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World Business Quick Take

■ Technology
Microsoft, Japan cooperate
US computer software giant Microsoft said yesterday that it would enhance joint research with Japanese universities, launching a new institute in Tokyo directed by a robotics expert. The US company will set up the Microsoft Institute for Japanese Academic Research Collaboration to promote projects with Japanese researchers. Initial projects will be in graphics, user interfaces and language processing between humans and machines. The director of the institute is Katsushi Ikeuchi, a leading robotics researcher and professor at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the elite University of Tokyo. Ikeuchi said the research would be initially aimed at developing "servicing robots, which are considered indispensable technology in Japan's graying society."

■ Retail
Wal-Mart heir dies in crash
John Walton, 58, a son of the Wal-Mart Stores Inc founder, Sam Walton, died on Monday in a plane crash near Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming. Walton was the only person aboard an ultralight aircraft when it crashed around 1:20pm. The circumstances of the crash were not known. In March, Forbes magazine ranked Walton as the world's 11th-richest person, with a net worth of US$18.2 billion. He had been a Wal-Mart board member since 1992. He was married and had one son.

■ Microchips
AMD files suit against Intel
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) said yesterday that it has filed an antitrust suit alleging that Intel Corp has an unlawful monopoly in the x86 microprocessor market. AMD said it filed the suit in the US District Court in Delaware. AMD said Intel has coerced customers from dealing with AMD. AMD said it identified 38 companies that have been victims of coercion by Intel. It said the companies include large-scale computer makers, small system builders, wholesale distributors and retailers. "Everywhere in the world, customers deserve freedom of choice and the benefits of innovation -- and these are being stolen away in the microprocessor market," Hector Ruiz, AMD chairman, president and chief executive, said in a statement.

■ Internet
China passes 100m users
China's population of Internet users has surpassed 100 million, the government said yesterday. China already has the world's second-largest population of people online after the US, which has 135 million. China's communist government promotes Internet use for education and business but also tries to block its public from seeing material deemed pornographic or subversive.

■ Rice
Production to hit new high
World rice paddy production this year is estimated to surpass 621 million tonnes, setting a record high, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicted yesterday. Expansion is concentrated in Asia, especially in China, which is expected to boost its paddy production by 6 million tonnes this year, while large increases are also expected from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand, according to the FAO's latest report. Contractions in this year's paddy crop are expected in Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam and especially Australia, where a 36 percent shortfall is anticipated due to drought. Thailand will maintain its position as the world's largest rice exporter.

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