■ Internet
Yahoo to offer online music
Internet giant Yahoo announced plans on Tuesday for a new online music subscription service as well as an online music store allowing consumers to pay for individual song downloads. The test or beta version of Yahoo Music Unlimited was set to debut yesterday, for users in the US, the group said in a statement. The service will be priced below those of many rivals at an introductory rate of US$4.99 per month for an annual subscription, or US$6.99 on a monthly basis.
■ Digital cameras
Olympus to cut staff
Japanese camera maker Olympus Corp said yesterday it will lay off 4,000 workers globally by the end of September, mainly in China, due to worsening of its digital camera business. Olympus will also close down two domestic digital camera parts plants, president Tsuyoshi Kikkawa said during the company's press conference to disclose earnings results for fiscal 2004, which ended on March 31. Through the job cuts and plant closures, Olympus aims to save about ?13 billion (US$123.8 million) in costs per year, the president said.
■ Banking
NAB to reduce work force
More than one in 10 National Australia Bank (NAB) jobs will be lost in a global cost-cutting binge on operations in the UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and Japan, as well as at home in Australia. The pruning comes despite Australia's biggest bank posting a 17 percent increase in net profit to A$2.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) for the first half. The job losses will be phased in over two years, as NAB closes operations around the world.
National Taiwan University (NTU) yesterday said it disqualified a person from an entrance examination for using AI smart glasses to cheat, along with two others for making untruthful statements in their curriculum vitae. The three applicants were given null scores, Taiwan’s highest-ranked university said, calling on prospective students to be honest in the admissions process. NTU registrar Lee Hung-sen (李宏森) said that the cheating applicant wore a hat and thick-rimmed glasses to the second written exam for medical school, claiming that they felt cold. Suspicions were aroused when the applicant stared oddly at the test for long stretches while steadily bringing the paper
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
‘GRAY ZONE’ PRESSURE: Beijing’s activities are intended to create the deceitful impression that China has jurisdiction over the area around Taiwan, the CGA said Taiwan’s rights over its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone must not be violated by any country, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that it will not accept any unprovoked actions. The council issued the remarks in response to the China Coast Guard conducting maritime enforcement drills near eastern Taiwan and claiming to fully exercise China’s maritime administrative law enforcement authority. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has been closely monitoring the situation and is taking concrete steps to defend the nation’s sovereignty and secure its waters, the council said. China has no sovereign rights over the waters off eastern
Heavy rain is expected to affect parts of Taiwan this week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday as a meteorologist said the active part of the annual plum rain season has started. A stationary plum rain front and southwesterly winds would bring unstable weather and abundant moisture to Taiwan from today for about a week, with the heaviest rainfall forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday, the CWA said. The agency said western and northeastern Taiwan, and mountainous areas in the east and southeast, could expect showers or thunderstorms on those two days, with localized heavy rain possible. Other parts of
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