■ Electronics
HD DVD players on sale
Toshiba Corp, whose HD DVD standard for high-definition DVD players competes with Sony Corp's Blu- ray, began selling players for the format yesterday in Japan. The machine will sell for about ¥100,000 (US$852), the company said at a press conference in Tokyo. Toshiba, which said it will make 2,000 HD DVD players a month, and Sony are vying for consumer support for DVD formats that hold more data, enabling better sound and picture quality than conventional discs. Sony earlier this month delayed the global release of its PlayStation 3 video-game console, which features Blu-ray DVD capability, until November, giving Toshiba more time to win customers.
■ Fashion
Dressmaker loses case
Princess Diana's wedding dressmaker, Elizabeth Emanuel, has no right to regain her own name as a trademark, Europe's highest court ruled on Thursday. Emanuel shot to fame with the intense publicity of the late princess's wedding to Britain's Prince Charles in 1981 and has designed clothes for actresses such as Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins. But when she was on the brink of bankruptcy, Emanuel sold her company and her trademark in 1997. In 1999, she launched a fight to get her name back after the company that bought her trademark started selling clothes under her signature. Media reports quoted her as saying she was heartbroken that people thought she had designed the garments. The case went all the way to the European Court of Justice, the EU's highest court in Luxembourg.
■ Mobile phones
Nokia lifts growth forecast
Nokia, the world's biggest manufacturer of mobile phones, on Thursday predicted global mobile market growth of 15 percent this year, a much more upbeat forecast than its previous 10 percent estimate. In a surprise announcement, company chief executive Jorma Ollila told a shareholders meeting that subscriber growth, especially in emerging markets, had prompted the improved assessment. "Nokia estimates that this year, the mobile device market volume will increase globally 15 percent or more from our estimate of 795 million units in 2005," he said. Nokia held a global market share of 34.2 percent at the end of January, according to consultants Strategy Analytics, while Motorola had 18.3 percent, Samsung 11.1 percent, and LG and Sony Ericsson 6.6 percent each.
■ Transportation
New maglev work to start
Work will begin this year on a 35 billion yuan (US$4.3 billion) high-speed magnetic levitation train line between Shanghai and the resort city of Hangzhou, the Chinese government said yesterday. Planners are conducting feasibility studies and have begun negotiations on cooperation between various departments involved in building the 175km railway, which will be able to travel up to 450kph, according to a statement posted on the city government's Web site. The railway will be the world's second commercially operating maglev train. The first, built with German technology, links one of Shanghai's airports with the city's financial district. The new line, due to begin operations by 2010, will cut travel time to Hangzhou to a half-hour from the current two hours.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)