■ Computers
Lenovo plans new jobs
Chinese computer maker Lenovo Inc (聯想) plans to add 400 jobs and build offices in suburban Raleigh for its international division, the company announced on Thursday. Lenovo, which became the world's third-largest personal computer maker by purchasing IBM Corp's PC division earlier this year, employs 1,820 workers on IBM's campus in the area. Incentive deals with state and local governments could net Lenovo US$11 million or more if the company meets its job creation goals. The 400 jobs, which will include management, research and sales positions, will pay an average of US$70,000 a year, he said. The first 80 positions should be filled next year before the move is complete, according to Lenovo.
■ Telecoms
UK giant buys into India
Vodafone will invest US$1.5 billion for a 10 percent stake in Bharti Televentures, the flagship company of India's largest private telephone group, the British telecommunications giant said yesterday. After the share purchase, "Bharti Enterprises will maintain a controlling stake of 45.9 percent," a company statement said. Vodafone will buy a 4.4 percent stake from Bharti Enterprises and another 5.6 percent from investment firm Warburg Pincus. "We are entering a relationship with a major company which shares our vision and values and understands as we do the enormous potential of mobile telephony in society," Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin told a press conference. Bharti Televentures had 14 million mobile phone customers as of September last year and owns the largest network of mobile services across India.
■ Electronics
Free chip repairs offered
Electronics companies are offering free repairs for more than 80 models of digital cameras and camcorders that may contain a faulty imaging chip. The defect, affecting mostly older model products, occurs under hot and humid conditions and leads to either distorted or blank images on the viewfinder or liquid-crystal display, the companies say. The defective chip, made by Sony Corp between October 2002 and March last year, was used in an unknown number of cameras, camcorders and handheld computers. Camera makers and industry analysts say the problem has surfaced in a limited number of cases. Models affected include those made by Sony, Canon Inc, Nikon Corp, Olympus Corp, Ricoh Co, Fuji Photo Film Co, and Konica Minolta Holdings Inc.
■ Electronics
Toshiba's profits soar
Toshiba Corp, the world's second-largest maker of flash-memory chips used in cell phones and music players, said second-quarter profits rose 46 percent because of growing demand for the semiconductors. Net income gained to ¥23.6 billion (US$204 million) in the three months ending Sept. 30, from ¥16.2 billion a year earlier, the company said today in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Sales rose to ¥1.601 trillion from ¥1.534 trillion. "Toshiba expects a ¥100 billion operating profit from its chip business in the current fiscal year," Sadazumi Ryu, a vice president, said at a news conference. The company in April had forecast a ¥75 billion profit from chips. For the first half, Toshiba's memory business maintained a 10 percent operating profit margin.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has