■ Online Music
Apple plans store in Japan
Apple Computer Inc will launch an online music store in Japan starting in August, offering more songs than any other online stores already in the market at a lower price, a newspaper said yesterday. Apple plans to charge about ?150 (US$1.40) for a song, while competitors currently charge ?210, the Nihon Keizai newspaper, Japan's leading business daily, reported. Major Japanese recording companies are expected to distribute songs to the maker of Macintosh computers and iPod portable music players, but some, such as Sony Music Entertainment Inc, have yet to reach an agreement with Apple and may not join at the start, the report said. Apple will offer up to 1 million titles, about five times more than the number of songs available from Label Gate Co, the largest provider in Japan, the paper said.
■ Computers
LG.Philips wins HP contract
LG.Philips LCD Co, the world's biggest maker of liquid crystal displays, won a contract to supply US$5 billion worth of panels to Hewlett-Packard Co over the next three years, its largest ever transaction. The order for notebook computer screens and LCD monitors, which starts this month and lasts until May 2008, is worth about 63 percent of LG.Philips's total revenue last year, LG.Philips said in a regulatory filing. The size of the transaction is subject to change depending on market conditions, according to the statement. The contract makes Hewlett-Packard, the world's second-largest maker of personal computers, the South Korean company's biggest customer, said Lee Bang Soo, a LG.Philips spokesman.
■ Banking
UK bank plans Tokyo branch
Standard Chartered Plc said it will open its first retail branch in Tokyo on July 5 to target wealthy individual customers in Japan. Standard Chartered Bank, a unit of the UK lender, will try to attract doctors, lawyers, company owners and others who have more than ?20 million (US$187,021) of deposits, said Joji Aonuma, Standard Chartered's country head of consumer banking in Japan. "We are a latecomer to private banking in Japan," Aonuma said. "That's why we are targeting those middle classes as they need asset management services, but are too busy to be proactive. We want to offer high interest rates and low commissions as Singapore and Hong Kong do." Merrill Lynch & Co, the world's second-biggest securities firm by assets, and UBS AG, Europe's biggest bank, are both planning to expand their private banking business in Japan, chasing ?1,400 trillion in household savings.
■ Telecoms
Share sale disappointing
The French government earned only 3.4 billion euros (US$4.6 billion) on the sale of 6.2 percent of its share of the telecommunications giant France Telecom, the finance ministry announced yesterday. On Monday, the government sold a total of 152 million shares at an average price of 22.37 euros per share, well below the price range it had announced. As a result of the sale, the state's share of France Telecom sank to 34.9 percent. The sale of the stock had been announced Sunday. The government is expected to use the proceeds from the sale to reduce its budget deficit and perhaps help finance new programs to fight the country's chronically high unemployment, currently at a five-year high of 10.2 percent.
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