from Microsoft over the past month and now has a market share of nearly 5 percent, a research firm said on Tuesday. The group WebSideStory said usage of Firefox, created by the nonprofit Mozilla Foun-dation, has almost doubled in the past three months to 4.95 percent of all Internet users. Usage of Mozilla still trails Internet Explorer by a wide margin: the Microsoft browser built into the Windows operating system was used by 90.3 percent of Web users, the research firm said. But that is down nearly 3 percentage points since October, when Firefox was released.
■ Communications
Asia demands speed
Motorola Inc expects revenue to rise in Asia on demand for high-speed phone services, said Scott Durchslag, a vice president at Motorola PCS in Singa-pore. Motorola, which yesterday reported a 34 percent gain in fourth-quarter profit, doubled revenue and quadrupled margins in South Asia during the period, Durch-slag said in an interview. "Consumers in Asia are absolutely cutting edge in terms of what they're trying to do on handsets," he said.
■ Communications
Texas wins Samsung order
Texas Instruments Inc, the world's biggest maker of mobile-phone chips, won its first order from Samsung Electronics Co for a proces-sor to run digital cameras in handsets after a two-year effort to get the business. Samsung is using Texas Instruments' OMAP proces-sors to run software pro-grams in four mobile-phone models, Texas Instruments sales manager Fred Cohen said yesterday. He said he expects more Samsung phones with OMAP chips to be released later this year.
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
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
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
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source