■ Computers
Apple movies to miss Asia
Apple Computer Inc's new iTunes movie service will not be available in much of Asia and there is no prospect of its roll-out in the near future, a company spokesman said yesterday. Fears of piracy, which is rampant in much of Asia, and a tangle over licensing agreements with record and movie companies means the world's fastest growing digital market has been shut out, said Tony Li, Apple's marketing director for Asia. In the Asia-Pacific region, iTunes is available only in Australia and Japan. Even in Japan, some labels have refused to allow their songs onto the service.
■ Chips
China debuts new chip
China has begun manufacturing its latest home-grown microprocessor, which boasts speeds of 1.0 gigahertz (GHz) and could significantly lower the cost of computers, state press reported yesterday. Speeds of 1GHz means that the 64-bit chip is capable of making 4.0 billion calculations per second. The chip, dubbed the Godson IIE, was produced by the Institute of Computer Technology under the state-run China Academy of Sciences, China Central Television reported. The chip is now in mass production and will hit the markets later this year for a price of about 1,000 yuan (US$125) each, the report said.
■ Internet
Lawyers seek Livedoor fine
Prosecutors yesterday demanded a £300 million (US$2.5 million) fine against the disgraced Japanese Internet startup Livedoor for a scam to inflate stock prices and doctor company books. In their closing arguments at Tokyo District Court, the prosecution also demanded a £50 million fine against the subsidiary Livedoor Marketing, according to a court official who spoke on customary condition of anonymity. The former company head, the young entrepreneur Takafumi Horie, is facing related charges in a separate trial.
■ Cellphones
Faster phone LCD touted
LG Philips LCD Co said yesterday it has developed the industry's first liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel for next-generation mobile phones, allowing a clearer playback of video clips. The South Korean-Dutch joint venture said its new 5cm display would open the door to "exciting mobile entertainment possibilities." The display has a faster response time than existing ones, allowing it to play back sharp high-quality video from next-generation digital broadcasts and mobile communication technology, it said. The display's 16ms (millisecond) response time is 36 percent faster than the fastest TFT-LCD panels currently used for mobile phones, it said.
■ Automobiles
Honda in biofuel coup
Honda Motor Co has developed a way to make ethanol fuel from plant waste matter in a process that has the potential to expand the use of biofuels that fight global warming, the Japanese automaker said yesterday. Existing bio-ethanol production faces supply limits because it uses sugar and starch of sugarcane or from corn, both of which are also utilized as food. By tapping far greater supplies of inedible plant matter, such as stalks, leaves and rice straw, the new fuel takes a step toward making biofuels more practical, Tokyo-based Honda said in release. "Expansion of biomass utilization holds enormous potential as a major step toward the realization of an energy sustainable society," Honda said.
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