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World Business Quick Take

■ Internet
Download classics for free
Google made classic literary works available for free download in printable format on Wednesday as part of its controversial quest to make the world's books available online. Works that are no longer copyrighted such as Dante Alighieri's Inferno and Victor Hugo's Marion de Lorme, can be printed out at the Google Book Search Web site books.google.com, according to the company. "Users can search and read these books on Google Book Search like always, but now they can also download and print them to enjoy at their own pace," the Mountain View, California, company said in a release. "We do not enable downloading of any books under copyright."

■ Robotics
Miuro gives iPod a lift
The new Japanese robot Miuro is designed to turn an iPod music player into a scuttling boombox-on-wheels. Equipped with speaker systems developed with Japanese audio maker Kenwood Corp, the 35cm long machine, which looks like a ball popping out of an egg, from Tokyo-based venture ZMP Inc will roll and twist from room to room blaring music. Apple Computer Inc's iPod portable player locks into the top of the robot, which comes in white, black, yellow or red. The ?108,800 (US$930) Miuro, short for "music innovation based on utility robot technology," responds to a remote-control handheld manipulator. It receives wireless signals from a personal computer to play iTunes and other stored digital files. At a show in Tokyo, the 5kg Miuro did a preprogrammed vacuum-cleaner-like dance, rolling about and pivoting to music. The company is hoping to sell 10,000 Miuro robots in the first year, targeting sales of more than ?1 billion.

■ Travel
Official warns of crisis
Over 100,000 people a week could be stopped from flying unless the US and the EU strike a deal over the provision of sensitive information on passengers, the top industry body said yesterday. The EU's top court in May overturned a decision forcing airlines to supply data on European passengers to US authorities as part of a security crackdown, giving the two sides until Sept. 30 to reach a new agreement. "The US and Europe must move quickly to avoid a big potential crisis over the Atlantic in the following weeks," said Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association. "Failure to agree by Sept. 30 could ground up to 105,000 travelers a week," he told reporters in a speech in Tokyo.

■ Telecoms
Samsung unveils 4G phone
South Korea's high-tech giant Samsung Electronics yesterday unveiled the world's first fourth-generation (4G) mobile technology with a demonstration on a bus. Samsung said the new technology, an upgraded version of existing wireless communications platforms, would enable users to download 100 MP3 music files in less than 3 seconds -- even when the consumer is in motion. Samsung held a demonstration on a moving bus traveling at speeds of up to 60kph on the southern island of Jeju. Compared with wireless broadband, 4G technologies will guarantee a faster and more seamless transmission of data and other multimedia content, it said. With the new technology, people can view multi-channel high-definition TV broadcasting through mobile devices. Samsung plans to put the technology into commercial use by 2010.


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