■ Telecoms
DoCoMo plans Super 3G
Japanese mobile phone giant NTT DoCoMo plans to launch a high-speed, low-cost data communications service in 2010 that is capable of showing high-quality video, a news report said yesterday. The Super 3G (third generation) service will only require upgrades to the existing network, keeping down necessary investment to between ¥100 billion and ¥200 billion (US$840 million to US$1.68 billion), the Nikkei newspaper reported. With a speed of roughly 100 megabits per second, Super 3G will be some 260 times as fast as the firm's existing 3G service.
■ Technology
Firms face Bluetooth lawsuit
Three major electronics makers have been accused of violating patented work from the University of Washington with their use of the Bluetooth wireless technology found in millions of computers, cellphones and headsets. Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co and Finland's Nokia Corp were accused of illegally incorporating unlicensed Bluetooth chip sets in a variety of products. The federal lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an injunction barring the companies from selling those products. The lawsuit was filed last month by the Washington Research Foundation, a group that seeks commercial uses and enforces patents for technology developed at Washington's universities and nonprofit research institutions.
■ Mining
CVRD plans PRC venture
Brazil's Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, the world's largest iron ore producer, plans to set up a venture in China to ship iron ore to the nation's booming market, Chinese state media said yesterday. The joint venture with Shougang, China's fifth-biggest steel mill, will transport iron ore from Brazil to a new Shougang plant under construction in Hebei Province, the China Daily reported. Few details were available on the planned joint venture but the newspaper said it planned an iron ore fleet with vessels boasting a loading capacity of at least 300,000 tonnes each.
■ Aviation
AirAsia to double fleet size
Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia will double its A320 fleet size to 200 jets amid growing passenger demand and route expansion in Southeast Asia, an industry source said yesterday. Three individual shareholders from AirAsia and Fly Asian Xpress (FAX) will form an alliance to start the long-haul service to London and China as early as July using three aircraft -- a combination of Airbus A330s and Boeing 777-300s. An announcement to double AirAsia's fleet would be made in the weeks ahead while today AirAsia and FAX are due to hold a press conference regarding their long-haul ambitions, the source said.
■ Electronics
LG plans dual-format DVD
LG Electronics said it plans to sell a DVD player that will play both warring high-definition DVD formats. The first dual-format high-def player will play discs in the HD DVD format, which is backed by a consortium headed by Toshiba Corp, as well as the rival Blu-ray format, backed by a group led by Sony Corp. The LG unit will be unveiled next week, LG said. The firm said it expects its dual-format player to "end the confusion and inconvenience of competing high-definition disc formats."
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