■Video Games
Sony loses `mod'-chip fight
Sony Corp lost a court battle in Sydney over the rights of PlayStation users to play cheaper overseas games on Australian consoles, the Herald Sun reported. Sydney electronics enthusiast Eddy Stevens won the right to put "mod" chips into PlayStations to override region-specific coding in the machines to adapt them to play cheaper, imported games, the newspaper reported, citing Stevens. The court ruled that, although making pirated copies of games is illegal, a device that allows the playing of legally purchased games isn't, the Herald said. The encoding system lets Sony charge different prices in different parts of the world, so the judgment allowing users to bypass it strikes a blow for video-game fanatics, the newspaper said. Sony declined to comment to the newspaper.
■ Labor
Villepin pleads for HP jobs
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin held out the "principle of European solidarity" on Thursday as a reason for the European Commission to act to save jobs being shed on the continent by Hewlett-Packard Co. French President Jacques Chirac on Tuesday chided the commission for failing to defend European interests. The commission had rejected his appeal to examine the US computer company's Europe-wide layoff plan. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said last month that the European body cannot prevent HP from cutting jobs. Hewlett-Packard announced last month that it will do away with 5,900 jobs in Europe, including nearly a quarter of its 4,800 employees in France, as a part of a global restructuring plan.
■ Auto industry
Thailand raids pirate factory
Thai authorities this week raided a mass producer of fake automobile parts for well-known brands such as BMW, Mercedes Benz, General Motors, Hummer and others, halting Southeast Asia's biggest pirated auto parts operation, police said yesterday. Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI), acting on complaints lodged by DaimlerChrysler, BMW and General Motors, raided the Autotrim International Transaction Co on Wednesday in Ban Pong district, Ratchburi Province, 75km west of Bangkok, said Yongyuth Srisuttayachon, head of DSI's Intellectual Property Litigation Office. Their raid uncovered four large warehouses filled with more than 50,000 pirated automobile spare parts and accessories bearing well-known brand names of European, US and Japanese car models.
■ Computers
Intel unveils PC for India
The world's largest chipmaker, Intel Corp, has designed a low-cost community personal computer for India's vast rural market to be launched by December, a top company official said on Thursday. Though Intel has yet to announce the price of the computer, it was expected to cost less than 10,000 rupees (US$220) and was aimed at the farming community, Intel vice president Patrick Gelsinger said at a conference in the southern IT showcase city of Bangalore. The computer was being tested at 10 sites across the country as part of a pilot project in the run-up to its commercial launch, he said. To overcome the problem of erratic power supply in rural India, the computer has been designed to run using car batteries as well.
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
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique